Jenny sat down beside Pat at his desk. When she saw what a bad typist he was, she said, “I’ll type. You dictate.”
By altering a lot of Pat’s clumsier sentences, she felt it was a good article. It only showed what Pat could do with a strong woman to help him. Jenny’s spirits had risen and she dreamt of a great and successful future for both of them.
♦
Hamish guessed that Pat and Jenny had spiked his guns. A furious Mr. Arkle refused to let him speak to the teachers. When Hamish told him that he would arrest him and charge him with obstructing the police, Arkle relented. But when Hamish interviewed the teachers, all were wishing they had not criticised their head teacher, so they did not mention his treatment of Freda but confined themselves to comments that they believed Freda’s mother to be demanding and difficult.
For want of a better idea, he decided to have another go at Joseph Cromarty. He found the truculent ironmonger in his dark shop. The sun now only shone on the other side of the street. The nights were drawing in fast. Soon the sun would rise at ten in the morning and set at two in the afternoon. Winter was one long dark tunnel in northern Scotland.
“What d’ye want?” demanded Joseph. “I’m busy.”
“Aye, I can see that,” said Hamish sarcastically, looking around the empty shop. “Now, you were once overheard saying you felt like killing Miss McAndrew…”
“So what? Me and a lot o’ other people.”
“What other people?”
Joseph scowled horribly. “I cannae bring them to mind. Leave me alone.”
“Think, man. I’m not accusing you of anything. Haven’t you heard anything, seen anything?”
“I thought the murders were solved,” said Joseph. “That wee girl, Freda, did them.”
“No, she didn’t. That was a suicide, pure and simple.”
“Come on! There was a polis in here earlier saying as how everything was wrapped up.”
“He made a mistake,” said Hamish wearily.
He tried a few more questions without getting anywhere. Hamish wandered over to the post office. He hoped it might be quiet and that he might have a chance to have a word with Mrs. Harris, but it was full of chattering women, all exclaiming and gossiping about Freda’s death.
They fell silent when they saw him. He asked them all if they could think of anything, any small thing, that might help to solve the murders. Startled faces looked at him. Shocked voices exclaimed that they had heard Freda Mather was a murderess. Hamish’s news that Freda had nothing to do with the murders sent them all scurrying off.
“Are you sure Miss Beattie never said anything to you about why she left Perth?” Hamish asked Mrs. Harris.
“Just that she had been unhappy at home and that her parents were awfy strict. Maybe you should try Billy again. He’s still out on his rounds but he should be back any minute. He starts around six in the morning with his deliveries. He drives his van in round the back.”
Hamish left and went up a lane at the side of the post office and waited patiently in the yard at the rear.
After a ten-minute wait, the post office van came into the yard. Billy climbed out and greeted Hamish with, “I shouldn’t feel happy about that wee lassie’s death, but to tell the truth, it’s a weight off my mind. I thought that bastard Blair would never give up suspecting me.”
“I’m afraid whatever policeman has been gossiping around Braikie is wrong, Billy. Freda took’ her own life and I’m willing to bet anything she had nothing at all to do with the murders.”
Billy sat down suddenly on an upturned crate. “Will this all never end, Hamish? It’s a misery at home with herself nagging me from morn till night. Now Amy’s gone, life looks awfy bleak.”
Hamish pulled up another crate and sat down next to the postman. “Are you sure, Billy, she never gave you a hint of why she left Perth?”
“Well, she would talk a lot about how strict her parents were. Things like that.”
“What about old boyfriends?”
“No, never.”
“Was she frightened of anyone?”
“She was frightened of the poison-pen writer.”
“Why frightened, Billy? People were angry and upset, but frightened?”
“Our affair meant a lot to her, as it did to me. She said, “If she takes this away from me, there’ll be nothing left.””
“Wait a bit. When she was talking about the poison-pen writer, she said ‘she’?”
“I never gave it much thought. I mean, we all thought it must be some woman. I mean, it’s hardly the thing a man would do.”
“But there was a case recently of a man in England who was exposed as a poison-pen writer and the story was in the Scottish papers.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Billy, I want you to think and think hard. Go over all the conversations you had, and if you can remember the slightest thing, let me know.”
“But what would that have to do with the death of Miss McAndrew?”
“Some way they’re tied together.”
“I’ll do my best.”
∨ Death of a Poison Pen ∧
9
Man is neither angel nor beast; and the misfortune is that he who would act the angel acts the beast.
—Blaise Pascal
At the end of a long day, Hamish returned to his police station. He checked on his sheep and locked his hens up for the night. There was a fox roaming around and Hamish knew if he saw it, he would take his shotgun and blast the animal to kingdom come. He was always amazed at the bleeding hearts of townspeople who would step on a cockroach but went all sentimental over Mr. Foxy. Had they ever been at the receiving end of the cruelty of a fox, who would kill lambs and hens and leave them bleeding, not killing for food but for the sheer hell of it, perhaps it would have changed their minds – although he doubted it. There existed in the British Isles a large body of people who neither knew much about nor understood wild animals, the sort of people who would shake their heads and say, “Animals are better than people any day,” by which they meant that they demanded unconditional love from dogs and cats but found humans too difficult.
He had been turned off animal documentaries on television because they always gave animals pet names, saying, “Here comes Betty,” and on the screen limps an antelope, say, which has been rejected by the herd, and ten to one it is going to be eaten before the end by some other creature that Hamish cynically thought the film makers let out of a cage to speed up the process. Then there is little Jimmy, the baby turtle, just born and struggling towards the ocean, and Hamish always knew that little Jimmy was not going to make it. Some marauding seagull would get him. So in all, he found an animal documentary as much fun as a snuff movie.
He went indoors and made himself some supper and was emotionally blackmailed into sharing it with Lugs, who whined and rattled his bowl, although he was sure Angela had fed the dog earlier.
He then went through to the office and switched on the computer and began to go through his reports. Archie had said he had seen someone possibly aged seventeen lurking near the post office. But he had not seen the person’s face and seventeen would seem old to Archie, so it could have been anyone.
There was a knock at the kitchen door and he heard Elspeth’s voice calling out, “Hamish, are you there?”
“I’m in the office,” he shouted back, “but I’m busy.”
Undeterred, Elspeth strolled into the office. “Hard at work, copper?”
“Aye, I’m going over my notes, so I haven’t time to talk.”
“Why don’t we go over them together? I might see something you’ve missed.”