Death of a Charming Man (5 page)

She opened the door of the staff common room and a fog of cigarette smoke rolled out. They may dash the weed from your lips in New York and frown on you in London, but the north of Scotland is the last hope of the tobacco companies outside the Third World. ‘Mr Hendry?’ called Beth. A small man with a large head and a scrubbing-brush hair-style appeared in the gloom. ‘Visitor,’ said Beth and left Hamish to it.

‘I am Hamish Macbeth, Mr Hendry,’ said Hamish. ‘My fiancée and I have just been to see your house, the one for sale.’

‘Come over to the window where we can talk,’ said Mr Hendry eagerly. ‘It’s a grand house and you’re getting a good offer. It would have been snapped up long ago if it weren’t for this damn recession.’

They sat down in chairs by the window. The other teachers were leaving for their classes and soon Mr Hendry and Hamish were alone.

‘My fiancée,’ lied Hamish, ‘is a verra superstitious lady and she would not like to be staying anywhere there’s been a violent death or murder.’

‘Nothing like that,’ he said quickly. ‘We bought it fifteen years ago from a couple who emigrated to Australia, and what happened to the people before that I don’t know, but if there had been a murder or anything like that, I would have heard of it.’

‘My fiancée said she felt bad vibes in the house.’

‘Och, you Highlanders,’ said Mr Hendry, who was a Lowland Scot, ‘you’re always thinking you’ve got the second sight and you’re psychic. All havers.’

‘I wouldna’ say it’s all havers,’ said Hamish crossly. ‘We haven’t made up our minds.’

‘If you want my wife to take you around and show your lady where everything is in the kitchen,’ he said, ‘she’d be glad to do it.’

‘Well, my fiancée’s gone back home. But if Mrs Hendry could spare the time …’

‘Wait there. Got your car with you?’

‘No, I’m on foot.’

‘I’ll get her to pick you up.’

Mrs Hendry turned out to be a sedate middle-aged woman with pepper-and-salt hair, a tweed suit, a thick energetic body, and tiny plump feet encased in brogues. Hamish was beginning to feel very silly indeed as she drove him competently back out to the house. He noticed this time that it was called Craigallen. He listened patiently as she opened cupboards and pointed to electric points. She then took him round the garden. ‘It was a happy house for us,’ she said, ‘and I hope you’ll be happy as well. Oh, would you look at those weeds!’ She crouched down over a flower-bed and stretched out a plump, beringed hand to pluck a weed. As she did so, her sleeve fell back. Hamish stared down at a vicious purple bruise on her wrist. As if aware of his gaze, she tugged down her sleeve.

He promised to return and asked her to drop him in the centre of Strathbane. He ambled into the police headquarters and made his way to the records room, where he asked if the police had ever been called out to a house called Craigallen on the Lochdubh Road. After the dragon in charge had made him sign multiple bureaucratic forms, she produced a slim file.

The police had been called out two years ago. Craigallen was pretty isolated, but a man walking his dog had reported screams and shouts. The police had called but the Hendrys said they had been watching a noisy video.

Hamish scowled down at it. What if Hendry was a wife-beater? And why had the head teacher assumed that something had been wrong with his children? He gave a little sigh. It was really none of his business. Probably Priscilla was right and he had only done it to get out of moving to Strathbane. And it was a long road home without transport and he had missed the one daily bus to Lochdubh.

He left the police headquarters and saw a familiar figure across the road … Edie Aubrey. He walked over to her and introduced himself. ‘I was hoping to get a lift back or part of the way,’ said Hamish.

‘I can take you as far as Drim,’ said Edie, blinking up at him through her thick spectacles. ‘Maybe one of the locals will be going to Lochdubh. Harry Baxter should be setting out for the night’s fishing.’

‘Grand,’ said Hamish. ‘Finished your messages?’

She nodded. She was carrying a plastic shopping bag labelled ‘Naughties,’ which Hamish knew was Strathbane’s newest lingerie shop, having previously studied the delicate items in the window and wondered who bought them, as the washing-lines from Strathbane to Lochdubh were hung with sturdier and more serviceable items.

When they were driving out of Strathbane, Hamish said, ‘Peter Hynd seems to have caused quite a flutter.’

‘Such a charming boy,’ enthused Edie. ‘Before he came, I kept telling them they ought to exercise, but nothing would get them started. Now they’re all at my classes every day.’

‘Good for you,’ said Hamish. He added maliciously, ‘It’s a pity there are no young lassies in Drim for him to marry.’

There was a startled silence and then Edie said, ‘Och, well, he says to me the other day, he says, “I can’t be doing with these young women, Edie,” he says. “Give me a mature woman every time.”’

‘And has he any particular mature woman in mind?’

Edie giggled and batted her sparse eyelashes. ‘That would be telling.’

Hamish guessed that the perfidious Peter had somehow led every woman in Drim to think she was the favoured one. He shivered. It was all an amusing game to Peter, but a dangerous one to play in a shut-off village in the Highlands of Scotland.

Edie chattered on about the improvements that Peter was making to the croft house all the long road to Drim until Hamish was glad to be dropped outside Harry Baxter’s cottage and escape from her.

A waif-like child was sitting outside, staring at nothing with those light-grey Highland eyes. Hamish held out his hand and introduced himself. She gave it a shake. ‘I’m Heather,’ she said solemnly. Hamish judged her to be about twelve years old. ‘Are your ma and da at home?’ asked Hamish.

‘Ma’s at home. Da’s sleeping.’

‘I’ll chust see your ma.’ Hamish edged past the little girl whose steady stare unnerved him. Betty Baxter was in the kitchen, her coarse, dyed-blonde hair piled up on her head, her normally swarthy gypsy features covered in thick white foundation cream. ‘I came to see if your man could give me a lift to Lochdubh when he’s going to the fishing,’ said Hamish.

‘Aye. I’m sure he could,’ said Betty. ‘Like some tea? I’m about to get Harry up fur his.’

‘That’s verra kind of you.’

‘Sit yourself doon.’ She crossed to the doorway and shouted up the stairs. ‘Harry! Tea!’

After a few moments, Harry shuffled in, unwashed, unshaved, and with his braces hanging down over his baggy trousers. Hamish felt a stab of irritation. What did the men of Drim expect if they went around looking like this?

Tea was ‘high tea’, consisting of fish and chips, strong tea and a pile of bread and butter. After Hamish had repeated his request for a lift and had been told he could get one, the three ate in silence.

‘Doesn’t your daughter eat with you?’ asked Hamish.

‘Oh, her,’ said Betty with a massive shrug. ‘She’ll come in when she’s hungry.’

When they had finished, Harry hitched up his braces, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and pulled on his boots and put on his oilskins. ‘Wait ootside in the truck, Hamish,’ he said. ‘Won’t be long.’

Hamish went out and sat in the passenger seat and rolled down the window. The voices came clearly from the house.

‘You are not to go doon tae the ceilidh tonight,’ came Harry’s voice.

‘I’ll go anywhere I like!’ Betty’s, shrill and contemptuous.

‘Ach, you’re all making a damn fool o’ yourselves over a bit o’ a lad who’s laughing up his sleeve at the lot o’ ye. Anyway, ye havenae a hope in hell. Ailsa Kennedy, Jock’s wife, was seen leaving his cottage last night at two in the morning.’

‘That’s a lie!’ Betty, panting with outrage.

Hamish turned his head slightly and saw young Heather. She was sitting on the grass, with her slight figure pressed against the walls of the cottage. Hamish climbed down from the truck.

‘Are you coming, Harry?’ he shouted loudly and angrily. ‘And wee Heather’s out here and could do with a bite to eat.’

There was a sudden silence, and then Harry came out at a rush, his face red.

He climbed in the truck and Hamish hurriedly jumped into the passenger seat.

It was a silent journey to Lochdubh, Harry hurtling round the bends at ferocious speed as if trying to put as much distance between himself and his wife as quickly as possible. Hamish thought gloomily that, for his own peace of mind, he should leave the village of Drim alone. But there was the question of the illegal ‘pub’ that Jock Kennedy was running. Conscience and duty told him he would have to do something about it. But not now.

After Harry dropped him off, he took his own transport and went to the Tommel Castle Hotel. Towser was there in Sophy’s care because, he learned, Priscilla had driven down to Inverness to visit friends. What friends? he wondered, feeling depressed. He imagined a large house outside Inverness containing some wealthy and eligible son, some
successful
eligible son.

Sophy regarded his downcast face with bright amusement. ‘Do you know,’ she said, ‘I think this might be a good evening to take
you
for dinner. What about that Italian restaurant again?’

‘Why not?’ said Hamish ungraciously. ‘See you there at eight. I’ve got things to do.’

He returned to the police station and fed a delighted Towser, who was a greedy dog and had already been generously fed by Priscilla before she left for Inverness. With reluctance, he washed and changed and set out for the Italian restaurant.

‘Getting to be a regular,’ commented Willie Lamont. ‘Miss Halburton-Smythe likes the window table.’

‘I am not dining with Priscilla.’

‘Then sit anywhere,’ said Willie sourly.

Hamish sighed. No one in Lochdubh was going to like his having dinner with Sophy twice, and by tomorrow the whole of Lochdubh would know about it and that included Priscilla. Sophy came in. She was wearing a pink sweater and a tweed skirt. She looked fresh and wholesome and uncomplicated. Hamish was glad she had not dressed up. Priscilla, he thought disloyally, always dressed up when she was out for dinner, even at this local restaurant. But his real reason for being glad was a cowardly one. A dressed-up Sophy would have made it look more like a date.

‘How was the house?’ asked Sophy, after they had placed their orders.

Hamish did not even bother to ask how she knew he had been house-hunting. Living in the Highlands meant getting used to everyone knowing what one did and where one went.

‘I didn’t like it,’ he said. ‘No, Willie, I don’t need to taste the wine. It’ll be the same as last night.’

‘Not much of a wine connoisseur, are you?’ said Willie. ‘Wine varies from bottle tae bottle.’

‘But not in giant flagons of Bulgarian red, which is what you filled these decanters from. I’ve seen the kitchens.’

‘Och, you’re a right downer,’ said Willie unrepentantly.

‘Why didn’t you like the house?’ asked Sophy.

‘You’ll think this silly … bad vibes.’

‘No, I don’t think it silly at all, Hamish. Some houses have a bad atmosphere.’

‘Aye, but I carried things a wee bit too far. I left Priscilla and went off to find the owners. It appears to me that the husband’s a bit of a wife-beater. Not verra dramatic.’

‘Oh, but something should be done about it. Think of the children.’

‘But I cannae do anything about it. Nothing can be done about it unless the wife puts in a complaint.’

‘Then you should encourage her to make one!’

‘I’ll see. But it’s difficult. Strathbane and what happens there is really nothing to do with me.’

‘I suppose not,’ said Sophy. ‘Oh, I gather that beautiful young man who was here last night with Priscilla is living over at Drim, of all places.’

‘Yes,’ said Hamish sourly, ‘and I wish to God he weren’t.’

‘Jealous, Hamish?’

‘Of him and Priscilla? No, Priscilla’s not daft. The situation is this. He’s been making passes at the middle-aged women of Drim and it’s fair turned their heads. They’re all titivating themselves – hair dye, exercise classes, fancy underwear …’

‘How do you know about the underwear?’ teased Sophy.

‘I found one of them with a shopping bag from Naughties, that new lingerie shop.’

‘Surely it’s all harmless. If he flirts with all of them, then no single one need feel dangerously jealous.’

‘This is not Perth,’ said Hamish haughtily, as if Perth lay in the south of England instead of just outside the Highland line in central Scotland. ‘The men are brooding and they’ll become violent.’

‘Well, so one of them’ll give him a sock on the nose and he’ll take himself off.’

Hamish shook his head. ‘I smell trouble.’

‘“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”?’

‘Something like that.’

The ceilidh in the community hall was in full swing. Ailsa Kennedy was dancing the Dashing White Sergeant with Peter Hynd. She had fiery-red hair – undyed – and an aggressive bosom, thrusting breasts which seemed to point accusingly. Her waist was slim, and her hips, under her swinging skirts, broad. She had very piercing bright-blue eyes, which this evening were filled with laughter as Peter twirled her about.

Jock Kennedy leaned against a pillar and watched moodily, his great arms crossed across his barrel of a chest. Then he suddenly detached himself from the pillar and went outside into the pearly-white light of the northern Scottish evening and joined a group of men who were passing around a bottle of whisky.

‘We wass chust deciding what to do about him in there,’ said the crofter Jimmy Macleod with a jerk of his head.

‘The Sassenach?’ said Jock. ‘I feel like bashing his head in.’

The men gathered around him, small men, angry men, crabbed and bitter men. ‘Aye, do it, Jock,’ they said. And one voice, louder than the others, said, ‘I’ll call him out here for a dram and you let him have it.’

Jock began to smile. ‘Aye, get him out here. It’s time that yin had a taste o’ Highland hospitality.’

The women saw Peter being approached, saw him led to the door. ‘I’m goin’ too,’ said Betty Baxter to Ailsa Kennedy. ‘They’re up to something out there.’