The door opened directly into a small living room. It was simply furnished with two easy chairs, two hard-backed chairs, a small television set, and two occasional tables, one of which held a framed photograph of a younger Ruby on the arm of a heavyset man.
Hamish picked it up. “Is this Mr. Burrell?”
“Yes, that’s him. We would have been married if that fiend hadn’t murdered him. He put it off too long. ‘As soon as Catriona goes to university, we’ll get married,’ he’d say.”
“What was Catriona like?”
“Sleekit. That’s what she was. Sleekit. You would think butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Yes, Daddy. No, Daddy. When she said she was at the library, studying, I told him I saw her hanging out in the High Street with a group of boys. When he challenged her, she burst into tears and said, “I was only talking to a group of school friends.” And he believed her! I knew if I told any more tales on her, the wedding would be off.”
“Do you think anyone from the time she lived in Perth would want to kill her?”
Ruby gave an asthmatic chuckle. “Apart from me? I mind there was this young fellow, Wayne Abercrombie. I was visiting my Horace…”
“Horace being Mr. Burrell?” asked Hamish.
“Yes. This lad Wayne came hammering at the door demanding to speak to Catriona. Horace said she was out. Wayne said he had to see her to find out whether she meant to go through with the abortion. I thought poor Horace was going to drop dead with a heart attack. He told him to get lost or he’d call the police and he sent me home and waited for Catriona. I phoned him the next day and he wouldn’t speak about it except to say that it was all lies and he didn’t want to hear about it again.
Oh, I wanted proof. I wanted something against her to open his eyes to what she was really like. I went in search of Wayne. He was older than Catriona and working at a garage out on the Inverness Road. Well, he tried to deny even having been at the house! Then he said it had all been a joke.”
“Where is he now?”
“He married a local lass a whiles back. I remember seeing the wedding in the local paper. He was a motor mechanic so maybe he’s in the same job. I always wonder if he was the one that stole the money.”
“What money?” asked Elspeth.
“It was the night of the day that Wayne had come to the house. Someone broke in during the night and stole five hundred pounds that Horace had in his desk. He kept it to pay workmen off the books. I know it sounds bad that a churchman should pay workers off the books but a lot of them, because of the VAT and the health and safety regulations, won’t work unless it’s for cash. The police were called. The lock on the front door had been jemmied open. Horace couldn’t understand why he didn’t wake because he was aye a light sleeper. You know what I think? I think that bitch from hell gave him some sort of sleeping pill and stole the money herself.”
“Did you tell the police any of this?” asked Hamish. “I don’t remember anything in the report.”
“No, it was a young female detective wi’ a snippy way about her. I don’t think she wanted to bother listening to me.”
♦
After they had left her, Hamish said they should start asking at all the garages they could find and see if they could trace Wayne Abercrombie.
They were lucky the first time. He was still working at the garage out on the Inverness Road.
He was a tall man with a thick thatch of brown hair and a pleasant tanned face. But on hearing that they wanted to ask him about Catriona, he scowled and said it was all in the past and he had to get on with his work. Only Hamish’s threat to take him down to the police station made him sigh and say, “Let’s get out of here. I’ll tell them I’m taking a break and it’s about a stolen car.”
He came back shortly and stripped off his oily overalls. “Let’s go over to the pub,” he said.
Over a pint of beer, he reluctantly began his story. “Catriona was a wild one. I swear to God she seduced me. I mean, she was still a schoolgirl and her father a minister, but she got me fair worked up. Then she told me she was pregnant and I would have to marry her. I didn’t want to. There was something about her that frightened me. But I thought I’d better do the decent thing and call on her and see her father as well because she said if I didn’t marry her she would get an abortion. He wouldn’t believe me and said he’d call the police.
The next day, Catriona turns up here and hands me five hundred pounds and tells me to keep my mouth shut and that never to tell anyone we had had sex. I asked about the baby. She sneered and said there wasn’t any baby. She just wanted to get married and get out of that house.”
“When did you last see her?” asked Hamish.
He hung his head.
“Out with it?” said Hamish sharply.
“A chap came in for repairs, a tourist, and we got to talking. He was an Australian. He said the villages were fascinating and one even had a resident witch. Her name was Catriona Beldame and he had a photo of her. I suddenly wanted to see her. I wanted to know if perhaps she really had been pregnant and had our child. So I went up there.”
“When?” demanded Hamish sharply.
“It must have been the week afore she was murdered. She was very bitter.”
“In what way?”
“She blamed everyone, starting with her father. Then she blamed me for seducing a schoolgirl. I pointed out she had seduced me and that’s when she got furious and started screaming at me to get out. That’s all. I swear I had nothing to do with her murder.”
Hamish took him through the other three murders but he had cast-iron alibis for all of them.
“Will this need to come out?” he asked. “I don’t want the wife to know.”
“I’ll try to keep it quiet,” said Hamish.
♦
“So what do you think of what we’ve got so far?” asked Elspeth over lunch.
“Not much,” said Hamish gloomily. “I had great hopes of Wayne.”
“Might be him after all.”
“I’m sure not. I don’t want to alert Jimmy to the fact that I’m in Perth where he told me not to go.”
“That Nicoise salad of yours is going to wilt if you don’t eat it, Hamish.”
“I keep thinking I ought to eat more healthy food and yet when I get it, my appetite goes away.”
“I can put you on my expenses. Send it back and order a steak.”
“It’s a waste.”
“I’m only having salad, so I can eat two.” Elspeth called over the waiter and ordered Hamish a T-bone steak and chips.
“If only Catriona had been a nice person like Ina Braid. So many people must have wanted to murder her,” mourned Hamish.
“Now, there’s a thing. What about Ina Braid? Surely the only reason she was murdered was because she knew something. She must have said something to her husband. Let’s go back and see him.”
“I’ve just remembered,” said Hamish. “Ina’s funeral is this afternoon. I’ll ask for a doggy bag and take the steak with me. We’ve got to be there.”
“It’s only on the TV that murderers turn up at funerals, Hamish.”
“I’d still like to be there.”
♦
When they arrived, the church service was over and everyone was at the graveside. The whole village had turned out.
“Are you coming to the village hall afterwards?” asked Angela, appearing beside them. “The women decided that Fergus couldn’t cope with the entertaining and so they’re organising the funeral baked meats for him.”