∨ Death of a Nag ∧
10
But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain
That lighted me to bed.
—Thomas Hood
Hamish realized as he awoke next day that he had not reassured Miss Gunnery about the welfare of her cat, and what was even more strange was that she had not asked him about the cat or about her friend, Mrs Agnew.
He plunged in right away when he met her at breakfast assuring her that Joey looked fit and well. She thanked him in an abstracted voice. The murders were beginning to tell on her. Her interest in Tracey had seemed only momentarily to lift the strain. She had dark circles under her eyes and wisps of hair were escaping from her normally severe hair-style.
Everyone else seemed to be feeling equally gloomy, despite the delicious breakfast. Mrs Aston, a cheerful and motherly figure, apparently unaffected by the criminal goings-on of her sister and brother-in-law, delivered and collected plates.
“You’ll be going to church,” she said to all at large.
“Good idea,” said Hamish suddenly. He was worried about the silent, downcast Brett children. Church was as good a place as any to go to on a Scottish Sabbath.
It is amazing in this modern age how such a group of normally irreligious people can suddenly decide in adversity that church is a very sensible place to go to. But then, there are no agnostics on the battlefield.
The day was quiet and calm and quite chilly when they went out to the cars, all too exhausted with worry to contemplate the walk to Skag. Crick, on duty at the door asked them where they were going and made a note of it in his book.
They arrived at the Church of Scotland in good time for the start of the service. The church was plain and devoid of ornament. They sat in one of the hard pews and listened to a wheezy organ murdering Bach.
The minister was an imposing figure, like one of the lesser prophets, with a flowing grey beard and shaggy locks. Hamish could not decide whether his eyes were burning with religious zeal or whisky. There was a strong suggestion of the actor about him. This was no clap-happy Christianity, no tambourines or steel guitars, only dreary hymns sung to the asthmatic music of the church organ.
Then the minister leaned over the pulpit and began his sermon, the theme of which was honesty being the best policy. He obviously believed more in a God of wrath than one of love and certainly appeared convinced that the dishonest were condemned to the hell of eternal fire. Without his overwhelming presence, the words would have seemed a mixture of the trite and the mad, but his voice rang round the church, conjuring up for Hamish a vision of the days of John Knox. How Mary Queen of Scots must have disliked that man!
When they emerged from the church, it was to find the weather had changed again and a hot sun was blazing down. But it was a subdued party who gathered by the cars. Tracey was weeping quietly and Miss Gunnery had an arm about her shoulders, young Heather was as white as a sheet, and Hamish cursed all Bible-bashing clerics.
They drove back to the boarding-house. I am sick of this place, thought Hamish. I want shot of it. I want to go home. And then he realized that Tracey was tugging at his sleeve. “A word wi’ ye,” she whispered. “No’ inside. Let’s walk down to the beach.”
As he walked off with her, Hamish was conscious of Miss Gunnery’s eyes boring into his back. For a brief spell, the spinster’s interest in Tracey had seemed to lift her growing obsession for him, Hamish. He hoped it wouldn’t come back.
“What is it, then?” he asked when they had reached the shingle bank. “Let’s sit down, Tracey. You’re in an awful state.”
Tracey sat down beside him, her thin white legs sticking out in front of her from under her short skirt. “I cannae keep it tae masel’ any longer,” she said. “I know who did those murders.”
His heart beat hard against his ribs. “Who?” he demanded sharply. “Out wi’ it!”
A glassy wave curled on to the white sand below the shingle bank.
“Cheryl,” said Tracey. “It was Cheryl.”
He felt a great lifting of his spirits. “How do you know?”
“She told me when I visited her in prison. She said she did it for kicks. She bragged aboot it.”
“You’ve got to tell the police,” said Hamish.
“You’re the police!”
“I mean, them in Skag. Come on. You’ll feel better when you get it over with.”
As they walked up to the boarding-house, Miss Gunnery ran to meet them. “Is anything the matter?”
“Not now,” said Hamish. “Later.”
He drove off to Skag with Tracey. Several times on the short journey, his heart misgave him when she muttered something to the effect of being disloyal and ‘grassing’ on her friend, and each time he assured her she was doing her duty.
They had to wait until Deacon and Clay were brought over from Dungarton, driven by Maggie.
In the interviewing room, Tracey, who appeared to have cried herself out, made a statement about what Cheryl had told her.
After she was led out by Maggie to wait for Hamish, Deacon said with great satisfaction, “Thank God, that’s over.”
“Aye,” said Hamish, “you can thank God, all right. We were all at the kirk this morning and that hell-fire preacher seems to have got to Tracey. The others will be right glad and yet…”
He stood irresolute in the doorway.
“And yet what?” demanded Deacon testily. “You’ve done a good job, Macbeth.”
All the niggling little doubts which had been replacing Hamish’s initial relief came to the surface. He shook his head. “It’s too pat,” he said.
“It fits,” said Deacon. “Cheryl’s a violent criminal. She’s just moved on from grievous bodily harm to murder.”
“It’s the murder of MacPherson,” said Hamish. “Think about it. What man in his right mind would try to blackmail such as Cheryl?”
“Poor old sod probably wasn’t blackmailing anyone. Cheryl did the first one for kicks, so why not the second?”
“I don’t like it,” said Hamish. “It feels wrong.”
“Don’t worry your head about anything, laddie. Clay and me’ll go over to Dungarton and get a confession out of her.”
Hamish went outside, collected Tracey, and drove her back to the boarding-house. Miss Gunnery was waiting outside. Tracey flew to her and fell weeping into her arms. “What’s all this about?” asked Crick.
“Cheryl’s confessed to the murders,” said Hamish.
“Thank heavens,” said Crick. “Not that this hasn’t become a good job, what with Mrs Aston giving me cups of tea every five minutes. Are you telling the others?”
“You tell them.” Hamish turned about and walked towards the beach over the dunes. He sat down on the shingle bank, where he had sat earlier with Tracey, and stared blindly out to sea.
How easy it would be to accept Cheryl’s confession. But would she confess to the police? Had she perhaps been bragging to Tracey? Had Tracey said anything about getting free, changing her life?
Okay, June had written to Alice, a June determined to force the issue. Alice came up earlier than she had first claimed. But June had not told Dermott, and somehow Alice, who was neither a kind nor a generous-hearted woman, had let Dermott believe that she had learned the news of his adultery through the newspapers. Why? One reason was obviously because she was desperately anxious that the police should not know she had been in Skag at the time of the murder.
Dermott had quarrelled with Harris; Dermott had been blackmailed by Rogers; Dermott had lied. Doris and Andrew had lied. Yes, what about Doris and Andrew? What about all that mad burning passion that had driven one respectable upper-class Englishman to holiday in a seedy boarding-house with dreadful food so that he could be near his lady-love?
And then Hamish stiffened. There was the sound of stifled sobs coming faintly to his ears on the breeze. He got to his feet and stared around. The sound was coming from behind him, somewhere among the dunes. He walked back and stood up on top of one of the highest dunes and looked around until he caught a glimpse of white cotton to his left. He made his way there, his feet making no sound on the sand.
Heather Brett sat huddled at the foot of one of the dunes, a pathetic little figure. Sobs were racking her thin body. Hamish sat down beside her and gathered her in his arms.
“Easy, lassie,” he said. “Easy. It’s all over. What is there to cry about?”
“I-I’ll burn in h-hell,” she sobbed.
“Och, you don’t want tae believe what ye hear in church,” said Hamish. “And why should the devil want a wee lassie like you, even supposing I believed in him?”
“I t-told a bad lie,” whispered Heather.
Hamish held her closer. “Every human being lies some time or the other, Heather. You can tell me.” He took a handkerchief out of his pocket and dried her face. “Now then, nobody’s going to get angry with you. I’ll see to that. What lie?”
She gave a little tired sigh. “I didn’t see Mrs Harris on the beach.”
He stiffened. “Why did you say so?”
“I promised them I would.”
“Them?”
She began to cry again. Hamish felt a great wave of fury. Using a child like this!
He lifted her to her feet. “Come along,” he said. “It’ll be all right. I’ll explain matters. Mrs Harris had no right to ask you to lie. And don’t you be worrying about hell-fire. Nothing’s going to happen to you. You’re a good wee lassie, Heather.” And coaxing and cajoling, he led her back over the dunes to where a worried June came running to meet them.
“Take care of your daughter,” said Hamish. “She told a lie to the police, but it’s not her fault. I’ll go and see Deacon right now. Where’s Andrew and Doris?”
“They went into the pub in Skag, but – ”
“Later,” said Hamish. He ran to his Land Rover, jumped in and drove straight to the pub. Andrew and Doris were sitting at a table in a corner over a plate of sandwiches and glasses of beer.
“The pair of you are in bad trouble,” said Hamish grimly.
“Why?” Andrew looked surprised. “As a matter of fact, we were having a small celebration. Cheryl’s confessed.”
Hamish ignored that. “Why did you persuade that child, Heather, that you were on the beach on the day of the murder? Why did you get her to lie?”
“You’re talking rubbish,” shouted Andrew. A few locals turned and stared at them in surprise. “Rubbish,” he repeated in a lower voice. “No one told Heather to say anything. We didn’t tell her to lie.”
Doris sat with her head bent. “Doris?” prompted Hamish.
“I meant it for the best,” she said. “Everyone would think it was me. I meant to put it straight.”
Hamish looked at the horrified surprise on Andrew’s face and said, “Them. Heather said ‘them’. They had told her to lie. I assumed it was you and Andrew. Who was the other one, Doris?”
She looked at him pleadingly.
“Miss Gunnery.”
“What!”
“She was most sympathetic about Andrew and me. She said the police always suspected the wife, so it was important for me to have an alibi. She said Heather wouldn’t mind lying. She said she had always found that children were natural-born liars.”
“You’ll need to make a statement. You’ll need to correct your earlier statement. Where were you, Doris? I myself saw you going towards Skag.”
“I was so miserable, I just walked about,” said Doris. “I don’t think anyone saw me. I didn’t have any alibi. Miss Gunnery said it was imperative that I have one.”
“I can’t believe it of you, Doris,” said Andrew angrily. “The police could charge you for wasting their time. It’s just as well for you that Cheryl has confessed.”
“If she has confessed,” said Hamish heavily. “We’ve only got Tracey’s word for it at the moment. Wait here. Let me speak to Deacon first. If Cheryl has really confessed and they have some positive proof she did the murders, because a confession alone is not enough in Scotland, there’ll be no need for me to say anything.”
He went to the police station to learn that Deacon and Clay were still at the prison in Dungarton. Maggie, who gave him the news, looked at him curiously. “You look terrible. I thought you’d be glad it was all over.”
“I need a phone,” said Hamish, walking towards the interview room.
“You’ll need permission…” began Maggie, but Hamish walked in and slammed the door behind him.
He sat down at the desk and stared at the phone. Think. Twice Miss Gunnery had lied, or rather, she had lied once and then engineered it that Heather should lie to protect Doris. An image of the photograph of Miss Gunnery and Mrs Agnew came into his head. He took out his notebook and found the slip of paper with Mrs Agnew’s address. He dialled directory inquiries and asked for her phone number. What was it Mrs Agnew had said? “Goodness knows, the poor creature has enough to worry about.” And looking back, he remembered having a feeling that Mrs Agnew had not been talking about the murders, but about something else.
When she answered the phone, he said, “Mrs Agnew, this is Police Constable Hamish Macbeth. It is verra important for Miss Gunnery’s sake that you tell me the truth. Was something worrying her?”
“Of course something was worrying her,” said Mrs Agnew tartly. “Aren’t two murders enough to worry anyone? How is she? Alive?”
“Yes, why shouldn’t she be? Look, Mrs Agnew, if you know anything about Miss Gunnery that bears any relation on this case, then it is your duty to tell me.”
“I know nothing that bears any relation to the murders. Nor does she.”
“Well, for heffen’s sake, woman, what’s the other thing that’s worrying her? I’ll find out, if not from you, then from anyone else that knows her!”
“Oh, if it stops you poking around…Poor Felicity has only a few months left to live. She has cancer and she should be back here attending the hospital.”
He stared at the phone receiver. Then he said slowly, “Was Miss Gunnery ever married?”
“No, no.”
He thought of Doris and Andrew, feeling with his mind for the right questions to ask, feeling blindly. “Was she effer in love wi’ anyone?”
“Really, Mr Macbeth – ”
“Chust answer the damn question!” he shouted.
“I do not see what it has to do with anything. Yes, a few years ago, when we were both teaching at Saint Charles, she fell in love with the geography teacher, a much younger man, and a married one, too.”
“So what came of it?”
“Nothing. The man was married.”
“Thank you, Mrs Agnew. I’ll get back to you if there’s anything else.”
He replaced the receiver.
Miss Gunnery, dying of cancer, disappointed in love. He would need to talk to her.
He left the police station and drove off to the boarding-house.
♦
Deacon came back shortly after Hamish had left, his face set in grim lines. “Did she confess, sir?” asked Maggie eagerly.
“Aye,” said Deacon bitterly. “The wee bitch confessed to lying to Tracey, and that’s all we’ve got. Back to square one. I’ll hae that lot back along here, one by one. But after I’ve had some tea. See to it, there’s a good girl.”
“Hamish Macbeth was here, sir,” said Maggie, fighting down a desire to scream at him to get his own tea.
Deacon, who had been walking away, swung round. “What did he want?”
“I don’t know. He used the phone in the interview room.”
“Who to?”
“He didn’t tell me.”
“We’ll have that one back as well. He’s not living up tae his reputation.”
Hamish Macbeth went into the lounge. They were all gathered there. He looked bleakly at all of them: June and Dermott and the children, Doris and Andrew, Miss Gunnery and Tracey.
He stood in front of the fireplace and then he said quietly to Miss Gunnery. “You’ve got some explaining to do.”
She gave a nervous laugh. “Oh, Heather told me about telling you about that lie. But no harm’s done. Cheryl’s confessed.”
“I haven’t heard from Deacon, but Cheryl only bragged to Tracey about committing the murders. If she sticks to her story, I’ll be surprised. So let’s say it wasn’t her. It wass the one of you.”
They stared at him, hypnotized.
“I’m going to speculate. Here’s what I think happened:
“Miss Gunnery, you have been disappointed in love, and that very disappointment made your eyes sharper than mine. You knew that Doris and Andrew were really in love, passionately in love. Harris was a hateful man. You longed to help. Quite what happened, I don’t know. But perhaps you came across Harris and tried to reason with him. He had a vile tongue. Did he insult you drunkenly and then turn away in contempt? Was that when you struck him with those arms strengthened by the years of tennis playing? Anyway, you left him to die in the water. Then you began to try to cover not only your own tracks by saying you had slept wi’ me, but you clumsily tried to protect Doris by using a wee child.
“You havenae long to live, Miss Gunnery, and I think that prompted you. By the time they found out anything, if they found out anything, with any luck you’d be dead. But you havenae helped anyone. All you’ve done is brought misery all round. Doris here is haunted wi’ the idea that Andrew might hae done it, and he sometimes worries about her.” He looked at Doris. “Isn’t that true?”
“Yes,” said Doris faintly.
“Then, as I see it, MacPherson turns up and starts to blackmail you, Miss Gunnery. He wouldnae have bothered trying to blackmail someone like Cheryl. So you stabbed him with the scissors on his desk. Luck was on your side. No one saw you. No one ever really sees you, Miss Gunnery. That was the story of your life, was it not? A shadow, a cipher, passed over and ignored. And the one time love came into your life, it had to be a married man who wouldn’t leave his wife.”
His voice had taken on an uncharacteristically cruel and jeering edge.
She put her hands up as if to ward him off. “I meant it for the best,” she said. “It was only for the best. Henry’s wife was a bully and a nag – ”
“Henry being the geography teacher.”
She nodded. Then she rallied. “You have no proof…no proof. Who’s going to believe you?”
Hamish sat down suddenly in a chair by the fireplace. “I’ll bet you have the proof hidden away somewhere,” he said in a tired voice. “It would be like you to keep something for insurance chust in case someone innocent was accused of the murder, someone other than Cheryl, that is. You wouldn’t care much about Cheryl. But you’re a romantic. You did it all for Doris and Andrew. Where you had failed in love, they must not fail. I must be losing my wits. June, take the kids away.”
June marshalled her brood and took them out. Hamish jerked his head at Dermott. “Go with them.”
He turned back and said almost pleadingly to Miss Gunnery, “You know me. I’ll dig and pester and dig and pester and I’ll neffer leave you alone. If you want Doris and Andrew to be free, then admit your crimes. You wanted to be found out, didn’t you? You sent me to see your friend in Cheltenham. You had probably told her not to tell anyone that your life was shortly to end. You didn’t show much interest in your cat, didn’t even ask me when I came back. Oh, you didn’t sit down and think, if I ask Hamish Macbeth to call in on Mrs Agnew in Cheltenham, he might find out something about me. It wasn’t as clear-cut as that. What stopped me from suspecting you was because I liked you and could see no motive. I remember saying to you that a motiveless crime was the best one. Then there was the death of MacPherson. It took some force to drive those scissors into his neck. I’d neffer really noticed the strength of your arms before. Then I remembered that photo of you and Mrs Agnew in your tennis whites.”
She got to her feet. “Your reasoning is hardly logical,” she said, “and as you know, there is no proof.” Her voice shook. “I will go to my room and lie down. All this has been too much for me.” She went out and Hamish could think of no concrete reason to stop her.
“It cannae be her,” wailed Tracey. “The only decent body who’s ever been kind tae me.”
“Are you sure, Hamish?” asked Andrew. “Why not phone Deacon and see if Cheryl has confessed?”
“She didn’t protest all that much,” said Doris. “If she’d been innocent, surely she would have shouted at Hamish and threatened to report him to his superiors. Then she did say she had done it for the best.”
Mrs Aston put her head around the door. “Coffee?” she asked brightly.
“Aye, that’ll be chust grand,” said Hamish.
“I’ll bring a tray in. I’ll put an extra cup on it for Miss Gunnery. Maybe she’ll be feeling like one when she gets back from the beach.”
Hamish jumped to his feet. “The what? She’s gone out?”
“I think she must have forgotten something. She went off running.”
“Didn’t Crick stop her?”
“He’s in the kitchen having his coffee.”
Hamish ran out of the room, out of the boarding-house and over the dunes to the beach. He looked right and left when he reached the beach and then out to sea. Far out, bobbing above the waves, he could see a head.
He stripped down to his underwear and plunged in and started swimming powerfully. The wind was rising and the waves were rising and he battled through one after the other.
At last he saw her some yards in front of him and called loudly to her. She saw him, rather than heard him, for the wind whipped his words away. She was still wearing her glasses. How odd, he thought madly, that her glasses had managed to stay on. The sun glinted on them, giving her a blind look. Then she raised her arms to heaven and sank under the waves like a stone.
♦
Deacon and Clay had been phoned by Crick. They had come with Maggie and, joined by Dermott, Tracey, Andrew and Doris, they stood on the edge of the water and watched as Hamish struggled back, holding Miss Gunnery in his arms.
Clay and Crick waded in to help him as he neared the shore. Together they carried Miss Gunnery’s limp body on to the sand. Maggie moved in and began applying all the artificial respiration techniques she had learned. Far away sounded the wail of an ambulance siren. At last, Maggie sat back on her heels and shook her head.
“She’s dead,” she said flatly.
The wind rose even higher, the white sand snaked along the beach and began to sing a dirge for Miss Gunnery.
“So let’s have it then,” said Deacon to Hamish. “Mr Biggar here says you accused Miss Gunnery of the murders. What proof had you?”
“None,” said Hamish, pulling his dry clothes over his wet underwear. “Chust intuition.”
“Oh, shite, man. If you’ve driven that lady to her death by your harassment…”
“She’ll hae left proof somewhere,” said Hamish wearily. “And I’m going to look for it.”
“You won’t find it,” Deacon shouted at his retreating back. “Don’t you know all the rooms were searched several times?”
Deacon waited until the ambulance men arrived, until he had had a full report from Andrew about what had happened in the lounge before Miss Gunnery had swum to her death, before setting off in pursuit of Hamish.
“That Blair ower in Strathbane was right,” he grumbled. “Hamish Macbeth is stark-staring mad.”
♦
Hamish sat on the bed in Miss Gunnery’s room and looked about him. He was bone-weary. He had had to dive and dive before he had managed to get her. He had searched already, but there was nothing in her suitcase, or in the drawers, or in the bedside table. Then he thought: the police had not been looking for drugs, so their search would only have been through her belongings. So where would be the obvious place? He rolled back the carpet, but the floorboards did not seem to have been disturbed. Then he went out and went along to the communal bathroom. The toilet had an old–fashioned cistern, the type that is set high up, with a chain dangling from it. He stood on the pan and lifted the lid of the cistern. Nothing in the cistern, he thought, feeling around with his hand. And then, because he was so very tired, as he was about to replace the lid, it slipped out of his hands and fell on the floor. And there, staring up at him, taped to the underside of the cistern lid, was an oilskin packet.
He climbed down, sat on the floor, and ripped the packet free, wondering vaguely where, in this day and age of plastic, Miss Gunnery had been able to find oilskin. And for one moment, before he opened the packet, he wondered if it might turn out to have nothing to do with Miss Gunnery but was something criminal hidden by Rogers.
But on opening it he found two envelopes. One was addressed to himself.
He opened it.
“Dear Hamish Macbeth,” he read, “In the event of anyone being falsely accused for the murders, I have written this confession of what I have done.”
He had a feeling of relief as he read on. The murder of Harris had been on impulse. Miss Gunnery had come across him that day in Skag. She had pleaded with him to give Doris her freedom. She had told him she knew what it was like to be in love. He had made several crude remarks about her lack of any attraction, called her a warped little spinster, and turned away. She had picked up the driftwood and hit him with it as he stood at the edge of the jetty. When he had fallen in the water, she had been about to run for help. But then she had thought of Doris and Andrew. She, Miss Gunnery, did not believe in God or divine retribution. As far as she was concerned, she was soon to die, and that would be the end of everything. So why not just let Harris die? Furthermore, she herself might be sent to prison for assault and she had no intention of spending her remaining days behind bars. So she had left him and then had done her clumsy best to see that no one else should suffer. Then MacPherson had approached her, said he had seen her and demanded money. She told him she would pay him. But, she had written in that old–fashioned italic writing so rarely seen these days, she felt that he did not deserve to live either. So she had gone quietly into his shed when he was working at his desk, seized up the scissors and driven them into his neck. The scissors were wrapped in a plastic bag and buried under the lilac tree in the garden of the boarding-house at the back. Her fingerprints would be found on them. “I did not lie about sleeping with you to give myself an alibi, Hamish,” she ended, “but to give you one because I love you.”
Hamish put it down on the floor and opened the other envelope. It contained a will form. Miss Gunnery had left everything she owned to Tracey.