Death of a Perfect Wife (9 page)

‘Why?’

‘Imagine living with a woman who irons creases in her jeans and wears white sneakers.’

‘Aye, it’s enough to turn the strongest stomach,’ said Hamish with a grin. Then his face grew serious. ‘Look, Iain, I didnae tell Blair about the bats and I’ll need tae tell him, so prepare yourself for a hassle.’

‘Don’t worry. I had the income-tax inspector round last week. If I can put up with an income-tax inspector, I can put up with Blair.’

Hamish made his way back up past Angus’s cottage and met the seer coming up the hill.

‘They are not interested in my story any mair,’ said Angus peevishly. ‘They haff arrested the husband.’

‘Paul Thomas? Why?’

‘No’ him. Her first husband.’

‘Her –?’

‘Aye, it turns out that lodger o’ theirs, John Parker, used tae be married to her.’

Hamish went straight to the hotel. John Parker was closeted with Blair and his two detectives in the hotel room allocated to the police. Hamish put his head round the door.

‘Get lost,’ snarled Blair.

Hamish walked away. He wondered where Daviot was. As the local policeman, he, Hamish Macbeth, should have been in on the interrogation.

He saw the hotel manager in the forecourt. ‘Where’s Mr Daviot?’ asked Hamish.

‘He’s gone back to Strathbane. There’s been a successful drug raid on one o’ the ships,’ said Mr Johnson. ‘This murder’s become small beer.’

Hamish made his way to The Laurels. Paul Thomas was working in the garden.

‘What’s all this about her first husband?’ demanded Hamish.

Paul straightened up from his weeding slowly and passed an earthy hand over his forehead. ‘It was a surprise to me,’ he said in a bewildered way. ‘Why didn’t Trixie tell me?’

‘Did you hear them having a row or anything?’

‘No, they went on like strangers. It was probably him that did it. And I don’t care anymore. Nothing’s going to bring her back.’ Tears rolled down his cheeks and Hamish patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.

‘Can I have a look at his room?’

‘It’s full of forensic people, dusting everything in sight although they’ve already dusted everything and I don’t know what they hope to find. I wish everyone would go away and leave me alone.’

Hamish went back to the police station in time to meet Priscilla who was just driving up.

Although he was glad to see her, he found with surprise that his heart no longer gave a lurch. They sat in the kitchen and Hamish told her about the seer and the first husband.

‘You would think it would be one of the locals trying to poison Angus,’ said Priscilla after listening in attentive silence.

‘Why?’

‘Well, someone was very afraid that Angus might have divined something, and only the locals would think that. I can’t see either Paul Thomas or this first husband believing in the second sight.’

Hamish poured more tea. ‘I think that a frightened murderer might be prepared to believe anything. I hope he doesn’t go ahead and arrest John Parker without any evidence. I would like to have a word with him.’

‘Blair’s capable of anything. Oh, that’s clever,’ said Priscilla, noticing the screen door.

‘It was a couple of American tourists gave me the idea,’ said Hamish. ‘I wish I could have a word with that Carl Steinberger. He was staying there at the Thomases for a couple of nights. Where was he from again? I know, Greenwich, Connecticut. He may be back home now. Excuse me a minute, Priscilla. I’ll phone the police in Greenwich and ask them if they know Carl Steinberger’s phone number.’

He was halfway out of the kitchen when Priscilla rose to her feet. ‘Don’t worry, Hamish,’ she said. ‘I think I’ll call on Angela Brodie. I’m worried about her.’

Hamish stopped. ‘Why?’

‘She makes me uneasy. You can’t go around taking on someone else’s personality without something cracking,’ said Priscilla.

She drove down to the doctor’s house, thinking about Hamish Macbeth. Although he had been as friendly as ever, something had gone out of that friendship. Hamish was no longer shy of her, she thought, nor was his whole mind on her when she was there. She felt uneasily that part of his mind had dismissed her.

Priscilla walked up the path to the kitchen door and then stood motionless, with her hand on the doorknob. From inside came a faint humming sound, a familiar sound. A picture of Trixie rose vividly in Priscilla’s mind. She pushed open the door and went in.

Angela was sitting spinning wool, her thin face intent. She was wearing jeans and sneakers and a shapeless white T-shirt with the legend Save The Bats emblazoned on the front.

She looked up and saw Priscilla. ‘Oh, Miss Halburton-Smythe,’ said Angela, getting to her feet. ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’

Priscilla looked around the gleaming and sterile kitchen. Angela put beans – from Nicaragua, where else? thought Priscilla – into the coffee grinder. Priscilla sat down at the kitchen table. It was amazing, reflected Priscilla, how a hairstyle could alter a woman. Angela’s perm showed no signs of growing out. Hard little curls rioted over her head, making her hair look like one of those cheap wigs from Woolworths. Her mouth appeared to have become thinner with little tight lines at the corner of the mouth.

‘I didn’t know you had a spinning wheel,’ said Priscilla.

‘Paul gave it to me,’ said Angela. ‘Poor man. He didn’t want to keep it in the house. He said every time he looked at it, he could see Trixie sitting there.’

‘How are things going?’ asked Priscilla.

‘Not very well,’ said Angela, feeding coffee into the machine. ‘The meeting of the Anti-Smoking League was last night. And do you know how many turned up? Two. And one of them was that layabout, Jimmy Fraser, who thought it was a stop smoking class.’

‘That might be a better idea,’ said Priscilla. ‘You might get more results by helping people to stop smoking than by putting a sort of prohibition ban on the stuff.’

‘Anyone in their right mind should know it’s dangerous to smoke.’

‘But it’s an addiction, like drinking, like eating too much sugar. I read an article which said that addicts are more open to suggestion as to how to stop than outright militant bans. Look at Prohibition in the States with people drinking disgusting things like wood alcohol and going blind. I’m sure a lot of people drank more during Prohibition than they would have done if the stuff was available.’

Angela folded her lips into a stubborn line. ‘Trixie used to say that people didn’t know what was good for them. They need to be taken in hand.’

‘You can make a lot of enemies, Mrs Brodie, if you try to be nanny to the world.’

‘That’s a bitchy thing to say!’

‘And so it was,’ said Priscilla contritely. ‘I’m concerned for you, Mrs Brodie. You seemed a happier person before Trixie Thomas arrived on the scene.’

‘I was half alive,’ said Angela fiercely. ‘There’s so much to be done in the world. Trixie used to say that if everyone just sat around doing nothing, then nothing would be done.’ She took a deep breath and said triumphantly. ‘I am declaring Lochdubh to be a nuclear-free zone.’

‘Oh, Mrs Brodie! You yourself?’

‘I’m forming a committee.’

Priscilla felt at a loss. There was something badly wrong with Angela Brodie. She wondered whether the doctor’s wife was at the menopause. She had grown even thinner, not the willowy slimness she had had before, but a brittle thinness. Her fingers were like twigs and there were deep hollows in her cheeks. Priscilla suddenly wanted to get out. An old-fashioned fly paper was hanging from the kitchen light and dying flies buzzed miserably, trapped on its sticky coating.

‘I’ve suddenly remembered something,’ lied Priscilla, getting to her feet. She could not wait any longer in this suffocating atmosphere for that coffee to fill the pot, drip by slow drip.

She turned in the doorway. ‘Do you know, Mrs Brodie, that Angus Macdonald claims someone tried to poison him today by leaving a bottle of poisoned whisky outside his door?’

‘Silly old man,’ snapped Angela ‘It’s years since he did a day’s work. Him and his silly predictions.’

Priscilla went outside and took a deep breath of warm damp air. The wind had dropped and a thin drizzle was falling. She wondered how Hamish was getting on with his phone call.

Hamish had found everything remarkably easy. The police in Greenwich, Connecticut, knew Carl Steinberger. He owned a small electronics factory outside the town. They gave Hamish the number and Hamish dialled and asked for Carl Steinberger.

In his usual Highland way, Hamish did not get right to the point but waffled on about the screen door and the flies and the weather until Mr Steinberger interrupted him gently with, ‘Look, officer, it’s great talking to you, but I’m a busy man.’

‘Can you tell me what you made of the Thomases?’ asked Hamish. ‘The wife’s been poisoned.’

‘Jesus! What with?’

‘Arsenic.’

‘Rat poison? Something like that?’

‘We can’t find anything,’ said Hamish. ‘That other lodger, John Parker, turns out to be her first husband.’

‘I can’t tell you anything,’ said Mr Stein-berger, ‘except that we didn’t like her. My wife said she had a knack of making her husband look like a fool, but we didn’t pay much attention. The place was clean and the food was good. She was a great baker. We must have put on pounds. But there was no fun in eating her cakes because her husband was on a diet and he would sit at the table and glare at every crumb of cake we put in our mouths. That John Parker took his meals in his room and typed when he wasn’t out walking. Can’t tell you any more.’

Hamish thanked him and put down the phone. He wondered what John Parker was saying to the detectives. He went along to the grocery store and bought a bottle of whisky, wondering whether he should go out with his gun that night and bag a few brace of the colonel’s grouse to sell in Strathbane and so make up for all the whisky he was having to buy.

He wandered back along to the hotel and stood outside, looking at the fishing boats.

At last, he heard Blair’s loud voice. He went to the wall of the hotel. Blair was standing with his back to him facing his two detectives. There was no sign of John Parker. One of the detectives, Jimmy Anderson, looked across to where Hamish’s head was appearing above the wall. Hamish raised the bottle of whisky and Anderson gave a brief nod.

Hamish then went back to the police station and settled down to wait.

After half an hour, Anderson appeared. ‘If ye want me to tell ye about it,’ he said, ‘give us a drink first. Blair’s fit tae be tied. Can’t make a case against Parker.’

Hamish poured the detective a glass of whisky and said, ‘So what’s Parker’s background?’

‘Ex-drug addict. Hash and a bit of cocaine. Out of work. Along comes Trixie Thomas. Social worker. Takes him in hand. Sees his writing. Badgers publishers and agents. Gets him started. Gets him off drugs. Gets him earning. And then what do you think she does?’

‘She divorces him,’ said Hamish.

‘How did you know?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Hamish slowly. ‘Just a lucky guess. Anyway, is he still in love with her? Did Paul Thomas know he was her ex? He must have known when he married her. Told me he didn’t, but surely he did.’

‘No, he says Trixie reverted to her maiden name after the divorce.’

‘Still, he must have known. She’d need to have her divorce papers, surely.’

Anderson grinned. ‘Seems the managing Trixie arranged everything and all he can remember is standing in the registrar’s office saying yes.’

‘And when did all this take place?’

‘This year.’

‘And when did she divorce Parker?’

‘Ten years ago.’

‘Any children?’

‘No, she couldn’t have any. What about some more whisky?’

Hamish poured him another glass. ‘So how did Parker know where to find her?’ he asked.

‘She wrote to him. She’d heard about him selling the film rights. Must have been in some magazine. She said she needed boarders and he owed her something because she never had asked him for alimony, and she didn’t want Paul to know, but it would be a nice way of paying her back for the start she had given him in life and all that crap. So the wimp comes up. He was paying her two hundred pounds a week. Paul didn’t know. She collected the money … cash. No income tax, no VAT.’

‘Leave a will?’ asked Hamish.

‘Aye, left everything to Paul. He owns the house already but she left twenty thousand pounds.’

‘Not bad for someone who was aye pleading poverty,’ said Hamish. ‘But not enough to kill for. Look, maybe you can help me out of a jam.’ He told Anderson about Iain Gunn and the bats.

‘I’ll tell Blair,’ said Anderson. ‘He’s so hell bent on proving Parker did it, he’ll hardly listen.’

‘Look,’ said Hamish urgently. ‘I’m going along to have a word with Parker. If the results of that bottle of whisky come through, let me know.’

‘Okay,’ said Anderson, draining his glass. ‘Keep the bottle handy.’

John Parker was typing in his room when Hamish called.

‘Now, Mr Parker,’ said Hamish severely, ‘what I want to know is why you told an outright lie when you said that you hadn’t known Trixie Thomas before?’

‘I’ve got a lot of work to do,’ said John. ‘I didn’t murder her and I didn’t want to be the subject of a police inquiry. You’ve probably heard I used to be on drugs and I’ve been on the wrong side of the law several times in the past. I have no great liking for policemen.’

‘And I have no great liking for liars,’ said Hamish coldly.

‘Sorry about that, copper, but that’s the way it is.’

‘So tell me about your marriage.’

‘There’s nothing much to tell. I was a right mess when Trixie found me. She got me into a drug clinic, paid for it herself, found my manuscripts when I was in there, and when I came out, she took me around agents and publishers. She corrected my manuscripts and typed them. She did everything but go to the toilet for me,’ he said with sudden savagery. ‘Look, it’s hard when you have to be perpetually grateful to someone. When she said she was divorcing me, I could hardly believe my luck.’

Hamish raised his eyebrows. ‘Then why did you come back?’

He sighed, a little thin sigh. ‘I suppose I still felt grateful to her – really grateful. I wanted to see her again.’