∨ Death of a Gentle Lady ∧

13

Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!

What dangers canst thou make us scorn!

Wi’ tippenny, we fear nay evil;

Wi’ usquebae, we’ll face the devil!

—Robert Burns

Three days afterwards, the body of Cyril was found washed ashore in a cove north of the castle. The experts judged he must have thrown himself clear when the castle began to fall into the sea.

“That’s saved us a lot of money,” said Jimmy, relaxing in Hamish’s kitchen. “It’s nice to get back to normal: drugs, prostitution, and gang fights. What will you be doing?”

“Getting around to repairing the storm damage,” said Hamish. “There are a few tiles off the roof. The henhouse needs fixing.”

“Have the press gone?”

“Thank goodness, yes, apart from a bloke from one of the Sundays, planning an article on Save Our Coastline. Won’t make any difference. They don’t care much in Edinburgh or London about what goes on in the very north.”

“Did that girlfriend of yours come back up?”

“If you mean Elspeth, she iss not my girlfriend, and she iss mad at me because I didn’t give her the story.”

“She’ll come round. She always does. Has Blair been to see you?”

Hamish looked alarmed. “No. Why?”

“He’s been trying to reform me. I thought he might have a go at you. He says drink is the devil’s tool. He rants at me, clutching a large Bible. I think he’s losing it.”

“He’ll get over it. He’ll soon be back on the drink again and his old grumpy self.”

“The trouble is, he’s even grumpier sober. I’d better get off and leave you to your chores. I just called in to see how you were.”

Hamish worked on the roof, replacing slates that had been blown off in the storm. Then he decided to walk along and visit Angela.

It was one of those white days in the Highlands, veiled behind thick misty cloud. Although the day was quite bright, no sun shone. The waters of the loch had subsided into a glassy calm as if the storm had never existed. The little whitewashed cottages along the waterfront looked as trim as ever, and columns of peat smoke rose from chimneys straight into the white sky.

Two seals floated on their backs in the loch, the idle flapping of their flippers sending out little ripples over the calm. A lot of the old people still believed that the dead came back as seals.

Hamish paused at the stone wall over the beach and watched them. It wouldn’t be a bad life, he thought. Just float around and catch fish. He thought maybe he’d take a boat out later and catch some fresh mackerel.

Angela looked pleased to see him and anxious to hear all the details of the death of Cyril. As Hamish talked, it all seemed very far away – the image of the castle tumbling into the sea like something remembered from a film at the cinema.

When he had finished talking, Angela said, “Poor Harold Jury. The sales of his last book have rocketed. Maybe that’s the writer’s recipe for success. Die violently. Did the press bother you much?”

“No. They were mostly up taking pictures of where the castle went over and going to press conferences in Strathbane.”

“I saw one of those conferences on television. Blair was talking to them and taking all the credit.”

“He aye does that.”

“Doesn’t it make you mad?”

“Not really. The powers-that-be always begin to believe Blair solved any case that I might have had a hand in. It’s better that way. Too much exposure and they really would drag me off to Strathbane. It’s hard to believe that things are back to normal. It seems as if I’ve been frightened for quite a long time.”

“You never go on like a frightened man.”

“Oh, it’s the grand thing to be frightened. Keeps one’s wits sharp.”

Blair was thinking about Hamish Macbeth and wondering how to get rid of him. Murder was out of the question. There must be some way he could get him pounding the beat in Strathbane, just an ordinary copper. Then he thought, if Hamish went missing, after a decent period they might sell that station of his. But how to work it so that no suspicion fell on himself was difficult.

He was leaving police headquarters with Jimmy to investigate a warehouse down at the docks where a tip-off had told him that there were drugs stored, when a prostitute called Ruby McFee was being marched into the station by WPC Aileen Drummond.

Blair knew Ruby of old. She was in her forties and suffering from the wear and tear of pounding the streets in all weathers looking for punters. She was a blowsy woman with a round red face and thick blonde hair showing black roots. Her eyes were small and bloodshot.

“Caught again, Ruby,” said Blair.

“Bugger off,” she said.

Blair shrugged and went on out of headquarters.

The tip-off turned out to be rubbish, and the rest of the day was spent in various routine enquiries. Blair finally settled in his flat in front of the television set that evening with a cup of tea. But there was nothing on the box he wanted to see. He switched it off and turned his mind to the problem of Hamish Macbeth.

God to Blair was a sort of senior detective who sat somewhere up there, looking remarkably like Blair himself. He put one hand on his Bible and prayed for a solution to his problem.

All at once, a splendid idea entered his mind.

Ruby emerged from the sheriffs court in the morning to find Blair waiting for her.

“Whit now?” she demanded truculently.

“I’ve a proposition for you,” said Blair.

“I don’t give free blow jobs any mair.”

“It’s not that. Get in the car.”

He drove her rapidly out of town and up into the moors. Then he stopped the car. “There’s a lot of money in this for you, Ruby, and no hard work.”

“So what is it?”

“I’ll tell you.”

Hamish returned to the police station that evening after having treated himself to a meal at the Italian restaurant. His phone rang.

A woman’s voice said, “I’ve had a burglary. I’m at Rhian Cottage on Sheep Road, the other side of Cnothan. I’m that distressed. Come quickly.”

“What is your name?” asked Hamish.

“Just come!” she screamed, and hung up on him.

Hamish sighed. Surely it could wait until the morning. He glanced at the clock. It was still only nine in the evening.

He decided to get it over with. Leaving his cat and dog, he set out on the road towards Cnothan. The earlier cloud had cleared, and frost was glittering on the heather at either side of the road.

He drove through Cnothan, remembering that Sheep Road was really just an unsurfaced track. He knew there was no sign on the road, and he couldn’t remember anyone living there. When Cnothan had been added to his beat, he had memorised every road in the neighbourhood.

He bumped along the track. His headlights picked out a dilapidated cottage at the very end. Anything stolen from a dump like that, thought Hamish, can’t really be worth stealing.

As he switched off the engine and climbed out, a woman came out to meet him. She was wearing an old-fashioned pinafore and had her hair covered in a headscarf that shadowed her face.

“I’m glad you’ve come.”

Hamish walked towards her. “When did this happen?”

“I was owerin Strathbane and just got back. Come in and see what the bastards have done. They’ve trashed the place.”

She held open the door. Hamish walked in. He found himself in a room, empty except for a table and two chairs. “What…?” he was beginning to say when a savage blow struck him on the back of the head and his world went black.

Angela Brodie opened the door the next morning. Lugs and Sonsie stared up at her.

“This is too much,” complained Angela. “Come along. I’m taking both of you home.”

She marched along to the police station and knocked on the door. There was no answer. She felt for the key in the gutter and opened the door. “In you both go,” she ordered.

But the animals stood there, staring up at her. Perhaps Hamish was still asleep. Angela walked into the bedroom. The bed had not been slept in. Then she remembered she had not seen the police car.

She returned to Hamish’s pets and tried to drag Sonsie inside by his collar, but the wild cat hissed furiously, the fur on her back standing up.

Angela backed off. She walked back home. Both of them followed her. She dived into her cottage and shut the door on them.

An hour later, she opened the door. They were still there, and it was beginning to rain. “Oh, come in,” she said. “But don’t you dare frighten my cats!”

Throughout the day, Angela kept returning to the police station. At last she phoned Strathbane but was told that as far as they knew Hamish had not gone out on any job.

She kept the dog and cat for the night and tried again in the morning. To her relief, she saw Hamish’s Land Rover parked at the side. Once more she knocked and got no reply. Once more she went in and found the station empty.

Angela went into the police office, found Jimmy Anderson’s mobile phone number, and called him.

“Probably poaching,” said Jimmy, “but I’ll drop over later.”

Hamish recovered consciousness. He found he was lying staring up at a dirty ceiling. He cautiously raised his head and then fell back with a groan. He slowly turned his head to find out where he was.

It was a bare room with a bucket in one corner. From the size of the room, he gathered that it had probably been the ‘best’ room in some croft house. A dining hatch was against one wall, perhaps installed there in the house’s better days.

He felt his head. There was a large lump on top of it but the skin did not seem to be broken. He squinted at the luminous dial of his watch. He estimated he had only been unconscious for ten minutes or so, but that had been enough to drag him in here.

He was wearing only his underwear. Someone had moved quickly. And what was the reason for it?

For the next few hours he rested, occasionally trying to get up and at last feeling strong enough to make the effort. As soon as he could stand, he stumbled across to the bucket and was violently sick. Then he relieved himself and went slowly back to the bed and lay down.

He heard bolts being drawn back, and then, pretending to be asleep and looking under his eyelashes, he saw a tray being pushed through the hatch. The hatch went down. He heard bolts being rammed back into place.

Hamish got slowly up again and went over and examined the tray. It contained a pot of tea, milk and sugar, and two large ham sandwiches.

He gratefully drank the tea but still felt too nauseated to eat anything. He examined the room’s tiny window, looking for a way to escape, but it was sealed shut.

He still felt dizzy and sick. He decided to sleep the night and see what he could do about escaping in the morning.

Hamish awoke at seven in the morning. He heard a car arriving, a car door slam, and then the front door of the cottage being unlocked.

Sounds of plates and pans in the kitchen and the sounds of cooking. He put his plate with the uneaten sandwiches on the ledge in front of the hatch. If his captor planned to give him breakfast, then he could grab whoever it was through the hatch. But he didn’t know how many people were responsible for his kidnapping. Better to wait and see if they or he or she left the cottage and then try to escape.

Again the double doors of the hatch opened. He could see a head covered in a black balaclava. His old tray disappeared, and another was pushed through.

He found he was hungry. There were two bacon baps and a pot of tea. He ate and drank and waited.

The room was cold, so he wrapped himself in the filthy blankets from the bed.

He waited and waited while the late winter sun rose and shone in through the window. Then he heard the front door slam and a little after, the sound of a car driving off.

He walked over and examined the double doors of the hatch. He needed something to force those doors and break the bolts.

Hamish looked down at the tray. It was made of heavy metal, the kind used in hotels and restaurants.

He carefully removed everything off it. He went over to the hatch and rammed the tray at the doors. They gave slightly. He went on using the heavy tray as a battering ram, time after time, pausing only to rest because he still felt weak.

Finally frightened and furious, he struck at the hatch doors with all his might. They crashed open.

Panting, he waited a moment. Then, glad he was slim, he heaved himself through the open space and tumbled onto the floor on the other side.

It was the same bare room he had seen when he had arrived, but it had been augmented by a camping stove and a small television set.

The front door was, of course, locked. He wondered if the woman had been working alone and if she had put his clothes anywhere. He went into a small bedroom. There was an old wardrobe and an unmade bed. He opened the wardrobe and saw his uniform and boots lying at the bottom. He hurriedly dressed, listening all the while for the car returning. His belt with his police radio and all his other equipment was there. He strapped it on. In his pocket, he found his mobile phone and called Jimmy.

Quickly, he told Jimmy where he was.

“Found Macbeth!” Jimmy shouted to the detectives’ room. “Come on, Andy, and get a couple of coppers. We’d better get to him fast.”

Blair sat as if turned to stone. Then he suddenly seemed to recover from his shock. He rushed outside to the car park, got into his car, and phoned Ruby.

“You let the bastard get away,” howled Blair. “Don’t go back there. Did you use gloves?”

“The whole time,” wailed Ruby. “What’ll I do?”

“Just go home. I’ll call on you later.”

Hamish heard the welcome sound of sirens. Then he heard the battering ram striking the front door; after a few blows, it crashed open.

“Are you all right?” asked Jimmy.

“I was knocked unconscious. I’m a wee bit shaky.”

“We’ll take you to the hospital. I’ll get this place dusted for prints. Any idea who the hell is behind this?”

“Not a clue,” said Hamish. “It was a woman who answered the door to me. I couldn’t get a good look at her.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

“I think you should get the other police cars away somewhere and come back on foot,” said Hamish. “If we wait here, we’ll catch her – or them.”

The owner of the cottage was tracked down. He said a woman had paid him cash for a three-month rent and had left a month’s deposit. He had rented it cheap because the place was in such a mess; he’d planned to get the house demolished and then sell the ground as a building plot.

Asked where the contract was, he said the woman had told him they needn’t bother, and he was too glad of the money to insist.

Blair sweated it out, terrified all the time that the search would lead to Ruby. They had footprints but no fingerprints, and footprints weren’t on file.

He wasn’t too nervous about them finding any DNA, because the forensic lab was one of the most inefficient in Scotland. They were backed up with requests for DNA anyway, and most of the results were taking over a year to arrive.

Hamish and Jimmy waited all that day and far into the night, but no one came. “Maybe whoever it is passed the police cars on the road and decided not to go back,” said Jimmy.

He drove Hamish back to the hospital in Strathbane. Hamish was examined and given painkillers. “We’ll need to take that Land Rover of yours away and give it to forensic,” said Jimmy as they left the hospital.

“What’ll I do for transport?”

“I’ll try to get someone over with an unmarked police car. Who on earth do you think was behind this? Someone associated with Cyril?”

“No, if it had been someone associated with Cyril, I feel I might be dead now. It was all very amateur. I feel in my bones that the woman was the only one in the cottage.”

Blair was beginning to feel very uneasy. Daviot was raging about a police officer being kidnapped. The forensic team had been sent back to the cottage to go over it again.

In the evening, he made his way to Ruby’s flat by a circuitous route. “This is a mess!” shrieked Ruby. “It was on the telly. If they get me, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. If they get me I’ll have tae say it was you.”

“It won’t come to that,” said Blair soothingly. “I want you to write something and then it’ll be all over.”

Daviot called Blair into his office the following day. “There’s been a development,” he said. “This letter, addressed to me, was handed in by a small boy. He said a woman gave him a pound to deliver it. Unfortunately, his description of her could apply to every woman in Strathbane.”

Blair read the letter out loud, just as if he did not already know every word of it.

“Dear policemen,” he read. “I’m sorry about Macbeth but he led me to believe he would marry me and then he cheated on me. I won’t do nothing like that again. A Friend.”

“Dearie me,” said Blair. “Our Hamish has been at it again. He’s a devil with the women.”

“I did hear something to that effect.” The one time Hamish had ridden high in the superintendent’s esteem was when he had been engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, for Daviot was a snob. He was furious and amazed when Hamish broke off the engagement. Then there was this unsavoury business of Macbeth trying to marry a hooker.

“I think we should keep this quiet,” said Daviot. “If it got out, it would be a slur on the whole force. Also, the gangs are joining up with the neo-Nazis to attack immigrants. That should be our first priority. Tell Anderson and the others that we can no longer spare any time on Hamish’s kidnap.”

“We’ve put a policeman on guard outside Macbeth’s station.”

“Call him off now!”

Hamish was about to take a cup of tea out to PC Logan on guard outside when the man met him at the kitchen door.

“I’ve been called off,” he said. “They’re standing down the investigations.”

“Why?”

“Trouble with the gangs.”

After he had gone, Hamish sat down to think. But he could feel a migraine coming on, a result of the blow to his head. He quickly swallowed two migraine pills and went to lie down in his darkened bedroom.

He fell asleep at last and woke later, feeling better. His dog and cat now followed him everywhere. He turned his mind again to the problem as to why the investigation into his kidnapping had been abruptly ended. He left a message on Jimmy’s mobile phone, begging for information.

Jimmy phoned back an hour later. “I don’t know what happened, Hamish. One minute it was all systems go on your case, and the next we were being told to stand down. Blair knows something. All I could find out was that a letter to Daviot was delivered this morning. Blair was summoned, and after that everything to do with you stopped. I’ve looked for that letter but there’s not a sign of it, and no report has been written.”

“Whoever it was didn’t seem to want to kill me, just keep me prisoner,” said Hamish. “What would have happened if I’d been kept there several months, say?”

“If you’d ever got out of it, you’d have probably found they’d have closed up your station.”

“Blair!” said Hamish suddenly. “I bet he’s behind this.”

“Come on, Hamish. That’s going a bit too far.”

“Does Blair know any woman, sort of thickset?”

“Women run at the sight of Blair. The only people he knows are the prostitutes he used to nick when he was on the beat.”

“Like who?”

“I was leaving headquarters with him and he stopped to speak to one being brought in by Aileen Drummond.”

“Do me a favour and get her name and address.”

Hamish drove down to Ruby’s flat in the docks. It was raining hard. He climbed up the stairs, wrinkling his nose at the smell. He hoped she had decided not to go out on her beat in such a filthy night. Maybe she didn’t have to. If Blair was behind this, he thought, then he would have had to pay her and pay her well.

He knocked on her door. A cautious voice from the other side asked, “Who is it?”

“Blair,” said Hamish.

The door swung open. Ruby let out a gasp as she recognised Hamish and tried to shut the door but he jammed his foot in it, wrenched it open, and forced her back into the room.

Ruby went and sat down on a sofa. She lit a cigarette with trembling fingers while Hamish locked the door and came to stand over her.

“How did you ken?” she asked.

Hamish pulled up a chair and sat opposite her. “Why did you let Blair put you up to this?” he asked.

“He asked me tae do it,” said Ruby. “You cannae refuse a polis.”

She crushed out the cigarette and began to cry. Hamish watched her heaving figure unsympathetically. He did not believe in tarts with hearts, and his recent experience with Irena had really soured him.

“I don’t want to go to p-prison,” wailed Ruby.

Hamish saw a box of paper tissues on the sideboard and took it over to her. “Pull yourself together,” he said.

Ruby gulped, shuddered, blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. “Can I have a wee dram afore you take me in?”

Hamish went back to the sideboard where there was a row of bottles. Blair must have been generous, he thought cynically, because Ruby can’t be making much on the streets these days.

Ruby asked for a rum and Coke. Hamish poured her a reasonable measure and took it back to her.

She gulped it down. He saw the fear in her eyes and felt a reluctant twinge of pity.

“How did you get into the life, Ruby?”

“I wisnae always like this,” said Ruby. “Ruby McFee is no’ my real name. I was born Mary Ashford and I was a nice child. This was down in Glesca. My dad died and my mother married again. When I was fourteen my stepdad took me round to his brother, Shuggie Leith, saying I had to stay with him for a bit. The brother raped me, his pals raped me, and then they put me on the streets. One o’ my punters fell for me, a nice wee man called Sandy McFee who worked on the Clyde ferries. I ran away with him and we lived in a wee flat in Gourock. We werenae married but I took his name. He called me his ruby and so I became known as Ruby McFee.

“I came back from the shopping one day and he was lying at the foot o’ the stairs leading up to our flat wi’ his throat cut. I didnae call the polis. I was that frightened. I thought they’d think it was me what done it and find out about the hooking.

“I packed up my stuff and came up here. I don’t know if Shuggie and his pals killed Sandy but I never wanted him to find me again. Somehow I just drifted back into the life again.”

Hamish sat staring at her. Here was his perfect opportunity to get his revenge on Blair. Blair as well as Ruby would go to prison. But Daviot, he knew, would blame him for bringing the force into disgrace. Somehow, Hamish would share that disgrace, and a vengeful Daviot might move him to Strathbane.

Ruby eyed him nervously, finished her drink, and mutely held out her glass for more. Hamish went to the sideboard and refilled it, his brain racing.

He handed her the glass and sat down and looked at her.

“How would you like to be a respectable married woman?” he asked.

“Stop making fun o’ me.”

“I’m serious.”

“That was always a dream I had when I was out in the streets, particularly in the winter.”

“Does Blair know your real name?”

“No. Why?”

“Were you ever charged under your real name?”

“No. When I was hooking in Glesca I was that young, somehow the polis never picked me up.”

“Here’s what I want you to do. I want you to write and sign a confession. Then I want you to go out tomorrow and get yourself some lady-like clothes and dye your hair a respectable brown. Then I want you to phone Blair and tell him he’s got to marry you or you’ll tell all. Don’t mention my name. I’ll keep your confession as security. You’ll tell him that you’ve written a confession and you’ve lodged it with a lawyer with instructions it’s to go straight to the police if anything should happen to you. Tell him about your real name and that no one will associate you with Ruby McFee.”

“He’ll kill me!”

“He can’t. He wouldn’t dare. You’ll never have to walk the streets again.”

Загрузка...