M Beaton: Death of a Valentine

“Me? Not on your life,” he said.

But privately he thought that Cora had been in the grip of an obsession almost as mad as that of her husband. Respectability and her position as a councillor’s wife was her life and the very air she breathed.

Hamish found Josie good company in the weeks that followed. Josie cunningly knew instinctively that if she betrayed any romantic feelings towards Hamish, then he would back off. He even took her out for dinner a couple of times. The villagers thought they were watching a budding romance, and hadn’t Mrs. Wellington said she was sure there would soon be a wedding?

Meanwhile, Josie laid her plans. She had paid over one thousand pounds to a shady doctor in Strathbane to give her a certificate saying she was pregnant.

Just as the snows were beginning to melt and a balmy wind was bringing the first hint of spring, she called at the police station.

“Hamish, I’m pregnant,” she said.

The news of Hamish’s Macbeth’s engagement to Josie McSween was greeted with delight in the village of Lochdubh. They were such a suitable couple. She was a pretty wee lassie and a policewoman, too.

Only Angela Brodie was worried. One evening, shortly after the announcement of Hamish’s engagement, her husband confided in her that Hamish had come to him one morning, demanding a drug test, but that the forensic lab had stated that he was clear.

She knew Hamish better than most. Although he smiled on Josie and escorted her about, Angela sensed a bleakness in him. She didn’t like Josie. She thought there was something sly about her.

Also, Hamish, who usually dropped in for a chat, had been avoiding her. She found him one morning, leaning on the wall overlooking the loch, with his animals at his heels.

“Hamish!” she hailed him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. So you’re finally going to be married? Congratulations.”

“That iss verra kind of you, Angela.” His eyes were flat and guarded. “I’d had best be getting along to the station.”

“Wait a moment. Are you happy?”

“Of course,” said Hamish, and he strode off.

Angela was walking back home when she met Mrs. Wellington. “Isn’t it exciting?” said the minister’s wife. “I’ve come to think of Josie as my own daughter.”

“I don’t think Hamish is very happy,” said Angela.

“It doesn’t matter if he’s happy or not. He got the girl preg…” Mrs. Wellington actually blushed.

“Do you mean Josie’s pregnant?”

“Don’t tell a soul. I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I don’t think Josie is my husband’s patient.”

“Well, no. It would spoil the occasion if people thought it was a shotgun wedding.”

“Which doctor did she go to?”

“I remember she said it was a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane.”

Angela phoned the television studios in Glasgow and asked to speak to Elspeth Grant, saying she was a friend. She was told Miss Grant was broadcasting but if she left her name and number, Miss Grant would phone her back.

Worried that her husband might drop in, find out what she was doing, and accuse her of interfering, Angela paced nervously up and down. At last the phone rang and, with relief, she heard Elspeth’s voice on the line.

“It’s about Hamish,” said Angela. “Have you heard he’s to be married?”

“Yes, I got an invitation to the wedding.”

“Elspeth, something is wrong. He is not happy. Josie is supposed to be pregnant. Could she be tricking him? Oh, Elspeth, I do wish you would come up here and find out for sure.”

“Wait a minute. Are they living together?”

“No, Josie is at the manse with Mrs. Wellington. I assumed it was because people here are a bit old-fashioned.”

“But he is seen out with her?”

“Yes, I saw them at the Italian restaurant just the other day. Hamish was quiet and polite. Josie chattered on and on. But there’s more. Hamish went to my husband some time ago claiming he had been drugged and got samples and rushed off to the forensic lab in Strathbane with them. The lab said he was clear.”

“I remember Lesley at the lab. She was keen on Hamish and I always think she upped and married her boss just to show him. Look, I’ll get some leave of absence and get up there. But Hamish wouldn’t fall for a fake pregnancy, if that’s what it is. Doesn’t she go to Dr. Brodie?”

“No, she goes to a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane.”

“I’ll see you as soon as I can.”

Several times, Josie had been on the point of calling the whole thing off. She had hoped to get into bed with Hamish long before the wedding and therefore be able, possibly, to become genuinely pregnant. But Hamish had said that he would marry her and look after her, but he did not want to have sex with her. Josie had wept and pleaded but Hamish was adamant.

Her mother had arrived to stay at the manse. Flora McSween was thrilled to bits. Because Josie’s father was dead, she was to be given away by her Uncle Bob. The wedding gown was a miracle of white satin and pearls.

Flora did not suspect anything wrong. Josie told her often how much in love she and Hamish were. Any odd bouts of weeping on her daughter’s part, Flora put down to wedding nerves. She mostly lived in paperback romances and kept as much of the real world at bay as she could.

Hamish was loyal to Josie in that he did not confide in anyone how miserable he was at the prospect of being married to her. Never before had his police station home and his bachelor life looked so dear. There was only a trickle of work to keep him busy, although he travelled over his large beat as much as he could.

Strathbane, on the other hand, was in the grip of drug wars. Jimmy had agreed to be his best man but had not been near the police station and so had no inkling that Hamish was miserable at the prospect of the wedding. And for the villagers, Hamish put on a good front, smiling affectionately at Josie when they were out together, thanking people for their wedding presents, and saying, yes, he hoped the sun would shine on the important day.

Angela was feeling frantic. She had phoned Elspeth again, and Elspeth said that she was in difficulties trying to get away but would be there as soon as she could.

So it was a week before the wedding when Elspeth at last drove north and booked into the Tommel Castle Hotel. She dumped her bags in her room and went straight to the police station. There was no reply to her knock. She searched around until she found the spare key under the doormat and let herself in.

Elspeth studied the papers on his desk and found a map with a route marked in red. Hamish must be out on his beat. She picked up the map and decided to see if she could find him somewhere on the road. It would be better if she could ask him questions away from the village.

Hamish thought he would have felt less miserable if the weather had not been so glorious. Misery on a sunny day always seemed intensified. He had given up calling on people on his beat, feeling that he could not bear any more congratulations.

He parked on a hill above Braikie and tried to cheer himself up by thinking of the son or daughter he might have. But Josie had supplied him with warning pamphlets about how family pets could become jealous of a baby and about how they could cause dangerous allergies. He had shut her up by retorting that if that were the case, they would need to live separately.

Josie had handed in her notice. He stifled a groan. She would be there with him, night and day. How could he have been so stupid? He didn’t usually drink much-only the odd glass of whisky-but he had drunk more than he usually did at that wedding.