Chapter Three
Swans sing before they die: t’were no bad thing
Should certain persons die before they sing
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Philomena slowly recovered consciousness. She tried to move, but her wrists were chained and padlocked to a bed. Her voice was dry. “Help,” she croaked.
“I will let you go,” said a man’s voice from the corner of the room, “if you swear to me you did not show that letter to the police.”
“I swear… I promise you on my life.”
“If you’ve lied to me, then your life is what you’ll be losing. Do you understand?”
“Yes, yes.”
“Shut your eyes.”
Philomena heard two clicks as the handcuffs were released. “You will find your car a bit away from this bothie on the Struie Pass. You will stay here for ten minutes and then go. If you so much as utter a word about this to anyone, I know where to find you.”
“Yes, please,” begged Philomena.
She heard the door of the bothie close. After a few minutes, she tried to sit up. She felt dizzy and weak. She could barely remember anything except sitting in that bar in Inverness and the woman opposite urging her to look out the window.
She finally swung her legs down onto the floor. The place was filthy and looked as if it had not been used, except maybe by schoolboys or vagrants, for years. There was a strong smell of excrement and urine. The mattress she had been lying on was soiled, with broken springs curling through the torn covering in places.
A rickety table held a bottle of mineral water and the remains of a bottle of whisky. She felt so parched, she opened the bottle and drank the water.
She did not care whether ten minutes had passed or not. Philomena staggered out into the spring sunlight. Over the heather, she recognised her car parked up on the road.
She hurried towards it, sometimes tripping and falling, but always rising and forging on to safety.
A watcher lowered his powerful binoculars. “Think she’ll keep her mouth shut?” asked the woman beside him.
“No.”
“Think she drank the water?”
“Probably. That drug you slipped into her drink causes a tremendous thirst. Let her set off and then we’ll follow her to make sure. We can always take her out before she reaches Drim. Did you put all the flammable stuff in the back?”
“Yes.”
“She’s off. Let’s go.”
The Struie Pass, the old road into Sutherland, is full of hairpin bends, but at the top it commands the most beautiful view as Sutherland lies in front and below: ranges of blue mountains and lochs stretching into the distance.
Philomena kept blinking. Lights were flashing before her eyes. At the viewpoint, she suddenly saw a smooth dual carriageway stretching out in front of her. People seemed to be dancing on it, which was odd but all she thought of was escape. She pressed her foot down hard on the accelerator and plunged right off the edge of the Struie Pass. The car rolled and tumbled and finally hit a rock where it burst into flames, a fireball from hell.
“She drank the water,” said the man with satisfaction.
“Aren’t you being a bit overelaborate? All that LSD?” asked his companion. “She probably told someone.”
“No, she didn’t. I know Philomena. She had a tape recorder in her bag. She was going to play detective. If she’d told her sister or the police, they’d have been after me by now. Now, let’s go. I’ve got to cover my tracks. We’ll throw her phone along with that tape recorder in the nearest peat bog.”
“Look, she may have said something to her sister.”
“Not her, pompous cow.”
Milly enjoyed a relatively peaceful day. But as evening approached and there was no sign of her sister-in-law, she began to fret. She went up to Philomena’s room. All her clothes were still hanging in the wardrobe.
She phoned Hamish Macbeth. “It’s not like her. For days, she hasn’t left me alone for a minute, and now she hasn’t even phoned. She said she was going to Inverness to do some shopping.”
“Have you a photograph of her?”
“I might have an old one somewhere.”
“Look for it. What was she wearing?”
“A heather-mixture tweed suit with brogues.”
“Hat?”
“No hat.”
“What was she driving?”
“A Ford Escort.” Milly gave Hamish the registration number.
“Phone me as soon as she gets back,” he said, “but I’ll let you know if we find her.”
Milly said goodbye, put down the receiver, and sat staring at it. Then she phoned Tam Tamworth. He was not in the office, but he had left her his mobile phone number.
“Now then,” said Tam when she told him about her missing sister-in-law, “I wouldnae put it past thon wumman to stay away jist to frighten you. But I’ll go look.”
The next morning, a family stopped at the viewpoint on the Struie Pass to admire the view: father, mother, and two small children, the Renfrew family up from Glasgow.
“Aren’t the Highlands just grand,” said Ian Renfrew, taking his binoculars and getting out of the car. “Come and see the view.”
“You go,” said his wife, huddled in the front seat. “It’s as cold as hell out there.”
A wind was screaming across the heather. The children in the backseat, Zak, age ten, and Gypsy, age nine, were listening on their iPods and ignored their father.
He swept the horizon with his binoculars, first towards Western Fearn Point on the Kyle of Sutherland and across the kyle to Creich Mains and then focussed them on the burnt-out wreck of a car far down one of the braes below, just before he was preparing to put the binoculars away.
His eyes sharpened as he adjusted the focus. He could see a black mass inside the wreckage which looked like a body; a little way away on the heather was one shoe.
He felt a bit sick. He got into the car and took out his phone. He called the police and reported that there was a burnt-out wreck of a car below the viewpoint on the Struie Pass and he was sure there was a body in it. His wife stared at him in alarm.
“We’ve tae stay right here,” he said.
The children finally unplugged their iPods and whined, “Why are we stopped?”
“Your father’s seen a dead body in a car down the brae and we’re to wait for the police,” said Mrs. Renfrew.
“Cool!” chorused the delighted children.
Hamish arrived on the scene. A forensic team was having difficulty erecting a tent over the car and body because of the strength of the wind. “What do you think, Hamish?” asked Jimmy. “Lost concentration and went off the road?”
“Not a hope wi’ a fire like that,” said Hamish. “It’s only in the movies that they burst into flames like that. Some accelerant was in that car. It’s her, all right. They cleaned the number plate and it matches with hers. Damn! I’ll tell you what probably happened. She found one letter in that secret drawer and decided to play detective herself. Now she said she was going to Inverness. If she thought she was so clever, she’d arrange to meet whoever in a public place. Where?”
“Shopping mall?”
“Probably some hotel bar,” said Hamish. “And let’s hope it’s some hotel bar with CCTV.”
A shocked and weeping Milly had found a photograph of Philomena addressing a Women’s Institute meeting. It was a good clear shot, and it was circulated to the police and to the newspapers.
A waitress from the Dancing Scotsman came forward to say she recognised Philomena. She had been talking to a woman. Then she seemed to take faint and the woman had helped her outside. Another witness turned up. He had seen a woman answering Philomena’s description being helped into a four-wheel drive with tinted windows. No, he could not see who was driving.
The police were excited. They felt it was only a matter of time before they caught the killer. There was no CCTV inside the hotel bar, but they had a full description of the woman with Philomena.
“Fix yourself a drink, darling,” called the woman who had helped to kidnap Philomena. “I must get this stuff off.” She went into the bathroom. She removed pads from her cheeks and layers of foam rubber which had given her a plump figure. She would have removed them immediately after Philomena had gone to her death but he had said to wait until they were back in Edinburgh. It had made her uneasy, because they must have some sort of description of her by now. She was revealed as a slim woman in her forties.
Her flat was in the Royal Mile, in a tall tenement in the Canongate. She reappeared from the bathroom, wrapped in a dressing gown. “It’s hot in here,” she said. “You didn’t need to light a fire.”
She flung up the sash window and took a great gulp of fresh air. He seized her by the ankles and thrust her through the window. With a long wailing scream, she fell to her death below. He raked red-hot coals out from the fire and piled newspapers on top then fled the flat, easing into the crowds going up and down the Royal Mile, forcing himself to walk at a leisurely pace. At the North Bridge, he hailed a taxi to where he had parked the four-wheel drive. He had already removed the false number plates. He drove out to a small, old cottage he had rented, miles out into the countryside, and there he started to work to restore his appearance to normal, tearing off a false moustache and beard. He would let things all go quiet for a few months and then see about getting back that money Captain Henry Davenport had conned him out of.
At first, with so many clues, it seemed only a matter of time until the killer was found. But the police came up against dead end after dead end. No one connected the death of a high-class prostitute and a fire in an apartment in the Royal Mile with the Sutherland murders.
Surrey police had interviewed the four lawyers’ clients: Ferdinand Castle, Thomas Bromley, John Sanders, and Charles Prosser. The captain had fired them up with a get-rich-quick idea. He said that mining for gold was about to start over at Ben Nevis. He produced geological surveys. He said he needed more money to invest to get them all in on the ground floor, but to secure the deal it would need to be in cash. The four had loaned him close to 750,000 pounds. After some time, they began to become suspicious and demanded the money back. The captain had blustered and said they would be paid in full. The lawyers’ letters had been sent to his home in Guildford. Shortly after that, he had sold his house, quietly—no estate agent’s board outside—and disappeared.
The four men all had cast-iron alibis. Not one of them had been out of Guildford for months. They swore they thought that Captain Davenport was a sound man and had been a brave soldier.
Hamish Macbeth felt like tearing his red hair out in frustration. Captain Davenport and Philomena Davenport were buried on the same day, in a little cemetery above Drim where seagulls screamed overhead. The sweep, poor Peter Ray, had already been buried in the churchyard at Lochdubh, his funeral being paid for by the locals.
Hamish attended the funeral, his eyes searching the small crowd of press and villagers for strangers, but he could see no one who looked suspicious or out of place. Strathbane police had vetted every member of the press. Milly was being supported by Ailsa. She seemed on the point of collapse.
Was she really so innocent? wondered Hamish. Did her sister-in-law simply leave saying she was going to Inverness and that was all? But Milly had been seen in the village all day when her sister had gone over the Struie Pass. The autopsy on what was left of Philomena’s charred body had found traces of LSD, and so her death had been classed as murder.
He had a feeling that the murderer had not come all the way up from the south but was in Scotland somewhere. And he was sure it was someone who knew the Highlands well. Whoever had attacked the captain had somehow managed to get him to walk out and meet him and to go back with him to the house.
He longed to be able to go down to Surrey himself but knew he would never get permission.
Hamish decided to wait until things grew a little quieter and then maybe take a holiday.
When the funerals were over and the villagers, all men—the women having decided to honour the old tradition and not attend the graveside—began to walk towards Milly’s house where refreshments were to be served, Hamish caught up with Tam Tamworth.
“You seem to be getting close to Mrs. Davenport,” he said.
“Aye, she’s a grand lady. She’s promised me a lot o’ background exclusive after the murderer is found. But, to tell you, Hamish, I’ve a bad feel about all this. Anyway, there’s to be no big highland wake. It would be too much for the poor woman. It’s just going to be about an hour of eats and drinks.”
“The locals won’t like that. They’ll be looking forward to their usual all-night fling.”
“Funny enough, they’ve got fond o’ Milly and knew a full highland wake would upset her so they’re going along with it. Hey! Who’s this?”
A four-wheel drive had just drawn up outside the house as they approached it. Four men got out dressed in sober black. “If I’m not mistaken,” said Hamish, “that’ll be the four old friends who he tricked out of money.”
“What! All the way from Surrey?”
“Maybe they’re hoping to claw back some of the money from the widow.”
“At sich a time!” Tam strode forward. “We’ll see about that.”
Hamish hurried forward to catch Tam saying loudly, “If you’re that lot up from Surrey, I warn ye, now’s not the time to be hassling the poor woman for money.”
Hamish pushed in front of Tam. “I am investigating these murders,” he said, “so I must ask each of you to identify yourselves.”
Ferdinand Castle introduced himself and then the others. Hamish studied them closely. Ferdinand was a tall, slight man with thinning hair and a bulbous nose. Thomas Bromley was small and tubby with a fat cheerful face. John Sanders was thin and wiry with a thick head of black hair and a clever face. Charles Prosser was straight-backed and military looking with thick grey hair. All were expensively dressed, from their well-tailored coats and suits to their highly polished shoes.
“We are only here to pay our respects,” said Ferdinand. “For all his faults, Captain Davenport was an old army buddy. Where is Mrs. Davenport?”
“Ben the hoose,” said Tam curtly. “I suppose you’d better come in.”
Milly, wearing a simple black dress and looking very frail, was seated in an armchair at the window. She rose when the four men entered.
“How kind of you to come all this way,” she said. “Did you bring your wives?”
“No, they all thought it too long a journey,” said John Sanders.
“Where are you staying?” asked Hamish.
“Over at the Tommel Castle Hotel. We booked in last night.”
“I know you have already made statements to the Surrey police,” said Hamish, “but I’d like to call on you this evening just to get a better idea about what sort of man Captain Davenport was.”
“Why?” demanded Charles Prosser.
“The more I can find out about the deceased, the better,” said Hamish. “I am perfectly sure he went out on his last day to meet someone he knew.”
Thomas Bromley shrugged. “If you think it will help.”
“Let’s say six o’clock,” said Hamish.
The four looked at one another and then Ferdinand said curtly, “Okay, but don’t take all night over it.”
Hamish joined Jimmy, who was helping himself to a glass of whisky. “Jimmy, can you e-mail me over the background on these four men?”
“Will do. But you’re wasting your time. Solid alibis. Still, we’re going to have a policewoman sleeping here tonight just to be on the safe side.”
After half an hour, the four visitors decided to go outside for a smoke. “Well, would you just look at that,” said Ferdinand.
Hamish was helping Lugs down from the back of the police Land Rover while Sonsie jumped lightly to the ground on her large paws. “Good heavens! The copper’s got a couple of weird animals there,” said Thomas. “A wild cat! And a dog with ears like Dumbo.”
“That policeman,” said Charles Prosser, “looks like the village idiot, but what else can you expect in this arsehole of the world.”
Thomas Bromley shivered as he looked down to the long black finger of the loch and the steep, threatening black mountains that guarded it. “At least the hotel’s civilised. We’ll say something nice to Milly and get going.”
“What about our money?” demanded Ferdinand.
“We’ll wait a day. Call tomorrow and chat. Suggest she honours her husband’s debts.”
News presenter Elspeth Grant was seated in the conference room at the television studios in Glasgow. The head of news and current affairs, Sean Gibb, said, “We’re going to launch this new programme we’ve been discussing called Pandora’s Box. It’s a sort of cold-case files. For the first programme, we want you to take some time up in the Highlands and see what you can dig up about those murders in Drim.”
“It’s not very cold yet,” said Elspeth. “And who does my job of news presenting while I’m away?”
“Dottie McDougal.”
“But Dottie’s only a research assistant!”
“We’ve tried her out and she’ll do great. She’ll only be filling in until you see if you can make something of this idea. It’s prime time, Elspeth.”
Elspeth felt very low. Dottie had blonde hair and cleavage. Dottie giggled and swayed her saucy little bum up and down the corridors. Whoever believed that news presenters weren’t chosen for their appearance? she thought dismally.
“Why call it Pandora’s Box?” she asked.
“Well, the last thing out of the box after all the horrors once Pandora had opened it was Hope. Get it? Captain Davenport’s poor wifie wants closure, and that’s the hope we’re going to give her.”
Elspeth gamely made one last try. “But I’m not a detective.”
“Look at all the cases you’ve been involved in up there. What’s the name of that copper?”
“Hamish Macbeth,” said Elspeth bleakly.
“That’s the fellow. Get alongside him.”
Elspeth repressed a sigh. The last time she saw Hamish was when he had tried to speak to her in Glasgow after she had fled their holiday in Corsica, convinced that he had proposed marriage to the love of his life, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, whose father owned the Tommel Castle Hotel—and all because she had followed him and heard him asking about engagement rings. But there had been no news of any engagement in the newspapers, and she often wondered if Hamish had meant to propose to her.
Hamish had already phoned the manager, Mr. Johnson, to see if he could beg a room to use for interviews. He was told he could use Colonel Halburton-Smythe’s study as the colonel was away, visiting friends.
He decided to bring the four men in together. They had already been interviewed separately in Surrey.
Hamish sat behind the colonel’s desk, and the four filed in and sat facing him. “I’ll start with you, Mr. Castle,” said Hamish in his lilting highland voice. “I suppose you all met up in the regiment.”
“Yes, we went through some rough times. We were all in the Falklands War, and all of us served in Northern Ireland.”
“And you were all close to Captain Davenport?”
“Yes,” said Charles. “Get on with it. We don’t want to sit here answering questions all night.”
“Ah, Mr. Prosser, what was your rank when you left the army.”
“Colonel.”
“Mr. Bromley?”
“Lieutenant-colonel.”
“Mr. Castle?”
“Major.”
“And Mr. Sanders?”
“Staff Sergeant.”
“Was Captain Davenport a good soldier?”
There was a chorus of agreement. “The best.” Bromley. “Fine fellow.” Castle. “Good fun.” Sanders. “Could always be relied on in a fix.” Prosser.
Hamish looked at them all thoughtfully. Then he said, “Oh, come off it. We have letters from your lawyers, as you know, wanting your money back. I think he fled up here to get away from all the people he had conned. Someone wanted revenge. So let’s get to the truth. Mr. Davenport left the army after long service with only the rank of captain. Why was that?”
John Sanders began to bluster. “Who can explain the ways of the army? I was only a sergeant, and—”
Charles Prosser cut in. “May as well tell him. Nothing was ever proved but it left a nasty smell. It was when we were billeted in Northern Ireland. Someone sent an anonymous letter to the authorities saying that John here and Henry Davenport were selling arms to the IRA. Nonsense, of course. But mud sticks.”
Another problem, thought Hamish wearily. If it was true, and the captain had maybe taken money from the IRA and then not delivered, he would be a marked man. “When was this supposed to have taken place?” he asked.
“Can’t quite remember,” said John.
“Oh, tell the truth,” snapped Hamish, “before I start digging up your records in Northern Ireland.”
“Nineteen eighty-six, I think,” said John sulkily. That pretty much rules out the IRA, thought Hamish. Davenport, before he fled north, had been living openly in Guildford. They’d have shot him by now.
“You all seem to have alibis for the time of Davenport’s death, but can you think of any other old army buddy he might have conned out of money?”
General shaking of heads. “We five were always close,” said Charles. “Now, look here, Officer, we’ve had a long journey and we’re tired and want dinner.”
“I’ll be seeing you again.”
As Hamish went out to the car park, he saw with a jolt at his heart the familiar figure of Elspeth getting out of a television van while a soundman and cameraman unloaded stuff from the back. A small anxious-looking girl was dithering about.
“What’s this?” exclaimed Hamish. “Never say they’ve put you back to reporting.”
“Take me inside and buy me a drink and I’ll give you the whole sad story. I’m weary. I’ve been travelling all night,” said Elspeth.
“I’d better see if my animals are all right.”
“For heaven’s sake, Hamish. Can’t they look after themselves for a moment?”
“No,” said Hamish curtly. He checked on Sonsie and Lugs, then walked with Elspeth into the hotel bar.
Hamish listened to Elspeth as she poured out her worries about the new programme, Pandora’s Box, and her fears that the blonde would take away her news presenting job.
“I wish you could solve this one quickly, Hamish,” she said.
“It’s going to be difficult. There are four men here, friends of Captain Davenport, and they all have alibis.”
“Tell me about the case.”
Hamish settled back in his chair, gathered his thoughts, and told her everything he knew.
“Look,” said Elspeth, “it’s bound to be one of those four.” Her odd silver eyes gleamed with excitement.
“Why?”
“They must have hated him for diddling them out of their money and yet they turn up for his funeral.”
“I’ve thought of that. I’m going over to Drim early to wait. If I’m not mistaken, they’ll wait until they think Mrs. Davenport is alone and then tell her she owes them the money. When she says she hasn’t got it, they’ll tell her to sell the house and divide up the proceeds amongst them.”
“Would they be so hardhearted, right after the funeral?”
“I think so. I want to go back to the police station and go over their alibis. Jimmy has sent them over. There might be something there. If only I could go to Guildford and snoop around.”
“I might go to Guildford for you. But for now, I’ll go with you to Drim. Two sets of eyes are better than one.”
Hamish shifted awkwardly. “Like old times. Look, Elspeth, about Corsica…”
“Oh, never mind that. Let’s go.”
In the police station, Hamish printed off the alibis. “I’ll take Castle and Bromley and you take Sanders and Prosser.”
Ferdinand Castle, he read, ran a small electronics firm which he had inherited on the death of his father. He had been seen by staff all day in his office; in the evening, he and his wife had dined at a local restaurant. Loads of witnesses.
In fact all of them had dined at the restaurant. Thomas Bromley and his wife had invited John Sanders and his wife, Charles Prosser and Mrs. Prosser, along with the Castles, for dinner on the evening of the day of the murder. Thomas Bromley ran a chain of men’s clothing stores, John Sanders repaired computers, and Charles Prosser ran a chain of supermarkets.
“Read about the dinner party?” he asked Elspeth. “They could be covering for one another.”
“Yes, I thought of that, but John Sanders’s neighbours reported all the comings and goings.”
“I wonder about that dinner party. I wonder if they got another old army buddy who looks like one of them to stand in. Now, apart from Castle, one of the others could have taken a flight up to Glasgow, hired a car, and driven up there, then back again late the next day. That’s what’s missing. What were they all doing the day after? Whoever it was would need time to cover his tracks.”
“I was promised unlimited expenses to get this show on the road,” said Elspeth. “What if I take my team over after I see them leave the hotel and film them coming out? Then I could go down to Guildford and start to dig.”
“Elspeth! That could be verra dangerous. One of them or all of them are psychopaths. If Davenport had just been shot… but to stuff him up his own chimney and then attack the poor sweep.”
“It’s very hard to get at me with a big television van, a soundman, a cameraman, and a wee researcher.”
“You have a researcher! She could be a help.”
“Betty Close is a wimp. She works hard but never seems to come up with anything useful. She’ll need to come with us.”
“Maybe she can do some foot slogging. Send her out to the regiment’s headquarters and see if she can dig up anything out there.”
“Maybe. Drive me back to the hotel, Hamish. I could do with a rest.”
“Could you tip me off when you see them leave?”
“Will do.”
“Oh, Elspeth, I’ve been meaning to explain about Corsica…”
“Another time. I’m too weary.”
She went out and shut the door behind her.
At least I’m not that attracted to her now, thought Hamish with a feeling of relief. But he remembered Elspeth when she used to work on the Highland Times: Elspeth with her thrift shop clothes and frizzy hair and those big grey eyes which turned silver, Gypsy eyes, and he felt a little pang. The new Elspeth was sophisticated, and there was a hardness about her.