M.C. Beaton: Death of a Charming Man

“What sort of trouble?”

Hamish looked suitably mysterious. “I would rather not be saying at the moment.”

Mrs. Daviot grunted and drove off. Not for the first time did she think that Priscilla was not making a most suitable marriage, but on the other hand, had her husband not been Hamish Macbeth’s boss, then she would never have had the opportunity to go house-hunting with such an exalted personage as Priscilla.

“Now, look what I’ve done,” said Hamish to Towser. “Why didn’t I stand up for myself? Och, well, we’ll chust run over to Drim. A grand day for it.”

He walked back to the police station, lifted Towser, who was as lazy as his master and would not jump, into the back of the Land Rover, and drove off. As he plunged down the heathery track which led into Drim, he felt he was leaving all air and sunlight behind. The village lay dark and silent, staring at its reflection in the loch.

He parked outside Jock Kennedy’s store. It was the school holidays, yet no children played, although in these modem times that was not so unusual. Probably they were all indoors playing video games.

The shop had a CLOSED sign hanging on the door. Half day.

He thought that they were all truly spoiled over in Lochdubh since Patel had taken over the store there. Patel was open from eight in the morning until ten at night, seven days a week.

With Towser loping behind him, he made his way up to the manse. The minister would surely be good for a cup of tea. The manse was a square Victorian building built beside the loch, with a depressing garden of weedy grass and rhododendrons. It had been built in the days when ministers had large families, and Hamish guessed was probably full of unused rooms. He went round to the kitchen door and knocked.

After some minutes the minister’s wife, Annie Duncan, answered the door. She was a slight woman with good, well-spaced features and long brown hair highlighted with red.

“Has anything happened?” she asked, staring anxiously at Hamish’s uniform.

“No, I was on my beat and I thought I would pay my respects,” said Hamish.

She hesitated. “Callum, my husband, is out on his rounds at the moment. Perhaps…perhaps you would like a cup of coffee?”

“That would be grand.”

She looked for a moment as if she wished he had refused and then turned away, leaving him to follow. He found himself in a large stone-flagged kitchen. The room was dark and felt cold, even on this summer’s day. It seemed to exude an aura of Victorian kitchen slavery. A huge dresser dominated one wall, full of blue-and-white plates and those giant tureens and serving dishes of the last century. She spooned coffee out of a jar into a jug, took an already boiling kettle off the Aga cooker, and filled the jug. “I’ll leave this to settle for a moment,” said Annie. “Sit down, Mr…?”

“Macbeth.”

“From Lochdubh?”

“The same.”

“So what brings you here?”

“As I said, Drim is on my beat It’s not as if anything has happened.”

“Nothing ever happens in Drim.”

“Except for your newcomer, Peter Hynd. I’ve met him.”

For one moment her face blazed with an inner radiance in the dark kitchen and then her habitual shuttered look closed down on it. “Yes, he is a charming boy,” she said in a neutral voice. She poured a mug of coffee and handed it to him.

“An odd sort of place for a man like that to settle,” remarked Hamish. “I mean, what is there for him here?”

“What is there for any of us?”

“I mean,” pursued Hamish, “the north of Scotland is home to us, but it’s a cut-off sort of place, and there’s no place on the mainland more cut off than Drim. At least in Lochdubh, we get the tourists.”

She clasped her thin fingers around the cup as if for warmth and held the cup to her chest. “I am not from here,” she said. “I am from London.”

“And how long have you been in Drim?”

“For twenty-five years,” she said. She made it sound like a prison sentence. “I met Callum when I was on holiday in Edinburgh. We got married. At first it seemed so romantic. I read all those Jacobite novels, Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that; I read up on the clan histories. The children came, and that took up time. Now they are grown up and gone and there is just Callum and me…and Drim.”

Hamish shifted uneasily, wanting to escape. He had once visited someone in prison in Inverness. He experienced again the same suffocating feeling and desire to escape as he had had then.

He drained his cup. “Aye, well, that was the grand cup of coffee, Mrs. Duncan. I’ll be on my way.”

She gave him a controlled little smile. “Call in any time you are passing,” she said.

Hamish made his way out and took in great lungfuls of air. Towser, who had been left in the garden, wagged his tail lazily. “Since we’re here,” said Hamish to the dog, “we may as well look in on Jimmy Macleod.” He did not know the crofter very well but he was strangely reluctant to call on Peter Hynd again and reluctant to return so soon to Lochdubh, where he still might be scooped up by Mrs. Daviot and Priscilla to go house-hunting.

He wandered in the direction of the croft, which lay just outside the village. Damp sheep cropped steadily at the wet grass. The ground in Drim always seemed to be wet underfoot. He could see Jimmy two fields away, hammering in a fencepost. He made his way across to him.

“What’s up?” cried Jimmy in alarm as he approached. The residents of Lochdubh automatically supposed – and rightly – when Hamish arrived on their doorsteps that he was on a mooching raid, but to the residents of Drim the sight of a policeman still meant bad news.

“Nothing,” said Hamish, walking up to him. “I should come to Drim mair often, then you’d all get used to me. I feel like the angel of death.”

Jimmy gave the fencepost another vicious slam with the sledge-hammer. “Fancy a bit o’ dinner? Nancy aye cooks enough fur a regiment.”

“That’s verra kind of you,” said Hamish, falling into step beside the crofter. “Anything happening in Drim?”

“Naethin’,” said Jimmy curtly.

They walked on in silence until they reached the low croft house. Hamish followed him into the kitchen. “I’ve brought a visitor, Nancy,” said Jimmy. “Manage another dinner.”

“Aye,” she said curtly and threw another mackerel on the frying pan. “If you don’t mind,” said Hamish to her back, “I would like a bowl of water for my dog.”

She reached out and seized a bowl from the drying rack and slammed it down in front of him. “Help yoursel’.”

Hamish filled the bowl with water and put it down in front of Towser. The tension in the kitchen between the married couple seemed to crackle in the air.

“Sit yourself down,” ordered Jimmy, and so Hamish sat down, wishing he had not accepted the crofter’s invitation. Jimmy stared at the centre of the table. The mackerel hissed in the pan. As if sensing the atmosphere, Towser gave a heavy sigh and lay down with his head on his paws.

Nancy slammed plates of food down in front of Hamish and Jimmy and said, “I’m off.”

“You’ll stay right where you are, wumman,” growled Jimmy.

She tossed her dyed black hair and went out of the room. Jimmy picked at his mackerel and then threw down his knife and fork and went out. Hamish could hear him mounting the stairs to where he supposed the bedrooms lay, under the roof. He tried not to listen but they were shouting at each other. “Ye’re makin’ a fool o’ yoursel’ wi’ a fellow half your age, you silly auld biddy.”

“Get stuffed,” came Nancy’s reply. “You dinnae own me.”

“I’ve had enough. Hear this, Nancy Macleod; if you don’t come tae yir senses, I’ll murder that English bastard.”