M Beaton: Death of a Valentine

Nonetheless, Hamish insisted on supervising the installation of the tiara in the town safe.

Then he returned to the fair and joined a miserable-looking Josie. After Hamish had run off, the crowd had shunned her as if she had the plague. “Let’s go over to the refreshment tent,” said Hamish. “We need to talk.”

Josie trailed after him. “Sit down,” ordered Hamish. “I’ll get some tea.”

He returned with a tray bearing a fat teapot, milk, sugar, mugs, and two sugar buns.

“Now,” he said, “you have to use your wits. You have to understand the local people. Where those bungalows are on the shore road was once considered a posh bit o’ the town. Then the sea rose and rose. They got flooded time after time. Times are hard and now the people who own these houses wonder if they’ll ever see their money back. A good seawall would stop the flooding. The houses could be repaired and be sellable again. Tempers are running high. They feel the provost and councillors have bankrupted the town. It should have been obvious to you that Hugh was just trying to stop the provost.”

“But he grabbed his chain! If that’s not theft then at least it’s assault.”

“Look here, I go out of my way not to give normally respectable people a criminal record.”

“What about targets?”

“I never bother about government targets. Do you want me to get like thae English-arresting wee kids for carrying water pistols and giving some child a criminal record for carrying a dangerous weapon, and all to meet targets?”

“But if you don’t get enough targets, you don’t get promotions!”

“I didn’t even want this promotion. I want to be left alone. Now drink your tea, and if you are not happy with the situation get back to Strathbane.”

One fat tear rolled down Josie’s hot cheek, followed by another.

“Oh, dinnae greet,” said Hamish, alarmed. “You’ll need to toughen up if you want to keep on being a policewoman. It’s not your fault. They’d love you in Strathbane for any arrest. Things are different up here.” He handed her a soot-stained handkerchief which he had used that morning to lift the lid of the stove. He had to keep the stove burning if he wanted hot water from the back boiler. He had an immersion heater on the hot water tank but he found it cheaper to use peat in the stove because peat was free. He had a peat bank up at the general grazing area.

Josie sniffed and wiped her face with a clean part of the handkerchief.

“Drink your tea and we’ll go out. Look as if you’re enjoying the fun of the fair and folks will forget all about it. That Annie Fleming must be about the most beautiful girl in the Highlands.”

“Oh, really?” said Josie. “Didn’t look anything special to me.”

Josie thought hopefully that by enjoying the fun of the fair, Hamish meant they should go on some of the rides together, but he ordered her to police the left-hand side of the fair while he took the right.

It was a long hot day. Josie had set her hair early in the morning but it was crushed under her hat, and trickles of sweat were running down her face. By evening, when Hamish briefly joined her, she asked plaintively when they could pack up.

“Not until the fair closes down,” said Hamish. “There’s sometimes a rough element in the evening.” And he strolled off, leaving Josie glaring after him.

By the time the fair began to close down at eleven in the evening, Josie was tired and all her romantic ideas about Hamish Macbeth had been sweated out of her system. He was an inconsiderate bully. He would never amount to anything. He was weird in the way that he shied away from making arrests.

She sat beside him in mutinous silence on the road back to Lochdubh, planning a trip to Strathbane on the Monday morning, turning over in her mind the best way to get a transfer back again.

“You may as well take the day off tomorrow” were Hamish’s last words that evening to her.

Hamish was outside the police station on the following Sunday morning, sawing wood, when he heard the shrill sound of the telephone ringing in the police office. He ran in and picked up the receiver. Jimmy Anderson was on the line. “You’d better get over to Braikie, Hamish. We’ll join you as soon as we can.”

“What’s up?”

“Sir Andrew Etherington collected thon tiara from the town hall first thing this morning. He was on the way back to his home when there was a blast up ahead and a tree fell across the road. Four fellows he didn’t know appeared and said they’d move the tree if he’d sit tight. Now Sir Andrew gets out of the car to go and help. He gets back in his car and waves goodbye to those helpful men. He’s nearly at his home when he realises that the box wi’ the tiara is no longer on the seat beside him.”

Hamish scrambled into his uniform and then phoned Josie and said he’d be picking her up in a few moments. Josie complained that she was just out of the bath.

“Then take your car and follow me over,” said Hamish. “The tiara’s been stolen. Get on the road towards Crask. Take the north road out of Braikie and you’ll see my Land Rover. Some men got a tree to fall over the road, blocking Sir Andrew’s way, and when he got out to help them someone nicked the tiara.”

Hamish was cursing as he took the Braikie Road. Every year the safety of that tiara was his responsibility.

As he drove through Braikie and out on the north road, he slowed down until he saw a rowan tree lying by the side of the road. He stopped and got out.

He remembered that tree, for trees were scarce in Sutherland apart from the forestry plantations, and such as survived were miserable stunted little things bent over by the Sutherland gales. The rowan tree, however, had been a sturdy old one sheltered from the winds in the lee of a hill that overshadowed the road. The bottom of the trunk had been shattered by a blast. He went across to where the tree had once grown and studied the blackened ground. He guessed a charge of dynamite had been put at the base of the tree.

He straightened up as Josie’s car came speeding along the road. He flagged her down and said, “You wait here for the forensic boys. I’ll go on to the shooting box.”

The shooting box was a handsome Georgian building, square-built with a double staircase leading up to the front door.

Hamish knew that the front door was never used so he went round to one at the side of the building and knocked. A grisled old man, Tom Calley, who worked as a butler during the shooting season, answered the door. “It’s yourself, Hamish. A bad business.”

“I’d like to speak to Sir Andrew.”

“I’ll take you to him.”

“Has he got a shooting party here?”

“Not yet. The guests are due to arrive next week for the grouse. There’s just Sir Andrew and his son, Harry.”

“No other help but yourself?”

“A couple of lassies frae Braikie, Jeannie Macdonald and her sister Rosie.”

Hamish followed him up stone stairs to a square hall, where the mournful heads of shot animals looked down at him with glassy eyes.

Tom led the way across the hall and threw open the door to a comfortable drawing room, full of shabby furniture and lined with books.

Sir Andrew put down the newspaper he had been reading. He was a tall, thin man in his late fifties with a proud nose, thin mouth, and sparse brown hair. His son, Harry, was slumped in a chair opposite his father. Harry, in contrast, was short and plump, owlish looking with thick glasses.

“This is infuriating,” said Sir Andrew.

“Could you just describe to me exactly what happened?”

Sir Andrew went through his story again. When he had finished, Hamish said, “You don’t have much of a description of the men.”