M.C. Beaton - Death of a Bore

“I’ll get you,” said Hamish, rising to his feet. “And it won’t take me long.”

♦

Elspeth paced up and down in her hotel room. She was bored and restless. Matthew was somewhere with Freda. They should leave in the morning, but the blizzard was so bad that she doubted they would even get out of the car park.

Now that she was supposed to be returning to Glasgow, she wished she could stay in Lochdubh and pick up her old job.

In Glasgow she was just one of many reporters. When she had been working for the Highland Times , she had been pretty much her own boss. She realised with a shock that she missed the flower shows, the game fairs, and the Highland Games.

There was a knock at the door. Matthew at last, thought Elspeth. He should start to pack just in case the snow stops and the snowploughs can let us get on the road.

“Coming,” she shouted.

She went and unlocked the door. Paul Gibson stood there, his eyes blazing, holding a gun on her.

“Back into the room,” he said. He shut the door behind him. “Sit down by the phone.”

Elspeth sat down at the desk.

“Now listen to me carefully. Your boyfriend, Hamish Macbeth, is going to file a report saying he thinks I am the murderer. You will phone him now and tell him to drop it or I will shoot you. You will tell him if he tells the police and I see one policeman outside, I will shoot you. Do it now!”

Elspeth phoned the police station. When Hamish answered, she said, “Hamish, it’s me, Elspeth. Paul Gibson’s got a gun and he’s threatening to shoot me if you send anything about him to Strathbane. He says he’ll also shoot me if he sees one policeman outside the hotel.”

“Sit tight,” said Hamish urgently. “Don’t do anything to alarm him. Keep him talking.”

Elspeth rang off. “You can’t keep me here indefinitely,” she said, amazed her voice was steady. “To use a well-worn phrase, you won’t get away with this.”

“Oh, I will. You see, the Lone Ranger will come looking for you. I’ll shoot both of you and make it look like a lovers’ quarrel.”

Elspeth opened her mouth to tell him he was mad but shut it again. He had gone over the edge. Keep him talking.

“You knew Joha Heppel before, didn’t you?” she asked.

“I wrote to him once. I wanted to dramatise his book. I didn’t think much of it, but I thought there was enough there to make a dark drama. I wrote a lot of flattering guff I didn’t mean. That’s how he remembered me, and he asked Harry Tarrant if I could direct.”

“But why kill him? You could simply have gone to Tarrant and pointed out that the script was unworkable.”

“God, I tried. The silly bugger said, “You don’t know literature when you see it. If you can’t work with it, I’ll find a producer-director who can.” It was my big chance. Everyone in Scotland watches Down in the Glen . It was scheduled to be shown in England next year. No one was going to get in my way.”

Hamish, what on earth can you do? wondered Elspeth miserably.

♦

Hamish approached the back of the Tommel Castle Hotel on his snowshoes. He let himself in at the kitchen entrance, unstrapped the snowshoes, and propped them against the wall. Clarry, the chef, was enjoying a quiet glass of sherry and stared in surprise at Hamish.

“Clarry,” said Hamish urgently, “there’s a man with a gun in Elspeth’s room. Get the manager in here.”

Clarry hurried off and came back shortly with Mr. Johnson. “What’s this about a gunman?” asked the manager.

Hamish told him. “I need to get into Elspeth’s room. This castle is full of back passages and things. Any way I can get in there?”

The manager shook his head. “You’ll need to get a squad up from Strathbane.”

“Can’t do that. It’s Paul Gibson. If he sees so much as a uniform, he’ll shoot her. He’s got nothing to lose now. He’s been fired.”

♦

Upstairs, Elspeth fumbled in her handbag, which was on the desk.

“What are you doing?” demanded Paul.

“Looking for a cigarette.”

“Leave it.”

“Okay.”

But Elspeth had managed to switch on the small tape recorder she carried in her bag, and she left the bag wide open.

“Why mothballs?” she asked. “What put that idea in your head?”

“Because he was like a sodding great moth, batting against my light whenever I tried to do anything. I’d distilled a solution and held the gun on him till he drank it. Then when he was dying, I got into his computer and wiped out that rotten script. No one was going to complain about my script. They’d all had enough of John except Miss Mimsy, Alice Patty, burbling on about what a genius her dear John was.”

“So you had to kill her as well?”

“She phoned me up in tears and said that she was sure I had killed John, that John had told her I had threatened his life. I told her to sit tight and I would come round and explain everything. I told her I had proof that Patricia Wheeler had done it. She loved hearing that because she was still jealous of Patricia. I drugged a bottle of wine and took it round.”

I’m going to die, thought Elspeth miserably. I don’t think Hamish can get me out of this.

♦

“We could take a tray up and say, “Room service,” and put some drugged drink on the tray,” suggested Clarry.

“He’d just make her say to leave it outside the door,” said Hamish.

“I could say she had to sign for it, and when she opens the door, we could rush him.”

“He’d shoot her in the back. He’s deranged.”

“So how do we smoke him out?” asked Mr. Johnson.

Hamish stared at him and then said, “That’s it! You start the fire alarm, get whoever it is who has the keys to the television vans in the forecourt, and usher everyone into them so they don’t freeze to death. Clarry, we need something that makes really black smoke and those old–fashioned bellows from the lounge fire.”

♦

Paul had fallen silent, although the gun in his hand never wavered. At last he said, “Where’s that boyfriend of yours?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” said Elspeth wearily. “Didn’t it cross your mind he might not bother, that he might just be waiting for reinforcements from Strathbane?”

“Then you’re dead.”

Paul jumped as the fire alarm sounded through the hotel. Elspeth half rose. “Stay where you are,” he shouted.

They began to hear people running along the corridor. Faintly she could hear someone shouting, “Fire!”

There came a pounding at the door and then Matthew’s voice. “Elspeth, are you in there? The hotel’s on fire.”

Then Freda’s voice. “Come on, Matthew. She’s probably downstairs.” Then the sound of retreating footsteps.

“It’s not on fire,” said Paul. “It’s that copper thinking he can trick me into coming out.”

Keeping the gun trained on Elspeth, Paul went to the window and twitched aside the curtain. Down below, he could see figures hurrying through the blizzard and into the mobile units. Some were turning and pointing up at the building.

“It must be a trick,” he said.

“I don’t think so,” said Elspeth. “Look!”

She pointed at the door.

Acrid black smoke was beginning to seep under it. “We’ve got to get out of here,” shouted Elspeth. “The place really is on fire.”

“Stay where you are! No, open the window.”

Elspeth tried. “I can’t. It’s sealed shut.”

“Get to the door and unlock it.” Elspeth did as she was told. “Now stand back. I’m going to take a look. One move from you and I’ll kill you. You’ll see it’s a trick.”

Paul looked round into the corridor. It was filled with black smoke, and to his horror, he saw red flames leaping up at the end.