Hamish Macbeth - Death Of A Dustman Part 22

As he left, he d.a.m.ned the secretiveness of the locals. What other bits of evidence were some of them keeping from him?

He went back to Kirsty. "What is this?" she demanded angrily. "Haven't you upset me enough for one day?"

"Kirsty, you never told me Angus was thinking of selling to Elspeth."

"Oh, that. He changed his mind from day to day."

"But Elspeth was the one who phoned him, and he told her he was going to drive over and see her. He sounded happy. He said something had come up."

"I didn't hear any of that. I'm telling you, he told me to make myself scarce. What did Elspeth phone him about? And why did she call from that box?"

"She happened to be in Lochdubh. Evidently Angus was dithering about selling the house to her."

"He didn't mean anything by it. He would get frightened by the debt and then say he was going to sell the place, but he could never make up his mind."

"Kirsty, a lot of people seem to have been holding back bits of information from me that might help. Are you sure there's nothing you're not telling me?"

"What else can I tell you?" demanded Kirsty. "My husband's been murdered. I've been coming to terms with my loss, and now you tell me the murderer is still out there! Oh, go away and leave me in peace."

Hamish looked down at her and shuffled his large police boots. "I'll be off now. But I'll be calling on you again."

He went back to the Land Rover. "It was that dog of yours," Kirsty shouted after him. "It's brought evil."

Hamish drove off. He realised with a heavy heart that he would need to do the rounds of the people Fergus had been blackmailing in case Angus had taken up his role.

Josie would be at work in Strathbane, so he headed for the banker's house. Mrs. McClellan answered the door to him. How welcoming everyone was now and how much fear he was going to bring back into their lives.

"Come in," she said. "I want to thank you so much for keeping that matter quiet. I can sleep at nights now." He followed her through to the kitchen at the back. "Take a seat. Coffee?"

"Maybe not now," said Hamish. "I've bad news."

She stood very still.

"It's Angus's murder. It seems there's a good chance he might have been murdered by someone else."

She sat down abruptly. "But you have that cutting?"

"You're safe there, for the moment. I still haven't reported it. You see, Ionides's pilot, he says his boss had nothing to do with Angus's murder, and he's sticking to it. As you've probably read in the papers, it was Ionides who killed Fergus, and the pilot helped him dump the body. But there's still a big question mark hanging over Angus's death."

"And I'm a suspect?"

"I just have to start going over all the old ground. Did you know Angus?"

"Only by sight. Angus and Kirsty. I saw them at socials at the church, that sort of thing. I knew both of them to say hullo, but never anything more than that."

"And Angus never approached you after Fergus's death?"

"No."

He looked at her intently. He was sure she was telling the truth.

"Look, a lot of people in this village know things, but they haven't been telling me because they don't want to get involved with the police, or because they think they're protecting each other. If you can remember anything, or hear anything..."

"I'll let you know."

Hamish next called on Mrs. Docherty. It was the same thing: the warm welcome changing to distress as he explained the reason for his call.

"Do you still have that dreadful letter?"

"I'm afraid I still have it. I can't do anything about it until Angus's murder is cleared up. Have you heard from that man, the travelling salesman?"

"He wrote once more, saying he would be back in Strathbane. I phoned him and told him he had to forget he ever saw me or he would maybe be part of a murder investigation. I haven't heard from him since."

"And Angus didn't approach you in any way?"

"No, he didn't. But it was a vicious murder. Surely it was done by a man."

"Any woman with something like a hammer could have done the job."

She shuddered. "So there's a murderer out there?"

"Let's just hope that pilot was lying, but I've got to keep trying."

He waited until evening, when he knew Josie would be home. "Where's your mother?" he asked as he followed her into the living room.

"Working up at the hotel. She had to beg for her old job back."

He sat down and told her that the murder of Angus was open again for investigation. Josie stared at him in open-mouthed dismay. "But what's it got to do with me?"

"It could be that Fergus told Angus who he was blackmailing and Angus might have tried the same thing. He didn't approach you?"

"No." Although the living room was cold, there was a sheen of sweat on Josie's face. She looked frightened to death. "It'll all come out again," she said.

"There's nothing to come out that folks don't know about," said Hamish. "Think about it, Josie. You started cancelling the invitations after Fergus was murdered."

"But Fergus was so pally with Angus. So maybe if someone murdered Angus, they'll come looking for me."

"That doesn't make sense."

"But don't you see, there's something about me that can drive men mad."

Hamish looked at her in comical amazement. Then his eyes sharpened.

"Wait a bit, Josie. You said that Fergus was pally with Angus. How do you know that?"

"I just remembered it was one day last summer, I saw them laughing and chatting down by the harbour."

"Josie, why didn't you tell me this before?"

"It didn't seem important."

"If there's any other little thing, you've got to let me know."

"Sure." She batted her heavily mascaraed eyelashes at him. "Would you like a drink?"

"No, thank you. I've got to get going."

Hamish had a feeling of having escaped from something.

Somewhere in this village, he thought, was someone sitting on an important clue, and they didn't even know it. The whole village of Lochdubh would just need to be interviewed again.

Jimmy Anderson sent three constables over to Lochdubh to help Hamish. They all plodded from house to house until, at the end of a month, there was a large folder of new reports, all containing nothing of any importance at all. "You'll just need to face up to it, Hamish," said Jimmy. "You can't win them all. I thought you were onto something with Elspeth MacRae, but she seems pretty clear apart from withholding information."

As the dark winter nights settled down over Lochdubh and the mountains turned white with snow, Hamish would sit in the police office at night, making notes, studying what people had said, hoping always to find something important he might have missed.

One afternoon the phone rang. It was Clarry. "The hotel's closing down for a couple of weeks," he said cheerfully. "Priscilla's back." Hamish's heart gave a treacherous lurch. "And Martha and I were just thinking we hadn't seen you for a bit. I asked Priscilla if she'd like to pop round for dinner tonight and she said yes, so I said I would try to get you as well."

Hamish accepted with delight. When he replaced the receiver, he happily pushed away the reports he had been studying and went to prepare himself for the evening ahead.

When he went out fine snow was whipping down the waterfront. He was dressed in his one good suit, tie and clean white shirt. He decided to drive, and so he put Lugs in the pa.s.senger seat and set off.

Priscilla was already there when he arrived. The children gave Lugs a rapturous welcome. How different it all was, thought Hamish, looking around. There were pictures on the walls and the cherry red carpet from Angela on the floor. There was the exotic smell of good cooking coming from the kitchen. Martha had her hair cut in a new short style, which made her look years younger. Hamish flicked a quick glance at Priscilla's hands. No rings.

While Clarry went to get them drinks, Priscilla said, "I hear you're back investigating the murder. Do you still think Angus was murdered by someone else?"

"I don't know," said Hamish, taking a gla.s.s of whisky from Clarry. "I questioned everyone in the village all over again, and I can find nothing."

"What will Kirsty do?" asked Martha. "She can't go on running that croft single-handed, and with this snow, things are going to be rough for her."

"The other crofters will help," said Hamish. "And I think the bank's probably going easy on the overdraft for the moment. How long are you here for, Priscilla?"

"I'll be here over Christmas. It's the one good thing about being a freelance computer programmer: When a contract finishes, I can take time off."

"I'd better have another word with your father. Is he home? I've tried several times, but he's always been away."

"He's here at the moment. Oh, he'll be so furious if all that's dragged up again."

The conversation then became general, about village affairs. Clarry sat beaming all round, the baby on his knee.

When they were sitting round the dining table, which had to be cleared first of toys and paint books, and eating excellent roast beef, Martha said, "I might call on Kirsty."

"I didn't know you were friendly," said Hamish.

"I wasn't friendly. I mean, when Fergus was alive, I wasn't friendly with anyone. But we had a lot in common."

"How's that? No, Lugs," said Hamish severely, as the dog put a paw on his knee. "You've had your supper."

"I've got a nice marrow bone for him," said Clarry, getting to his feet. "I'll get it for him now, and that'll keep him quiet."

Hamish turned his attention back to Martha. "What do you mean, you've got a lot in common?"

"Well, we had, rather."

"Tell me about it."

"It was one day, a couple of months before Fergus was murdered, I was down at Patel's. I had a black eye, and people had given up asking me about things like that, because I always said things like I had walked into the door. But Kirsty followed me out and said, 'My marks don't show. He's too clever for that.'

"I pretended not to know what she meant because being secretive had become a way of life. But she rolled up her sleeves and there was a great burn on her arm. "He did that with the iron," she said. So it might help if I talked to her. Because even though her man is dead, it takes a while to get over things like that. Clarry came up behind me in the kitchen only a month ago, and he raised his arm to get something down from the shelf, and I screamed and threw up my hands to cover my face."

Hamish slowly laid down his knife and fork. "Martha, along with everyone else in this village, I've been asking and asking if anyone had any information that might shed light on Angus's murder, and all you did was shake your head."

"I didn't think," said Martha nervously. "I mean, there's a sort of freemasonry among battered wives. You don't talk about it. I mean, she's the victim. What has that to do with murder?"

"I'd better see her in the morning if the snow allows me to get up there."

Clarry, who had given Lugs the bone, looked anxiously at Martha's strained face. "Can we talk about something else at the moment, Hamish? I don't like her reminded of the bad times."

Priscilla promptly weighed in, telling funny stories about awkward guests they had suffered at the hotel. Hamish forced himself to put the case out of his mind and the evening ended pleasantly.

When Priscilla and Hamish walked out, the snow had stopped. "Will you get home all right?" said Hamish.

"I've got snow tyres on the car," said the ever-efficient Priscilla. "I heard the weather forecast."

"When will I see you?" asked Hamish. His breath came out in the cold air like smoke and hung between them.

"I'll take you for dinner tomorrow night," said Priscilla. "The Italian's. Eight o'clock?"

Hamish grinned. "I'll be there."

In the morning he checked on his sheep, checked on his hens, and returned to put on his uniform and then go and talk to Kirsty. He opened the kitchen door and found the banker's wife, Fiona McClellan, standing on the doorstep.

"There's something's come up you should know about," she said.

"Come in. Have the roads been gritted?"

"Yes, as I came along the gritter was going along the waterfront."

"So what have you got for me?"