Death Of A Scriptwriter Part 19

He parked the Land Rover outside the general store and then walked to Edie Aubrey's cottage. The front window was boarded up. In a more civilised part of the country, a glazier would have replaced the broken window by now, but in the Highlands it was very hard to get anything repaired quickly. Glaziers, plumbers, electricians, men who repaired dry stone walls and builders all seemed to suffer from bad backs. The work always eventually got done, but it took a long time.

He knocked on the door, and after a few moments Edie answered it. She was a scrawny woman with thick gla.s.ses and dressed in a track suit of a violent shade of red.

"Hamish!" she said. "What brings you?"

"Can I come in?"

"Yes, of course. I was just about to put the kettle on. Take a seat in the lounge."

Hamish went into an uncomfortable, overdecorated room. Although not a Highlander, Edie had adopted the Highland way of keeping one room for 'best,' so it had that clean, glittering look and stuffy, unused smell. It was all in shades of pink. Barbara Cartland would have loved it. There was a pink threepiece suite upholstered in some nasty slippery material. Pink curtains hung at the boarded-up window, and the walls were painted in a shade Hamish recognised as being called blush pink. Pink scatter cushions cascaded onto the floor as he sat down. The sofa was so overstuffed, he felt himself slipping forwards, so he retrieved the cushions and then sat down on the one hard upright chair in the room.

Edie came in carrying a gla.s.s tray with thin cups on it, cups embellished with gold rims and pink roses.

"Could we have some light in here, Edie?" asked Hamish, peering at her through the gloom.

"Of course." She switched on a pink-shaded, pink-fringed standard lamp.

"Now, Edie, what happened to your window?"

"The silliest thing," said Edie with awful brightness. "I was vacuuming the room and I slipped and the end of the vacuum went straight through the window."

"So all this talk about someone throwing a brick through the window is lies? Come on, Edie, I'm not daft and I know what goes on in Drim. Someone was jealous of you getting a wee speaking part."

Edie glared at him and then shrugged her thin shoulders. "Oh, well, you know how we are here. Someone pushed money in an envelope through the letter box the other day for the repairs. We settle our own disputes."

"You are a bunch of silly hens," said Hamish. "And what about this film the minister's wife is doing?"

"Oh, that was fun for a while," said Edie, lying back against the sofa in a jaded, sophisticated way. "But we can't be caught up in the wee woman's amateur dramatics every day of the week."

"You're making a big mistake there," said Hamish. "Oh, me and my big mouth!"

Edie sat up straight. "What do you know?"

Hamish smiled at her ruefully and then shrugged. "Oh, well, then I'll tell ye, Edie, but it's to be a secret, chust between the two of us. Promise you won't breathe a word!"

"I promise. Would you like a dram?"

"No, it's too early and I'm driving." He leaned forward and lowered his voice. "As part of this murder case, I haff been checking up on the backgrounds of everyone."

"I heard you were off it," said Edie.

"This was afore," said Hamish huffily. "Do you want to hear this or not?"

"Yes, yes, go on."

Hamish took a slow sip of tea while Edie waited eagerly.

"In the background of the minister's wife..."

"I knew it! I knew it!" said Edie, her pale eyes shining behind her gla.s.ses. "Scandal!"

"No, nothing like that," said Hamish sternly, "and I won't be telling you, Edie, if you keep interrupting."

"Go on."

"That play of hers, when she was a la.s.sie, was performed at the university and got rave reviews. She was approached by a major film company. They wanted to buy the rights."

"Oh, my. What did she do?"

"Her parents were Calvinists and against the movies. They made her turn it down. But I happen to know-if you tell any one this, I'll kill ye!"

"No, no. Go on. Have a biscuit."

Hamish selected a foilwrapped Penguin chocolate biscuit and began to peel off the wrapping with maddening slowness. Then he took a bite and looked at Edie solemnly.

"I happen to know that Eileen Jessop is sending her film off tae Hollywood to some big producer. It's a deadly secret. She hasnae even told her husband."

He smiled sweetly at Edie's astonished face. He finished his biscuit and drained his cup and stood up.

"But if you get any more attacks from the locals, Edie, you should tell me."

"Oh, I will, Hamish. And I won't breathe a word."

Hamish turned in the doorway. "See that you don't."

Edie's next visitor was Holly Andrews.

"We put Eileen Jessop in her place," said Holly. "It's a bit vain, don't you think, Edie, her wanting us to take time off from our homes to act in her wee bittie film when we could all be stars."

"We're all thinking this television thing is going to be shown," said Edie. "But there's a jinx on it already. One of the camera crew said they were getting worried on BBC Scotland that it might be tasteless to show it at all in view of the deaths. I think we were all a bit hard on Eileen. Come to think of it, I think my part could do with more work. I'm going up to Eileen's to say I'll be available for more filming."

Holly was jealous of Eileen's friendship with Ailsa. "She puts on airs because she's the minister's wife, but I tell you this, Edie, if she shows that tosh she's filmed outside of Drim, we'll be a laughing stock."

Edie leaned forward, her face intense in the gloom of her living room. "If I tell you something, Holly, something about Eileen, will you promise not to breathe a word?"

"I'm a clam. You know me. I wouldn't say a word to a soul."

Holly's eyes grew rounder and rounder as Edie repeated what she had heard from Hamish Macbeth.

"So you're not to say anything, mind!" cautioned Edie as Holly made her way out.

Colin Jessop had gone off to Inverness, and Eileen was alone that evening. She felt depressed and let down.

She walked to the manse window and looked down the drive. And then she saw the village women, done up in their best, walking up the drive, happy and chattering, headed by Edie Aubrey.

She went and opened the door. "We've just been thinking," said Edie excitedly, "that it would do no harm to let you film a bit more."

"If you really want to," said Eileen, surprised.

There was a chorus of 'Yes, yes,' as they all crowded into the manse.

Eileen smiled with relief and went to get her camera.

A busy and energetic evening was spent, busy because, not being able to build sets, Eileen had used the interiors of several of the older cottages, so they moved from house to house. Eileen returned to the manse with Ailsa.

"How marvellous they all were," said Eileen. "So enthusiastic and everyone acting so well. I could hardly believe it."

Ailsa grinned. "You've Hamish Macbeth to thank for that. Man, he must be the best liar in the Highlands, and that's saying something."

"What do you mean?"

"I didn't let on, Eileen, but Hamish told Edie Aubrey that when your play was put on at the university it got rave reviews and you were approached by a major film company, but that your parents were Calvinists and against the movies and wouldn't let you sign the contract, but now you were going to send this film off to Hollywood."

"They never believed such a load of rubbish!"

"'Course they did. Macbeth told Edie he would kill her if she told anyone."

"This is awful. We must put them right."

"Why? You're having fun, aren't you?"

"But you didn't believe it. Why?"

"Because we're friends and you would have told me."

Eileen grinned. "'I've a bottle of champagne someone gave me two Christmases ago at the bottom of my wardrobe. We'll open it now."

She longed to tell Ailsa what Sheila had said, but Sheila had told her not to tell anyone. Eileen only hoped Ailsa would not be angry when, if, she ever found out.

Sunday arrived in Lochdubh, wet and misty and warm, "a great day for the midges," as the locals described the weather.

It was as if the whole Highland world had ground to a halt. It was hard to think that only recently the village had been crowded with pressmen looking for rooms.

Hamish Macbeth, as he went about his domestic ch.o.r.es, thought how easy it would be to let all thoughts of the murder go. Leave it to Lovelace.

And yet, he had not been able to find that tramp Scan Fitz.

Hamish had given up waiting for Sheila to phone and give him some explanation of why she had not turned up at the restaurant.

He decided to drive out and try once more to find Scan. He remembered two years ago, when he was out on his rounds, seeing the shambling figure of the tramp trudging along some road or other.

He began his search again. It was only after a morning of fruitless hunting that he remembered the tramp was religious, a Roman Catholic. He began to check Catholic church after Catholic church, until at Dornoch he found that Scan had been sighted at ma.s.s the evening before.

Hamish had some mad hope that if he found the tramp, that if Patricia had been seen somewhere far from the scene of the murder and could therefore be cleared, she would recover her memory.

The frustrating thing was that Scan could be cosily ensconced in some croft somewhere, drinking tea, while he drove past on the road outside. By three in the afternoon, he realised he had not eaten and was hungry.

Finding himself in the main street of Golspie, he went into a cafe and ordered a sausage roll and beans and a pot of strong tea.

He turned over the suspects in his mind. The more he thought about it, the more he decided that it must surely be a member of the television company. And if it was a member of the television company, it must be someone p.r.o.ne to violence.

He finished his meal and decided to give up the search for Scan and return to the police station and see if he could hack into Blair's reports once more.

But he drove slowly back, still looking to the right and left, hoping to see the tramp.

By the time he reached Lochdubh, the drizzle had thickened to a steady downpour and the waterfront was deserted and glistening in the rain.

He made himself a cup of tea and carried it through to the police office. He played back the answering machine, but there were no messages at all.

He switched on the computer and keyed in Blair's pa.s.sword but this time could not get into the reports. He swore and switched off the machine and stared into s.p.a.ce.

There was a knock at the kitchen door, and he went to answer it. Jimmy Anderson stood there. "Let me in, Hamish, I'm getting fair soaked."

"The weather had to break sometime."

"Aye," said Jimmy, taking off his raincoat and hanging it up on a peg behind the door. "And folks say, "Can't grumble, we needed the rain," and it always irritates the h.e.l.l out o' me. It'd take a year o' drought for the Highlands to dry up."

He sat down at the kitchen table. "I'm sick o' the Highlands, Hamish. I'm sick o' Lovelace. I never thought I would want Blair back again. I'm thinking of getting a transfer to Glasgow. See a bit of life. Got that whisky?"

"Yes, and I hope you've some gossip for me."

"Nothing much. Your friend Patricia still seems to have lost her memory."

"What about The Case of the Rising Tides! The Case of the Rising Tides! Does that still go on?" Does that still go on?"

"Aye, and it's a pity Patricia couldn't see the changes. That Mary Hoyle is the sort of actress she'd love. No bare t.i.ts there."

Hamish took down the bottle of malt whisky and poured two gla.s.ses. Then he lit the wood-burning stove in the kitchen to try to dispel some of the damp.

"I've been thinking," he said, stretching out his long legs and staring at his large boots, "that the most likely person with a motive would be one of the television company. You've surely been digging into their backgrounds."

"Yes, every d.a.m.n one o' them."

"What about Harry Frame?"

"The biggest scandal in his background is that he's actually English. Gossip has it that he thought this Scottish independence lark was a good way to get an ident.i.ty and get backing. He puts it about that he was educated in England but born in Glasgow. Actually he was born to respectable middlecla.s.s parents in Somerset. If, say, by some wild flight o' the imagination, Penelope found that out, I hardly think he would kill her."

"I wish it would turn out to be him," said Hamish moodily. "Here, Jimmy, that's good whisky, not water. You're supposed to sip it."

"If your whisky dries up, so does my gossip."

Hamish refilled his gla.s.s.

"What about Giles Brown?" he asked.

"The director? Well, there's a thing. You wouldn't think that wee man could say boo to a goose, but he socked a copper."

"When? Where?"