He found Jessie’s on the waterfront in Strathbane, housed in what used to be a ship’s chandler’s. Music was thudding out into the acrid air of Strathbane. He locked the Land Rover after filling Towser’s water and food bowls and made his way inside, blinking to accustom his eyes to the darkness.
To his relief, the customers were practically all in conventional dress and included some obviously staid married couples who had simply come to see the show. In order to get in, he had had to pay the club membership of five pounds. He was ushered to a table in a corner by a young man dressed unimaginatively in striped T–shirt and skin-tight black trousers who served him orange juice and charged him two pounds for it.
On the stage someone in low-cut gown and sequins and feathered headdress was belting out ‘Hello, Dolly’. He was obviously the star turn, looking like a glamorous woman compared to the sequinned chorus who looked what they probably were, small Scotsmen with bad legs. As the show went on, Hamish was able to understand the club’s obvious popularity with a respectable section of the population because it mostly consisted of popular numbers from musicals, all quite well staged and mostly well sung. But there was no sign of Bert Luscious.
He signalled to the waiter, told him he was a policeman, and asked to see the owner. After about fifteen minutes, the waiter returned and asked Hamish to follow him to ‘the back o’ the house’.
He pushed open a door and said, “Jessie’ll see you now,” and Hamish went in.
Jessie turned out to be the man who had sung ‘Hello, Dolly’. He was still in costume but had removed his blond wig to reveal a shaven head. The small room was made up like a star’s dressing room in miniature with lights around the mirror and a Victorian chaise longue in one corner.
“What iss up?” demanded Jessie in an accent that Hamish guessed probably hailed from South Uist in the Outer Hebrides, having a soft, whistling sort of sibilancy.
“Nothing up with the club,” said Hamish. “I’m looking for someone called Bert Luscious.”
“Not on tonight, precious.”
“Can you give me his address?”
“And why should I be doing that, officer?”
“Because I am on a murder inquiry and it is your duty to help the police.”
Jessie sighed and then pulled a large book towards him, scattering sticks of grease-paint as he did so. With one large white well-shaped hand, he flicked through the pages. “Aye, here we are. Quite close by, he is. Number 141, Highland Towers, on the estate up back.”
“Thanks,” said Hamish.
Jessie batted his false eyelashes at him. “Enjoy the show, sweetie?”
“Yes,” said Hamish awkwardly, backing towards the door. “Why Jessie?” he asked.
“Because that’s what all those nasty little boys at school used to call me – Big Jessie. My real name is Cyril Crumb, and believe me, anything iss better than that.”
As Hamish drove towards the tower blocks which overlooked the waterfront, he reflected dismally that he could hardly claim this night’s expenses, as he was not even supposed to be in Strathbane.
Bert Luscious’s flat was on the sixth floor but the urine-stinking lift was out of order and so he had to trudge up the stairs and then along a gallery which led outside the flats, listening to the sounds of drunken quarrels, crying babies and television sets coming through the thin walls.
Number 141 was in darkness but he could hear the blast of a stereo coming from inside, thumping out rap. He rang the bell. No answer. He thudded on the door and waited but no one came to answer it. He tried the handle and the door swung open.
A fetid, sweet smell met his nostrils and he groped about the minuscule hallway until he found the light switch. A joss-stick was burning in a milk bottle on a table, hence the smell. The noise of music was coming from behind a door to his right. He opened it.
He found himself looking into a living room, cluttered and messy with dirty clothes strewn about the battered furniture. On a sideboard a large ghettoblaster shattered the air with sound. He crossed the room and switched it off.
Next door a television set mumbled on through the walls, punctuated with an occasional burst of canned laughter. “Anybody home?” he called.
He walked back into the hallway and tried the door opposite. This proved to be a squalid bedroom: unmade bed, dirty stained sheets, posters on the walls of singers with guitars.
He left that and tried the bathroom and then walked into a small kitchen at the back of the hall.
Bert Luscious was seated at the kitchen table, his long orange hair spilling out over a cheap plastic top. Hamish tried to rouse him and then saw the syringe lying beside his head, half covered by his hair. He felt his limp wrist. There was only a flutter of a pulse.
Hamish swore under his breath. It looked as if Bert had taken an overdose. He, Hamish, would have to explain his presence in Strathbane, for he would need to get Bert to the nearest hospital.
He found a telephone buried under a pile of clothes on the living room floor and phoned for an ambulance, and then with great reluctance phoned Strathbane Police Headquarters. He asked to be put through to Jimmy Anderson, briefly told him what he had found and said he hoped it could somehow be kept from Blair at the moment.
“Everything can be kept from Blair at the moment,” said Anderson cheerfully. “He’s in the hospital wi’ cirrhosis o’ the liver. Be round right away.”
Hamish began to search feverishly after drawing on a thin pair of gloves which he always kept on him for examining clues without leaving his own fingerprints on them. He found the papers which showed that Bert was now the owner of Cheryl’s scooter. He found some photographs of Bert in action and was startled at the young man’s resemblance to Cheryl.
Then, feeling like a criminal, he carefully put everything back where he had found it, knowing full well that he was not supposed to touch anything before the CID arrived. He had just finished when he heard the approaching wail of the ambulance and police cars.
Hamish explained to Jimmy Anderson that he had just heard that Bert had orange hair and performed as a woman and had wondered whether that might have been the way Cheryl could have been at Lochdubh murdering Sean when she was supposed to be on stage. But he said nothing of his find of the money and drugs, nor of the blackmailing of the women. For a mad idea had taken root in his brain, an idea that might flush out the murderer with the least scandal possible.
But he patiently went back to headquarters with Anderson and typed up a statement. The report from the hospital said Bert was in a very bad way and no one would be able to interview him for some time.
Hamish then drove out to Mullen’s Roadhouse. Sure enough, Johnny Rankin and the Stotters were gyrating and howling to the end of their performance. Cheryl gave him a filthy look as she finally climbed down from the stage.
“Don’t worry,” said Hamish. “I’m not here to ask you any more questions. Did you collect all your belongings from the bus?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’m glad of that, for Sean’s mother is coming up the day after tomorrow to take away her son’s things. But before she touches anything, the forensic team is coming back because I have found some items for them that they missed before and that I am sure will give us definite proof of the murderer. I swear they’re covered in fingerprints.”
Cheryl shrugged and her hair fell forward to hide her face. “When’s this forensic lot coming?” she asked.
“Let me see, this is Wednesday…no, it’s Thursday already, so that means Friday morning I’m expecting them.”