Hamish Macbeth 09 (1993) - Death of a Travelling Man (9 page)

“I’ve been a fool, but no longer. Go and give that young man his marching orders.”

“I c-can’t!”

His normally domineering wife was looking grey and crumpled.

Worry for her made him, like most husbands, angry instead of sympathetic.

“Don’t be silly. If it makes you feel any better, tell him
I
am ordering him to go!”

Mrs Wellington eventually, encased in a voluminous waxed coat and rain-hat and Wellington boots, walked across the wet field to the bus.

She could hear the chatter from the television set inside. She knocked at the door and waited.

“Sean,” she called tremulously, and knocked again.

No answer.

She longed to turn away, to forget about the whole thing, but her husband would want to know why. She knocked loudly this time and then, in sudden desperation, sudden longing to get the whole distasteful business over with, she rattled the handle of the door. It swung open.

“Look here, Sean…” she began, heaving her bulk inside.

She stopped short and her mouth opened in a soundless scream.

Sean Gourlay lay on his back on the floor. His face and head had been beaten to a pulp. Beside him on the floor lay a bloody sledgehammer. On the table, on the small television screen, a woman chattered in that inane way early-morning presenters have, as if addressing an audience of children.

Mrs Wellington backed to the door. Small thin sounds were issuing from her mouth. She felt faint but dared not faint and be found lying next to that…that thing.

She stumbled from the bus and weaved her way like a drunk across the field. She opened the back door of the manse and the sight of home and familiar objects loosened her vocal cords and she threw back her head and gave a great cry of “MURDER!” And once started, she could not stop.

§

Hamish Macbeth stood miserably in the manse field in the driving rain, with Willie beside him, while a forensic team went over the bus inch by inch. Detective Chief Inspector Blair was pacing up and down, wearing a deerstalker and an old Inverness cape, looking like someone in an amateur production of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The only thing that was lightening Blair’s gloom was the fact that it was a nice seedy murder: no toffs involved. Just a hippie with his head bashed in. He’d had a public row with his girlfriend, the girlfriend had killed him, it was only a matter of time before they picked her up. He loathed being back in Lochdubh, a locality he associated with success for Macbeth and failure for himself. There was no need for either Hamish or his sidekick to be hanging about in the rain, but Blair had kept them there to make them suffer; but as trickles of water began to run down inside his collar, he realized he was suffering as well and suggested they go back to the police station and discuss the matter there and let the forensic boys get on with their job.

“Well,” began Blair, pausing for a moment in surprise as Willie put a coaster under his coffee cup, “it’s straightforward enough. This creep has a row wi’ his lassie, lassie comes back and bang, crash, goodbye boyfriend.”

“Was it murder wi’ intentions?” asked Willie eagerly.

“If ye mean was her intention tae bash his head in, yes, you moron. Now the pathologist says death came frae thae blows from the sledgehammer. Sledge-hammer belongs tae the manse. Whit dae ye think, Sergeant, that yer minister friend was at the sauce and slammed Sean Gourlay’s head in?” Blair laughed heartily.

Hamish looked at him bleakly, his thoughts racing. He found he was hoping against hope that the murderer was Cheryl but for reasons he could not explain.

He began to give Blair a report on Sean’s criminal background, reminding him of the theft of the morphine and the theft of the church money, although adding that both Sean and Cheryl had been away from the village when the money was taken.

The police station was pleasantly warm and Willie’s coffee was good. “I’d best jist sit here by the phone,” said Blair, “while you two go off and take statements. I want to know anyone who saw hide or hair of Cheryl Higgins or anyone who heard the sound of that scooter you were talking about during the night.”

Hamish and Willie agreed to divide the village between them, Willie eagerly volunteering for the part which contained the Italian restaurant.

Despite the rain, little groups of people were standing about, peering anxiously up the hill towards the field at the back of the manse.

All day long, Hamish questioned and questioned, but no one had seen Sean after he had left the church and no one had seen Cheryl. Mrs Wellington had given the police a photograph of Cheryl which she had taken shortly after the couple had first arrived. It was shown on the six o’clock news. By seven o’clock, Cheryl Higgins had walked into the police station at Strathbane, and Blair, hearing about it, had driven back to headquarters. By nine o’clock, Detective Jimmy Anderson phoned Hamish.

“Bad news,” he said. “Cheryl Higgins has a cast-iron alibi.”

“She can’t have,” exclaimed Hamish.

“Aye, but she has. She’s been staying with a bunch of travellers in a field outside Strathbane and she’s been playing the guitar in a group called Johnny Rankin and the Stotters—she being one o’ the Stotters. The pathologist is checking the contents of Sean’s stomach and he says the man was killed at a rough guess between ten in the evening and midnight. Cheryl was playing in Mullen’s Roadhouse, you know, about two miles outside the town, from nine till one in the morning. Then she went on frae there to a party in Strathbane. Witnesses all along the way.”

“But how reliable are the witnesses?” asked Hamish. “Stotter means glue-sniffer, doesn’t it? Is that how the group got its name?”

“Probably. Most o’ them were away wi’ the fairies when we tried to talk to them, but there was the audience, about forty decent, or fairly decent, witnesses. She could ha’ slipped away from the party, for I don’t know if any of that lot knew whether they were coming or going, but the point is the time of the murder and during that time she was performing in front of about forty people at the Roadhouse.”

“I’m surprised any band is allowed to play on the Sabbath in Strathbane,” observed Hamish.

“It’s outside the town, so nobody bothers.”

“So where’s this field she’s living on?”

“On the Dalquhart Road out on the north side, about five miles out on the left. Belongs to Lord Dunkle, him what had the pop festivals back in the sixties. Still thinks he’s a swinger, silly auld scunner that he is. She’s living in a caravan with a couple called Wayne and Bunty Stoddart, old friends from Glasgow. She disnae look at all like the picture the minister’s wife gave us, but it’s her, all right. She’s dyed her hair orange since the photo was taken. In Cheryl’s humble opinion some bampot in Lochdubh upped wi’ the sledgehammer and give him fifty whacks, and good riddance to bad rubbish, she says.”

“Did she suggest anyone?”

Anderson chuckled. “Aye, she did that.”

“Who?”

“Sergeant Hamish Macbeth.”

“Silly bitch.”

“I’m telling you, that pleased Blair no end.”

Hamish sighed. “So I suppose Blair’ll be back tomorrow?”

“No, it’ll be me and Harry MacNab. There’s been a big robbery at the home of one of the super’s friends, so Blair’s jumped at that. He disnae care about the death o’ a layabout. No press coverage in it for him.”

“There’s been a fair amount of press about today,” said Hamish.

“Aye, but they willnae be there tomorrow. Nobody in that village of yours had a good word to say for Sean Gourlay. If they had all said something nice, then the press could have run a ‘much-loved’ type o’ bit. Even the
Strathbane and Highland Gazette
have dropped it in case anyone remembers their touching piece about what a charming couple Sean and Cheryl were and being hounded by the nasty cops. They’ve found out from you and then Blair that Sean had a record.”

“Any relative to claim the body?”

“Got a mother in London, respectable body by all accounts. Coming up tomorrow to see the procurator fiscal.”

“I’m surprised the villagers turned out to be so down on Sean. All I got when the couple first arrived was about the romance of the road and leave the poor souls alone.”

“Believe me, the romance wore off, or maybe it’s now that he’s murdered and his past has come out, none of them want to confess to having had a liking for him. But you see what this means, Hamish?”

“I don’t want to.”

“I can see that. It means that mair than likely someone in Lochdubh did it.”

Hamish groaned.

“Cheer up,” said Anderson. “You might find an itinerant maniac, if you’re lucky.”

Hamish said goodbye and replaced the receiver. He pulled forward a sheet of paper. He would need to start with any villagers who had been on friendly terms with Sean. Top of the list were Mr and Mrs Wellington. Then Angela Brodie had been seen visiting the bus. Then came Nessie and Jessie Currie.

He sat back and looked dismally at the short list. He would need to detach his mind from the sore fact that these people were friends. So what had he?

Mr Wellington: lost his faith after a discussion with Sean and started preaching old sermons.

Mrs Wellington: nervous and agitated and not at all anything like her old, confident, bossy self.

Angela Brodie: acting strangely and buying expensive clothes.

Nessie and Jessie Currie: house up for sale, tetchy and miserable.

Well, forget about the murder, he would have to try to find out what Sean had done to these people. In the meantime, Willie could forgo his visits to the Napoli and keep questioning and asking in case anyone had seen a stranger that day.

Suspicion all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes.

—Shakespeare

D
espite Blair’s lack of interest, the police were doing a thorough job. The forensic team came back to go over the bus again, inch by inch. The sledgehammer was identified as belonging to the manse, but the bus was also full of items which Sean had borrowed from the Wellingtons. Mr Wellington said the sledgehammer was normally lodged in a shed at the end of his garden. He was not aware that Sean had borrowed it at any time. Hamish had had high hopes for that hidey-hole under the bus, but it turned out to be full of the same bits of rubbish as before. In a neutral voice, he told Harry MacNab and Jimmy Anderson of the women who had been friendly with Sean, relieved in a way that the detectives would be questioning them and not himself. Never before had he been so reluctant to investigate any case. Still, he could not resist asking them at the end of the day how they had got on.

“They’re all white and shaken,” said Anderson, “but that could be because of the shock. I mean, you’ve known all these women for some time now, Hamish, and you can hardly say that any one of them have shown criminal tendencies.”

“Forget about the women; what about the minister?”

“Nice old boy, but odd, really odd. He said something about the hammer of God.”

“He was probably quoting Chesterton,” said Hamish, who had read the Father Brown stories.

“Whoever he was quoting, he seemed smug. He said he’d called on the Lord for help and the Lord had helped, that sort of thing. Was he always that daft?”

“Not that I ever guessed,” said Hamish bleakly. “Did you tell the Currie sisters they would have to stay in the village until the investigation was over?”

“Why? I thought a trip to Inverness was a big adventure for that pair.”

“Their house is up for sale.”

“Not now, it isn’t,” said Anderson.

“So,” said Hamish, “they were going to leave, Sean gets murdered, and they change their minds. Why?”

“Look, Hamish, I know you like these people, but you know more about them than anyone else, and you’re going to have to ask some questions yourself.” Anderson was lying back in a chair in the police station office, with his feet on the desk. Willie came in with a tray of coffee cups, clucked in disapproval, put down the tray, picked up a newspaper and slid it under Anderson’s feet.

“That’s mair like a houseboy than a policeman,” snorted MacNab when Willie had left the room, “but he makes a grand cup o’ coffee.”

“And there was nothing in the bus,” pursued Hamish, “nothing at all.”

“Not a clue,” said Anderson. “No morphine, no hundred pounds, no letters.”

“So what happens to the bus now?”

“Sean’s mither phoned Mr Wellington and said she was too distressed over her son’s death to do anything about it at the moment, and so Mr Wellington said the bus could stay where it was until she felt fit enough to come up and take it away, or any of his belongings. There’ll be no trouble about it. Sean left a will, all right and proper, leaving everything to his mither.”

“Odd,” muttered Hamish. “Any more on his background?”

“Oh, aye, this’ll set you back. He was in the Hong Kong police for about six months but got the push.”

“Why?”

“Downright laziness. Should ha’ been a man after your own heart, Hamish.”

“But this lassie, Cheryl,” pursued Hamish. “Is there any way o’ shaking her alibi?”

“Not with about forty witnesses to say she was in Mullen’s the whole evening.”

“Damn, I’d like a word with her myself.”

“That’d be stepping out of your parish. You cannae shake that alibi.”

“Maybe. But I’d like to try all the same.”

Anderson sighed and poured more coffee. “I think this is one case you’re never going to solve, Hamish Macbeth. I feel it in ma bones.”

§

And so it seemed, as the days dragged into weeks. The file on Sean Gourlay was not closed, but it might just as well have been. The bus remained up on the field at the back of the manse, a daily mute reminder to Hamish of failure. He had interviewed the Wellingtons, Angela Brodie and the Currie sisters several times, but there was no change in their statements. They had gone out of their way to welcome Sean and Cheryl to the village and then had ceased to see them. They had been nowhere near the bus on the night of the murder.

He decided in despair to risk the wrath of Strathbane and go over on his day off and see if he could talk to Cheryl.