M.C. Beaton: Death of a Bore

“Someone phoned the news desk late last night.”

“Would you mind phoning up and asking the name of whoever it was phoned the story in?”

“I’ve got to be going,” said John, and he pushed his way past Hamish and through the crowd.

While Jessma took out her mobile and phoned, Hamish stood watching the retreat of John Heppel.

When she rang off, she said, “It was an anonymous caller. Then John phoned and said he would be at the shop. As he’s writing a script for one of our shows, we thought we may as well interview him. Me, I think it’s a waste of time. You should have heard the whole speech. You’d think the wee mannie ran the Highlands. It’ll probably end up in the bin.”

Hamish went back to the police station, collected his dog, and drove off in the Land Rover in the direction of Cnothan. He put the light on the roof and turned on the siren as Lugs, his dog, rolled his odd blue eyes at his master. Lugs hated that siren.

Hamish cut off several miles to Cnothan by bumping along a croft track and arrived at John Heppel’s house before the writer.

He got down from the car and waited.

He searched through the rubbish bin at the side of the house and was still searching when John drove up.

“What are you doing?” demanded the writer angrily.

Hamish straightened up. “I was looking for a can of spray paint.”

“I’ll sue you for defamation of character.”

“You do that and I’ll get a warrant to search your house and examine your clothes for paint. I think you sprayed that graffiti to get yourself a bit of publicity.”

“How dare you!”

“I’ve got enough on my plate at the moment without bothering about a silly man like you. Don’t ever do anything like that again.”

“I’m telling you, I’ll sue you!”

“Go ahead,” said Hamish. “I’d enjoy seeing the sort of publicity that would get you. When I arrived at your place last night, your coat was still wet. You’d been out. Any more publicity stunts like that and I’ll have you.”

♦

“I hate that sort of person,” said Hamish to his dog as he drove off. “Now, what do I do, Lugs? Do I tell the villagers? Och, it’s chust a storm in a teacup. He won’t try anything like that again. But I will have a word on the quiet with Mr. Patel.”

Mr. Patel’s eyebrows shot up into his hair when Hamish took him outside his shop and quietly explained his suspicions about the writer.

“Are ye sure?” asked Mr. Patel. “I’ve signed up for one o’ his classes.”

“You want to be a writer?” asked Hamish, momentarily diverted. “What kind of book?”

“I was thinking I might write my life story. You know, how I started off selling stuff out o’ a suitcase round the Hebrides until I had enough to start a shop.” His brown eyes took on a dreamy, unfocussed look. “I’ll call it An Indian’s Life in the Far North of Scotland .”

“Maybe you should try for something snappier.”

“Like what?”

“Cannae think of anything.”

“There you are! That’s why I need to go to a writing class.”

“Anyway,” said Hamish, “I’ve no actual proof he did it, and in order to prove it, I’d need a warrant to search his house and I can’t see me getting it. So we’ll keep this between ourselves.”

“So you’re not sure he did it?”

“Pretty certain. I mean, he turned up with make-up on.”

“Maybe he’s…well, you know…that way inclined.”

“He’s inclined to getting his stupid face on television, that’s all.”

“Hey, Hamish!”

Hamish turned round. Callum McSween, the dustman, stood there. “I found a book inscribed to you in the bin. Here it is.”

“Oh, thanks,” mumbled Hamish. He wanted to say he had put it there deliberately but suddenly wanted to forget all about John Heppel.

He nodded goodbye to both of them. He drove to the police station, got down, and helped Lugs out because the dog’s legs were too short to enable him to jump down from the Land Rover. He looked at the book in his hand.

He glanced along the waterfront. It was now the dinner hour – Lochdubh residents still took dinner in the middle of the day – and the waterfront was deserted.

He hurled the book so hard that it flew straight across the waterfront and over the sea wall.

♦

Hamish was just frying some chops when there was a knock at the kitchen door. The locals never came to the front door. He opened it. In the days when Hamish was a police sergeant, his caller, Clarry Graham, had worked for him – or, rather, had not worked, Clarry finding that his talents lay in being a chef.

To Hamish’s dismay, he was clutching That Book.

“It’s quiet up at the Tommel Castle Hotel at the moment,” said Clarry plaintively. “I was out fishing in the loch when this book fell out o’ the sky and right into my boat. It’s inscribed to you.”

“Thanks,” said Hamish.

“Must’ve been kids,” said Clarry.

“Come in.”

“You don’t want to be reading something like that anyway,” said Clarry. “Full o’ nasty words. I’m telling you, there’s an eff in every line.”

“That’s the fellow who’s going to be giving those writing classes.”

“Oh, I’d signed up for those.”

“You, Clarry? A book? I mean, what about?”

“I’m going to call it From Police Station to Kitchen .”

“Look, Clarry, it iss awry hard to get a book published these days. Particularly a life story. You really have to be some kind o’ celebrity. Besides, this John Heppel seems to write the sort of stuff you wouldn’t want to read.”

“He’s going to tell us about publishers and agents,” said Clarry stubbornly. “I’d like to make a bit o’ money. Just look at what J.K. Rowling earns.”

“Didn’t it dawn on you that J.K. Rowling can write! Clarry, only four and a half per cent of the authors in this world can afford to support themselves. I ‘member reading that.”

Clarry’s round face took on a mulish look, and Hamish suppressed a sigh. Clarry obviously thought he was destined to be one of the four and a half per cent.

When Clarry had left, Hamish began to think uneasily about John’s writing classes. John, he was beginning to feel, was some sort of dangerous foreign body introduced into the highland system.

He decided to attend the first class. It would upset John to see him there, and Hamish looked forward to upsetting John. He flicked open John’s book and began to read. It was one of those pseudo-literary stream-of-consciousness books set in the slums of Glasgow. The ‘grittiness’ was supplied by four-letter words. The anti-hero was a druggie whose favourite occupation seemed to be slashing with a broken bottle anyone in a pub who looked at him the wrong way. The heroine put up with all this with loving kindness. Hamish flicked to the end of the book, where a reformed anti-hero was preaching to the youth of Glasgow. No one could accuse the book of being plot-driven. Hackneyed similes and metaphors clunked their way through the thick volume.

Maybe it was all right, he thought ruefully. Like all Highlanders, he was quick to take offence and loathed being patronised. The inscription still rankled, however.

There was another knock at the door, very faint. Hamish opened it and looked down at Dermott Taggart, the small boy who had thought his father might be responsible for the graffiti.

“Come ben,” said Hamish. Then he cursed. Black smoke was rising from the frying pan. He’d forgotten about the chops.

“Sit down, laddie,” he said over his shoulder. “I’ll just put this mess in the bin. I havenae any soft drinks, but I could make you some tea.”

“I don’t want anything,” said the boy in a whisper.