—Sir Walter Scott
“Thon professor seemed to think so. Blair is raging. He’s due to go on holiday the next week, and he thinks you invented clues pointing to murder to spite him. Anyway, it looks as if the focus is going to be on that writing class here. Blair’s coming over tomorrow to interview everyone.”
“I’d like to be there when he interviews the Currie sisters,” said Hamish. “But you know Blair. I suppose I’m off the case.”
“Not quite. You’re to make door-to-door enquiries.”
“Press arrived yet?”
“The Tommel Castle Hotel is beginning to fill up. They’re a funny lot. What beats me is that by tomorrow there’ll be some fellow standing in front of the camera saying, “And here I am in the picturesque village of Lochdubh.” Will anyone see a bit of the village? Not on your life. All they’ll see is his big ba’ heid in front of the camera.”
“Jessma Gardener is pretty good.”
“Fancy her, do you? What about that reporter lassie you were romancing?”
“She got a job in Glasgow.”
“Going down to see her?”
“Maybe.” Hamish realised with a little jolt that he missed Elspeth Grant. At first he had been relieved when she left. But all the good and bad times they had shared together came flooding into his mind and he wondered why he had ever let her go. Had she still been in Lochdubh, she would be sitting across from him with her frizzy hair and thrift shop clothes, her silver eyes fixed steadily on his as she brought her uncanny psychic abilities to bear on the case.
“You should ha’ married her,” said Jimmy, helping himself to more whisky.
“You’re not a good advertisement for marriage,” said Hamish huffily. “How many times? Three?”
“Two. Anyway, back to the murder. If it turns out to be ink in his mouth, then it looks as if someone offed him with hate and then tried to make it look like suicide. Everyone saw the hatred of the villagers on the telly. What about that brute Alistair Taggart? He’s been done once for assaulting a fellow worker.”
“If John Heppel upset everyone here so much, then he must have upset a lot of people in his past.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t murdered in Glasgow, he was murdered here.”
“He also did some work for Strathbane Television. Some sort of script. He told me he had done a script for Down in the Glen.”
“Have you seen that programme? It’s a lowland Scots idea of the Highlands. All the women walk around in tartan shawls and the crofters in kilts. I mean, it’s hardly high literature.”
“I think anything to do with television drew that man like a magnet. I’d like to take a trip over there, but no doubt Blair will be on the scene tomorrow to make sure I’m doing nothing other than chapping at doors and interviewing all the people who weren’t at the writing class. I’d really like to know exactly how he was killed. But the autopsy will take a couple of days, and then the report will go to the procurator fiscal. Let me know as soon as you hear.”
“Keep the whisky coming and I’ll let you know anything.”
♦
Two days later Superintendent Peter Daviot received a visit from Professor Jane Forsythe.
“This is a most unusual murder,” she began. “Have you got the report from the procurator fiscal?”
“Yes, but I haven’t read it yet.” And in answer to her raised eyebrows, he said defensively, “I’ve had a lot of work this morning.”
“I would like to go over to Lochdubh to discuss the case with that policeman.”
“Detective Chief Inspector Blair?”
“No, not that oaf. The tall one with the red hair ”
“That’ll be Hamish Macbeth. Why him?”
“Because he has a shrewd intelligence. Besides, I don’t like Blair’s patronising attitude.”
“He is a good detective.”
“Nonetheless, I would like to speak to that policeman. What’s his name again?”
“Hamish Macbeth.”
♦
Hamish had crept into his police station over the back field for a cup of tea. Somewhere out on the waterfront, Blair was pompously addressing the press.
The kettle had just boiled when there came a knock at the front door. Hamish assumed it was some reporter or other because all the locals knew to use the kitchen door. But his highland curiosity drove him to tiptoe to the front door and peer through the spyhole. He recognised Professor Forsyth. He shouted through the letter box. “Could you come to the side door? This one sticks with the damp.”
He went through and opened the kitchen door.
“I have your superior’s permission to call on you,” said the professor.
“Mr. Blair?”
“No, not him. Mr. Daviot.”
“Please come in,” said Hamish. “I am just making some tea. Would you like a cup?”
“Please.”
“Sit down. Milk and sugar?”
“Both.”
Hamish searched desperately for a milk jug and then just put the bottle on the table. Then he fished in his trouser pocket and found some little packets of sugar he had taken from a restaurant table.
When he had poured her a cup of tea, he asked eagerly, “How did he die?”
“Mothballs.”
“Mothballs!”
“Yes, naphthalene poisoning.”
“But he wouldn’t have sat there and crunched mothballs.”
“Exactly. He had a weak heart.”
“Wait a bit. Surely a poison like that would induce vomiting?”
“It did. Someone cleaned him up and scrubbed the floor. It’s a stone-flagged floor, but we found some traces between the stones.”
“There were rugs on the floor when I was there.”
“Indeed. Our killer must have taken them away.”
“And the ink?”
“The only way I can think to explain it is this: Perhaps the mothballs were melted by heat into black liquid. The liquid was mixed with whisky. Say someone held a gun on him and forced him to drink the mixture. When he started to vomit, his attacker watched him until he died and then poured ink into the mouth. Rage over, the killer suddenly decided to fake a suicide and closed the mouth and wiped off the excess ink. Then he scrubbed away the vomit and took away the rugs after typing that suicide note on the computer.
“I got John Heppel’s medical records. He suffered from high blood pressure and his heart was weak. I should think he died very quickly. There would not be much vomit. I decided to call on you because it is the most interesting case I have come across. So hate-filled and elaborate. I saw the villagers attacking him on television.”
“It can’t be one of them,” protested Hamish.
“Why not?”
“I can just about imagine one of them lashing out, but this one was planned.”
“Do you know anyone in Lochdubh who would have mothballs?”
“About everyone, I should think. I’ve got them myself. I found my uniform has moth holes in it a while back, so I bought some mothballs from Patel’s grocery.”
“But surely it must be someone in the village. This tea is very good, by the way.”
“It’s the water. What about Strathbane? Heppel was doing something for television there. I’d like a word with them, but I fear Mr. Blair would not permit it.”
“Give me a minute,” she said. Professor Forsyth took out her mobile phone and walked outside the police station.
After a few minutes she came back. “I’ve just had a word with Mr. Daviot. He says he will get Jimmy Anderson to meet you there.” She grinned. “Mr. Blair is to continue to interview the villagers. Any more of that tea?”
♦
The Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, were ushered into the mobile police unit parked on the waterfront. Blair was sitting behind a desk, having finished with his press interview.
He eyed them with disfavour, thinking they would both look well in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace. They were identical twins with tightly permed white hair and thick glasses. Both wore long tweed coats smelling of mothballs.