Hamish MacBeth 06 (1991) - Death of a Snob (14 page)

Only John Wetherby made a sound of disgust. Sheila hugged Jane to her maternal bosom and thanked her for her hospitality with tears in her eyes. Diarmuid shook hands with Jane but did not raise his eyes to her face. Jessie gave her a firm handshake and the rest followed suit.

“I’ll stay if you like,” said John Wetherby harshly.

“I’ll be all light,” said Jane, the smile of rather fixed serenity she was wearing fading, to be replaced by a puzzled look. “Why?”

“I’ve got two more weeks’ leave and I can’t stand the idea of you being here on your own.”

“All right then,” said Jane, a genuine smile illuminating her face.

“Oh, dear,” said Hamish, watching the odd couple walk off together to the jeep. “I hope I’m not barking up the wrong tree.”

The ferry bumped against the jetty and bucketed up and down as they walked on board, carrying their luggage. Hamish and Harriet stood side by side at the rail, watching fish and lobsters being loaded on. “Where’s Geordie with his load, I wonder?” said Hamish.

“Here he comes.” Harriet pointed. The Fiat truck was racing down the village street. It hurtled onto the jetty. They could see Geordie’s face behind the wheel contorted with fear.

The truck kept on going, plunged over the corner of the jetty, missing the end of the ferry, and sank into the sea like a stone.

Hamish ran down the gangplank, tearing off his coat as he went. He was about to plunge into the sea when Geordie’s head appeared above the waters, bobbing like a cork. He swam to the iron ladder at the side and crawled up it, dragged the final few rungs by helping hands.

“What happened?” demanded Hamish.

“He tried tae kill me,” said Geordie. “But I got the better o’ him. Himself’s dead now.”

“Was your truck insured?” asked Hamish.

“Tae the hilt, man,” panted Geordie. “lae the hilt. I’ll hae a bran” new beastie soon enough.”

Hamish darted back to the ferry and ran on board, picking up his coat on the way.

The gangplank was pulted up, the ropes released, and die ferry chugged out to sea.

“He shouldn’t have kicked it,” mourned Harriet.

“Havers,” said Hamish bitterly. “That brother o’ Angus’s tricked me and did a shoddy job.”

But Harriet said nothing. She leaned pa the rail and watched until the small figures gesticulating around Geordie slowly disappeared from view.

Vanity, like murder, will out.

—HANNAH COWLEY

G
lasgow. Hamish was bewildered. He had not visited the city in years. Everything seemed to have changed. Landmarks he had known as a child were gone forever. What of St. Enoch Square, which was once commanded by the station hotel, the very epitome of Victorian architecture? All gone, down to the tin advertisement which used to be on the wall opposite the Renfrew bus stop: “They Come As a Boon and a Blessing to Men, The Pickwick, the Owl, and the Waverky Pen.” Now there was a large glass pyramid, very much like the one outside the Louvre in Paris, but housing a shopping centre covering the whole area of the square.

He and Harriet had left their bags in a small hotel in the Great Western Road and had taken a taxi to drive diem about the city. They dined in an Italian restaurant after their tour, Harriet saying they should have an early night and start their investigations in the morning. Diarmuid had hired a car in Oban and had gone, after all, with Jessie to Strathbane to make arrangements for Heather’s body to be taken south to a funeral parlour in Glasgow.

Hamish said good night to Harriet outside her hotel room. All of a sadden he found himself remembering that impulsive kiss she had given him and wondering if he could have another. But by that time, she had closed the door. He was strongly attracted to her, that he realised, and then, hard on that thought, he remembered Priscilla. He went to his own room and dialled the Tommel Castle Hotel.

To his amazement, he was told Priscilla was not back yet. He asked for Mr. Johnson and soon the hotel manager of the Lochdubh Hotel was on the line. “How’re you getting on?” asked Hamish.

“Just fine,” said Mr. Johnson. “Everything’s running like clockwork.”

“Not having any troubles with the colonel?”

“Och, no, I just get on with the work, Hamish, and ignore his tantrums. I’m thinking of working here permanently.”

“And what has Priscilla to say to that?”

“Actually, it was her idea. She phoned up at Christmas, worried about what was happening, and when I told her everything, despite her lather’s frequent interference, was running all right, she suggested I stay on. Suits me. The pay’s a damn sight better than at the Lochdubh. When are you coming back?”

“Shortly,” said Hamish. “I’d better phone Priscilla. Still at Rogart?”

“Aye, still mere and having a grand time, by the sound of it.”

Hamish then rang his mother and apologized for not having called sooner, and after asking about various members of the family, asked to speak to Priscilla. “I’m afraid you can’t,” came his mother’s voice. “She’s gone off tae the pub with your dad and his friends for a drink.”

Hamish briefly tried to imagine the elegant Priscilla propping up some Highland bar with his father and friends and found he could not.

“Where are you, son?” asked his mother.

“In Glasgow.”

“At Jean’s?”

Jean was Hamish’s cousin. “No,” said Hamish, “I’m at the Fleur De Lys Hotel in the Great Western Road.”

“What are ye doing there? It’s awfy expensive.”

“Och, it’s chust a wee place,” said Hamish, taking in the luxury of his bedroom surroundings for the first time and feeling like a kept man.

“No, no, I read an article aboot it,” came his mother’s voice. “How can you afford a place like that?”

Hamish found himself blushing. “It’s a long story, Ma. I’ll tell ye all about it when I get home.”

He talked some more and then rang off. He undressed, got into bed and lay awake for a long time, thinking about the case; and the more he thought about it, the more he decided it must have been an accident and that the weird atmosphere of Eileencraig had put ideas of murder into his head.

But in the morning, over breakfast, he found Harriet was anxious to start the investigations. “I mink we should call on Diarmuid,” she said. “Where does he live?”

“Morris Mace, as I recall.”

She took out a street map and studied it. “Why, that’s just around the comer. We can walk there”

Morris Place turned out to be a small square of Victorian houses, mostly divided into flats, but Diarmuid, it transpired, owned a whole house. They rang the bell and waited.

After some time, Diarmuid opened the door. He was impeccably dressed in a pin-striped suit, white shirt, and striped silk tie.

“Going out?” asked Hamish.

“I was thinking about going down to the office,” said, Diarmuid, blocking the doorway, “although I’m pretty tired. I got back from the north in the small hours of the morning. What are you doing here?”

“We just wanted to ask you about Heather.”

He heaved an impatient sigh and reluctantly stood back, allowing them to enter. He then led the way to a sitting-room on the first floor. It was thickly carpeted and had a green silk-covered three-piece suite, both armchairs and sofa being ornamented with silk tassels. Heavy green silk fringed curtains were drawn back to let in the pale, grey daylight. A gas fire of simulated logs was flaring away on the hearth. In one corner of the room there was a bar. A low coffee-table stood in front of the fire, its polished oak surface protected with coasters depicting paintings by Impressionist artists. Diarmuid ushered them into chairs and then sat down, adjusting his handsome features into what he obviously considered, an expression of suitable grief.

Hamish’s first question appeared to surprise him. Was Heather writing a book? Diarmuid said no, although he added that she was always scribbling away at things. “If she had written a book,” said Diarmuid, “then she would have got Jessie to type it. Jessie typed all her letters.”

Hamish looked at him curiously. “Jessie was your secretary. Didn’t she resent having to work for your wife as well?”

“Oh, no, she’s a good girl, and besides, Heather paid her separately.”

“Where is she now?”

“At home.”

Hamish took out a small notebook in which he had written all the phone numbers and addresses of his suspects. “Would you mind if I used your phone and gave Jessie a call?”

“Help yourself,” said Diarmuid, jerking his head to a white-and-gilt model of an early telephone which stood on a side-table by the window.

Hamish rang Jessie. When she answered, he asked her if Heather had ever asked her to type any pages of manuscript.

“No,” said Jessie harshly. “Anything else? I’m busy with the funeral arrangements.”

Hamish said no, nothing for the moment, and thoughtfully replaced the receiver.

There seemed to be nothing else to ask Diarmuid. Diarmuid appeared to have forgotten all about going to the office as he ushered them out.

“I feel like giving up,” said Harriet gloomily as they left Morris Place. “It’s such a long shot, Hamish.”

“I’d like to try that editor in New York again,” said Hamish. “I’ve got an idea.”

“Well, we can’t phone until at least three in the afternoon, when it’ll be ten in the morning in New York,” pointed out Harriet. “I’e got some shopping to do. I’ll meet you back at the hotel this afternoon.”

Hamish wandered about the city and then ate a solitary lunch, although his mind was not on what he was eating. Bits and pieces of scenes floated through his mind. Jane flushed and angry. John Wetherby electing to stay with Jane. The Carpenters, fat and miserable, trailing off to the station in Oban. Jessie, cool and competent, going off to hire a car in Oban. Diarmuid, relying on his secretary to do everything.

When Harriet came to his hotel room at three in the afternoon, Hamish began to speak immediately, as if he had been discussing the case with her all through lunch. “Look, what about mis? Heather actually succeeds in writing a blockbuster. Jessie types it and sends it off…but she puts her own name on it.”

Harriet looked doubtful. “Would such as Jessie recognise a block-buster? Then we’re back to means and opportunity. Jessie was not on the island when Heather was killed.”

“But Diarmuid was,” said Hamish. “That brief fling with Jane could have been a blind.”

“He’d need to have been awfully fast to follow Heather all’ the way over to the other side of the island, run all the way back, and then hop into bed with Jane,” pointed out Harriet, “Then striking her down in the dark when he was supposed to be searching for her—well, that’s hardly premeditated, and if there’s money for a book involved, her death would have to be worked out carefully beforehand.”

“There’s something there,” muttered Hamish. “I can feel it.”

He picked up the phone and dialed the editor in New York. “I’m sorry to keep bothering you, but it’s terribly important that I find out who wrote that book I was asking you about.”

“Look, all right, all right,” said the editor, “I’ll give you the author’s name. It’s Fiona Stuart.”

“Her address?”

The editor’s voice was terse. “Sorry, can’t do that.”

Hamish sadly replaced the receiver. “It’s no go. The book was written by someone called Fiona Stuart. Of course it could be a pseudonym.”

“Give up, Hamish,” said Harriet. “I’m beginning to think it way an accident.”

“lust one more try,” begged Hamish. “Let me speak to that agent of yours.”

Harriet sighed but phoned her agent in New York and told the surprised man that a Highland constable called Hamish Macbeth wished to speak to him about that block-buster.

“Well, you’re in luck,” said the agent as soon as Hamish was on the phone. “The advance publicity is out. It’s a saga of vice and crime and passion in the Highlands of Scotland, purple prose, I gather, at its worst. It’s a story about a sensitive heroine who is raped by some Highland lord in Chapter One, gang-raped by yuppies in Chapter Two, mugged in Chapter Three. Falls in love with the villain in Chapter Four, and eventually, after bags of sex and mayhem, meets her true love in tune for a steamy clinch in the last chapter, her true love being the one who raped her in Chapter One. It’s called Rising Passion and is reputed to out-Jackie Collins. Fiona Stuart is the name of the author.”

Hamish put down the phone and told Harriet what her agent had said. “Hardly a romance,” he commented.

“That’s romance these days,” said Harriet drily. “I bet it all bears no relation to the Highlands whatsoever, and what woman in her right mind would fall in love with a man who’d rapedher?”

Hamish put his head in his hands. “There must be some connection.” He phoned the editor again. “I told you and told you,” snapped the editor, “I can’t tell you anything about her. Why don’t you phone her agent, for Chrissakes?”

“Can you give me the name of her agent?” asked Hamish. He waited. He was not hopeful at all. He expected the editor to read him out the name of a New York agent. Her American voice twanged over the line. “Here it is. Jessie Maclean, 1256b Billhead Road, Glasgow.”

“Thank you,” said Hamish faintly. He put down the phone and turned to Harriet. “Jessie’s the agent. How does that work?”

“Easy!” cried Harriet, looking excited. “All my money goes to my agent. He takes his percentage and then sends the rest to me. If he decided to cash the money and disappear abroad, there’s nothing I could do about it. Jessie takes Heather’s book and acts as agent. She tells Heather she’s sent it off to a New York publisher. Maybe, if she was shrewd enough, she’d send several copies round the New York publishers and then play one off against jthe other. Then she gets the stupendous offer of half a million. She doesn’t tell Heather, but she knows the minute the book is published, Heather would know about it.”

“But Heather might never have known about it,” said Hamish. “She—Jessie, I mean—could just sit back and not offer it to any publisher in Britain. That way there would be a good chance that Heather would never find out about it being published in America.”

“But don’t you see, Hamish, for half a million she probably sold the world rights.”