Death of a Witch (19 page)

Hamish took off his cap and sat down. “Fergus, did Ina beat you?”

“What a thing to say and her not cold in her grave!”

“Fergus. You’ve got into trouble by not telling the truth. Out with it.”

“Well, maybe,” Fergus mumbled.

“You were seen going to Catriona Beldame’s.”

“Och, that was silly. She gave me this stuff and all it did was make my balls itch.”

“And Ina found out you’d been there?”

“Yes, someone told her.”

“And what did she do?”

“She hit me with the frying pan.”

“And was she in the habit of hitting you?”

Fergus hung his head. Then he burst out with: “What could I do, Hamish? I couldnae hit a woman. I coudnae talk about it. Me, a big man being hit by a wee woman? The shame o’ it.”

“What about Fiona McNulty. Did Ina know about her?”

“Maybe.”

“What maybe?”

“The day she was murdered, she left a note for me.”

“Fergus. For God’s sake, man. The things you’ve been keeping from me. Have you got the note?”

“No, I burnt it.”

“What did it say?”

“It said something like, ‘I know what you’ve been up to and you’re for it.’”

“I got the idea you were relieved when she was killed.”

“I was that. I’m free at last. That’s what I thought. But you know what it’s like. You read about old lags who feel so strange and lost when they’re let out of prison after a long sentence that they can’t wait to get in again. I don’t seem to have thought for myself or acted for myself for a long time.”

“But you went to Fiona.”

Fergus looked at Hamish with pleading eyes. “Fiona wasnae really a hoor. She just did a bit on the side for some fellows. She was warm and nice. Hamish, you may as well have the lot. I hadn’t had any sex since my honeymoon. When we got back, herself says, ‘I’m not having any more of that nastiness.’”

“You had grounds for a divorce.”

“This is Lochdubh, Hamish. I’m not the only one.”

“Who else visited Fiona?”

“I don’t know and that’s the truth. I never asked her. I wanted to keep up the lie that she was mine only.”

Fergus began to cry, great gulping sobs. Hamish handed him a handkerchief and waited in sympathetic silence until Fergus had cried himself out. “Just look at me,” said Fergus. “Crying over a hoor when I cannae even shed a tear for my ain wife.”

“Here’s what I want you to do,” said Hamish. “I want you to go to Dr. Brodie and get him to recommend a good psychiatrist. You need to talk all this out.”

“I’m not mad!”

“No, but you’ll drive yourself mad wi’ the load o’ guilt you’re carrying. Now, do you have any idea who’s been committing these murders?”

“Hamish, I swear to God I haven’t a clue.”

Elspeth was wondering what to do about Perry. They both had been summoned back to the office. Elspeth had pointed out that the roads south were still impassable in a lot of places. The news editor told her to get back as soon as she could and to bring Perry with her.

She was anxious to remove Perry from Priscilla’s orbit. Perry was easy and charming to both of them. Elspeth was only comforted by the fact that she had overheard Priscilla inviting Perry for dinner and Perry had refused, saying he still had work to do.

In order to get Perry out of the hotel, she suggested they go down to the police station. “It would be a shame,” said Elspeth, “to get on the road and then find out Hamish had solved the murders. Then we’ve got Catriona’s funeral later on.”

“Do you think he will solve the murders?” asked Perry.

“He always has in the past. Mind you, there’s a first time for everything.”

Hamish was in his office. He had pinned a large sheet of paper up on the wall with the names of the four murdered women with arrows pointing to each name from a centre circle in which he had written the one word in heavy black ink—sex.

“Come in,” he said. “I’m just trying to work something out. Now, Archie Maclean said to me, ‘We don’t do sex in Lochdubh.’ I thought that was funny at the time. But think of it. If that’s the case, there must be a good few sexually repressed men around.”

“Including you,” said Elspeth.

“Don’t be cheeky. Let me think. Wait a bit. What if I’ve been looking at this the wrong way round?”

“The funeral’s today,” interrupted Elspeth.

“Whose funeral?”

“Catriona. She’s still legally married to Rory so he’s agreed to stump up. Don’t suppose any of the village will be going, but Perry and I may as well do a piece. Mrs. Wellington will be there, of course.”

“That’s it!” exclaimed Hamish. “Mrs. Wellington. The village women were complaining to her about Catriona. What if I should be looking for a woman instead of a man? Take Catriona’s murder. Lesley said that provided the weapon was sharp enough, then a woman could have done it. All the murders seem to have been done in a frenzy of hate. Now, if Ina wasn’t one of the murderees, I might have thought it was her.”

“Why Ina?”

“Never you mind. When’s the funeral?”

“Three o’clock.”

“Maybe see you there. I’ve got to dash.”

As Hamish walked up to the manse, he marvelled at how little he actually knew of what went on behind the lace curtains of the cottages in Lochdubh.

Whoever would have thought that Fergus was a battered husband?

Mrs. Wellington greeted him with a curt “I’m busy.”

“It iss verra important,” said Hamish. Mrs. Wellington always made him feel nervous. She invited him into the manse’s vast and old-fashioned kitchen.

“Don’t sit down,” she barked as Hamish removed his hat.

He turned and faced her. “Before Catriona was murdered, a lot of the women came to you about their husbands visiting her. Was there any particular one that was more upset than the others?”

“If, as I think you are, you are trying to pin any of these murders on the respectable ladies of Lochdubh, then I have nothing to say to you.”

“There have been four murders and maybe there’ll be another one if you don’t help.”

“Then look for a man! Women are the gentler sex, or have you forgotten?”

“Did you know that Ina Braid beat her husband?”

Mrs. Wellington had been rolling pastry. She glared at him and brandished the rolling pin. Hamish took a quick step back.

“Either Fergus is really guilty or all this has turned his brain. I knew Ina Braid, and she was a gentle soul.”

Hamish returned to the station. The wind was rising and blowing powdery snow from the tops of drifts. The sky above was getting darker. Villagers were queuing at Patel’s, frightened that more snow would mean that deliveries of goods wouldn’t get through.

In the police station, he sought out two camper’s gas lamps and placed them in readiness on the kitchen table. More snow would probably mean a power cut. Sonsie and Lugs crashed through the flap on the door. Hamish could see that their coats were embedded with hard little snowballs. He filled a basin with warm water and patiently began to remove the snow from them.

Then he put more peat in the stove before pouring himself a cup of coffee, going into the office, getting his notes, and once more spreading them out on the kitchen table.

The snow meant that he would have at least the whole of what was left of the day free from interruptions. Then he remembered Catriona’s funeral. Surely it wouldn’t take place on such a day.

He phoned Mrs. Wellington. “No, of course not,” she said in answer to his query. “Mr. McBride is unable to get further north because of the snow and we are going to wait until he arrives.”

“What . . . ?” began Hamish when the phone went dead.

He went back to the kitchen and tried the lights. No success. The snow piling up against the kitchen window was cutting out any light.

He lit the lamps and hoped that his sheep were safely in the shelter he had built for them. He suddenly cursed, remembering he hadn’t given them their winter feed.

Hamish strapped on his snowshoes and collected two buckets of feed he had ready by the door. He put on a coat and woollen hat, opened the door, and plunged into the roaring white storm outside. He felt a superstitious shudder as he made his way up the hill at the back.

The wind was screaming and howling. It was as if the old gods had decided to take back Sutherland, take it away from the petty grip of man and restore it to a wilderness.

He was pleased that the low wooden shelter he had built for the sheep was holding up. He poured their feed into a trough, stood for a moment watching them, and then headed back to the station.

Elspeth and Perry struggled back to the hotel. “We’ll never get out of here,” said Perry. “Not that I care much.” But that charming smile of his was not only for Elspeth but also for Priscilla, who had come to meet them.

“Clarry’s made some mulled wine,” said Priscilla. “Like some?”

“Lovely,” said Perry. “Wait till we get out of these wet clothes. My feet feel like two blocks of ice and we’re dripping melted snow all over the place. Come on, Elspeth.”

Priscilla watched them go. Was there anything going on between them? Her father had got on the phone to friends in the south and had found out all about Perry’s impeccable background and had started nagging his daughter to “do something.”

Usually that would have been enough to put Priscilla off, but she was becoming more and more fascinated by Perry.

The hotel generator could be heard faintly through the noise of the storm outside. She paced up and down the hall. What was taking them so long? Had they gone to bed together? Perish the thought!

Priscilla decided that she had better retreat to the lounge and look as if she were reading a magazine.

It was a full half hour before they both appeared.

“I’ll get the wine,” said Priscilla.

“Don’t you just ring the bell?” asked Perry.

“Only a few of the staff live in, and they are cleaning the rooms.”

“She moves like a dancer,” said Perry appreciatively. “Very graceful girl.”

“I brought down my laptop,” said Elspeth in a dull little voice. “I thought that after we have our mulled wine, we could go though everything. There might be a clue somewhere.”

“All right. At least if someone wants to kill you, they won’t get anywhere near the hotel in this weather.”

“Something’s up!” Elspeth cocked her head to one side like a bird. Then she ran out of the lounge, through the hall and out the open door. Very faintly, muffled by the roar of the storm, she heard the church bell. But it couldn’t be ringing for Catriona. She had already checked that the funeral was off. The bell, apart from Sundays, was only rung for an emergency.

This she told to Perry who had appeared beside her. “I’d better get back down there,” she said. “There might be a story. I’ll get the photographer.”

“Elspeth, I am not going out into that screaming wilderness again.”

“Suit yourself.”

The emergency was that Mr. Patel’s small son, Bertie, had gone missing. In answer to his frantic cries for help, Hamish had rushed to the church and rung the bell, telling the village men who had struggled to answer its summons to start searching. He then did a quick check of the bedroom that Bertie shared with his brothers. On Bertie’s pillow was an open book, the story of the Ice Queen.

Bertie was only six years old and a dreamy boy. Had he gone out to look for the mythical queen?

Priscilla came back with a tray of mulled wine. “Where’s Elspeth?”

“Our intrepid reporter thought she heard the church bell ringing. Her photographer is refusing to move.”

Priscilla put down the tray. “I’ll go after her. She shouldn’t be on her own. And something serious must have happened.”

“Now I feel like a heel,” said Perry. “I’ll come with you.”

Elspeth skied towards the village. She was halfway there when she realised the wind was slacking. She dug her poles in and came to an abrupt stop. Something was lying on the road.

She went forward. It was a child. A faint whimper escaped it.

Elspeth dragged the child to its feet. A tear-stained brown face looked up at her.

“You’re Patel’s boy,” said Elspeth. “What are . . . ? Never mind. I’m going to stoop down and I want you to get on my back. Right. Now hang on very tightly and I’ll get you home.”

She dug in her poles and sped down the road, nearly taking off at the humpbacked bridge.

Elspeth went straight to Patel’s. Mrs. Patel burst into tears as her boy slid down off Elspeth’s back.

“Get blankets,” said Elspeth. “I’ll go and get Dr. Brodie.”

Word spread rapidly that the boy had been found. Matthew Campbell had taken a photograph of Elspeth as she sped into the village with the boy on her back. He would add it to his stories about the blizzard and send a copy out to the nationals.

By the time Elspeth returned with Dr. Brodie, the shop was full of people, including Perry and Priscilla. A grateful Mr. Patel hugged Elspeth, tears of gratitude running down his cheeks. “Bertie had been reading a story about the Ice Queen. He asked me where she lived. He said he had seen her in the shop. He meant you, Miss Halburton-Smythe, because you look like the pictures in his book. So I said that she lived in that big castle up on the hill.”

“Take me upstairs to the boy,” said Dr. Brodie.

Hamish had been standing listening. He suddenly laughed. “The Ice Queen! That is a verra good description.”

“Shut up!” said Priscilla and walked out of the shop.

The following morning Hamish went back to studying his notes and reports until his head ached. If the murderer was a woman, then he was looking at someone in the village. He went back to the old guest list for the hotel. No hope there.

Then he went into the office and looked at the chart on the wall. Four murders all leading down to the sign that read sex.

Wait a minute, he thought. Have I been missing the obvious? The one person with a clear motive is Fergus. What if Sky in the café had been lying? Or what if she wanted a bit of the limelight? That was the trouble with so many reality programmes on television—everyone wanted fame these days without necessarily working at anything to achieve it. Maybe she had seen herself called as a witness at a murder trial and being photographed afterwards.