Hamish Macbeth - Death Of A Dustman Part 2

Clarry looked down at his round figure. "Why?"

"That one's all old and shiny, and when did you last have a bath?"

Clarry blushed and hung his head.

"Aye, well, why don't you nip into the bathroom and have a bath, and I'll do what I can wi' your uniform."

Clarry meekly went off to the bathroom. Hamish opened up the ironing table in the kitchen and began to sponge and clean and press Clarry's uniform.

In the bathroom, Clarry wallowed in the hot water like a whale. Then he towelled himself dry and opened the bathroom cupboard and peered at the contents. There was an unopened bottle of Brut on the top shelf. Clarry lifted it down and opened it, and then splashed himself liberally with it. He put on clean underwear and shambled into the kitchen and collected his cleaned and pressed uniform from Hamish with a muttered, "Thanks."

Hamish reeled back a bit before what smelled like a tidal wave of Brut, but charitably said nothing, hoping that the fresh air would mitigate the smell once Clarry was on his way.

Clarry walked slowly along the waterfront. It was another beautiful day. Recipes ran through his mind. He stopped outside the Italian restaurant and studied the menu.

"Anything you fancy, Officer?"

Clarry turned round and found himself facing an elderly man. "I'm Ferrari, the owner," the man said.

"I like Italian food," said Clarry amiably, "but I hope you don't use too much basil. That's the trouble these days. People go mad wi' the herbs and everything smells great and tastes like medicine."

"You like cooking?"

"It's my hobby," said Clarry proudly.

Mr. Ferrari eyed him speculatively. Hamish's previous constable, the cleanliness freak, Willie Lament, had left the police force to marry Ferrari's pretty relative Lucia. The restaurant chef was leaving at the end of the month.

"You must come for a meal one evening," said Mr. Ferrari. "As my guest, of course."

"That's very kind of you, sir," said Clarry. He had a suilden dream of sitting in the restaurant in the evening, looking at Martha in the candlelight. Her husband couldn't stay sober that long, he might even drop dead, and then...and then...He beamed at Mr. Ferrari. "I might take you up on that offer. Would it be all right if I brought a lady?"

"My pleasure, Officer. Now you can do something for me. That dustman is picking through the restaurant garbage and leaving most of it. We have too many cans and bottles to put into those little boxes."

"I'm on my way to have a word with him."

"Good. Between ourselves, Officer, it is time you did. The feeling against that man is running high, and if he is not stopped, something nasty might happen to him."

I wish it would, thought Clarry as he touched his cap and walked away.

Clarry had never married. He had entered the police force because his mother had thought it a good idea. He had lived with his mother until her death a year before his move to Lochdubh. Lazy and unambitious, he had never risen up the ranks. His mother had seen off any woman who looked interested in him. The policewomen he had occasionally worked with terrified him. He privately thought the move to Lochdubh was the best thing that had ever happened to him. He loved the village. He liked his kind, laid-back boss. He thought again of Martha. There was something about her faded prettiness, her crushed appearance, that touched his heart. He turned up the lane leading to Martha's cottage. In his heart, he hoped against hope that the dustman would not be at home.

The baby was in its pram outside. Clarry made clucking noises at it and then rapped on the door. The eldest boy, Johnny, opened the door. "Father at home?" asked Clarry.

The boy looked nervously over his shoulder. Fergus appeared. He was wearing an old shirt and jeans. "What is it?" he snapped.

"May I come in?" asked Clarry.

"No, we'll talk outside."

Fergus walked out and shut the door behind him.

Clarry removed his peaked cap and tucked it under one arm. "It's like this, sir. You are causing a great deal of distress among the villagers. You are not collecting their rubbish, and you are leaving nasty wee notes."

"And what's that to you? It's a council matter. Any complaints and they can write to the council."

"I am here to warn you, you might be in danger."

Fergus snickered. "From this bunch o' wimps? Forget it."

Over the dustman's shoulder, Clarry could see Martha at the window. She gave him a wan smile.

Normally amiable, Clarry could feel rage burning up inside him as he looked down into the sneering face on the dustman. "You are a nasty wee man," said Clarry. "I've given you a warning, but it would be a grand day for the village if you were killed." He turned and walked away and then turned back at the garden gate. "By G.o.d, man, I could kill you myself."

And, followed by the sound of Fergus's jeering laughter, he walked away.

Clarry walked only as far as the waterfront. He leaned on the wall and stared down into the summer-blue waters of the sea loch. A yacht sailed past, heading for the open sea. He could hear people laughing and chattering on board, see the white sails billowing out before a stiff breeze. He suddenly wanted to see Martha. He turned his back to the wall, feeling the warmth of the stone through his uniform. While Hamish Macbeth watered his sheep and then returned to the police station to do some paperwork and wondered what was keeping Clarry, Clarry stayed where he was. Perhaps Martha might appear, perhaps she might go to the general store for something.

With monumental patience, Clarry stayed where he was until the sun began to sink down behind the mountains. She might come down to the village to buy something. Patel, who ran the general store, like all good Asian shopkeepers, stayed open late.

Suddenly he saw her hurrying down the lane that led to the waterfront, carrying a shopping basket. He went to meet her.

"Oh, Mr. Graham!" exclaimed Martha. Her hand fluttered up to one cheek to cover a bruise.

"He's been hitting you!" said Clarry.

"Oh, no," said Martha. "Silly of me. I walked into a door."

"You walked into a fist," said Clarry. "You've got to turn him in."

"I can't," said Martha, tears starting to her eyes.

"Now, then, I didnae mean to upset you, la.s.sie," said Clarry. "Let me help you with the shopping."

"I can manage. Fergus wants a bottle of whisky."

"Drinking again? That's bad."

"At least he'll wander off somewhere, and I'll get a bit of peace," said Martha. They walked into the store together.

"Buy him the cheap stuff," said Clarry.

"No, he wants Grouse."

"Let me pay for it."

"No, that would not be fitting."

"I came up to your place to warn him. Steady, now!" Clarry grasped the bottle of whisky which Martha had nearly dropped.

"What about?" she asked.

"He's creating bad feeling in the village. He could be in danger. G.o.d, I could kill him myself."

Jessie Currie, at the shelves on the other side from where they were talking and screened from their view, listened avidly.

"I'd better hurry," said Martha. "He'll start wondering what's keeping me."

"I'll walk you back a bit of the way," said Clarry. Curious village eyes watched them as Martha paid for the whisky and then they walked out of the shop together.

Later that evening, Hamish was barely soothed by the plate of beef Wellington that Clarry slid under his nose. He had been called out to a burglary in the nearby town of Braikie, and he wondered after he had completed his investigations what the point was of having a constable who was so supremely uninterested in police matters. But he noticed a change had come over Clarry. His face seemed harder.

"So what happened with Fergus?" asked Hamish.

Clarry told him, ending up with bursting out, "He's been beating his wife again. I tell you, sir, I've a d.a.m.n good mind to resign from the force and give that b.a.s.t.a.r.d the beating he deserves."

Hamish stared in wonder at the nearly untouched food on Clarry's plate and then at the angry gleam in the normally placid constable's eyes.

He leaned back in his chair. "Of all the things to happen," said Hamish. "You haff gone and fallen in love wi' the dustman's wife."

Clarry stared at him. Then his eyes lit up and his round face glowed. "Is this love, sir?"

"Yes, but she's married and this iss the small village. Eat your food, man, and forget her. I'll deal wi' Fergus myself tomorrow."

"How?"

"We haff our methods, Watson."

But Hamish Macbeth was getting seriously worried. The transformation of the constable had sharpened his wits. Fergus must be made to see sense.

Even if it meant giving him a taste of what he had been giving his wife.

The following day was collection day, and Lochdubh rose to find the rubbish uncollected. It was a warm, close day, and the midges, those Highland mosquitoes, were out in force.

Fergus had disappeared before but never on collection days. But he had become so hated in the village that n.o.body cared much, with the exception of Hamish Macbeth. Still, even Hamish thought, like everyone else, that surely Fergus was lying drunk somewhere up on the moors. But after a day went by without any sight of him, Hamish's uneasiness deepened into dread.

"If something's happened to him, we'd better find out soon," said Hamish to Clarry. "We'll split up. You search around the village, and I'll take the Land Rover and go up on the moors."

Clarry set off. As he questioned villager after villager, he began to share some of Hamish's trepidation. "I hope he's dead," said Archie Maclean, pausing in the repair of a fishing net. "And if the wee b.a.s.t.a.r.d isnnae, I'll help him on his way."

Everyone else seemed to share Archie's sentiments. Clarry walked along the harbour to where the workmen were busy renovating the hotel. None of them had seen Fergus but one volunteered the information that the boss had arrived. Curious to see this hotel owner, Clarry made his way into the foyer of the hotel, where two men were unwrapping a ma.s.sive crystal chandelier. "Boss around?" he asked.

"In the office over there," said one, jerking his thumb in the direction of a frosted-gla.s.s door. Clarry ambled across the foyer and opened the door. A slim red-headed woman was sitting behind a computer. "Yes, Officer?"

"Is the boss in?" asked Clarry.

"May I ask what the nature of your inquiry is?"

"The village dustman has gone missing."

A faint look of amus.e.m.e.nt crossed her beautiful face. "I am sure Mr. Ionides, who has just arrived here, cannot know anything about a dustman."

The door to the inner office opened and a small, neat, well-barbered man appeared. He had thick, dark brown hair and liquid brown eyes. He was in his shirt sleeves and carried a sheaf of papers. He radiated energy. His eyes fell on the large uniformed figure of Clarry.

"What is a policeman doing here?" he asked. His voice was only faintly accented.

"I've come about our dustman. He's missing."

"And what has that got to do with me?"

Clarry shifted awkwardly from foot to foot. "I thought you might have heard something, sir."

"No."

Ionides and his secretary calmly surveyed Clarry, who began to shuffle backwards towards the door. "Just thought I would ask," said Clarry.

They continued to watch him in silence as he turned and opened the door and went out. Phew, he thought, mopping his brow outside the door. What an odd pair.

He realised once he was outside the hotel that he had been delaying going to see Martha. He somehow didn't want to go to that cottage and find Fergus at home. The villagers were right. The man didn't deserve to live. It did not strike Clarry as odd that so many people would wish the death of a mere dustman. Dustmen who fail to collect garbage can arouse deep pa.s.sions, and dustmen who leave nasty green notes to explain why the rubbish is not being collected can drive the meekest to open hatred. High council taxes had made everyone aware that they were paying for a service they just weren't getting.

Clarry walked more quickly now as he neared Fergus's cottage. As he approached, his eyes took in the broken guttering and the blistered paint on the windows, and he mentally repaired all the damage.

He knocked on the door and waited. Johnny answered, his little face lighting up when he saw Clarry. "Mum's out in the back garden," he said. Clarry removed his peaked cap and tucked it under his arm. He followed the boy through the dark little living room where the children were watching television. Probably too frightened to play outside in case Dad comes home, he thought.

Martha was hanging sheets out to dry in the back garden. A breeze blew strands of hair across her face. "Let me do that," said Clarry, taking a sheet from her. "Heard from that man of yours?"

"Not a word," said Martha. "He's never missed a collection day before."

"Is he in his uniform? That green would make him easy to spot."

"No, he was in a white shirt, tie and jacket. He took that bottle of whisky from me and walked off out of the house."

Together they lifted up sheets and pinned them along the line. Martha paused to pa.s.s a weary hand over her brow. "Goodness, it's hot."

"You and the children should be out on a day like this," said Clarry.

"Fergus might be back any moment," said Martha. "I must say I sometimes look down at the loch on a day like this and think it would be nice to go out on a boat and get a bit of cool air."

"That's the last sheet," said Clarry. "Well, why not?"

"We couldn't. What if Fergus comes home?"

"Then you can say you were out wi' me looking for him. Come on. Get the kids."