Death of a Gossip (10 page)

‘He wants to see you,’ said John to Heather. He added in a low voice as he held open the door for her, ‘I told him we didn’t know what she did.’

The door to the lounge opened, and a small, anxious-looking woman dressed in a lumpy, powder-blue dress fussed in, dragging Charlie with her. ‘I’m Mrs Baxter, Tina Baxter,’ she
announced, staring around the room with rather bulging blue eyes. ‘I only arrived today. My poor boy’ She tried to hug Charlie, but he flinched away from this public demonstration of
maternal affection.

‘You should keep the boy away from this,’ said John. ‘There was no need to bring him along.’

‘There was every need,’ said Tina Baxter. ‘I was told the police wanted to interrogate the whole fishing class and nobody is going to frighten my little boy with a lot of
questions.’

She proceeded to tell the bemused company about her divorce and the difficulties of rearing a boy single-handed, and that Charlie had written to her saying this Lady Jane was a cruel and evil
woman. Her words began to tumble out one over the other in an increasingly unintelligible stream.

Then she stopped suddenly and stared at the door with her mouth open. Hamish’s big brass had arrived from Strathbane.

A big, heavyset man draped in a grey double-breasted suit introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Blair. He was flanked by two other detectives, Jimmy Anderson and Harry MacNab. Jimmy
Anderson was thin and wiry with suspicious blue eyes, and MacNab was short and dumpy with thick black hair and wet-looking black eyes.

‘Which one of you runs this school?’ demanded Mr Blair. He spoke with a thick Glaswegian accent.

‘I do,’ said John. ‘Constable Macbeth is talking to my wife at the moment.’

‘Where?’

‘In there,’ said John. ‘I’ll show you the way.’

‘No need,’ said Blair. ‘We’ll introduce ourselves.’

Hamish got to his feet as the three men entered the small office. Heather gratefully escaped.

‘Macbeth, is it?’ said Blair, sitting down in the chair Hamish had just vacated. ‘We’ve got a real juicy one here. Bit out of your league, Constable. The boys and the
forensic team are combing the ground. Good bit of work on your part to get the water bailiffs to stand guard.’

He smiled at Hamish and waited for a look of gratitude to appear on the constable’s face at the compliment. Hamish looked stolidly back, and Blair scowled with irritation.

‘Yes, well, I suppose they all know they’re supposed to stay put until I’m satisfied that no one in this school did it. School, indeed. All that money and fuss just to catch a
fish.’

‘I think it would be better if I told them they are not to leave Lochdubh at the moment,’ said Hamish. ‘Them not having the ESP.’

‘Enough of that,’ snapped Blair. ‘Before I have the rest in, what do you think the motive was for this murder?’

‘I think it had something to do with Lady Jane’s job,’ said Hamish slowly.

‘Job? What job?’

‘Lady Jane Winters was, in fact, Jane Maxwell, columnist for the London
Evening Star.’

‘That rag! Well, what’s so bad about being a columnist?’

‘I understand she specialized in taking holidays where there were going to be small groups of British people. She would find out something nasty about each one, since she liked to prove
that everyone has a skeleton in the closet. There have been complaints to the press council, but her column’s been too popular. Folks chust lap it up and think it will never happen to them.
Maybe someone in this group knew about her column, although the fact that she was Jane Maxwell was kept a closely guarded secret.’

‘And how did
you
find out if it’s that much of a secret?’ asked Blair, his eyes raking over the lanky length of the village constable.

‘I haff my methods, Watson,’ grinned Hamish.

‘I am not putting up with any cheek from a Highlander,’ snarled Blair. ‘How did you find out?’

‘I have a relative that works in Fleet Street.’

‘And which of these fishing lot knew about her being Jane Maxwell?’

‘I do not know,’ said Hamish patiently. ‘I was just beginning to find out when you arrived. I have talked with John Cartwright and you interrupted me when I was in the process
of talking to Mrs Heather Cartwright.’

‘Before I start with the rest, I’d better fix up accommodation for me and my men. I’ll stay here myself, but it’s a bit pricey for the lot of us. We’ve got five
officers combing the bushes along with the forensic team at the moment. I saw that police station of yours. You do yourself very well. Any chance of a spare bed or two?’

‘I have not the room. I have the one bed for myself and the other bedroom has not the bed but the gardening stuff and the poultry feed and the bags of fertilizer . . .’

‘Okay, okay, spare me the rural details.’ Blair looked piercingly at Hamish, who gave him a sweet smile.

Simple, thought Blair. Would have to be to live here all year round.

He placed his beefy hands on the desk and looked at Hamish in a kindly way. ‘I’m thinking you’re a wee bit too inexperienced for this sort of high-class crime,’ he said.
‘We’ll use your office at the station because I’m damned if I’ll pay hotel phone prices. I have to fight hard enough to get my expenses as it is. Just you attend to your
usual rounds and leave the detective work to us. We’re all experienced men.’

Hamish looked at the detective chief inspector blankly. Only a few minutes before he had been wondering how to keep out of the case. He had taken a dislike to the chief detective and his
sidekicks and did not want to tag around after them. But now he had been told to keep clear, well, all that did was give him a burning desire to find out who had killed Lady Jane.

‘I’ll be off then,’ said Hamish. Blair watched him go and shook his head sadly. ‘Poor fellow,’ he said. ‘Never had to do any real work in his life before,
and, like all these Highlanders, fights shy of it as much as possible. Send in that American couple, MacNab. Typical pair of tourists. May as well get rid of them first.’

Hamish ambled along the front, gazing dreamily out over the loch. The early evening sun was flooding the bay with gold. A pair of seals were rolling and turning lazily, sending
golden ripples washing about the white hulls of the yachts and the green and black hulls of the fishing boats.

He saw the slim, elegant figure of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe walking towards him, and, suddenly overcome with a mixture of shyness and longing, he stopped and leaned his elbows on the mossy
stone wall above the beach.

She stopped and stood beside him. ‘What’s all this I hear?’ said Priscilla. ‘The hillside’s crawling with bobbies, putting things in plastic bags.’

‘Lady Jane Winters has been murdered.’

‘I heard something to that effect. Big, fat, nasty woman, wasn’t she?’

‘Aye, you could say that.’

‘And who did it, Holmes?’

‘I chust don’t know, and I’ve been more or less told to go home and feed my chickens by the detectives from Strathbane.’

‘Well, you must be pleased about that. I mean, you never were exactly one of the world’s greatest workers.’

‘How would you know that, Miss Halburton-Smythe? It is not as if I have the murder on my hands every day of the week.’

‘You must admit when Daddy wants to talk to you about poaching or something, you’re never where you should be. I told Daddy not to worry you about poachers since you’re one
yourself.’

‘That is not a very nice thing to say’

‘I was only joking. Do you really want to find the murderer? Do you need a Watson? I shall follow you about saying, “By Jove, you’re a wonder. How on earth did you think of
that?” ’

‘Oh, I suppose I’ll do as I’m told and keep out of the way,’ said Hamish equably.

‘Funny, I thought you’d have been dying to find out for yourself. All that Highland curiosity’ Priscilla sounded disappointed.

‘Aye, well . . .’ began Hamish, and then his gaze suddenly sharpened. Mrs Baxter and Charlie could be seen leaving the hotel.

‘Are you going to ask them questions?’ asked Priscilla, following his gaze. ‘Can I listen?’

‘Och, no. The wee lad has a very interesting stamp and I wanted to have another look at it.’

‘Hamish Macbeth, I give you up!’

He gave her a crooked grin. ‘I did not know you had ever taken me on, Miss Halburton-Smythe.’

He pushed his hat up on his forehead, thrust his hands in his pockets, and strolled off to meet the Baxters.

Highly irritated, Priscilla watched him go.

Alice started to dress hurriedly, although it was only seven in the morning. She wanted to escape from the hotel before they were besieged by the press again. They had started
to filter in gradually, and by late evening they had grown to an army: an army of questioning faces. Alice’s juvenile crime loomed large in her mind. If Lady Jane could have found out about
that,
then they could too. Normally Alice would have been thrilled to bits at the idea of getting her photograph in the papers. But her murky past tortured her. Jeremy had been particularly
warm and friendly to her the evening before. She felt sure he would not even look at her again if he found out. The major had howled at the hotel manager over the problem of the press, and the
manager had at last reluctantly banned them. He was thoroughly fed up with the notoriety the murder had brought to his hotel and had hoped to ease the pain with the large amount of money the
gentlemen of the press were spending in the bar. But guests other than the major had complained, guests who came every year. And so the reporters and the photographers were now billeted out in the
village, most of them at a boarding house at the other end of the bay.

Alice was just on the point of leaving the room when the telephone began to ring. She stared at it and then suddenly rushed and picked it up. Her mother’s voice, sharp with agitation,
sounded over the line. ‘What’s all this, luv? Your name’s in the morning papers. You didn’t even tell us you was going to such a place. We’re that worried.’

‘It’s all right, Mum,’ said Alice. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘I know that, luv, but that woman that was murdered, her photo’s in the papers and she was around here last week, asking questions. Said she was writing a piece on young girls who
had made the move to London and their reasons for doing it.’

She must have got all our addresses from Heather, thought Alice with a sudden sickening lurch of the heart. Heather even sent me the names of the other guests, sort of to make it sound
social.

Her voice shrill with anxiety, Alice asked, ‘Did she find out anything about me being in court?’

‘You was never in court, luv.’

‘Yes. ’Member? It was when I broke Mr Jenkins’ window and he took me to the juvenile court.’

‘Oh,
that.
She didn’t ask me and I don’t suppose anyone around here remembers a silly little thing like that. She talked to Maggie Harrison, mind.’

Alice held tightly on to the phone. Maggie Harrison had been her rival for years. If Maggie could have remembered anything nasty about her, Alice, then Maggie would have undoubtedly told
everything.

‘Are you there?’ Her mother’s voice sounded like a squawk. ‘I’m in a call box and the money’s running out. Can you call me back?’

‘No, Mum, I’ve got to go. I’ll be all right.’

‘Take care of yourself, will you? I don’t like you getting mixed up with those sort of people.’

The line went dead.

Alice slowly replaced the receiver and wiped her damp palm on her sweater. Well, Lady Jane couldn’t write anything now.

She turned quickly and ran from the room. Outside the hotel a thin, greasy drizzle was falling.

She looked quickly along the waterfront, dreading to see a reporter waiting to pounce on her, but everything was deserted as far as she could see. She hesitated. Perhaps it would have been
better to stay in the hotel. It was now banned to the press, so why bother to venture out? But the fear of anyone – Jeremy in particular – finding out about her past drove her on.

There was a pleasant smell of woodsmoke, tar, kippers, bacon and strong tea drifting from the cottages. Alice approached Constable Macbeth’s house and saw him standing in his garden,
feeding the chickens. He turned at the sound of her footsteps, and she smiled weakly.

‘Is your third degree over?’ asked the policeman.

‘It wasn’t so bad,’ said Alice. ‘I really didn’t know that awful woman was a newspaper columnist, and I think they believed me.’

‘I was just about to make a cup of tea. Would you like one?’

‘Yes,’ said Alice gratefully, thinking how very unlike a policeman Constable Macbeth looked. He was hatless and wearing an old army sweater and a faded pair of jeans. That chief
detective had made it plain that the village constable would not be having anything to do with the investigation. Mr Macbeth must have riled him in some way because he had been quite unpleasant
about it, Alice remembered. Blair had asked her if she had noticed or heard anything unusual that might point to the murderer, and Alice had shaken her head, but had said if she did remember
anything she would tell Constable Macbeth, and that was when Blair had sourly pointed out that the village policeman was not part of the murder investigation.

Alice followed Hamish into his kitchen, which was long and narrow with a table against the window.

She looked around the kitchen curiously. It was messy in a clean sort of way. There were piles of magazines, china, bits of old farm implements, Victorian dolls, and stacks of jam jars.

‘I’m a hoarder,’ said Mr Macbeth. ‘I aye think a thing’ll fetch a good price if I just hang on to it. I have a terrible time throwing things away. Milk and
sugar?’

‘Yes, please,’ said Alice. He gave her a cup, sat down next to her at the table, and heaped five spoonfuls of sugar into his own tea.

‘Do I look like a murderer?’ asked Alice intently.