Death of Yesterday (21 page)

“No,” said Hamish, “we looked down from the building and saw about five of them with masks on.”

Jimmy got in the ambulance, and it drove off as the firemen began to shoot water into the building.

Elspeth came running up to Hamish, but he said sharply, “Not now. Call on me tomorrow.” He and Dick walked away.

“Your clothes are a bit scorched,” said Dick. “Why on earth didn’t you let her burn?”

“I didn’t want her to escape justice. All I could think of were the lives she had ruined. We’d better get a couple of policemen to check the money in the bag so we can’t be accused of taking any. Then we’d better take the lot to Strathbane. Dick, you tried to save my life. I’ll never understand why she didn’t just shoot us.”

“I recognised a replica, even in the dark,” said Dick. “I make a study o’ a lot of things for my quizzes.”

Hamish began to laugh and was still laughing while Dick went to fetch a couple of policemen as witnesses.

They were exhausted when they arrived at Strathbane. Daviot, looking unusually rumpled because he had been called out from his bed, congratulated them. He led them upstairs to his office, and the bag and the witness statements were put into his safe.

Hamish wearily told him all about their adventures.

When he had finished, Daviot said, “When you heard those footsteps, did you think it was her?”

Hamish shook his head. “I think it was one of the arsonists, checking to make sure no one was in the building. I suppose there’s usually a night watchman. Oh, it makes me sick. I know they shouldnae ha’ burned the factory, but now they won’t only be poor, they’ll all have criminal records.”

“You did good work,” said Daviot, but wishing, not for the first time, that Hamish Macbeth was not so . . . well . . . unconventional in his methods.

“Will she live?” asked Hamish.

“Yes, you got her out in time, but her face is badly burnt and one of her arms, too. You’d better go to hospital yourself. Look at your hands!”

Hamish surveyed his scorched hands. “They are right painful.”

“See that he gets treated, Fraser,” said Daviot to Dick. “And, Fraser, you had better type out Macbeth’s report for him. His hands will be too sore.”

Hamish was glad when his hands were finally attended to. The excitement of Heather’s capture had made him forget the pain, but it had just begun to make him feel very sick.

Dick drove him back to the police station. He gave Hamish two of the sleeping pills he had collected from the hospital and helped him into bed. Sonsie and Lugs climbed onto the bed as well and soon all were asleep.

Elspeth called late the following morning. She was furious. “Daviot has refused to give me permission to interview you,” she raged. “He, Jimmy, and Blair held a press conference, taking all the credit.”

“Well, that’s how it should be,” said Hamish, gratefully accepting a cup of coffee from Dick with his bandaged hands. “You know how I feel about promotion. Too much attention from the press and they’d feel obliged to move me to Strathbane. Let them have the glory. Sit down, have a cup o’ coffee, and I’ll give you lots of background.”

“So let’s get this straight,” said Elspeth when he had finished. “How did she get into the country?”

“They found a false passport in a rented car. It was parked up in the High Street in Cnothan.”

“So either Sean or Heather murdered Brenda, Gilchrist murdered Morag and Fergus, and Heather may have come back to Scotland to silence Hannah, but failed and Sean finished her off?”

“Something like that,” said Hamish. “Unless she decides to speak, we may never know.”

The phone in the office rang. Hamish went to answer it. Elspeth and Dick waited expectantly until he came back.

“Some forensics are just in,” said Hamish. “In the wall with the body, they found a broken bottle. She died from a blow to the head, and Heather’s fingerprints are on the bottle. And get this. Brenda’s body was full of drugs. They may have planned just to keep her sedated until they decided what to do. Now the locals have started talking. A woman says she saw Brenda staggering up the main street on the night Morag was drugged. She looked in the window of the pub, maybe seeing if someone in there could help her. Sean came running after her. He spoke to her and guided her into a car and drove off. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: I feel like arresting the whole of that damn village for obstructing the police in their enquiries. Some of the villagers now say they wanted everything to settle down because they were terrified of the factory closing.”

“You know what we highlanders are like,” said Elspeth. “Very secretive. I’ll just go outside the waterfront and make my report. I won’t mention you, don’t worry. But why cash for the staff? I mean, don’t they get paid by cheque?”

“Jimmy says that the new accountant, a Polish woman, spilled the beans. Gilchrist cut the price for various foreign customers, provided they paid cash. Of course, a lot of legitimate business was put through the books. The staff hadn’t been paid for a month. I think he was saving up to make a run for it. And Heather knew about it. There was close to a million in cash in the safe.”

Heather slowly regained consciousness. Memory came flooding back. She felt no remorse. Brenda, stupid, dull Brenda, had always been the favourite. There had been a frightening moment when Sean came back with half-drugged Brenda and said he had found her looking in the window of the pub. The first thing Harry Gilchrist had asked was whether Morag had been sketching as usual. She might have seen the face at the window. He ordered Sean to go back, slip something in her drink, and snatch the sketchbook.

Then Harry, all sheep-like, said that Morag was blackmailing him, saying he was the father of her baby. He would lose his good name.

Heather had walked up to Morag’s lodgings, heavily disguised, and waited outside. She was in luck. No one was around to see her. She backed her Range Rover up to the door. When Morag came out, she came up behind her and strangled her. She ran up the stairs and pinned a postcard to the door. She dumped the body in the boot and then, during the night, she and Gilchrist had rolled the body up in a bale of T-shirts. They then put the bale away from the others, planning to move it and the body when the hunt for Morag was over, if by any chance the postcard saying she had gone away did not work. But some workers had found the bale and had been prepared to load it with the others when they found the body.

All that planning gone for nothing, and because of one local copper.

One of her arms was bandaged, and the good one was padlocked to the bed.

Somehow, I’ve got to get out of here, she thought.

Every time a nurse or doctor came to examine her, she feigned unconsciousness.

And then she heard a doctor say: “Better remove that handcuff. We’re taking her along to the burns unit to see how she’s healing up. She should have been coming out of unconsciousness by now.”

Then followed an argument with the nurse about how much sedative had been given.

Heather felt the handcuff being removed and the movement as her bed was wheeled out of the room, past the policeman on guard. She heard the policeman say, “I’d better follow you,” and, to her relief, the doctor replied, “No need for that. Keep to your post. We’ll have her back shortly.”

Along corridors they went. Then she felt the hum of a lift and a sensation of being borne upwards.

Out of the lift, through doors, and then silence. A fading voice of the doctor said, “The burns surgeon, Mr. Gillespie, will be along in a minute. I must get a cup of coffee.”

Heather cautiously opened one eye, one half of her burnt face being covered in bandages.

She swung her legs over the bed. It was an effort to stand up. But she was fuelled by a mad desire to escape. She tottered to where surgical gowns and masks were hanging. She put on a gown, a mask, and surgical boots.

The corridor outside was empty. She made her way along, looking in the private rooms until she found one with a woman, lying asleep. She went to her locker and removed her coat, scarf, woollen hat, socks, and shoes. Her handbag was there as well. Heather put on the clothes, slung the handbag over her good arm, and wrapped the scarf around her face. She saw a bottle of morphine pills on the bedside table and slipped them into her pocket. She then made her way to the lift, staggering slightly.

Once outside the hospital, she took a set of car keys out of the stolen handbag and went round the car park, clicking the remote control until a car flashed a welcome.

With a sigh of relief, Heather put the keys in the ignition and drove off.

She had no idea where she was going. All she knew was that for the moment, she was free.

Hamish was horrified when he heard the news of Heather’s escape. He was summoned to police headquarters to wait for the videotapes from the hospital, as he had a better chance than most of recognising Heather. But there seemed to be miles of red tape to go through before the hospital released the videos.

Hamish and Jimmy eventually sat down and studied them.

“There she goes, coming out of that room,” said Hamish bitterly. “You can just see a bit of her bandages between the scarf and the hat.” There was a shot of her leaving reception.

“What about the car park?” demanded Hamish.

A man from hospital security said, “We don’t have cameras in the car park.”

“Find out who’s in that room she came out of,” shouted Jimmy. “Oh, the hell with it. Come on, Hamish, let’s get there now.”

The patient turned out to be an elderly woman, a Mrs. Gloag, suffering from cancer. They found out that her handbag was missing as well as her clothes, and that her wallet with her credit cards and car keys had been in it.

Police, already searching for Heather, were given the registration of the car.

“I can’t sit here,” said Hamish. “I’m getting out there to see if I can find her.”

Heather circled around before finally deciding to dump the car. She had to find somewhere to hide out. She walked slowly across the fields at the back of Lochdubh. And then she saw an isolated cottage up on a brae. As she watched, an elderly man with a long grey beard came out and put a bag of rubbish in a bin outside the house.

That will do nicely, she thought. The pain of her burns was creeping back but she didn’t want to take any morphine until she had dealt with the old fool.

Pulling the scarf up round her face again, she made her way up to Angus Macdonald’s cottage, staggering from side to side because her legs felt weak, and knocked at the door. The seer answered her knock and stood looking thoughtfully at her.

“Could you give me a drink of water? I don’t feel very well,” said Heather.

“Come ben,” said the seer.

He went into the kitchen. Heather saw a pair of scissors lying on a table. She quickly cut the telephone wire. She would put this old boy at his ease and then stab him. What did one more death matter?

Angus came back and handed her a glass of water. He knew exactly who she was. A quick glance told him his phone had been cut, and his mobile was on the kitchen counter. But he wanted to capture her himself. Hamish Macbeth had jeered at him for too long about being a fake. If he could outwit her and overpower her, he would phone the press before he even phoned the police.

Heather took some morphine pills and quickly swallowed them. The pain was making her feel faint, but she kept firm hold of the scissors.

Angus banked up the fire and then threw on a pile of fir cones from a basket on the hearth. Heather dragged her chair away from the fire as the heat from it made her burns sing with pain.

Angus settled comfortably back in his battered armchair facing her. “Tell me about yourself,” he said.

“I’m just a tourist,” said Heather. Night had fallen outside.

“You don’t look at all well,” said Angus.

Hamish was wearily driving along the waterfront to his police station. He cursed and braked suddenly as the small figures of the Currie sisters appeared in his headlights.

“What the hell are you playing at?” he demanded, jumping down from the Land Rover.

“There’s a drunk woman gone up to Angus’s place,” said Nessie.

“Place,” echoed her infuriating sister.

“It’s your duty to go and see the old man is all right.”

Hamish was about to tell them to forget it, but he suddenly asked, “What was she wearing?”

“A blue tweed coat and a woolly hat. Staggering all over the place.”

“Out of my way,” shouted Hamish, jumping in the Land Rover.

He went on to the police station and called to Dick. “Get ready. We’re paying a call on Angus.”

“You’re not a tourist,” Angus was saying. “You’re Heather Camford. Are you going to kill me?”

“I just need a place to rest up,” said Heather. “Do what you’re told and you won’t get hurt.”

What she really planned to do was wait until the pain abated and stab him in the neck with the scissors.

Angus cursed his own vanity. He should have phoned Hamish from his mobile when he was getting that glass of water for her in the kitchen.

“Why did you kill your own sister?” he asked.

“Because she always had it all. I was engaged to Harry Gilchrist. Then our parents died and precious Brenda got most of the money and Harry dumped me.”

“So why on earth did you get into this mess for a man who dumped you?”

“Because he showed me a way to get money and travel. Brenda would never even leave Scotland. Although she was a year older, we looked pretty much alike, except she was a bore. The crunch came when Harry saw her will. She was going to leave everything to our brother, Luke.”

Angus could sense her getting ready to spring.

“What’s that?” she cried.

“The wind’s getting up,” said Angus.

“I swear I heard something.”

She rose to her feet and went to the window. Angus jumped up from his chair and grabbed her by her bad arm. She screamed in pain and stabbed him viciously with the scissors just as the door crashed open and Hamish Macbeth hurtled into the room. Dick came hurrying in from the back door, and together they wrestled the screaming woman to the ground.