Death of Yesterday (4 page)

The sky above had slowly changed to dark grey, and a whisper of wind caressed his cheek as he got out of the Land Rover.

Hannah Fleming opened the door. Hamish’s heart gave a lurch. She really was beautiful.

“What is it?” she asked. “Geordie’s at work.”

Hamish shuffled his boots. “It’s like this,” he said awkwardly, “I wondered whether you had heard any gossip about the factory.”

“You really need to ask my brother. It’s not long since I arrived here.”

“But you must have been up here before? Did Geordie introduce you to anyone?”

“Let me see. It was in the spring. He took me round the factory to see if there was anything I wanted to buy. But it’s cheap
stuff—T-shirts and jeans mostly. They often get coach parties at the factory. The tourists are presented with T-shirts with
the logo
I LOVE THE HIGHLANDS
on them as part of their package deal. How that factory copes with the Chinese competition, I’ll never know.”

“Did you ever meet Mrs. Gilchrist?” asked Hamish, wishing she would invite him indoors.

“Yes, we were invited for dinner last June. Overbearing woman and a bully. Is there anything else?”

“No.” Hamish half turned away. Then he turned back and blurted out, “Will you have dinner with me one evening?”

“Oh, why not? It’s pretty boring here. Where?”

“There’s a good Italian restaurant in Lochdubh. I could drive you over there this evening.”

“Make it tomorrow. I’ll drive myself over. Say, eight o’clock.”

“Grand.”

Hamish sang as he drove to Lochdubh. It seemed such a long time since he had been able to look forward with such anticipation
to anything.

Halfway to Lochdubh, the moors were lit up with a great sheet of lightning followed by a crash of thunder. The rain came down
in torrents.

When Hamish got to Lochdubh, he stopped on the hunchbacked bridge at the entrance to the village to check the height of the
water in the River Anstey. He struggled into his oilskins and got down from the Land Rover and leaned on the parapet of the
bridge. The water was racing and foaming underneath, the normally placid river having been turned into a raging torrent. He
hoped the rain wouldn’t last long or he’d need to get villagers out with sandbags to stop the village being cut off.

And then like something in a horror movie, a body came hurtling down the water. A white dead face with staring eyes looked
up at Hamish before the body rolled over and was swept down into the loch.

Cursing, Hamish stripped off his oilskins and uniform down to his underpants and made his way down to the beach. He plunged
into the water, swam to where he had seen the body disappear, and then dived. He dived and dived again without success. He
was about to give up when the fast current from the river pouring into the loch sent the body up to the surface again.

Hamish grabbed it and pulled it free of the current and towed it to shore while the heavens above flashed with lightning and
roared with thunder as if Thor and all his horsemen were riding the inky skies.

He laid the body on the shingle. It was Fergus McQueen.

As the pathologist went into a hastily erected tent over the body, the sky was paling in the west. Thunder rolled away in
the distance.

Dick had turned up with dry clothes for Hamish. They stood side by side under a large golf umbrella. A little way away from
them stood Blair. His wife, Mary, did her best to keep him off the booze, but Hamish saw, from one look at the man’s truculent
and bloated face, that the chief detective inspector had been on one of his binges.

Police had been sent upstream to see if they could find any evidence of where the body had entered the river.

A television crew appeared on the scene. To Blair’s fury, the reporter, a small blonde female, went straight to Hamish. “We
hear you pulled the body out of the water, Mr. Macbeth. Could you describe what happened?”

Blair lumbered forward and put his bulk between the camera and Hamish. “Macbeth,” he snarled, “get back to the station and
put in your report, then join the others up the stream.”

“Wait a minute.” Blair swung round. Superintendent Daviot appeared on the scene. “I see no reason why Macbeth cannot give
a brief statement to the press,” he said. “Go ahead.”

Daviot loved appearing on television. He smoothed back the silver wings of his hair and took his place beside Hamish.

More press arrived in time to hear Hamish’s statement while Blair prowled around, trying to conceal his fury.

Daviot then made a statement commending Hamish’s resourcefulness and bravery.

Hamish was glad to finally escape back to the police station and to a welcome from his pets. He had just finished his report
when Jimmy Anderson arrived. “Got any whisky?” he asked. “I’m fair droochit.”

Hamish took down a bottle from the kitchen cupboard. “How was he killed? I assume he didnae just fall in.”

“Stabbed in the back. Long, thin sharp instrument. Any idea where the murder might have taken place?”

“A good place to look would be up at the falls. Say the lad met someone up there. There’s a wee bridge over the falls. Could
have been stabbed and thrown over. I’ll get up there, but I should think the rain must have washed any evidence away.”

Jimmy tossed back his whisky, shuddered, and said, “I’ll come with you.”

“I’d better stay here,” said Dick, “in case there are any calls.”

If Hamish had not been so keen to have someone to look after his beloved pets, he would have ordered the lazy policeman to
join them.

By the time Hamish and Jimmy had reached the top of the waterfall, the sky above was clearing rapidly. A late sun shone on
rainbows in the spray of the roaring, cascading waterfall. They stood on the small rustic bridge which spanned the top of
the waterfall and searched inch by inch.

Nothing.

The bridge seemed to have been scrubbed clean by the deluge. “What a waste of time,” grumbled Jimmy. “I could do with a drink.
Are you sure there isn’t another place we should be looking at?”

“I can’t hear you,” shouted Hamish above the roar of the water. “Let’s get back to the Land Rover.”

Out of the sound of the water, Jimmy repeated his question. Hamish looked around the rain-sodden countryside where rainwater
glittered and shone on the heather.

“Just suppose,” he said, “that Fergus thought he knew something about the murderer and tried to blackmail him. The murderer
would not want to meet him anywhere near Cnothan.”

“Depends how long he’s been dead,” said Jimmy. “He could just have fallen in.”

“After being missing all this time? I doubt it. Maybe we should get out again and look further upstream.”

“Have you anything to drink in this vehicle of yours?” asked Jimmy.

“I have a flask of brandy for the emergencies.”

“Tell you what, laddie, pass it over and go and look yourself. That’s an order.”

Hamish opened the glove compartment and handed over the flask. He was glad to be on his own and have time to think. He was
feeling weary after his plunge into the loch.

He trudged back up the stream. Then he cursed his memory. He had forgotten that a little way up the road from where he had
parked was the car park for tourists to leave their vehicles and view the falls. Beside the car park was a recently disused
gift shop. There had been some quarrel over the ownership of the shop. Colonel Halburton-Smythe had leased the shop. The lease
had run out, and no one else had come forward to take the place of the previous tenants. Local vandals had smashed the windows,
and the door was hanging on its hinges.

He went inside. A few roaches left by pot smokers were lying on the dirty floor. But on a battered table was a half bottle
of whisky with a couple of inches still in it and two glasses.

He went outside and phoned Jimmy. “You’d better get SOCO up here. I should have remembered the place. I’m up at the old gift
shop. You only have to come a few yards up the brae.”

When Jimmy arrived and peered in the door, he said cynically, “I don’t think any murderer would have left proof like that.
And surely tourists still park here.”

“Not at night,” said Hamish. “Our murderer may have drugged Fergus and dragged the body to the falls. He was just a wee, thin
chap. Put out a bulletin and find out if anyone was up near the falls and saw anything.”

They waited a long time. The Scenes of Crimes Operatives did not turn up until an hour later.

The leader, Jock Bruce, asked, “Did you go in there, Hamish? You should ha’ known better than to muck up the scene.”

“I had to look,” said Hamish. “He turned to Jimmy. I’ll go back and write up my report.”

But as he entered the police station, he found Charles Palfour waiting for him in the kitchen. From the living room came the
sound of the television.

“What brings you here?” asked Hamish.

“I thought you could help me,” said Charles.

At that moment, the kitchen door opened and Olivia strode in. “I’ve been looking for you, dear brother. What are you doing
here?”

“I saw the commotion at the bridge and came to ask what it was all about,” said Charles.

“I can tell you all about that,” said Olivia briskly. “Come along.”

Charles got to his feet. Hamish took out one of his cards, and as Charles passed him, he slipped it into his pocket.

“Are you sure you didn’t want to say something to me?” said Hamish to Charles’s retreating back.

“No, he doesn’t,” said Olivia.

They went out. Hamish strode into the living room. Dick was ensconced in an armchair with the dog and cat at his feet. Switching
off the television, Hamish demanded, “Did Charles say anything to you while he was waiting for me?”

“Not a word. Said he would only talk to you.”

“Damn! That boy’s about to crack. While you’ve been lounging here, you lazy sod, I found another body.”

Dick settled himself more comfortably in his chair. “Aye, Fergus McQueen.”

“You’re a policeman. Didn’t it cross your mind to go and have a look?”

“I was about to, but just afore Charles arrived, Archie Maclean came by with some fish and told me the place was fair swarming
with coppers. I thought I’d just be in the way.”

“Well, get along there and see what you can find out. I want to know what time he was killed.”

“They won’t know that until there are the results of the autopsy,” said Dick, reaching for the remote control.

“Out! Now!” shouted Hamish, exasperated.

As he sat down at his desk in the police office to prepare his report, he could hear Dick grumbling to the animals, “Makes
me sick. He comes in here all wet and trachalt, so he wants me to go out and get as miserable as he is.”

Hamish sighed as he switched on the computer. This second body would bring the press in droves.

Things in the real world, thought Hamish, the next morning, as he went up the back of the police station to check on his sheep,
move so slowly. People had become so accustomed to
CSI
programmes on television that they expected instant forensic results. All he saw before him was a long wait for the results
of the autopsy, and more plodding door-to-door asking questions that had probably been asked already by some policeman of
the squad that an infuriated Blair was no doubt unleashing on Cnothan and the surrounding countryside.

But his date with Hannah shone in his brain. He knew he should not be dating the sister of a possible murderer, but she could
have nothing to do with it. She had been in Glasgow at the time of Morag’s disappearance.

He would not admit to himself that her beauty comfortably dimmed any memories of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe in his mind.

The storm, instead of refreshing the weather, had left a sticky sunny day where midges danced through the air looking for
people to bite.

He avoided the press as much as he could, leaving Dick to cope with them. Dick had an enviable, easygoing way with the press.
He would talk to them happily without giving away one single fact.

Hamish decided to call on Mrs. Gilchrist. If, by any remote chance, Gilchrist and Morag had been having an affair, she might
let something slip. A small, wiry man with a bald head was mowing the lawn. He switched off the mower when he saw Hamish.
“Looking for someone?” he asked.

“Is Mrs. Gilchrist at home?”

“Naw. I drove herself to the airport yesterday. She’s aye taking the foreign holidays.”

“Where has she gone?” asked Hamish.

“Herself said she was going to tour through Europe. Och, I swear herself spends more time away than here. How her man puts
up with it is beyond me, so it is.”

“I gather you work for the Gilchrists,” said Hamish.

“Aye, that’s right. I’m Sean Carmichael. I’m by way of being an odd job man.”

“Did you know Morag Merrilea?”

“I really only met her the once. I was sent tae Inverness airport to pick the lassie up when she came north. What a wee madam!
I tried to have a bit o’ a chat but she says, ‘You’re a driver, aren’t you? Shut up and drive.’ Could ha’ skelped her. Cheeky
bitch.”

“Did she socialise with the Gilchrists?”

“Naw. Mr. Gilchrist says tae me, he says, ‘I like to keep a distance between me and the staff. Get friendly and they take
liberties.’”

Hamish made his way towards the factory but did a U-turn when he saw Blair’s car parked outside. He went instead to Fergus’s
lodgings but turned away from there as well when he saw the forensic van outside.

Feeling frustrated, he returned to the police station. It was hard to believe all this was happening in the Highlands with
no one having seen a thing. You could be up on the moors and feel alone in the world and maybe decide to sing, and, sure enough,
some shepherd the next day or so would comment: “I heard ye singing up the brae. Bit too much o’ the hard stuff, hey?”

Cnothan, however, as he knew from bitter experience, was unnaturally secretive.

He sat down at the kitchen table with his notes. Dick was outside in the front garden on a deck chair, fast asleep.

He wondered about Pete Eskdale. He seemed a bit of a philanderer if all his broken marriages were any proof of that. Morag
liked manipulating people. It might have amused her to go to bed with him in London to secure the job.

Hamish put away his notes. He roused Dick, saying, “We’re going to Strathbane to interview Gilchrist’s former secretary. If
she’s bitter about getting the sack, she might talk more freely than most of them.”

Hamish stopped halfway to Strathbane to let the dog and cat out for a run in the heather. “They spend too much time lounging
around with you, Dick,” he complained. “They’re getting fat.”

“That reminds me,” said Dick, “I’m hungry. I didn’t have much for breakfast. Just the one wee bit o’ toast and some fried
haggis and bacon.”

“We’ll get something in Strathbane after we see this girl. She works at an electronics factory and there’s only the one in
Strathbane—Gerald and Simons.”

The factory was the only prosperous-looking building on a run-down industrial estate on the outskirts of the town.

Hamish asked to see Stacey McIver and was told it was her lunch hour and she was in the works canteen. Dick brightened and
said quickly, “We’ll go and join her.”

They followed the receptionist into the factory and up in the lift to the top floor to a well-equipped self-service canteen.

The receptionist introduced them and left. “I’ll just be getting us some food,” said Dick and moved rapidly towards the counter
before Hamish could protest.

Stacey McIver was a small, thin girl with a white spotty face and lank brown hair. She had prominent eyes of an indeterminate
colour and a large nose.

Hamish sat down facing her. “I want to ask you about your time at the factory working as secretary to Mr. Gilchrist.”

“It wasnae fair, sacking me like that,” said Stacey. Her voice held the fluting notes of the Outer Hebrides. “I was good at
my job.”

“So why did he sack you?”

“He said I was incompetent. But I wasnae! Ask them here. I do good work.”

“When exactly did he sack you? Was it long before Morag Merrilea arrived?”

“It was the day after she arrived.”

“What! But Pete Eskdale told me he had hired Morag in London because the situation was vacant—or that’s the impression he
gave me.”

“That’s the way it happened.”

“What is Gilchrist like?”

She frowned. “A bit cold and bossy. Made me work hard. Wrapped up in that bossy wife of his. Mind you, he gave me a good reference
and a goodbye handshake.”

“How much?”

“Five hundred pounds.”

Dick thrust a laden tray in front of Hamish. “I can’t eat all that,” complained Hamish. “Three mutton pies!”

“And two doggie bags,” said Dick triumphantly. “Two of them are for the dog and cat.”

Hamish turned his attention back to Stacey. “Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“I was so shocked, I didnae know what to think. My ma said, ‘Chust take the money. Thae capitalists are aye weird.’ My ma’s
a Communist. I got this job almost right away and it’s a lot better than working for Gilchrist. Look, I’ve got to get back
to work.”

Hamish took out his notebook and asked for her name and address. After Stacey had left, he said to Dick, who was eating a
mutton pie, peas, and chips with relish, “Let’s see Gilchrist again. He’s got some explaining to do.”

Hamish made the mistake of stopping on the road back to feed the dog and cat and to report to Jimmy Anderson what he had found
out and asking if anyone knew where Mrs. Gilchrist was.

“I’m at the factory,” said Jimmy. “I’ll handle it.”

In vain did Hamish protest. It was only occasionally that Jimmy tried to grab the credit for work that Hamish had done, but
when he did, there was no moving him.

He drove back to the police station in a bad mood. The sweltering weather did not help his temper.

In the office, he sat down and began to type out a possible scenario where Gilchrist had killed his wife, Morag had found
out, and so he had got rid of her as well. But what of Sean Carmichael who had driven Brenda Gilchrist to the airport? He
searched the police records and came up with the name of Maisie Moffat’s husband. Nothing very serious. One charge of drunk
and disorderly and another for shoplifting. But such a man could be bribed. Perhaps he had been in the pub the night Morag
had been drugged.

He drove back to Cnothan and went straight to the Highlander pub. But Stolly Maguire said he was tired of being asked questions.
He knew Moffat but could not remember if he’d been in the pub that evening.

He went round to the factory and caught Jimmy as he was leaving. “It’s no go, Hamish,” said Jimmy. “Gilchrist got a call from
his Mrs. last night from a hotel in Lyon. I phoned her from his office and she was very much alive and as loudmouthed and
bossy as folks say she is and she is travelling on her very own passport, so no doubt there.”

“But why was he in such a rush to get rid of Stacey, give her a good reference, and pay her five hundred pounds as well?”

“He says she was no good and he desperately needed an efficient secretary. He says he felt sorry for the girl.”

“I don’t like it,” said Hamish.

“Well, there’s damn all we can do about it,” said Jimmy crossly. “I’ll maybe drop by this evening.”

“I can’t,” said Hamish. “I’ve got a date.”

“Who with?”

“Mind your own business.” Hamish was afraid that if Jimmy found out he was dating Hannah, he might protest that it was against
the rules to date the sister of a suspect. But the very thought of the evening ahead lightened his mood.

He dressed with special care that evening. For once he was glad that neither Priscilla nor Elspeth was in Lochdubh. In the
past, they had often turned up unexpectedly when he was dining with some woman or other.

As he was ready to leave, he said to Dick, “Not a word to anyone about my dinner date.”

“Just so you know it will be all over Lochdubh in about one hour,” said Dick.

“They won’t know who she is,” said Hamish hopefully.

“Oh, aye? The drums will be beating, the smoke signals will be going up, and by the time you get to the coffee stage I’m sure
folks like the Currie sisters will have found out exactly who she is.”

The Italian restaurant was candlelit. “On your own?” asked Willie Lamont, the waiter who was married to the owner’s daughter.

“No, I’m dining with someone.”

“Who would that be?”

“Someone you don’t know.”

“Is it Sonja?”

“Who the hell’s she?” asked Hamish, looking at his watch.

“A new maid up at the hotel. A real fam fatal.”

“Femme fatale,” corrected Hamish, who was used to Willie’s malapropisms.

The door opened and Hannah came in. Hamish stood up, feeling his heartbeat quicken.

Hannah was wearing a gold-coloured sheath of a dress which clung to her figure. Her thick black hair framed her perfect face.
She was carrying a huge handbag. Willie rushed to pull a chair out for her. In the candlelight, Hamish noticed her eyelashes
were so thick that they cast shadows on her cheeks.

“I’d try the spaghetti carbonated,” said Willie eagerly. “I had some for my supper, miss, and it was grand.”

“Go away,” ordered Hamish. “We’ll call you back when we’re ready to order.”

“I’ve never had carbonated spaghetti before,” said Hannah.

“I think our Willie means carbonara. You’d think he’d have learned the menu by now.”

After some discussion, they agreed to order the same thing: starters of avocado and prawns, followed by osso buco. Hamish
also ordered a bottle of Valpolicello.

“Tell me about the case,” said Hannah.

“I can’t really talk about it,” said Hamish awkwardly.

“Meaning my poor brother is still a suspect?”

“Something like that.”

“Shame on you, Hamish. Poor Geordie wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Willie took their order. When he had left, Hamish said, “Have you come across anyone at all that you think might be capable
of murder?”

“Not one,” said Hannah. “I think you’re wasting our time in Cnothan. I think you should be checking the London end. It’s all
over the place that Morag was a lesbian and having an affair with Freda Crichton. What if she had some lover in London who
learned of the affair and got mad with her and came up here?”

He shook his head. “Any stranger would stand out a mile in that pub. They may not remember exactly who was there on the night
she got drugged, but they’d certainly remember a new face—and they would tell me, too, they’d be so anxious to get the heat
off the locals. There is one case I can talk to you about, and one that still bothers me.”

Hamish told her about the Palfours. As they ate, she listened intently. As he talked, he felt they were enclosed in a little
world of candlelight.

He then asked her about her work in Glasgow. As she talked, he barely listened, almost hypnotised by her beauty.

Over glasses of strega and coffee, Hamish said, “You shouldn’t be driving. I’ll take you home and we’ll bring your car over
in the morning.”

She glanced at him from under those ridiculously long lashes. “I’m sure you can find me a bed for the night at the police
station.”

“Of course,” said Hamish, wondering if she could hear his heartbeats from across the table. “I’ll be back in a moment. Just
going to the men’s room.”

In the toilet, he phoned Dick and said urgently, “She’s coming back with me. I want you to take Sonsie and Lugs and clear
off to the Tommel Castle Hotel for the night. Tell the manager, Mr. Johnson, I’ll pay him tomorrow.”