M.C. Beaton - Death of a Witch

“So how are things going?” asked Hamish.

She pulled a flowered pinafore out of her capacious handbag and put it on. She went to the stove and began to stir the stew. When did I last see a woman under sixty in a pinafore? wondered Hamish. And oh, the aroma on that stew! Was anything ever more seductive than a curvaceous woman in a pinny bent over a stove?

“As you’ve probably already been told, the weapon used was something very thin and sharp. Although she was wearing a tweed coat, it would not take all that much force. It was driven straight through her back and pierced her heart.”

“But could she have gone on walking after being stabbed?”

“Not in this case. I think she died instantly and in the shop. I gather the thick fog is the trouble. Someone could easily have followed her in and got out again quickly and the fact that Patel was asleep was a bonus.”

“But why her?” asked Hamish, laying out plates, knives, and forks and then searching for wineglasses. “I can understand someone wanting to kill Catriona. She seems to have been a right evil woman.”

“Say this Ina Braid knew something and had to be silenced,” suggested Lesley. “The stew’s hot enough. Pass me the plates.”

“I don’t like that idea,” said Hamish. “Not a bit.”

“Why?”

“If Catriona was murdered by someone from her past, he wouldn’t hang around the village. Your idea makes it look like someone local.”

Lesley dished out the stew and they ate in silence, Hamish relishing every delicious morsel.

When they had finished eating, she collected the plates and put them in the sink. “Back in a minute,” she said. “I’ve got the dessert and coffee in the car.”

Refusing Hamish’s offer of help, she went out and then returned carrying a cheesecake on a plate and a thermos of coffee.

“You’re spoiling me, lassie,” said Hamish.

“It’s the least I can do after that meal you bought me,” said Lesley. “My God! What’s that?”

Sonsie appeared in the kitchen and stood glaring.

“Oh, that’s my cat. Nothing to worry about. Yes, it’s a wild cat. Harmless.”

Lugs came back into the kitchen and sat beside the cat.

“There’s some stew left,” said Lesley. “Do you think they would like some?”

“I’m sure they would.”

Lesley filled up the animals’ feed bowls with stew. How pretty she looks, thought Hamish, mellowed with food and wine.

“What made you want to be a policeman in a remote place like this?” asked Lesley. “And I’ve heard gossip about how you keep sidestepping promotion.”

“It goes a long way back,” said Hamish. “I was a lad in my early teens. Patel’s shop was a greengrocers then but it was going bust. Not much call for fresh vegetables in Lochdubh and folk grew pretty much all they needed. So the owner was selling everything off cheap. My mother drove me over. It was a scorching hot summer day and we only had an ancient Land Rover with a cracked radiator and we had to keep stopping on the road to fill it up with water.

My mother bought a lot of stuff and we loaded it in the Land Rover. Then she said she would go and visit a friend. I said I’d stay and look at the boats in the harbour. She gave me a couple of pounds and told me that the greengrocers was selling off boxes of plums at a pound each. She’d decided to buy some after all. She suddenly wanted to make plum jam. So she gave me the car keys and told me to buy a couple of boxes.

She had just gone when an ice cream van came along the waterfront. I was so hot and thirsty and I craved an ice cream. I bought a large one and hid the change in my shoe.

I was sure she would understand but when she came back and started talking about all the plum jam she was going to make, I panicked and lied. I knew we were pretty poor and we weren’t allowed luxuries like ice cream. I said two youths had attacked me and taken the money.”

Hamish sighed. “It was misery. She marched me to this police station. It was a Constable McWhirter, a big slow-moving highlander. I told my story and he just sat there, studying my face. Then he said, ‘Take off your shoes, laddie.’

I blustered and argued but I had to take my shoes off. He shook them and the change came rattling out. My mother gave me a tongue lashing but McWhirter said, ‘I think the lad has learned a good lesson. Crime doesn’t pay. I swear he’ll never do anything like that again.’

That policeman seemed like God to me, and I loved Lochdubh. As soon as I left school, I went through police academy and got a job in Strathbane. But as soon as I heard that after McWhirter had died, they had trouble finding anyone for the job up here, I volunteered. I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else. What about you? Why forensics?”

“I’ve always been fascinated by forensic science. But that was what broke up my marriage. I was working for Strathclyde and there was an enormous workload. I was hardly ever home. He said it was either the job or him, not both. I chose the job.”

“But why Strathbane?”

“I was silly enough to have an affair with a colleague. It got messy. I had to get out. I don’t really want to talk about it.”

There was a long silence. She poured them cups of coffee from a thermos.

“It’s frustrating,” said Hamish at last.

“What is?”

“Being out of the loop. Not having all the facts as they come in.”

“That was your choice, remember?”

“Aye, I suppose I want to run the case without the responsibility of rank,” said Hamish.

While they finished their coffee, Hamish wondered what he was supposed to do now. Invite her to stay the night?

But she suddenly stood up. She said abruptly, “I’ll call back sometime for the cheesecake plate and the stew pot. I’ll take the thermos because I use that for work. Good night.”

“Wait a minute,” said Hamish, uncoiling his long legs from under the table. “This has been a fabulous meal. I must take you out for dinner.”

“I’ll phone you,” said Lesley, and with that she fled out the door.

Hamish scratched his fiery hair. His animals looked sleepily up at him.

“What brought that on?” said Hamish.

♦

Lesley got into her car and drove off. A slight wind was shifting the fog into bewildering pillars of mist floating in front of the car. “Fool!” she told herself. “He may be attractive but you’re not destined to spend the rest of your life stuck in a highland police station.”

♦

In the Highlands of Sutherland it’s possible to get three climates in one day. When Hamish arose the following morning it was to find the fog had cleared, leaving a damp, warm blustery day with choppy waves on the loch and a feeling almost of spring in the air. But he knew from experience that it could be freezing again by the evening.

He cleaned up the dishes from the night before, putting the stew pot and the dessert dish to one side to return to Lesley.

Hamish went along in the direction of the mobile police unit and then backed off. A line of villagers, all men, were queuing up outside.

He stopped a Strathbane policeman who was moodily smoking a cigarette and staring at the water.

“What’s happening?” asked Hamish.

“The boss is getting the DNA off all the men in this village,” said the policeman. His accent had the fluting sound of the Outer Hebrides.

“That won’t do him any good,” said Hamish. “As far as I know no DNA was recovered from the scene.”

“Aye, well, they are going to look at the DNA database.”

“Why didn’t they ask me?” asked Hamish. “I could have told them no one in this village has a criminal record.”

The policeman tossed his cigarette butt onto the beach. “I had best be getting on. But I’m right sick o’ chapping at doors and asking hard-faced wifies what their man was doing when that Braid woman was getting herself killt.”