M.C. Beaton
Death of a Dustman
Hamish Macbeth #17
2001, EN
∨ Death of a Dustman ∧
1
Love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is – Love, forgive us! – cinders, ashes, dust.
—John Keats
They are still called dustmen in Britain. Not garbage collectors or sanitation engineers. Just dustmen, as they were called in the days of George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion and Charles Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend.
Lochdubh’s dustman, Fergus Macleod, lived in a small run-down cottage at the back of the village with his wife, Martha, and four children. He was a sour little man, given to drunken binges, but as he timed his binges to fall between collection days, nobody paid him much attention. It was rumoured he had once been an accountant before he took to the drink. No one in the quiet Highland village in the county of Sutherland at the very north of Scotland could ever have imagined he was a sleeping monster, and one that was shortly about to wake up.
♦
Mrs. Freda Fleming had recently bullied her way onto Strathbane Council to become Officer for the Environment. This had been a position created for her to shut her up and keep her out of other council business. She was the only woman on the council. Her position in the chauvinist Highlands was due to the fact that the ambitious widow had seduced the provost – the Scottish equivalent of mayor – after a Burns Supper during which the normally rabbity little provost, Mr. Jamie Ferguson, had drunk too much whisky.
Mrs. Fleming nursed a private dream and that was to see herself on television. Her mirror showed a reflection of a well-upholstered woman of middle years with gold-tinted hair and a pugnacious face. Mrs. Fleming saw in her glass someone several inches slimmer and with dazzling charisma. Her husband had died three years previously. He had been a prominent businessman in the community, running an electronics factory in Strathbane. His death from a heart attack had left Mrs. Fleming a very wealthy widow, with burning ambition and time on her hands. At first she had accepted the post of Officer for the Environment with bad grace but had recently woken to the fact that Green was in – definitely in.
She figured if she could think up some grand scheme to improve the environment, the cameras would roll. She firmly believed she was born to be a television star. Strathbane was much in need of improvement. It was a blot on the Highlands, a sprawling town full of high rises, crime, unemployed and general filth. But it was too huge a task and not at all photogenic. She aimed for national television, and national television would go for something photogenic and typically Highland. Then she remembered Lochdubh, which she had visited once on a sunny day. She would ‘green’ Lochdubh.
♦
One hot summer’s morning, she arrived in Lochdubh. The first thing she saw was smelly bags of rubbish lined up outside the church hall. This would not do. She swung round and glared along the waterfront. Her eye fell on the blue lamp of a police station, partly obscured by the rambling roses which tumbled over the station door.
She strode towards it and looked over the hedge. Hamish Macbeth, recently promoted to police sergeant, was playing in the garden with his dog, Lugs.
“Ahem!” said Mrs. Fleming severely. “Where is the constable?”
Hamish was not in uniform. He was wearing an old checked shirt and baggy cords. The sun shone down on his flaming red hair and pleasant face.
He smiled at her. “I am Sergeant Macbeth. Can I help you?”
“What has happened to Lochdubb?” she demanded.
“Lochdubh,” corrected Hamish gently. “It’s pronounced Lochdoo.”
“Whatever.” Mrs. Fleming did not like to be corrected. “Why is all that smelly garbage outside the church hall?”
“We had a fête to raise money for charity,” said Hamish. “Who are you?”
“I am Mrs. Freda Fleming, Officer for the Environment in Strathbane.”
“Well, Mrs. Fleming, like I was saying, it’s because of the fête, all that rubbish.”
“So why hasn’t it been collected?”
“Fergus Macleod, that’s the dustman, doesn’t collect anything outside collection day. That’s not for a couple of days’ time.”
“We’ll see about that. Where does he live?”
“If you go to Patel’s, the general store, and go up the lane at the side, you’ll find four cottages along the road at the back. It’s the last one.”
“And why aren’t you in uniform?”
“Day off,” said Hamish, hoping she wouldn’t check up.
“Very well. You will be seeing more of me. I plan to green Lochdubh.” With that, she strode off along the waterfront, leaving Hamish scratching his fiery hair in bewilderment. What on earth could she have meant? Perhaps trees or maybe gardens?
But he had enough problems to fill his brain without worrying about Mrs. Fleming’s plans. Behind him and, he hoped, manning the police office was his new constable, Clarry Graham. Clarry was a lazy slob. He had never progressed from the ranks. He rarely washed and slopped around in a shiny old uniform.
Then there was the problem of the new hotel. The Lochdubh Hotel at the harbour had stood vacant for some years. It had recently been bought by a Greek entrepreneur, George Ionides. This meant work for the villagers and Hamish was glad of that, but on the other hand he was aware that a new hotel would take custom away from the Tommel Castle Hotel, run by Colonel Halburton-Smythe, whose glamorous daughter, Priscilla, had once been the love of his life.
He went into the police station followed by Lugs. Lugs is the Scottish for ‘ears,’ and he had called the dog that because of its large ears. In the police station, the fat figure of Clarry was snoring gently behind the desk.
I should wake him up, thought Hamish, but what for? It’s as quiet as the grave these days. Clarry had strands of grey hair plastered across his pink scalp and a large grey moustache which rose and fell with every somnolent breath. He had a round pink face, like that of a prematurely aged baby. His chubby hands were folded across his stomach. The only thing in his favour was that he was a good cook and no one could call him mean. Most of his salary went on food – food which he was delighted to cook for Hamish as well as himself.
Oh, well, thought Hamish, closing the office door gently. I could have got someone worse.
♦
Fergus was in the middle of one of his binges, and had he been at home Mrs. Fleming would have seen to it that he lost his job. But Fergus was lying up in the heather on the moors, sleeping off his latest binge, so it was his wife, Martha, who answered the door. Martha had once been a pretty girl, but marriage, four children and multiple beatings had left her looking tired and faded. Her once thick black hair was streaked with grey and her eyes held a haunted look.
Mrs. Fleming questioned her closely about her husband and fear prompted Martha to protect the horrible Fergus, for what would they live on if he lost his job? She said he was a hard worker, and the reason he collected the garbage only once a week was because he had one of those old fashioned trucks where everything had to be manually lifted into it by hand. Mrs. Fleming was pleased by Martha’s timid, deferential air. She gave Martha her card and said that Fergus was to report to the council offices at eleven the following morning. “We must see about getting him a new truck,” she said graciously. “I have plans for Lochdubh.”
After she had gone, Martha told her eldest, Johnny, to take care of the younger ones, and she then set out to look for her husband. By evening, she had almost given up and was leaning wearily over the hump-backed bridge over the River Anstey.