M.C. Beaton: Death of a Gentle Lady

“I saw her,” said Mr. Johnson. “She was stunning. I can’t blame you for being swept off your feet.”

“It seems that all she wanted was British nationality.”

“So that’s why you don’t seem to be grieving.”

Hamish finished his coffee. “I’d better start with the guests.”

“The trouble is,” said the manager, “a lot of them have left. The press are apt to get very drunk and noisy. There are a couple of hotels up Braikie way, as you know, and plenty of bed-and-breakfasts, but the press always want to choose the most expensive hotel.”

“Any of them seem suspicious? I mean, the guests?”

“No, all very quiet and respectable. Mostly fishing types. We’ve got a writer. Harold Jury. Quite well known. His last book, Depths of Darkness , was nominated for the Booker Prize.”

“I’d like to start with him. Writers are supposed to observe life more than ordinary people.”

“Maybe. But this one’s head is so far up his own arse, he could clean his teeth from the inside.”

“I’ll try him anyway. Where is he at the moment?”

“He’s probably in the lounge. He sits there with his laptop, showing off.”

♦

Hamish strolled into the lounge. A man sat staring at a laptop. On a small table beside him was a pile of books.

“Mr. Jury?”

Harold Jury held up one hand for silence and continued to type. “I’ll sign a copy of my book for you in a minute,” he said. He was tall and pale-faced, probably in his late fifties, and wearing a grey shirt with grey trousers. He had thick brown hair and small brown eyes.

“This is police business,” said Hamish loudly, “so switch off your computer and pay attention.”

Harold glared at him but did as he was told. He looked up angrily at the tall policeman with the hazel eyes and flaming red hair.

Hamish pulled up a chair and sat facing him. “I am investigating two murders,” he began.

“What on earth has that got to do with me?” asked Harold.

Hamish noticed that he did not ask which murders – and the murder of Irena had not yet reached the newspapers. Of course, the press in the hotel might have got wind of it already and told him.

“Were you in the village yesterday morning around eleven o’clock?”

“Yes, I took a walk. I bought some postcards.”

“Did you see anyone in the phone box?”

“I don’t even remember seeing a phone box.”

“What brought you up to the Highlands?”

“I am writing a novel about the forgotten primitive people of the British Isles.”

“And do the forgotten primitive people usually run five-star hotels?”

“I must confess I am disappointed. But I shall walk out onto the moors and speak to crofters.”

“I’m sure they’ll give you a right primitive welcome,” said Hamish. “Part of the highland greeting is to strike the visitor several times with a branch before inviting him inside. Then he must swallow a small bowl of rock salt and eat a piece of dried bread.”

“I don’t know if I could cope with that.”

“Try,” urged Hamish. “In fact, you don’t need to go up on the moors. Why not try the village? There’s a fisherman, Archie Maclean, has the wee cottage down by the harbour. I’ll tell him you’re coming.”

“That’s kind of you. I suppose a writer must suffer for his art.”

♦

Hamish decided he was wasting his time at the hotel. Surely the villagers were the best bet. He called on Archie Maclean first. “I cannae ask you in, Hamish,” said Archie. “The wife’s down in Inverness visiting her sister. She’ll check when I get back to make sure I havenae dirtied anything.”

“I won’t bother you,” said Hamish. “But I want you to do something for me. It’s a bit of a joke…”

♦

When Hamish had finished preparing Harold Jury’s highland welcome, he realised he would have to visit the Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, Lochdubh’s spinster twins. They noticed everything that happened in the village.

He could only hope that they had not yet learned of Irena’s profession.

∨ Death of a Gentle Lady ∧

4

Oh, what a tangled web we weave ,

When first we practise to deceive!

—Sir Walter Scott

Hamish parked on the waterfront and walked towards the Currie sisters’ cottage. Anxious to delay going in, he stood with his back to the loch and surveyed his home village, sharply aware, not for the first time, how much he loved the place.

It was dark, and lights shone from the windows of the small whitewashed cottages. You could tell the time of day by the smells in Lochdubh, thought Hamish. Morning was redolent with bacon and eggs and strong tea, intermingling with the scent of peat smoke from newly lit fires. Then, no such thing as lunch in Lochdubh. Dinner was in the middle of the day. Complex smells of soup, beef stew, roast lamb, and again strong tea – tea with everything, and it must be nearly black in colour. High tea was at six o’clock. No one wanted newfangled oven chips. Chips must be fried in cholesterol-building lard. High tea brought the smell of kippers or sliced ham along with the sugary smell of cakes, because no high tea was properly served unless there were plain cakes and iced cakes. Supper was cocoa-and-toasted-jam-sandwiches time.

Hamish sniffed the chocolate-scented air. Suppertime already. Nine o’clock. With a sigh he approached the Curries’ cottage. The door opened just as he reached it.

“We saw you hanging about across the road,” said Nessie. “Wasting police time, that’s what you were doing.”

“I need to ask you some questions,” said Hamish.

“Come ben.” Hamish followed her into the small front parlour. Jessie Currie was watching television. “You interrupted this programme, this programme,” said Jessie, who always repeated the last words of her sentences.

“It’s fair amazing the way you can keep one eye on the telly and keek out o’ the window with the other,” said Hamish.

“Oh, sit down and get on with it,” said Nessie. “Well, my lad, you had a lucky escape. A prostitute! We could hardly believe our ears.”

“Believe our ears,” echoed her sister, her eyes glued to a fornicating hippo on a wildlife programme.

Hamish sighed. They complained of leaks at Number 10; they complained of leaks at the White House. But those were nothing compared with the Highlands of Scotland, which leaked information day in and day out like a sieve.

“You ken Mrs. Cullie, her what lives up the brae?”

“Aye.”

“Her niece is a nurse at Strathbane hospital and she heard that fat detective, Blair, laughing fit to burst a gut. She asked him what the matter was and when he could finish laughing he said he’d just received a phone call and learned you were about to wed a hooker.”

For once Jessie was too engrossed in the programme on television to echo her sister’s comments. A wildebeest was being savaged by a pack of hyenas. Probably the producers of the programme orchestrated the kill, thought Hamish cynically.

“Forget about that,” said Hamish crossly. “Now, yesterday morning, someone made a call from that phone box on the waterfront, around eleven o’clock. Did you see anyone?”

“Let me think. Oh, turn the sound down, Jessie. Aye, I mind I was coming out o’ Patel’s. He’d just got in some nice ham. I like a slice of ham at teatime. I’d got that and a can of Russian salad. What else? Oh, I know, another packet of beef lard. You can’t make proper chips with oil. And – ”

“For heffen’s sakes!” howled Hamish. “Forget the shopping list and chust be telling me who you saw.”

“No need to shout, laddie. It was a woman, quite tall, wearing a headscarf, but she had brown hair, I could see that, and dark glasses. She was wearing a tweed jacket and shooting breeches, lovat socks and brogues on her feet. The headscarf was a red-and-gold pattern.”