Death of a Dustman (14 page)

‘Fergus was seen up at the Anstey on the colonel’s estate. I wondered what he would be doing up there.’

‘He often took his bottle off somewhere quiet when he planned to get drunk.’

‘Aye, that could be it. How are you getting on?’

‘We’re doing fine.’ She turned a rosy colour. ‘Did Clarry tell you . . .?’

‘Yes, but I’d keep it quiet at the moment, Martha. You know what folks are like. They might think it odd you getting engaged so soon after your husband’s death.’

‘I haven’t said a word. And I told the children not to say anything.’

‘But you’re doing fine?’

‘As well as can be expected. Everyone’s been awfully kind. Angela gave me a red carpet for the bedroom, but it was so nice, I put it in the living room. Brightens things up no
end.’

‘Take care of yourselves, then. Fergus didn’t have any dealing of any kind with the colonel up at Tommel Castle?’

‘No, only that the colonel phoned when Fergus was missing and complained about the rubbish not being picked up.’

Hamish left with a heavy heart. The colonel was involved in some way, but Hamish certainly did not feel he could possibly be guilty of murder. Certainly not of double murder. He must work
harder, question and question and question, or he would need to turn those letters over to Strathbane. In all his worry, he forgot about the impending visit on the following Wednesday of Mrs
Fleming and her dignitaries.

Jimmy Anderson called in to the police station that evening. He was unshaven and looked tired.

‘Anything?’ asked Hamish.

‘Just it’s beginning to look as if it was done by someone who knew what they were doing. I mean, it was planned.’

‘How do you make that out?’

‘Any whisky?’

Hamish went to the cupboard and took down the whisky bottle and set it and a glass in front of the detective.

Jimmy poured a glass and leaned back in his chair. ‘All the surfaces in that kitchen and the doorknob had been wiped, and he or they, on the way out, wiped the floor behind them as they
went.’

‘There’s something I’d better tell you,’ said Hamish. ‘The new schoolteacher. It might be important. I think it’s nothing. Her name’s Moira Cartwright.
She was married to a criminal, but a long time ago. She worked in Dingwall and while in Dingwall, she was blackmailed. The police set up a trap but never got the man.’

‘So it could have been Fergus?’

‘Could have been. Just before he left Dingwall.’

‘So why haven’t we seen a report on this?’

‘Because I couldn’t see a motive.’ Because, thought Hamish wearily, I’m still protecting the blackmailed of the village. And I promised myself I would only hold on to
that information for one day, and now there’s been another murder.

‘I can see a motive,’ said Jimmy. ‘You’re slipping. She wants a nice wee job up here and comes up aforehand. Bound to have. Got to see the schoolhouse. See where all her
stuff will go. Fergus recognizes her. Says if you don’t pay up, I’ll tell the village about your evil husband.’

‘I thought of all that. If she went to the police in Dingwall, then she would have come straight to me.’

‘Still, I’d have a word with her.’

‘Why isn’t Blair here annoying me?’

‘He’s got to walk on eggshells. That Annie Robinson stuff. Our man didn’t find that. You did. Daviot’s singing your praises. You aren’t holding anything
back?’

Hamish longed to tell him about the letters, but once again he promised himself, just one more day.

He shook his head. ‘All I can think of is asking and asking. Often there’s something that people have seen or heard that didn’t seem important at the time. What about that
Greek at the hotel? What do we know of him?’

‘I’ve been to see him. So has Blair. Wealthy man. Owns four hotels in Scotland. Makes them pay all right.’

‘Any good? His hotels, I mean. Will the new one be competition for the Tommel Castle Hotel?’

Jimmy gave his foxy grin. ‘I know you, Hamish Macbeth, and I know the way that Highland brain of yours is working. You’re praying it’s some outsider. Nasty foreign hotel owner
plans to ruin the Tommel Castle, so Fergus finds out and blackmails owner and owner hires goons to bump him off.’

Hamish gave a reluctant grin. ‘Aye, that would suit me just fine. I’m beat. Is there any hope of getting any sleep tonight?’

‘If the press leave you alone. But they’re mostly badgering headquarters in Strathbane. That Fleming woman got herself on television at last. She turned up at the press briefing and
made a speech. Daviot was furious.’

‘Wish it would turn out to be her,’ said Hamish gloomily.

‘Where’s your man?’

‘Clarry’s gone out to interview more people. He’s wasted in the police force. He’s such a grand cook. He’s left my dinner in the oven.’

‘What is it?’

‘Coq au vin.’

‘Enough for two?’

‘Knowing Clarry, I should think there’s enough for a regiment. Want some?’

‘Aye. Got any wine to go with it?’

‘No.’

‘I’ll nip along to Patel’s and get us something.’

When Jimmy returned, Hamish gave them each two large helpings from the casserole. ‘This is magic,’ said Jimmy. ‘Is Clarry still courting the widow?’

‘Who said anything about that?’ demanded Hamish sharply.

‘Everyone in the village, that’s who.’

‘They’re just friends.’

‘Listen tae me, Hamish Macbeth, you keep going on as if you’re a sheriff in a Wild West movie, a one-man law officer. But one day you’ll hold back stuff and someone will get
hurt.’

Hamish’s conscience smote him. Maybe if he had told them about the letters, Angus would be alive. But then, he was sure Angus had been blackmailing someone, someone Fergus had told him
about. Then it could be argued that if the blackmailing had been out in the open, then Angus would not have even tried. Suddenly, with a forkful of food halfway to his mouth, he remembered that
tiny thread of pink he had found in the Curries’ fence. Damn, he would ask them about it first and then send it to Strathbane.

After Jimmy had left, Hamish ignored Lugs’s pleading. ‘No coq au vin for you,’ he said severely. ‘The bones are too soft for ye and the food’s too
rich, and you’ve had your dinner. Bed for us.’

He left a note on the table thanking Clarry for the dinner, washed, undressed and got into bed. Lugs leapt up beside him. Hamish stroked the dog’s rough fur. He would need to see the
Curries in the morning and then the colonel again. He fell straight down into a nightmare that he was in Chief Superintendent Daviot’s office being asked why it was that he had held back
vital information from the police. ‘If it had not been for this,’ said Daviot, ‘then that crofter might still have been alive.’

Hamish awoke, feeling as if he had not slept at all. He wearily washed and dressed and then selected a new toothbrush from the whole packet of them that he had bought, and scrubbed his teeth.
This definitely was the very last day, he told himself. Just one more day and then those letters would go to Strathbane.

He and Clarry had a silent breakfast. Hamish was worried about the case and Clarry was worrying that the murder would never be solved, and if it were not, he feared that Martha would not marry
him. ‘I don’t like this shadow hanging over us,’ she had told him. ‘I feel I can’t even be seen with you until the murderer is found.’

Hamish took Lugs for a walk along the waterfront. It was still August, but there was already a chill in the air, a harbinger of the long dark northern winter to come.

He took Lugs back to the police station, collected the envelope with the little bit of pink thread in it and then approached the Curries’ cottage. He saw the curtains twitching as he
walked up the garden path, and Nessie opened the door to him before he could ring the bell.

‘What is it now?’ she asked.

Hamish took out the envelope and showed her the little scrap of thread. ‘I found this caught in that fence of yours at the side. Could it have come from any of your clothes?’

‘No, we have nothing pink. Wouldn’t be seen dead wearing pink at our age.’

‘What about blankets or sheets or towels?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing pink at all.’

‘And you haven’t remembered anything that might be of help?’

‘Not a thing. All the gossip’s about Josie cancelling the wedding. Jilted that fiancé of hers at the last minute! I don’t know what girls these days can be thinking
about.’

‘She jilted him?’

‘That’s what she’s saying. Her mother came round to return our present. I said to Jessie, I said, we’ll just put it away safe and keep it for the next wedding, but I
don’t know when that’ll be. Nobody gets married these days, not even you, Hamish Macbeth.’

Hamish made his escape. He collected the Land Rover and drove up to the Tommel Castle Hotel. Every time he arrived at the hotel, he could not help remembering the days when it had been a private
house, the days before the colonel had invested wildly and badly and lost everything. Although he had suggested to the colonel that he might consider the idea of turning his home into a hotel, the
colonel had never given him any credit for the suggestion.

Priscilla was crossing the entrance hall with a sheaf of papers in her hands when he walked in. ‘Your father around?’ asked Hamish.

‘Oh, Hamish, he’s gone off to stay with friends. He didn’t say where he was going.’

‘What about your mother?’

‘She’s gone with him.’

Hamish clucked his tongue in annoyance. ‘I’ve got to find him. Did you get anything out of him?’

‘No, he says Fergus was poaching.’

‘Fergus didn’t even like fish, Priscilla. Your father’s lying.’

‘So you say.’

‘Oh, Priscilla, this is important. If he phones, find out where he is. I’ve got to talk to him.’

‘I can’t think he would have anything to do with this. Have you considered that Fergus might have been at the river to find a quiet place to get drunk? And that Daddy might just have
assumed he was poaching? He thinks that everyone near that river is poaching. He once bawled out an innocent family of picnickers.’

‘Could be. But I’d still like to speak to him.’

Priscilla’s face took on a closed look. Hamish surveyed her for a moment and then said gently, ‘You know something’s wrong, Priscilla. Please try to help me on this one. Two
men are dead.’

‘I’ll do my best,’ she said stiffly. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, Hamish, we’ve just had new bookings to replace the ones we lost, so I’ve got to get
on.’

Hamish left and then wondered what to do next. He rang Jimmy Anderson’s mobile. ‘Is Kirsty Ettrik ready to see anyone yet?’

‘No, she’s still heavily sedated, and the doctors won’t let anyone near her. I’m up at Angus’s croft. We’re still looking for clues. I think you should still
keep going round the village from door to door, Hamish. Someone must have seen or heard something.’

Hamish rang off. He decided to call on Josie Darling again.

Josie answered the door to him. Her face was blotchy with tears. ‘It’s you,’ she said in a bleak voice. ‘I heard about Angus.’

He followed her in. ‘I gather you’ve been telling everyone that you jilted Murdo.’

‘I wasn’t going to let everyone know the rat had jilted me,’ she said. ‘It was going to be such a beautiful wedding.’

‘Josie, I want you to think about Fergus’s visits to you. Didn’t you threaten to go to the police?’

‘I didn’t. I was too ashamed. It’s all Darleen McPhee’s fault.’

‘Who’s Darleen McPhee?’

‘She’s a girl I work with in the bank.’

‘So what’s she got to do with it?’

‘She was always bragging about her boyfriends and hinting that I’d never get a man. The day I walked in with my engagement ring and flashed it in front o’ her stupid face was
the best day o’ my life. I couldn’t let her know I’d been jilted. Now I’ve got to go back to work and tell her the wedding’s off.’

Fergus must have been acute enough to guess at such desperate vanity, thought Hamish.

‘Tell me about Fergus,’ he said. ‘What was his manner when you last saw him?’

She sank down in a chair and scrubbed at her eyes with a grimy handkerchief. ‘He was different,’ she said at last.

‘What d’ye mean, “different”?’

‘Well, joking, excited. Funny, that was the only time he didn’t ask for the money.’

Hamish’s hazel eyes sharpened. That could only mean one thing. Fergus was blackmailing someone with real money. His heart sank as he thought of the colonel. But then he reflected that
there was no way the colonel would kill anyone. Somehow he believed that the murders had been planned. Dumping Fergus’s body in the bin, he was sure, smacked more of revenge than any effort
at concealment. Whoever put the body there could not know that the Currie sisters rarely put rubbish in the bin, that they recycled what they could.

He thanked Josie and left and drove to Callum McSween’s croft. Callum was out in the fields with his sheep. Hamish waved to him, vaulted a fence and walked across the springy turf to join
him. There is very little arable farming in Sutherland. The land is mostly used for sheep rearing because the hard old rock which makes up most of Sutherland is only covered with a thin layer of
soil.

‘I’m getting ready for the sales in Lairg,’ said Callum. ‘Thank God I’ve got the rubbish job because sheep prices have been dropping like a stone.’

‘You go around the crofts and houses. What’s the gossip about Angus’s murder?’

‘They’re all shocked. We all thought we knew Angus, but no one really knew him that well. He must have said something to Kirsty.’

‘We’ll need to wait until she recovers a bit,’ said Hamish. ‘Keep listening, Callum, and let me know if you hear anything.’

As he made his way back to the police station, he reflected on the oddity of the case. How could a man walk out to meet someone in the Highlands and not be noticed? Fergus must have been seen in
Lochdubh. Unless, of course, he had walked straight up through the grazing land at the back of where his cottage lay and met someone up on the hill.