Hamish Macbeth - Death Of A Village Part 24

"For what you are about to receive," said Hamish gently, "may the Lord make me truly grateful."

In one fluid movement, he seized the shotgun he had loaded earlier, meaning to shoot a rabbit for the pot, dropped to the ground, rolled over, and blasted the German in the chest.

Linda began to scream. "Shut up!" shouted Hamish. "Let me think." He had to get Lugs to a vet. He would have to explain why he had taken the Land Rover on holiday with him. Worse, he would have to explain why he had a loaded shotgun in the front seat of the vehicle, which was unlocked and had a window open.

He knelt down by the German. There was no pulse.

Ignoring Linda, who was now sobbing, and Peter, who was being sick, he got into the Land Rover and switched on the radio. Desperately he radioed Strathbane, asking for a helicopter, explaining roughly what had happened. He gave them as exact a location as he could and said he would light a bonfire.

He then turned and said to Peter, "You're going to have to help me find wood and heather to make a fire. Pull yourself together, man."

Hamish then bent down beside Lugs. The dog had a bleeding wound on his head. Lugs was still breathing...just.

He got his sleeping bag from the tent and covered the dog and then went to help find stuff for the bonfire. "There's nothing but heather," panted Peter, rushing back with an armful.

"That'll do. We need piles of it."

Linda had slumped down beside the Land Rover, her eyes closed. Hamish jerked her to her feet. "You're in shock, so you cannae go to sleep now. Get moving and help with the fire."

"Can't you cover that man up?" She shuddered and looked at the dead body of the German.

Hamish went into the tent and came out with a rug and threw it over the body.

When a great pile of heather had been gathered, he threw petrol over it and struck a match. "They should see that," he said. "Keep getting more heather."

An hour pa.s.sed while they desperately fed the fire, and all the time Hamish prayed for the life of his dog.

He could have cried with relief when he heard the whirr of a helicopter soaring over the mountains. Then came another.

They both set down in the heather. Police poured out, headed by Jimmy Anderson.

"It's Lugs," cried Hamish. "He's mortal bad. Got to get him to a vet."

Jimmy's sidekick, MacNab, was there with him. "Hamish, we've got to get a full statement. We've got to wait for the pathologist..."

"We've got two helicopters," said Jimmy, "and Macbeth here needs hospital treatment."

"For what?" asked MacNab.

"I'll think o' something. Get along, Hamish."

Hamish lifted Lugs tenderly into the helicopter. "Hospital?" asked the pilot.

"No, the vet," said Hamish.

All the way to the small airport at Strathbane, Hamish held Lugs. The pilot had radioed ahead and a police car was waiting for them. There was a vet in Strathbane. Hamish knew where he lived, so he directed the driver to the man's house. Once there, he hammered on the door until the vet, blinking sleepily, answered it.

"It's my dog, Fred," gasped Hamish. "He's dying. Someone hit him. I don't want him to die."

"Take him round to the surgery next door. I'll need my coat."

In the surgery Lugs was laid out on a table. "Pretty bad," murmured the vet. "You'll need to leave the animal with me, Hamish. No, there's nothing you can do here. Go and get some sleep."

Hamish reluctantly went back to the police car. "They've just radioed," said the driver. "Mr. Daviot's out of his bed and heading for headquarters. He wants a full statement from you."

Hamish groaned.

Superintendent Daviot saw Hamish in an interview room, not in his office. Another detective was there, a new one Hamish did not recognise, and the tape was started as Daviot explained. "I want you to give me a full report. I gather he was the only survivor from that boatload of Germans. The two hillwalkers say you pulled a shotgun out of the police Land Rover and shot him. They do say he was ready to kill all of you. But what we must know for the record is why you took a police vehicle with you when you were supposed to be on leave and why you had a loaded shotgun in an unlocked vehicle with a window open."

I must make this good, thought Hamish. I can't afford to lose my job.

"A friend gave me a lift a good bit of the way when I started my leave," said Hamish. There was a short silence. The tape whirred. I must get Angela to say she drove me, thought Hamish. He began again. "I took my camping equipment in a rucksack. My dog and I were walking up in the hills above Stoyre when I thought I saw a man skulking about in the distance. I began to wonder if they had all drowned."

"For the tape, Macbeth. You mean the Germans from the wrecked boat who had been diving for the gold?"

"Yes, that is so. I phoned my friend Angela Brodie and asked her to take me back to Lochdubh. I have been suffering from exhaustion and thought I was imagining things. But I thought I would go back up and see if I could find that man. I took my shotgun with me. I knew if he was one of them, he would be desperate. I went back there to search but found no one. I thought I heard a noise in the middle of the night and went out and opened up the Land Rover and loaded my shotgun. At that point, Lugs, my dog, rushed off barking into the night. I heard a crack. That must have been when Lugs got hit on the head. I ran in the direction of the noise and found Lugs lying in the heather and the German pointing a pistol at me. He ordered me back to the tent. I picked up my dog and carried him. Outside the tent, he ordered me to put the dog down and go into the tent and make him some food. Then when I was just beginning to cook eggs and bacon for him, we heard Linda and Peter, the hillwalkers, exclaiming over the dog. He ordered me outside. He told us he was going to shoot us all. I asked if I could turn my back. He agreed. I reached into the Land Rover, grabbed the shotgun, fell to the ground, and twisted round and shot him."

"But if you thought there was a dangerous criminal loose in the heather, why did you not report it?"

"I am not myself, sir," said Hamish weakly. "I've been feeling weak and shaky."

Daviot turned to the detective. "Switch off the tape and wait outside."

When the detective had left, Daviot looked at Hamish and sighed. "What am I to do with you? We have already issued a statement to the press that you are on leave. We do not want them to know that you have been going around like a Wild West sheriff. We will issue a statement saying a stranger had been seen up on the hills and you had gone to investigate. Make it official. But tell me this. What on earth was the German doing to give you time to reach into the Land Rover, get out the shotgun, and turn round and shoot him?"

"I asked to say a prayer. I think that threw him. I am very fast with a shotgun, sir."

"So I've heard, now come to think of it. You used to win all the prizes at the clay shoot down at Moy Hall. Why did you stop competing?"

"Give someone else a chance," said Hamish with a simple Highland vanity. "I'm too good for the others."

"You look a wreck. We'll give you a lift back to Lochdubh. A policeman has been ordered to drive your vehicle back to your station."

"Sir, if you don't mind. I have to stay here the rest of the night. My dog's at the vet."

"Of course," said Daviot quickly, and Hamish was grateful that his boss was sentimental about animals.

"I'll see if one of the cells is free."

"Just this once, you may put up at a hotel. Charge the room on your credit card and then put the bill in with your expenses. You do have your credit cards with you?"

Hamish felt in his pocket. "Yes, I still have my wallet."

"Off you go."

Hamish chose a small hotel near the vet's. He phoned Angela Brodie, who said, yes, she would swear blind she had driven him. It was six in the morning when he climbed into bed. He'd asked for an alarm call at nine.

After the call had come in, he washed and put on his clothes, ruefully feeling the red bristles on his chin. He tried to eat a quick breakfast in the small dining room but the food seemed to stick in his throat. He was just pushing his plate away when Angela walked in. Her thin face lit up when she saw him. "I thought I'd better come and drive you around and make it official. Let's go and see Lugs."

All the way to the vet, Hamish sat hunched up in the pa.s.senger seat. After his last dog, Towser, had died, he hadn't wanted another. But fisherman Archie Maclean had found Lugs wandering up on the moors and had given him to Hamish as a Christmas present. Hamish had been captivated from the first by the dog with large ears and odd blue eyes.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" he asked Angela.

"Can't say until we hear what the vet's found out about his condition," she answered.

"Here we are. Take it easy, Hamish. Don't try to get out of the car until I've parked it."

Hamish walked into the waiting room. It was full of people, sitting with their animals. He headed for the surgery door. "Take your turn!" shouted an angry woman. Hamish and Angela walked straight in.

"Don't you ever knock?" asked Fred crossly as he stood over a cat, about to give it an injection. "Oh, sit over in the waiting room and I'll call you."

"My dog?"

"Your dog's fine."

"Let the vet attend to my cat," said a thin woman, hovering beside the table.

They retreated to the waiting room. Angela held Hamish's hand in a rea.s.suring clasp. By evening, it was all over Lochdubh that Hamish had been holding hands with the doctor's wife.

The thin woman finally emerged with her cat. She glared at Hamish. "You could have harmed Tiddles with your interruption."

She was followed by the vet.

"Come along, queue jumpers that you are," said Fred. "He's through here. That dog of yours must have a skull like iron. I X-rayed him. He took a sore dunt but no bones broken in his skull. Just a bad concussion."

There were various large pens holding sick animals. "Here we are," said the vet. Lugs had a white plaster on the crown of his head. He was lying on his side with his eyes closed.

"Lugs," said Hamish softly.

The dog opened one blue eye and feebly wagged his tail.

"Can I take him home?"

"No, you'll leave him here until I phone you. Now run along. I have other animals to see to."

Back in Angela's car, Hamish said, "I could sleep for a month but I'd better get back to Lochdubh and write up my full report."

"I tell you what, I'll type for you. You dictate. You're so tired your fingers will fall between the keys."

"Elspeth all right?"

"I think she was coming round," said Angela. "But she'll be mad again when she hears the news. More drama and you didn't even let her know."

"I hadnae time to let her know!"

"Let's hope she sees it that way. They phoned up to check I had driven you and I confirmed that, and then, you'll be glad to know, my excellent husband got on to Daviot and told him you definitely needed peace and quiet and rest. So you're still off work. Once we get the report off, you can sleep for days if you like."

The Land Rover was standing outside the police station. Hamish collected his things from it and he and Angela went inside. He dictated his report, which she neatly typed up on the computer and sent to Strathbane. All the time, the phone rang with requests from newspapers for an interview. "It won't be Blair who leaked it this time," said Hamish. "He'll think I've had enough publicity. Have you heard how things are in Stoyre?"

"There was a really moving piece about the villagers on Strathbane telly. Cheques are starting to pour in from well-wishers. They'll need to set up a trust. Oh, and some la.s.sie called Elsie Queen who sang a Gaelic song has been signed up by a London agent. Stoyre will never be the same again."

"Yes, it will," said Hamish. "The world will move on and Stoyre will be forgotten. Isn't it sad that we only get upset about nasty things happening to people and places if television decides we should?"

"Did you have anything to do with that business in Stoyre? I'm sure they would never have thought to stage anything like that themselves. It was like a sort of Brigadoon setting. Whiff of Hollywood about it all."

"Oh, really? Sorry I missed that."

"So you didn't have anything to do with it?"

"Gosh, I'm tired. If you don't mind, Angela, I'm off to bed."

But when Hamish finally stretched out on his bed, he found his mind was racing with worries about Lugs (would the dog really be all right?), Priscilla (was she really going through with getting married?), and Elspeth (would she ever speak to him again?).

He picked up an American detective story and began to read from where he had left off. The American detective had been beaten up with an iron bar, had gone two nights without sleep, and was still soldiering on. Makes me feel like a wimp, thought Hamish. The book slid from his hand onto the floor, his eyes closed, and he was asleep at last.

Hamish slept right through until the next morning and found to his irritation that the press were outside the police station again.

He phoned Strathbane and asked for permission to speak to them because he knew they would not go away until he did so, and he was anxious to get on with his normally quiet life.

The word came back from Daviot that as he was supposed to be ill, Detective Chief Inspector Blair would be over to have a word with them.

Blair eventually arrived. He looked in high good humour. Hamish opened the kitchen door a crack and listened.

"You lads want a statement," said Blair, "so I suggest we all go to the pub and I'll give you one."

"What about Macbeth?" shouted one.

"You won't get him. He's off on vacation. Come along."

Hamish waited until they had gone, then phoned Archie Maclean. "Blair's taken the press along to the pub to make a statement. Could you do me a favour and get along there and see what he's saying?"

"I'll do that," said Archie. "But you owe me a dram."

Hamish waited patiently that morning until he heard a knock at the kitchen door. He opened it and Archie slid in.

"I haff neffer heard such a load o' twaddle," said Archie. "I doubt if thae press'll be bothering you for a long time."

"What did Blair say?" asked Hamish, lifting down the whisky bottle and setting a gla.s.s in front of Archie. "Help yourself."

"The big man started off by telling them you still had the exhaustion but would be back at work in a couple of weeks. Then he began to tell them what a great detective he was, getting drunker and louder by the minute. One by one they left and by the time they had all gone he wa.s.s bragging away to an empty s.p.a.ce. Then he got in his car and drove off."

"He drove?"

"Aye, but he won't get very far."

"Why?"

"I phoned Strathbane and said there was a fat man drunk as a skunk that had just left the pub and taken the Strathbane road, driving a W-reg Volvo. You look fine tae me. Are you suffering from the exhaustion?"