“I’ll send a photographer round to take a picture of you when I can find him. You’ll look really pretty.”
Jenny told her story, omitting the fact that Iain had tried to warn her, not guessing that Elspeth would hear of Iain’s warning before the day was out.
Jenny also omitted the fact that Hamish Macbeth had been first on the scene.
“You haven’t mentioned Hamish,” said Elspeth.
Somehow Jenny resented Hamish for having caught her out in her lies and having not found her attractive enough.
“Oh, well,” she said sulkily, “it didn’t seem necessary. The ambulance men got me out.”
“I met Hamish before I came here,” said Elspeth. “The poor man was sitting in the mobile police unit with only a small towel to cover his modesty while he tried to dry his clothes at a two-bar electric heater.”
“I must get the names of the ambulance men,” said Jenny, deliberately ignoring the subject of Hamish Macbeth. “I must thank them.”
Elspeth closed her notebook. “Well, that about wraps it up. There are more exciting stories up here than you’d get on the streets of London.”
“I thought Pat would be covering this.” Jenny took out a small mirror from her handbag on the bed and studied her appearance.
“I’m sure he would have. He wasn’t in the office when I left. Sam was phoning him. He had slept in.”
“But he should be here soon?”
“I don’t see why,” said Elspeth. “I’ve got the story.”
After she had left, Jenny applied some make-up and brushed her hair. It was awkward with the plaster cast on her arm. Her next visitor was Hamish Macbeth, wearing an old pair of trousers, short in the leg, and a long Fair Isle sweater.
“Sorry about my appearance,” he said. “I had to borrow some clothes. My uniform dried but it was so encrusted with salt I had to take it to the dry cleaner’s.”
“What about Iain’s car? Was anyone able to rescue it?”
“We didn’t even try. It’s insured. I phoned Iain and he said it would be a write-off anyway so to let the sea do its worst. I see you’ve got the screens around your bed. You’re not that ill, are you?”
“It’s a good way of not having to talk to the other patients.”
“Oh, you should try, lassie. You might hear some gossip.”
“I’ve given you enough help,” said Jenny pettishly.
“Suit yourself. I chust called round to see you were okay,” said Hamish, turning to leave, the sudden sibilance of his accent showing he was annoyed with her.
But after he had gone, Jenny thought that perhaps she was being silly. She had risked life and limb to see if she could find out anything about the murders. She stretched out her good arm and drew aside the curtain. She stared in surprise at the girl in the bed next to her. It was Jessie Briggs, the former favourite of Miss McAndrew.
“What are you doing here?” asked Jenny.
“Got pumped out,” said Jessie in a weak voice.
“Drugs?”
“Naw, he left me. The boyfriend. Told him to give me a bottle of whisky as a farewell present and I drank it along with a lot of aspirin. Didn’t want to live.” Large tears ran down her pallid face. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. “I would ha’ succeeded in killing myself if that interfering auld biddy from next door hadn’t peered in the window and seen me lying on the floor and called the ambulance.”
“You should be grateful to her. She saved your life.”
“So what!”
“Listen, did you phone AA?”
“Oh, them. I phoned them the once. I told them it was all Miss McAndrew’s fault I was in this state and some woman says to me, she says, “Nobody makes you drink. It’s not as if she held you down and poured it down your throat.” I said it was because she’d ruined my life. She says she used to suffer from self-pity as well and used to blame everyone for her drinking. I told her to go and shove her head up her arse.”
“Try them again and go along. What have you got to lose?”
“Maybe.”
“Who do you think murdered her?”
“How should I know? One o’ the teachers. She made their life hell. Joseph Cromarty, the ironmonger. He hated her. I passed them in the street not long afore she was killed and he was shouting at her that she was a disgrace and he was glad she had retired. He said if she’d stayed on, he would have murdered her.”
“Joseph’s a decent man,” said an old lady in the bed opposite.
“Shut up and mind your own business,” snapped Jessie.
Jenny gave the old lady a weak smile.
Jessie lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes, just as Jenny’s next visitor came in – Iain Chisholm.
“How’s your car?” asked Jenny.
“Och, I’ll be getting herself out at low tide. I did try to warn you.”
“I’m awfully sorry,” said Jenny. “Hamish said you’re insured.”
Iain silently cursed Hamish Macbeth. He’d come to the hospital hoping to get a cheque from Jenny.
“Well,” he said huffily, “so she is. But that was a rare car. Not many of those around nowadays.”
He looked so angry that Jenny said quickly, “Maybe I can rent something else from you. I should still be able to drive.”
“I have a wee Morris Minor. But I will need to be charging you more for the rental, seeing as how you are the bad risk.”
“Like how much?”
“A hundred and twenty-five pounds a week.”
“I’ll think about it.” Jenny copied Jessie and lay back on her pillows and closed her eyes while she privately resolved to go down to Strathbane and rent something modern.
She kept her eyes firmly closed until she heard Iain leave.
♦
Elspeth met up with Pat Mallone in the main street of Braikie. A savage gale was whipping rubbish down the street from overturned garbage bins. Her face was soaked with rain and flying salt spray blown in from the sea. “Let’s get inside somewhere,” shouted Pat, “and compare notes.”
They went into the dingy pub. Most pubs now supplied coffee but not this one. They ordered soft drinks and went to a corner table. “I was up at the school,” said Pat, “trying to get a word with the teachers, but that head teacher, Arkle, turned me away before I could speak to anyone. What about you?”
“I’ve been interviewing Jenny. Quite a good local story.”
“What’s this about?” asked Pat.
Elspeth knew the town had been buzzing with the rescue of Jenny Ogilvie and wondered, not for the first time, how a reporter like Pat Mallone could miss stories that were right under his nose. As usual he had slept late, and she guessed that he had rushed up to Braikie, gone to the school and been turned away, and had not tried to do anything else but look for her to see if he could save himself some work. She told him about Jenny’s rescue.
“I’d better go up to the hospital and see her.”
“Why? I’ve already phoned over the story.”
“We’re pals. I’d better go now.”
Elspeth glared after his retreating back. Pat had been quite keen on her, she thought sourly, before Jenny came along. Still, as far as Hamish Macbeth was concerned, Jenny wasn’t a threat. It had been mean of Jenny not to give Hamish any credit for her rescue. Elspeth grinned as she thought of the story she had phoned over, which would go out in the weekly paper under Sam’s headline:
LOCAL HERO
She decided to make her way to the community centre to see if Mr. Blakey was available. As she went out of the pub, the wind seized her old fishing hat and sent it bowling down the street. Elspeth scampered after it, but another greater gust of wind sent it flying up over the rooftops.
When she gained the shelter of the community centre, water was streaming down her face from her rain-soaked hair. Mr. Blakey was mopping the floor. “A leak in the roof,” he said mournfully. “I saw you last night.”