M.C. Beaton: Death of a Gentle Lady

♦

Hamish recovered consciousness. He found he was lying staring up at a dirty ceiling. He cautiously raised his head and then fell back with a groan. He slowly turned his head to find out where he was.

It was a bare room with a bucket in one corner. From the size of the room, he gathered that it had probably been the ‘best’ room in some croft house. A dining hatch was against one wall, perhaps installed there in the house’s better days.

He felt his head. There was a large lump on top of it but the skin did not seem to be broken. He squinted at the luminous dial of his watch. He estimated he had only been unconscious for ten minutes or so, but that had been enough to drag him in here.

He was wearing only his underwear. Someone had moved quickly. And what was the reason for it?

For the next few hours he rested, occasionally trying to get up and at last feeling strong enough to make the effort. As soon as he could stand, he stumbled across to the bucket and was violently sick. Then he relieved himself and went slowly back to the bed and lay down.

He heard bolts being drawn back, and then, pretending to be asleep and looking under his eyelashes, he saw a tray being pushed through the hatch. The hatch went down. He heard bolts being rammed back into place.

Hamish got slowly up again and went over and examined the tray. It contained a pot of tea, milk and sugar, and two large ham sandwiches.

He gratefully drank the tea but still felt too nauseated to eat anything. He examined the room’s tiny window, looking for a way to escape, but it was sealed shut.

He still felt dizzy and sick. He decided to sleep the night and see what he could do about escaping in the morning.

♦

Hamish awoke at seven in the morning. He heard a car arriving, a car door slam, and then the front door of the cottage being unlocked.

Sounds of plates and pans in the kitchen and the sounds of cooking. He put his plate with the uneaten sandwiches on the ledge in front of the hatch. If his captor planned to give him breakfast, then he could grab whoever it was through the hatch. But he didn’t know how many people were responsible for his kidnapping. Better to wait and see if they or he or she left the cottage and then try to escape.

Again the double doors of the hatch opened. He could see a head covered in a black balaclava. His old tray disappeared, and another was pushed through.

He found he was hungry. There were two bacon baps and a pot of tea. He ate and drank and waited.

The room was cold, so he wrapped himself in the filthy blankets from the bed.

He waited and waited while the late winter sun rose and shone in through the window. Then he heard the front door slam and a little after, the sound of a car driving off.

He walked over and examined the double doors of the hatch. He needed something to force those doors and break the bolts.

Hamish looked down at the tray. It was made of heavy metal, the kind used in hotels and restaurants.

He carefully removed everything off it. He went over to the hatch and rammed the tray at the doors. They gave slightly. He went on using the heavy tray as a battering ram, time after time, pausing only to rest because he still felt weak.

Finally frightened and furious, he struck at the hatch doors with all his might. They crashed open.

Panting, he waited a moment. Then, glad he was slim, he heaved himself through the open space and tumbled onto the floor on the other side.

It was the same bare room he had seen when he had arrived, but it had been augmented by a camping stove and a small television set.

The front door was, of course, locked. He wondered if the woman had been working alone and if she had put his clothes anywhere. He went into a small bedroom. There was an old wardrobe and an unmade bed. He opened the wardrobe and saw his uniform and boots lying at the bottom. He hurriedly dressed, listening all the while for the car returning. His belt with his police radio and all his other equipment was there. He strapped it on. In his pocket, he found his mobile phone and called Jimmy.

Quickly, he told Jimmy where he was.

“Found Macbeth!” Jimmy shouted to the detectives’ room. “Come on, Andy, and get a couple of coppers. We’d better get to him fast.”

Blair sat as if turned to stone. Then he suddenly seemed to recover from his shock. He rushed outside to the car park, got into his car, and phoned Ruby.

“You let the bastard get away,” howled Blair. “Don’t go back there. Did you use gloves?”

“The whole time,” wailed Ruby. “What’ll I do?”

“Just go home. I’ll call on you later.”

♦

Hamish heard the welcome sound of sirens. Then he heard the battering ram striking the front door; after a few blows, it crashed open.

“Are you all right?” asked Jimmy.

“I was knocked unconscious. I’m a wee bit shaky.”

“We’ll take you to the hospital. I’ll get this place dusted for prints. Any idea who the hell is behind this?”

“Not a clue,” said Hamish. “It was a woman who answered the door to me. I couldn’t get a good look at her.”

“Don’t worry. We’ll find her.”

“I think you should get the other police cars away somewhere and come back on foot,” said Hamish. “If we wait here, we’ll catch her – or them.”

♦

The owner of the cottage was tracked down. He said a woman had paid him cash for a three-month rent and had left a month’s deposit. He had rented it cheap because the place was in such a mess; he’d planned to get the house demolished and then sell the ground as a building plot.

Asked where the contract was, he said the woman had told him they needn’t bother, and he was too glad of the money to insist.

♦

Blair sweated it out, terrified all the time that the search would lead to Ruby. They had footprints but no fingerprints, and footprints weren’t on file.

He wasn’t too nervous about them finding any DNA, because the forensic lab was one of the most inefficient in Scotland. They were backed up with requests for DNA anyway, and most of the results were taking over a year to arrive.

♦

Hamish and Jimmy waited all that day and far into the night, but no one came. “Maybe whoever it is passed the police cars on the road and decided not to go back,” said Jimmy.

He drove Hamish back to the hospital in Strathbane. Hamish was examined and given painkillers. “We’ll need to take that Land Rover of yours away and give it to forensic,” said Jimmy as they left the hospital.

“What’ll I do for transport?”

“I’ll try to get someone over with an unmarked police car. Who on earth do you think was behind this? Someone associated with Cyril?”

“No, if it had been someone associated with Cyril, I feel I might be dead now. It was all very amateur. I feel in my bones that the woman was the only one in the cottage.”

♦

Blair was beginning to feel very uneasy. Daviot was raging about a police officer being kidnapped. The forensic team had been sent back to the cottage to go over it again.

In the evening, he made his way to Ruby’s flat by a circuitous route. “This is a mess!” shrieked Ruby. “It was on the telly. If they get me, they’ll lock me up and throw away the key. If they get me I’ll have tae say it was you.”

“It won’t come to that,” said Blair soothingly. “I want you to write something and then it’ll be all over.”

♦

Daviot called Blair into his office the following day. “There’s been a development,” he said. “This letter, addressed to me, was handed in by a small boy. He said a woman gave him a pound to deliver it. Unfortunately, his description of her could apply to every woman in Strathbane.”

Blair read the letter out loud, just as if he did not already know every word of it.