“What can I do for you, officer?” she asked, as she competently went on with her packing, a cigarette drooping from her lips.
“Can you identify these? Don’t touch them.” Hamish took out the false teeth, enclosed in a polythene bag. She went very still. She took the cigarette from her mouth and tossed it into the fire.
“They’re William’s,” she said flatly. “He had them specially made, complete with nicotine stains, so they would not look too white and too false.” She sat down, her baggy tweed skirt rucked up, displaying large areas of muscled thigh.
“I’ll take a statement from ye,” said Hamish gently. “And then maybe you could call by later in the day at the police station and sign it.”
She nodded. “Where did you find them?”
“My dog found them in that patch of scrub at the turn of the road outside Cnothan as you go out toward Cnothan Game.”
“I knew he was dead,” she said dully. “I felt it. He wouldn’t have left me alone this long. He liked tormenting me too much. Poor William.”
“Mrs. Mainwaring, if that skeleton is your husband’s, have you any idea what might have happened to him?”
“No. I don’t like to think about it. It can’t be his. I don’t think it’s anything to do with him. It was put there for a bad joke.”
Hamish looked at her curiously. She seemed quite calm, but shock affected people in strange ways.
“Would it upset you to talk to me about him?” he asked gently. “Tell me about his army career. He said he had something to do with M.I.5.”
“Told you that one, did he?” Mrs. Mainwaring lit another cigarette. “He liked to play the retired army man, part of his act. He was a captain when he did his National Service. He was never a career officer. He just got drafted along with everyone else.”
“And how did he make his money?”
She gave a horrible kind of laugh. “He married me,” she said. “I was living in Maidstone in Kent with my mother, who was on her last legs. No man had ever proposed to me or looked at me, and then William came along.” Her eyes grew dreamy. “He was selling cars. Mother used to make nasty jokes about car salesmen and said he was only after my money. I didn’t believe her. He had very great charm. But I should have seen through him then. I told him Mother held the purse-strings and after that I didn’t see him for a week. At the end of that week, Mother died of a heart attack, the death was published in the local paper, and William came back again, just in time for the funeral. He was very supportive. He said he had inherited an estate in Scotland. We would be married and go and live there. Mother left me the house in Maidstone and quite a bit of money. I was tired. I was old–fashioned. I had been led to believe that women did not have heads for business. William said if I transferred everything to him, he would arrange for the sale of the house and take care of everything.”
“That was verra trusting of you,” said Hamish awkwardly.
She went on as if he had not spoken. “So I did, and we got married, and came up here to live. I know a lot of incomers don’t like Cnothan, but I loved it, and I still do. The women were so pleasant and gentle and friendly. Old-fashioned, just like me. But William changed. I forgave him for lying, you know. This place is hardly an estate. He started nagging me and nagging me from morning till night. He hated this place, and he began to enjoy people hating him. It made him feel important. I couldn’t walk out. He had control of the money. You’ve heard of the Duke of Sutherland, the one in the last century, who was responsible for the Highland Clearances – the one who had his factors drive the crofters out of their houses so he could turn the whole of the north into a sheep ranch?”
“Of course,” said Hamish.
“Well, you know how they still hate the duke in Sutherland. He had that statue of himself erected above Golspie and his memory is still so hated that people can’t bear to look at it. That tickled William. He liked going for long walks. He would often walk to the top of Clachan Mohr. He used to say that one day he would get a statue of himself put up there.”
“And what is his family background?”
“Surprisingly good. Went to Marlborough, then New College, although he left after only two years without getting his degree. Went to work for a family friend in the City as a stockbroker after he did his National Service. After that, I don’t know. He was always vague about it. But something happened. His family didn’t come to the wedding. He has two sisters and a brother living. They won’t have anything to do with him.”
“Have you their addresses?”
Mrs. Mainwaring went over to a desk and fished out an address book. She copied out three addresses on a slip of paper and handed it to Hamish.
“Can you put those bloody teeth away?” she said sharply.
Hamish put the polythene bag back in his pocket.
“You will inherit his money if he is dead, will you not?” asked Hamish.
“I’ll get my own money back, if that’s what you mean,” said Mrs. Mainwaring drily.
“Now about those houses and crofts he bought,” said Hamish. “What did he plan to do with them?”
“If you ask me, he planned to go on using the land for his sheep and let the houses rot. I pointed out time and again that he could sell the houses and keep the croft land, but he enjoyed the locals’ fury. They hated him for letting two good houses stand there decaying. Somehow, he had led them to believe he hadn’t much money. He worked hard in the beginning at getting everyone to like him. He wasn’t a complete stranger. He had been up on visits before; this aunt was the only member of the family who still liked him. And so they accepted him as a crofter without question.”
“Now, Mrs. Mainwaring, it takes a very strong motive to kill a man, that is, if your husband has been killed. Have you any idea who might have done it?”
“It could have been pretty much anybody,” she said. “I can’t help you there.”
Hamish asked several more questions, got the address in Edinburgh of the dentist who had supplied the false teeth, and then took his leave.
Mrs. Mainwaring shook hands with him, waved goodbye, and as soon as the police Land Rover was out of sight, she sank down in a chair, holding her large body in her arms to stop the uncontrollable shaking.
♦
As Hamish drove up to the Cnothan Game and Fish Company, he was stopped a few yards before he reached it by a police barrier behind which swarms of press were being held at bay. The barrier was raised to let him through. He saw the yard was full of plain-clothes officers. Blair and several high-ranking policemen were watching the operations.
Blair saw Hamish approaching and went to meet him as Hamish’s lanky figure descended from the Land Rover. Hamish grinned. Blair was determined that Hamish Macbeth should not meet any of the top brass.
“Did she recognize the teeth?” demanded Blair.
“Aye,” said Hamish. “They’re Mainwaring’s all right. How’s the big hush-up going?”
“It’s going jist fine. Nobody’s going to talk, least of all Jamie Ross.”
Hamish pushed back his cap and scratched his head thoughtfully. “Have ye thought what’s going to happen when you get your man, or woman, and he or she appears in the dock? What about the evidence? There’ll be an even bigger scandal in the press if they find out you’ve been suppressing vital evidence.”
Blair went scarlet. His mind hadn’t worked as far in advance as that.
“Don’t you worry, sonny,” he growled. “Leave important matters like that to the high-ups. Now, get back to that station and type up Mrs. Mainwaring’s statement.”