Hamish Macbeth 18 (2002) - Death of a Celebrity (20 page)

Elspeth sat bolt upright in bed. She could smell smoke, still hear the crackling of flames and the howl of a dog. What a dream! But so real!

“I’m about to make a fool of myself,” she muttered. She got out of bed and went to the phone and phoned the police station.

Hamish would not have bothered answering it had Lugs not already woken him by barking sharply. Lugs’s bark had risen to a howl as Hamish picked up the phone.

“It’s Elspeth,” he heard. “Hamish, I’m probably mad, but take a look outside and make sure no one’s trying to set fire to the police station.”

“Right.” He slammed down the phone. “Shhh,” he commanded Lugs. He crept through to the kitchen and, without switching on the light, peered through the window. To his left, he saw a sort of darker blackness and he smelled petrol.

He took a powerful torch down from a shelf and gently unlocked the kitchen door and moved softly out into the blackness. Lugs had fallen silent but was right behind him.

Suddenly Lugs hurtled off into the blackness. There was an oath and a sharp cry of pain.

Hamish shone his torch. Finlay Swithers stood there, a petrol can beside him, trying to beat off Lugs, who had sunk his teeth into his leg.

“Get the dog off me!” shouted Swithers. “My leg. Oh, my leg.”

Hamish went swiftly up to him and twisted his arm up his back and only then did he command Lugs to let him go. He marched Swithers into the police station, into the cell, and locked him in.

Then he roused Carson. “You’d best get up,” said Hamish. “It’s Finlay Swithers. He’s just tried to set fire to us.”

Carson jumped out of bed and grabbed his trousers and pulled them on. “Here,” said Hamish, throwing him a pullover. “Your shirt’s in the wash.”

“Where is he?”

“In the cell.”

“Charged him yet?”

“No, we’ll have a look at the evidence.”

He gave Carson another torch and they went outside. Underneath the kitchen window, they found bales of straw soaked in petrol and at the front door of the police station as well. Carson phoned Strathbane and ordered them to send men over.

Then he went to the cell, and while Hamish took notes, he charged Finlay Swithers with attempted murder and arson.

“Why did you do it?” Carson demanded.

“I wanted rid of that bastard,” said Swithers, glaring at Hamish. He stank of booze.

“Right. This’ll put you away for a long time.”

They had to wait until a team arrived from Strathbane. The petrol-soaked bales of straw had to be photographed and taken away for evidence, along with the can of petrol Hamish had found Swithers with and the empty cans of petrol that were found in his truck outside.

“How did he hope to get away with it?” marvelled Carson.

“He knew about the funeral,” said Hamish. “He knew everyone would be in the church. He picked his moment.”

“I think I’m sober enough to get back to Strathbane,” said Carson wearily. “Just put my clothes in a bag. They won’t be dry yet. It’s a good thing you woke when you did.”

Hamish wondered whether to tell him about Elspeth. She must have seen something, or was she psychic? He decided to leave it for the moment.

“The cheek of the man,” said Carson as they walked out to his car. “He left threatening to sue you because that dog of yours bit his leg.”

“At least he’ll be in prison where he should have been all along,” said Hamish. “Good night, sir.”

“Did I make a fool of myself last night? I can’t remember getting to bed.”

“Och, no, you were the perfect gentleman.”

“See you, Hamish. By the way, my name’s Pat, short for Patrick.”

“Go carefully, Pat.”

“That I will. Take care.”

Carson drove off. Hamish grinned. Blair would go ape if he knew he was on first-name terms with his superior officer.

He went into the police station and phoned Elspeth. Her sleepy voice answered. “I suppose you’ve rung me at dawn to tell me what a fool I am.”

“No, you were right. How did you know?”

“I had a dream. It was so real. The flames, the smoke, the dog howling. I thought of Lugs and then I thought of you.”

“So you are psychic, you have the second sight, just like the seer said. Has it happened before?”

“Twice. But it always makes me feel sick and frightened. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“I’m right grateful to you, Elspeth. I’m sorry I’ve been a bit…well…cold at times, but I don’t want another involvement. I don’t want anyone getting close.”

“Who’s getting close?” demanded Elspeth crossly. “I mean, I would like if we could be friends.”

“Okay. Now can I get back to sleep?”

Ok, thievish Night
,

Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end
,

In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars
,

That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps

With everlasting oil, to give due light

To the misled and lonely traveller?

—John Milton

A
ny impetus there had been in solving the murder of Felicity Pearson had ebbed away. Hamish covered his local beat, attended to his crofting chores, and occasionally went over and over his notes, looking to see if there was anything he might have missed.

On his day off, two weeks after the funeral, on impulse he phoned Grace Witherington and asked if he could have another chat with her. She told him to come over for coffee at three in the afternoon.

He took Lugs with him, telling the dog to be on his best behaviour. The mobile van had gone from outside the flats. What the police in Strathbane were doing about solving the murder, Hamish did not know. Jimmy had been avoiding his phone calls and Carson had not made another visit to the police station in Lochdubh.

“Come in,” said Grace, opening the door of the flats to him. “I’m upstairs.”

“Is it all right if I bring my dog?”

“Certainly. I like dogs. I don’t have one myself anymore,” she said, mounting the stairs. “My old dog, Queenie, died ten years ago and I couldn’t bear to get another. They need such a lot of love and attention and I wasn’t free to travel. Of course, I could have put Queenie in kennels like everyone else who goes abroad, but then, I knew I wouldn’t enjoy my holiday. I’d always have been worrying about how she was getting on. Here we are.”

She led the way through a small hall and into a book-lined living room. “Make yourself comfortable and I’ll get the coffee.”

Lugs stretched out in front of the fire. Hamish suddenly found he was fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette packet. How odd that after all this time, he should still automatically go through the motions of looking for a cigarette.

Grace came in carrying a laden tray, which she set down on a low table in front of him. “Help yourself to sugar and milk and tell me why you have come. I’m intrigued.”

“It’s Felicity Pearson,” said Hamish. “I get a picture of a vain, weak, not likeable woman, and yet you were a friend of hers. I’m trying to get a better picture of her.”

“Now you’re making me feel guilty,” said Grace. “I wasn’t ever a friend of hers, I told you that. The fact is that the television programme she produced brought me in some welcome money. I wanted to keep her on my side. I am afraid she was in fact all the things you said about her. But I began to think even the television programme wasn’t worth the hours I spent listening to her talk about herself. Have you heard the actor’s joke? That’s enough about me. Let’s talk about my performance.”

“So there was no one she was really close to?”

“Have you tried Rory MacBain?”

“I think that one didn’t care what she was like and what she looked like. All he was after was a quickie on the office floor when it suited him.”

“Dear me. I should feel sorry for her but I can’t. I had really begun to dislike her so much, you see. I read in the papers this morning that she has been found guilty of the murder of Crystal French.”

“So they’ve released that bit of news at last. How did you feel when you read it?” asked Hamish.

“Do you know, I wasn’t surprised, and yet I should be. I mean, when she was here talking to me, I didn’t think, oh, here’s a murderer. But if that murder’s solved, why do you want to know about her?”

“Because her own murder isn’t solved.”

“She was killed down at the old docks. No one saw or heard anything?”

“I don’t know what headquarters have got, but I don’t think they’ve found any witnesses.”

“Wait a minute. Drink your coffee. It’s getting cold. There’s something. We were doing a discussion programme on drugs and the menace of crack and heroin in Strathbane. Professor Tully said something like the old docks should be pulled down to make way for waterfront housing because they were only a marketplace for drug dealing. I mean, it’s a long shot. But someone might have been there that night who didn’t want to have anything to do with the police.”

“You might have something there,” said Hamish slowly. “I’d better have a word with Professor Tully first. He might just have thrown that in to pretend to an inside knowledge he doesn’t have.”

“How cynical of you and how well you know him!”

“I don’t know him, but he’s a Highlander.”

“And it takes one to know one?”

“Exactly.”

Hamish drove over to Bonar Bridge. The light was already fading fast and cold little stars twinkled above in the Sutherland sky.

Professor Tully lived in an old Georgian house, just outside the town. It was Scottish Georgian, eighteenth century, square and without ornament. The garden was a wilderness of weeds.

To Hamish’s relief, the professor was at home. He invited Hamish in but insisted Lugs be left outside. “I have cats,” he explained.

“Lugs is very kind to cats,” said Hamish.

“No dog is kind to cats,” replied the professor, so Hamish had to take Lugs back and shut him in the Land Rover.

Hamish went back into the house. The professor ushered him through to a dark and grimy kitchen where not much seemed to have been changed since the eighteenth century. There were two old stone sinks and enormous wooden dressers, their once-white paint yellow with age. Light came from a dingy forty-watt bulb high up in the ceiling.

“So how can I help you?” asked Professor Tully.

“On one of your discussion programmes, you said that the old docks at Strathbane should be pulled down because they had become a market for drug dealing.”

The professor leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. “I can remember those docks when they were thriving. I can even remember Strathbane when it wasn’t a sink of iniquity, a monstrous carbuncle on the face of the Highlands.”

“But about the drugs?”

“I wouldn’t want to be getting anyone in trouble.”

“I’m only interested in finding out a possible witness to the murder of Felicity Pearson.”

The professor lowered his gaze to the battered kitchen table, which still held the remains of his lunch.

“You see,” he said at last, “there’s this lad lives in Bonar Bridge. He’s clean now. But I got talking to him one day when I was shopping in town. He said he used to buy his stuff down at the docks, said it was a sort of marketplace at night. He said it was safer than the clubs because the police hardly ever went around the docks at night.”

“What’s his name?”

“I don’t think…”

“If he’s clean, then he won’t be getting to trouble and any information he gives me, well, I’ll protect the source.”

“It’s Barry Williams, a young English fellow. Family moved up here some years ago.”

“And where does he live?”

“Somewhere up at the council houses.”

Hamish thanked him and left. He did not want to ask the local police for the address and maybe scare the boy into silence. He asked for the address at the shops and finally found that Barry lived near Mrs. Gordon.

A woman answered the door to him and looked shocked when he asked to speak to Barry. “My son’s a good boy,” she said defiantly.

“I’m sure he is,” said Hamish patiently. “I just want a wee word with him.”

She turned and called, “Barry!”

A thin youth came down the stairs behind her, dressed in torn jeans and a bomber jacket. “I was just going out,” he said sulkily.

“Come on, then,” said Hamish. “We’ll just walk along the road a bit.”

“I haven’t been doing anything,” said Barry, hunching his thin shoulders against the cold.

“I know. Look, Barry, you once told Professor Tully that they dealt drugs down at the docks. I know it’s all behind you now, but I want a name of your supplier.”

“I can’t be doing that!”

“Barry, I have to know. A murder was committed at the docks and I’m looking for witnesses. No one will know it was you that told me. But if you don’t tell me, I’ll need to get all official and take you into Strathbane for questioning.”

Barry moodily kicked a Coke can. “You’re sure?”

“You have my word.”

“It was the Big Drip.”

“Come on. A name?”

“I’m telling you. That’s what he was called.”

Hamish sighed. “What did he look like?”

“Sort of tall, as tall as you, and with bleached hair in spikes and a nose ring. Dealt heroin.”

“And you only know his nickname?”

“Yes. That’s all anybody knew.”

Back at the police station, Hamish phoned Carson. Not so long ago, he would have phoned Jimmy, but he knew now that Jimmy would pretend that the information was his own.

Carson listened carefully and then said, “I’ll look into it. Stay by the phone.”

Hamish cooked dinner for himself and Lugs. He wondered what Elspeth was doing. She had not called at the police station for a good few days now.

He was just getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was Carson. “Got him,” he said cheerfully. “Hughie Fraser, otherwise known as the Big Drip because he’s six feet tall.”

“Any chance of finding him?”

“Every chance. He’s just started doing time in Strathbane prison for pushing. We’ll see him in the morning.”

“
We
, sir?”

“Yes, you can come as well. I’ll meet you outside the prison at nine-thirty in the morning.”