Death of a Maid

∨ Death of a Maid ∧

2

That bucket down, and full of tears am I.

—William Shakespeare

A fussy little man came down the drive. He had a shock of white hair and was dressed in a Harris tweed suit. He was wearing a blue and white polka-dot bow tie. Hamish guessed he was probably in his late seventies. He had a chubby face with a small pursed mouth. He looked like an elderly baby.

“Why are the police here?” he said, then saw the crumpled body on the ground. In death, Mrs. Gillespie seemed much smaller, more a heap of clothes than what had so recently been a living person.

“There appears to have been an accident,” said Hamish. “Are you Professor Sander?”

“Yes, yes. How unfortunate. If you want me, I’ll be up at the house.”

He turned away.

“Wait a minute,” said Hamish, “did you see anyone outside your house this morning?”

“No, why? It’s not as if it’s murder, is it?”

“I’ll need to wait and see. There’s blood on the bucket. Someone may have hit her over the head. Was she leaving, and when?”

“About half an hour ago. Really, Officer, I don’t notice the comings and goings of the home help.”

“But you couldn’t avoid hearing the comings and goings of Mrs. Gillespie,” Hamish pointed out. “She made one hell of a noise.”

“I am writing a history of Napoleon’s Russian campaign, and when this brain of mine is absorbed in writing, I am not aware of anything else.”

“There must already be an awful lot of books about Napoleon in Russia,” commented Hamish.

“What would you know about history, young man?”

With relief, Hamish heard the approaching sirens. He was beginning to dislike the professor.

Blair and Detective Jimmy Anderson arrived in the first car. In the second car was the pathologist, Dr. Forsythe. Following that was a people carrier full of the forensic team and in the last car, the small excited figure of Shona Fraser.

“What have we here, Macbeth?” demanded Blair.

“It looks as if someone might have brained her with her bucket,” said Hamish.

While the pathologist got out her kit, Blair bent over the body. Then he straightened up, his alcohol-wet eyes gleaming with triumph. “That’s where you’re wrong, laddie,” he said loudly, casting a look in Shona’s direction. “There’s blood on the stone at the foot o’ that auld pump. She must ha’ tripped and given her head a sore dunt.”

“If you will allow me,” said the pathologist. She pushed Blair aside and bent over the body.

There was a long silence while she investigated. The day was dry, but a mist was coming down, turning the landscape into a uniform grey.

A seagull wheeled and screeched overhead. Rowan berries, bright as blood, fell down from the tree.

At last, Dr. Forsythe straightened up. “I can tell you more when I make a proper examination, but, yes, it seems someone struck her a murderous blow on the back of her head with her own bucket. She fell forward and struck her forehead on the stone in front of the pump.”

“There might have been a struggle,” said Hamish. “You can see where the gravel at the foot of the drive has been all scraped.”

Blair rounded on him in a fury. “You,” he snarled, “had she any relatives?”

“There’s a husband.”

“Well, get over there and break the news to him and let the experts get on with their job.”

Hamish touched his cap and walked over to his Land Rover. The forensic team were getting kitted out. A strong smell of stale booze emanated from the lot of them. Hamish remembered there had been a rugby match the night before. No doubt they had all been celebrating as usual.

Shona ran after him. “You got it right. He didn’t,” she said.

“Och, Blair’s a bright man. Stick with him,” said Hamish hurriedly, and jumped into the Land Rover.

One of the nastiest parts of a policeman’s job, reflected Hamish, was breaking the news to the loved ones.

With reluctance, he drove to the housing estate, parked outside the Gillespies’ home, and went slowly up the path and rang the bell.

Mr. Gillespie answered the door. “I am afraid I have bad news, sir,” said Hamish, removing his cap. “Your wife is dead.” He knew from experience that it was kinder to get the brutal truth out fast rather than keep some relative or husband or wife on the doorstep with mumblings of an accident.

“Dead? How? A stroke?”

“May I come in?”

“Aye, come ben.”

He stood aside and ushered Hamish into the living room. Hamish’s eyes took in the large television set and expensive DVD recorder before he turned to Mr. Gillespie. “Please sit down,” Hamish said.

Mr. Gillespie sat down in an armchair on one side of the fire, and Hamish folded his long length into another.

“How did she die?” asked Mr. Gillespie.

“It looks as if someone hit her on the head with that bucket of hers.”

Mr. Gillespie raised a trembling hand to his mouth. He took out a clean handkerchief and covered his face. His shoulders shook.

Hamish looked at him in sudden suspicion. “Are you laughing?”

Mr. Gillespie lowered his handkerchief. He laughed and laughed. Grief takes people strange ways, thought Hamish, but Mr. Gillespie’s laughter was more merry than hysterical.

“You see,” said Mr. Gillespie at last, mopping his eyes, “that bucket was her weapon.” He bent forward and tapped his scalp. “Look!” On his freckled scalp Hamish saw an old scar. “Herself did that with her damn bucket.”

“You mean you were a battered husband?”

“That’s a fact.”

“Why didn’t you report her?”

“I’ve got cancer of the stomach. I’m on my second session o’ chemo. I can’t work. Hers was the only income we had.”

“I notice you bought this house. She must have made a fair bit from cleaning,” said Hamish.

“That was me. I used to have a good bit of money put by.”

“I’ll check the estimated time of death,” said Hamish, “but I think I’m going to be your alibi. Do you have a car?”

“No.”

“I don’t see how you could have got over there to kill her. Have you anyone who can come and sit with you?”

“And share my relief? I don’t need anyone. I’m going to sit here and get well and truly drunk. And I’m going to watch American wrestling. She’d never let me do that.” He hugged his knees. “And I can see my daughter again. Heather’s my daughter by my first marriage. Mavis hated her, so she never came around.”

“Do you know anyone who might have wanted to kill her?”

“Apart from me? Oh, lots, I should think. She never had a good word to say about anyone.”

“Did she have a desk in the house? Any papers or letters I could look at?” Hamish was beginning to wonder whether the snooping cleaner had gone in for blackmail.

“No, nothing. She said paper carried dust. Never allowed a book in the house. Oh, my, now I can sign on at the library.”

“There must be bank statements somewhere.”

“We’ll look if you like. She handled all the bills.” But to Hamish’s amazement, after a diligent search, he could not find a bankbook or bill anywhere in the house. “Where did she bank?” he asked. “I don’t know.”

“But, man, when you were working, you must have had a pay cheque.”

“I worked over in Strathbane at the men’s outfitters, Brown and Simpson. I gave my cheques to Mavis, and she banked them.”

“She must have given you money to buy things.”

“Mavis gave me a packed lunch and my bus fare. That was all.”

“The deeds to the house must be somewhere.”

Mr. Gillespie gave a shrug while Hamish stared at him, baffled.

♦

Hamish stood outside the house and wondered what to do next. Then he remembered there was only one bank in Braikie, the Highland and Island. It was a new bank, but surely they would have taken over the accounts of the old one.

He drove to the main street and parked outside the bank.

Inside, he had to wait for the manager. He hoped the manager would not turn out to be one of those men who keep a person waiting to reinforce their own importance.

But a woman appeared from the manager’s office, and Hamish was told he could go in.

The manager introduced himself as Mr. Queen. He was a tall, cadaverous Highlander, the lines of whose face seemed set in perpetual gloom as if he had perfected the refusal of loans over the years and so the results had become marked on his face.

Hamish explained about the death of Mrs. Gillespie and asked if she had banked with the Highland and Island. Mr. Queen’s long bony fingers rattled over the keys of a computer on his desk. “Aye,” he said, leaning back and staring at the screen.

“May I see a printout of her account?”

Mr. Queen stared at the tall policeman, his eyes shadowed by heavy, shaggy brows.

“I can get a warrant,” said Hamish.

“I suppose you can. I’ll print it off.”

Hamish waited while the statement rattled out of the printer.

Mr. Queen handed it over. On her death, Mrs. Gillespie had twenty thousand pounds in her checking account.

Hamish raised puzzled eyes. “There were no bankbooks or statements in her house.”

“She asked for nothing to be sent to her.”

“And these payments as far as I can see, looking back, were all made in cash?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t that strike you as odd?”

“I never really studied her account before. She’d pay the money in to one of the tellers. She would have memorised or kept a note of her bank account number and paid the money in with one of the forms on the counter.”

♦

“The house, now. She bought her council house.”

“That’s another search,” he said gloomily. “Wait here.”

Hamish waited impatiently, his brain whirling. Mrs. Gillespie was a gossip. Mrs. Gillespie had taken that letter from Elspeth. If she could do a thing like that, then she probably snooped on her employers. Everything seemed to point to blackmail.

A seagull landed on the windowsill and stared at Hamish with beady eyes before flying off. The wind was getting up. A discarded newspaper, blown upwards outside, did two entrechats and disappeared up into the darkening sky.

At last, Mr. Queen came back. “Aye, she bought her house twenty years ago when council houses up here were going cheap. At that time, she and her husband had a joint account. They paid for it fair and square. Only cost fifteen thousand pounds at that time. They got a mortgage and paid it off. That would be about ten years ago. Then Mrs. Gillespie cancelled the joint account two years ago. Her husband agreed. It’s after that that all the payments were made in cash.”

“I’ll be off,” said Hamish. “You’ll no doubt be getting a visit from my superior, Detective Chief Inspector Blair.”

♦

Hamish returned to the professor’s house. The forensic team were still at work. Blair was in his car with the heater running, swigging something from a flask.

Hamish rapped on the window.

“Whit?” demanded Blair, lowering the window.

Hamish told him about the bank statements and finished by saying, “She could have been blackmailing some of the people she worked for.”

Blair stared past Hamish. Hamish turned and saw the diminutive figure of Shona Fraser, who had been listening eagerly to every word.

“Tell Jimmy Anderson what you’ve got,” snapped Blair, “and get back to your police station and await further orders.”

Hamish moved away. Shona followed him. She looked up at him suspiciously. “I’m still waiting for signs of the great detective from Mr. Blair.”

“Oh, hang in there. He’s deep. Verra deep. You would-nae think it, but the wheels of his brain are turning.”

Hamish saw Jimmy and hailed him. He handed Jimmy the bank statements and told him about his suspicions of blackmail.

“You’d better start interviewing them,” said Jimmy. “I’ll tackle the professor.”

“I’ve been told by the old sod to get back to the police station.”

Jimmy took out a list of names. “Tell you what, go over and see this Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson at Styre, and I’ll clear it with Blair.” His blue eyes in his foxy face narrowed as he saw Shona talking to Blair. “What’s the wee lassie doing?”

“Strathbane Television wants to do a documentary on Blair, the great detective. She’s a researcher.”

“Let’s hope she finds some intelligence in that whisky-soaked brain. Talking of which – have you any whisky at that station of yours?”

“About half a bottle.”

“That’ll do. I’ll call on you this evening.” Unlike his superior, Detective Inspector Jimmy Anderson had a great respect for Hamish’s police work.

♦

Hamish drove back to Lochdubh and collected his pets and put them in the police Land Rover and then took the road to Styre. Styre was more of a hamlet than a village, consisting of only a few fishermen’s cottages, three villas, and a small general store.

It lay on the small sea loch of Styre which formed a sort of bay, affording little protection from the might of the Atlantic, lying just outside.

Hamish’s stomach gave a rumble, reminding himself he hadn’t eaten. He parked in front of the general store, owned, as he remembered, by a Mrs. Beattie. Mrs. Beattie, a small, fussy woman, was behind the counter. The shop was dark, the shelves crowded with very old-looking tins of stuff, sacks of feed, coils of rope, and lobster pots.

“It’s Mr. Macbeth!” exclaimed Mrs. Beattie. “You havenae been around here this age.”

“I’m looking for something to eat,” said Hamish, “and some tins for my dog and cat.”

“The dog and cat food’s ower to your left. I’ll go and make you a sandwich. Spam all right?”

“Spam’s fine.”

Hamish collected a tin of cat food for Sonsie and a tin of dog food for Lugs. He knew his spoilt pets preferred people food but decided they’d need to rough it for once. If he could be content with a Spam sandwich, then they could put up with commercial pet food.

After a short time, Mrs. Beattie returned and handed him a thick sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper. Hamish added a bottle of mineral water to his purchases. “How much for the sandwich?”

“Have it from me. What brings you?”

“Mrs. Gillespie, herself what cleaned for Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, has been found murdered.”

“Michty me! Mind you, I thought she was a nasty woman, but Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson swore she was the best cleaner ever. When I had the flu last winter, I got her to clean for me. She nearly gave me a relapse, bang-bang-banging with that bucket of hers and looking into drawers where she had no right to look. Where was she murdered?”

“Outside Professor Sander’s place.”

“How?”

“It looks as if someone brained her with her bucket. What’s Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson like?”

“Verra much the lady. Verra proper. English, of course.”

“What’s herself doing up here?”

“Quality of life.”

“Oh, that. Did she find it?”

“Says she does.”

“I’ll be off then. Where’s her house?”

“It’s that big villa, just up on the rise above the village. There’s a monkey puzzle tree at the gate.”

Hamish went out to the Land Rover and collected two bowls and a can opener from the back. He filled the bowls and let the dog and cat out. They both sniffed the food and then looked up at him with accusing eyes.

“Eat it,” ordered Hamish. “Nothing else for you pair until this evening.”

♦

He ate his sandwich and drank water and looked out over the sea loch. The wind was beginning to come in great gusts. He finished his sandwich, put the dog and cat back in the car, carried their empty bowls down to the water and rinsed them out, before returning to his vehicle and driving off. The light drizzle was turning to heavy rain.

He drove up to the villa and then up the short curving drive. As well as the tall monkey puzzle at the gate, the garden was crammed with laurel bushes and rhododendrons. The wind was cut off by the high stone wall which surrounded the garden. Rain plopped from the leaves of the bushes.

Hamish rang the bell and waited. The door was answered by a tall woman. She was dressed in a well-tailored tweed suit. The tweed was not new – such as Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, Hamish guessed, would be too sophisticated to be caught wearing brand-new tweed – and yet the clothes sat oddly on her as if her normal style might be something more towny.

“Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson?”

“Yes. It is I.”

He judged her to be somewhere in her middle forties. She had thick brown hair pulled back into a knot, a long nose, and small, intelligent eyes. She looked something like a collie.

Hamish removed his cap. “I am Police Constable Hamish Macbeth. May I come in? I have some bad news.”

Most people would have blurted out, Is it my son? My daughter? Or some close relative. But she merely nodded and turned away.

He followed her into a dark hall and then into a large sitting room on the ground floor. It was decorated like a scaled-down version of the drawing room of a stately home. The sofa and chairs were upholstered in striped silk. The curtains at the windows were of heavier silk. Over the fireplace was a portrait of Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson – apparently an oil portrait – but Hamish’s sharp eyes registered that it was a photograph, cleverly treated to look like an oil painting. A log fire crackled on the hearth of a marble fireplace.

She sat down and gestured to him to do the same. Her stockings were thick, and her feet were encased in sensible brogues.

“So tell me your bad news,” she said calmly. Her voice was English upper class.

“I’m afraid your cleaner, Mrs. Gillespie, has been found murdered.”

“Good heavens! That’s a blow. Now where am I going to get another maid?”

She surveyed him quietly. Why didn’t she ask how Mrs. Gillespie was murdered and where? wondered Hamish.

“Tell me about Mrs. Gillespie,” said Hamish. “Was she a threat to anyone? Did anyone dislike her enough to kill her?”

She gave a little laugh. “My dear man, I was not on familiar terms with the home help. I haven’t the faintest idea. Might be the husband. It usually is.”

“The husband has an alibi. Where were you this morning, between, say, the hours of ten and eleven?”

Her face hardened. “You surely have not the impertinence to think that I would have anything to do with it?”

“I must eliminate everyone from my enquiries.”

“Well, I was here.”

“Any witnesses?”

“I am a bit isolated from the village. I don’t know if anyone saw me.”

“Mrs. Gillespie had an unexpectedly large amount of money in her bank account. We feel she may have been indulging in blackmail.”

“That’s ridiculous. She probably won the lottery.”

“The lottery would have meant a cheque. All the money was paid in cash.”

“I am beginning to find your insinuations a little bit impertinent. Please leave. If you persist in bothering me, I shall complain about you to your superiors.”

Hamish stood up. “I must warn you, this is just a preliminary investigation. You can expect a further visit from a detective.”

“See yourself out,” she snapped.

♦

Before he left, Hamish peered through the windows of the garage at the side of the house. He saw a powerful BMW. She could have raced over the hills to Braikie in record time with a car like that, waited outside the professor’s, and struck the cleaner down as she walked to her car. Hamish asked around the few houses in the village, but no one had seen Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson that morning. He learned that she was often absent for months at a time, and it was assumed she went to London. He wondered about Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson. What was she doing living alone so far from anywhere? And there had been something of the pretend-lady about her.

As he drove back towards Lochdubh, Hamish realised that Mrs. Wellington might know something interesting. She was always refreshingly direct.

Mrs. Wellington was in the manse kitchen, a gloomy relic of Victorian days with the rows of shelves meant for vast dinner services. There were still the old stone sinks.

“I heard about the murder,” said Mrs. Wellington. “I’m not surprised.”

Hamish sat down at the kitchen table and removed his hat.

“Why not?”

“She was such a nosy, bullying woman.”

“So why did you keep employing her?”

“I tried to fire her. She went to my husband in tears with some sob story. He told me it was my Christian duty to rehire her.”

“How was she nosy?”

“I occasionally caught her looking through drawers. She swore she had simply been cleaning the ledges inside. She was a great church-goer. One time my husband had just recovered from a nasty cold. He didn’t feel up to writing a sermon, and so he delivered an old one. Mrs. Gillespie recognised it and slyly asked me what people would think if they knew. I told her to go ahead and tell everyone, but I would let them all know the source of the nasty gossip. My! I remember I was so furious with her, I asked her if she went in for blackmail. She muttered something and scurried off.”

“The kettle’s boiling,” said Hamish, looking hopefully at the stove.

“I’ve no time to waste making tea or coffee for you, Hamish.”

“Apart from Professor Sander, do you know the other two women she worked for in Braikie, Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Styles?”

“No, I don’t. They probably attend the kirk in Braikie. But I’ll tell you who will know – the Currie sisters. They sometimes attend church in Braikie for a bit of amusement.”

♦

The fact that the Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, twin spinsters of the parish, should find entertainment in church services came as no surprise to Hamish Macbeth. He knew local people who flocked to hear a visiting preacher with all the enthusiasm of teenagers going to a Robbie Williams concert.

Of course, he was not supposed to refer to them as spinsters any more. The police had been issued with a handbook of politically correct phrases. “Spinster’ was not allowed, nor, he thought sourly, as he headed for the spinsters’ cottage on the waterfront, was ‘interfering auld busybodies,” which was how he frequently damned them.

They were remarkably alike, both having tightly permed grey hair and thick glasses. He could tell them apart because Nessie was the more forceful one and her sister, Jessie, repeated phrases and sentences over again.

Other highlanders may have been alarmed to find a policeman on the doorstep, but it was almost as if the sisters had been expecting him.

“Come in,” said Nessie eagerly. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

“Waiting for you,” chorused her sister.

“Poor woman. Hit on the head with a bucket like that,” said Nessie. Bad news travels fast, thought Hamish.

“Was there a lot of blood?” asked Nessie.

“Blood,” intoned Jessie.

“Get the constable a cup of tea,” Nessie ordered her sister. Jessie left for the kitchen, grumbling under her breath.

Both sisters were small in size, and their furniture looked to Hamish as if it had come from a large doll’s house. He sank down into a small armchair and found his knees were up to his chin.

“I was wondering,” began Hamish, “if you could tell me anything about two ladies over in Braikie. Mrs. Gillespie worked for both of them. Mrs. Fleming and Mrs. Styles.”

“That would be gossip,” said Nessie righteously.

“It is known as helping the police with their enquiries,” corrected Hamish.

Nessie was delighted to have official permission to gossip. “Well,” she began, “Mrs. Fiona Fleming is a young widow with two teenage sons.”

“Can’t be that young. How old are the boys?”

“Sky is thirteen and Bobby, twelve.”

“Where did she get a name like Sky?” asked Hamish, momentarily diverted.

“I don’t know. Off the telly, most like.”

“What age is Mrs. Fleming?”

“About forty, I suppose. That’s young these days.”

“Does she work?”

“Doesn’t have to. Her late husband, Bernie, had a series of DVD rental shops all ower Scotland. She sold them off when he died.”

“When did he die?”

“Let me see.” Jessie came in stooped over a laden tray. “Jessie, when did Bernie Fleming die?”

“About five years ago, five years ago.”

“How did he die?”

“Got drunk and fell down the stairs in his house. Broke his poor neck,” said Nessie with ghoulish relish.

Hamish tuned out Jessie’s chorus and concentrated on what her sister was saying.

“What sort of woman is Mrs. Fleming?”

“Dainty wee thing. Been seen around with Dr. Renfrew from the hospital. Shocking.”

“Why?”

“The man’s married.”

Hamish took an offered cup of tea from Jessie. “And what about Mrs. Styles?”

“Now, there’s a right lady for you. Good church-goer and church worker.”

“Married?”

“Married to a retired shoe salesman. He’s a bit poorly in health.”

♦

When Hamish finally managed to leave the sisters’ cottage, his head was buzzing. He longed to go and interview this Mrs. Fleming. Had her husband’s death really been an accident? Did Dr. Renfrew’s wife know about the affair – if there was an affair? He knew from bitter experience that he had only to take some female out to dinner and the twins put it round the village the next day that he was having an affair.