M.C. Beaton
Death of a Perfect Wife
Hamish Macbeth #4
1989, EN
Offbeat, utterly endearing…” Booklist.
A Hamish Macbeth Mystery. When Paul and Trixie Thomas move to the village of Lochdubh, Trixie jumps into things with a vengeance. She organizes an anti-smoking league, promotes vegetarian cooking, even starts a birdwatching society. It’s too much…too perfect. It doesn’t feel like the old Lochdubh anymore. So when Trixie is murdered, not everyone is exactly devastated. Constable Macbeth, head over heels in love with beautiful Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, must interrupt his romance at the most inopportune time to solve the mystery. But how to do that when the list of suspects includes the entire town?
∨ Death of a Perfect Wife ∧
1
“Will you walk into my parlour?” said a spider to a fly:
Tis the prettiest little parlour that ever you did spy.
—Mary Howitt.
It was another day like the morning of the world.
Police Constable Hamish Macbeth, his dog at his heels, sauntered along the waterfront of Lochdubh, a most contented man. For two whole weeks the weather had been perfect.
Above was a cerulean sky and before him the bustling little harbour and beyond that the blue of the sea, incredible blue, flashing with diamonds as the sun sparkled on the choppy surface of the water. Around the village rose the towering mountains of Sutherland, the oldest in the world, benign in the lazy light. Across the sea loch was Gray Forest, a cool dark cathedral of tall straight pines. Early roses tumbled over garden fences and sweet peas fluttered their Edwardian beauty in the faintest of breezes. On the flanks of the mountains, bell heather, the early heather that blossoms in June, coloured the green and brown camouflage of the rising moors with splashes of deepest pink. Hairbells, the bluebells of Scotland, trembled at the roadside among the blazing twisted yellow and purple of vetch and the white trumpets of convolvulus.
As Hamish strolled along, he noticed the Currie sisters, Jessie and Nessie, two of Lochdubh’s spinsters, tending their little patch of garden. The garden bore a regimented look. The flowers were in neat rows behind an edging of shells.
“Fine day,” said Hamish, smiling over the hedge. Both sisters straightened up from weeding a flower bed and surveyed the constable with disfavour.
“Nothing to do as usual, I suppose,” said Nessie severely, the sunlight sparkling on her thick glasses.
“And isn’t that the best thing?” said Hamish cheerfully. “No crime, no battered wives, and not even a drunk to lock up.”
“Then the police station should be closed down. The police station should be closed down,” said Jessie, who repeated everything twice over like the brave thrush. “It’s a sin and a shame to see a well-built man lazing about. A sin and a shame.”
“Och, I’ll find a murder jist for you,” said Hamish, “and then you really will have something to complain about.”
“I hear Miss Halburton-Smythe is back,” said Jessie, peering maliciously at the constable. “She’s brought some of her friends from London to stay.”
“Good time to come here,” said Hamish amiably. “Lovely weather.”
He smiled and touched his cap and strolled on, but the smile left his face as soon as he was out of sight. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe was the love of his life. He wondered when she had come back and who was with her. He wondered when he would see her. Anxiety began to cast a cloud over his mind. It seemed amazing that the day was still perfect: the sun still shone and a seal rolled about lazily in the calm waters of the bay.
He tried to recover his spirits. The air smelled of salt and tar and pine. He walked on to the Lochdubh Hotel to see if he could scrounge a cup of coffee.
Mr Johnson, the manager, was in his office when Hamish walked in. “Help yourself,” he said with a jerk of his head towards the coffee machine in the corner. He waited until Hamish was seated over a cup of coffee and said, “The Willets’s place has been sold.”
Hamish raised his eyebrows. “I wouldnae hae thought anyone would have taken that.” The Willets’s house was a Victorian villa set back from the waterfront. It had been up for sale for five years and was in bad repair.
“I gather they got it for a song. Someone said ten thousand pounds was the figure.”
“And who’s they?”
“Name of Thomas. English. Don’t know anything about them. Expected to move in today. Maybe it’ll be work for you.”
Hamish grinned. “A crime, you mean? With weather like this, nothing bad can happen.”
“The glass is falling.”
“I never knew a barometer yet that could tell the weather,” said Hamish. “What’s happening up at Tommel Castle?” Hamish asked the question with a casual air of indifference, but Mr Johnson was not deceived. Tommel Castle, some miles outside Lochdubh, was the home of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe.
“I gather Priscilla’s come back with a party of friends,” said the manager.
Hamish took a sip of coffee. “What kind of friends?”
“Sloane Rangers, I think. Two fellows and two girls.”
Hamish was conscious of a feeling of relief. It sounded like two couples. He dreaded to hear that Priscilla had brought a boyfriend with her.
“Had a look at them yet?” he asked.
“Oh, aye, they were in for dinner here last night.”
Hamish stiffened. “And what has happened to the colonel’s hospitality when his daughter has to entertain her friends at the local hotel?”
Mr Johnson looked uncomfortable. “They’ve been at the castle for over a week,” he said, and then looked at the ceiling so that he should not see the disappointment in Hamish’s eyes.
Hamish put his unfinished coffee slowly down on the desk. “I’d better be getting off on my rounds,” he said. “Come along, Towser.” The big mongrel slouched out after his master, his plume of a tail at half-mast as if he sensed Hamish’s distress.
Hamish stood out in the forecourt of the hotel among the tubs of scarlet geraniums and blinked in the sunlight. It seemed strange that the weather was still as glorious as ever. Over a week! And she had not called.
He went to the police station and then through the garden at the back and up to his small croft to make sure his sheep had enough water. The sun was hot on his back, curlews piped from the heather and overhead a buzzard, like Icarus, sailed straight for the sun.
A large black ewe ambled up and nuzzled his hand. Hamish automatically patted the sheep, his thoughts on what was going on at the castle. Priscilla had said something teasing last time before she had left about his lazy lack of ambition. He was certainly not an ambitious man. He enjoyed his easy-going life and he loved Western Sutherland with its mountains and heather and the broad stretch of the Atlantic beyond the sea loch where the old people said the blue men rode the waves and the dead came back as seals.
He decided it would do no harm just to go up to the castle and have a look.
He had a new white Land Rover, a perk from head office in Strathbane, no doubt with the blessing of Chief Detective Inspector Blair who enjoyed a reputation for solving murders with Hamish’s help, even though Hamish had solved them single-handedly but had let the boorish detective take the credit.
The twisting road up to the castle wound through the hills and his heart lifted as the road bore him higher above the village. There would be some simple explanation as to why Priscilla had not been to see him. Her father, the colonel, strongly disapproved of her friendship with the local bobby. He had probably told her not to have anything to do with him, thought Hamish, deliberately forgetting that her father’s temper and disapproval had not stopped Priscilla from visiting him in the past.