Death of a Bore

∨ Death of a Bore ∧

3

At last it grew, and grew, and bore and bore,

Till at length It grew a gallows

—Thomas Kyd

Hamish had not planned to visit the writing class on the following Wednesday, but Angela and Dr. Brodie said if he would come along they would take him for dinner to the Italian restaurant afterwards. Dr. Brodie said Angela had written a very good story, and he wanted to see how she got on.

The village hall was as full as it had been the week before. Hands clutched manuscripts. Faces were flushed with excitement.

As usual, John made a late entrance. He began, “There was another part of my life which influenced my writing. It all began…”

“No!” shouted Mrs. Wellington, formidable in tweed and a large felt hat with a pheasant’s feather thrust through it. “You said you would look at our work. There’s a lot of us here. Let’s get started.”

“Oh, very well,” said John sulkily. “Who’s first?”

There was silence, everyone suddenly being struck with shyness.

“I’ll start,” said Mrs. Wellington. She lumbered up to the stage on her stout brogues. “I have started writing one of those little romances. Beneath my intelligence, but it’s a beginning. I’ve done one chapter.”

John’s mobile phone rang. Hamish noticed that once more he was made up. He heard John saying, “But you promised!” Then he lowered his voice and snarled something before ringing off.

Strathbane Television is not coming, thought Hamish. And he’s in a right fury about it.

“Read out some of your work,” John ordered.

Mrs. Wellington shifted her large feet uncomfortably. “I would rather you read some of it yourself.”

To her dismay, he began to read out loud. “It was a dreich day in the glen when Claribell McWhirter went out to feed the hens. Her long red hair blew about her white shoulders…”

“Was she naked?” sneered John.

“Of course not.”

“Then how does the reader know she has white shoulders?”

“She’s wearing one of those…one of those Gypsy blouses, off the shoulder.”

“You should have said so. Now to her name. Claribell is the name of a cow, my dear woman. Hardly romantic.”

“I can change that.”

He flicked through the pages. “If I were you, I would buy some romances and get some idea of what to write. This is rubbish. Next?”

Mrs. Wellington, her face flaming with fury, grabbed her manuscript and clumped off the stage.

A thin youth walked up to the stage. Hamish recognised Angus Petrie, a forestry worker. “It’s science fiction,” said Angus proudly. “I’ve only got the first few pages, but it’ll give you an idea.”

“Read!” ordered John.

Angus went as red as his hair and pimples, but he gamely cleared his throat and began: “The five suns were setting over the planet Zog when Burt Lightheart walked back to his cave followed by his trusty gorg, Siegfried.”

“What’s a gorg?” interrupted John.

“It’s a hairy creature which lives on the planet, rather like a pig.”

“Might have been a good idea to tell us that. And why the hell would he call this gorg Siegfried? Fans of Wagner up there, are they? Oh, go on, go on.”

“His wife, Zelda, had prepared him a succulent supper of ferret’s flesh.”

“What’s a forret?”

“It’s a ferret what’s had it,” shouted someone, and was immediately shushed.

“It’s a big hairy thing, rather like a mastodon,” said Angus.

“But we don’t know that because you haven’t told us.”

“Gie the lad a chance,” shouted Archie.

“I’m not reading any more,” said Angus stiffly, and walked off the stage.

And so it went on, with one would-be writer after another being crushed. The Currie sisters were particularly incensed at being told their offering read like an immature school essay. Alistair Taggart was told his story was incomprehensible because he had written it in Gaelic, and he was only allowed to read a few sentences. He looked for a moment as if he was going to strike John.

And then it was Angela Brodie’s turn. Her husband had insisted. She began to read in a quavering voice, and then her voice grew more confident as she read on. It was a short story about a newcomer trying to come to terms with life in the far north of Scotland. The hall was completely silent, everyone becoming wrapped up in the story.

John sat biting his knuckles. He’s desperately trying to find something to criticise, thought Hamish.

When Angela finished, there was a burst of applause. “Shows promise,” said John sourly. “But you’ve got a long way to go before you can consider yourself a writer.”

Archie Maclean leapt to his feet. “No,” he shouted, “thon was grand, and you’re the one that’s got one lang way tae go afore you can consider yourself a writer.”

There were cries of agreement.

“The class is over,” said John. “I will see what progress you have made next week.”

He strode from the stage, hitched his coat down from a peg, swung it round his shoulders, and left with an angry banging of the door.

Hamish looked around the hall at the furious faces, at the disappointed faces, and at the hurt faces. Being highland himself, he knew that a good lot of them would be plotting revenge.

He left the hall and returned to the police station and got into the Land Rover. It was time to have a serious talk with John Heppel.

♦

The night was clear and starry, the air was more seasonably cold. He drove up the rutted track to John’s croft house crouching under the thick branches of a large oak tree. Apart from the forestry plantations, there were very few trees in Sutherland because of the ferocious gales. To ward off fairies, there were rowan trees growing outside cottage doors, but this great oak tree was unusual.

Hamish knocked on the door. When John answered it, he stared up at Hamish and scowled. “What now?”

“It iss about your behaviour this evening,” said Hamish. John did not know Hamish well enough to be alarmed at the sudden sibilance of the policeman’s accent – a sign that Hamish was seriously upset. “How dare you humiliate folks so badly? Who the hell do you think you are, you with your rotten manners? I want you to write letters of apology to the members of your class and return their money. How much was the fee? Ten pounds? You are a fraud. You were supposed to be teaching them how to write, not demoralising them.”

“I am a literary writer,” spluttered John. “I have my standards. I – ”

“I should ha’ never let that business about the graffiti go,” said Hamish. “In fact, I’m taking the matter to Strathbane. They take racial insults very seriously these days. I’ll have you out of Cnothan if it’s the last thing I do. Now, are you going to write these letters?”

“Bugger off.”

“Well, you asked for it.”

Hamish turned on his heel. As he walked to the Land Rover, he heard the door bang angrily behind him.

He was worried. He knew Lochdubh would never forgive John. In fact, he was so worried he forgot he had promised to have dinner with Angela and her husband.

♦

The next day he was about to go out on his beat, late as usual, when he saw the Strathbane Television van parked on the waterfront and Jessma Gardener interviewing Mrs. Wellington, who was surrounded by members of the writing class.

Hamish walked forward to listen.

“John Heppel is a fraud and a charlatan,” boomed Mrs. Wellington while the soundman struggled frantically to mute her voice. “He deliberately set out to shame all of us, one by one. A lot of us showed promise, but I don’t think any of us will have the courage to write again.”

Jessie and Nessie Currie pushed forward. “We’d written an awfy nice story, “From Our Kitchen Window,” and he just sneered at us,” said Nessie, “after I’d read only a few words. Then there’s the money we spent on a computer.”

“On a computer,” echoed the Greek chorus that was her sister.

“And I think we should be getting our money back.”

There was a cry of approval.

“Here comes the wee man,” shouted a voice from the back of the crowd.

John Heppel drove up. I wonder how he knew the television people were here, thought Hamish. Or does he smell out publicity the way a wasp can smell jam?

“Mr. Heppel,” said Jessma. “It seems your writing class wants their money back.”

John did not have make-up on, but he had browned his face with fake tan.

He took up a position in front of the camera. He cleared his throat. “One must be cruel to be kind,” he said pompously. “The shelves of bookshops are already overcrowded with books which should never have been published.”

“Like yours, you dirty wee man,” shouted Alistair Taggart. “I’ll get you if it’s the last thing I do.”

John spread his chubby hands in a placatory gesture. “You are all suffering from wounded ego. You…”

From the back of the crowd, a well-aimed tomato sailed over heads and landed right on John’s face. The villagers cheered. The tomato was followed by an egg. Other missiles sailed through the air. “Stop filming!” howled John, dodging right and left, but the camera rolled on. He saw Hamish and shouted, “You’re condoning this!”

“All right, that’s enough,” said Hamish reluctantly.

John rounded on Jessma. “Harry Tarrant, your boss, is a friend of mine. I’ll get him to sack you.”

“He’s the drama executive,” said Jessma. “I work for news.”

John strode off to his car, staggering slightly as Archie Maclean landed a kick on his bottom.

Jessma turned to Hamish. “We’ve got good stuff here. Watch the news at six.”

“How did you hear about the class?” asked Hamish.

“Six of your villagers phoned in last night with complaints.”

“Won’t you get in trouble with this drama executive he was talking about?”

“No. He might shout and complain, but we can say we can’t consult the drama department over news.”

“Let’s hope that’s the end of John,” said Hamish. “I’ll be right glad to see the back of that man.”

The wind had shifted round to the north and was blowing with increasing ferocity. The crowd began to scatter, people huddling coats around themselves.

Hamish set off on his beat. He decided to call in at the Tommel Castle Hotel. The hotel had once been the home of the love of his life, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, until her father had fallen on hard times and had turned the place into a successful hotel.

Hamish wanted to hear if there was any news about Priscilla. He knew she had planned to get married and that the wedding kept getting postponed, and although he told himself he was no longer interested in her, his heart rose at each postponement.

Mr. Johnson, the manager, came out to greet him. “Mooching coffee as usual, Hamish?”

“No, but if you’ve got any, I’d like a cup.”

“Come into the office.”

Hamish followed him in with Lugs at his heels. “That dog of yours is too fat,” said Mr. Johnson.

“He’s chust fine,” said Hamish, irritated, while mentally promising to put Lugs on yet another diet.

Mr. Johnson poured him a cup of coffee. “What brings you?”

“You forget. The hotel’s on my beat. I’m supposed to check up that you aren’t harbouring terrorists or running drugs.”

“You need to check on Dimity Dan’s for drugs.”

“You’ve heard something?”

“Just a buzz here and there. Priscilla’s not married, if that’s why you really came.”

Hamish’s face flamed as red as his hair. “This was supposed to be a friendly call,” he said stiffly.

“Well, sit down and stop glaring at me. What’s all this about John Heppel creating mayhem in Lochdubh? One of the maids said there was quite a scene on the waterfront.”

Hamish told him about the writing class. “That’s a shame,” said Mr. Johnson. “We’ve got a writer staying here, Mary Timper. You know, she writes family sagas. Very popular.”

“Any chance of meeting her?”

“Why?”

“I just had this idea that maybe I could get her to talk to the folks who’d written stuff, and get a proper opinion from her.”

“I suppose it’ll do no harm if you ask her.” He picked up the phone and dialled a number. “Miss Timper. There’s someone down here would like a word with you. It’s our local bobby. No, no, nothing serious. He wants to ask your help. Right. He’ll be in the lounge.” He replaced the phone. “She’ll be right down. Take yourself off to the lounge and leave that dog of yours here.”

Left alone, Lugs sadly eyed the closed door through which his master had just left. Then he sniffed the air. Biscuits! Mr. Johnson had left a plate of biscuits on his desk beside the coffee cups.

He stood up on his hind legs and felt with his forepaws. Then he climbed up on Mr. Johnson’s chair. He chomped his way through the whole plate of biscuits and then tried to slurp the coffee out of the manager’s cup, but it tipped over and the contents spilled across the desk.

Somewhere in Lugs’s doggy brain, he sensed he was now in trouble. He climbed down from the chair and sat near the door. A maid opened the door. Lugs darted past her and ran out to the Land Rover and lay down on the far side of it.

In the meantime Hamish was shaking hands with Mary Timper. She was a pleasant, grey-haired motherly-looking woman with pale blue eyes magnified by large glasses.

“What brings you to Sutherland?” asked Hamish.

“I came because of the hotel’s reputation. I like hotels. I like someone else to do the cooking and house-cleaning once in a while. But you didn’t call to ask me why I’m here, did you?”

“No. We’ve got a writing class in Lochdubh.”

“Ah, yes, someone called John Heppel. I haven’t read him.”

“You wouldn’t want to. It’s like this.” Hamish told her about the humiliation of the villagers and ended with, “So I just wondered if maybe you could look at their work and give them all a bit of a boost.”

She sighed. “I’m not an editor.”

“You see,” pleaded Hamish, “some of the folks bought computers, and they were all so excited about the writing. The winters up here are long and dreary. I hate the idea of them thinking it’s all been a waste of time.”

“Oh, very well. I’ll have a go. When?”

“I thought maybe this evening about seven-thirty at the village hall? I’ll call for you.”

“You are persistent, aren’t you? All right. I’ll do my best.”

♦

Before Hamish went out that evening to collect Mary, he turned on the six o’clock news. They had given quite a large coverage to the humiliation of John by the villagers. He felt suddenly uncomfortable. Surely John deserved it all, but the anger and violence of the villagers, highlighted by the camera, made him uneasy.

When Hamish drove Mary to the village hall, she kept nervously protesting that she did not have the talents of an editor. But once she got started, Hamish thought she did marvellously. She even got one of the locals to read out a translation of Alistair’s work. She made tactful suggestions to each, but always throwing in a bit of praise, which made each villager glow with pride.

The evening was just winding up with the villagers crowding around Mary to thank her when the door of the village hall burst open. A crofter from Cnothan, Perry Sutherland, stood there, his face as white as paper.

“Hamish Macbeth!” he shouted.

“I’m here. What’s the matter, Perry?”

“It iss thon writer. He hass killed himself.”

♦

Hamish asked Angela to run Mary back to the hotel, then he sprinted to the police station, got in the Land Rover, and turned on the siren. He raced out of Lochdubh and onto the Cnothan Road.

The stars were bright and the night had turned bitterly cold. The track to John’s croft house was already hard under his wheels and frost shone like marcasite on the heather on either side of the track. Behind him in his car came Perry Sutherland.

The door of John’s cottage was standing open with light streaming out. Perry joined Hamish. “Was the door like that before?” asked Hamish.

“Aye, that’s why I went in. I chapped first, and when I didnae hear nothing, I went in and found him on the floor.”

Hamish hurried into the cottage. In the living room John Heppel was lying on the floor. Hamish knelt down beside him and felt for a pulse. There was no sign of life. He sighed and sat back on his heels and looked around the room. The remains of an evening meal lay on the table. The room was icy cold. The computer was still switched on, and he could see something on the screen. He got up and went over to the computer. There was a message which read, “I can’t go on living any more. The people of Lochdubh have killed me.”

Hamish took out his mobile and phoned Strathbane police headquarters and reported the death.

Then he went back and stared down at the body. Surely no one as vain as John would take his own life. But if he had, how had he killed himself?

He pulled on gloves. He longed to search the house but knew he would get a rocket from the forensic boys for leaving his footprints all over the place. He decided to have a look inside the dead man’s mouth to see if that would give him a clue. He went back out to where Perry was shivering under the stars.

“They’re on their way, Perry,” said Hamish. “There’s nothing you can do. Get into your car and switch on the heater.”

“This is a bad business,” said Perry. “I saw him on the news. Do you think that’s what did it?”

“I hope not,” said Hamish, thinking that if John had really committed suicide, he might become some sort of literary martyr crucified by wicked villagers.

Hamish searched for the kit he always carried with him in the Land Rover and drew out a tongue depressor. He went back in and knelt down again and felt the body. Rigor had not yet set in. He might have died recently. But Hamish knew that rapid cooling of a body could delay rigor.

He gently slid the tongue depressor between John’s dead lips and opened the mouth a little. He could see that the tongue was black. He withdrew the depressor and looked around again. There was something nagging at the back of his mind. He got up and went to the fire. He noticed the peat was gleaming damply. He leaned into the fireplace and touched it. Then he stood up and frowned. He could swear water had been thrown on that fire to put it out.

Hamish could hear sirens in the distance. He removed his gloves, slid the tongue depressor into his pocket, and walked outside. The great oak tree growing over the cottage groaned in a rising north wind, and as one old branch rubbed against another, making a creaking sound, Hamish shivered and thought that a gibbet with a body on it would have sounded like that in the old days.

He hoped Detective Chief Inspector Blair was drunk or on leave or anywhere that would stop him from coming. His thickheaded, bullying ways had impeded many of Hamish’s investigations. But his heart sank as the first police car arrived and Blair’s heavy body heaved itself out of the backseat.

“Whit do we have?” he demanded in his heavy, truculent Glasgow accent.

“John Heppel is dead. He’s left an apparent suicide note, but I think – ”

“What you think, laddie, doesnae matter. We’ll wait for the pathologist. She’s on her way.”

“She?”

“Aye, they would go and appoint some damn woman. That’s the trouble these days. They want to look all modern, so they shove some lassie into a job that should ha’ gone to a man.”

“Who is she?”

“Professor Jane Forsyth. Here she comes.”

A little Ford drew up, and a stocky middle-aged woman got out. “Where’s the body?” she asked.

“It’s in the living room,” said Hamish.

Hamish made to follow her, but Blair growled, “Stay where you are.”

So Hamish stayed and looked up at the stars and shivered in the wind and wondered what it was that was nagging somewhere at the back of his brain. And suddenly he had it. John had signed the book for him with an old–fashioned fountain pen, the kind you refilled from a bottle of ink. There had been a bottle of ink on his desk.

He was sure that someone had either poured ink into John’s mouth or made him drink it. That smacked of revenge. That smacked of murder. But he had somehow to get to the pathologist without Blair listening.

Detective Jimmy Anderson arrived. Hamish went to meet him. “Jimmy, don’t ask at the moment. Just get Blair out of there so I can have a sneaky word with the pathologist.”

“Cost you a bottle o’ whisky. I’ll need to lie. I’ll need to say that Superintendent Daviot is particularly interested and wants him to phone right away.”

“What happens to you when Daviot says he doesn’t know what Blair’s talking about?”

“Daviot’s attending the Freemasons tonight. Let’s hope by the time he hears about this, he’s really interested.”

Jimmy went into the house. I hope Blair doesn’t take out his mobile or use John’s phone, thought Hamish, but a minute later Blair shot out and went to the police car.

Hamish slid into the house and approached the pathologist. “There are two things you ought to know,” he said, bending over her as she worked on the body. “His tongue is black and I think it’s ink.”

“Ink!” She stared up at him in surprise. “What makes you say that?”

“I put a tongue depressor in his mouth to see if I could find out if he had taken anything. His tongue was black. He used an old–fashioned fountain pen.” Hamish looked across at the desk. “There’s an empty bottle of ink there. It was full the other night. Also, water’s been thrown on the fire to put it out and delay rigor. Someone was trying to cover up the time of death. Don’t tell Blair I looked in his mouth.”

They heard Blair lumbering back towards the cottage. Professor Forsyth quickly opened John’s mouth just as Blair came in.

“How you getting on, lassie?” said Blair.

“My name is Professor Forsyth, and I hope you will remember that in future. This man’s tongue is black. Your intelligent officer here has just pointed out it looks like ink, and the ink bottle on the desk is empty. The fire has been put out, as if someone wanted to delay the onset of rigor. It could well be murder.”

“I told you to wait outside,” yelled Blair.

“Just as well he didn’t,” said the pathologist.

“What about the suicide note?” demanded Blair.

“Anyone could have written that. I’ll need to get this body removed to the lab for a proper autopsy, I shall send a report of my findings to the procurator fiscal.”

“If there are no prints on that ink bottle,” said Hamish, “or on the keyboard of the computer, then that will definitely be suspicious.”

“Just get the hell out of here!” roared Blair. “Go and look at your sheep or whatever it is you usually do.”

The professor gave a click of annoyance.

Hamish retreated. He decided to go back to the police station. Jimmy, lured by whisky, would visit him as soon as he could. As he left, he noticed the forensic team had arrived and were putting on their blue suits with tight-fitting hoods and bags drawn tightly over their shoes so that no trace of their own DNA should mess up a possible murder scene.

♦

In the police station Hamish made himself a cup of coffee after giving Lugs a bowl of water and sat down to think before he typed up his report. It looked to him as if someone, somehow, had murdered John, maybe forcing him to drink the ink first. Then the murderer may have panicked and tried to fake a suicide, possibly wiping John’s dead face to remove any external traces of ink.

Who had reason to hate John so much? There were the village members of the writing class. He had humiliated all of them.

“I hope it’s not one of them,” said Hamish to Lugs. “I knew that man would bring evil here.”

He sighed and went through to his computer in the police office, typed his report, and sent it off to headquarters. He had just finished when Jimmy Anderson called from the kitchen door, “Anyone at home?”

“Aye, come ben,” shouted Hamish.

He closed down the computer and said over his shoulder to Jimmy, “This is a bad business. How did it go after I left?”

“Give me a dram and I’ll tell you.”

They went into the kitchen, where Hamish got down the whisky bottle and two glasses.

“I’ll pour my own,” said Jimmy, seizing the bottle. They both sat down at the kitchen table.

“It’s cold in here,” complained Jimmy.

Hamish rose and went to the stove. He raked down the ashes, put in kindling, and threw a lighted match in. When it was all burning, he added several slices of peat and replaced the lid of the stove. He sat down again.

He looked steadily at Jimmy.

“Well, was it murder?”