Hamish Macbeth 20 (2004) - Death of a Poison Pen (9 page)

“Was she? Cool!”

“And did Miss McAndrew go straight on down the street?”

“We didnae stop tae look, man,” said Geordie, whose speech was an odd mixture of Highland dialect and Americanisms culled from movies.

“Did you experience any trouble with Miss McAndrew?”

“All the time. She told me to stay away from Penny. She said Penny was meant for better things.”

“What did you reply to that?”

Geordie looked at him with scorn. “Lissen, copper, when the auldies are getting at ye, ye say, ‘Right, miss, no, miss, sure, miss.’”

“Did Penny not find the attentions of Miss McAndrew embarrassing?”

“She got the best marks in her exams. I think Miss McAndrew fixed a lot of her papers.”

“Did Penny tell you that?”

“Naw, just a guess.”

“Your father was angry with Miss McAndrew, wasn’t he?”

“Aye, herself gave me a bad mark in an exam. History, it was. I’m good at history. He demanded to see the exam paper and she wouldn’t let him see it, so he said he’d write to the education board. My dad said she was taking her spite out on me because of Penny.”

“If you hear anything at all, Geordie, that might be relevant, let me know.”

Geordie looked as if someone had just pinned a deputy sheriff’s badge on him. His face beamed. “Sure, guv,” he said. “You can count on me.”

After Geordie had left, Freda said, “I thought Miss McAndrew was a bully, but I never thought she’d cheat.”

“It looks as if she might have done.” Hamish thanked her again and left. He made his way out of the school and along the quiet tree-lined street which led to the main thoroughfare. At the corner stood the community hall. He peered in the window. It was full of old people, watching television, playing cards, reading, or just chatting. He pushed open the door and went in. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked an elderly lady in a wheelchair.

“Mr. Blakey, ower there.”

Mr. Blakey was a thin man whose face was covered in a film of sweat. The room was not particularly warm. Hamish noticed he had a slight tic at the corner of his mouth and that his nails were bitten to the quick. The sweating, he judged, must be a nervous condition. Mr. Blakey, as he was to discover, walked about in a sort of tropical rain forest.

“Mr. Blakey?”

“That’s me.” Mr. Blakey took a damp handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow.

“How often do you meet here?”

“It’s open every morning. Then twice a week, Mondays and Fridays, we show videos in the evening.”

“There’s a Mrs. Harris. She seems quite lonely. I would like to bring her along.”

“What about this Friday?” suggested Mr. Blakey. “We’re showing
Green Card
at seven o’clock. I can’t afford the new videos.”

“And you probably pay for them yourself,” said Hamish, recognising one of the world’s few genuine do-gooders in this thin, nervous man.

“Well, funds are not that great.”

“Is this your full-time job? You’re what? In your fifties? Not old these days.”

“I worked at the bank for years. Had a bit of a nervous breakdown. This keeps me occupied.”

“I’ll come on Friday,” said Hamish. “I’ve got a lot of videos at home I’ll never look at again. I’ll bring them with me.”

Mr. Blakey thanked him and Hamish made his way to Mrs. Harris’s flat, where he told her about the old folks’ club. “Amy—Miss Beattie—was always on at me to go, but I didn’t want to be with a lot of old folk.”

“It’d be company for you. They’re showing a movie on Friday night. I’ll take you along.”

“I don’t know…”

“Give it a try. I’ll pick you up at a quarter to seven on Friday. That way you’ll not need to go yourself.”

She reluctantly agreed. Hamish’s motives were not entirely altruistic. He was sure an old folks’ club would be a good source of gossip.

Pat Mallone enjoyed his day with Jenny. They toured round a few beauty spots, ate lunch, and wandered around Braikie, where he asked questions of passersby in a not very interested way. It was only when he had dropped Jenny off and returned to his office that he realised he hadn’t enough for a feature piece. Sam, his boss, looked at him in irritation. Pat had started off well, but Sam had noticed he was beginning to slope off on jobs. “You go over to Lairg and find out how sheep prices are doing,” he said. “Get off early in the morning.”

“But what about Braikie?”

“I’ll send Elspeth.”

“But I can do it!”

“You had your chance.”

Hamish collected a reluctant Lugs at the end of a weary day when he felt he had got nowhere at all. He decided to put on his best suit and invite Jenny for dinner in the hope—although he would not admit it to himself—that Priscilla might get to hear of it.

He brushed his red hair until it shone and put on his one Savile Row suit, courtesy of a thrift shop in Strathbane, knotted a silk tie over his white shirt, and was heading for the kitchen door when it opened and Elspeth stood there.

“Don’t you ever knock?” asked Hamish.

“I heard you coming to the door. Goodness, you do look grand. Just as well I dressed up.”

“Why?” Elspeth was wearing a long fake fur over a filmy grey dress. Instead of her usual clumpy boots, she had on a pair of black high-heeled sandals.

Elspeth smiled. “Because I’m taking you for dinner.”

“I was going to take Jenny.”

“Tough. She’s eaten and is going to have an early night.”

“How do you know?”

The truthful answer to that was that Elspeth had met Jenny as that young lady was on her way to the police station to see Hamish. Elspeth, with true Highland aplomb, had cheerfully lied, telling Jenny that Hamish was stuck in Braikie until late, and Jenny had said that in that case she would take Mrs. Dunne’s offer of a meal and go to bed afterwards and read.

“Because she told me,” said Elspeth cheerfully. “Come along.”

Hamish looked at her suspiciously as she tripped along beside him on the waterfront. The mist had come down and little pearls of moisture shone in Elspeth’s hair.

Willie Lament, who used to work in the police force and was now a waiter at the Italian restaurant, greeted them as they entered. “The table at the window’s clear,” he said. “I’ll just be giving it another clean.”

“It looks chust fine,” said Hamish, irritated as always by Willie’s obsession with cleanliness and by the obscure feeling that he had somehow been hijacked by Elspeth.

Willie held a can of spray cleaner over the table. “Just a wee scoosh,” he pleaded.

“Oh, go on,” said Hamish impatiently. “Stand back, Elspeth. That man’s lungs must be full of Pledge.”

Willie eagerly polished the table until it shone. Finally they sat down. “It’s got worse,” said Hamish gloomily. “When they had the checked plastic covers, he scrubbed them until they faded. Now they’ve got wooden tables, you can hardly taste the food for the smell o’ furniture polish.”

“He used to work for you, didn’t he? How was he as a policeman?”

“Awful. He couldn’t get out on a case for either hanging around the restaurant courting Lucia or turning out the whole police station and scrubbing down the walls.” Lucia was a relative of the Italian owner and now married to Willie.

“Well, Lucia seems happy with him.”

“Of course, she is. She never has to do a hand’s turn around the house. What are you having?”

“I don’t feel adventurous tonight. I’ll just have the spag bol and a salad, and some garlic bread.”

“I’ll have the same.”

“And we’ll have a decanter of the house wine.”

“Okay.”

“I’ve got to go to Braikie tomorrow,” said Elspeth after their order had been taken. “Pat was supposed to do a colour piece on Braikie for one of the nationals, but he spent his day romancing Jenny, so I’ve got to do it. I’m surprised he didn’t jump at the chance. He thinks he was meant for better things. Fortunately for him, although it was meant for the daily, they’ve decided to run it on the Sunday.”

“What sort of thing will you be writing?”

“Oh, you know, Hamish—The Village That Lives in Fear.”

“I wish you wouldn’t stir things up. Behind those closed curtains at night in Braikie, people will be whispering to each other, convinced they know who did it. The whole place will soon be engulfed in malice and rumour and spite.”

“Still, I might be able to ferret something out for you.”

“Maybe you’ll have another psychic experience.”

Elspeth shuddered. She had once fainted in Patel’s grocery when a murderer was in the shop. She never wanted to go through anything like that again.

“Talking of psychic experiences,” Hamish went on, “I thought of going to see Angus in the morning.”

“Why? I’m convinced our seer is an old fraud.”

“Maybe, but he hears things. I spoke to Priscilla. Jenny’s a friend of hers.”

Aha, thought Elspeth. Up here to chase Hamish and put Priscilla’s nose out of joint.

Their food arrived at that moment. Elspeth waited until Willie had left, then asked, “How did that go?”

“Fine. She said Jenny had a way of getting people to open up and talk to her.”

“Isn’t one Holmes good enough for you?”

“I sometimes feel I need fifty Holmeses.”

“Someone will break soon and gossip.”

“Oh, they’ll gossip, and maliciously, too, as long as deep in their hearts they know their suspicions are unfounded. But what if they find out it’s one of their own, so to speak, someone they like, someone they will defend from police investigation? Then the whole of Braikie will close down as tight as a drum.”

“Not necessarily. You’re thinking of Miss McAndrew. A lot of people probably disliked her. Her recent crush on young Penny must have made a lot of parents feel that their own precious offspring was being passed over. You’re forgetting about Miss Beattie. I did manage to find out that everyone liked her.”

“Wouldn’t her affair have diminished her respectability?”

“No. Billy Mackay, the postman, is well liked. His wife is not.”

“Is there anything else you’ve found out about the villagers?” asked Hamish. “I mean, anyone who was acting suspiciously? Anyone on that road to Miss McAndrew’s?”

“Nothing, really. Oh, I forgot one thing. There’s an old folks’ club in Braikie.”

“I know,” said Hamish. “I’m taking old Mrs. Harris there on Friday, you know, the one who found Miss Beattie’s body. She’s lonely and needs to get out more. Also, I may pick up some gossip.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Elspeth.

Hamish looked at her with a flicker of annoyance in his eyes. Couldn’t she wait to be asked? But instead he said, “What do you know about the old folks’ club?”

“It’s maybe not much. But when Mr. Blakey was setting it up, he asked the Currie sisters for advice.”

“So?”

“Well, that means the Currie sisters will know a good bit about Braikie and the people in it.”

Hamish groaned. The Currie sisters were twin spinsters of the parish and never lost a chance to criticise him.

“I’ll see them tomorrow,” he said gloomily, “after I see Angus.”

The weather of Sutherland had made one of its mercurial changes when Hamish left the following morning, with Lugs on the leash, to walk to the seer’s. The sun blazed down and the mountains soared up into a pale blue sky. He was halfway up the hill at the back of the village when he sensed someone following him and turned round. Jenny came up, her face scarlet with exertion. “What is it?” he asked impatiently.

“I just wanted to apologise again,” said Jenny.

She looked so pretty and so distressed that Hamish said, “That’s behind us now. I’m on my way to grill our local seer. Like to come and meet him?”

“Oh, yes, please. Can he really tell the future?”

“I doubt it. But he can be a good source of gossip. I’ve got fish for him. He aye likes a present.”

“Oh, I haven’t got anything.”

“I’ll say the fish is from both of us.”

Hamish cast a calculating eye down on the top of Jenny’s curls. Priscilla had said that people talked to Jenny. Once again, he thought she might come in useful.

And so it seemed. For Angus’s welcome was at first sour as he ungraciously received a present of two trout from Hamish. “Could you no’ bring anything better?” he complained. “My freezer’s full of fish.”

“It’s a present from both of us,” said Hamish, stepping aside and revealing Jenny.

“Come ben,” said Angus, suddenly expansive. “So this is the wee lassie I’ve been hearing about. The one who’s a friend o’ Priscilla.”

Now, how did he hear that? wondered Hamish.

Angus’s cottage parlour was as picturesque as ever with a blackened kettle hanging on a chain over a peat fire. Three high-backed Orkney chairs were grouped in front of the fireplace, and Angus waved them towards them.

“Tea?” he asked Jenny.

“Yes, please,” said Jenny, looking around with interest.

Angus shuffled off to his kitchen at the back, which Hamish knew was generously furnished with the latest kitchen gadgets, including a large freezer. He also knew Angus had an electric kettle in the kitchen, but, for visitors, he preferred to go through the business of unhooking the old kettle from the fire.

When they all had cups of tea in their hands and Lugs was stretched out in front of the fire, Hamish began: “Now, Angus, there is the question of these murders. Have you heard anything?”

Angus stroked his long grey beard. His eyes fell on Jenny, who was leaning forward eagerly. “I do not hear. I see things,” he said portentously. Jenny let out an excited little gasp, and Angus beamed at her.

“What do you see?” asked Hamish patiently. Angus closed his eyes. The old grandfather clock in the corner gave an asthmatic cough and then chimed the hours. Jenny decided that it was worth all the humiliation of being found out to be here and witness this. Hamish, however, was becoming bored and restless. He knew Angus was putting on his usual act and wished he’d get over it and get down to what he had really heard.

Angus opened his eyes. They were staring and unfocussed. “Oh, God,” he said in a low voice. “Old people. Old people fainting and screaming. Something horrible. Something evil.” Lugs gave a sharp bark.

“Who? What?” demanded Hamish.

Angus’s pale eyes now focussed on him. “I think I’ll go and lie down,” he said.