M Beaton: Death of a Valentine

She drove slowly to the forensic lab. Outside, she pulled off her glasses and hat.

Elspeth walked into the lab. Bruce and several of his assistants were working at long benches, strewn with not only the paraphernalia of forensic detection but also half-eaten sandwiches, flasks of coffee, and paperback books.

Bruce recognised her and rushed forward. “It’s Elspeth Grant. What can we do for you?”

“I’m up here until Hamish gets better,” said Elspeth. “I thought I might fill in the time by doing a feature on your lab. Have you time to show me around?”

“Sure. Care for a drink?”

“Not now.”

Elspeth barely listened as he took her around the lab. At last she said, “And where do you keep the samples? The public have become very interested in cold-case files.”

He led her into an adjoining room full of freezers. “All in here,” he said.

“Goodness, you are efficient. Are they all labelled?”

Bruce gave her a superior smile. “Of course.” He swung open one door. “See?”

Elspeth stared at the labelled samples. She could not see Hamish’s name. “This is fascinating,” she said. “May I see in the others?”

Bruce opened door after door. In one of them, in a corner, Elspeth saw two samples labelled HAMISH MACBETH.

They returned to the lab. “Where has everyone gone?” asked Elspeth.

“Lunch. Would you like to join me?”

“I’m a bit pushed for time but I wouldn’t mind a drink. Whisky will do fine, if you have it.”

He laughed. “This lab runs on it. Wait here. I’ve got a bottle somewhere.”

When he went off to a side room, Elspeth darted back to the freezers, seized Hamish’s samples, shoved them in her handbag, and hurried back to the lab.

Bruce came out holding a bottle and two glasses. “I thought you’d have a cameraman with you,” he said, pouring Elspeth a generous measure.

“I’ll be back with one, but I just wanted to get a feel for the place first. Slainte!”

She knocked back her drink and said, “I’ve got to run. See you soon, Bruce.”

Elspeth went to the nearest supermarket, bought a bag of ice, and put the samples in amongst the cubes. There was a forensic lab in Aberdeen. She could only hope they could get a result for her quickly.

But after a long drive to Aberdeen, she was disappointed to learn that the quickest they could do it would be two weeks. Still, she reflected, Hamish was safe for the moment. She decided to return to Glasgow.

Hamish, although still weak, was able to get out of bed and go for short walks. He pretended to be very frail, however, when Josie and her mother came to call, to hide from Flora his lack of affection for her daughter.

But just as he was pronounced fit to leave, Flora arrived on her own, very agitated. “Hamish, Josie has just told me she is pregnant and it’s beginning to show. You must be married as quickly as possible.”

Hamish looked at her wearily. It was all going to happen anyway. “Make it next week,” he said.

Rapid invitations were sent out again with the new date. Angela stared at hers in dismay. She had been immersed in writing her latest book and had not been out and about to pick up the gossip or she would have heard of the new date before the invitation arrived in the post. Three days’ time! She phoned Elspeth, who listened in horror to her news. In fact it was more like two days, as Angela had not opened her post until the evening.

“I’ll do my best,” said Elspeth. She knew she dared not ask for any time off, so she pretended to faint on the studio floor. The television doctor diagnosed overwork and stress. Elspeth left the studios and drove straight to the airport. She booked herself onto a flight to Aberdeen. At Aberdeen airport, she hired a car and drove to the forensic lab.

She was told they had not yet got around to examining her samples.

Elspeth took a deep breath. She faced the director of the lab and said, “Unless you get me these results fast, a man is going to be tricked into marriage.”

“All right!” he said. “Come along tomorrow morning.”

Elspeth booked into a hotel, barely sleeping that night, and was at the lab the first thing in the morning.

The director beamed and handed her a printed result. “This Hamish Macbeth had taken a big dose of Rohypnol. It’s the first time we’ve had a man with this result. Macbeth…isn’t that the…”

But he found he was talking to the empty air.

With the printout on the seat beside her, Elspeth drove the long way across country to Strathbane.

To her dismay, she found that the surgery would not open until six o’clock in the evening. She tried to find the doctor’s home address but without success.

Impatiently she waited and then, just before six, she donned her disguise. A thin, undernourished-looking girl was just unlocking the door to the surgery when she walked across the road and followed the girl in.

“Are you the receptionist?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“I need an urgent appointment.”

“Doctor has people to see before you.”

Elspeth slid a twenty-pound note over the desk. “I need to see him quickly.”

The girl tucked the note into her blouse. “Take a seat. He won’t be long.”

The surgery began to fill up with young men and women, all shabby, all with dilated pupils. He’s still up to his tricks, thought Elspeth. I’ll nail the bastard, but Hamish comes first.

Dr. Cameron arrived, a small, rotund man with a fat face and little gold-rimmed spectacles. The receptionist followed him into his office and then came out again after a few minutes. She jerked her head at Elspeth. “You can go in now.”

Elspeth switched a powerful little tape recorder on, leaving her handbag open, and went in.

“Now, then,” said Dr. Cameron. “What’s all the rush?”

“I want to get married,” said Elspeth.

He grinned. “Can’t help you there.”

“As a matter of fact, you can. You can do for me what you did for my friend Josie McSween. You gave her a certificate to say she was pregnant when she wasn’t pregnant at all. You didn’t even examine her. Josie gave me your name.”

Careful not to disturb the tape recorder, Elspeth pulled five hundred pounds out of her handbag and put them on the desk. “Will that do?” she asked.

He counted out the notes. “Josie McSween gave me one thousand pounds,” he said. “That was the deal.”

Glad she had drawn out a large sum of money earlier, Elspeth took out her wallet and counted out another five hundred.

Again he checked the money. He drew his prescription pad forward. “Name?”

“Heather Dunne.”

“Address?”

“Number six, the Waterfront, Cnothan.”

He scribbled busily and handed the note over.

“Nice to do business with you, Miss Dunne. Don’t come back.”

Elspeth drove to the centre of town and sat in her car. She hated Josie with an all-consuming rage. She could go straight to the police station and hand the evidence to Hamish. But she wanted Josie to suffer as much as Hamish had suffered. She wanted her to be publicly humiliated.

Josie was at the manse, trying on her new wedding gown, altered to fit her larger figure.

“Why did you have to go and put on weight,” fussed Flora, and then flushed nervously as she remembered in time that no one was supposed to know that Josie was pregnant.

“I think she looks a picture,” said Mrs. Wellington, her eyes full of sentimental tears.

All Josie wanted was to get the dress off, get rid of everyone and sneak out into the garden where she had hidden a bottle of vodka. She was suffering from nerves. When she wasn’t drinking, the enormity of the way she had tricked Hamish would hit her. But with drink inside her, all her rosy dreams of domestic life with a loving Hamish came back to her, giving her courage.