Death of a Valentine (10 page)

Josie decided the time had come to show Hamish Macbeth that she was a real policewoman. ‘Did you kill her?’ she demanded.

Before Mark could say anything, Hamish rounded on her. ‘Please go and sit in the Land Rover, McSween.’

‘But . . .’

‘Just go!’

He waited until Josie had left and then said, ‘No one is accusing you of anything, Mark. McSween is new to the job. Let’s begin again. I gather you were dating her.’

‘Aye. I couldnae believe ma luck. It was after Bible class one Sunday afternoon. She asked me if I’d like to meet her on the Monday evening for a drink. I said all right and she said
she would meet me in the Red Lion. She started to drink vodka doubles wi’ Red Bull. I’d never drunk alcohol before and what wi’ her being such a beauty, I decided to start
drinking vodka as well.

‘I dinnae ken what idiot said that vodka didn’t smell because my mother smelt it the minute I got home. But I didnae care because she had promised tae meet me the next night. We had
just got sat down when her father burst into the pub and starts howling and cursing. Says I led his daughter astray. She didnae say one word to defend me. “Forget it, Da,” says she.
“He’s not worth bothering about. He’s just some little fellow from the Bible class.” And that was that. I’m frightened to go back to the church in case the auld
scunner accuses me of her murder.’

Hamish left the bakery and got into the Land Rover. He looked wearily at Josie. ‘Policing in the Highlands,’ he said, ‘is not like a hard-cop American TV series. You deal
gently wi’ people and you’ll get more out of them.’ He let in the clutch. ‘We’re going back to the Flemings’ house. Maybe something from the blast ended up in
the garden and SOCO might have missed it.’

Josie felt near to tears. It seemed she couldn’t do anything right. She sat in brooding silence until they reached the Flemings’ home.

It was still cordoned off with police tape. They both got out. ‘We’ll go round the back,’ said Hamish. ‘As the blast was in the kitchen, there might be something blown
outside.’

The back garden consisted of a drying green with tattered washing still hanging on the line. There were a few bushes in the narrow flower beds that formed an edging around the green.

Hamish began to search carefully in the bushes by the kitchen door, and Josie began to look through the bushes on the left-hand side. As she worked her way round the garden, she grew cold and
bored. The sun shone on the tattered washing. One of the items not too damaged was a serviceable pair of knickers. Josie suddenly noticed that there was something stuck inside the knickers. She
went over to the washing line. The clothes were just beginning to thaw out. She unpegged the knickers. Hamish came over to her. ‘Found something?’

‘Maybe nothing,’ said Josie. ‘But when the sun shone it looked as if there was a bit of paper stuck inside.’

Hamish put on a pair of latex gloves and told Josie to do the same. He opened up the knickers gently. Sure enough, there was a scrap of paper. ‘We’d best take this down to the
forensic lab in Strathbane,’ he said. ‘We don’t want to risk damaging it.’

Hamish’s heart sank when he saw forensic scientist Lesley Murray, formerly Lesley Seaton. She had pursued him at one time and was now married to her boss, Bruce
Murray.

‘You can leave it with me,’ she said.

‘If you don’t mind, we’ll hang around and see if there’s anything important,’ said Hamish.

Josie looked about in disappointment. It was hardly a scene out of
CSI Miami.
The room was dingy with frosted-glass windows. A faulty fluorescent light buzzed overhead like an angry wasp.
There was a cup of coffee on Leslie’s desk with a skin of milk on the top. She had imagined the underwear being subjected to forensic scrutiny under high-tech machines, but all Lesley did was
snip open one side of the knickers and with tweezers carefully extract a piece of scorched cardboard.

‘There’s some writing on it. Typewritten,’ she said. ‘It looks like part of a valentine card.’

Hamish leaned over her shoulder and read,

‘Rose are re . . .

‘Violets . . .

‘You’re going t . . .

‘Just what’s coming to you.’

‘I’ll telephone Mr Blair and tell him about this,’ said Lesley.

‘You better telephone Jimmy,’ said Hamish. ‘He’s in charge o’ the case.’

‘Right. You can go,’ said Lesley. ‘I’ll see if I can get anything more out of this.’

‘We’ll wait,’ said Hamish.

‘I have other things to do,’ said Lesley crossly. ‘And may I remind you, you are nothing more than a village bobby and not in charge of this case.’

Josie opened her mouth to make an angry retort but received a quelling glare from Hamish.

Outside, she asked, ‘Is she always like that?’

‘Pretty much. Nothing sinister about thon underwear because that piece o’ cardboard was obviously blasted there, but the bit o’ message is something.’

I wonder if he jilted Lesley, thought Josie, her senses sharpened by jealousy. Lesley was pretty. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe looked like a model from
Vogue.
It was all very lowering.

In the very north of Scotland, night falls around three or four pm in winter. Hamish wanted to be rid of Josie. She had certainly found that important clue. But there was something about her, a
sort of cloying neediness, that got on his nerves. He was bewildered by the growing list of suspects. There are so many, he thought gloomily, it’s beginning to look like the local phone
directory.

After he reached Lochdubh, he dropped Josie off at the manse and then drove to the police station. He helped the dog down as the cat sprang lightly on to the ground with her large paws.

‘You haven’t had much exercise,’ he told them. ‘We’ll go for a wee dauner along the waterfront.’

Halos of mist were encircling the lamps, leaving black areas of shadow in between. He had a sudden feeling of being watched. He whipped round but there was no one there. When he turned back, the
Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, stood facing him as if they had just been conjured up out of the ground.

The twins were spinsters of the parish, still alike in their sixties, both having rigidly permed white hair and thick glasses.

‘Awful her turning out to be a tart,’ said Nessie.

‘Tart,’ echoed her sister, who always repeated the end of what her twin had been saying.

‘How did you hear?’ asked Hamish.

‘It was Mrs Baxter, the councillor’s wife,’ said Nessie. ‘Herself was down at Patel’s this afternoon. He’s got a special on tinned salmon. She bought ten
cans! I said, “That’s not very fair. You should leave some for us locals,” but she paid me no heed at all. So then I says, poor Annie Fleming, and herself whips around and says,
“Annie Fleming was a whore.” Just like that!’

‘Just like that,’ echoed Jessie.

‘Mind you, I did always think she flaunted herself a bit. When are you getting married?’

‘Getting married,’ put in the Greek chorus.

‘I have no intention of getting married,’ said Hamish. He stalked off.

Mark Lussie was not a baker. He worked in the bakery as a sort of odd-job man, carrying out trays of cakes, bread, rolls, pies and buns to the shop from the back. He cleaned
the windows, swept the floors, and cleaned the baking trays and the ovens, and all the time he dreamed of greater things. He no longer went to church. He had prayed to be married to Annie and God
had let him down so God didn’t exist. He wanted to get out of Braikie and go to Glasgow or Edinburgh, or even London. He had very little in his bank as he had begun to find comfort in drink
ever since Annie had introduced him to alcohol.

He turned over and over in his mind, everything Annie had said to him. And then like a lightbulb going on over his head as it did over the heads of the characters in the comics he liked to read,
he remembered all of a sudden that Annie had said someone had threatened her and he remembered exactly who that someone was.

At first, he saw himself standing up in court in his best suit, giving evidence and being photographed by the newspapers when he left the court.

Then it dawned on him that such knowledge was money and money meant escape.

When he finished work, he went out into the yard at the back of the bakery and lit a cigarette, a new vice. He took out his mobile phone and, looking around to make sure no one was about,
dialled a number he had looked up in the phone book in the bakery.

When the phone was answered, he asked to be put through to the person he wanted to speak to. ‘I know you killed Annie. She said you threatened her. Pay me two thousand pounds or I’ll
go to the police. You know the war memorial on the hill above Braikie? Well, be there at midnight with the money or I’ll go straight to the police.’

The voice answered in the affirmative and rang off. Mark stood there, his heart beating hard. He would go to London! Maybe he would be in a bar and this film star would chat him up and take him
back with her to Hollywood. He would get away from his home where the new baby cried all night. What was his mother thinking about to go and have another child? And who was the father? She
wouldn’t say. Mark’s own father had left his mother shortly after he was born. The church had been a comfort for a while on the long Scottish Sabbath days, but it had let him down in
the presence of Annie and her father.

He went back into the bakery and collected four mutton pies which had got a bit bashed and so he was allowed to take them home. There will be no mutton pies in London, he thought.

Mark felt very nervous but he did not drink that evening. He was frightened of falling asleep. Before midnight, he crept quietly out of the house and made his way through all the sleeping silent
streets under the light of a cold, pockmarked moon. The streetlights were switched off to save energy. The great stars of Sutherland blazed overhead.

He walked through the town and up the grassy hillock where the war memorial stood, black against the starry sky. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Five minutes to go. He looked up at
the sky and saw that the northern lights had started to blaze in all their swirling glory. He had only seen them once before. What was it they called them in school? The aurora borealis, that was
it. He felt the very heavens were celebrating the soon-to-happen escape of one Mark Lussie. Then he heard the town clock strike midnight and tore his gaze from the magnificence of the heavens and
looked down the hill to watch for anyone approaching.

He never heard the step behind him. A knife was thrust savagely into the back of his neck. Rough hands searched his pockets after he had slumped to the ground and took his mobile phone. Then his
assailant crept away.

Mark lay dying as the lifeblood pumped out from the wound in his neck. As the lights of the aurora borealis moved and swirled across the sky, Mark Lussie finally went on his last great
journey.

Roger Burton, Barry Fitzcameron’s hit man, crouched behind the sheep shed up on Hamish’s croft. He had instructions to make it look like an accident. But he planned
to wait until Hamish Macbeth was asleep, get into the station, and simply shoot him. It would be easy to get into the police station. He had noticed one of the fishermen knocking at the door,
carrying two fish. When he didn’t get a reply, he had felt in the guttering above the kitchen door, taken down a key and unlocked the door. Then he had come out a few moments later, relocked
the door and put the key back up in the gutter. Because Barry had thought Roger meant to stage an accident and because the person to be killed was a police sergeant, he had paid him generously up
front. Roger meant to do the deed and clear off to Glasgow.

He waited until Hamish came back and then waited until finally the lights in the police station went off.

He was just about to make his move when the northern lights began to blaze across the sky. He suddenly felt he should leave it – just take Barry’s money and run. But he was a
professional and he had a reputation to keep. No one in the criminal fraternity of Glasgow would mind that he hadn’t staged an accident.

He softly made his way towards the kitchen door.

Sonsie awoke and pricked up her tufted ears. Because of the odd telepathy between the two animals, Lugs awoke as well. Sonsie sprang down from the bed where she and the dog had
been sleeping and went to the kitchen door. Her fur was raised. Hamish was to wonder afterwards why Lugs had not barked.

They heard the key in the door. Roger loomed up in front of them. When he saw the two animals he raised his gun but Sonsie, the wild cat, flew up at his face and tore her sharp claws down it
while Lugs bit his leg. He howled and dropped the rifle.

Hamish came running in. He picked up the rifle and ordered, ‘Stay there or I’ll shoot.’

He scrabbled in the pocket of his coat hanging on the back of the door and produced a pair of handcuffs. ‘Over on your back,’ he shouted.

Roger rolled over, yelling, ‘I can’t see.’

‘It’s the blood,’ said Hamish, clipping on the handcuffs. He grabbed his mobile from the kitchen table and called for help.

It was to be a long night. The deep scratches on Roger’s face were tended to by the medical officer before he was judged fit for questioning. But Roger remained silent apart from saying he
was going to sue Hamish Macbeth for the damage to his face. He would not say that anyone had hired him to kill Hamish. Hamish waited in the detectives’ room because Blair would not allow him
to be part of the interview. He had asked them to find out Roger’s address so that the place could be searched before anything was destroyed but Blair had snarled at him that he was not in
charge of the case and to type up his report.

When Jimmy finally appeared, Hamish said desperately, ‘Have you an address? We’ve got to get round there. There may be something in his place that connects him to Barry
Fitzcameron.’

Jimmy rubbed the bristles on his foxy face. ‘I’m tired. We’ve been up all night, Hamish.’

‘Let’s just do it ourselves,’ pleaded Hamish.

‘Oh, all right. It’s a house in Boroughfield, that suburb at the edge o’ the town.’