M.C. Beaton - Death of a Scriptwriter

“White Metro, no. That stew smells rare, Hamish.”

“Bide your time, Scan. It won’t even be thawed out yet. What do you mean, ‘white Metro, no’?”

“Chust that. I couldnae be sure, mind. I wass between here and Drim and…Here, you’re not trying to pin the murder on me!”

“No, no, Scan,” said Hamish soothingly. “What did you see?”

“It wass misty, all swirling about, coming and going. The car wass going that slowly, I had to step out o’ the road. Herself had the dark glasses on and I ‘member thinking, how could she see on a misty day in those things, and she had a headscarf on, dark blue.”

“So how could you tell it was her?”

“I thought when I first saw her she looked like a witch. It wass herself all right.”

“But the car. She wasn’t driving a white Metro?”

“I’m no good at cars, Hamish. It wass small and black.”

“But you are really sure it was her?”

“Aye.”

“And it was between here and Drim. What time of day?”

“I’d been sleeping in the heather and had not long got up. It must haff been about six in the morning.”

Hamish stared at him for a long moment. “Wait here, Scan,” he said. “I’ve got something to do.”

He went through to the bedroom and picked up the spilled pages of manuscript and began searching through them feverishly until he had found what he wanted. Then he went through to the police office and phoned Jimmy Anderson.

“I think I might be on to something, Jimmy,” he said.

“Hurry up, man. Thon Martyn-Broyd woman’s got her memory back and is about to be discharged and we’re all going up there with Lovelace to grovel and apologise.”

“Is there a car firm in Strathbane where you can rent a car, a place that would be open all night?”

“In Strathbane? Man, everything closes down as tight as a drum at six o’clock in the evening.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s it about?”

“Phone me later and I’ll let you know.”

Hamish had to fret and wait until he had fed the tramp and given him a few pounds. Then he took a statement from him and told him there would be more food and money for him if he reported to the police station the following day.

Then he set out for Cnothan.

♦

Sheila Burford’s mobile phone rang. The actors stopped acting, the camera stopped rolling and Harry Frame shouted, “I told everyone to switch their phones off.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sheila, taking the ringing mobile phone out of her bag. “I’m expecting an important call.”

“You’re fired,” shouted Harry, but Sheila was already walking away, the phone to her ear.

Fiona King, watching Sheila, saw the sudden look of radiant joy on the girl’s face as she tucked the phone back into her bag.

Sheila hurried away from the filming and towards the manse.

The minister answered the door and reluctantly let her in, damning her as another of those friends who had so altered his hitherto submissive wife’s personality for the worst.

“What is it, Sheila?” asked Eileen, who was rolling pastry in the kitchen.

The minister went into his study and slammed the door. “Come outside a moment,” whispered Sheila. “Great news.”

Eileen went out to the garden with her.

Sheila swung round to face her. “We’re a success! Scottish Television want us both in Glasgow as soon as possible. They’re buying your film!”

“Oh, my,” said Eileen, dazed. “Do I have to tell Colin? He’ll start ranting and raging again. I thought I had something on him, I thought he was having an affair with a woman down in Inverness, but he says he was comforting a poor widow, and it’s all in my dirty mind, and he’s suddenly stopped going away on trips.”

“Is he out today?”

“Yes, he’s got to go to Lochdubh to see Mr. Wellington, the minister over there, about something.”

“What time?”

“About two o’clock.”

“I’ve got to pack up, and so have you. I’ll call round for you. You can leave him a note.”

“I’ll do it,” said Eileen. “I was going to leave him anyway.”

Ailsa Kennedy came up the garden towards them. “Not a word,” hissed Sheila. “I don’t want anyone to know until the contract’s signed.”

Sheila ran off. “What was all that about?” asked Ailsa.

“Oh, nothing much,” said Eileen, feeling disloyal, but desperately improvising. “She just wanted to know if I would be in a crowd scene.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said Colin wouldn’t approve.”

Ailsa snorted. “He can’t say anything about anything after the way he’s been going on.”

“That’s just the trouble. He says nothing has been going on and I have no proof.”

“That’s daft. Ignore him. Come and join us. We’re all on in a few moments.”

“No…I’ll stay here.” Eileen held up her floury hands. “I’m baking.”

“Your husband’s got you in a right state. I’ve a good mind to go in there and give him a piece of my mind, minister or no minister.”

“I’ll see you later, Ailsa. I promise. I’ve got to get on.”

Eileen served her husband lunch and then waited impatiently until at last he got in the car and drove off. She hurried to her bedroom – she and Colin had had separate bedrooms for some years now – and began to feverishly pack up her belongings.

When she heard a car drive up, she nearly fainted with fright, but soon she heard Sheila’s voice calling her.

She lugged two heavy suitcases down the stairs. The manse door had been open, and Sheila was standing in the hall.

“I’d better leave a note for him,” said Eileen. She left the cases and went into Colin’s clinically neat study.

She seized a piece of paper and wrote, “I’m fed up with you. I want a divorce. I’ve left you. Eileen.”

Then she slammed the study door behind her and went out to where Sheila was loading her suitcases into the boot of the car.

“Off we go,” said Sheila as the minister’s wife climbed in beside her. “Goodbye, Drim!”

“Goodbye,” echoed Eileen with a happy smile. She thought briefly of her husband and then shrugged. She felt she had finally become unchained from a maniac.

♦

“I hate this place. God, how I hate this place,” muttered Hamish Macbeth as he started his investigations again in and around Cnothan.

The standard and cold reply to his questions was, “We aye mind our own business around here, Macbeth” – from a village, reflected Hamish, as notorious as Salem during the witch-hunts for minding everyone else’s business but their own.

By the time he stopped in at the Tudor Restaurant – fake beams, fake horse brasses, dried flowers, and what was a restaurant called Tudor doing in the Highlands? – he was feeling as sour as the residents. As the waitress slammed down a plate of ‘Henry the Eighth Chicken Salad – throw the bones over your shoulder to the dogs!’ – in front of him, he had more or less decided to give the whole thing up.

He ate his cold dry chicken flanked by limp lettuce and wished he were Henry VIII and could have whoever in the back prepared this muck put in the stocks. He finished his dreadful meal with a cup of coffee of a brand publicised by a well-known British transvestite, and the coffee was as much coffee as the publicist was a woman. He fished in his pocket for his wallet to pull out note, and as he did so a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. He picked it up. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe’s London number.

He paid for his meal and went to the nearest phone box. The graffiti inside reflected the bitterness of the inhabitants.

As he dialled Priscilla’s number, he saw that someone had scrawled across the board holding the phone instructions ‘She doesn’t love you. Go fuck yourself.’ Malice, thought Hamish, inserting a phone card and dialling the number, gives the graffiti writer a certain vicious insight into what might hurt most.