M.C. Beaton: Death of a Witch

He took his binoculars and went out onto the waterfront and focussed them on the ‘witch’s’ cottage. Her car was still there. He wondered what to do. He was sure that if he arrested her, they would now not find anything sinister in those bottles of hers. She would have destroyed anything incriminating. If he threatened her any more, he could be charged with police harassment.

He returned to the station to find Jimmy Anderson waiting for him. “You’re going to be up on a disciplinary charge, Hamish, unless you can come up with a good explanation.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your newcomer, Catriona Beldame, has reported you for assault.”

“She tried to claw my face, I pushed her over, and I’ve got witnesses. Come ben and get your whisky and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Seated at the kitchen table a few minutes later, Jimmy listened to Hamish’s story.

When Hamish had finished, he said, “Why didn’t the bampots just order Viagra from the Internet?”

“I don’t think they’d know how to,” said Hamish. “We’re still a superstitious lot here. I checked the police files under her daft name, but I couldn’t find anything. That woman is evil!”

“What is it with women?” asked Jimmy. “You see all these magazines telling them how to enhance their sex life.”

“I think you’ll find the complaining women all had children and were past the menopause. They’d rather read a romance or fantasise about a film star than have their old man fumbling again.”

“Miserable old biddies. They should let the old man get his leg over occasionally.”

“I hate it all,” said Hamish. “I’m telling you, Jimmy, the two biggest motives for murder are sex and money.”

“Maybe she was supplying one and getting the other for services rendered,” suggested Jimmy.

“There’s not that much money in Lochdubh.”

“Come on, man! I bet there’s money hidden under some of the mattresses here. They’re a canny lot. Probably have been saving for years.”

“I chust wish she would go away,” mourned Hamish. “The men know she made a fool of them.”

♦

The following two days were quiet. No sign of the witch, and yet Hamish swore he could almost see a miasma of evil hanging over his beloved village.

Then on the third morning, he received a visit from the milkman, Hughie Cromart. “The milk outside the Beldame woman’s cottage hasn’t been taken in,” he said. “You should get up there and see if anything has happened to her.”

Hamish felt a spasm of black dread. The fear that one of the men in the village would do something to the ‘witch’ that had been lurking around his subconscious now came roaring up into his brain.

“I’ll get up there right away,” he said.

It was a crisp cold morning. There had been a thick frost during the night. The loch lay as still as a sheet of metal under a grey sky. The tops of the two mountains soaring above Lochdubh were covered in snow.

Two buzzards sailed lazily above the cottage as Hamish approached.

He knocked at the door and waited.

No reply.

He tried the handle but the door was locked. He then tried to peer into the two windows at the front of the cottage, but the curtains were drawn.

Hamish wondered what to do. If he broke in and she was all right, she would add the charge of breaking and entering to the one of police harassment. He walked round to the back.

There was one door and one window at the back, but the door was locked and the curtains were tightly drawn across the window.

He studied the lock. It was a simple Yale one. He took out a thin strip of metal and forced the lock.

Hamish switched on the light. He found himself in the room where she kept all her potions, the room he had been in before. He went across the tiny hall and opened the door to the room opposite.

It had been fitted up as a bedroom. He could see that in the dim light filtering through the curtains. There was a figure on the bed. He switched on the light and let out a gasp of dismay.

Catriona was lying naked on the bed. Her throat had been slashed and there were stab wounds on her chest. Blood seemed to have spurted everywhere. He backed out slowly and made his way outside the way he came in.

Hamish phoned police headquarters and stood there, looking down the brae to the village, wondering who the murderer was and praying it wasn’t one of the villagers.

∨ Death of a Witch ∧

3

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others .

– Oscar Wilde

Hamish stood outside the cottage waiting for the police from Strathbane to arrive. A group of villagers had gathered down the brae and stood looking at him in silence. It was unnerving. No one approached him or called out to him asking what was wrong.

As he heard the sirens in the distance, there was a sudden gasp from the crowd. He heard behind him a sinister crackling sound and swung round in alarm. The red glare of flames could be seen at the bedroom window where the dead body lay.

Hamish ran into the cottage. At least the body must be saved for the autopsy. But when he opened the bedroom door, he reeled back before a crackling wall of flame. He ran out again and round the back of the cottage. There was no sign of anyone. He called the fire brigade in Braikie and then ran down to the crowd, crying to them to fetch water. Deaf to his pleas, they turned as one person and began to walk away.

By the time the first police car arrived carrying Blair and Jimmy Anderson, the cottage was a roaring inferno.

“Whit the hell’s going on here?” yelled Blair.

“It’s Catriona Beldame,” said Hamish. “Someone murdered her and then the cottage was set on fire.”

Hamish realised, in that moment, that the murderer had probably been lurking in the cottage and set fire to the place as soon as he had walked outside. What had happened to his usual highland sixth sense? He could have sworn he was alone in the place.

“So,” said Blair, “how do ye know she was murdered?”

“There was a report from the milkman that she hadn’t been taking in her milk. I went in through the back and found her in bed. Her throat had been slashed and there were stab wounds on her body. I went outside and phoned headquarters and waited. Then the cottage began to burn. I tried to at least get the body out of the bedroom for forensic analysis but the fire was too much for me.”

“You stupid loon,” raged Blair. “The murderer must have still been in the house.”

“I saw and heard nobody,” said Hamish, wondering if he looked as stupid as he felt.

“Just you wait, laddie, until the boss hears about this.” Blair chuckled evilly. “You’ll be the first one who’ll be suspected.”

♦

To Hamish’s horror, as the day wore on, a case seemed to be building up against him. There had been a tourist in the bar when Archie had talked about Hamish going to kill the witch, and he had told the police what he had overheard.

But despite Blair’s pleas to Superintendent Daviot to arrest Hamish, he was blocked by the fact that Daviot descended on Lochdubh himself and began to interview the villagers. The milkman swore that he had called at the police station to report that Catriona’s milk was lying outside his door and that he had followed Hamish a little way and was soon joined by other villagers. Hamish had emerged from the cottage after a few minutes and they had seen him phoning. Then the fire had started. Hamish had rushed into the cottage but then had run out calling to the crowd to fetch water.

“Did anyone fetch water?” Daviot asked.

Hughie, the milkman, hung his head and mumbled that they thought it a fitting end for the ‘witch.’