Death of a Maid (11 page)

‘Your boyfriend’s snubbing you,’ remarked Luke.

‘He’s not my boyfriend!’

Luke took her hand. ‘Then he’s a silly man. What about marrying me, Elspeth?’

‘Oh, sure.’

‘I mean it. Why not? We’re both reporters. We both get on well. What about it?’

Elspeth looked amused. ‘How old-fashioned of you. I thought these days couples had affairs lasting, say, ten years and then decided to get married.’

Elspeth glanced across at Hamish. Some imp prompted her to say, ‘Maybe. I’ll think about it.’

‘“Maybe” demands a celebration. Willie!’

Willie Lamont, the waiter who had once been a police constable, came rushing up. ‘Champagne,’ said Luke.

‘What’s the celebration?’ asked Willie.

‘Miss Grant is “maybe” going to marry me.’

Hamish felt just as if a heavy wet stone had settled in his stomach.

Lucia, Willie’s beautiful Italian wife, came out of the kitchen to offer her congratulations.

‘It’s a joke,’ said Elspeth desperately, but Willie arrived with the champagne.

To Luke’s horror, Willie, who had given the bottle a good shake in the kitchen, opened it with a flourish and champagne sprayed all over the place.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ shouted Luke.

‘This is what they do at Le Mans,’ said Willie.

‘Well, this isn’t Le Mans!’ howled Luke, picking up a napkin and dabbing at champagne stains on his suit.

Lucia hurried off and came back with an unshaken bottle. ‘On the house,’ she said, ‘and I hope you will both be very happy together.’

‘Give the copper a glass,’ said Luke.

But when they looked across the restaurant, Hamish Macbeth was gone.

Hamish drove steadily towards Cnothan under a darkening sky which matched his mood. Black clouds were streaming in from the west.

It was nothing to him, nothing at all, he told himself savagely. If Elspeth wished to marry that dissipated reporter, it was her problem. His stomach gave another dismal rumble.

His cat and dog, full of food from the kitchen, slept peacefully in the back.

Cnothan was the least favourite place on his beat. He always thought of it as a sour, unwelcoming village. After a few inquiries, he found that Mrs Forest lived in a cottage facing the dark
loch, man-made by the Hydro Electric Board.

The cottage, like the others strung out along the loch, were relics of the old village, most of which had been drowned in the loch.

Hamish wondered what the previous inhabitants had been like. Maybe they had been warm-hearted and cheerful. Had many of them stayed on in the new village? How odd to think that down in the
depths of the black waters were the remains of homes.

He knocked on the door of Mrs Forest’s cottage and waited. He was about to turn away when the door opened and a bent, elderly woman stared up at the tall constable. She put a liver-spotted
hand to her chest, her old eyes widening with alarm.

‘It’s nothing serious,’ said Hamish soothingly. ‘I’ve just got a few wee questions to ask about Mrs Gillespie.’

‘You’d best come ben.’

She stood aside. Hamish walked past her. She shut the door. ‘To your left,’ she said.

Hamish walked into a low-ceilinged room. She settled herself in a chair by the fire and pointed to a chair opposite her. Hamish sat down and held his cap between his knees.

‘I believe Mrs Gillespie used to work for you.’

‘Only for a short time. I moved here mainly to get away from her.’

‘Why?’

She clasped her hands together tightly. ‘Do I have to tell you?’

‘I will try to keep anything you tell me in confidence. She was blackmailing you, wasn’t she?’

‘Yes. I suppose she was.’

‘Please tell me what it was about.’

‘I was in Glasgow during the war. I got pregnant by an American serviceman. Lovely man, but he got killed in action. It was considered a sin in those days. My parents had me locked up in a
hostel for unmarried mothers. My baby, a boy, was taken away for adoption, but, at that time, I was kept on in the home, doing laundry, scrubbing, things like that. It was inhumane. I escaped one
day with two of the other women, and we went straight to a newspaper office and told them everything that was going on. They splashed the story, and the place was closed down. I kept the newspaper
cutting, and the Gillespie woman found it. I had a wee collection of china figurines. She demanded them and said if I didn’t give them to her, she would tell everyone my secret. I loved those
figurines. I told her I was going to the police. She panicked and said she had just been joking. I sacked her and told her if I heard one murmur of my secret in Braikie, I
would
go to the
police. She left me alone after that, but the very sight of the woman turned my stomach, so I sold up and came here. Does this need to come out?’

‘No,’ said Hamish, ‘I’ll make sure it doesn’t. But murder is murder. I can’t see you having the strength to brain her with her bucket, but have you any idea
who might have done it?’

‘I really don’t know. But to be honest, if I did, I don’t think I would tell you. She got what she deserved.’

When Hamish left, he wandered up the main street to a café and ordered a mutton pie and chips. Someone had left a newspaper on the table open at an article about poor
diet.

He promised himself to start eating fruit and vegetables as he washed down the pie with strong tea. Then when he finished, he went back to Lochdubh, hoping there might be something in
Terry’s investigations to give him a clue.

Terry had left the police station, but there was a neat pile of printouts beside the computer.

Hamish gave his pets water and then settled down to read. The forensic report stated that there were no prints on the handle of the bucket: it had been wiped clean. And that was that. No tyre
tracks, no hairs, no threads of cloth, nothing. He was not surprised. He remembered all the police cars arriving. He remembered pointing out the signs of a scuffle in the gravel and Blair ignoring
him and walking all over the evidence with his big boots. The autopsy report was what he expected. Her death had been caused by a massive blow to the head which had crushed her skull.

As yet, there was no autopsy report on Mrs Samson. He turned to the various interviews of the suspects. He sighed. There seemed to be nothing there more than he had found out already.

It was dark outside, and the rising wind soughed round the building. He leaned back in his chair.

At least a good picture of the late Mrs Gillespie was beginning to emerge. The reason for her blackmailing activities was power rather than money. How she must have enjoyed getting something as
simple as free cream cakes!

His thoughts moved to Elspeth. Would she really marry that reporter? Did it matter? He thought ruefully that he had had ample time in the past to propose marriage to her himself. Was he playing
dog in the manger?

He switched on his answering machine. He did not expect any messages from Blair. Puffed up with the idea of a documentary on him, Blair would do anything he knew to keep him in the background.
There was a brief one from Jimmy. ‘We don’t seem to be getting anywhere with this, Hamish. Any suggestions? Found anything out?’

Then there was one from Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. ‘I’ve been reading about the murder, Hamish. I haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you getting on? Give me a ring if
you’ve got the time.’

No, thought Hamish. I’m not going down that road again. I was all excited when I thought she was coming back to live here, but she only stayed for a short time and I barely saw her. He
fought down that old treacherous feeling of longing. He realized the next message was from Shona Fraser.

‘We’re not going to go on with the documentary on Detective Chief Inspector Blair. I’ve been doing research on you, and I guess you acted stupid to get out of the television
thing. But I’ve found out something interesting. I’ll call at the police station at nine this evening and let you have it.’

Oh, dear, thought Hamish. A Blair with fame snatched from him would be in a filthy mood and would soon be on the phone to vent some of his spleen on one local constable.

Hamish typed out a report of everything he had learned that day including his views that Mrs Gillespie had only wanted power not money and might have contrived to win prizes at bingo by
blackmailing Miss Creedy He explained that it would account for the lack of any large sums being drawn out of the suspects’ bank accounts. Then he sent it on to Jimmy.

He glanced at the clock. Seven-thirty He took the dog and cat out for a walk and then returned to the station and took a venison stew out of the freezer and heated it up on the stove. Then he
divided it equally among the three of them.

He went through to his living room and lit the fire. He switched on the television set and then surfed the channels until he found a fictional programme on forensic investigation and settled
down to watch. One minute he was marvelling how these forensic researchers could visit the scenes of crimes without any protective clothing whatsoever, shaking long hair and DNA all over the place
and trudging around dead bodies in uncovered shoes, when he fell asleep.

He woke abruptly and looked at his watch. Ten o’clock. He wondered if Shona had called and he hadn’t heard her. But he knew that in the past no matter how heavily he slept, a knock
at the door always awoke him.

He stretched and yawned. Maybe she had changed her mind.

Archie Maclean, the fisherman, swallowed the last of a cup of extremely strong tea and went up on deck. He was wearing a tracksuit under his oilskin. He kept clothes on board,
for he knew his bullying wife expected him to go to sea in his suit and collar and tie. ‘You’re the skipper,’ she always said, ‘and should look the part.’

His boat, the
Sally Jane,
bucketed through the increasingly high waves as she headed out from the loch towards the Atlantic. The earlier clouds which had threatened rain had disappeared,
and a full moon rode the skies.

They were nearly at the entrance to the loch when Archie, who was about to go up to the wheelhouse and take over, spotted a rowing boat cresting a wave. Why it had not been overturned was a
miracle. He nipped up to the wheelhouse and said to his mate, Harry, ‘There’s a wee rowboat in the water. Pull her ower and let’s have a look.’

Harry reduced the speed. Archie unhitched a pair of binoculars and then let out a hiss of alarm. ‘There iss some cheil lying in the boat. Pull alongside.’

He ran back to the rail and called to the other three men who made up his small crew. ‘Get a grappling iron and pull her in.’

It was a difficult job with the waves heaving the
Sally Jane
up and down. ‘Bring a light,’ shouted Archie.

A grappling iron was attached to the rowing boat. Archie shone a powerful torch down into it. A young girl lay sprawled in the bottom facedown.

‘Bang goes a night’s fishing,’ said Archie. ‘There’s blood on the back o’ her head. I’ll phone Macbeth.’

Hamish Macbeth stood on the harbour, waiting for the fishing boat to come in. In the distance, he could hear police sirens. He was wearing the blue forensic suit all police
officers were now expected to wear when inspecting a crime. He felt guilty about it. He had worn it when he had been cleaning out the hen run on a wet day. It had subsequently fallen off a hook on
the back of the kitchen door, and Sonsie had slept on it.

He thought miserably of forensic programmes he had watched on television. ‘Ah, I have one hair here!’ some forensic scientist would say triumphantly. God only knew what they would
find if they ever took away his protective clothing for examination.

The sirens sounded nearer. Lights were going on in the cottages along the waterfront.

Elspeth woke up suddenly in her room at the hotel. She heard the wail of the sirens as police cars sped past and down the hill to Lochdubh. She went out of her room and
hammered on the door of Luke’s room.

He opened it and stood looking blearily down at her. His eyes were bloodshot, and he smelled strongly of booze.

‘I’ve heard lots of police cars going past,’ said Elspeth. ‘Come on. Get dressed!’

Luke groaned. After an unsuccessful evening trying to get Elspeth into his bed, he had resorted to comfort from a bottle of whisky.

‘You go,’ he said. ‘I’ll follow you down.’

‘We’ve only got the one car!’

‘I’ll wake someone up and take one of the hotel cars.’

Luke retreated into his room and shut the door. Just five minutes more sleep, he thought. He fell facedown on the bed, not waking until the morning.

The fishing boat came nearer. Jimmy shivered. ‘Did Archie say who it was?’ he asked Hamish.

‘He chust said a wee lassie. Oh, God, Jimmy, I chust hope it isnae who I think it is.’

‘That being?’

‘Shona Fraser. She phoned earlier and said she had something to tell me. She said she would come to the police station, but she never arrived.’

A woman police inspector was waiting, flanked by a woman police sergeant.

‘Look at them,’ said Jimmy. ‘It’s all this political correctness. The whole Northern Constabulary will soon be filled with damn women.’

‘If it iss Shona,’ muttered Hamish, ‘what could she have found out that I couldn’t?’

‘Beats me. Amazing if it wasn’t Blair who killed her. He was flaming mad when he was told that the television documentary was cancelled.’

‘Where is the auld scunner?’

‘Probably nursing a hangover. Here comes trouble!’

Hamish walked forward. ‘You! Macbeth!’ barked Police Inspector Mary Gannon. ‘Go and knock on doors and see if anyone heard anything.’

Hamish trudged off. The pity of it was, he thought, that the hotel on the harbour had been boarded up for years. The pub beside it still closed at eleven o’clock in the evening. There was
no cottage looking directly on to the harbour.

The lights were on in Patel’s store. Patel was the epitome of the Indian businessman. He knew that crowds of people even in the middle of the night meant a good sale of sandwiches and hot
coffee.