M.C. Beaton: Death of a Charming Man

“Och, Hamish, ye wouldna.”

“That I would.”

Archie looked wildly around and then picked up his drink. “Come ower in the corner.”

They followed him over to a small rickety, beer-stained table in the corner and sat down.

“It iss like this,” wheedled Archie, “we all heard how this foreigner was playing fast and loose wi’ the wimmin o’ Drim. Harry did show up for the fishing. It wass a bad night and we decided to go home early. We got into harbour about five, and Harry, he went straight home. Och, he had told us about his missus going a bit off her head and dying her hair and whatnot. When wee Heather phoned us and said it would be better to say her da wass in the bar, we thocht it was all right.”

“Heather!”

“Herself said how her ma had been found dead on the beach wi’ her neck broke in a fall. She says how it wass the accident but that the polis haeing the nasty minds might say her da pushed Betty. She wass crying hard, and if a wee bitty lassie thinks her da didnae do it, it iss surely all right to protect the man.”

“I think we’d best be going back to have a word with wee Heather,” said Priscilla in a thin voice.

“Don’t be too hard on the lassie,” wheedled Archie. “Herself hass had a bad shock.”

“And so have I,” said Hamish grimly after he and Priscilla had had a brief lunch of sandwiches and coffee and were heading back to Drim. “Heather is beginning to appear quite the Lady Macbeth. Maybe she put her father up to it.”

“And maybe she’s just a frightened little girl doing her best to protect her father,” said Priscilla. “I’ll go over to the community hall when we get there and join the rehearsal. You had best see Heather on your own.”

“I’ll see Harry too,” said Hamish. “There’s no fishing tonight, so he’ll be up and about by now. He must have gone straight home this morning.”

As Hamish approached the Baxters’ cottage, Heather was standing outside and he knew all at once that she was waiting for him and cursed the invention of the telephone. Of course Archie would have phoned her as soon as they had left the bar.

“Come in, Mr. Macbeth,” she said formally. “Da’s in the kitchen.”

Hamish ducked his head and went inside. “Now, Harry,” he said, “this is the bad business. Don’t you see how it looks?”

Harry Baxter was sitting with a mug of coffee between his gnarled hands. “I didnae know rightly what I wass doing, Hamish,” he said. “Heather told me what she had done and it seemed safest to go along with it. But what does it matter? It’s all over now. It wass the accident. Can’t you see how bad it is for me, for Heather, for you to go over it and over it, keeping it green?”

“Tell me about the phone call Betty got,” said Hamish.

“I heard her go to the phone. She chust said ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ and then, “I’ll see you.” When she came back in, her face was all lit up. She said it was Edie. I lost ma rag and started to shout. When I woke up later, she had her hair all blonded up again. That’s when I struck her. I said I knew that Peter Hynd had come back and had arranged to meet her. She paid me no heed. She said if I ever raised my hand to her again, she would leave me for good.”

“You came straight back from the fishing. Did you go looking for her?” asked Hamish.

“No,” he mumbled. “I wass that fed up, I chust went to my bed and went to sleep. The next thing I knew, the neighbours were round saying kids had found her body on the beach.”

“It’s no use me asking Heather to confirm your story,” said Hamish wearily. “Look, answer this honestly. Did any of the locals see anything of Peter Hynd around the village the day your wife died or the day before?”

Harry shook his head. “I asked and asked,” he said. “But no one’s seen hide nor hair of the man since he left.”

“And did anyone actually see him leave?”

Again Harry shook his head. “And I asked about that as well,” he said. “God, I wanted more than anything in the world to make sure that wass the last o’ him. He’d gone all right, but no one saw him leave.”

Hamish felt as if his brain were full of cobwebs when he left. If he stood back from the case and considered the fact that Peter Hynd might just have packed up and left…There was all the evidence for that. He had put his house on the market before he had disappeared. Betty, having got a taste for extra-marital affairs, could have gone out to meet someone else, someone from the village, and she could have tripped and fallen onto the rocks. Hamish frowned. But she hadn’t been carrying a handbag, nor had her hands been in her pockets, so why hadn’t she put out her hands to save herself? He should have reprimanded Heather, but somehow he could not bring himself to do so. He wished briefly he were a policeman like Blair and in Drim officially and he could harass the suspects without worrying about their feelings. Blair would have no difficulty, say, in approaching Edie and saying something tactful like; “So ye let Hynd get his leg over?”

He sighed and went down to the community hall. To his surprise when he entered, he saw the small figure of Heather.

She must have cut across the fields in her usual quick and silent way to get ahead of him. A massive woman was sitting at the piano. Nancy began to sing like Priscilla, Hamish was amazed at the purity and beauty of her voice. Annie Duncan joined her and began to sing as well, her voice deeper than Nancy’s. A spattering of applause from the women greeted the end of the song and Hamish, looking around, could see no sign of the bitter animosity that must lurk under each bosom. But then, that was the Highland way. He sat down next to Priscilla. “Going well?” he asked. “On the face of it,” said Priscilla. “Annie got the script this morning and went over to Strathbane and got it photocopied. She’s a good organizer. They might not like her choices, but it’s my belief they’ll all knuckle down and do what she says. Oh, one piece of gossip from the woman at the piano, Mrs. Denby, who cleans the manse. She says that the minister is dead set against theatricals and told Annie she was to drop the idea and Annie told him she would do no such thing. Mrs. Denby says she’s never heard them having rows before, but they’re having them almost every day now. Seems like Callum Duncan is the kind who likes his wife to be a sort of glorified servant, and ‘Yes, sir, no sir,’ and suddenly Annie’s having none of it and is rebelling at the slighest thing, telling him to make his own bloody tea when he summons her to the study and tells her to fetch him a cup, things like that.”

“That would only be of use if the minister murdered his wife,” said Hamish. Heather was now up on the stage getting her instructions, listening intently, holding the script, her eyes shining.

“And the villagers say Heather hasn’t shed a tear,” went on Priscilla. “Something wrong there, Hamish. It’s unnatural. I wish she would crack and break down and cry.”

“I’ve never seen a child further from tears,” said Hamish cynically.

Annie Duncan’s voice could be heard suggesting they all now read their parts in the first act. “And just here, after the first scene,” she said to Nancy, “you exit left where the steps go down to the dressing-rooms.”

“Dressing-rooms?” queried Hamish. “In a community hall?”

“Oh, this place is quite well-appointed,” said Priscilla. “One of those projects built quite recently by the Highland and Islands Development Board. There’s even a star dressing-room. Wonder who’s got that. Nancy, probably.”

In the first act, Nancy, the alderman’s daughter dreaming of the famous man who would one day marry her, sang an Andrew Lloyd Webber song. “Heavy royalties, that,” murmured Hamish.