Hamish Macbeth 13 (1997) - Death of a Dentist (2 page)

“Mrs. Macbean?”

“Aye, what’s it to you?”

“The safe in the office was broken into last night, Mrs. Macbean,” explained Hamish patiently.

“The bingo money! It’s gone?”

“All gone,” said Hamish.

“Cool,” said Darleen. Her eyes were flat and dead. Valium or sheer bovine stupidity, thought Hamish.

“Where is he?” demanded Mrs. Macbean.

“In the office,” said Hamish, and then turned away as he heard cars driving up outside.

He went out to meet the contingent from Strathbane.

Detective Jimmy Anderson’s foxy features lit up in a grin when he saw Hamish.

“If it isnae Mr. Death hisself,” he said cheerfully. “Where’s the body? Wi’ the great Hamish Macbeth on the scene, there’s bound to be a body.”

“No body. The safe’s been broken into like I told you. I figure someone from the hotel did it.”

“Aye, maybe, Hamish. But what makes you think that?”

“I chust have this feeling.”

“The seer of Lochdubh,” jeered Jimmy. “Man, I could murder a dram. Any chance of them opening up that bar?”

“You shouldnae be thinking o’ drinking on duty,” said Hamish primly.

“Och, Hamish, it’s only on the TV that they say things like that.”

“And in police regulations.”

“If you paid any attention to police regulations, you would smarten up that horrible uniform. Your trousers are so shiny I can see ma face in them.”

“Are we going to investigate this,” snapped Hamish, “or are we going to stand here all day trading insults?”

“Where’s the body, then?” said Jimmy with a sigh.

“If you mean the safe, it’s in the office. Afore you go in, Jimmy, is there any gossip about Macbean?”

“Not that I’ve heard. Somat Enterprises, a Glasgow company who owns this place, employed him two years ago. The food’s rotten and the drinks are suspect, but they come for the bingo and the dancing. You know how it is, Hamish, it’s not as if Sutherland is a swinging place. No competition. Oh, well, lead the way.”

Macbean was standing outside the office in the entrance hall. Through the open office door, the white-coated forensic team were busy dusting everything for fingerprints.

“Damn,” muttered Hamish. “Two of the men turned the safe around. Their fingerprints will be on it.”

“I’ll tell them,” said Jimmy.

“You stupid fool,” Mrs. Macbean suddenly shouted in her husband’s face. One pink roller shaken loose by her rage fell onto the carpet. “I tellt ye that safe was silly. But you had tae go and dae things on the cheap.”

“Shut your face,” growled Macbean, “and go and do something to yourself. You look a right fright with them curlers in.”

Hamish’s tooth gave a sinister twinge. “Wait a bit, Mrs. Macbean,” he said, “you went to the dentist in Braikie.”

“Aye.”

“What’s Gilchrist like?”

She looked at him in amazement. “It wisnae me. It was Darleen that had the toothache.”

Hamish turned questioningly to Darleen, who was slumped against the wall, studying her long purple fingernails.

“Darleen?”

She suddenly opened her mouth and pointed to the bottom front row of her teeth where there was a gap.

“He pulled your tooth?”

“Too right.”

“Couldn’t he have saved it?”

“Whit fur?”

“Because teeth can be saved these days.”

Darleen stifled a yawn. “No shit, Sherlock.”

“Whit the hell are you asking questions about some poxy dentist when you’re supposed to be finding out who burgled my safe?” howled Macbean.

“I’m working on something else,” said Hamish.

Jimmy Anderson came out of the office. “Okay, I’ll take you one at a time. There’s no need for you any mair, Hamish. You can get back to your sheep dip papers or whatever exciting things you usually do in Lochdubh.”

Hamish went reluctantly. There was an odd smell of villainy about the hotel. “I’ll type up my notes for you,” he said stiffly to Jimmy.

“I wouldnae bother,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “When does that bar open?”

Hamish left. He drove back to Lochdubh but instead of going to the station, he stopped at the Tommel Castle Hotel just outside the village. The hotel was owned by Colonel Halburton-Smythe, Priscilla’s father, a landowner who, on Hamish’s suggestion, had turned his family home into a hotel when he was in danger of going bankrupt. The hotel had prospered, first through the efforts of Priscilla and then under the efficient management of Mr. Johnson, the manager. He went through to the hotel office where Mr. Johnson was rattling the keys of a computer. Hamish pulled up a chair to the desk and sat down opposite the manager. “Help yourself to coffee, Hamish,” said the manager, jerking his head in the direction of a coffee machine in the corner.

Hamish rose and helped himself to a mugful of coffee and sat down again. “That’s that,” said Mr. Johnson with a sigh. “I miss Priscilla. She’s a dab hand at the accounts. What brings you, Hamish, or are you just chasing a free cup of coffee?”

“There’s been a burglary over at The Scotsman.”

“Druggies from Inverness?”

“No, the safe was robbed. The bingo prize money. Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”

“Did they blow it?”

“No, Macbean got the safe on the cheap at an auction in Inverness. It had a wooden back.”

“I mind that safe. I was at that auction myself. That safe was made by a company nobody had ever heard of. I couldn’t believe that wooden back.”

“So what’s the gossip about Macbean?”

“Sour man with a slag of a wife and a drip of a daughter. Came here about two years ago. Somat Enterprises seem to have given him a free hand. It’s run by some Scottish Greek. Got lots of sleazy restaurants and dreary hotels. As far as I can gather, as long as The Scotsman showed a profit, he didn’t interfere. Macbean may have been creaming some of the profits, but he’d need to be smarter than I think he is, because Somat has a team of ferocious auditors who regularly check the books. Macbean thought up the bingo night and it’s been a big success. Do you know the colonel even had the stupidity to suggest we do the same thing? People come here for the fishing and shooting and the country house life, they don’t want a lot of peasants cluttering up the place.”

“What about the staff?”

“Don’t know. You know what it’s like trying to get staff up here, Hamish. No one’s anxious to check out references too closely.”

“Well it’s got nothing to do with me now.” Hamish sipped his coffee and winced as the hot liquid washed around his bad tooth. “Jimmy Anderson’s taken over. It’ll be a long slog—checking out Macbean’s past, checking out the staff’s past, checking out Macbean’s bankbook.”

“It’s more Blair’s line to keep you off a case, Hamish.”

“Aye, well, there been talk about Blair’s liver being a wee bit damaged and Jimmy Anderson aye goes through a personality change when he sniffs promotion.” He winced again.

“Toothache?”

“I’ve got an abscess. Dr. Brodie gave me a shot of antibiotic. I was going over to see Gilchrist. Oh, I forgot to say I wouldn’t be going.”

“I wouldn’t go near that butcher, Hamish. There was a bit of a scandal. Jock Mackay over at Braikie got a tooth pulled and Gilchrist broke his jaw. Jock had impacted roots and the tooth should have been sawn in half and then taken out a bit at a time. Turned out Gilchrist hadn’t even X-rayed him first. Folks told him to sue, but you know what it’s like. A lot of them are brought up to think that doctors, lawyers and dentists are little gods. They never seem to think that they’re just like the butcher or the baker. You get bad meat from the butcher, you find another butcher, but they’ll stick with a bad doctor or a bad dentist until the end of time.”

“Can I use your phone? I might go over myself tomorrow, now that I’ve got the excuse. What does Gilchrist look like?”

“White.”

“I didn’t think he was African or Indian.”

“No, I mean, very white, big white face, big white hands like uncooked pork sausages, very pale eyes, thick white hair, white eyebrows, white coat like the ones the American dentists wear.”

“Age?”

“Fifties, at a guess. Bit of a ladies’ man, by all accounts. Use the phone by all means, but only ask for a checkup or that man will have the pliers out and all your teeth out.”

Hamish dialled the dentist’s number. Maggie Bane answered the phone. He had never met her any more than he had ever met the dentist although he knew her name and had heard of her. Her voice on the phone was sharp and peremptory and he imagined a middle-aged woman with a tight perm, flashing glasses and a thin, bony figure. “This is Mr. Macbeth,” he said, appalled to hear his own voice sounding cringing and apologetic. “I won’t be over today after all. I couldn’t call you earlier because I was on a case.”

“We’ve got enough to do here,” snapped Maggie, “without having to cope with people cancelling appointments. I just wish that folk would tell the truth and say they’re scared.”

“I am not scared,” howled Hamish. “Listen here. I haff the abscess in my tooth and the doctor says I will need to wait until the antibiotic works before seeing the dentist.”

Maggie’s voice was heavy with sarcasm. “Oh, and when is that likely to be?”

Hamish took a deep breath. He was suddenly determined to see this dentist with the unsavoury reputation and this horrible receptionist. “Tomorrow,” he said firmly.

“There’s a Miss Nessie Currie has cancelled at three. You can have her appointment.”

“Thank you.” Hamish slammed down the phone.

Nessie Currie and her sister, Jessie, were the village spinsters. It was their fussy, gossipy manner which damned them as spinsters in a country like Scotland where women who had escaped marriage were sometimes considered fortunate, a hangover from the days when marriage meant domestic slavery and a string of children.

He decided to go and call on Nessie.

Nessie and Jessie were working in their small patch of front garden where narrow beds of regimented plants stood to attention bordering a square of lawn. A rowan tree, heavy with scarlet berries, stood beside the gate as it did outside many Highland homes as a charm to keep the fairies, witches, and evil spirits away.

“There’s that Hamish Macbeth,” said Jessie. “Hamish Macbeth.” She had an irritating habit of repeating everything.

Nessie straightened up and pulled off her gardening gloves, the sunlight glinting on her glasses. “We heard there was the burglary over at The Scotsman,” she said. “Why aren’t you over there?”

“Over there,” echoed Jessie, pulling a weed.

“I’m working on it. Why did you cancel your dentist’s appointment, Nessie?”

“It is not the criminal offence.”

“Criminal offence,” echoed the Greek chorus from the flower bed.

“Chust curiosity,” said Hamish testily, his Highland accent becoming more pronounced as it always did when he was irritated or upset.

“I don’t see it’s any business of yours, but the fact is, Mr. Gilchrist has a reputation of being a philanderer and I was going to have the gas, but goodness knows, he might interfere with my person.”

“Interfere with my person,” said Jessie, sotto voce.

Hamish looked at Nessie’s elderly and flat-chested body and reflected that this Gilchrist must indeed have one hell of a reputation.

He touched his cap and walked off. The sun was slanting over the loch and soon the early northern night would begin. He felt suddenly lonely and wished he could speak to Priscilla and immediately after that thought had a sudden sharp longing for a cigarette although he had given up smoking some years before.

“You’re looking pretty down in the mourn.” The doctor’s wife, Angela, stopped in front of him. “Tooth still hurting?”

“No, it’s fine at the moment. I was wishing Priscilla was back. We aye talked things over. Then the damnedest thing. I wanted a cigarette.”

Angela smiled, her thin face lighting up. “Why is it everything you let go of, Hamish, ends up with your claw marks on it?”

“I haff let go,” said Hamish crossly. “I wass chust thinking…”

“And I’m thinking you could do with a cup of tea and some scones. Come along, I’m on my way home.”

As Hamish walked beside her, he suddenly remembered that Angela’s home-baked scones were always as hard as bricks and his diseased tooth gave an anticipatory twinge.

The scones that Angela produced and put on the kitchen table looked light and buttery. “A present from Mrs. Wellington,” she said.

Hamish brightened. Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, was a good cook.

He had two scones and butter and two cups of tea. But disaster struck when Angela produced a pot of blackberry jam and urged him to try another. Hamish buttered another scone, covered it liberally in jam, and sank his teeth into it. A red-hot pain seemed to shoot up right through the top of his head. He let out a yelp.

“I say, that tooth is hurting,” said Angela. “Probably the jam. There’s a lot of acid in blackberries. Here.” She rummaged in a kitchen drawer and drew out a handful of new toothbrushes and handed him one. “Go to the bathroom and clean your teeth and rinse out your mouth well. Then come back and I’ll give you a couple of aspirin.”

Hamish grabbed the toothbrush and went into the long narrow bathroom. Two cats slept in the bath and another was curled up on top of the toilet seat. He ripped the wrappings off the toothbrush, brushed his teeth, found a mouth-wash in the cabinet and rinsed out his mouth. By the time he returned to the kitchen, the pain was down to a dull ache. He gratefully swallowed two aspirin. “I thought you would be over at The Scotsman Hotel,” said Angela.

The cats had followed Hamish from the bathroom. One began to affectionately sharpen its claws on his trouser leg and he resisted an impulse to knock it across the kitchen. Angela was very fond of her cats and Hamish was fond of Angela.

“Jimmy Anderson is on the case so I’m off it. Blair’s liver is playing up so Jimmy has dreams of glory.” Angela cradled her cup of tea between her thin fingers. “I’m surprised you haven’t been called to that hotel before.”

“Why?”

“I suppose I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I heard a rumour that Macbean beats his wife.”

“Neffer!”

“I think he does. She had bruised cheeks two months ago as if he’d given her a couple of backhanders.”