M. Beaton: Death Of An Addict

He opened the door and went in. "How much is thon dress in the window?" he asked. "The silky one with the different colours."

"One hundred and ninety pounds."

Hamish blinked. "That's a fair bit."

The assistant said severely, "It is pure silk and designed by Lucille herself. There is one on the rack over there." She pointed. Hamish walked over and examined the dress. "Do you make many of these?" he asked over his shoulder.

"Lucille made only three. People around here don't like to pay that much and then run into a lot of other people wearing the same dress," said the assistant.

"It's a bit too much," said Hamish, backing towards the doorway.

"Thought it would be," said the assistant pertly.

Hamish drove thoughtfully back to Lochdubh. On his arrival, he mechanically went about his chores on the croft, made himself a simple meal, ate it and then sat down in the living room in his favourite armchair, clasped his hands behind his head and thought about Felicity.

How could she afford a dress like that? He went over every scrap of conversation he had had with her, how on the day of Tommy's death she had looked so frightened when she had seen him outside Patel's, then about how she had snapped at him that first time when he had looked at the vegetables on the draining board in the chalet kitchen.

He suddenly sat up straight. Mushrooms. What had he heard about mushrooms?

Angela Brodie was on the Internet and seemed able to conjure up reams of information.

He hurried out and along to the doctors cottage. Angela answered the door.

"This a social call, Hamish?"

"No, I'm after some information about mushrooms."

"What kind?"

"The druggie kind."

"Come in. I think they're called shrooms. I'll see what I can get for you. Go in and take a seat and wait."

Hamish went into the living room. There was no sign of the doctor. Must be out on a call.

He sat down and picked up the day's papers, which he had not read.

After half an hour, Angela came in and handed him a printed sheet. "That's what I got, Hamish."

The page was headed "Liberty Cap/Magic Mushroom, Psilocybe semilanceata." There was an illustration of some spindly mushrooms. The liberty cap's habitat appeared to be in grass, fields, heaths and meadows. Season was given as late August to mid-January. Colour: buff when dry, brown with bluey tinge when wet. Thin black lines can also be seen through the lower margin when wet.

Then came the comments. "Psilocybe semilanceata has been used for thousands of years and is probably the most well known and most used psychedelic mushroom in the UK. The usual number of mushrooms ingested is between 25 and 50. Effects are similar to many of the psychedelics but often without the harshness and intensity that is associated with LSD. The effects come on between 10 and 40 minutes after ingestion and last approximately 3 to 4 hours. Eating fresh magic mushrooms is legal in the UK."

Hamish put down the printed sheet and said half to himself, "If it's legal, why was she so afraid of me?"

"What's this about?" asked Angela.

"These magic mushrooms. I think that wee lassie Felicity Maundy may have been peddling them."

"They grow pretty much everywhere, Hamish. She wouldn't get much for them. She'd get more from growing cannabis."

"I tell you, Angela, she was wearing a dress and I saw the twin o' that dress in Strathbane and it cost a hundred and ninety pounds and yet herself said she was on the dole."

Angela looked at him thoughtfully. Then she said, "Well, maybe sweet little Felicity was peddling something else."

Hamish thanked her and went back to the police station. How could a mushroom which caused a psychedelic effect lasting up to four hours be legal?

He phoned Strathbane. Jimmy Anderson was at home but when Hamish volunteered that he wanted to ask someone about drugs he was told that Detective Constable Sanders had just come in and was their expert.

Hamish introduced himself and then asked why shrooms, or magic mushrooms, were legal.

"Ah, but they're not really," said Sanders. "You pick them, that's legal. You prepare them, dry them, make tea from them, then it's illegal. It's illegal to change them in any way so I suppose you can say that someone picking them was actually changing them."

Hamish thought about the mushrooms he had seen on Felicity's draining board. They certainly had been small-capped and with thin stems.

"Would anyone get much for selling them?" he asked.

"Not that I've heard. People mostly pick them for their own use. Mind you, we raided a house last year after a tip-off and the attic floor was covered in those mushrooms."

"I wondered if you ever heard of anything against a young English lassie called Felicity Maundy."

Sanders's voice sharpened. "You mean the one that lives next door to Tommy Jarret?"

"Don't be telling anyone I asked," said Hamish, alarmed. "I'm told the case is closed."

"Look, I'm going off duty. Do you mind if I pop over to Lochdubh for a wee word?"

"Not at all," said Hamish. "I'll be waiting."

Detective Constable Sanders had sounded brisk and intelligent on the phone. Hamish imagined him as being tall, dark and with severe features.

He was surprised when he opened the door some time later to what at first in the darkness looked like little more than a schoolboy.

"Sanders," announced the detective.

"Come in," said Hamish.

In the bright light of the kitchen, Sanders turned out to be a fairly small man with a thatch of thick blond hair, a boyish fair face with a snub nose covered in freckles and bright blue eyes.

"You look too healthy to be a drug expert," said Hamish.

"Well, I don't take the stuff myself." Sanders sounded amused. "So you're the infamous Hamish Macbeth."

"Take off your coat and sit down," said Hamish. "Tea?

Coffee?"

"Coffee would be grand. Dash of milk, no sugar."

When they were seated over their coffee mugs, Sanders said, "We meet at last. I've heard a lot about you." He held out his hand. "I'm Joe."

Hamish shook it.

"So, Joe, what brings you all this way?"

"It's the Tommy Jarret business. I wasn't satisfied."

"I wasn't either and I still am not," said Hamish.

"Tell me why."

"I think you had better tell me your reasons first. I don't want to get into trouble."

Sanders laughed. "Meaning you want to know if you can trust me? Here goes. I think the case was closed quickly on Tommy because he had a record, because he took drugs. There was a general feeling that he was asking for it, that one less junkie in Strathbane can only be good. It was the pathology report that bothered me first. Do you know there were traces of a sleeping drug in the body?"

Hamish nodded.

"Then there was that book he was writing. It all seemed too neat and easy that only chapter one detailing his early life should be found. Then there was the matter of fingerprints."

"You mean there were no fingerprints!"

"I'm not saying that. There were Tommy's, Parry McSporran's and Felicity's. But the door handle was wiped clean."

"The outside door?"

"Yes."

"But Parry found the body. Surely his prints would have been on the handle?"

"Parry said the door was wide open and he walked in. He said the bedroom door was open as well."

"Why did Parry go in? I forgot to ask him."

"He said he saw the front door wide open and walked across to make sure Tommy was at home. Parry said that although nobody locks their doors up there, he thought if Tommy had gone out and left the door open, it was tempting someone to steal his word processor."