Death of a Liar (15 page)

Hamish found it hard to believe the transformation. He would have expected such as Samantha to go back to Edinburgh and spend her time on the Internet connecting up with animal libbers.

When they left her, Hamish suggested they buy some stuff from the shop and have a picnic on the beach.

“Now
this
,” said Elspeth, “is what I call the best bacon bap in Scotland.”

“She's missing Anka. But Mrs. Mackay always had a grand hand wi' the baps.”

Little waves hissed up on the hard white sand, and Sonsie and Lugs raced up and down chasing seagulls.

Hamish told Elspeth all about the case and then said, “What puzzles me is how this Laurent can escape detection when he's got a Quebec accent and a tattooed face. He can bleach his hair and do all sorts of things but he can't get rid o' thae tattoos. Any ideas?”

Elspeth frowned as she concentrated hard. Hamish watched her face affectionately. If only, if only, he thought.

“I know. He could black it up. He's probably got all sorts of forged identities. He could have moved to Glasgow or London where no one would notice another black face. But they're rare in the Highlands. We've got Indians and Pakistanis, but they're brown.

“If he's clever, he won't want to have moved much away from the Highlands. Police are thin on the ground in the north of Scotland. Did the police manage to get a photo of him from Canada?”

“Not that I've heard. Laurent is probably not his real name.”

“What about fingerprints?”

“He wore gloves.”

“Here's an idea,” said Elspeth. “Have you one of the identikit pictures?”

“Aye, I've one at the station.”

“They're running a trailer for this crime programme tonight. We could change his face to black, photograph it, and I could e-mail it in with instructions to show it on the trailer. You won't get into trouble. I'll say I thought of it myself.”

“I'd like to catch the man myself,” said Hamish. “But phone calls will go straight to the police.”

“No they won't. I'll give instructions with a number that they are to call the television station and tell the station to call me at the Tommel Castle Hotel. I'll tell them that we might get an exclusive that way. I'll pass anything on to you.”

“What time will it be broadcast?”

“Every hour on the hour this evening. Let's get back to the station and get started.”

People might complain about immigrants to the British Isles, but Hamish thought that surely shopkeepers like Mr. Patel were God's gift. He seemed to stock everything and that included a bottle of india ink and brushes.

Back at the station, they turned Laurent's face black and waited for the ink to dry. Then, after a long consultation with her boss, Elspeth took several photographs and
e-mailed
them over.

“You'd better come up to the hotel with me,” she said, “and be on hand if there is any news.”

Elspeth was irritated to find that Hamish was taking Sonsie and Lugs with him. She often felt the man was married to his pets. But Hamish took the animals through to the hotel kitchen and left them with the chef before returning to join Elspeth in the bar.

They watched the television programme on Elspeth's computer. At six o'clock, the trailer came on and Laurent's blackened face appeared.

“Let's hope we get something soon,” fretted Hamish. “Strathbane will be on to your station, demanding that any calls be routed to them.”

“I thought of that,” said Elspeth, “and told them to stall the police for as long as possible.”

They waited until seven o'clock and watched the trailer again. The bar was filling up.

“Let's go up to my room,” suggested Elspeth.

They sat moodily, staring at the screen, waiting and waiting, too nervous to speak.

Elspeth's phone suddenly rang, making both of them jump. “We've got some calls,” came her boss, Barry's, voice. Elspeth pressed the loudspeaker button on her phone so that Hamish could hear the messages as well.

The first one claimed that Laurent was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant in Glasgow. Hamish shook his head. Laurent would not take any job where the black would run off his hands.

The second was from a hysterical woman, claiming that Laurent was the husband who had deserted her.

The third, a man claiming Laurent owed him money.

“That's all for now,” said Barry. “We might get something later.”

“I hope he hasn't just taken someone hostage in their house,” said Hamish.

The phone rang half an hour later. They listened, but without much hope. Hamish suddenly stiffened. A restaurateur in Golspie, called Hugo Bryan, claimed that the identikit looked like his maître d', who was called Felix D
ejeu
x. The restaurant was called The Fine Fish.

Elspeth took a note of the phone number, which she handed to Hamish.

Hamish called the restaurant owner and explained who he was. “When do you close?” he asked.

“Eleven thirty,” said Bryant.

“I'll be right over,” said Hamish. “Does he wear gloves?”

“No.”

“Anyway, I'll be there and don't do anything to make him suspicious.”

He turned to Elspeth. “He isn't wearing gloves.”

“We forgot,” said Elspeth. “There's such things as indelible dye. I'll get my camera crew and follow you over.”

“Don't do that,” said Hamish sharply. “It could be dangerous.”

“If it weren't for me,” shouted Elspeth, “you wouldn't have got this tip-off.”

Hamish realised he was wasting time arguing. He left the hotel by way of the kitchen, shouting to Clarry, the chef, to look after his animals.

Golspie is a village in Sutherland, lying on the North Sea coast in the shadow of Ben Bhraggie. It has a population about fifteen hundred. Hamish remembered that The Fine Fish had been written up as a gourmet restaurant.

He parked a little way away from the restaurant. He walked towards it and looked in the windows. He saw to his dismay that the restaurant was still full. But there was Laurent, moving from table to table.

Afterwards, he was amazed at his own stupidity. Why hadn't he just waited until the restaurant had closed? Perhaps, he thought later, he was frightened that if he waited the owner might betray by nervousness that something was wrong, and it was vitally important that he be ahead of Elspeth and her television team.

Again, afterwards, he realised how lucky he was that there wasn't a television set in the restaurant or that no local had come bursting in to say they had seen the maître d' on television.

Laurent was flambéing crêpes suzette when he looked across the restaurant and saw Hamish Macbeth. He stood frozen for a moment as Hamish approached and then he threw the flaming pancakes straight at Hamish.

Hamish ducked. Diners screamed and dived under the tables. Laurent desperately threw everything he could get his hands on at Hamish: bottles of wine, plates of food, and vases of flowers. A waiter seized him and Laurent punched him in the face and sent him flying. Then he shot through the kitchen door with Hamish in pursuit.

Elspeth and her team tried to get into the restaurant but their way was blocked by escaping diners.

By dint of upsetting hot pots of food and sauce and sending them crashing down to block Hamish's way, Laurent fled out into the backyard of the restaurant. Hamish skidded in a pool of sauce and fell heavily.

He struggled to his feet, slipping and sliding and hanging on to a counter to lever himself up. “Help me catch him,” he shouted to the staff who were standing, staring openmouthed.

He rushed outside into the yard. No sign of Laurent. He jumped over the wall of the yard. He looked to right and left. He should phone for backup. But he would be in deep trouble for having tried to make the arrest on his own, and he no longer had any hold over Daviot.

He shone his torch down on the ground outside the yard. There was a large muddy area but no footprints other than his own.

He turned to a waiter who had joined him.

“Is there a way into the restaurant from the yard?”

“Aye, there are steps down to the cellar.”

Hamish jumped back over the wall, calling to the waiter to follow him and show him where the door was.

“You can get to the cellars from inside,” said the waiter. “This end is where the stores are loaded in.”

He led the way to a door. Hamish tried it. It was locked.

“Get me the key!” he shouted. The waiter ran off and came back not only with the key but with Hugo Bryan, four waiters, and Elspeth and her team.

“Stand back!” shouted Hamish. “Mr. Bryan, make damn sure the inner door to the cellars is locked and barricade it with something.”

The key was handed to Hamish. “How did Laurent lock it?” he asked.

“He's got a key,” said a waiter.

Hamish's key would not work, Laurent having left his key in the lock on the other side. Hamish took a thin piece of steel out of his pocket and began to poke and fiddle in the lock until he heard the key drop down on the other side. He unlocked the door. A flight of stairs led downwards. He pressed the light switch but no light came on. Laurent had probably taken out the bulb just in case his hiding place was discovered.

The moonlight shone down into the cellar from the open door, showing boxes of stores piled up.

“Come out, Laurent!” shouted Hamish. “You can't escape now.”

A can of peeled tomatoes came sailing out of the darkness with deadly accuracy and struck Hamish full on the forehead. He collapsed to his knees.

Laurent raced out of the cellar and into the full glare of a television camera. With a roar of rage, Hugo and his waiters jumped on him and bore him to the ground just as Hamish came staggering up the steps, blood streaming down his face from where the edge of the can had cut him.

Hamish wiped his face with a handkerchief and handcuffed Laurent and cautioned him.

As Hamish led Laurent out through the restaurant, he said to Hugo, who was following them, “I'm right sorry for the mess o' your restaurant.”

But Hugo's eyes were shining. “Man, just think o' the publicity. My restaurant will be world-famous.”

Mr. Daviot was drinking a cup of cocoa and guiltily watching his favourite programme,
Sex in the Suburbs
, when an announcer's voice broke in. “We interrupt this programme to bring you a report of the capture of the most wanted man in Britain.”

And there on the screen was footage of Hamish Macbeth arresting Laurent.

Grim-faced, Daviot phoned Jimmy, who said he had known nothing about it until a moment ago when Hamish had phoned to say he had Laurent locked up in Lochdubh police station.

A convoy of police cars descended on Lochdubh. Not only was Laurent taken off for questioning but Hamish was as well.

Hamish began to wonder during the long night who the villain was as Daviot questioned him and questioned him as to why he had seen fit to go it alone.

Hamish stubbornly said that Hugo had phoned him. Before Daviot had arrived in Lochdubh, Hamish had phoned Hugo and got him to agree to saying he had phoned Hamish instead of the television station. So Hamish said that he had to check it out because there had been so many false reports.

Why had Elspeth Grant decided that Laurent might have blacked himself up as a disguise?

“Ask her,” said Hamish, who had taken the precaution of phoning Elspeth as well. “But if it hadnae been for her grand idea, we'd never have got him.”

At last Hamish managed to ask if Laurent had said anything. “Not a word,” said Daviot bitterly. “But we've got him for the attempted murder of you.”

“Let me speak to him,” begged Hamish.

Daviot was about to refuse, but he wanted everything tied up and maybe this maverick police sergeant could break Laurent's silence.

“Take Anderson with you,” he said curtly.

Laurent stared at Jimmy and Hamish, his eyes gleaming with contempt in his blackened face.

After the preliminaries were over, Hamish said, “Look here, you wee scunner, at the moment the charge is the attempted murder o' me. But we are also going to charge you with torturing and killing Gaunt, the Southerns, and Liz Bentley.”

“You have no proof,” said Laurent.

“Circumstantial evidence,” said Hamish. “Och, I'm fed up wi' this, Jimmy. How about old-fashioned police methods?”

“Meaning?” said Jimmy looking puzzled.

“Switch off the camera and tape,” said Hamish grimly. He waited until Jimmy had done so and then slammed his baton down on the table, making Laurent jump.

“Listen, wee man. I'm going to beat the hell out of you and leave no marks. Stand up!”

“You would not dare!” said Laurent.

Hamish raised his baton and sent it whistling past Laurent's head. Laurent screamed in fear.

“Missed you,” said Hamish. “But how's about this?”

“I'll talk!” screamed Laurent.

Jimmy started up the tape and the video camera.

“Begin!” snapped Hamish. “Begin with Liz Bentley at Cromish.”

His Quebecois accent becoming thicker in his distress, Laurent haltingly told his story.

Gaunt had wanted the drugs for himself. He had romanced Liz Bentley and had hidden them in her cottage. She had threatened to talk and so he had first tried to frighten her into silence, and when that hadn't worked, he had killed her. He still hadn't wanted to tell Dubois where the drugs were, so Dubois had advanced on him with a blowtorch and that was when Gaunt had died of a heart attack. The Southerns? They couldn't talk because Gaunt hadn't told them where the drugs were and so Dubois had tortured them and killed them.

It had all started as Hamish had guessed. The Canadian police had got wind of a large drug haul which had made its way to Canada from Colombia. They did not know about Dubois, a shadowy figure in the crime world. He had immediately searched around for a way to get the drugs out of the country. Southern had heard about the haul and put out feelers to say he knew how to get the drugs out of the country. He would hire a large fishing vessel in Newfoundland to take them off with the drugs; Gaunt would arrange for a small boat to meet the vessel at sea and take the drugs to safety. He would hide them and then contact Dubois—which he had failed to do. So Dubois, Laurent, and Xavier had gone in search of them.