Death of a Glutton (11 page)

‘I did no such thing,’ said the lawyer calmly.

‘Furthermore,’ Hamish went on, ‘I haff the two witnesses, Paul and Luke Nairn, who saw you up at the quarry with Peta Gore on the night of her death, having a moonlight picnic.’

The only sign of emotion about John Taylor was his long thin hands, which he clasped around one pointed knee. ‘Witnesses?’ he said cynically. ‘They took a long time to come forward.’

‘I’ll bring them in.’ Hamish nodded to the policeman on guard at the door, who opened it and shouted. ‘Paul and Luke Nairn.’

Just like a courtroom, thought John.

The large brothers shuffled in and stood sheepishly in the middle of the room, still in their oilskins and smelling strongly of fish.

‘We’ll start with you, Luke,’ said Hamish. ‘Chust tell us in your own words what you saw.’ Meaning I hope you remember my words, thought Hamish desperately.

‘We wass up by the quarry when we heard talking,’ said Luke. ‘It wass the bright moonlit night. We saw this man here as clear as day. He was pouring wine. He wass sitting on the ground. Beside him wass a great fat wumman and she was shoving a meat-pie in her mouth. I haff never seen the like. I haff never seen anyone eat a meat-pie like that, not even Geordie over at Crask. We didnae stop, Paul and me, we walked on a bittie, and we wass admiring the view when behind us, from the direction o’ the quarry, we heard a scrabbling, choking sort o’ sound and Paul here, he says, Nae wunner she’s choking, the way she eats.’

He fell silent. A clock ticked in the corner of the room. John Taylor sat very still. Witnesses? thought Blair, privately delighted. A couple of liars. Admire the view! Havers.

And then John opened his mouth and spoke. ‘I did it, yes,’ he said.

Hamish charged him while the superintendent leaned back in his chair, limp with relief.

Hamish dismissed Paul and Luke. Then he asked John, ‘What happened? Take it slowly. No one heard a car driving off that night. Why?’

‘Chance,’ said John wearily. ‘I thought afterwards I was a master criminal, but I simply got away with things by being a complete amateur. I wanted to get even with my son and daughter for having been cruel to me. They were expecting to inherit my money. It was not enough revenge to simply leave it to some charity. I wanted them to suffer. I planned to marry and have children, but when I got here, I realized the folly of it all. Who was going to look at an old man like me?

‘Then came Peta’s news of her millions. That one would have been happy to marry anyone to spite Maria. I thought, I’ll marry her and then I’ll be fabulously rich and
then
I shall tell my ungrateful son and daughter that they aren’t getting anything. I went to her room and suggested we slip off for a romantic picnic at midnight. The awful creature was thrilled at the idea. I went down to the kitchen and packed up one of those picnic hampers with what I could find. I knew the hotel cars often had the keys left in them. I took the Volvo. Peta came out.

‘The car would not start. And would you believe it, the very sight of her gross figure in the moonlight had made me change my mind. I said, “Let’s leave it.” No, she had to try one of the other cars but the keys were missing from those. I suppose they take them in for the night but because Jenny had used the Volvo, the keys had been left in it.

‘So I decided that was that and was relieved. But she then suggested I get in the Volvo and she would push it down the drive, which was on a slope. I tried to persuade her to abandon the project but she insisted. She pushed the car down the drive and the engine started.’

‘Was the quarry your idea?’ asked Hamish.

‘No, hers. She couldn’t wait to eat, you see. I decided to make the best of a bad job. She guzzled and slobbered. I drank the wine. To pass the time I told her about the hurt that had been inflicted on me by my children saying I was boring. She finished the meat-pie and wiped her mouth and said with a coarse laugh, “Well, you are a bit of an old stick, aren’t you? If I was one of your kids, I’d run a mile.”

‘One minute I was sitting there and the next minute I had pushed her on her back and rammed the apple into her mouth. I remember shouting something, but I don’t know what. I grabbed her nose with my fingers and squeezed it. I had that done to me at school and I remembered it hurt very much. That’s all I really wanted to do. Hurt her. But she was suddenly still and I realized I had killed her.

‘I was terrified. I gathered up all the stuff in the hamper, every scrap, every crumb I could see and wandered across the moors until I came to a peat bog. I weighed it down with a boulder and sank it. I returned to the car and drove to the castle.

‘Oh, I thought I was so clever. I wore gloves. I typed the note on her machine and then packed her clothes and carried the lot out again. I had left the car at the castle gates. I got rid of her luggage and her typewriter in the same peat bog. If I had been really clever, I would have put her body in the peat bog as well, but I could not bear to touch her.

‘Once it was all over, I felt rested, strangely peaceful, as if someone else had done the murder. I thought the fates were protecting me because I had completely forgotten about fingerprints in the car, for I had not worn gloves at the time I drove off with her.

‘When Jenny left the car with the windows open and then I saw the maids cleaning it out, I remembered the fingerprints and was delighted that a benign Providence was taking care of me. My shoulders were aching, for I had pushed the car back up the slope the last bit to the front of the castle in case the noise of the engine would wake anyone, but apart from that I felt light-headed and well.’

‘So what about Deborah?’ asked Hamish gently.

‘When she said, “I saw you do it”, I thought at first, and rightly, as it turned out, that she was showing off, that she knew nothing. But you see, I had quite forgotten in my mind until then that I had killed Peta. It all came back, the horror of it. I could see the faces of all those I had prosecuted in the past rising to haunt me. I was consumed with such a rage against her. Again, it was the luck of the amateur. I suppose anyone could have seen me going into the kitchen. I was amazed it was not locked up. I did not go to get the meat cleaver. Somehow, I was returning to the scene of my earlier crime, or rather, the beginning of it. I switched on the light and there on the chopping block lay that meat cleaver. I picked it up. It felt good in my hand. I have a dim memory of going up the tower stairs and taking the light bulb out and slipping it in my pocket. Then nothing until that terrible screaming. I ran to my room and quickly took a bulb out of the bedside light and put the bulb from the tower stair in the socket instead.’ He let out a ragged sigh. ‘I’m glad it’s all over.’

Mr Daviot said to the policeman at the door, ‘Take Mr Taylor out to the car. MacNab and Anderson, go with him. I will follow in the other car with Blair.’

When they had gone, Mr Daviot turned to Hamish. ‘Well done,’ he said. ‘How did you arrive at such a conclusion … or did you have any help?’ He looked at Blair, who looked pleadingly at Hamish and mouthed, ‘Central heating.’ For Blair had promised Hamish at the end of the last case that in return for Hamish’s allowing him the credit, he would see to it that central heating was installed in the Lochdubh police station.

But Hamish was weary of Blair, weary of his spite and stupidity and malice. ‘No, I worked it out myself,’ he said, avoiding Blair’s look of venom. Blair got to his feet. ‘Ah’ll jist catch up wi’ the others,’ he said.

‘Oh, very well.’ Mr Daviot looked surprised. Blair usually stuck to him like a shadow, which was why Blair was forgiven such a lot. Mr Daviot would never admit he liked crawlers, but Blair was so very good at it, always remembering to send flowers on Mrs Daviot’s birthday, always saying loudly that Mr Peter Daviot was the best superintendent in the country.

‘Now, Hamish,’ said Mr Daviot when Blair had gone.

‘It was such a long shot,’ said Hamish. ‘I knew, I think I had known all along, that I was looking for someone mad, or at least temporarily insane. And then it came to me, something my cousin said about eccentrics and then about John Taylor being a great old character. John Taylor had once pushed a policeman in the face outside the Old Bailey for not showing him due respect. That was all. Then I thought, there’s madness. An eminent QC does not lose his rag like that, particularly when that QC was in the wrong. An eminent QC does not sign up with a marital agency, nor does he plan to marry and start a family at his age. It does not happen. Something was badly wrong with John Taylor. No one else fitted the picture. I became convinced that this was no carefully planned murder but simply committed by someone who had lost his mind. I may as well tell you now that it is no use producing the Nairn brothers in court. They lied. I put them up to it.’

Peter Daviot looked at him appalled. ‘It is just as well we have his taped statement, and in front of so many witnesses. Man, man, what a scandal if you had been wrong.’

‘Aye, well, by the time I got to the castle, I thought I wass the madman,’ said Hamish, himself appalled at the enormity of what he had done. ‘I wass going to send the Nairn brothers home after you started the questioning again and then Priscilla told me about the light bulbs, and as you know, we found the missing light bulb in John Taylor’s room. When Mr Taylor told me that he had wanted to marry again because he was lonely, he began to cry and I remember thinking at the time that he wass a man on the verge of a nervous breakdown, but for a while I thought it might be the strain of him finding himself in the middle of a murder inquiry.’

‘I should give you a reprimand for the gamble you took,’ said Mr Daviot severely, ‘but on the other hand, I am relieved this dreadful case is over. This will mean promotion for you, Hamish.’

Hamish looked startled. ‘I am not looking for the promotion,’ he said desperately. ‘But if you could see your way to getting some central heating put in the police station …’

‘Always the modest lad, Hamish. Oh, I’ve heard rumours flying about that it was you who solved those last murders and let Blair take the credit. Blair’s a good, solid policeman, but he does not have your flair. How many bedrooms do you have in that police station?’

Hamish eyed him warily. ‘Mine and a small spare one I use if any of my little brothers and sisters are visiting.’

‘Excellent. I think you should be promoted to sergeant and we’ll send some young lad up to help you. I have the very policeman in mind.’

Hamish pleaded and protested, but Mr Daviot was adamant. ‘You should be thinking of your future, Hamish. You’ll be getting married to your Priscilla soon, or so my wife believes, and you’ll need the extra pay. It’s time I took your career in hand.’

Hamish was still protesting when he followed Mr Daviot out to his car. Blair was sitting moodily behind the wheel.

‘You had better go home and type up your statement,’ said Mr Daviot. ‘Give my regards to Priscilla and tell her my wife was asking after her.’

Mr Daviot got in and Blair shot off with an angry grinding of gears.

Hamish went wearily to his Land Rover and drove to the police station. As he got out, two large figures loomed up. The Nairn brothers.

‘If it iss all right wi’ you,’ said Luke cheerfully, ‘we’ll hae that telly now.’

John Taylor stood patiently after turning out his pockets. He had surrendered his braces, tie and shoelaces. ‘I’d better have those pills,’ he said, pointing to a pharmacist’s bottle which lay among the other items taken from him.

The custody sergeant picked it up. ‘What is it?’ The label was worn.

‘My heart medicine,’ said John gently. ‘I am sure you would not want me to die in one of your cells.’

The custody sergeant shook out a couple of white pills from the bottle. ‘I’ll jist keep these and hae them examined.’

John was led to a cell in Strathbane police headquarters. He knew he would be transferred to prison in the morning. ‘You won’t have eaten, sir,’ said the young policeman who had escorted him to his cell. ‘Can I get ye some mutton-pie and chips frae the canteen?’

John shuddered fastidiously. ‘I am not hungry. But I would like a couple of bottles of mineral water, if you would be so kind.’ He gave a flickering smile. ‘I am very thirsty.’

The mineral water was delivered along with a tray of food and he was urged to eat. The day wore on, light faded outside his cell, and the seagulls of Strathbane screamed like lost souls as they scavenged the streets.

By late evening, John had still not eaten anything but he asked for pen and paper.

He wrote a letter to his son and daughter. In it, he said he was sure they would enjoy his money. He was only delighted they would have to suffer the publicity that their father was a murderer. All his brief love he had felt for them when he had been talking to Hamish had gone. He hated them both. He quoted from
King Lear
. He reminded them it was sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child. He folded the paper neatly and put it squarely in the middle of the small table in his cell.

Then he opened the first of the bottles of mineral water and doggedly began to swallow all the small pills in the pharmacist’s bottle.

The analysis of the pills came through in the morning. They were extremely strong barbiturates. Cursing and sweating, the duty sergeant ran to John Taylor’s cell.

He was lying peacefully. There was only a faint flicker of life in his pulse. They rushed him to hospital, but he was dead on arrival.

Hamish Macbeth heard the news of John’s death later in the day. He thought sourly that all the inquiries that would be buzzing about Strathbane, first the wrongful arrest of Mary French, and now this, would keep everyone too busy to think about his promotion or landing some young constable in his home.

He decided to go up to the castle and see how Priscilla was.

Priscilla was dealing with the home-coming of her parents. They had arrived bringing their Caithness hosts, Mr and Mrs Turnbull, with them, along with Jamie Turnbull, their son, who was home on leave from his regiment. It was typical of her father not to phone to find out if there were any spare rooms, thought Priscilla furiously. Actually there were, for all had left, with the exception of Jenny Trask and her mother, a small capable woman who said they would have a few days’ rest after ‘little’ Jenny’s ordeal before travelling south. But the phone had been ringing steadily with bookings as the news of the arrest and subsequent death of the murderer got out. A murderer at large was bad for business. A murder solved gave the hotel an interesting cachet, particularly as the murderer had not turned out to be one of those dreadful common people.

‘I am glad to see you, Mr and Mrs Turnbull and Jamie,’ said Priscilla firmly, ‘but you can only stay a few days. Our books are getting full again.’

‘What is this?’ demanded the colonel, bristling. ‘May I remind you, dear girl, that this is
my
hotel, a hotel which I started and made prosper?’

Hamish strolled in to hear that last sentence. Priscilla stood facing her father, cool and calm as usual, and then suddenly she cracked. ‘You’ve done bloody nothing to get this hotel off the ground. Nothing! I’ve worked and slaved, and so has Mother, while you strut around annoying the guests and then we have to soothe them down. You didn’t even bother to come back to help me when you knew there had been a murder committed. The attack on Deborah didn’t even move you. Oh, no! I’ve got to stay here and cope with the lot, me and Mr Johnson. I’m tired of your poncing, your vanity, and your bullying. Get stuffed, Daddy dear!’

She stormed off. The colonel stood, his mouth opening and shutting. ‘Why don’t we all go into the bar?’ said Mrs Halburton-Smythe brightly. ‘I’m sure we could all do with a drink.’ And propelling her husband in front of her and Mr and Mrs Turnbull, she shooed them toward the bar like a fussy mother hen shepherding her chicks.

Jamie Turnbull found Priscilla in the kitchen. ‘You’ve had a hard time,’ he said. He was a tall, pleasant-looking young man. ‘Believe me, I tried to get your father to go home, but he wouldn’t budge.’

‘It’s all right now,’ said Priscilla weakly. ‘I wish I hadn’t lost my temper.’

‘He needed a telling off. Look, you’re frazzled to bits. Why don’t you come with me and we’ll go off for a drive, have dinner somewhere and keep away from this workhouse.’

‘Oh, I’d love that,’ said Priscilla. ‘Once Daddy’s recovered from the shock, he’ll be raging about the place all day.’

The kitchen door opened and Hamish Macbeth looked in. ‘All right, Priscilla?’ he asked. ‘I wass wondering if you felt like a bite to eat at that new Italian place this evening?’

Suddenly Priscilla remembered looking down from the castle and seeing Jenny kissing him. ‘I already have a dinner date, Hamish,’ she said coldly. ‘But if you’re at a loose end, your little friend Jenny’s still about.’

Hamish retreated and banged the kitchen door. He walked moodily out to the Land Rover and stood beside it, kicking the gravel in the drive. He had seen Priscilla come to life. She had been magnificent when she had given that old scunner of a father of hers the dressing down he so much deserved. And he had been looking forward to telling her about the case. But all she wanted to do was go off with Jamie Turnbull, Jamie Turnbull who, as Hamish knew, was rich, popular and a captain in a Highland regiment. Jenny, indeed! He was not interested in Jenny.

And then there was Jenny herself, walking towards him with a grey-haired woman who, he guessed, was probably her mother.

‘Hamish,’ cried Jenny. ‘I was coming to see you. You have been so awfully clever. Do tell Mummy and me how you solved the case.’

‘I haven’t the time at the moment,’ said Hamish.

‘Maybe later,’ urged Jenny.

‘My daughter tells me there’s a good Italian restaurant in the village,’ said Mrs Trask. ‘We would be honoured if you would join us for dinner tonight. I owe you a great debt of thanks. If it had not been for your intelligence and capability, my poor daughter might still be under suspicion of murder.’

‘She was never that,’ said Hamish, although her words were balm to his soul so recently wounded by Priscilla.

Priscilla came out of the castle with Jamie. They got into Jamie’s Jaguar and roared off.

Hamish watched them go with bleak eyes.

‘So please say you will come,’ urged Mrs Trask.

‘Yes, I’d be delighted,’ said Hamish finally.

‘Good, we’ll meet you there at seven o’clock.’

Hamish drove back to the village. The village spinsters, Jessie and Nessie Currie, were waiting for him outside the police station.

‘Just imagine!’ cried Jessie. ‘A lawyer being involved in drug smuggling! In drug smuggling!’

‘And it’s just said on the radio that he took his own life,’ said Nessie. ‘Did he inject himself with crack?’

‘No,’ said Hamish crossly. ‘He was a madman who killed by mistake. Had he lived, the charge would probably have been reduced from murder to culpable homicide.’

‘You said it was the drugs,’ said Jessie, disappointed. ‘Not much of a policeman, are you? Not much of a policeman.’

‘Run along, ladies,’ said Hamish. ‘I have work to do.’

He went into the police station by the kitchen door at the back. His dog, Towser, who had been feeling neglected during the case, stared at him accusingly. He had had no walks, only let out into the field at the back, and, worse than that, Hamish had been feeding him dog food, and Towser liked people food. ‘I sometimes think you’re the only friend I’ve got, Towser,’ said Hamish. The yellowish mongrel turned his back on him as if to remind him that even that was in doubt.

Hamish looked at the kitchen. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes. He sighed and went back out to the butcher’s, where he bought a pound of liver. He returned and cooked it and then, when it was cool, cut it up and gave it to Towser. Then he washed the dishes while the dog ate and then cleaned the rest of the kitchen. He moved to the remainder of the house, changing the sheets on the bed, washing them by hand because he had not yet got a washing machine and hanging them out in the back garden to dry. He then took Towser for a long walk. A stiff breeze was sending choppy angry little waves splashing on the beach, but it gradually entered his soul that murder had left Lochdubh, that everything was back to normal, and he had a pleasant dinner to look forward to … and sod Priscilla.

By evening, he felt it had all been some sort of nightmare. The police station was clean, and warm from the fire in the kitchen stove. Towser was happily stretched out before it. He phoned his cousin in London to tell him about the case and then he bathed and dressed in a clean shirt and tie and his one pair of good trousers.

Jenny and her mother were already there and waiting for him when he arrived at the restaurant. As soon as the pre-dinner drinks had been served, he was pressed to tell them all about it.

‘It was the madness of it all,’ said Hamish. ‘That was the clue. Your daughter helped a lot, Mrs Trask.’

‘She’s a bright girl,’ said Mrs Trask fondly and patted her daughter’s hand. ‘But how did she help?’

‘She said she was upset because she sensed one of them was mad. I found myself thinking about that. Then my cousin, Rory, who works for a newspaper, said the religious correspondent had been taken off to a mental asylum. I talked to him again before coming here, and he was saying how odd it was that in newspapers, the church, law, or various other places which house eccentrics, that someone can be going quite mad and yet all that happens for a long time is that they build up the reputation of being a “great old character”. Now John Taylor had punched a policeman in the face outside the Old Bailey for trying to stop him parking on a double-yellow line. You would have thought that would have been the end of Mr Taylor’s career, but not a bit of it. The policeman did not press charges, but it got in the newspapers and John Taylor received very affectionate comments from various columnists.’

‘For attacking a policeman!’ exclaimed Mrs Trask.

‘My cousin, Rory, said that journalists and readers are fed up with the strict parking laws in London. So Mr Taylor’s mad behaviour was treated as that of a great old character who had simply done what a great deal of the public and press feel like doing when accused of a parking offence.’ Warming to his subject under their admiring gaze, Hamish went on to tell them about the light bulb.

‘So the difficulty in solving the case,’ said Mrs Trask shrewdly, ‘was because the murder was done by a rank amateur?’

‘A lucky one, too,’ said Hamish.

The door of the restaurant opened and Priscilla came in with Jamie. They sat at a table by the window that had just been vacated. Priscilla was wearing a short scarlet wool dress with a black patent-leather belt. Jamie had changed into a dark, beautifully tailored suit for dinner. He looked smooth and rugged at the same time, like a man in an aftershave-lotion advertisement.

‘It is interesting,’ Mrs Trask was saying, ‘because the murder was solved in such an amateur way.’

‘What?’ said Hamish, wrenching his eyes away from Priscilla.

‘Mummy!’ protested Jenny.

‘Well, one could hardly expect you to be an expert,’ said Mrs Trask in a kindly voice. ‘You’re only a village policeman. But it is amusing, when you think of it; an amateur murder which could only probably have been solved by another amateur.’

‘Mummy, you’d better explain,’ said Jenny in an agonized voice. ‘You’re being quite rude.’

Jamie was talking away but Priscilla was not listening to him. She was listening instead to Mrs Trask, who had a carrying voice.

‘I mean …’ Mrs Trask rolled linguine neatly round her fork and popped it in her mouth before going on, ‘if that girl at the hotel hadn’t discovered about the light bulbs, you would have had nothing other to go on but some trumped-up evidence that would have fallen on its face if you ever got the case to court.’

‘Who said it was trumped-up evidence?’ demanded Hamish stiffly.

‘Jenny said two local men were called into the library to give evidence. They were not even taken off to Strathbane to make statements, which they surely should have been if they were witnesses and telling the truth. Jenny met them waiting at reception and one of them told her that they were witnesses to the murder. But it was in the newspapers, on radio and on television, and surely every detail of the case was chewed over in this little village, and yet two locals did not come forward at the time! Do you know what I think?’

‘No,’ said Hamish crossly.

‘I think you got them to say they saw something to startle John Taylor into an admission of guilt.’ She shook her head and gave a patronizing laugh. ‘So Highland. So amateur.’

‘I really cannot be bothered arguing with you,’ said Hamish.

‘Oh, Mummy, Hamish is the one who persuaded me to sit for my bar exams.’

‘I’m not surprised. You are not married, are you, Mr Macbeth?’

‘No.’

‘Well, I hold old-fashioned views. A young girl like Jenny should be thinking of marriage and not a career. If I had known of this dating agency, I would have stopped it. Jenny’s going to come home to live with her parents for a bit.’

‘You never said anything about that,’ gasped Jenny, thinking of her little flat in South Kensington and her freedom.