Hamish Macbeth 09 (1993) - Death of a Travelling Man (14 page)

“I’ve nearly finished,” said Priscilla. “Go away, Daddy.”

“Show a bit of respect for your father,” raged the colonel. “You used to be such a sweet child and you’ve changed since you came under the pernicious influence of this layabout.”

He stormed out.

“Rats,” said Priscilla, switching off the computer. “Now he’ll be in a foul mood all day. You smell awful, Hamish: Have you started smoking again?”

“No, I was at Mulkn’s bar last night, and there was enough smoke in there to make an old-fashioned London fog.”

“Of course, some normal people change their clothes from day to day,” said Priscilla sweetly. “You’d best come upstairs to my quarters, Hamish, or Daddy will be back to make trouble.”

She led him up to the top of the castle, where she had turned two servants’ rooms into a bedroom and sitting room for herself.

Hamish looked around appreciatively. The small room was bright with chintz and flowers and the windows were open to let in the heavy, warm air blowing in off the Gulf Stream. He settled down and told her everything that had happened.

“You are in a mess,” commented Priscilla.

“Do you think I should tell Strathbane?”

“My common sense tells me you should tell them everything as quickly as possible, my emotions tell me to keep it all quiet for a bit longer. You’re going to have to start questioning everyone all over again. Do you remember when Sean was popular in the village? And then, when he was killed, no one had a good word to say for him? Look at it this way. I think he only directly affected the Curries, the Wellingtons, Cheryl and Angela. But sooner or later that odd sort of Highland telepathy in this village beamed in on the nastiness of the real Sean. Besides, they’re quite happy to tolerate some layabout on the dole. They don’t like it when the layabout seems to have money to throw around the place on gifts from this shop and meals at the Napoli. So if any man or woman had been up at that bus on the night of the murder as well as Mrs Wellington, who’s going to tell you? Your suspects are desperate to have the murder solved in the hope that their own activities might be covered up, but the villagers would protect one of their own, even if they suspected that person of murder. Mrs Wellington was at the bus. Maybe she saw someone else that evening.”

Hamish passed a weary hand over his unshaven face. “You’re right. I’d better go.”

“Wait and have some coffee and I’ll go and borrow an electric razor for you. You’ve got red bristles.”

When she handed him a mug of coffee, Hamish looked at the television set and video in the corner and then at the various remote controls on the table. “I thought you only needed one control,” he said, picking one of them up.

“We’ve got satellite TV now,” said Priscilla. “I’ll leave you to play with it while I get you that razor. Press 5 on this one and that’ll get you satellite TV and then press the various channels on this other one.”

Hamish idly switched through the channels, finally ending up with a music one. A thin girl was gyrating to a thudding beat. She was wearing a brief black leather bikini and thigh-length leather boots. “All I gotta say is, screw you, baby,” she sang.

“Is that supposed to be sexy?” Hamish asked Priscilla as she came in and handed him a razor.

“Not to you,” laughed Priscilla. “That’s Jonathan Carty.”

“Are you telling me that’s a bloke?”

“Yes, a transvestite.”

“But he’s got boobs!”

“Silicone injections, Hamish. The marvels of modern science.”

“Tcha.” He switched it off.

“Don’t worry, Hamish. The moral revolution’s coming. Reaction will set in and even mild womanizers like yourself will be regarded as evil beasts.”

“I am not the womanizer,” said Hamish. “Where’s the bathroom?”

“Along the corridor and on your left. Have a bath while you’re at it. I left one of Daddy’s clean shirts on the chair in there for you.”

“He’ll kill you!”

“I really don’t take any notice of his rages any more,” said Priscilla. “If someone’s always raging about something or another, one ceases to listen.”

Hamish bathed and shaved and felt considerably better. He said goodbye to Priscilla and drove to the manse and collected Mrs Wellington despite protests from the minister. Instead of going to the police station, he drove up on the moors and parked off the road on a heathery track.

“Willie’s at the station,” he said, “and I’m still trying to protect you, but I don’t know how long I can go on doing it. I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now, you were at the bus on the night of the murder. When exactly?”

“Nine o’clock,” she said in a dull voice.

“Why did you go?”

“I pleaded with him to give me that video. He asked for a thousand pounds. I began to cry. I begged him. I said I could not possibly get that amount of money and he…he laughed at me. I was only there for a few minutes. I realized it was hopeless, so I left. My husband grabbed me outside. He demanded to know what I had been saying, why I had been there, but I could not tell him. Then he returned to the manse later and said Sean had told him I was worried about losing my faith. For one wild moment I felt hope. Sean had not betrayed me. Perhaps he would relent. And then I realized that of course he would not tell my husband the truth while there was still hope of getting money out of me for his silence.”

“And you went back out again? Where? Back to the bus?”

Mrs Wellington hung her head. “I couldn’t go back. There were men there.”

“Men!” Hamish howled in exasperation. “What men?”

“Mr Ferrari from the restaurant and two others.”

“Good God, woman,” raged Hamish, “why did you not tell me this before?”

She raised her head and glared at him with something of her old manner and said distinctly, “Because if they killed him, I was not going to betray them for doing a service for mankind!”

Hamish forced himself to be calm with an effort. “So where did you go?”

“Down on the beach. I walked for a long time, a very long time. I thought of walking into the water and putting an end to the misery, but I could not even find the courage to do that.”

“Look,” said Hamish urgently, “Mr Wellington’s a Christian minister of the church. It is his duty to forgive. Why don’t you tell him?”

“No man is a Christian when it comes to his own wife,” she said. “I can’t.”

“You may have to,” warned Hamish. “I’d best see Mr Ferrari…and you had better start saying your prayers again.”

§

Half an hour later, Hamish was sitting opposite Mr Ferrari in the flat above the restaurant. It always amazed him that a man who looked so Italian could have such a strong Scottish accent.

“Well, Mr Ferrari,” began Hamish, “I have it on good authority that yourself and two men were up at that bus on the night of the murder.” Mr Ferrari went as still as a lizard on a rock when a shadow crosses it. His old unblinking eyes surveyed Hamish from among the network of brown wrinkles on his face. “I guess the other two men were Luigi and Giovanni,” said Hamish.

“That is so,” said Mr Ferrari. He took a small black cheroot out of a box on a table next to him and lit it carefully.

“Why did you not tell me?” demanded Hamish.

“Because none of us committed murder, therefore the purpose of our visit was irrelevant,” said Mr Ferrari, blowing a perfect smoke ring in Hamish’s direction.

“Anything that happened on the night of the murder is relevant,” said Hamish. “Either tell me here or come to the station with me and make a statement.”

There was a long silence. Then Mr Ferrari said, “I have come to love this village. I am part of it. I am involved in the welfare of Lochdubh. Sean Gourlay in the eyes of the villagers had outstayed his welcome. It was evident to all that he was the reason for Mrs Wellington’s distress, although no one knew why. I took it upon myself to tell him to move on.”

“With threats?”

“Dinnae be daft,” he said, his accent broadening. “I told him if he stayed on I would see to it that the shops did not serve him.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He said he would move.”

Hamish leaned back in his chair and momentarily closed his eyes. He was in no doubt that Mr Ferrari had threatened Sean with physical violence. Perhaps he had carried out that threat.

“I will type up a statement,” said Hamish, “and get you to sign it. I will also have to take statements from Luigi and Giovanni.”

Mr Ferrari carefully stubbed out his cheroot. He looked thoughtfully at Hamish from under heavy-lidded eyes. “I am not pleased that you are pursuing inquiries into the death of a piece of shit,” he said evenly. “I am not pleased with you at all, Sergeant.”

“Listen to me, Mr Ferrari,” said Hamish, standing up, “this is not Italy. There are no headmen in this village, and I for one will not tolerate anyone who tries to achieve his ends with threats. You are not pleased with me! Just who the hell do you think you are?”

Hamish stalked back to the station and typed up the statement. He took it back and waited until Mr Ferrari signed it and then took statements from Luigi and Giovanni.

At five o’clock, Luigi and Giovanni called at the police station. With many smiles and deprecatory waves of the hands they said they had come to collect Mr Ferrari’s television set, which had been ‘on loan’.

“You must hae done something to make them mad,” said Willie after they had left, carrying the set between them. “Och, jist when I thought I might have a chance wi’ Lucia.”

“You’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell,” said Hamish with true Highland malice. “The only thing that’s likely to marry you, Willie Lament, is a vacuum cleaner.”

“Fat lot you know,
sir
,” said Willie. “Thon Lucia’s a
real
woman.” And he wrenched off his apron, dragged on his coat and went out and slammed the door.

Hamish slumped down in his favourite armchair, tossed his cap on the floor and stretched out his long legs. He thought of the Curries, of Angela Brodie, of Mrs Wellington and groaned. “Damn all women,” he said and closed his eyes and fell fast asleep.

He plunged straight into a dream in which he had just got married to Priscilla and they were on their honeymoon. They were in a hotel bedroom and Priscilla was undressing and he was staring in horror at her flat, muscled, hairy chest. “What’s the matter, Hamish?” laughed Priscilla. “Didn’t you know I was a man?”

He woke up sweating and stared sightlessly across the room, his heart pounding. What a nightmare! It must have been because of the awful day and because of that transvestite he had seen on television.

And then he sat up straight. When he had woken Cheryl yesterday morning, she had been groggy with sleep and she had been wearing a dirty old night-gown. How could she have fled from him on a scooter one minute and been in bed the next? The route the figure on the scooter had taken through the trees had been away from the direction of the campsite.

He dived through to the office and phoned Strathbane and asked to speak to Jimmy Anderson. “Whit now?” demanded Jimmy.

“Look,” said Hamish, “this may be a daft question, but among the so-called pop singers in Strathbane, is there one who dresses as a woman?”

“A transvestite like?”

“Aye, wi’ orange hair, slim, maybe girlish-looking.”

“There’s the one wi’ black hair, or had the last time I saw him.”

“Name?”

“Real name I dinnae ken, for he hisnae been in trouble with us. Time was when we could hae banged him up for dressing like a lassie, but them were the good auld days.”

“Name?” shouted Hamish.

“Bert Luscious, would you believe.”

“Where…where does he live?”

“I don’t know. But he does a turn at a drag club doon by the docks called Jessie’s.”

“A drag club in
Strathbane
!”

“We move wi’ the times, Hamish, laddie, we move wi’ the times. Started up a few months ago. Put a plainclothes man in for a few nights, but he said it was all quiet, no drugs, no mayhem, jist a lot of fellows in lassies’ frocks.”

“Thanks,” said Hamish feverishly.

“Whit fur? Are ye intae the marabou and rhinestones yourself?”

“Maybe,” said Hamish and put down the phone. He scrabbled in his desk and came up with a notebook he had used when Sean and Cheryl had appeared on that scooter. He had taken the number. But if she had sold it, he could not find out the new owner until morning. Damn. He should have phoned immediately after he got back.

He went to the Napoli restaurant. Willie was sitting comfortably at a corner table being waited on by Lucia. “I’m off again,” said Hamish curtly. “You’d best get back to the station in case any urgent calls come through.”

Lucia looked at Hamish as if he were a monster. Then, “Go along,” she said quietly to Willie. “Giovanni will bring your meal and your wine over to you.”

As Hamish left, Mr Ferrari held open the door for him. His thin purplish lips were parted in a smile which did not reach his eyes.

When gloamin’ treads the heels o’ day

And birds sit courin’ on the spray,

Alang the flower’y hedge I stray,

To meet my ain dear somebody.

—Robert Tannahill

H
amish took Towser with him, frightened that a lovelorn Willie would neglect the dog. He put the dog’s blanket and water bowl in the back of the Land Rover, along with a helping of cold pasta he had found in the kitchen.

As he once more took the long road to Strathbane, he wondered that a drag club could survive anywhere in the Highlands. ‘Jessie’ was the Scottish word for an effeminate man, a shortened version of the old English sneer of jessamy. No doubt that was why the place was called Jessie’s. He did not want to advertise to the customers that he was a policeman, but neither did he want to borrow a frock from Priscilla and dress up. He was not in uniform but in a dark-blue sweater, checked shirt and dark-blue cords. He could only hope that some of the other customers were similarly attired.

He found Jessie’s on the waterfront in Strathbane, housed in what used to be a ship’s chandler’s. Music was thudding out into the acrid air of Strathbane. He locked the Land Rover after filling Towser’s water and food bowls and made his way inside, blinking to accustom his eyes to the darkness.