She stopped short and her mouth opened in a soundless scream.
Sean Gourlay lay on his back on the floor. His face and head had been beaten to a pulp. Beside him on the floor lay a bloody sledgehammer. On the table, on the small television screen, a woman chattered in that inane way early-morning presenters have, as if addressing an audience of children.
Mrs Wellington backed to the door. Small thin sounds were issuing from her mouth. She felt faint but dared not faint and be found lying next to that…that thing.
She stumbled from the bus and weaved her way like a drunk across the field. She opened the back door of the manse and the sight of home and familiar objects loosened her vocal cords and she threw back her head and gave a great cry of “MURDER!” And once started, she could not stop.
♦
Hamish Macbeth stood miserably in the manse field in the driving rain, with Willie beside him, while a forensic team went over the bus inch by inch. Detective Chief Inspector Blair was pacing up and down, wearing a deerstalker and an old Inverness cape, looking like someone in an amateur production of a Sherlock Holmes mystery. The only thing that was lightening Blair’s gloom was the fact that it was a nice seedy murder: no toffs involved. Just a hippie with his head bashed in. He’d had a public row with his girlfriend, the girlfriend had killed him, it was only a matter of time before they picked her up. He loathed being back in Lochdubh, a locality he associated with success for Macbeth and failure for himself. There was no need for either Hamish or his sidekick to be hanging about in the rain, but Blair had kept them there to make them suffer; but as trickles of water began to run down inside his collar, he realized he was suffering as well and suggested they go back to the police station and discuss the matter there and let the forensic boys get on with their job.
“Well,” began Blair, pausing for a moment in surprise as Willie put a coaster under his coffee cup, “it’s straightforward enough. This creep has a row wi’ his lassie, lassie comes back and bang, crash, goodbye boyfriend.”
“Was it murder wi’ intentions?” asked Willie eagerly.
“If ye mean was her intention tae bash his head in, yes, you moron. Now the pathologist says death came frae thae blows from the sledgehammer. Sledge-hammer belongs tae the manse. Whit dae ye think, Sergeant, that yer minister friend was at the sauce and slammed Sean Gourlay’s head in?” Blair laughed heartily.
Hamish looked at him bleakly, his thoughts racing. He found he was hoping against hope that the murderer was Cheryl but for reasons he could not explain.
He began to give Blair a report on Sean’s criminal background, reminding him of the theft of the morphine and the theft of the church money, although adding that both Sean and Cheryl had been away from the village when the money was taken.
The police station was pleasantly warm and Willie’s coffee was good. “I’d best jist sit here by the phone,” said Blair, “while you two go off and take statements. I want to know anyone who saw hide or hair of Cheryl Higgins or anyone who heard the sound of that scooter you were talking about during the night.”
Hamish and Willie agreed to divide the village between them, Willie eagerly volunteering for the part which contained the Italian restaurant.
Despite the rain, little groups of people were standing about, peering anxiously up the hill towards the field at the back of the manse.
All day long, Hamish questioned and questioned, but no one had seen Sean after he had left the church and no one had seen Cheryl. Mrs Wellington had given the police a photograph of Cheryl which she had taken shortly after the couple had first arrived. It was shown on the six o’clock news. By seven o’clock, Cheryl Higgins had walked into the police station at Strathbane, and Blair, hearing about it, had driven back to headquarters. By nine o’clock, Detective Jimmy Anderson phoned Hamish.
“Bad news,” he said. “Cheryl Higgins has a cast-iron alibi.”
“She can’t have,” exclaimed Hamish.
“Aye, but she has. She’s been staying with a bunch of travellers in a field outside Strathbane and she’s been playing the guitar in a group called Johnny Rankin and the Stotters – she being one o’ the Stotters. The pathologist is checking the contents of Sean’s stomach and he says the man was killed at a rough guess between ten in the evening and midnight. Cheryl was playing in Mullen’s Roadhouse, you know, about two miles outside the town, from nine till one in the morning. Then she went on frae there to a party in Strathbane. Witnesses all along the way.”
“But how reliable are the witnesses?” asked Hamish. “Stotter means glue-sniffer, doesn’t it? Is that how the group got its name?”
“Probably. Most o’ them were away wi’ the fairies when we tried to talk to them, but there was the audience, about forty decent, or fairly decent, witnesses. She could ha’ slipped away from the party, for I don’t know if any of that lot knew whether they were coming or going, but the point is the time of the murder and during that time she was performing in front of about forty people at the Roadhouse.”
“I’m surprised any band is allowed to play on the Sabbath in Strathbane,” observed Hamish.
“It’s outside the town, so nobody bothers.”
“So where’s this field she’s living on?”
“On the Dalquhart Road out on the north side, about five miles out on the left. Belongs to Lord Dunkle, him what had the pop festivals back in the sixties. Still thinks he’s a swinger, silly auld scunner that he is. She’s living in a caravan with a couple called Wayne and Bunty Stoddart, old friends from Glasgow. She disnae look at all like the picture the minister’s wife gave us, but it’s her, all right. She’s dyed her hair orange since the photo was taken. In Cheryl’s humble opinion some bampot in Lochdubh upped wi’ the sledgehammer and give him fifty whacks, and good riddance to bad rubbish, she says.”
“Did she suggest anyone?”
Anderson chuckled. “Aye, she did that.”
“Who?”
“Sergeant Hamish Macbeth.”
“Silly bitch.”
“I’m telling you, that pleased Blair no end.”
Hamish sighed. “So I suppose Blair’ll be back tomorrow?”
“No, it’ll be me and Harry MacNab. There’s been a big robbery at the home of one of the super’s friends, so Blair’s jumped at that. He disnae care about the death o’ a layabout. No press coverage in it for him.”
“There’s been a fair amount of press about today,” said Hamish.
“Aye, but they willnae be there tomorrow. Nobody in that village of yours had a good word to say for Sean Gourlay. If they had all said something nice, then the press could have run a ‘much-loved’ type o’ bit. Even the Strathbane and Highland Gazette have dropped it in case anyone remembers their touching piece about what a charming couple Sean and Cheryl were and being hounded by the nasty cops. They’ve found out from you and then Blair that Sean had a record.”
“Any relative to claim the body?”
“Got a mother in London, respectable body by all accounts. Coming up tomorrow to see the procurator fiscal.”
“I’m surprised the villagers turned out to be so down on Sean. All I got when the couple first arrived was about the romance of the road and leave the poor souls alone.”
“Believe me, the romance wore off, or maybe it’s now that he’s murdered and his past has come out, none of them want to confess to having had a liking for him. But you see what this means, Hamish?”
“I don’t want to.”
“I can see that. It means that mair than likely someone in Lochdubh did it.”
Hamish groaned.
“Cheer up,” said Anderson. “You might find an itinerant maniac, if you’re lucky.”