“I liked her gossip. She knew something about everyone, even you, Miss Grant. She knew you were pining after that policeman but how he never got over Miss Halburton-Smythe.”
Luke raised his eyebrows in surprise. Elspeth said quickly, “Then obviously she often never got her facts straight. How did you both become friends?”
“She came to my door one day. She asked to use the phone. I said I’d seen her with one o’ those mobile things, but herself said the battery was dead. I let her in. She made a call from the hall to someone. She said, “I’m missing my wages and you’d better pay up.” That’s all I heard. Now I learn from that Macbeth policeman that she was a blackmailer.”
“When was this? When did she make that call?” asked Elspeth.
“Let me see. My memory isn’t so good. Maybe June last year.”
“So you didn’t know her for long?”
“No, but she was a fair gossip. That first time, she says to me, she says, your neighbour killed her husband. Did you know that? Well, I told her to sit down because I fair loathe that wee scunner next door with her airs and graces. Always complaining. She said the smoke from my lum had messed up her washing.”
Elspeth wondered briefly how any smoke managed to get up the chimney, as most of it seemed to escape into the room.
“How did Mrs. Fleming’s husband die?” asked Luke.
“Fell down the stairs and broke his neck.”
“And had Mrs. Gillespie seen this?”
“She didn’t say. She was always hinting at things. After she said that Mrs. Fleming had murdered her husband, she wouldn’t be drawn on anything. Did she make a will?”
“I suppose so,” said Elspeth. “Why?”
“Herself said she’d leave me something useful in her will.”
Elspeth was now longing to get to the house next door and interview Mrs. Fleming, but she had to go on pretending she was writing an obituary.
At last, they escaped.
“Whew!” said Elspeth. “I thought I’d choke to death. I wonder if she did make a will. Let’s try Mrs. Fleming. Put that cigarette out, Luke. Haven’t you inhaled enough smoke already?”
♦
Mrs. Styles was a formidable woman. She was built like a cottage loaf and had thick grey hair worn in a bun. She had a round face and large grey eyes. Her mouth was small and thin. She was wearing a tweed skirt, crepe blouse, and a long woollen cardigan.
She looked Hamish up and down and demanded, “What do you want?”
“Just a wee chat.”
“I don’t have time for wee chats. I have already complained about that man Blair and his manners.”
“I have heard,” said Hamish, “that you are an intelligent and perceptive lady. You seem to me the type of lady who might notice things other people do not.”
She hesitated, and then said, “You’d better come in.”
In the living room, a man was slumped in front of the television set. “Archie,” said Mrs. Styles, “you’d better leave us a minute.”
Her husband – Hamish assumed it was her husband – got up and shuffled out without a word. He was a small, stooped man wearing a suit, collar, and tie but with battered old carpet slippers on his feet.
“Sit down, Officer. Wait till I turn the television off. Right. Now, what do you want to know?”
Hamish sat down and looked around the living room as he did so. He found it surprising. He would have expected it to be sparkling clean, but it was messy with discarded magazines and newspapers. The fireplace was full of ash.
“I gather that Mrs. Gillespie could be a bit of a bully.”
“Yes, she was, but she got nowhere with me with that sort of behaviour. I kept after her and made sure she did her job properly.”
“When was she last here?”
“Five days ago.”
“Did you guess she might have been blackmailing people?”
“No, I did not. Of course, she wouldn’t try anything like that with me. I would have gone straight to the police.”
“Were you surprised to learn she had been murdered?”
“Yes, I was. I mean, this is Braikie.”
“There have been murders here in the past.”
“It was probably some traveller, one of these New Age people.”
“We don’t get the New Age people up here,” said Hamish. “The locals are liable to chase them off with shotguns.”
“Well, ever since they built the new motorways, all sorts of weird people come up from the cities.”
“Did Mrs. Gillespie ever talk to you about the other people she cleaned for?”
“I do not tolerate gossip. Besides, when she was here, I was usually out and about. I do a great deal for the church.”
Hamish persevered but could not get any useful information out of her. As he was rising to leave, he noticed a framed photo on a side table. It was of a very beautiful young girl, standing by the wall of some seafront, her long black hair blown by the wind. “Your daughter?” he asked.
“I do not have children. Believe it or not, that was me as a young lassie.”
In the small hallway just before the front door was a hat stand of the old·fashioned kind with a mirror and a ledge in front of the mirror. Hamish noticed that both the mirror and the ledge were dusty. He estimated they hadn’t been cleaned for some time.
He decided to return to Lochdubh and collect his pets and then go to Strathbane and read the report on the late Mr. Fleming’s death. There seemed to be a board meeting going on inside his head. One voice was wondering whether Mrs. Styles was as innocent as she would like to appear, another querying the death of Bernie Fleming, another wondering whether Elspeth was romantically involved with Luke Teviot, and suddenly another little voice asked whether Mrs. Gillespie had left a will.
♦
Hamish collected Lugs and Sonsie and drove quickly to Strathbane. At police headquarters, he sat down and switched on the computer and searched until he found the report of Bernie Fleming’s death. He read it and reread it but it seemed an open-and-shut case. Accidental death.
He went up to the detectives’ room and found Jimmy Anderson just leaving. “I’ve been checking up on Bernie Fleming’s death,” said Hamish. “Nothing there that I can see. Did Mrs. Gillespie make a will?”
“Yes, I phoned round every solicitor in Braikie until I got the right one. She left everything to her husband. Oh, and one other thing. She left a sealed packet of mementoes to be given to her friend Mrs. Samson.”
“He won’t have given it to her,” said Hamish. “I mean, he’ll have to wait for the outcome of the police enquiry.”
“As a matter of fact, he gave it to her this morning. She called at his office in a cab. He said he didn’t see the harm in it because it wasn’t money. He’s a bit young and naive.”
“We’ve got to get to Mrs. Samson fast!”
“Why?”
“Don’t you see? Mrs. Gillespie might have left her copies of the stuff she was using to blackmail people. We’ve got to get to her as quick as possible. I’ll drive. You’ve been drinking already.”
♦
Hamish put on the siren as they raced toward Braikie. “You don’t think anything could happen to her this early?” asked Jimmy, looking nervously back at Hamish’s wild cat, Sonsie.
“Even if she’s all right, we need to know what was in that package,” said Hamish. “Oh, damn it. Sheep on the road. Get out and chase them, Jimmy.”
“Chase them yourself. I’m your superior officer. I don’t chase sheep.”
Hamish stopped the Land Rover, and Jimmy watched, amused, as Hamish, his arms going like a windmill, sent the sheep scurrying off into a nearby field.
Hamish heaved a sigh of relief when he at last gained the shore road leading into Braikie. He screeched through the town, the siren blaring, and up to the villas where Mrs. Samson lived.
His heart sank when he turned into her street. Outside her house, it was chaos as the local fire brigade battled with the searing flames that were engulfing the house.