M.C. Beaton - Death of a Scriptwriter

“Miss Martyn-Broyd has confessed to the murders of Jamie Gallagher and Penelope Gates.”

“Impossible!”

“I am afraid it’s true. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, that.” The minister’s wife pulled herself together with an effort. “We have just heard from poor Mr. Jessop over at Drim. He’s in such a taking. His wife has left him! He phoned to say she had left while he was actually over here visiting us.”

“Neffer!”

“Yes, just gone and taken all her stuff. They were such a devoted couple.”

“I got the impression he bullied that poor woman.”

“Nonsense. I tell you what he thinks happened. It’s this television business. It’s driven all the women in Drim mad. They all think they were meant to be film stars. Mr. Jessop sees nothing but ruin for his poor wife. He says she’ll end on the streets.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so. She wouldn’t make any money.”

“And that’s just the sort of nasty callous thing I would expect from you. You haven’t been to church in ages. That’s what’s up with you, Hamish Macbeth.”

“Maybe next Sunday,” said Hamish, sliding around her bulk.

He thought of treating himself to dinner at the Napoli, then remembered that he had a date there with Sheila for the following evening. He bought himself some cold ham from Patel’s and went back to his garden and pulled and cleaned a lettuce to make a salad to go with it.

He had an interrupted meal. The news of Patricia’s arrest had spread like wildfire, and locals kept coming to the kitchen door to ask for details. At last he settled down in front of the television. There was a good play on BBC I, so when he heard someone rapping at the kitchen door again, he debated whether to pretend he wasn’t at home. But the knocking grew more insistent. With a sigh he got up and opened the door.

Jimmy Anderson stood there. “Gimme a whisky, for God’s sake, man. She isnae fit tae stand trial.”

“Patricia? She’s acting again.” Hamish led him in and took the bottle of whisky out of the kitchen cupboard.

“If she’s acting, it’s too good for anyone to break.”

They went into the living room. Hamish lit the fire. “The nights are drawing in at last,” he said.

“I came anyway to thank you for giving me the credit,” said Jimmy. “What put you on to her?”

“She did,” said Hamish. “Would you believe it? She wanted me to clear her name and so I spent my spare time trying to find out where she was when Penelope was being murdered. And she was so confident I wouldn’t find out. I’m just glad it’s over. Blair’ll be happy.”

“Aye, he’s poncing about saying as how he was victimised by a madwoman and that he knew she did it all along. He seems to forget he was the one who insisted Josh Gates murdered Jamie Gallagher.”

“He aye had a convenient memory.”

“Daviot said he thought you’d cracked Patricia by suggesting she would be world famous.”

“It was a gamble, but it paid off. I’d nearly forgotten about her monumental vanity.”

“So we settle back down to a peaceful life, you with your sheep and hens and me with the muggings and stabbings in Strathbane.” He raised his glass. “Here’s tae murder.”

“No, no, man, here’s to peace and quiet.”

“Peace and quiet,” said Jimmy solemnly.

They both drank in silence, and then Hamish asked, “Do you think they’ll go ahead with filming the series after all this? There’s the relatives of the dead to remember.”

“I think after a certain time has elapsed, they’ll run it. They’ve surely sunk too much money in it already to abandon the whole thing.”

“I suppose so.”

“My lady friend wants to be a writer,” said Jimmy. “I told her to forget it. They’re all mad, that’s what I said. Got a girl, Hamish?”

“Maybe,” said Hamish, thinking of Sheila. “Maybe I have.”

♦

Down in her flat in Glasgow, Sheila and Eileen stared in amazement at the late night news on television. “It was that writer after all,” said Sheila.

“Hamish must be glad it’s all over,” said Eileen.

“Oh, the policeman? I think I was supposed to phone him or something, but with all this success about your film, I forget what it was. Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you. Scottish Television wants to find out when they plan to screen the first episode of The Case of the Rising Tides and run your play against it, same evening, same time.”

“But will that work?” asked Eileen. “I mean, there’ll be such a lot of interest in Harry’s thing, with the murders. No one will watch my play.”

“They thought of that. They’re going to screen it in advance and get all the publicity they hope it will get and then run it again on the Sunday. We’re going to be big, Eileen. Right to the top!”

♦

On Wednesday evening, Hamish Macbeth sat in the Napoli and waited for Sheila – and waited. At first he had this really splendid dream, that Priscilla Halburton-Smythe would return to Lochdubh to find him with a brand-new, pretty girlfriend, but as the evening dragged past and she did not come, the dream faded and died.

∨ Death of a Scriptwriter ∧

EPILOGUE

It doesn’t much signify whom one marries, for one is sure to find next morning that it was someone else .

—Samuel Rogers

Now that the murders had been solved and he had made all his statements, Hamish Macbeth moved back into his usual undemanding routine. In anticipation of Priscilla’s arrival, he had bought a new pair of shoes to go with his suit, although he convinced himself that he had only bought them because he urgently needed them.

On the day she was due to arrive home, he was suddenly summoned to Strathbane. It transpired that Patricia Martyn-Broyd was evidently genuinely mad as a hatter, but Daviot had suggested that Hamish should try to speak to her, try to see if she were really insane or faking it, as she had so cleverly faked amnesia.

He drove down to Strathbane and to the secure unit of a psychiatric hospital. It was an old Victorian building, sinister in the mist which had rolled in from the oily, polluted sea around Strathbane.

“What’s she like?” he asked the grim-faced woman with keys jangling at her waist who conducted him along the long corridors. “In a straitjacket?”

“No, herself is quiet. No trouble at all.”

She unlocked a door. Hamish walked in and the door was locked behind him.

Patricia was sitting on the floor, rocking back and forth and crooning to herself.

Hamish sat down on the floor beside her. “Patricia,” he said gently, “do you know me?”

She stopped rocking and her eyes stared at him and then she started rocking again.

“Are you pretending to be mad, Patricia? It won’t do if you are. You don’t want to stay in a place like this for the rest o’ your life. If you stood trial and went to prison, they would let you have something to write on. You’d be able to sell new books.”

The rocking continued.

“It wass a bad thing you did, Patricia, taking two lives. But if you are acting, you are going to haff to go on like this till the end.”

But she rocked and crooned, seemingly oblivious to his presence.

He gave a little sigh. “I would ha’ thought a lady like yourself would have had more courage. In prison, they have a library and you’d be able to see your books, maybe give talks to the other prisoners.”

No response.

His voice grew harder. “Did you know what Jamie Gallagher looked like when I found him? The crows had pecked his eyes out. Did you know that Penelope had maybe had a pretty harsh upbringing? And there she lay, crushed and dying of pain on the side o’ the mountain. Do you know the horror you caused?”