“Get me to that room before the maids clean it! And give me a description of the car he was driving and the registration number.”
The hotel room was neat and tidy, and the bed had not been slept in. Hamish took out his fingerprint kit and began to dust the surfaces. He swore under his breath. Everything seemed to have been wiped clean.
Where in a hotel room would even a careful villain forget to wipe? He went into the bathroom and carefully dusted the handle of the cistern on the toilet with aluminium powder. “Bingo,” he muttered. “One perfect print.”
He carefully peeled it off, rushed out, and headed to Strathbane after calling Jimmy.
A thinner, whiter Blair came lumbering up while Jimmy and Hamish were searching the fingerprint database. “Whit’s up?” he demanded.
Jimmy explained hurriedly. “Havers,” said Blair. “Get back to your village, Macbeth.”
“Anything the matter?” Daviot loomed up behind them.
Jimmy explained again while Blair silently fumed over his superior’s habit of gliding silently into the detectives’ room.
“Got it!” cried Jimmy. “Look at this!”
Up it came on the screen. Real name, Cyril Edmonds. Charged in 1999 with sending a letter bomb to his ex-fiancee. Served eighteen months.
“We’d better get the Met round to Harold Jury’s address to see what happened to him,” said Hamish.
“I set up roadblocks when you phoned, and the trains and airports are being watched,” said Jimmy. “We sent out a description of his car and the registration number. The very fact that he wiped his fingerprints off everything in the room he could think of damns him.”
“You should have reported to me first,” howled Blair. “There wasn’t time,” said Jimmy. “You were out.”
“I’ll go and search up in the hills,” said Hamish. “If he’s clever, he’ll find a place to hide out until he thinks the hunt is dying down.”
♦
All day long Hamish searched and questioned people in the outlying crofts, but the man he now knew as Cyril had disappeared into thin air.
He had left his pets with Angela before he started his search. She was so shocked when she learned the real identity of ‘Harold’ that she did not protest.
The wind was beginning to rise as he wearily returned to the police station. His barometer had not lied. He knew from experience that a nasty storm was coming. He decided to relax and have a cup of tea before going to pick up Sonsie and Lugs.
He opened the kitchen door, and stiffened.
“Who’s there?” he called.
Cyril Edmonds walked into the kitchen from the living room. He was holding a gun.
“You’re a bastard,” hissed Cyril. “I could have got away with it if it hadn’t been for you.”
“I think you are the one who is the genuine bastard,” said Hamish. “Was Margaret Gentle your mother?”
“Worked that out as well, did you?” sneered Cyril. “Do you know what she did?”
“Why don’t you sit down and tell me?” suggested Hamish.
“You mean why don’t you sit down and talk while you think of a way to disarm me?”
“I’m genuinely curious. You are one verra clever man.”
Cyril’s eyes glittered. “Yes, I am, amn’t I? I planned this revenge for a long time. Do you know what she did, my precious mother? She’d got pregnant by some lowlife that frequented the nightclub where she worked. Abortions were expensive in those days. She worked as long as she could and then stayed with a barmaid from the club down in the East End. The barmaid wanted a baby so as soon as I was born, I was handed over. No adoption papers. The barmaid and her nasty husband who couldn’t have children were to bring me up as their own. Well, right after that, the barmaid became pregnant and had twins. I was forgotten after that. He beat me regularly. When I was thirteen, he let his homosexual brother have the care of me and the abuse started. But I got the brother to pay for my education, I got as much as I could out of him, and then I killed him and dumped his body in the Thames.
“I joined an agency and began to get bit parts in films and television. I hadn’t any formal training but I was damn good.
“All I ever thought of was getting even with her. I read about her marriage. I stalked her. I wanted some identity to adopt to finally track her down and not be suspected. I’m not homosexual, but there is a type of homosexual that is easily gulled. I picked up Harold Jury in a pub. He begged me to move in with him. He had a nice flat and lots of money. He had a private income from a trust, which allowed him to ponce about as a writer. Ideal. I chose him because we looked a good bit alike.”
“Where did Irena come in?”
“I studied the comings and goings at the castle. When Irena went out one day on her own to shop, I followed her and struck up a conversation. She hated Mrs. Gentle, she said. I asked her why she didn’t leave, and she confessed to having a stolen passport. Said she was afraid her old Russian protector would send the boys to hunt her down. We spent a lot of time together. She agreed to help me. I said I would, in return, help her get a visa. She was flirting with Mark Gentle and that worried me a bit. Then she phones me one day and says she’s going to marry you. I was terrified she would betray me.
“I told her to meet me down in the cellar and we’d have a celebration drink before she went off to be married. She’d given me a key and she’d found out where the back stairs were.
“She came down to the cellar, saying, “Hurry up. I’ve got to change for my wedding.””
The wind howled and shrieked around the police station.
“I’d got a bottle of sherry and two glasses laid out. She was in such a hurry that she gulped down a glass of sherry without even noticing that I wasn’t drinking. I’d drugged the sherry. She turned to leave and collapsed on the floor. I hit her on the head with a hammer. Then I carried the body over and shoved it in that trunk and piled the others on top of it.”
“How did you get Mrs. Gentle to meet you?”
“Easy. That bitch liked power. I’d hidden in the castle at that family reunion and I knew all their voices. So I dressed as a woman and phoned her and put on Mark Gentle’s voice, pleading with her and saying I had to see her. She loved that. I said I would meet her on the cliff at the side of the castle.
“So she turns up all dainty and lovely-old-lady, the act she had perfected.”
Hamish glanced quickly at the coffee machine. He had forgotten to switch it off.
“I loved every minute of telling her who I was. She turned to run and I caught her round the neck, strangled her, and hurled her over the cliffs. My God! The joy of sinking my hands at last into her wrinkled neck and seeing the fear in her eyes. What are you doing?”
“I’m getting a cup of coffee.”
“You’re a cool one. Any last words?”
“Why didn’t you clear off? Why the play?”
“Because I loved doing it. I love anything to do with the theatre. I felt safe. I liked being an author. I liked having Harold’s money to stay at a posh hotel. It’s so remote up here, so far from anything I’d ever known. Safety. Respectability. I wanted a bit of that. And that bitch Priscilla led me on.”
“So why kill me?”
“Because I could have got away with it. You didn’t fool me with that spilled glass of wine or knocking me over. You wanted to see my feet, and the minute I realised that, I knew you were onto me. You could have seen my feet anytime before but it was because I was dressed as a woman. I have small feet for my height. Dancer’s feet. Priscilla told me they were looking for a woman with size seven feet. Before I finish you, what was it Irena told you that was so important?”
Hamish half turned, his hand on the coffeepot.