Hamish Macbeth 20 (2004) - Death of a Poison Pen (18 page)

Blair was standing outside Freda’s house. He looked tired and unshaven. His heavy face darkened when he saw Hamish Macbeth arriving.

“I think we should keep Macbeth on the case,” said Daviot. “He knows the locals better than anyone. You have something to say, do you not, Constable?”

Hamish stood before Blair, his face the very picture of contrition. “I am right sorry I shouted at you, sir,” he said. “Please accept my apology.”

Blair opened his mouth to blast Hamish, but Daviot said quickly, “Good, that’s settled. Get off to the school, Macbeth.”

Suppressing a grin, Hamish drove off to the school. To his surprise, he saw Pat Mallone driving away from the school with Jenny beside him and wondered what they had been doing.

Pat Mallone was elated. He had a decent story at last. He forgot that the whole thing had been Jenny’s idea. Jenny had said that maybe Freda had committed suicide because she had been bullied. There was a lot of bullying went on in schools. To humour her, he had gone along with her idea and had struck gold. They had caught the teachers as they were arriving at the school and they had talked freely about how Freda’s mother was a demanding tyrant and how Mr. Arkle had made the girl’s life hell. Pat and Jenny had tried to interview Mr. Arkle, but he had snarled at them and rushed off into the school.

Pat also ignored the fact that it was Jenny’s sympathetic manner which had elicited the quotes. Bullied to death. What a story!

Back at the
Highland Times
, Sam listened to his account. “Great stuff,” he said. “Write up a piece for us and get it off as well to the nationals and the agencies.”

Jenny sat down beside Pat at his desk. When she saw what a bad typist he was, she said, “I’ll type. You dictate.”

By altering a lot of Pat’s clumsier sentences, she felt it was a good article. It only showed what Pat could do with a strong woman to help him. Jenny’s spirits had risen and she dreamt of a great and successful future for both of them.

Hamish guessed that Pat and Jenny had spiked his guns. A furious Mr. Arkle refused to let him speak to the teachers. When Hamish told him that he would arrest him and charge him with obstructing the police, Arkle relented. But when Hamish interviewed the teachers, all were wishing they had not criticised their head teacher, so they did not mention his treatment of Freda but confined themselves to comments that they believed Freda’s mother to be demanding and difficult.

For want of a better idea, he decided to have another go at Joseph Cromarty. He found the truculent ironmonger in his dark shop. The sun now only shone on the other side of the street. The nights were drawing in fast. Soon the sun would rise at ten in the morning and set at two in the afternoon. Winter was one long dark tunnel in northern Scotland.

“What d’ye want?” demanded Joseph. “I’m busy.”

“Aye, I can see that,” said Hamish sarcastically, looking around the empty shop. “Now, you were once overheard saying you felt like killing Miss McAndrew…”

“So what? Me and a lot o’ other people.”

“What other people?”

Joseph scowled horribly. “I cannae bring them to mind. Leave me alone.”

“Think, man. I’m not accusing you of anything. Haven’t you heard anything, seen anything?”

“I thought the murders were solved,” said Joseph. “That wee girl, Freda, did them.”

“No, she didn’t. That was a suicide, pure and simple.”

“Come on! There was a polis in here earlier saying as how everything was wrapped up.”

“He made a mistake,” said Hamish wearily.

He tried a few more questions without getting anywhere. Hamish wandered over to the post office. He hoped it might be quiet and that he might have a chance to have a word with Mrs. Harris, but it was full of chattering women, all exclaiming and gossiping about Freda’s death.

They fell silent when they saw him. He asked them all if they could think of anything, any small thing, that might help to solve the murders. Startled faces looked at him. Shocked voices exclaimed that they had heard Freda Mather was a murderess. Hamish’s news that Freda had nothing to do with the murders sent them all scurrying off.

“Are you sure Miss Beattie never said anything to you about why she left Perth?” Hamish asked Mrs. Harris.

“Just that she had been unhappy at home and that her parents were awfy strict. Maybe you should try Billy again. He’s still out on his rounds but he should be back any minute. He starts around six in the morning with his deliveries. He drives his van in round the back.”

Hamish left and went up a lane at the side of the post office and waited patiently in the yard at the rear.

After a ten-minute wait, the post office van came into the yard. Billy climbed out and greeted Hamish with, “I shouldn’t feel happy about that wee lassie’s death, but to tell the truth, it’s a weight off my mind. I thought that bastard Blair would never give up suspecting me.”

“I’m afraid whatever policeman has been gossiping around Braikie is wrong, Billy. Freda took’ her own life and I’m willing to bet anything she had nothing at all to do with the murders.”

Billy sat down suddenly on an upturned crate. “Will this all never end, Hamish? It’s a misery at home with herself nagging me from morn till night. Now Amy’s gone, life looks awfy bleak.”

Hamish pulled up another crate and sat down next to the postman. “Are you sure, Billy, she never gave you a hint of why she left Perth?”

“Well, she would talk a lot about how strict her parents were. Things like that.”

“What about old boyfriends?”

“No, never.”

“Was she frightened of anyone?”

“She was frightened of the poison-pen writer.”

“Why frightened, Billy? People were angry and upset, but frightened?”

“Our affair meant a lot to her, as it did to me. She said, “If she takes this away from me, there’ll be nothing left.””

“Wait a bit. When she was talking about the poison-pen writer, she said ‘she’?”

“I never gave it much thought. I mean, we all thought it must be some woman. I mean, it’s hardly the thing a man would do.”

“But there was a case recently of a man in England who was exposed as a poison-pen writer and the story was in the Scottish papers.”

“I don’t remember that.”

“Billy, I want you to think and think hard. Go over all the conversations you had, and if you can remember the slightest thing, let me know.”

“But what would that have to do with the death of Miss McAndrew?”

“Some way they’re tied together.”

“I’ll do my best.”

Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast
.

—Blaise Pascal

A
t the end of a long day, Hamish returned to his police station. He checked on his sheep and locked his hens up for the night. There was a fox roaming around and Hamish knew if he saw it, he would take his shotgun and blast the animal to kingdom come. He was always amazed at the bleeding hearts of townspeople who would step on a cockroach but went all sentimental over Mr. Foxy. Had they ever been at the receiving end of the cruelty of a fox, who would kill lambs and hens and leave them bleeding, not killing for food but for the sheer hell of it, perhaps it would have changed their minds—although he doubted it. There existed in the British Isles a large body of people who neither knew much about nor understood wild animals, the sort of people who would shake their heads and say, “Animals are better than people any day,” by which they meant that they demanded unconditional love from dogs and cats but found humans too difficult.

He had been turned off animal documentaries on television because they always gave animals pet names, saying, “Here comes Betty,” and on the screen limps an antelope, say, which has been rejected by the herd, and ten to one it is going to be eaten before the end by some other creature that Hamish cynically thought the film makers let out of a cage to speed up the process. Then there is little Jimmy, the baby turtle, just born and struggling towards the ocean, and Hamish always knew that little Jimmy was not going to make it. Some marauding seagull would get him. So in all, he found an animal documentary as much fun as a snuff movie.

He went indoors and made himself some supper and was emotionally blackmailed into sharing it with Lugs, who whined and rattled his bowl, although he was sure Angela had fed the dog earlier.

He then went through to the office and switched on the computer and began to go through his reports. Archie had said he had seen someone possibly aged seventeen lurking near the post office. But he had not seen the person’s face and seventeen would seem old to Archie, so it could have been anyone.

There was a knock at the kitchen door and he heard Elspeth’s voice calling out, “Hamish, are you there?”

“I’m in the office,” he shouted back, “but I’m busy.”

Undeterred, Elspeth strolled into the office. “Hard at work, copper?”

“Aye, I’m going over my notes, so I haven’t time to talk.”

“Why don’t we go over them together? I might see something you’ve missed.”

“I doubt it,” said Hamish crossly.

“Come on, Hamish. Even if I make a stupid suggestion, it might spark an intelligent one.”

“Oh, all right. Sit down and keep quiet.”

Elspeth pulled up a chair beside him and sat quietly while he scrolled through the notes on the computer screen. He reached the notes he had typed in after his visit to Perth. “I haven’t sent this stuff over,” he said, “because I didn’t get anywhere and I wasn’t even supposed to be there.”

“Wait a minute,” said Elspeth. “This Graham Simpson said that Peter Stoddart was in Australia. Now, that name rings a bell. Let me think.”

Hamish waited patiently.

“I know. Moy Hall, outside Inverness. I was covering the fair there a year ago. I’m sure a chap called Peter Stoddart won the clay pigeon shoot.”

“Could be lots of Peter Stoddarts.”

“But we got a photo of him.”

“Let’s go along to that office of yours and see if you’ve still got the photo in the files.”

As they walked into the newspaper office, Sam waylaid Elspeth, saying, “Don’t you think I should give Pat another chance? He did a good story on the bullying.”

“I haven’t had time to tell you,” said Elspeth, “but that colour piece in the
Sunday Bugle
was mine. He put his byline on it instead of mine.”

Sam sighed. “Oh, well, in that case he can leave at the end of the month. What are you doing here, Hamish?”

“Detecting.”

“If you come up with anything that would make a story, let me know.”

Elspeth went to the filing cabinets where the photographs were stored. “We’ve had so many dizzy village girls helping out with the filing, God knows what it’ll be under.”

She tried under ‘Moy Hall.’ Then under ‘Clay pigeon shooting.’ No success.

“Can you remember the headline?” asked Hamish.

“It was something daft. Sam does the headlines. Oh, I remember:
FASTEST GUN IN THE NORTH
.”

“Try under ‘F’.”

“Really, Hamish!”

“You ought to know how the locals think.”

“Okay, Sherlock. Here are the F’s. Gosh, you’re right. I’ve got it.”

Elspeth pulled out a photograph.

“Let’s take it over to the light,” said Hamish. He fished in his inside pocket and pulled out the photograph of Amy Beattie with the bikers.

In Elspeth’s photograph, a burly man stood holding up a silver cup. His hair was white. Hamish looked from Elspeth’s photograph to the one in his hand.

“I swear they’re one and the same person,” he said. “Can you fish out the article? There would be a caption under the photograph.”

“We still keep back copies of the paper in bound volumes. You’ll need to help me. They’re through in the storeroom.”

Hamish walked with her through to a room at the back of the building where the bound volumes of the paper were stored. Elspeth scanned the spines. “It’s that one. Up on the top shelf,” she said.

Hamish reached up and lifted it down. They carried it to a table. Elspeth opened it and flipped through the August editions of the newspaper until she found the right one. “Here we are! Right on page one.”

They both bent over the paper, their heads together. The caption under the photograph read: “Winner of the clay pigeon shoot at Moy Hall, Mr. Peter Stoddart of Perth.”

“Where in Perth?” demanded Hamish.

“I might have put it in the article,” said Elspeth. “Ah, here it is. Peter Stoddart, plumber, of 58 Herrich Road, Perth.”

Hamish closed the book, lifted it up, and put it back on the shelf. “I’ve got to get to Perth tomorrow,” he said. “That bank manager said this Stoddart was in Australia. Why would he lie?”

“You’ll maybe find out he went to Australia and came back again. Go and see him first before you start accusing the bank manager of anything.”

“I’ve got to get to Perth without Blair knowing anything. If I tell him, he’ll tell me I’m wasting my time and if I’ve got any suspicions, to tell the Perth police. Och. I’ll chust go. With luck he’ll think I’m somewhere around Braikie making enquiries.”

“But what’s so important about all this, Hamish?”

“I’ve got to find out what drove Miss Beattie away from her home.”

“That’s easy. Her parents.”

“Maybe. I’ve got to try anyway.”

Hamish set off with Lugs beside him early the next morning. It was a dismal day with a fine drizzle smearing the windscreen. This time, he was not wearing his uniform. He shouldn’t have been wearing it the last time, he thought. He could have been spotted by some Perth policeman. Of course, some Perth policeman could easily spot the Land Rover, but he felt less conspicuous walking around in civilian clothes. He decided to try to find Peter Stoddart and tackle him first.

Again, outside Perth, he stopped by the road, walked Lugs, and consulted his map of Perth. Then he set off again, hoping that Stoddart worked from home.

Herrich Road was in a fairly new housing development on the outside of the town. He located Stoddart’s house and went up and knocked at the door, which was answered by a tired, faded-looking woman.