Death of Yesterday (12 page)

Freda Crichton had taken the day off sick. No witnesses. She had not called a doctor.

Maisie Moffat had taken the morning off to visit a sick friend in Bonar Bridge. Friend confirmed the visit but a gap between ten in the morning and one in the afternoon.

“What do you think?” asked Jimmy impatiently. “Have we a visiting serial killer?”

“I think we’ve got a panicking amateur here,” said Hamish. “And a very lucky one at that. I think Fergus knew something and was blackmailing whoever. Hannah was fantasising. I’m sure of that. The trouble is that television these days gives everyone a lesson in how to do it.” He shuffled the statements restlessly. “Such a cliché.”

“What is?”

“Hannah’s death in the hospital. How many cop dramas and real-life crime shows have portrayed someone being murdered in hospital. I’ve even seen one where the CCTV camera was spray-painted. It was all over the news about her press conference. She phoned her brother and told him where she was. We’ve got to find out who he told. She’d still be alive if he had told us. Where was he when he got the call?”

“At his desk in the factory. And worse. He shouted, ‘Hannah! Where are you?’ Then he wrote down the name of the hotel on a bit o’ paper and put it in his desk. Anyone could have overheard him and spread the news. It couldn’t have been Gilchrist. He was down in Glasgow.”

“Somebody might have phoned him.”

Jimmy’s phone rang. He listened and then got to his feet and walked outside. When he came back in, his face was grim.

“You’re to report right now to Daviot,” he said. “An anonymous caller has reported that you were overheard threatening to kill Hannah Fleming. The caller also said you had dinner with her in Lochdubh and that she spent the night in the police station.”

Nessie Currie, thought Hamish bleakly.

“This is mad,” said Hamish. “I’m the one who found her on the Struie Pass and saved her life. Dick was with me.”

“Get along with you,” said Jimmy heavily. “Thank your lucky stars that Blair is still in hospital.”

As Hamish waited outside the superintendent’s office, he reflected that the gods were punishing him for his night with Hannah Fleming. He had accused her of vanity, but what about his own behaviour? He had been carried away by her appearance alone.

Helen, Daviot’s secretary, came out of her boss’s room and gave Hamish the thin malicious smile she always gave him when he was in trouble. “You’re to go in now.”

“This is a bad business, Macbeth,” said Daviot. “We have had an anonymous report that you were heard threatening to kill Hannah Fleming and that you had dined with her and that she had spent a night at the police station. At that time, Miss Fleming was the sister of one of our suspects. Before I take this to internal affairs, I would like your version of what happened.”

* * *

While Hamish had been on his road to Lochdubh, Dick had phoned Jimmy, looking for Hamish whose phone was switched off, and had heard what had happened. When he had rung off, he looked dismally at the cool blonde sitting at the kitchen table.

“Hamish is in bad trouble, Miss Halburton-Smythe,” he said.

“Why?”

Dick rapidly told her about Hannah and the night in the police station. “It was as innocent as anything,” he said. “The lassie was just too drunk to go home.”

“What evening was this?”

Dick told her.

“I was up here on a flying visit,” said Priscilla. “I called in to see Hamish. Hannah Fleming had already passed out. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Got to rush.”

Daviot listened carefully to Hamish’s long explanation. Daviot just finished when his phone rang. Hamish stood in front of the superintendent’s desk, his face a picture of misery. It was obviously Daviot’s wife on the phone. Daviot kept protesting he hadn’t time to do any shopping and he didn’t care who was coming to dinner, he was in the middle of a murder enquiry. His wife’s voice at the other end squawked loudly.

At last Daviot rang off and mopped his brow. “Where was I? Yes, you are to go downstairs and write a statement and bring it back to me. You are, of course, suspended from duty and . . . what is it, Helen?”

“Miss Halburton-Smythe is here. She says she has urgent information concerning Macbeth.”

“Show her in.”

Hamish looked in surprise at Priscilla. From the blonde bell of her hair to her neat half boots, she was as beautiful and impeccable as ever.

“I called in at the police station and heard what the fuss was about and came right away. You will want my statement.”

“Please take a seat, Miss Halburton-Smythe. Why should I want your statement?”

“Only that on the night Miss Fleming was at the police station, I called there late. Hamish was getting ready to bed down in the cell. Miss Fleming was already snoring her drunken head off on his bed. Hamish told me he had made a mistake taking her for dinner but that he had hoped to get a lead on some of the people at the factory.”

“Is this true, Macbeth?”

“Aye, I’m afraid I’ve been that upset, I forgot,” said Hamish.

Daviot was a snob and the word of someone like Priscilla Halburton-Smythe was, in his opinion, to be ranked somewhere slightly below the word of God.

Priscilla said, “You were so tired, Hamish, and so upset that you had wasted time on her, that I’m not surprised you forgot my visit. I was only there a few minutes.”

Daviot smiled. “This does put a different complexion on that matter. But your methods are very unorthodox, Macbeth.”

“But it is those very methods that have solved so many cases in the past,” put in Priscilla.

“Perhaps.” The phone rang again. “I am talking to Miss Halburton-Smythe, dear,” said Daviot importantly. The voice of his wife at the other end could be heard quacking loudly. When he rang off, Daviot said, “My lady wife wonders if you would care to join us for dinner this evening, Miss Halburton-Smythe?”

Priscilla smiled sweetly. “Alas, this is only another flying visit to see my parents, and they have invited Lord and Lady Pastern to dinner this evening.”

Daviot looked suitably impressed.

When Priscilla and Hamish emerged from police headquarters, Hamish thanked her as she explained how Dick had told her the trouble he was in. “Are Lord and Lady Pastern really coming to dinner?” he asked.

“No, but it was the snobbiest couple of names I could think of. Let’s go for a coffee. I want to hear about the case.”

The wind had risen, and her blonde hair was whipped about her face. Hamish noticed when they entered the café that her hair fell back into its impeccable bell shape. I wonder how she does that? he thought.

Outside the café windows, rubbish danced in the rising gale. There had been a refuse collectors’ strike.

“Sutherland has decided we have had enough of this odd good weather,” said Priscilla. “Now, Hamish, begin at the beginning.”

So Hamish did, giving her a concise report.

“It’s got to be someone at the factory,” said Priscilla when he had finished.

“I’m inclined to agree with you,” said Hamish, fighting down a treacherous wonder if Priscilla ever remembered lying in his arms. As he looked at her, he thought, not for the first time, that she was like an addiction. In just the way that he was sometimes assailed with a longing for a cigarette, so he longed for the passionate Priscilla of his dreams, a Priscilla, he knew, that did not exist. That was the reason he had broken off their engagement.

“You see,” said Priscilla, “it must have been someone who was on hand to find out which hotel she was staying at.”

“But which one?” mourned Hamish. “You know Cnothan. They don’t talk to outsiders at the best of times.”

“Jobs are hard to come by in the north,” said Priscilla. “Before the recession, there was a big influx of Poles, taking on the jobs the locals wouldn’t do. By the time they were prepared to do anything, the jobs had gone. The people of Cnothan are desperate that nothing should happen to that factory. What about that friend of Morag’s, Celia Hedron, the flatmate in London?”

“Not a suspect. She never left London and is still there.”

“But if Morag was a friend of hers and if it was a close relationship, Morag might have phoned her.”

“I think I’ve got her number. I’ll phone from outside. She’s been interviewed but she might remember some small thing. Do you want to wait and hear what she says?”

“No, I’ve got to rush. I’m due back in London tomorrow.”

“Dinner tonight?”

“Why not? I’ll meet you at the Italian restaurant at eight o’clock.”

Outside the café, the blustery wind sent Priscilla’s hair flying about her face and whipped at her thin jacket.

Hamish’s cap was torn from his head and went dancing off down the street. By the time he had recovered it, Priscilla had gone.

He climbed into the Land Rover and searched through his records until he found a home number and mobile number for Celia Hedron. Celia was at home and sounded puzzled when he introduced himself. “I don’t know that I can add anything to what I have already told the police,” she said.

“You have been told she was pregnant?”

“Yes. It was a great shock. The Morag I knew had no interest in men.”

“Would she be tempted by money? Say she came across some rich man.”

“I don’t think so. I know she did want a baby. But she had planned to get one by artificial insemination.”

“Any record of that?”

“No, Scotland Yard checked everywhere.”

“Did she talk about people in the factory?”

“Very dismissively,” said Celia. “She said they were a bunch of morons. But she would enjoy that.”

“Why?”

“I loved Morag but I wasn’t blind to her faults. It was almost as if she was compelled to look down on people to bolster up her self-worth. She was a good graphic artist, but there are lots of them around and she couldn’t get work. The idea of going up to the Highlands amused her.”

“Didn’t she mention any men at all?”

“Look, we had a quarrel about a month before she was murdered. I had been getting a bit tired of her high-and-mighty attitude. I have a prospect of a good job with an advertising company. She went very sour when I told her and said, ‘I don’t think your work will be up to it. Aren’t you afraid?’ I told her to find somewhere else to live. But she got the job before she found anything else. I told her not to speak to me again. But she did. She had to brag about the hypnotist and how someone had drugged her. Did you say your name was Hamish Macbeth?”

“Yes.”

“Morag said you really fancied her.”

“Not even the slightest bit,” said Hamish coldly. “Write down my number and if you can think of any little thing, let me know.”

At the police station, Dick chortled gleefully when Hamish told him of Priscilla’s rescue.

“A grand lassie,” said Dick. “Oh, while you were out, I got a call. A woman over in Southey says her man went out last night and didnae come home. I told her to wait a bit.”

“What’s his name?”

“Bob Macdonald. A crofter.”

“We’d better get over there and look into it. He could be lying out in his fields.”

“Och, do we have to? He’ll probably be home when we get there.”

“Let’s hope so,” said Hamish curtly. “Get your uniform on. And switch that television off!”

Southey was more of a hamlet than a village, a huddle of houses in front of a curve of white sand. Great Atlantic waves were crashing on the beach, their tops whipped back by the gale.

The Macdonalds’ croft house was on a rise above the village. As they drove up, a small round woman with greying hair came out to meet them.

She led the way into a small parlour. The room smelled of furniture polish. It was obviously only used for special occasions.

“When did you last see him?” asked Hamish.

“It would be just afore teatime. About five o’clock. He was just going out to check the fences, but he never came back.”

“Have the locals been out looking for him?”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “They won’t move. They don’t like him. Our neighbour, Bella Robertson, left him her house and croft in her will. Her son and daughter are furious and they’re trying to break the will. Everyone’s sided with them.”

“Would anyone attack him?”

“We’re all God-fearing people here,” she said. “No one would dream of it.”

“What about the sheepdog?”

“Came back on his own. I took the dog back out and searched the fields.”

“We’ll go and have a look.”

Hamish and Dick searched fields high and wide with the sheepdog, Cally, following at their heels.

“He could be anywhere,” groaned Dick, puffing and panting.

“We need a bloodhound,” said Hamish. “You would think Cally would find his master. Let’s try the beach.”

“Can I no’ just sit in the Land Rover?” pleaded Dick. “Your ain beasties will be wanting a bit of air.”

“Oh, go on,” said Hamish impatiently.

He strode over the fields and down onto the beach, his boots sinking in the soft sand. Out to the west, black clouds were beginning to pile up. Ribbons of white sand blown by the wind snaked in front of him. He walked to where the cliffs began at the west end of the beach. He climbed up to the top of the cliffs and stood, holding on to his hat, scanning round about through a pair of binoculars.

And then, on the top of a flat rock, buffeted by the rising tide, he saw what looked at first like a pile of rags. Then with a lurch in his stomach, he found he was looking at a body.

He started to climb down towards the rock. The large rock was sloping on the shore side, rising to its flat top where a man lay. Hamish scrambled up. The man had been tied down with ropes held by spikes driven into the rock. Hamish felt for a pulse and found a faint flicker. The tide was coming in fast and the man’s clothes were soaked. Hamish took out a knife and cut the ropes. He phoned Dick and shouted that he needed air-sea rescue and a defibrillator out of the Land Rover and warm blankets. He told him where he was.

The tide was coming in. A great wave crashed against the rock. He gently sledged the man down the slope of the rock and then, his muscles cracking with the strain, lifted him up and laid him on a flat piece of shingle at the base of the cliffs, out of the wind and away from the rising tide.