M Beaton: Death of a Valentine

Blair stared at her, his mind working furiously. Then he said grimly, “Get in the car wi’ me, lassie. We’re going to Alness.”

When Blair discovered after two days of detective work that two of the Gypsies who had been working at the quarry had sold the dynamite to Harry’s friends, Daviot breathed a sigh of relief. He would not need to get rid of Blair after all. Nonetheless, Blair had ordered an illegal search and the police enquiry dragged on for weeks. Josie was questioned and questioned until she felt she would scream.

When it was all over, and only a small amount of compensation had been paid to the Gypsies who’d had their caravans raided without a search warrant, she found that Blair had refused to give her any credit whatsoever. She was to be sent back to Lochdubh and consider herself lucky that she still had a job.

Had Blair been at all nice to her, had he given her any credit, had he asked for her to be returned to Strathbane, her old obsession with Hamish would have vanished like highland mist on a summer’s day.

But all she could now think of was Hamish’s brilliance in having found Harry Etherington out.

Hamish looked down at her with a flash of dismay in his hazel eyes. He wanted the village and his work back to himself. He told Josie to go back to checking on the outlying crofts and then got down to repairing loose slates on the police station roof. He expected a quiet winter and shrewdly guessed that Josie would soon grow bored with the long miles she had to put in, and ask for a transfer.

The winter arrived without much happening and Josie continued to doggedly perform all the dull tasks allotted to her. There seemed to be no chink in Hamish’s armour. The Christmas holidays when she could go back to her mother in Perth came as a relief.

She poured out her woes to her mother who said comfortably, “There’s bound to be a big case soon and then you’ll be working together.”

“Nothing ever happens up there,” said Josie bitterly, “and nothing ever will. All Harry and his friends got was a slap on the wrist and community service. Those Gypsies got three months each. Harry and his friends had a top-flight lawyer.”

Her mother put down the romance she had been reading. “There are aye a lot of blizzards up there in January with folks cut off. You’d be thrown together.” Was that not what had happened to heroine Heather in the book she had been reading? And hadn’t Heather ended up on a sheepskin rug in front of a log fire in the arms of the laird?

That was all Josie needed to fuel her imagination. When a really massive blizzard roared in, she would struggle along to the police station. They would be snowbound together, talking companionably by the stove. And then…and then…

But the winter proved to be unusually mild. Patel’s, the local shop, began to show a display of Valentine cards towards the end of January. Josie longed to buy one, but was afraid Hamish would simply ask Patel who had sent it. Finally, she felt completely defeated. She would go to Strathbane and beg for a transfer, but after Valentine’s Day. Maybe Hamish was cool to her because he was hiding a secret passion. Maybe a card would arrive for her.

Before going on her rounds on Valentine’s Day, she hung around the manse until the post arrived. There was nothing for her. Determined now to get back to Strathbane, Josie bleakly set off on her rounds.

Annie Fleming, the Lammas beauty queen, did not go to work on Valentine’s Day. She usually went to work as a secretary at a wildlife park outside Strathbane. She considered it a mangy park with only a few animals. It was the brainchild of an earnest English woman and her Scottish husband. It was the first job that had come her way and, as she was desperate to avoid working for her father who owned a bottle-producing factory, and to gain at least a little independence, she had taken it. On previous Valentine’s Days, her father had insisted on examining her cards, demanding to know who had sent them. Annie had a pretty good idea who had mailed each card but, fortunately, the tradition of not signing cards was a blessing and so she had told her father she hadn’t a clue.

But there was one she was longing for. A disco club in Strathbane had started lunchtime sessions. It was there that Annie had met Jake Cullen, he of the black leather outfit and supply of Ecstasy pills. In all her restricted life, she had never met someone more exciting. The drinks he plied her with and the drugs he gave her made her feel strong and confident.

She parked in a back lane in Braikie that afforded a view down to the main road. She waited until she saw her father with her mother in the passenger seat drive past and then drove home again and waited eagerly for the post. She knew her bosses were down in Edinburgh and that she was supposed to open up the wildlife park, but she persuaded herself that she would not be very late.

The doorbell rang. Annie swore under her breath. She had not wanted the postman to know she was at home. But there could be a really big valentine for her that could not fit into the letter box. She opened the door.

“Grand morning, Annie,” said the postman, Bill Comrie. “Aren’t you at work?”

“I think I’m coming down with something,” said Annie.

“I’ve a rare bit o’ post for you, and a package. You’re popular wi’ the fellows.”

“Thanks.” Annie snatched the post from him and shut the door firmly in his face.

The package was addressed to her. It looked exciting somehow. She decided to leave it until last. She had six valentines. Five were the usual soppy kind, but the sixth held a peculiar typewritten rhyme.

Roses are red, violets are blue

You’ll get in the face,

Just what’s coming to you.

Nutcase, thought Annie, putting it down with the others beside that mysterious package. Before she opened it, she went to the sideboard in the living room and took out a bottle of gin. She poured a stiff measure into a glass, carried the gin bottle into the kitchen, topped it up with water, and returned it to the sideboard. Back in the kitchen, she unpicked a little of the hem at the bottom of her jacket and picked out an Ecstasy pill. She swallowed the pill down with a gulp of gin.

Now for that parcel.

There was a tab at the side to rip to get the parcel open. She tore it across. A terrific explosion tore apart the kitchen. Ball bearings and nails, the latter viciously sharpened, tore into her face and body as flames engulfed her. Perhaps it was a mercy that one of the nails pierced her brain, killing her outright, before the flames really took hold.

Mrs. McGirty, an elderly lady who lived in the next cottage, heard the loud explosion just as she was about to enter her own home. She seized a fire extinguisher she kept in her car and ran to the Flemings’ house and round to the back where she knew the kitchen was. She thought it was a gas explosion. The kitchen door was lying on its hinges. Screaming with fear, she plied the fire extinguisher over the horrible mess that had once been the beauty of the Highlands and over the flaming kitchen table. Then, white as paper, on shaking legs, she went to her own home and phoned Hamish Macbeth.

Hamish phoned Josie before setting out for Braikie. He did not expect her to arrive until later because she was supposed to be up in the northwest of the county. But Josie had become weary of home visits and so she had been parked quite near Lochdubh, up on a hilltop, reading a romance, when she received the call.

Hamish stood in the doorway of the kitchen and grimly surveyed the body. He heard a car driving outside and went out. Josie had arrived. “A murder!” she cried excitedly. “Where’s the body?”

“In the kitchen.”

“Can I have a look?”