Death of a Travelling Man

∨ Death of a Travelling Man ∧

9

When gloamin’ treads the heels o’ day

And birds sit courin’ on the spray,

Alang the flower’y hedge I stray,

To meet my ain dear somebody.

—Robert Tannahill

Hamish took Towser with him, frightened that a lovelorn Willie would neglect the dog. He put the dog’s blanket and water bowl in the back of the Land Rover, along with a helping of cold pasta he had found in the kitchen.

As he once more took the long road to Strathbane, he wondered that a drag club could survive anywhere in the Highlands. ‘Jessie’ was the Scottish word for an effeminate man, a shortened version of the old English sneer of jessamy. No doubt that was why the place was called Jessie’s. He did not want to advertise to the customers that he was a policeman, but neither did he want to borrow a frock from Priscilla and dress up. He was not in uniform but in a dark-blue sweater, checked shirt and dark-blue cords. He could only hope that some of the other customers were similarly attired.

He found Jessie’s on the waterfront in Strathbane, housed in what used to be a ship’s chandler’s. Music was thudding out into the acrid air of Strathbane. He locked the Land Rover after filling Towser’s water and food bowls and made his way inside, blinking to accustom his eyes to the darkness.

To his relief, the customers were practically all in conventional dress and included some obviously staid married couples who had simply come to see the show. In order to get in, he had had to pay the club membership of five pounds. He was ushered to a table in a corner by a young man dressed unimaginatively in striped T–shirt and skin-tight black trousers who served him orange juice and charged him two pounds for it.

On the stage someone in low-cut gown and sequins and feathered headdress was belting out ‘Hello, Dolly’. He was obviously the star turn, looking like a glamorous woman compared to the sequinned chorus who looked what they probably were, small Scotsmen with bad legs. As the show went on, Hamish was able to understand the club’s obvious popularity with a respectable section of the population because it mostly consisted of popular numbers from musicals, all quite well staged and mostly well sung. But there was no sign of Bert Luscious.

He signalled to the waiter, told him he was a policeman, and asked to see the owner. After about fifteen minutes, the waiter returned and asked Hamish to follow him to ‘the back o’ the house’.

He pushed open a door and said, “Jessie’ll see you now,” and Hamish went in.

Jessie turned out to be the man who had sung ‘Hello, Dolly’. He was still in costume but had removed his blond wig to reveal a shaven head. The small room was made up like a star’s dressing room in miniature with lights around the mirror and a Victorian chaise longue in one corner.

“What iss up?” demanded Jessie in an accent that Hamish guessed probably hailed from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, having a soft, whistling sort of sibilancy.

“Nothing up with the club,” said Hamish. “I’m looking for someone called Bert Luscious.”

“Not on tonight, precious.”

“Can you give me his address?”

“And why should I be doing that, officer?”

“Because I am on a murder inquiry and it is your duty to help the police.”

Jessie sighed and then pulled a large book towards him, scattering sticks of grease-paint as he did so. With one large white well-shaped hand, he flicked through the pages. “Aye, here we are. Quite close by, he is. Number 141, Highland Towers, on the estate up back.”

“Thanks,” said Hamish.

Jessie batted his false eyelashes at him. “Enjoy the show, sweetie?”

“Yes,” said Hamish awkwardly, backing towards the door. “Why Jessie?” he asked.

“Because that’s what all those nasty little boys at school used to call me – Big Jessie. My real name is Cyril Crumb, and believe me, anything iss better than that.”

As Hamish drove towards the tower blocks which overlooked the waterfront, he reflected dismally that he could hardly claim this night’s expenses, as he was not even supposed to be in Strathbane.

Bert Luscious’s flat was on the sixth floor but the urine-stinking lift was out of order and so he had to trudge up the stairs and then along a gallery which led outside the flats, listening to the sounds of drunken quarrels, crying babies and television sets coming through the thin walls.

Number 141 was in darkness but he could hear the blast of a stereo coming from inside, thumping out rap. He rang the bell. No answer. He thudded on the door and waited but no one came to answer it. He tried the handle and the door swung open.

A fetid, sweet smell met his nostrils and he groped about the minuscule hallway until he found the light switch. A joss-stick was burning in a milk bottle on a table, hence the smell. The noise of music was coming from behind a door to his right. He opened it.

He found himself looking into a living room, cluttered and messy with dirty clothes strewn about the battered furniture. On a sideboard a large ghettoblaster shattered the air with sound. He crossed the room and switched it off.

Next door a television set mumbled on through the walls, punctuated with an occasional burst of canned laughter. “Anybody home?” he called.

He walked back into the hallway and tried the door opposite. This proved to be a squalid bedroom: unmade bed, dirty stained sheets, posters on the walls of singers with guitars.

He left that and tried the bathroom and then walked into a small kitchen at the back of the hall.

Bert Luscious was seated at the kitchen table, his long orange hair spilling out over a cheap plastic top. Hamish tried to rouse him and then saw the syringe lying beside his head, half covered by his hair. He felt his limp wrist. There was only a flutter of a pulse.

Hamish swore under his breath. It looked as if Bert had taken an overdose. He, Hamish, would have to explain his presence in Strathbane, for he would need to get Bert to the nearest hospital.

He found a telephone buried under a pile of clothes on the living room floor and phoned for an ambulance, and then with great reluctance phoned Strathbane Police Headquarters. He asked to be put through to Jimmy Anderson, briefly told him what he had found and said he hoped it could somehow be kept from Blair at the moment.

“Everything can be kept from Blair at the moment,” said Anderson cheerfully. “He’s in the hospital wi’ cirrhosis o’ the liver. Be round right away.”

Hamish began to search feverishly after drawing on a thin pair of gloves which he always kept on him for examining clues without leaving his own fingerprints on them. He found the papers which showed that Bert was now the owner of Cheryl’s scooter. He found some photographs of Bert in action and was startled at the young man’s resemblance to Cheryl.

Then, feeling like a criminal, he carefully put everything back where he had found it, knowing full well that he was not supposed to touch anything before the CID arrived. He had just finished when he heard the approaching wail of the ambulance and police cars.

Hamish explained to Jimmy Anderson that he had just heard that Bert had orange hair and performed as a woman and had wondered whether that might have been the way Cheryl could have been at Lochdubh murdering Sean when she was supposed to be on stage. But he said nothing of his find of the money and drugs, nor of the blackmailing of the women. For a mad idea had taken root in his brain, an idea that might flush out the murderer with the least scandal possible.

But he patiently went back to headquarters with Anderson and typed up a statement. The report from the hospital said Bert was in a very bad way and no one would be able to interview him for some time.

Hamish then drove out to Mullen’s Roadhouse. Sure enough, Johnny Rankin and the Stotters were gyrating and howling to the end of their performance. Cheryl gave him a filthy look as she finally climbed down from the stage.

“Don’t worry,” said Hamish. “I’m not here to ask you any more questions. Did you collect all your belongings from the bus?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I’m glad of that, for Sean’s mother is coming up the day after tomorrow to take away her son’s things. But before she touches anything, the forensic team is coming back because I have found some items for them that they missed before and that I am sure will give us definite proof of the murderer. I swear they’re covered in fingerprints.”

Cheryl shrugged and her hair fell forward to hide her face. “When’s this forensic lot coming?” she asked.

“Let me see, this is Wednesday…no, it’s Thursday already, so that means Friday morning I’m expecting them.”

“Oh, aye.” Cheryl turned away, indifference in every line of her body.

But it must work. It’s got to work, thought Hamish as he drove home. I’ll tell the Wellingtons, the Curries, and Angela Brodie, and Mr Ferrari, too, that I’ve found stuff which will enable the forensic department to find the murderer. Forensic investigation is the new witchcraft. Any guilty person’s going to be frightened of being smelt out.

And if it doesn’t work, reflected Hamish sadly, I’ll turn everything over to Strathbane and throw myself on Jimmy Andersen’s mercy. What a gamble! What a thin chance! But the murderer, or murderess, must be badly frightened, must still be desperate to cover his or her tracks. And if I get whoever did it, then I have to gamble on that person keeping quiet about the blackmailing. If it’s Cheryl, point out that she’ll get a more lenient sentence; if it’s Ferrari, he didn’t know about the blackmailing anyway. But if it’s one of the others, the blackmailing is their best excuse for the murder and whoever it is will damn the other two innocent blackmail victims when presenting her defence. But it can’t go on. I’ll have to try.

♦

The next day, he decided that there must have been something in the orange juice he had bought at the club. He was behaving ridiculously. Better to wait until Bert recovered from his drug overdose and get Jimmy Anderson to find out if he had stood in for Cheryl on the night of the murder. Then question Johnny Rankin and the rest. Then see if Cheryl could be broken. It was possible she did not know of the blackmailing, but how could she not know? But something drove him on to get Mrs Wellington, Jessie Currie and Angela Brodie on their own and tell them a variety of what he had told Cheryl. All looked at him hopelessly, as if they were exhausted with weeping and worry.

When Hamish returned to the police station, Willie said, “Jimmy Anderson was on the phone. You’re to call right back.”

Hamish phoned Strathbane and was put through to the detective. “It’s Bert Luscious, real name Bert Maxwell,” said Anderson. “He’s been and gone and died on us. I had a go at Johnny Rankin and the rest and they swear blind Cheryl was with them all the time and I cannae break their story. Rankin’s got enough syringe marks on his arms tae make him look like a walking pincushion, but he started screaming about police harassment and said he’s been clean for months. We searched his flat and the others but couldnae find any drugs. Look, Hamish, Mullen tells me you’ve been tae the Roadhouse and it’s no’ on your beat. You’re going tae have to look the facts in the face, and it’s that one o’ that lot in Brigadoon up there did it, and stop running yourself ragged wi’ a bunch o’ daft men in women’s frocks and a lot o’ drug addicts who can’t sing for two pence. Are you keeping anything back?”

Hamish said reluctantly, “I’ve got new evidence. Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was back at the bus on the night of the murder, so was her husband, and so was the restaurant owner, Ferrari, and a couple of his relatives.”

“And why havenae we seen those statements?”

“I’ve just done them,” said. Hamish.

“Look here, when is that mother coming up tae sell the bus?”

“In a few days’ time.”

“Well, I’m coming up there tomorrow to go over the whole thing again, and do you know why, Hamish Macbeth?”

“No.”

“Because I’ve got a feeling in ma bones you’re protecting someone. If Blair’s as bad as I think he is, he’ll have to retire and I’m in line for promotion, so it’s no more easygoing auld Jimmy Anderson. See you in the morn.”

Priscilla, thought Hamish. I need Priscilla, and as if on cue, Priscilla walked into the office.

“Sit down,” said Hamish. “I’m in a grand old mess.”

Willie came in with a tray of coffee. “Willie, could you take off your pinny and go on your beat,” said Hamish. “We want to be alone.”

“Why?”

“Use your brains, man, I’ve got something serious to ask Miss Halburton-Smythe.”

“Oh, I see,” said Willie. “I’ll give you a long time then.”

When Willie had gone, Hamish outlined what had happened to date and his plans for catching the murderer.

“It might just work,” said Priscilla. “What will you do if no one turns up?”

“I’ll chust haff to tell Anderson everything.”

“I suppose you can lie and tell him you just found the stuff. When do you expect your murderer to show?”

“After dark.”

“That’ll be about midnight, and even then it never gets really dark at this time of year,” pointed out Priscilla. “If I were you, I would begin watching about ten. I’ve got a nifty little tape recorder up at the castle. I’ll bring that and keep you company.”

“Nice of you, but why?”

“Better to have proof and a witness.”

“And what do I tell Willie?” asked Hamish.

“Tell him we’re walking out. He thinks you’re proposing to me anyway.”

“Och, no,” said Hamish. “The man can’t be that daft.”

♦

“I’m telling you for a fact,” said PC Willie Lament in Patel’s grocery store, “that Hamish Macbeth is in that polis station right now proposing marriage to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe.”

“High time,” said Mrs Maclean.

“Our Hamish getting married!” Mr Patel’s dark face lit up. He enjoyed a good bit of gossip. “Well, I never thought to see the day. My, my, my. And it’s yourself, Mrs Anderson, and how are you this fine day? Have you heard the news about our Hamish?”

A reporter from the Strathbane and Highland Gazette, who was standing patiently behind Mrs Anderson waiting to buy a packet of cigarettes, pricked up his ears. Nice gossip piece. Forget the cigarettes. He’d better phone it over right away.

♦

Hamish and Priscilla made their way to the field behind the manse by a circuitous route so that they would not be seen. This involved walking all the way over to Gunn’s farm and then doubling back over the fields, past the greenish water-filled quarry and then up the steep path by the side of a cliff which overlooked the water, and so down towards the manse.

The twilight, or gloaming, as it is called in Scotland, was soft and clear. The residents of Lochdubh went early to bed, and as Hamish and Priscilla sat down in the field behind the shelter of the bus, the lights in the village were going out one by one.

They sat talking quietly of this and that but gradually fell silent, straining their ears for the slightest sound.

By one o’clock, the wind of Sutherland had risen and was moaning through the long grass and gaining in force every minute, filling the night with movement.

“We’ll never hear anything in this,” whispered Priscilla.

“I’m a fool,” muttered Hamish bitterly. “These damn women should never have put themselves in a position to be blackmailed anyway, and they’d better face up and take their medicine. Why should I protect them and risk letting a murderer go free?”

“Because Sean was a worthless man and these women are not worthless. They just did not have any experience of evil before. They were all so innocent and he took advantage of that.”

“Aye, I’ve had bad dreams over this. I had one about you, Priscilla.”

“Oh, what was I doing?”

“We were on our honeymoon and you were taking off your clothes and you had a flat hairy chest.”

“You know how to flatter a girl and make her feel good, Hamish.”

“It wass chust a dream! You do not haff the flat hairy chest!”

“How do you know?” said Priscilla huffily.

“Because…” He grabbed her by the arms in a fierce grip. “Listen!” he muttered.

“Only the wind,” whispered Priscilla, “I don’t hear anything exactly. I feel something coming.”

“‘By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way…’”

“Shhh!” He put a hand over her mouth.

Priscilla eased away from him and brought out the little tape recorder, switched it on and handed it to him.

Hamish stiffened like a hunting dog. His whole attention was focused on the packing case, whose light-brown sides glimmered faintly in the half-dark.

Then he let out a long ‘aaaah’ of satisfaction.

“Stay here,” he whispered. He walked slowly to where the bent figure was tearing the rocks out of the packing case.

“Cheryl Higgins,” he said. “I charge you with the murder of Sean Gourlay.” He shone a powerful torch full in her face.

“You’re daft,” she snarled. “Sean was hiding something here and he’d taken some o’ ma things, and I remembered he might hae put them here.”

So, thought Hamish bleakly, she could well stick to that story and look horrified and surprised when the contents of that bag were revealed.

He looked at her in sudden hatred and the lie sprang easily to his lips. “It won’t do, Cheryl,” he said. “Bert Luscious spoke before he died. He said he’d stood in for you on the night of the murder.” And with the inspiration of the desperate, Hamish added, “and you promised him that scooter of yours if he did it.”

She backed away from him, a slight figure in black leather, her long hair whipped this way and that by the wind. “You’ll never get me in prison,” she said viciously. “Not for that bastard. I told Sean I wus pregnant and he said, “Here’s money. Get rid of it.” I kep’ the money and got it done on the National Health. Bastard.”

“So you killed him,” said Hamish.

“I didnae mean tae,” she said, sounding suddenly weary. “I came back to see him. Johnny and the others said they would keep quiet. Sean loved me once. I drove the scooter from Strathbane and left it up on the moors and crept down into the village. There were some men at the bus and I waited, lying in the grass until they went away. Then I went in. Sean had got the sledgehammer because he said there was a gale blowing up and he was going tae put ropes ower the bus. I picked up the sledge. “Going to help me?” he said with that laugh, the way he had laughed when he told me to get rid of the baby. Oh, God, he’d said he loved me and would always look after me.” Her voice broke on a sob. “So I smashed him and smashed him until there was nothing left that would attract a woman again.”

“What is here,” asked Hamish, “that would incriminate you and not in the bus?”

“You didnae know,” she marvelled. “You set me up and I fell for it. I hid the money and drugs for him and my fingerprints are all ower the stuff. And you didnae know. You’re a bastard! I thought once you got my fingerprints on the stuff, you’d never leave me be. And I wanted the money and I wanted that video from the bus he was blackmailing those village women with. I was going to make them suffer.”

Hamish stepped forward. “If you will accompany me to the police station, I – ”

“NO!” she howled, a great scream which rose above the wind.

She whipped around and set out over the field like a deer. Hamish sprinted after her, caught his foot in a rabbit hole and went sprawling. Cursing, he got to his feet and ran on, deaf to Priscilla’s cries behind him. The moon had risen and he could make out Cheryl’s slight figure as it flew across the fields towards the quarry. As he pounded after her, he suddenly wondered if she knew about the quarry, she had always gone for walks around the village, and stopped, cupped his hands to his mouth and shouted a warning.

But she went straight on, straight to the edge and straight over.

Panting, he ran up and knelt down at the edge of the cliff over the quarry. The moon was shining on the spreading ripples on the water.

He hurtled down the bank at the side to where the waters of the old quarry were on a level with the ground, kicked off his shoes, laid the tape recorder on the shore and waded in. He dived and dived, groping desperately among the tentacles of the slimy weed which covered the bottom. From above the quarry came the sounds of voices.

He was nearing the end of his strength when his searching hands located a body tied tightly in the embrace of the weed. He surfaced, gulped air and dived once more, this time with his clasp-knife in his hand. He cut the body free and dragged it to the surface.

A little group of villagers, who had been alerted by Priscilla’s cries for help, stood silently huddled together on the beach. He laid Cheryl down. Dr Brodie came hurrying up as Hamish was trying to revive the girl and pushed him aside. He felt Cheryl’s pulse and then slowly shook his head.

“She’s dead, Hamish. Nothing can be done for her now.”

Ian Gunn, the farmer, drove up in his old rusty Land Rover. Cheryl’s body was lifted into the back and the doors slammed on it. “Take it to the surgery and the ambulance from Strathbane will collect it,” said Dr Brodie. Ian nodded, climbed into the driving seat and drove slowly off, but the field was bumpy and he hit a rock and Cheryl’s body jerked up in the back of the Land Rover, and for one horrible moment her white face, lit up by the moonlight, stared back at the watchers through the back windows.

Hamish gave a shiver. “We should have closed her eyes,” he said wearily. “Why did we forget to close her eyes?”

♦

Dawn was breaking. Hamish had changed into dry clothes. Detectives Jimmy Anderson and Harry MacNab were sitting in his living room facing him. Priscilla sat beside Hamish on the sofa. In his bedroom, Willie slept on, as he had slept during the whole business. “So, Hamish,” said Anderson, “you’ve got it sewn up nicely. And you’ve got her confession on tape! Good man. Where is it?”

“It iss where I left it,” said Hamish slowly. “It iss by the old quarry.”

“No, it’s not,” said Priscilla cheerfully. “I picked it up.” She opened her handbag and drew out the tape recorder.

Hamish gave her an agonized look. On that tape was Cheryl’s voice not only admitting to the murder but talking about the drugs and money and the video. “Chust leave it be, Priscilla,” he said quickly. “I’ll type it up, Jimmy, and let you have it.”

“No, let’s hear it now,” said Anderson. “How does it work? I was never any good wi’ gadgets.”

“Simple,” said Priscilla, seemingly oblivious to Hamish’s warning look. “You just press this button here.”

Hamish covered his face with his hands as Cheryl’s voice sounded into the room. The tape ran on to the bit about Cheryl confessing to smashing Sean and then there was Hamish’s voice saying she should accompany him to the police station and Cheryl shouting ‘No!’ and then nothing but the sound of Hamish running and panting and then his shouting a warning about the quarry.

Hamish slowly took his hands down from his face. Priscilla was sitting there calmly, as cool as a lettuce in a tailored green dress. The whole piece about the drugs, the money and the video had miraculously disappeared from the tape.

“Well, I must say you did a grand job, Sergeant,” said Anderson. Hamish glanced at him. Could it be his imagination, or had Anderson become more pompous in manner and heavier in figure? Was the mantle of the repulsive Blair about to fall on his shoulders? “Of course,” went on Anderson, “I consider it my duty to put in my report that the case could’ve maybe been solved earlier if you had not decided to investigate the Strathbane end on your own.”

“That’s unfair,” said Priscilla.

“A good detective is always honest in his report,” said Anderson.

The telephone rang in the police station and Hamish went through to answer it.

“When I’m Detective Chief Inspector, MacNab,” said Anderson, “I’ll be keeping Macbeth up to the mark. So he tricked that girl into a confession, but it’s most irregular.”

Hamish came in with a smile on his face. “I’ve got the grand news,” he said. “That was Turnbull from Strathbane. He forgot to tell you last night that Blair is recovering. He’ll soon be back on the job.”

Anderson seemed to dwindle in size to his former thin shape. “Pillock!” he said. “Here, Hamish, hae you any whisky?”

“A good copper does not drink on duty,” said Hamish primly.

“Come on, Hamish, I’m off duty as from now.”

“Particularly,” went on Hamish, “a good copper who plans to put in a bad report about me.”

“Did I say that?” Anderson looked wounded. “There’ll be nothing but praise.”

“In that case,” said Hamish, “I seem to mind I have the bottle somewhere.”