“Evening, Mr Macbeth,” he said. “Will ye be havin’ a wee dram?”
“Not tonight. Mr Patel, you were asked if you had sold any rat poison and you said you hadn’t and yet Mrs Maclean told me she had bought some here a year ago. It’s called Dead-O.”
“I thought you meant recently! Aye, I got about two dozen frae a wholesaler in Strathbane a year ago. Used it myself. No’ very good. Didnae even slow them up.”
“You realize what this means?” said Hamish gloomily. “Blair will want me to go around every house in the village tomorrow collecting cans of rat poison.”
“Keep ye out o’ trouble,” said Mr Patel with a grin. “Why bother yer heid about Blair anyways? That man’s a pillock.”
“A pillock who is senior to me in rank. Now, Mr Patel, I don’t suppose you can remember who bought it?”
“I can remember Mrs Wellington had a can for the mice in the church. I hadn’t any mouse poison and she didn’t want traps so she said she’d try the rat stuff. Then there was Mrs Brodie, the doctor’s wife. Mice, too.”
“Anyone else?”
“Let me see. Oh, I ken. The estate agent for the Willets, them that used to own the Thomases’ place. It had been standing empty for so long that they were getting rats in, or so they thought.”
Hamish thanked him and then phoned and left a message for Blair about the rat poison. Then he went to see John Parker, who told him that Miss Halburton-Smythe had phoned and had invited him up to the castle at ten in the morning. Hamish knew Blair would have him searching for all those other cans of poison, but that would give him a good excuse to read that manuscript John Parker had been so anxious to hide.
He said good night and then made his way back along the waterfront to the pub. An ordinary common or garden Scottish Highland drunk would come as a relief.
∨ Death of a Perfect Wife ∧
6
I am silent in the club,
I am silent in the pub,
I am silent on a bally peak in Darien;
For I stuff away for life.
Shoving peas in with a knife,
Because I am at heart a Vegetarian.
No more the milk of cows.
Shall pollute my private house.
Than the milk of the wild mares of the Barbarian;
I will stick to port and sherry,
For they are so very, very.
So very, very, very Vegetarian.
—G. K. Chesterton.
It was the detective Jimmy Anderson who arrived at the police station first thing in the morning with the expected orders from Blair to search the village for rat poison. “Anything left in that bottle?” he said hopefully. “At eight o’clock in the morning!” exclaimed Hamish. “Come back later. Is Blair all ready to meet the press?”
“He’s blinding and blasting but he’s got his Sunday suit on and his hair all slicked down aboot his horrible ears,” said Anderson with a grin.
Hamish shut Towser out in the garden and set off. Mrs Wellington, the minister’s wife, was his first call. She was in her kitchen. Her husband was poking distastefully at a bowl of muesli with his spoon. “Sit down,” ordered Mrs Wellington when she saw Hamish, “and I’ll give you a cup of coffee.”
Hamish sat down at the kitchen table. “That’s a good, healthy breakfast,” said Hamish to the minister. Mr Wellington put down his spoon with a sigh. “I cannot think starvation is good for anyone,” he said. “I feel like a child again – if you don’t eat it, you won’t get anything else.”
“Well, that’s the road to the Kingdom of Heaven,” said Hamish cheerfully. “You know, become like a little child again.”
“Don’t quote the scriptures to me, Macbeth,” said the minister testily. “Why are you here?”
Mrs Wellington put a mug of coffee in front of Hamish. He took a sip and coughed. “I am here to look for a rat poison called Dead-O. What is this coffee, Mrs Wellington?”
“It’s dandelion coffee. Mrs Thomas showed me how to make it.”
Hamish sadly pushed his mug away.
“You see what I mean?” said the minister. “Why not stay for lunch? We’re having nettle soup.”
Hamish ignored him. “The rat poison,” he said. “You bought some from Patel about a year ago. You had the mice.”
“So we did,” called Mrs Wellington over one large tweed shoulder. She was scrubbing dishes in the sink with ferocious energy. “Not very good. I think the mice just left of their own accord.”
“Have you any of the stuff left?” asked Hamish patiently.
“No, I threw it out months ago.”
“You are sure?”
Mrs Wellington turned around and put her soapy hands on her hips. “I am not in the habit of lying, Mr Macbeth.”
“I’d better go and try somewhere else,” said Hamish, getting to his feet.
“Oh, but you haven’t had your coffee,” said the minister sweetly.
“It’s all rush.” Hamish picked up his hat and headed for the kitchen door. The minister followed him outside. “When is it all going to end?” he asked mournfully. “I dream of large T-bone steaks and mounds of fried potatoes. You know, Mr Macbeth, I think all that wretched Thomas woman did was give the women of Lochdubh an opportunity to persecute their husbands. There’s a strong bullying streak in women, lying down in there, always waiting to be tapped.”
“Perhaps when the murder is solved, they’ll all go back to normal,” said Hamish. “When’s the funeral?”
“It’s today, at three this afternoon.”
“It surprises me to know Mrs Thomas was a member of the Church of Scotland.”
“She wasn’t,” said the minister. “She wasn’t a member of anything. But her husband wants her to have a Christian burial.”
“Are any of her family from England going to be present?”
“No. That’s the odd thing. Her parents are dead and she had no sisters or brothers, but usually someone has some sort of aunt or uncle or friend who would like to come along. Perhaps she was unpopular.”
“Yes,” said Hamish slowly. “I think if she had lived, she would have gradually become very unpopular here. Mind you, someone hated her enough to murder her. Did she get any furniture from you, any ornaments?”
“Yes,” said Mr Wellington, growing angry. “We had a Victorian ewer and basin that belonged to my grandparents. My wife gave her that. I was furious. Those things are valuable these days.”
Hamish stood for a moment, looking across the rain pocked loch. “While I’m searching for rat poison,” he said, “I may as well try to find out if she got her hands on anything really valuable.”
“An as yet unrecognized Rembrandt?” said the minister. “It was amazing what she sot out of people when you consider that the dealers are always calling around these old croft houses and village houses in the hope of a bargain. Why, old Mrs MacGowan on the other side has been plagued by dealers for years but she’s too crafty to let anything go. Mrs Thomas was going to call on her. I wonder whether she was successful or not?”
Hamish had not called on Mrs MacGowan for some time. She was a lonely, crusty old woman and he did not enjoy visiting her, but felt it his duty to call in on her from time to time and make sure she was well. She could easily drop dead one of these days, he reflected, and no-one would know.
“I’d better be on my way,” Hamish said, taking out a stick of repellent and wiping his face with it, “before the midges make a meal of me. Blair will be in a bad temper. The attempted murder of Angus Macdonald is bound to bring the press in hordes.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” said the minister. “Angus was interviewed by television and several newspapers before the last election for his prediction. He got it all wrong and since then no-one outside Lochdubh has shown any interest in him. Do you think he really saw something?”