M.C. Beaton: Death of a Poison Pen

Hamish was mildly annoyed to see Elspeth in the front row accompanied by Pat Mallone, the new reporter. It only took one reporter to cover this. Did she have to go everywhere with him? He was whispering in her ear and she was giggling like a schoolgirl.

“This is a serious matter,” he went on, raising his voice. “And should be taken seriously by our local press as well.” Elspeth looked up and composed her features and made several squiggles in her notebook. “The accusations in these letters so far are silly and untrue, but if by any chance this poison-pen letter writer should hit on the truth about someone, maybe by accident, then at the least it could cause misery and at the worst, death. Now sign that petition. It is your civic duty.”

The audience rose to their feet. Aware of Hamish, still standing on the stage watching them, one by one they all signed the petition as they filed out.

When the hall was empty, Hamish leapt down from the stage and collected the petition. He would take it down to Strathbane in the morning and see if it prompted them to give him a handwriting expert.

♦

Jenny Ogilvie was dropped outside Sea View. She hefted her suitcases up to the door, rang the bell, and waited. The village was very quiet and great stars blazed in the sky above. A chill wind was blowing off the loch. She shivered and rang the bell again. At last she heard footsteps approaching the door from the other side. “Who is it?” called a voice.

“It’s me. Jenny Ogilvie from London.”

The grumbles coming from the other side of the door reminded Jenny of the cartoon dog Muttley. Then the door opened. “What time of night d’ye call this?” demanded Mrs. Dunne.

“I have come all the way from London,” said Jenny coldly. “And if this is the sort of welcome you give visitors, perhaps I would be better off at the hotel.”

In the light streaming out from the door, Jenny had seemed to Mrs. Dunne like a small girl. But the cold authority in Jenny’s voice made her say hurriedly, “Come in, lassie. You must forgive me. We aye keep early hours. I’ll show you to your room. I only serve the bed and breakfast, mind, but if you’re hungry, I’ve got some food I can give you.”

“Just a sandwich and some coffee would be fine,” said Jenny.

“Right. Pick up your suitcases and follow me.”

This was obviously a world where no one carried anyone’s luggage, thought Jenny as she struggled up the wooden staircase after Mrs. Dunne.

Mrs. Dunne opened the door. “This is your room. I’ve given you the best one, it being quiet this time of year.”

Jenny looked dismally round, wondering, if this was the best room, what on earth the others were like. A forty-watt bulb burned in a pink and white glass shade. There was a narrow bed under a slippery quilt against one wall. A closet covered by a curtain, which Mrs. Dunne pulled back with a magician’s proud flourish, was where she would hang her clothes. A wash-hand basin of Victorian vintage with a pink glass mirror above it was over in one far corner, and in the other stood a desk and a hard upright chair. In front of the fireplace, filled with orange crepe paper in the shape of a fan, stood a one-bar heater. The floor was covered in shiny green linoleum, on which were two islands of round rugs.

“You put fifty pee in the meter to start the fire,” said Mrs. Dunne. “Breakfast is from seven o’clock until nine o’clock, no later. I’ll expect you to be out of your room by ten because I have to clean it and I don’t want guests underfoot. You can sit in the lounge downstairs if it’s a wet day. We have the telly – colour, it is. Now I’ll show you the bathroom.”

Jenny followed her along the corridor outside to a room at the end of it. The bathroom held an enormous Victorian bath. Above it was a cylindrical gas heater. “When you want a bath, put fifty pee in the meter above the door, turn this lever to the right, and light the geyser.”

“Do you mean I don’t have my own bathroom?” asked Jenny.

“No, but there’s only the two forestry workers and they’re out early and don’t use the bath much.”

Jenny repressed a shudder. “What about laundry?”

“What about it? Can’t you be doing your smalls in the hand basin?”

“No, I would prefer to do them in a washing machine with a tumble dryer.”

Mrs. Dunne sighed. “Well, you can use the one in the kitchen downstairs, but only if I don’t need it. There’s no tumble dryer but you’ll find a clothesline in the back garden. Go and unpack and come downstairs and have something to eat.”

Jenny returned to her room. She felt thoroughly tired and depressed. She hoped this policeman would prove to be worth all this suffering. She opened one suitcase and unpacked a diaphanous nightgown and a silk dressing gown and laid them on the bed. Then she began to hang away some clothes and put underwear in the drawers.

When she heard Mrs. Dunne calling her, she went reluctantly downstairs. “I’ve put your food on a tray in the lounge,” said Mrs. Dunne. “When you’re finished, put the tray in the kitchen – it’s at the back of the hall – and don’t forget to switch out all the lights. Good night.”

“Good night,” echoed Jenny. She went into the lounge. It was an uncomfortable-looking room with an acid three–piece suite which seemed to swear at the orange and sulphurous-yellow carpet. Above the cold fireplace some amateur had tried to copy the Stag at Bay and failed miserably. The television was operated by a coin box. A tray on the coffee table held a plate of ham sandwiches, two fairy cakes, and a pot of tea. The ham sandwiches turned out to be delicious and the tea was hot and fragrant. Slightly cheered, Jenny finished her supper and carried the tray through to the kitchen. Then, carefully switching out all the lights behind her, she made her way up to her room.

It was very cold. London had been enjoying an Indian summer. She had not expected it to be so cold. She scrabbled in her purse looking for a fifty-pee piece but could not find one. She washed her face and hands, deciding to put off a bath until the following day. Shivering in her flimsy nightgown, she crawled into bed. There were two hot-water bottles in the bed and the sheets smelled faintly of pine soap. The bed was amazingly soft and comfortable. Jenny, normally a restless sleeper, plunged down into a deep and dreamless sleep.

♦

Hamish drove towards Strathbane the following morning with Lugs beside him on the passenger seat of the police Land Rover and with the petition in a briefcase in the back. It was a beautiful clear day. Not even a single cloud wreathed the soaring mountain tops. A heron flew across the road in front of him, slow and graceful. The air was heavy with the smells of pine, wood smoke, and wild thyme.

But his heart sank as the Land Rover crested a rise on the road and he saw Strathbane lying below him – the City of Dreadful Night. It had originally been a thriving fishing port, but European Union regulations and a decline in fishing stocks had put the fishermen out of business. Stalinist tower blocks reared up to the sky, monuments to failure and bad architecture.

He was lucky it was a Sunday. The bane of his life, Detective Chief Inspector Blair, hardly ever worked on Sunday. Hamish knew Blair would block any proposal of his out of sheer spite. He was even luckier to meet Chief Superintendent Peter Daviot in the reception area.

“What brings you, Hamish?” asked Daviot.

It was a good sign that he had used Hamish’s first name. Hamish held out the petition and explianed his need for the services of a handwriting expert.

“We have an overstretched budget,” said Daviot. “Don’t you think it’ll just blow over?”

“No, I don’t,” said Hamish.