Death of a Valentine Part 3

"Would I make that up?"

Hamish glanced out of the corner of his eye at Harry. There was a certain rigid stillness about him.

"If you don't mind, sir," said Hamish, "I'd like to search the house."

"You need a search warrant!" shouted Harry.

"Go ahead," said Sir Andrew. "Pipe down, Harry."

Detective Chief Inspector Blair arrived followed by the scenes of crimes operatives. Then Jimmy Anderson along with a van full of police officers arrived at the bombed tree.

"Where's Macbeth?" demanded Blair.

"Gone to speak to Sir Andrew," said Josie.

"He should ha' waited for me."

"I've remembered something, sir. It's important."

"Spit it out!"

"I went to a fortune-teller at the fair yesterday..."

"G.o.d gie me patience."

"No, wait. She said something about a bang and flames."

"Oh, she did, did she? I might ha' known. Sodding Gypsies. I might ha' known they'd be behind this." Blair called everyone around him. "Get back to that fair. The caravans should still be there. Search every single one. Get it!"

Hamish met Tom in the hall. "Which is Harry's room?" he whispered.

"Follow me."

Up more old stone steps worn smooth with age. "This is it," said Tom, opening a door.

The room was dominated by an old four-poster bed. On either side of the bed were side tables covered in paperbacks. There was an enormous wardrobe. Hamish opened it. It was of the old kind with room for hats, drawers for ties and shirts on one side, and s.p.a.ce for hanging clothes on the other.

"I'll leave you to it," said Tom.

"You'd better stay," said Hamish. "I might need you as a witness."

As he searched the wardrobe, he turned over in his mind what he'd heard about Harry. He had a reputation of being a bit of a wastrel. His mother was dead and Sir Andrew was rumoured to be strict, always finding some job or other for his son and raging when Harry usually only survived a few weeks in each.

The wardrobe yielded nothing sinister. He turned and surveyed the room.

Then he dragged a hard-backed chair over to the wardrobe and stood on top of it, his long fingers searching behind the wooden pediment on top of the wardrobe.

He slowly dragged forward a black leather box.

Chapter Three.

O Diamond! Diamond! Thou little knowest the mischief done! -Sir Isaac Newton -Sir Isaac Newton Blair, originally from Glasgow, detested Gypsies even more than he detested highlanders. It was this, fuelled by his glee when Josie whispered to him that she wanted a transfer back to Strathbane and that Hamish Macbeth was useless, that caused him to make one of the biggest mistakes of his career.

He did not have search warrants but he ordered his men to search every caravan. The Gypsies howled their protests and then fell ominously silent. The reason for their silence was soon proved as no fewer than three lawyers, the sum total of the lawyers in Braikie, arrived, demanding to see the search warrants.

And as they were making their demands, Superintendent Daviot arrived on the scene.

Red-faced, Blair was just spluttering that it was a matter of urgency and that PC McSween had given them proof that the Gypsies were involved when Jimmy Anderson came hurrying up, clutching a mobile phone. "Hamish has just arrested Harry Etherington," he said. "He found the tiara hidden in Harry's room."

Daviot stared at Blair and then at Josie. "You, Detective Chief Inspector Blair, and you, Josie McSween, are suspended from duty pending enquiries. Where is Macbeth now, Anderson?"

"Taking Harry to Strathbane."

"I'll go there directly. Blair, make your best apologies and get your men to put everything back neat and tidy just the way they found it. Who is the head man here?"

"Me," said a small wrinkled man. "Tony McVey."

"Mr. McVey, you have our deepest apologies."

"Aye," said McVey. "And your damp apologies are not going to stop the lawsuit." He turned on his heel and walked away.

Harry Etherington had pleaded with his father not to press charges. He said it was all a bit of a joke and he'd got some friends up from London to help him. Sir Andrew simply looked at Hamish coldly and said, "Do your duty, Officer."

Hamish demanded the names and addresses of Harry's friends and learned they were staying at a hotel over in Dornoch. He phoned the Dornoch police and told them to bring the men in. Then he took Harry off to Strathbane.

He put Harry in a cell at police headquarters, went into the detectives' room, sat down at Jimmy's computer, and began to type out his report.

He was still typing when Jimmy arrived. "Where's His Nibs?" asked Jimmy.

"In the cells. Where were you?"

Jimmy explained what had happened and said that Blair and McSween had been suspended from duty pending a full investigation.

Blair marched past them into his office and slammed the door. Then Daviot appeared. "Come with me, Anderson," he ordered, "and we will interview Hetherington. First of all, Macbeth, what happened?"

Patiently, Hamish explained about having Sir Andrew's permission to search the house and how he had suspected Harry because of Harry's bad reputation and because he had been sure he was lying. Also, he said, Sir Andrew's description of the men-particularly the one with what had sounded a fake Irish accent-had alerted his suspicions. He said that the butler had been witness to him finding the tiara.

"Good work," said Daviot. "Do you want to sit in on the interview?"

"Och, no," said Hamish, not wanting to show any sign of ambition or desire to rise in the ranks. "I'll be off when I've finished this."

Daviot's temper was not helped because, before he could start the interview, Sir Andrew arrived and said he would not be pressing charges; he accepted that it had all been a joke. Harry's four friends were to be charged with possession of dynamite, malicious damage to a tree, and obstructing the road, thereby endangering drivers, and bound over to appear at the sheriff's court. Harry was charged not with the theft of the tiara but with conspiring to cause malicious damage and told he would be expected to appear in court as well.

Pondering the problem of Blair, Daviot wondered what to do. Blair was always attentive to him, and he was a Freemason and a member of the same lodge as Daviot. The detective always remembered Mrs. Daviot's birthday and sent generous Christmas presents as well. At last he decided it was Hamish's fault. Hamish should have phoned Blair immediately and voiced his suspicions of Harry before he had even begun the search.

Blair was lumbering out of headquarters when he saw Josie ahead of him, carrying a box of items she had cleared out of her desk along with a small potted plant. "Hey, you!" he roared. Josie turned round. Her face was streaked with tears.

"This is all your fault," said Blair, "and if you ever get your job back, you can rot up in Lochdubh until the end o' time."

Josie forced herself to speak calmly. "I told you what that Gypsy fortune-teller said, sir. I don't believe in the second sight. And where did Harry's friends get the dynamite from? One of the policemen told me some of the Gypsies had been working over at the quarry near Alness a few months ago."

Blair stared at her, his mind working furiously. Then he said grimly, "Get in the car wi' me, la.s.sie. We're going to Alness."

When Blair discovered after two days of detective work that two of the Gypsies who had been working at the quarry had sold the dynamite to Harry's friends, Daviot breathed a sigh of relief. He would not need to get rid of Blair after all. Nonetheless, Blair had ordered an illegal search and the police enquiry dragged on for weeks. Josie was questioned and questioned until she felt she would scream.

When it was all over, and only a small amount of compensation had been paid to the Gypsies who'd had their caravans raided without a search warrant, she found that Blair had refused to give her any credit whatsoever. She was to be sent back to Lochdubh and consider herself lucky that she still had a job.

Had Blair been at all nice to her, had he given her any credit, had he asked for her to be returned to Strathbane, her old obsession with Hamish would have vanished like highland mist on a summer's day.

But all she could now think of was Hamish's brilliance in having found Harry Etherington out.

Hamish looked down at her with a flash of dismay in his hazel eyes. He wanted the village and his work back to himself. He told Josie to go back to checking on the outlying crofts and then got down to repairing loose slates on the police station roof. He expected a quiet winter and shrewdly guessed that Josie would soon grow bored with the long miles she had to put in, and ask for a transfer.

The winter arrived without much happening and Josie continued to doggedly perform all the dull tasks allotted to her. There seemed to be no c.h.i.n.k in Hamish's armour. The Christmas holidays when she could go back to her mother in Perth came as a relief.

She poured out her woes to her mother who said comfortably, "There's bound to be a big case soon and then you'll be working together."

"Nothing ever happens up there," said Josie bitterly, "and nothing ever will. All Harry and his friends got was a slap on the wrist and community service. Those Gypsies got three months each. Harry and his friends had a top-flight lawyer."

Her mother put down the romance she had been reading. "There are aye a lot of blizzards up there in January with folks cut off. You'd be thrown together." Was that not what had happened to heroine Heather in the book she had been reading? And hadn't Heather ended up on a sheepskin rug in front of a log fire in the arms of the laird?

That was all Josie needed to fuel her imagination. When a really ma.s.sive blizzard roared in, she would struggle along to the police station. They would be s...o...b..und together, talking companionably by the stove. And then...and then...

But the winter proved to be unusually mild. Patel's, the local shop, began to show a display of Valentine cards towards the end of January. Josie longed to buy one, but was afraid Hamish would simply ask Patel who had sent it. Finally, she felt completely defeated. She would go to Strathbane and beg for a transfer, but after Valentine's Day. Maybe Hamish was cool to her because he was hiding a secret pa.s.sion. Maybe a card would arrive for her.

Before going on her rounds on Valentine's Day, she hung around the manse until the post arrived. There was nothing for her. Determined now to get back to Strathbane, Josie bleakly set off on her rounds.

Annie Fleming, the Lammas beauty queen, did not go to work on Valentine's Day. She usually went to work as a secretary at a wildlife park outside Strathbane. She considered it a mangy park with only a few animals. It was the brainchild of an earnest English woman and her Scottish husband. It was the first job that had come her way and, as she was desperate to avoid working for her father who owned a bottle-producing factory, and to gain at least a little independence, she had taken it. On previous Valentine's Days, her father had insisted on examining her cards, demanding to know who had sent them. Annie had a pretty good idea who had mailed each card but, fortunately, the tradition of not signing cards was a blessing and so she had told her father she hadn't a clue.

But there was one she was longing for. A disco club in Strathbane had started lunchtime sessions. It was there that Annie had met Jake Cullen, he of the black leather outfit and supply of Ecstasy pills. In all her restricted life, she had never met someone more exciting. The drinks he plied her with and the drugs he gave her made her feel strong and confident.

She parked in a back lane in Braikie that afforded a view down to the main road. She waited until she saw her father with her mother in the pa.s.senger seat drive past and then drove home again and waited eagerly for the post. She knew her bosses were down in Edinburgh and that she was supposed to open up the wildlife park, but she persuaded herself that she would not be very late.

The doorbell rang. Annie swore under her breath. She had not wanted the postman to know she was at home. But there could be a really big valentine for her that could not fit into the letter box. She opened the door.

"Grand morning, Annie," said the postman, Bill Comrie. "Aren't you at work?"

"I think I'm coming down with something," said Annie.

"I've a rare bit o' post for you, and a package. You're popular wi' the fellows."

"Thanks." Annie s.n.a.t.c.hed the post from him and shut the door firmly in his face.

The package was addressed to her. It looked exciting somehow. She decided to leave it until last. She had six valentines. Five were the usual soppy kind, but the sixth held a peculiar typewritten rhyme.

Roses are red, violets are blue You'll get in the face, Just what's coming to you.

Nutcase, thought Annie, putting it down with the others beside that mysterious package. Before she opened it, she went to the sideboard in the living room and took out a bottle of gin. She poured a stiff measure into a gla.s.s, carried the gin bottle into the kitchen, topped it up with water, and returned it to the sideboard. Back in the kitchen, she unpicked a little of the hem at the bottom of her jacket and picked out an Ecstasy pill. She swallowed the pill down with a gulp of gin.

Now for that parcel.

There was a tab at the side to rip to get the parcel open. She tore it across. A terrific explosion tore apart the kitchen. Ball bearings and nails, the latter viciously sharpened, tore into her face and body as flames engulfed her. Perhaps it was a mercy that one of the nails pierced her brain, killing her outright, before the flames really took hold.

Mrs. McGirty, an elderly lady who lived in the next cottage, heard the loud explosion just as she was about to enter her own home. She seized a fire extinguisher she kept in her car and ran to the Flemings' house and round to the back where she knew the kitchen was. She thought it was a gas explosion. The kitchen door was lying on its hinges. Screaming with fear, she plied the fire extinguisher over the horrible mess that had once been the beauty of the Highlands and over the flaming kitchen table. Then, white as paper, on shaking legs, she went to her own home and phoned Hamish Macbeth.

Hamish phoned Josie before setting out for Braikie. He did not expect her to arrive until later because she was supposed to be up in the northwest of the county. But Josie had become weary of home visits and so she had been parked quite near Lochdubh, up on a hilltop, reading a romance, when she received the call.

Hamish stood in the doorway of the kitchen and grimly surveyed the body. He heard a car driving outside and went out. Josie had arrived. "A murder!" she cried excitedly. "Where's the body?"

"In the kitchen."

"Can I have a look?"

"Go to the kitchen doorway but don't go in and don't touch anything. Suit up before you go in." Hamish was wearing blue plastic coveralls with blue plastic covering his boots.

Josie went back to her car and eagerly climbed into a similar outfit. Hamish stared after her, his eyes hard, as Josie went into the house. She was back out a minute later and vomited into a flower bed.

"Go and sit in your car," ordered Hamish, "and pull yourself together. I'm going to see Mrs. McGirty next door. It's thanks to her the place didn't burn down."

Mrs. McGirty answered the door. Her old eyes had the blind look of shock.

"I'll phone the doctor for you," said Hamish. "Go in and sit down and I'll make you a cup of tea."

He found his way to the kitchen, made a cup of milky tea with a lot of sugar, and took it to her. "Now you be drinking that," he said gently. "What's the name and number of your doctor?" When she told him, Hamish phoned her doctor and asked him to come along immediately. Then he said, "Tell me what happened."