Death of a Maid

∨ Death of a Maid ∧

4

Everyone lives by selling something.

—Robert Louis Stevenson

Before visiting Mrs. Styles the following morning, Hamish decided to call in at the bakery in Braikie to have a talk with Mrs. Gillespie’s friend Queenie Hendry. He remembered Queenie as soon as he set eyes on her. He had interviewed her once before when he was tracking down a murderer. She was a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman with neat grey hair and a rosy-cheeked face. He found it hard to believe that she should have had anything in common with the late Mrs. Gillespie.

“Can I be having a word with you?” he asked.

“It’ll be about Mavis,” she said. She turned to her assistant. “Alice, mind the counter.”

Queenie raised the counter flap and walked through. “It’s a terrible business,” she said. “Poor Mavis.”

“I gather you were a friend of Mrs. Gillespie.”

“Yes, we often had a chat together after I’d closed up the shop. My, the poor woman did love cream cakes.”

“Did you ever get the impression – now, think carefully – that she might be a blackmailer?”

She turned a little pale.

“Look,” urged Hamish. “She’s dead. If you know anything at all, please tell me.”

“If I tell you, you’ll report me to the council,” she whispered.

“Come outside,” said Hamish. “We need a private chat.”

They walked together outside the shop. The wind had died down, and the day was warm and sunny.

“I’ll do you a deal,” said Hamish. “Whatever you tell me, I won’t report you to the council.”

She hugged herself with strong arms across her white-aproned chest.

“It’s like this. I had this plague o’ mice. Had a job getting rid o’ the things. The shop was quiet, and I happened to tell Mavis about it. ‘Let me see,’ she said. ‘I’ve a fair way with the mice.’

“I led her through to the back. I switched on the light, and there they were, mice scampering all over the place. To my horror, she took out a wee camera and started snapping off pictures. Then she said, ‘Now, Queenie, I think the health and safety people at the council would be interested in these photos.’ I told her the exterminator was coming in the morning, but I know there’s this bastard on the council who loves making life a misery for shopkeepers. She said she wouldn’t do anything about it as long as she could have a box of cream cakes every day.

That wasn’t enough. She insisted she was my friend and kept dropping in for a chat. She frightened me.”

“You should have come to me,” said Hamish. “I’d soon have shut her up. I’ll need to ask you what you were doing yesterday morning.”

“I was in the shop all morning. I can tell you which customers came in, and Alice was with me the whole time.”

“Did it never dawn on you that if she was blackmailing you, she could have been blackmailing others?”

“No. She never asked for money. Just cream cakes.”

Hamish thanked her and told her if she could think of anything else or had any idea who else Mrs. Gillespie might have been blackmailing, to let him know.

As he drove off to interview Mrs. Styles, he glanced in his rear-view mirror and noticed a small car following him with Shona Fraser at the wheel. He stopped, got out as she parked behind him, and went to speak to her.

“You should be with the detective chief inspector,” he said.

“He does nothing but shout at people. I thought I’d catch up with you. I’m sure you’re the better story.”

Hamish leered down at her. “Aye, that would be grand. I can chust see myself on the telly. Which would you say wass my best side?”

“Forget about that. Where are you going?”

“I’m going up to the Gordons’ farm to check their sheep papers are in order. Checking sheep papers is a right important thing.”

“But what about the murder!”

“The sheep papers may not be important to you,” said Hamish, whose face reflected nothing more than amiable stupidity, “but they’re life and death to some folk. Now, let me tell you all about sheep. I haff the rare knowledge of the sheep.”

“Got to go,” said Shona hurriedly.

Hamish watched, amused, as she drove off. Then the smile left his face as he continued to drive towards the home of Mrs. Styles. The fact that Mrs. Gillespie could go to such lengths to blackmail Mrs. Hendry – and for cream cakes! Gluttony, malice, control, and bullying. No wonder someone murdered her!

Mrs. Styles lived in a bungalow on the outskirts of the town. He cursed Blair as he walked up to the door. Blair would have left Mrs. Styles with a dislike and distrust of the police.

♦

Luke Teviot felt awash with tea. He found Elspeth’s idea of reporting in the Highlands very odd. Instead of going to interview the people for whom Mrs. Gillespie had cleaned, she had called on various homes between Lochdubh and Braikie, being welcomed by people she had known, drinking tea, and gossiping. But he soon began to see that she was eliciting quite a bit of information about the late Mrs. Gillespie.

At last, Elspeth said, “We’re going to see a Mrs. Samson. She lived next door to Mrs. Fleming and seems to have been a friend of Mrs. Gillespie as well as being a nasty gossip.”

“All right,” said Luke, sending a lazy spiral of cigarette smoke up into the clear air. “But if I have to drink another cup of tea or eat another scone, I’ll scream.”

Soon they were sitting in the smoky cavern of Mrs. Samson’s living room. “Do you mind if I smoke?” asked Luke.

“Yes, I do,” snapped Mrs. Samson. “Do you know what that stuff does to your lungs?”

The fire belched out another cloud of grey coal smoke.

“As I was saying,” pursued Elspeth, “we are planning to write a nice obituary about your friend.”

Those eyes magnified by the thick glasses seemed to grow even larger as Mrs. Samson gave a dry chuckle. Then she said, “You’ll have a hard time, lassie. Nobody liked her.”

“But you were her friend.”

“I liked her gossip. She knew something about everyone, even you, Miss Grant. She knew you were pining after that policeman but how he never got over Miss Halburton-Smythe.”

Luke raised his eyebrows in surprise. Elspeth said quickly, “Then obviously she often never got her facts straight. How did you both become friends?”

“She came to my door one day. She asked to use the phone. I said I’d seen her with one o’ those mobile things, but herself said the battery was dead. I let her in. She made a call from the hall to someone. She said, “I’m missing my wages and you’d better pay up.” That’s all I heard. Now I learn from that Macbeth policeman that she was a blackmailer.”

“When was this? When did she make that call?” asked Elspeth.

“Let me see. My memory isn’t so good. Maybe June last year.”

“So you didn’t know her for long?”

“No, but she was a fair gossip. That first time, she says to me, she says, your neighbour killed her husband. Did you know that? Well, I told her to sit down because I fair loathe that wee scunner next door with her airs and graces. Always complaining. She said the smoke from my lum had messed up her washing.”

Elspeth wondered briefly how any smoke managed to get up the chimney, as most of it seemed to escape into the room.

“How did Mrs. Fleming’s husband die?” asked Luke.

“Fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”

“And had Mrs. Gillespie seen this?”

“She didn’t say. She was always hinting at things. After she said that Mrs. Fleming had murdered her husband, she wouldn’t be drawn on anything. Did she make a will?”

“I suppose so,” said Elspeth. “Why?”

“Herself said she’d leave me something useful in her will.”

Elspeth was now longing to get to the house next door and interview Mrs. Fleming, but she had to go on pretending she was writing an obituary.

At last, they escaped.

“Whew!” said Elspeth. “I thought I’d choke to death. I wonder if she did make a will. Let’s try Mrs. Fleming. Put that cigarette out, Luke. Haven’t you inhaled enough smoke already?”

♦

Mrs. Styles was a formidable woman. She was built like a cottage loaf and had thick grey hair worn in a bun. She had a round face and large grey eyes. Her mouth was small and thin. She was wearing a tweed skirt, crepe blouse, and a long woollen cardigan.

She looked Hamish up and down and demanded, “What do you want?”

“Just a wee chat.”

“I don’t have time for wee chats. I have already complained about that man Blair and his manners.”

“I have heard,” said Hamish, “that you are an intelligent and perceptive lady. You seem to me the type of lady who might notice things other people do not.”

She hesitated, and then said, “You’d better come in.”

In the living room, a man was slumped in front of the television set. “Archie,” said Mrs. Styles, “you’d better leave us a minute.”

Her husband – Hamish assumed it was her husband – got up and shuffled out without a word. He was a small, stooped man wearing a suit, collar, and tie but with battered old carpet slippers on his feet.

“Sit down, Officer. Wait till I turn the television off. Right. Now, what do you want to know?”

Hamish sat down and looked around the living room as he did so. He found it surprising. He would have expected it to be sparkling clean, but it was messy with discarded magazines and newspapers. The fireplace was full of ash.

“I gather that Mrs. Gillespie could be a bit of a bully.”

“Yes, she was, but she got nowhere with me with that sort of behaviour. I kept after her and made sure she did her job properly.”

“When was she last here?”

“Five days ago.”

“Did you guess she might have been blackmailing people?”

“No, I did not. Of course, she wouldn’t try anything like that with me. I would have gone straight to the police.”

“Were you surprised to learn she had been murdered?”

“Yes, I was. I mean, this is Braikie.”

“There have been murders here in the past.”

“It was probably some traveller, one of these New Age people.”

“We don’t get the New Age people up here,” said Hamish. “The locals are liable to chase them off with shotguns.”

“Well, ever since they built the new motorways, all sorts of weird people come up from the cities.”

“Did Mrs. Gillespie ever talk to you about the other people she cleaned for?”

“I do not tolerate gossip. Besides, when she was here, I was usually out and about. I do a great deal for the church.”

Hamish persevered but could not get any useful information out of her. As he was rising to leave, he noticed a framed photo on a side table. It was of a very beautiful young girl, standing by the wall of some seafront, her long black hair blown by the wind. “Your daughter?” he asked.

“I do not have children. Believe it or not, that was me as a young lassie.”

In the small hallway just before the front door was a hat stand of the old·fashioned kind with a mirror and a ledge in front of the mirror. Hamish noticed that both the mirror and the ledge were dusty. He estimated they hadn’t been cleaned for some time.

He decided to return to Lochdubh and collect his pets and then go to Strathbane and read the report on the late Mr. Fleming’s death. There seemed to be a board meeting going on inside his head. One voice was wondering whether Mrs. Styles was as innocent as she would like to appear, another querying the death of Bernie Fleming, another wondering whether Elspeth was romantically involved with Luke Teviot, and suddenly another little voice asked whether Mrs. Gillespie had left a will.

♦

Hamish collected Lugs and Sonsie and drove quickly to Strathbane. At police headquarters, he sat down and switched on the computer and searched until he found the report of Bernie Fleming’s death. He read it and reread it but it seemed an open-and-shut case. Accidental death.

He went up to the detectives’ room and found Jimmy Anderson just leaving. “I’ve been checking up on Bernie Fleming’s death,” said Hamish. “Nothing there that I can see. Did Mrs. Gillespie make a will?”

“Yes, I phoned round every solicitor in Braikie until I got the right one. She left everything to her husband. Oh, and one other thing. She left a sealed packet of mementoes to be given to her friend Mrs. Samson.”

“He won’t have given it to her,” said Hamish. “I mean, he’ll have to wait for the outcome of the police enquiry.”

“As a matter of fact, he gave it to her this morning. She called at his office in a cab. He said he didn’t see the harm in it because it wasn’t money. He’s a bit young and naive.”

“We’ve got to get to Mrs. Samson fast!”

“Why?”

“Don’t you see? Mrs. Gillespie might have left her copies of the stuff she was using to blackmail people. We’ve got to get to her as quick as possible. I’ll drive. You’ve been drinking already.”

♦

Hamish put on the siren as they raced toward Braikie. “You don’t think anything could happen to her this early?” asked Jimmy, looking nervously back at Hamish’s wild cat, Sonsie.

“Even if she’s all right, we need to know what was in that package,” said Hamish. “Oh, damn it. Sheep on the road. Get out and chase them, Jimmy.”

“Chase them yourself. I’m your superior officer. I don’t chase sheep.”

Hamish stopped the Land Rover, and Jimmy watched, amused, as Hamish, his arms going like a windmill, sent the sheep scurrying off into a nearby field.

Hamish heaved a sigh of relief when he at last gained the shore road leading into Braikie. He screeched through the town, the siren blaring, and up to the villas where Mrs. Samson lived.

His heart sank when he turned into her street. Outside her house, it was chaos as the local fire brigade battled with the searing flames that were engulfing the house.

“Is she in there?” cried Hamish, leaping down from the Land Rover.

“Can’t get near the place to find out,” said a fireman. “Stand back.”

Hamish made a run for the front door, but before he could reach it, the glass-paned door exploded and a great sheet of flame burst out, driving him back.

Blair arrived and demanded to know what was going on. Hamish told him that Mrs. Samson had collected a package from the solicitor that morning.

“So,” explained Hamish, “someone knew about that package, and someone must have been frightened that it contained blackmailing stuff. If she made one phone call, we can trace it.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Blair saw Shona arriving and said quickly, “You’d better get back round all the suspects again and find out where they were.”

Hamish took one last look at the blazing house before he turned away. Old Mrs. Samson could not possibly be alive in that inferno, and whatever papers she had received from the solicitor would have gone up in flames with her.

♦

Hamish decided to begin at the beginning and go back and see Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson. He was driving through Braikie’s main street when at first he thought he saw a ghost. The elderly figure of Mrs. Samson was looking in the window of the bakery. He screeched to a halt. Lugs let out a sharp bark of protest. Hamish jumped down from the Land Rover.

“Mrs. Samson,” he cried. “Do you know your house is on fire?”

“What!”

“It’s in flames. I’d better take you back there. The firemen think you’re still inside.”

She put her hand to her chest, and he supported her, frightened she would faint. Then he helped her up into the Land Rover. She huddled in the passenger seat, muttering, “Oh, my house.”

“Was it insured?” asked Hamish.

“Aye.” A little colour began to return to her cheeks. “I’ll maybe be able to get myself a nice wee bungalow, everything on the one floor.”

Hamish drove up to the burning villa. Elspeth saw him arrive and whipped out a camera and began to take photographs as Hamish helped the old lady out of the Land Rover.

Blair came hurrying up. “Who’s this? I told you to get out there and interview folks.”

“This is Mrs. Samson,” said Hamish. “She was fortunately out shopping when the fire started.” Hamish turned to the old lady. “Mrs. Samson, the solicitor gave you a packet of papers left you by Mrs. Gillespie. Do you by any chance have them with you?”

She shook her head. “I never even opened the packet. Mrs. Gillespie told that solicitor it was just old mementoes – photos and letters. I thought I’d give them to her stepdaughter, Heather.”

“And did you?”

“I hadn’t the time. I left them on the table in the hall.”

Hamish looked gloomily at the blazing house.

“You!” snapped Blair. “Stop standing there gawking like a loon. Get to work. We’ll look after Mrs. Samson.”

Behind Blair’s back, Jimmy mimed drinking motions which Hamish interpreted to mean that he would be over at Lochdubh at the end of the day.

♦

Most of the time, Hamish was used to the winds of Sutherland. But as he got out of the Land Rover in front of Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson’s house, he felt the increasing strength of a gale and sighed. Calm days were a brief respite from the yelling and screech of the Sutherland winds, and this one was already beginning to howl like a banshee.

He clutched at his cap as he rang the bell. He waited. No reply.

He retreated and drove down to Mrs. Beattie’s shop. “Have you seen Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson this morning?” he asked.

“No, it’s been right quiet. Awful that, about Mrs. Samson’s house.”

“How did you hear? Do you know Mrs. Samson?”

“Never heard of her, but my niece in Braikie called me a minute ago. Burnt to a crisp, the old lady was,” added Mrs. Beattie with gloomy relish.

“She’s fine. She was out when the fire started,” said Hamish.

“There’s a mercy. I see you looking at the sausage rolls. I just made them this morning.”

“I’ll take six,” said Hamish.

Outside, he let the dog and cat out for a run and then fed them two sausage rolls each. He put them back in the Land Rover, climbed in himself, and settled down to have a lunch of sausage rolls and coffee. He had filled up a thermos flask before he left that morning. Rain smeared the windscreen. Outside, the waves were rising – sea loch waves – angrily racing in rapidly one after the other, while out in the Atlantic, the gigantic ones pounded the cliffs.

He drove back to Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson’s house and waited. He was just about to give up when she arrived in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. She looked startled to see him and then angry.

“I have nothing more to say to you,” she shouted against the wind.

“I have something to say to you,” said Hamish. “We’d better go indoors.”

She reluctantly led the way.

“Now, what is it?” she demanded, one hand on the mantelpiece. She was wearing a fishing hat and a waxed coat – suitable clothes, and yet they looked somehow odd on her.

“Mrs. Samson’s house has been burnt down.”

“Who is Mrs. Samson?”

“A friend of the murdered Mrs. Gillespie. I am asking everyone she cleaned for where they were this morning.”

“I consider it an impertinence. Oh, very well, I was over in Strathbane, shopping.”

“Where?”

“Here and there.”

“Did you buy anything? Have you any receipts?”

“No, you tiresome man. I window-shopped. I did not see anything I liked.”

“Did anyone see you? Did you meet anyone you know?”

“No, no, and no! Now, leave me alone.”

Hamish turned in the doorway. “The one good thing about it is that Mrs. Samson is alive.”

The wind gave a sudden eldritch scream. Had she turned pale? It was hard to tell in the gloom of the room.

“Is she in the hospital?” she asked.

“No, she was out shopping when her house went up.”

“That’s good.” As Hamish left, he turned once and saw her sinking down into a chair, her hat and coat still on.

♦

Hamish decided he would need to visit that solicitor before interviewing anyone else. Someone knew very quickly that a package had been given to Mrs. Samson. He phoned Jimmy on his mobile and got the name and address of the solicitor.

He did a detour to Lochdubh and left his animals in the police station.

He negotiated the shore road into Braikie without any trouble because it was low tide.

The solicitor, James Bennet, had an office above a men’s outfitters in the main street.

Hamish climbed the stone stairs, opened a frosted-panelled glass door, and went inside. A small girl was typing busily at a computer.

“You’re to go right in,” she said without looking up.

Hamish walked into the inner office. James Bennet looked up in surprise. “I’m expecting a Mrs. Withers. Didn’t Eileen tell you?”

“If you mean the wee lassie outside, she didn’t even look up,” said Hamish. “But I’ve a few questions to ask you. If Mrs. Gillespie left a package in her will for Mrs. Samson, why did you let her have it before this murder case is solved?”

Mr. Bennet was a fairly young man with what Hamish’s mother would call ‘a nice wide-open face.’ He was wearing a well-tailored Harris tweed suit. His black hair was neatly barbered, and he was wearing spectacles.

Hamish wondered if the lenses were plain glass to give the young man an air of authority, because he could spot no magnification.

James Bennet sighed. “I did not give away anything mentioned in the will. I already told the police this. The morning she was found murdered, Mrs. Gillespie called and said she wanted me to give the package to Mrs. Samson. I told her to give it to the woman herself, but she said time was running out and she was rushed. I phoned Mrs. Samson and asked her whether I should put it in the post, but she said she would come round and collect it. She arrived the morning of the fire in a taxi, which she kept waiting, picked up the package, and went off again.”

Hamish sat down slowly in the visitor’s chair. “It seems to me,” he said, “as if Mrs. Gillespie thought her life might be in danger.”

“Och, she was a weird woman, always hinting at things, the sort of ‘if you knew what I know’ sort of thing without ever saying anything specific.”

Hamish suddenly struck his forehead. The young solicitor looked at him in surprise.

“There wasnae a scrap of paper in her house,” said Hamish, his accent thickening as it always did when he was angry or excited. “I mean, bankbooks, house deeds, bills, things like that. Do you have them?”

James looked around his cluttered office. “Oh, yes, they’re all here somewhere.”

I’m losing my touch, thought Hamish. But he said angrily, “Why didn’t you inform the police?”

“They didn’t ask me.”

“I’ll need to take them with me.”

“Have you a warrant?”

“Don’t be daft, laddie, and waste my time. Hand them over.”

“I’ll need a receipt.”

“Of course, you’ll get a receipt.”

“Eileen!” called James.

His secretary came in. Her hair was gelled into spikes, and she wore a low-cut blouse exposing an area of freckled bosom. Although she was young, her face was already set in a sullen look. Her make-up was as thick as a papier-mache carnival mask.

“Get the box with Mrs. Gillespie’s papers.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Hamish waited anxiously. The wind rattled the window-panes, and a smouldering coal fire in an old Victorian fireplace suddenly burst into flame.

At last, Eileen returned with a large deed box.

“I think you’ll find everything is in there,” said James.

“Did she have an accountant?” asked Hamish.

“Not as far as I know. She wouldn’t need one. She probably never paid taxes. She must have earned very little cleaning houses.”

“She had a tidy sum of money. Didn’t you look?”

“No, why should I? As far as I was concerned, she was eccentric, and if she wanted to go on paying me to keep all her papers, I was quite happy.”

Hamish wrote out a receipt, thanked him, and left, clutching the box. He decided to look at the contents first before turning them over to police headquarters.

♦

Elspeth and Luke had begged the use of a desk in the Highland Times, the local newspaper with an office in Lochdubh, and were busy filing a joint story.

“Are you sweet on that copper?” asked Luke when they finished.

“Of course not,” said Elspeth. “I knew him when I used to work up here.”

Luke studied the smoke rising up from his cigarette and drifting over the No Smoking sign on the wall. “I thought you were. There was a sort of atmosphere.”

“Get this straight,” said Elspeth angrily. “Hamish Macbeth was once engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Her parents own the hotel we’re staying at. He never got over her.”

“Dumped him, did she?”

“No, strange to say, he dumped her.”

“So why…?”

“Leave it, Luke.”

♦

In the police station office, Hamish opened the box and began to go through the contents. He found the deeds to the house, electricity and gas bills up to the previous month, and a bankbook showing the amount of money he already knew about from the printout. But no blackmailing material.

He phoned Jimmy and told him of the find and said he would deliver the box to police headquarters. “Don’t bother,” said Jimmy. “I’ll come over and collect it. If I don’t get some time away from Blair, I’ll strangle him.”

Hamish went along to the general store and bought a bottle of whisky. Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, was buying cat food.

Her thin face lit up when she saw Hamish. “How are things going, Hamish? We hardly see you these days – that is, unless you want to offload your animals onto me.”

“Sorry. I’ll be round soon. How’s the writing going?”

“Slowly and painfully.” Angela had won a literary award for her first novel. “Getting that award didn’t give me confidence. It did the opposite. I feel I can’t match up to the first book. If this murder case you’re on ever gets solved, would you read some of it for me? Tell me what you think?”

“I’m no literary critic.”

“But you’re a reader.”

“All right.”

“What’s the whisky for?”

“Jimmy Anderson,” said Hamish. “I’d better feed him as well.”

“I wouldn’t bother,” said Angela, who knew Jimmy of old. “Whisky is food as well as drink to that man.”

Hamish returned to the police station, where he cooked up some venison liver for the dog and cat before making himself a sandwich and a cup of tea. He had just finished eating when Jimmy arrived, cursing the solicitor for not having told them about the papers he was holding.

“And he gave me the impression that the package was left for Mrs. Samson in the will. Anything blackmailable in there?” he asked.

“Nothing. Sit down and I’ll get you a dram. The bankbook’s interesting. The cash payments started two years ago – at first just a few modest payments in her checquing account, then they begin to increase. Maybe she hinted at something and one of them cracked and paid her money and she realised she was on to a good little earner. I think she was blackmailing more than one person. I think she was blackmailing several. We’ll need to dig into the backgrounds of everyone she cleaned for.” Hamish poured a measure of whisky into a glass and put it on the kitchen table next to Jimmy.

A particularly thunderous roar of wind shook the police station. “I don’t know how you can bear that wind,” grumbled Jimmy. “We’re protected by the surrounding buildings in Strathbane, but up here, the noise wears a man down.”

“The gales are getting worse,” said Hamish. “And the waves are getting higher. I hope I don’t live to see Lochdubh washed away.”

“Dead-alive hole,” said Jimmy callously. “Wouldn’t be any great loss. Now, let’s start with Professor Sander.”

“What did you make of him?” asked Hamish.

“Trissy little man. Furious with us for asking questions.”

“What’s he a professor of?”

“Was. Retired. English was his subject. He produced a popular biog called Byron: The Tortured Years. Did well. Hasn’t done anything since. Never married.”

“Might be an idea to check the Sex Offenders Register.”

“We screwed up in Scotland, remember? About six thousand sex offenders before 1997 weren’t put on the list. Still, it’s worth a look.”

“Which university was he at?”

“Strathbane.”

“Hardly an academic place. I believe they even give degrees in car maintenance these days.”

“Blair’s got a team of coppers out ferreting around. No one saw anyone near Mrs. Samson’s house before it went up in flames. But the fire chief thinks the fire started at the back door, and anyone could get to that over the fields.”

“Arson?”

“Not sure yet. Takes ages.”

“Where’s Mrs. Samson going to stay?”

“They’re putting her up at the old folks’ home, High Haven, for the moment. She can’t buy anything else until she gets the insurance money.”

“I forgot to ask the solicitor how large the package was,” said Hamish. “She was carrying a large handbag. If she’s still got the stuff and if it contains blackmail material, her life could be in danger.”

“Why worry?” asked Jimmy. “One blackmailer less would please me.”

“Aye, but it would be another murder to solve. Did you interview any of the folk she cleaned for?”

“Apart from the professor, I went with Blair to interview Mrs. Fleming. Blair was all over her. He told me afterwards she was like a fairy.”

“She’s a fairy who threw a vase at me,” said Hamish. “She lives quite near. She could have nipped over the garden fence and poured petrol through the back door.”

“Then there’s Mrs. Styles, the one that Blair fell foul of. What about your Mrs. Wellington?”

“Mrs. Gillespie found out that the minister delivered an old sermon one Sunday and hinted that it would be awful if folks found out. Got nowhere with that. Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, now. She interests me. I’ve a feeling she’s playing the country lady. But she’s the one that lives furthest away.”

“We’ve run a police check already on all of them,” said Jimmy, reaching for the whisky bottle. “Nothing there.”

“I wonder if any of them got into the local newspaper over anything,” said Hamish. “Maybe I’ll walk along and have a look. No, you are not getting any more whisky, Jimmy, and take that box of stuff over to police headquarters.”

♦

“Here’s lover boy,” said Luke.

Elspeth looked up and flushed slightly as Hamish walked into the newspaper office.

“I need your help,” said Hamish.

“And we need yours.” Luke was sitting next to Elspeth, and he draped a long arm around her shoulders. “We just filed a story, but it’s very thin.”

“You’ll get what I’ve got when I get it,” said Hamish. “Elspeth knows that. All right. It’ll soon come out, so you can have this, only don’t quote me. Mrs. Samson collected a packet from the solicitor. Mrs. Gillespie had left it with him, saying she wanted it posted to Mrs. Samson. The solicitor phoned Mrs. Samson, who took a cab round on the day of the fire and picked up the package herself. Now, if Mrs. Gillespie was a blackmailer – and that’s sheer speculation, although she had more in her bank account than a cleaner should have – someone might have thought Mrs. Samson now had incriminating papers and set her house on fire. The solicitor is a Mr. James Bennet. I’ll give you his phone number. Phone him for confirmation, and then about the blackmail business put it down to ‘sources’ in Braikie. Oh, and ask the solicitor what size the package was. Mrs. Samson says she never even looked at it and it was in the house when it burned down, but she could be lying and it could be in the large handbag she was carrying.”

“Great stuff,” said Luke. “I’ll get onto it, Elspeth, if you help the copper here with what he wants.”

“What is it you want, Hamish?” asked Elspeth, shrugging Luke’s arm off her shoulders.

“I want to check the newspaper files to see if any of the suspects ever did anything worth a mention.”

“You don’t need me,” said Elspeth. “You need Terry the Geek. Terry!”

A thin young man with a bad case of acne and hair as red as Hamish’s came to join them from the back of the office.

“This is Terry,” said Elspeth. “Mrs. MacKay’s boy. He’s organised the whole system.”

“I didn’t recognise you,” said Hamish. “It seems the last time I saw you, you were just a lad.”

Terry grinned sheepishly. “How can I help you?”

“I’ve some names I want you to look up,” said Hamish. “I want to see if any of them appeared in the newspaper at any time.”

“Come over to my computer, and I’ll search for you.”

“I can’t see how it can work,” said Hamish. “I mean, won’t it be a long job of trawling through paper after paper?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Terry proudly. “I’ve organised it by names, places, and subject.”

“Let’s start.” Hamish sat down beside him in front of a computer. “Mrs. Fiona Fleming, formerly Mrs. Bernie Fleming.”

Terry’s long bony fingers flicked over the keys. “Do you mind being called Terry the Geek?” asked Hamish. “Highland nicknames can be a bit cruel.”

“I take it as a compliment. Anyway, this lot in Lochdubh couldn’t tell one end of a computer from another.”

“Some of them got computers when they were all trying to write books.”

“Aye, but the novelty soon wore off and highland lethargy settled in. Here we are. Her husband fell downstairs. Verdict: accidental death.”

“I know that one. Anything else?”

“Seems to be all.”

“What have you got on Mrs. Mavis Gillespie?”

“Wait a bit. Oh, here’s something. Last year she was down in Strathbane shopping. Speeding car mounted the pavement and nearly killed her. She jumped back just in time.”

“Let me see.”

Terry angled the screen towards Hamish. Hamish looked at the date. The incident had taken place in August the previous year when he was off on a fishing holiday.

Mrs. Gillespie had been waiting to cross the road at the junction of Glebe Street and Thomson Street. She had leapt back just in time. She said she was so shocked that the make of the car hadn’t registered with her. She said it was large and black. Police decided the driver had probably been drunk, for who would want to kill Mrs. Gillespie?

“I’ll get the police reports on that,” muttered Hamish.

“Here’s something else,” exclaimed Terry. “She was at the clay pigeon shoot down at Moy Hall, outside Inverness. That was January this year. She said a bullet whizzed past her, missing her by centimetres.”

Hamish studied the report. The police did not seem to have taken any action whatsoever.

“That seems to be all,” said Terry.

So that might explain why she turned the papers or whatever she had over to Mrs. Samson, thought Hamish.

She thought her life was in danger! She wanted to leave some proof of the reason for it behind.