Hamish Macbeth - Death Of A Village Part 3

"Why? He loathes my guts."

"He feels if you were transferred to Strathbane, well, you'd just be another copper and he'd be more on hand to take the credit for anything you found out."

"And what brings you up here?"

"Day off. I came to warn you about what was brewing, and I think you should be offering me something to drink."

Hamish sighed but went into the house and came back with a bottle half full of whisky and a gla.s.s, which he set on the table. "Help yourself."

"Thanks."

"So what do I do to stop getting a promotion?" asked Hamish.

"I dunno. Disgrace yourself-mildly."

"How do I do that?"

Jimmy took a mouthful of whisky. "You've always managed before," he said.

"I do not want to go to Strathbane," mourned Hamish. He waved his hand round about. "Look what I've got to lose."

"It's grand today, I'll give you that. But what about the long winters?"

"Believe me, long winters in Strathbane would seem worse than they do here."

"Have it your way. Once a peasant, always a peasant. Stuck up here talking to the sheep would kill me."

"If the bottle doesn't get to you first."

"I can take it. Wait a wee bit: I've got an idea." Jimmy drank more whisky. "There's a pet o' Blair's just joined the force. Red-hot keen. Arrest anyone on sight. Today, he's standing out on the main road afore you get to Strathbane with a speed camera. You could pelt past him at a hundred miles an hour."

"In a police vehicle? He wouldnae do a thing. He'd think I was chasing someone."

"Get a private car, get drunk enough, and see what happens."

"I'd lose my licence!"

"A policeman! He'd be told to hush it up."

Hamish snorted in disbelief. "By Blair? Come on, Jimmy. Have some sense."

"No, by me. He crawls to me because he wants to make CID. I'll be on hand to tell him to drop it and leak it to Daviot. Daviot hates drunken drivers but I'll tell him it'll be bad for the police image if it ever gets in the papers."

Hamish looked at Jimmy thoughtfully and then said, "I'll get another gla.s.s."

PC Johnny Peters stifled a yawn. He was bored and tired. Nearly the end of his s.h.i.+ft. Like Blair, he was originally from Glasgow and distrusted all Highlanders. He guessed that in their primitive, almost telepathic way, the news of his speed trap had spread far and wide. Cars had pa.s.sed him doing a mere thirty miles an hour although it was a sixty-mile-an-hour area.

His radio crackled. "Peters here," he said.

"Anderson here," came the voice. "Just had a report of a stolen car. A white Ford Escort belonging to Mrs. Angela Brodie of Lochdubh." Peters had just taken down a note of the registration number when his sharp eyes spotted a small white car on the horizon. He checked off, ran to his car, and swung it across the road.

At first it seemed as if the approaching car, which was coming at great speed, would hit him but the driver braked about one foot from him and sat behind the wheel, smiling inanely.

Peters climbed out and approached the car and rapped on the driver's window. Hamish Macbeth wound down the window and let a strong smell of whisky out into the air.

"Out!" shouted Peters.

Hamish was breathalysed, handcuffed, charged with being drunk and driving a stolen vehicle. He felt relieved to be out of Angela's car. He had driven painfully carefully until just before the speed trap, when he had accelerated.

As Hamish was led out of the police car, Jimmy Anderson was waiting. "Peters," he said. "What are you doing arresting Hamish Macbeth? He's the hero of the hour. He's the one that solved that big insurance case."

"I am just doing my duty," said Peters primly. "He is drunk and was driving a stolen car."

"Was it that Ford Escort?"

"Yes."

"Oh. Dr. Brodie has just phoned. It was his wife who reported the car stolen, not knowing her husband had given Hamish permission to drive it."

"Nonetheless..."

"Here. Take the handcuffs off. You'll learn that we try to keep things like this away from the press. I'll talk to Daviot. Let him handle it."

Peters looked doubtful but was obviously impressed by the fact that Anderson appeared to be on easy terms with the boss. He unlocked the handcuffs on Hamish's wrists.

"Come on, Hamish," said Jimmy.

Hamish followed him with the stiff, storklike walk of the drunk.

"Lots of water, Jimmy," he whispered. "And coffee."

"I'll leave you in the canteen while I talk to Daviot."

Peter Daviot listened grimly to Jimmy's tale.

"I hope he has been charged," he said.

"Well, that's why I came to see you, sir. Macbeth's a popular man with a lot o' friends in the press. If he's charged, it'll go to the sheriff's court and get in the papers. Bad for our image, sir. Besides, we don't want some reporter remembering how that drunken-driving episode of Chief Inspector Blair's was hushed up." Blair had wrapped his car round a tree the year before after drinking heavily at a police party.

"Where's Macbeth now?"

"In the canteen."

"To think I was going to promote that man. That such ability should be allied to such dangerous behaviour."

"May I offer a suggestion, sir?"

"Go on."

"Macbeth manages to do very well where he is. He's never been one for the bottle. This was a one-off. Remember that fiancee o' his, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe?"

"Yes."

"Well, he's learned she's getting married and maybe that's what upset him."

"Send him to me. And get a police officer over to Lochdubh to pick up Mrs. Brodie so that she may reclaim her car."

Five minutes later, awash with mineral water and black coffee, a slightly more sober Hamish Macbeth faced his boss.

"Sit down," barked Daviot. "I am sure standing must be difficult for you. This is a bad business. You should have your licence removed and be suspended from duty."

Hamish let out a giggle.

"And just what is so funny, Officer?"

"I couldnae help thinking o' all the cases I would solve if I were suspended. Thae detectives and policemen on the television are always being suspended from duty and that's when they solve cases."

"Pull yourself together, man. This must be hushed up for the sake of our reputation. Do you know I was going to promote you? That's all off now. You are only fit to be a village policeman. I am sorely disappointed in you."

"I am very sorry, sir."

"Don't let it happen again. Get out of here. And sober up!"

"I hope it worked," said Angela Brodie as she drove Hamish back to Lochdubh.

"Oh, it worked, all right. Thanks, Angela. Keep your eyes on the road and stop staring at me."

"How drunk are you?"

"Nearly sober. I drank just enough to get over the limit."

"This car reeks of booze."

Hamish looked guilty. "I spilled some on the seats."

"Then when you get back, you can get some upholstery cleaner from Patel's and clean the lot."

"Yes, Angela."

"Mrs. Wellington called on me before the police came to collect me. Seems you've launched her on a crusade to help Bella Comyn. She says she's a battered wife."

"Not yet. But I gather her husband bullies her and won't allow her any freedom."

"He does seem besotted with her. Do you really think he might harm her one day?"

"She seems to think so."

"I'm going out there tomorrow with Mrs. Wellington to see her."

"Let me know how you get on."

Back in Lochdubh, Hamish bought upholstery cleaner and diligently cleaned out the front seats of Angela's car. His mouth was dry and had a foul taste and his head was throbbing. At last he had finished. All he wanted now was two aspirin and a long sleep.

He was heading for the police station when Elspeth came running up to him. "Hamish, there's a bit more about Stoyre."

His headache was now dreadful. "Is anyone dead or hurt or burgled?"

"No, it's not that. It's..."

"Leave it, Elspeth. Talk to me tomorrow."

He strode off, leaving the reporter staring after him.

In the morning he awoke refreshed and with a hearty appet.i.te. He went along to Patel's to buy bacon. As he entered the shop door, he could hear the voices of the Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, shrill with excitement.

"I tell you, he was cleaning out her car and stinking of the booze," Nessie was saying. "Why would he be doing that?"

"Why don't you ask him?" said Patel.

"Because he'll just lie, just lie," said Jessie.

"If you want to know," said Hamish angrily, "I was taking some whisky to a sick friend in Strathbane and Mrs. Brodie was driving me. She hit a rock and the top was loose and some of it spilled on the upholstery."

The shop fell silent. The Currie sisters, who hated being caught out gossiping-a thing they were fond of saying that they never did-paid for their groceries and hurried out. Hamish bought a packet of bacon and headed home. He had no need to buy eggs; his hens supplied him with plenty.

He turned over the events of the day before and then remembered Elspeth. He simply must stop being rude to her. After breakfast he went to the local newspaper office, to be told she was out reporting on a flower show over at Dornoch. He wondered whether to drive over to Stoyre but then dismissed it. He had other villages on his beat to visit and it wasn't as if anything criminal had taken place in Stoyre.

He returned with Lugs in the late evening, satisfied that things on his beat were as quiet as they had been earlier that summer. He cooked a meal for himself and his dog and then was picking up the phone to call Elspeth when it rang. Mrs. Wellington's voice boomed down the line. "You've got to do something."

"What's happened?"

"Sean's left Bella. I was up there early in the day with Angela Brodie to suggest that Bella should start attending the Mothers' Union meetings. Sean was there. He seemed pleased at the idea. Everything seemed normal. But Bella's just phoned in a state. She says he just walked out. Said he wasn't coming back."

"I'll go right now and see her."

"I'll meet you there."

Bella's eyes were again red with recent weeping and she had a black eye. Mrs. Wellington held her hand while she blurted out her story. Sean, she said, had pretended to be delighted at the invitation for her to join the Mothers' Union. After Angela and Mrs. Wellington had left, he began to rant and say she had set it up so that she would have an excuse to slip out and meet other men, then he had blacked her eye and said he was sick of her and he was leaving her forever.

"You're better off without him," said the minister's wife.

"How will you manage?" asked Hamish. "For money, I mean."

"We have a joint account. I can draw on that."

"I thought Sean didn't let you have any money of your own."

"He wouldn't let me draw any without his permission. But believe me, this is one time I'm not going to ask."