Death of a Maid (4 page)

‘So tell me your bad news,’ she said calmly. Her voice was English upper class.

‘I’m afraid your cleaner, Mrs Gillespie, has been found murdered.’

‘Good heavens! That’s a blow. Now where am I going to get another maid?’

She surveyed him quietly. Why didn’t she ask how Mrs Gillespie was murdered and where? wondered Hamish.

‘Tell me about Mrs Gillespie,’ said Hamish. ‘Was she a threat to anyone? Did anyone dislike her enough to kill her?’

She gave a little laugh. ‘My dear man, I was not on familiar terms with the home help. I haven’t the faintest idea. Might be the husband. It usually is.’

‘The husband has an alibi. Where were you this morning, between, say, the hours of ten and eleven?’

Her face hardened. ‘You surely have not the impertinence to think that I would have anything to do with it?’

‘I must eliminate everyone from my inquiries.’

‘Well, I was here.’

‘Any witnesses?’

‘I am a bit isolated from the village. I don’t know if anyone saw me.’

‘Mrs Gillespie had an unexpectedly large amount of money in her bank account. We feel she may have been indulging in blackmail.’

‘That’s ridiculous. She probably won the lottery.’

‘The lottery would have meant a cheque. All the money was paid in cash.’

‘I am beginning to find your insinuations a little bit impertinent. Please leave. If you persist in bothering me, I shall complain about you to your superiors.’

Hamish stood up. ‘I must warn you, this is just a preliminary investigation. You can expect a further visit from a detective.’

‘See yourself out,’ she snapped.

Before he left, Hamish peered through the windows of the garage at the side of the house. He saw a powerful BMW. She could have raced over the hills to Braikie in record time
with a car like that, waited outside the professor’s, and struck the cleaner down as she walked to her car. Hamish asked around the few houses in the village, but no one had seen Mrs
Barret-Wilkinson that morning. He learned that she was often absent for months at a time, and it was assumed she went to London. He wondered about Mrs Barret-Wilkinson. What was she doing living
alone so far from anywhere? And there had been something of the pretend-lady about her.

As he drove back towards Lochdubh, Hamish realized that Mrs Wellington might know something interesting. She was always refreshingly direct.

Mrs Wellington was in the manse kitchen, a gloomy relic of Victorian days with the rows of shelves meant for vast dinner services. There were still the old stone sinks.

‘I heard about the murder,’ said Mrs Wellington. ‘I’m not surprised.’

Hamish sat down at the kitchen table and removed his hat.

‘Why not?’

‘She was such a nosey, bullying woman.’

‘So why did you keep employing her?’

‘I tried to fire her. She went to my husband in tears with some sob story. He told me it was my Christian duty to rehire her.’

‘How was she nosey?’

‘I occasionally caught her looking through drawers. She swore she had simply been cleaning the ledges inside. She was a great church-goer. One time my husband had just recovered from a
nasty cold. He didn’t feel up to writing a sermon, and so he delivered an old one. Mrs Gillespie recognized it and slyly asked me what people would think if they knew. I told her to go ahead
and tell everyone, but I would let them all know the source of the nasty gossip. My! I remember I was so furious with her, I asked her if she went in for blackmail. She muttered something and
scurried off.’

‘The kettle’s boiling,’ said Hamish, looking hopefully at the stove.

‘I’ve no time to waste making tea or coffee for you, Hamish.’

‘Apart from Professor Sander, do you know the other two women she worked for in Braikie, Mrs Fleming and Mrs Styles?’

‘No, I don’t. They probably attend the kirk in Braikie. But I’ll tell you who will know – the Currie sisters. They sometimes attend church in Braikie for a bit of
amusement.’

The fact that the Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, twin spinsters of the parish, should find entertainment in church services came as no surprise to Hamish Macbeth. He knew
local people who flocked to hear a visiting preacher with all the enthusiasm of teenagers going to a Robbie Williams concert.

Of course, he was not supposed to refer to them as spinsters any more. The police had been issued with a handbook of politically correct phrases. ‘Spinster’ was not allowed, nor, he
thought sourly, as he headed for the spinsters’ cottage on the waterfront, was ‘interfering auld busybodies’, which was how he frequently damned them.

They were remarkably alike, both having tightly permed grey hair and thick glasses. He could tell them apart because Nessie was the more forceful one and her sister, Jessie, repeated phrases and
sentences over again.

Other highlanders may have been alarmed to find a policeman on the doorstep, but it was almost as if the sisters had been expecting him.

‘Come in,’ said Nessie eagerly. ‘We’ve been waiting for you.’

‘Waiting for you,’ chorused her sister.

‘Poor woman. Hit on the head with a bucket like that,’ said Nessie. Bad news travels fast, thought Hamish.

‘Was there a lot of blood?’ asked Nessie.

‘Blood,’ intoned Jessie.

‘Get the constable a cup of tea,’ Nessie ordered her sister. Jessie left for the kitchen, grumbling under her breath.

Both sisters were small in size, and their furniture looked to Hamish as if it had come from a large doll’s house. He sank down into a small armchair and found his knees were up to his
chin.

‘I was wondering,’ began Hamish, ‘if you could tell me anything about two ladies over in Braikie. Mrs Gillespie worked for both of them. Mrs Fleming and Mrs Styles.’

‘That would be gossip,’ said Nessie righteously.

‘It is known as helping the police with their inquiries,’ corrected Hamish.

Nessie was delighted to have official permission to gossip. ‘Well,’ she began, ‘Mrs Fiona Fleming is a young widow with two teenage sons.’

‘Can’t be that young. How old are the boys?’

‘Sky is thirteen and Bobby, twelve.’

‘Where did she get a name like Sky?’ asked Hamish, momentarily diverted.

‘I don’t know. Off the telly, most like.’

‘What age is Mrs Fleming?’

‘About forty, I suppose. That’s young these days.’

‘Does she work?’

‘Doesn’t have to. Her late husband, Bernie, had a series of DVD rental shops all ower Scotland. She sold them off when he died.’

‘When did he die?’

‘Let me see.’ Jessie came in stooped over a laden tray. ‘Jessie, when did Bernie Fleming die?’

‘About five years ago, five years ago.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Got drunk and fell down the stairs in his house. Broke his poor neck,’ said Nessie with ghoulish relish.

Hamish tuned out Jessie’s chorus and concentrated on what her sister was saying.

‘What sort of woman is Mrs Fleming?’

‘Dainty wee thing. Been seen around with Dr Renfrew from the hospital. Shocking.’

‘Why?’

‘The man’s married.’

Hamish took an offered cup of tea from Jessie. ‘And what about Mrs Styles?’

‘Now, there’s a right lady for you. Good church-goer and church worker.’

‘Married?’

‘Married to a retired shoe salesman. He’s a bit poorly in health.’

When Hamish finally managed to leave the sisters’ cottage, his head was buzzing. He longed to go and interview this Mrs Fleming. Had her husband’s death really been
an accident? Did Dr Renfrew’s wife know about the affair – if there was an affair? He knew from bitter experience that he had only to take some female out to dinner and the twins put it
round the village the next day that he was having an affair.

Hamish hurried back to the police station, thinking so hard about Mrs Fleming that he only realized when he sat down in the police station office that he had left his pets in
the Land Rover.

He hurried out and released them. ‘You’ve eaten,’ he said. They both stared up at him, and then, with that odd telepathy the dog and the cat seemed to have between them, they
both ran up to the fields at the back of the station.

Hamish went back into the office and looked up Jimmy Anderson’s mobile phone number. When Jimmy came on the line, Hamish said, ‘I happen to know one of the women in Braikie that Mrs
Gillespie cleaned for – a Mrs Fleming. Could you persuade the auld scunner that it might be a good idea if I went to see her?’ The good thing about being a highlander, thought Hamish,
was that one could tell a white lie without any conscience whatsoever.

‘Wait a bit,’ Jimmy said.

Hamish waited impatiently, hearing voices in the background. Then Jimmy’s voice came on the line again. He sounded amused. ‘Our lord and master says you can go.’

‘Just like that?’

‘Aye. That wee Shona lassie was listening, and Blair wants to be a television star, so he said yes. What have you got? You’ve heard something.’

‘Tell you tonight,’ said Hamish, and rang off.

Nessie Currie had given him a slip of paper with the addresses of both Mrs Fleming and Mrs Styles. He noticed that Mrs Fleming lived very near Professor Sander.

As he drove along the shore road to Braikie, he saw that the heaving Atlantic had turned a dirty grey-black in colour, although the sky above was still blue. ‘Storm coming,’ he
muttered to himself. ‘I hope I get back before this road gets flooded.’

There was no doubt in his mind that the sea had risen in past years. Now the trim bungalows that stood on the other side of the road were frequently deluged. A great buffet of wind suddenly
shook the Land Rover, and he was glad to get into the shelter of the main street and then turn off the road which led to the villas.

Like Professor Sander, Mrs Fleming lived in a Victorian villa with a short drive.

Here there were no flowers or trees in the garden: simply a flat expanse of lawn. He pressed the doorbell, which chimed out the strains of ‘Roamin’ in the Gloamin’’.

The door was eventually opened by a small woman. Dainty was the word to describe her, thought Hamish. She had a small round face, like a doll’s face, with wide blue eyes and a little
rosebud of a mouth. Her blonde hair was artfully arranged in glossy curls. She was wearing the sort of Laura Ashley fashion which had been popular in the eighties: a long flowery dress with a
square neckline edged in lace.

She looked up at Hamish and put her hand to her throat. ‘My boys!’ she gasped.

‘Nothing like that,’ said Hamish soothingly. ‘May I come in?’

‘Of course.’ She backed away and allowed him to walk past her into the hall before shutting the door behind him.

‘This way’ She opened a door off the hall and ushered him into a large living room. Hamish blinked in surprise. Everything seemed to be white: white leather sofa and two white
leather armchairs, white coffee table, white curtains at the windows and white-painted bookshelves. A white china vase held white chrysanthemums. Even the carpet was white.

Mrs Fleming looked down at a little patch of mud from Hamish’s boots and said, ‘I should have asked you to take off your boots. I never allow my boys to wear footwear in the
house.’

‘I’ll take them off now,’ said Hamish.

‘The damage has been done. Sit down.’ For such a small woman, she had a commanding presence.

Hamish took off his cap and sat down on one of the armchairs, which let out a rude noise like a fart. He found to his irritation that he was blushing. ‘These leather chairs do make awfy
rude noises,’ he said.

‘Really?’ She sat down in the armchair opposite him. It did not make a single sound. ‘Now, why are you here?’

‘Mrs Gillespie has been murdered,’ he said.

What was flickering through those china-blue eyes of hers? Relief as well as shock?

‘But that’s terrible,’ she said. ‘How? Where?’

‘Professor Sander’s house. She was found lying at that old water pump at the gate. I believe someone struck her down with her bucket.’

‘Who did it?’

‘We’re trying to find out. Where were you this morning, Mrs Fleming?’

‘Surely you don’t think . . . Oh, of course. You’re just asking everyone who knew her. Let me see, I drove the boys to school and then I came back here.’

‘Did anyone see you?’

‘I don’t think so. You can ask Mrs Samson next door. She watches from her window all day long.’

‘What did you think of Mrs Gillespie?’

‘A rough diamond. Salt of the earth.’

In other words, a walking cliché, thought Hamish cynically. ‘Were you afraid of her?’

‘Of course not. She was just the cleaning woman. She came twice a week.’

Hamish’s hazel eyes roamed round the room. He noticed a thin film of dust on the bookshelves. ‘When was she here last?’

‘That would be yesterday morning.’

‘You’ve got dusty bookshelves.’

‘Do I? Well, I left her to get on with it, you know.’ Her little white hands plucked nervously at her gown. ‘I had enough of cleaning when my husband was alive.’

‘Was she blackmailing you?’ asked Hamish abruptly.

‘No! Why do you ask such a dreadful thing? My life is an open book.’

‘We think that might be the motive for her death.’

‘I have nothing to hide.’

‘Not even your relationship with Dr Renfrew?’

Her face was suddenly contorted with fury. ‘Get out!’ she screamed. ‘And you can speak to me through my lawyer in future.’

Hamish rose to his feet, and the armchair gave a farewell parp. ‘I will shortly be replaced by a detective, Mrs Fleming, and if you refuse to answer questions, you will be taken to
Strathbane headquarters for interrogation.’

‘Out! Out! Out!’ she screamed. She picked up the white china vase with white chrysanthemums and hurled it at his head. He dodged it, and the vase hit the wall and shattered.

‘I could charge you for assaulting a police officer,’ said Hamish severely. ‘I’ll be back.’