M.C. Beaton - Death of a Scriptwriter

“I’m glad to see you are taking your parish duties seriously at last,” he said waspishly. He never believed in praising anyone. It caused vanity.

♦

A few weeks after the murder, Hamish Macbeth suddenly decided to call on Patricia. He put on the suit she had admired, Savile Row, bought from a thrift shop in Strathbane, and drove over to Cnothan and up to Patricia’s cottage.

A light was shining in her living room, and as he approached the low door of her cottage, he could hear the busy clatter of the typewriter.

He knocked on the door and waited. At last, Patricia opened the door.

“Yes?” she demanded.

“Just a social call,” said Hamish.

“Come in, but not for long. I am writing.” She led him into the living room and sat down again behind the typewriter and looked at him enquiringly.

“I wondered how you were getting on,” said Hamish.

“Fine,” retorted Patricia, her fingers hovering impatiently over the keys.

“I gather from Major Neal that they’re getting another scriptwriter and going ahead with the series.”

“It is no longer of any interest to me,” said Patricia. “As you see, I am writing again, and that is more important than anything.”

Hamish leaned back in his chair and surveyed her. “And yet you got a good bit of publicity out of the murder. I saw you interviewed on television several times.”

“I thought I came over very well,” said Patricia complacently.

Hamish privately thought Patricia had come over as cold and snobbish and patronising.

“So what are you writing?” he asked.

“I don’t want to talk about it until it’s finished. I feel it’s bad luck to talk about it.”

“Good luck to you anyway.”

“Thank you. Is there anything else?”

“No, no, just came for a chat.”

“Most kind of you, but I would really like to get on.”

Hamish left, feeling snubbed. He wondered why he had ever felt sorry for Patricia. The woman was as hard as nails!

♦

Six scriptwriters were seated around the conference table at Strathclyde Television. The main scriptwriter was an Englishman, David Devery, thin, caustic and clever. Harry Frame did not like him but had to admit that he had put a lot of wit and humour into Jamie’s scripts. The part of Lady Harriet had come to life. The commune had been written out. But Lady Harriet was to remain blond and voluptuous Penelope Gates, and she still seduced the chief inspector.

“We need to get all this rehearsed and get back up there as quickly as possible,” said Harry.

Sheila, filling cups over by the coffee machine, looked over her shoulder at Fiona. Fiona’s normally hard-bitten face looked radiant. It was all going her way now, thought Sheila. With Jamie out of the way, the atmosphere of purpose and ambition had done wonders for Fiona.

And Jamie was more than dead. He was disgraced. Because of the publicity engendered by the murder, two people from Jamie’s scriptwriting class had surfaced to say that Stuart had shown them that script of Football Fever and said he was going to give it to Jamie, that Jamie had cruelly trashed it, and Stuart had felt so low about it, he had said he would never write again.

Sheila found she was looking forward to going back to the Highlands. A picture of Hamish Macbeth rose in her mind. She wondered what he had really thought about Jamie’s murder. Penelope Gates, who had not seemed to mourn her husband one bit, had nonetheless told Sheila that she was puzzled by the murder. Josh, said Penelope, might have beaten her up, but murder Jamie? Never!

If Hamish were in a book like one of Patricia’s, she thought dreamily, he would prove that Fiona had done it to keep her job. But Hamish was only the village bobby, and –

“What about that coffee, girl?” demanded Harry.

Sheila sighed. Harry called himself a feminist but never seemed to practice what he preached.

She put cups on a tray and carried them to the table. Her mind wandered back to the murder. BBC Scotland had agreed to pay royalties for Football Fever to Stuart’s estate, which meant that Angus Harris had come into quite a bit of money. He had even sold several of Stuart’s manuscripts to a publisher.

How neat it would be if Angus had done the murder. But no one had really been asked to produce an alibi. Josh had done it. Case closed.

∨ Death of a Scriptwriter ∧

5

It almost makes me cry to tell

What foolish Harriet befell .

—Heinnch Hoffman

Eileen Jessop watched the return of the television film crew with heavy eyes. Who would be interested in her amateur efforts now? It had all been going so well. The women had liked the Scottish comedy she had written so many years ago. She had felt important and popular for the first time in ages.

She wearily trudged down to the general store. Ailsa once more had her sixties hairstyle, and from the community hall came the thump, thump, thump of the music from Edie’s exercise class.

“It’s yourself, Eileen,” Ailsa hailed her. “Going to get a part in the movies?”

Eileen shook her head.

“Och, you’ll be following the camera crew around, getting tips.”

“I don’t suppose any of the women will be interested in my little amateur venture anymore,” said Eileen sadly.

“Don’t say that! It’s the best fun we’ve had in ages. I bet we could knock spots off this lot.”

Eileen blinked myopically. “You mean you all want to go on?”

“Sure.” Ailsa leaned her freckled arms on the counter. “See here, we always do our filming in the evening, and that’s when this lot pack up. Of course we’ll go on.”

Eileen gave her a blinding smile. “That’s wonderful. Mr. Jessop doesn’t mind the rehearsals and the filming at all.”

“Neither he should,” said Ailsa with a grin. “We don’t film on the Sabbath and there aren’t any nude women in it.”

“I hope they all keep their clothes on in this television thing,” said Eileen anxiously. “Mr. Jessop’s blood pressure is quite high.”

“Do you always call him Mr. Jessop? Sounds like one o’ thae Victorian novels.”

“I mean Colin. He likes me to call him Mr. Jessop when talking about him.”

“Funny. But that’s men for you.”

♦

After the filming of The Case of the Rising Tides got well under way, Sheila Burford found herself increasingly reluctant to return to the Tommel Castle Hotel in the evenings with the rest of them to talk endless shop. She was becoming more and more disenchanted with the television world and was beginning to wonder if she had gotten into it because it made her mother so proud of her and all her friends seemed to think she had an exciting job. Sometimes she felt like some sort of maid, fetching and carrying and serving drinks and coffee.

After the first week, she drove to the police station.

“There’s that blonde calling on Hamish Macbeth,” said Jessie Currie to her sister, Nessie. “He can’t keep his hands off them.”

Sheila, all too aware of two pairs of eyes scrutinising her from behind thick glasses, knocked at the kitchen door of the police station.

“Come in,” said Hamish Macbeth cheerfully. “Nothing wrong, is there?”

“No, I just got bored with television chatter.”

She followed him into the kitchen.

“Filming going all right?” asked Hamish.

“Oh, like clockwork, good script, everyone pulling together. It’s as if Jamie had never existed.”

Hamish put a battered old kettle on top of the wood-burning stove. “It’s a warm evening,” said Sheila, who was wearing a T·shirt with the Strathclyde Television logo and a pair of cut-off jeans and large boots. “Do you always have that burning?”