M.C. Beaton: Death of a Gentle Lady

“Not all,” said Ayesha. “Some of us are quite fair.”

“Let me see, Turkey is not in the European Union. I do hope you have a work permit. Silly me. I never asked you.”

Ayesha flushed to the roots of her hair. “I was studying at London University, but my student visa ran out. I needed money, so I worked in a hotel.”

“I can’t have an illegal alien working for me. Wait until after the family party and then you must leave or I will have to report you to the police.”

“Oh, please. Can’t you apply to the Home Office for me?”

“Don’t be silly. Oh, don’t start to cry. Get on with your work.”

♦

Hamish Macbeth was just settling down to a dinner of comfort food – haggis, mashed potatoes, and mashed turnips – when he heard the front doorbell ring. The locals never used the front door, which had jammed with the damp ages ago. He went to the door and shouted through the letter box, “Come round to the side door.”

He went and opened the kitchen door. Round the side of the police station came a tall figure he recognised as Mrs. Gentle’s maid.

When he ushered her into the kitchen, he noticed her eyes were red with crying.

“Sit down,” he said. “What’s the matter, lassie?”

“I have come to be arrested.”

“I’m just about to eat, and there’s enough for two,” said Hamish.

“I can’t eat.”

“Oh, you’ll feel better.” He got another plate and put a generous helping on it for her. “Now eat and tell me about it.”

Ayesha picked at her food as she told him that she was in the country illegally and had lost her job.

“I can’t be bothered arresting anyone at the moment,” said Hamish.

She really was very beautiful, he thought. She was nearly as tall as he was himself, with a splendid figure in hip-hugging jeans, a T-shirt, and a denim jacket. Her hair looked a natural gold, she had high cheekbones and a perfect mouth.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Ayesha Tahir. Turkish.”

“I didn’t know there were blonde Turks.”

“Some are.” She took a mouthful of food. “This is nice. You are not like a policeman.”

“I’m not going to be one much longer, thanks to Mrs. Gentle putting the poison in.”

“The poison?”

“She managed to persuade my bosses that my services were not needed in Lochdubh.”

“Can’t you stop her?”

“I can’t stop anything now. I’m going to resign.”

Hamish clasped his hands behind his head and stared at the ceiling. “Why should I arrest you?” he asked.

“Like I said, Mrs. Gentle has found out that my visa has expired. She says I can stay until after her family party and then I’ve got to leave.”

“Have you got your passport with you?”

“Yes, in my bag.” She fished it out and handed it to him.

Hamish flicked through the passport, studied the visa, and then said, “Would you like to leave this with me? I might be able to do something.”

Hope shone in her blue eyes. “Do you think it possible?”

“Maybe. But you’re not to talk to anyone at all about it. I see you’re twenty-five years old. That’s not young for a student.”

“My father wanted me to marry a local businessman. I stalled. I said I would if I could get an education first. I studied English at Istanbul University. When I got my degree, I applied for permit to further my studies at London University and received three years to gain a PhD. When I got my degree, I applied for a work permit but was refused. I started to work as a maid in a hotel. It was the only work I could get. Then Mrs. Gentle stayed at the hotel. I was cleaning her room. She offered me work. She seemed so kind. It was a great mistake.”

“Finish your meal and come back here as soon as the family party is over. I might have something for you then.”

♦

Peter Brimley, a small wizened man, opened his door in a side street of Inverness the following day and scowled up at the tall figure of Hamish Macbeth.

“Whit now?” he snarled. “I’ve done my time and I’m going straight.”

“I’d like to come in. I’m here to offer you money for some of your skills.”

“This is a frame-up?”

“Don’t be daft. I won’t want to get found out even more than you would. Let me in.”

Hamish walked into Peter’s small living room. There was a large desk by the window with a powerful lamp over it. Peter rushed forward and swept a pile of papers into a drawer.

“Going straight, my arse,” said Hamish cheerfully. “But I am about to join the world of criminals. I want you to forge a passport for me. Well, forge to a passport, chust a visa.”

Peter stared at the floor in mulish silence.

“Come on, man,” said Hamish. “It’s a simple job for a genius like you. I didn’t put you away. Inverness police did that.”

Peter shrugged in resignation. “Let me see the passport.”

Hamish handed it over. Peter went to his desk and sat down. Hamish waited impatiently. At last, he demanded, “Well?”

“Aye. I could alter it to give her another three years. But that’s all.”

“Grand. How soon?”

“Gie me a week. Right. Now to the money.”

Hamish blinked at the price but was in no mood for haggling. “You’ll get your money when I get the altered visa. I’ll be back next week.”

Outside, Hamish phoned Ayesha, who had given him her mobile phone number. He told her he might have something for her in a week’s time but cautioned her not to breathe a word to anyone. “Hasn’t your father been trying to track you down?” he asked.

“I phoned him two years ago and told him I wasn’t coming back. He said I was no daughter of his and he did not want to see me ever again.”

“That’s sad, but it makes things less complicated.”

♦

Hamish felt like Santa Claus a week later when he handed Ayesha her altered passport. “This is wonderful,” she said. “At least I have three more years.”

Then Hamish had a really mad idea. “There is something else we could do,” he said.

“What is that, my dear friend?”

“We could get married.”

“What?”

“That way you would become a British citizen, have a British passport, and get work in a school or a university. Then we get a divorce.”

A cynical, wary look entered her blue eyes. “And what would you get?”

“The fact that I was a married man would make them at headquarters leave me alone for a bit. I happen to know that there are no quarters for married men in Strathbane. I get my police station and you get your passport.”

“What about sex?”

“You know, I’ve been thinking about that,” said Hamish with almost childish candour. “You are gorgeous and yet I don’t fancy you. No vibes.”

“You will be shocked.”

“I’m a policeman. I’m past being shocked.”

“I am a lesbian.”

“What a waste! I mean, everyone to their own bag. But since we’d be getting married just for appearances, it doesn’t matter.”

♦

A week later, Elspeth Grant was sitting at the reporters’ desk at the Daily Bugle newspaper office in Glasgow dreaming of the Highlands. She thought it was high time she went back for a holiday. She wondered how Hamish was getting on and if he ever thought of her.

A colleague came up to her and said, “I’ve got the job of trawling through the local Scottish papers for stories to follow up. Didn’t you know that policeman in Lochdubh, Hamish Macbeth?”

“What’s happened to him?” asked Elspeth anxiously.

“He’s getting married, that’s what, and to some girl with a foreign name.”

“Let me see.”

There it was in black and white in the Highland Times , an announcement that the marriage of Hamish Macbeth to Ayesha Tahir would take place in the registry office in Inverness on Wednesday, in two weeks’ time.