Death of a Bore (6 page)

‘Ink!’ She stared up at him in surprise. ‘What makes you say that?’

‘I put a tongue depressor in his mouth to see if I could find out if he had taken anything. His tongue was black. He used an old-fashioned fountain pen.’ Hamish looked across at the
desk. ‘There’s an empty bottle of ink there. It was full the other night. Also, water’s been thrown on the fire to put it out and delay rigor. Someone was trying to cover up the
time of death. Don’t tell Blair I looked in his mouth.’

They heard Blair lumbering back towards the cottage. Professor Forsyth quickly opened John’s mouth just as Blair came in.

‘How are you getting on, lassie?’ said Blair.

‘My name is Professor Forsyth, and I hope you will remember that in future. This man’s tongue is black. Your intelligent officer here has just pointed out it looks like ink, and the
ink bottle on the desk is empty. The fire has been put out, as if someone wanted to delay the onset of rigor. It could well be murder.’

‘I told you to wait outside,’ yelled Blair.

‘Just as well he didn’t,’ said the pathologist.

‘What about the suicide note?’ demanded Blair.

‘Anyone could have written that. I’ll need to get this body removed to the lab for a proper autopsy. I shall send a report of my findings to the procurator fiscal.’

‘If there are no prints on that ink bottle,’ said Hamish, ‘or on the keyboard of the computer, then that will definitely be suspicious.’

‘Just get the hell out of here!’ roared Blair. ‘Go and look at your sheep or whatever it is you usually do.’

The professor gave a click of annoyance.

Hamish retreated. He decided to go back to the police station. Jimmy, lured by whisky, would visit him as soon as he could. As he left, he noticed the forensic team had arrived and were putting
on their blue suits with tight-fitting hoods and bags drawn tightly over their shoes so that no trace of their own DNA should mess up a possible murder scene.

In the police station Hamish made himself a cup of coffee after giving Lugs a bowl of water and sat down to think before he typed up his report. It looked to him as if
someone, somehow, had murdered John, maybe forcing him to drink the ink first. Then the murderer may have panicked and tried to fake a suicide, possibly wiping John’s dead face to remove any
external traces of ink.

Who had reason to hate John so much? There were the village members of the writing class. He had humiliated all of them.

‘I hope it’s not one of them,’ said Hamish to Lugs. ‘I knew that man would bring evil here.’

He sighed and went through to his computer in the police office, typed his report, and sent it off to headquarters. He had just finished when Jimmy Anderson called from the kitchen door,
‘Anyone at home?’

‘Aye, come ben,’ shouted Hamish.

He closed down the computer and said over his shoulder to Jimmy, ‘This is a bad business. How did it go after I left?’

‘Give me a dram and I’ll tell you.’

They went into the kitchen, where Hamish got down the whisky bottle and two glasses.

‘I’ll pour my own,’ said Jimmy, seizing the bottle. They both sat down at the kitchen table.

‘It’s cold in here,’ complained Jimmy.

Hamish rose and went to the stove. He raked down the ashes, put in kindling and threw a lighted match in. When it was all burning, he added several slices of peat and replaced the lid of the
stove. He sat down again.

He looked steadily at Jimmy.

‘Well, was it murder?’

‘Thon professor seemed to think so. Blair is raging. He’s due to go on holiday the next week, and he thinks you invented clues pointing to murder to spite him.
Anyway, it looks as if the focus is going to be on that writing class here. Blair’s coming over tomorrow to interview everyone.’

‘I’d like to be there when he interviews the Currie sisters,’ said Hamish. ‘But you know Blair. I suppose I’m off the case.’

‘Not quite. You’re to make door-to-door inquiries.’

‘Press arrived yet?’

‘The Tommel Castle Hotel is beginning to fill up. They’re a funny lot. What beats me is that by tomorrow there’ll be some fellow standing in front of the camera saying,
“And here I am in the picturesque village of Lochdubh.” Will anyone see a bit of the village? Not on your life. All they’ll see is his big ba’ heid in front of the
camera.’

‘Jessma Gardener is pretty good.’

‘Fancy her, do you? What about that reporter lassie you were romancing?’

‘She got a job in Glasgow.’

‘Going down to see her?’

‘Maybe.’ Hamish realized with a little jolt that he missed Elspeth Grant. At first he had been relieved when she left. But all the good and bad times they had shared together came
flooding into his mind and he wondered why he had ever let her go. Had she still been in Lochdubh, she would be sitting across from him with her frizzy hair and charity shop clothes, her silver
eyes fixed steadily on his as she brought her uncanny psychic abilities to bear on the case.

‘You should ha’ married her,’ said Jimmy, helping himself to more whisky.

‘You’re not a good advertisement for marriage,’ said Hamish huffily. ‘How many times? Three?’

‘Two. Anyway, back to the murder. If it turns out to be ink in his mouth, then it looks as if someone offed him with hate and then tried to make it look like suicide. Everyone saw the
hatred of the villagers on the telly. What about that brute Alistair Taggart? He’s been done once for assaulting a fellow worker.’

‘If John Heppel upset everyone here so much, then he must have upset a lot of people in his past.’

‘Yes, but he wasn’t murdered in Glasgow, he was murdered here.’

‘He also did some work for Strathbane Television. Some sort of script. He told me he had done a script for
Down in the Glen
.’

‘Have you seen that programme? It’s a lowland Scots idea of the Highlands. All the women walk around in tartan shawls and the crofters in kilts. I mean, it’s hardly high
literature.’

‘I think anything to do with television drew that man like a magnet. I’d like to take a trip over there, but no doubt Blair will be on the scene tomorrow to make sure I’m doing
nothing other than chapping at doors and interviewing all the people who weren’t at the writing class. I’d really like to know exactly how he was killed. But the autopsy will take a
couple of days, and then the report will go to the procurator fiscal. Let me know as soon as you hear.’

‘Keep the whisky coming and I’ll let you know anything.’

Two days later Superintendent Peter Daviot received a visit from Professor Jane Forsythe.

‘This is a most unusual murder,’ she began. ‘Have you got the report from the procurator fiscal?’

‘Yes, but I haven’t read it yet.’ And in answer to her raised eyebrows, he said defensively, ‘I’ve had a lot of work this morning.’

‘I would like to go over to Lochdubh to discuss the case with that policeman.’

‘Detective Chief Inspector Blair?’

‘No, not that oaf. The tall one with the red hair.’

‘That’ll be Hamish Macbeth. Why him?’

‘Because he has a shrewd intelligence. Besides, I don’t like Blair’s patronizing attitude.’

‘He is a good detective.’

‘Nonetheless, I would like to speak to that policeman. What’s his name again?’

‘Hamish Macbeth.’

Hamish had crept into his police station over the back field for a cup of tea. Somewhere out on the waterfront, Blair was pompously addressing the press.

The kettle had just boiled when there came a knock at the front door. Hamish assumed it was some reporter or other because all the locals knew to use the kitchen door. But his highland curiosity
drove him to tiptoe to the front door and peer through the spyhole. He recognized Professor Forsyth. He shouted through the letter box. ‘Could you come to the side door? This one sticks with
the damp.’

He went through and opened the kitchen door.

‘I have your superior’s permission to call on you,’ said the professor.

‘Mr Blair?’

‘No, not him. Mr Daviot.’

‘Please come in,’ said Hamish. ‘I am just making some tea. Would you like a cup?’

‘Please.’

‘Sit down. Milk and sugar?’

‘Both.’

Hamish searched desperately for a milk jug and then just put the bottle on the table. Then he fished in his trouser pocket and found some little packets of sugar he had taken from a restaurant
table.

When he had poured her a cup of tea, he asked eagerly, ‘How did he die?’

‘Mothballs.’

‘
Mothballs!
’

‘Yes, naphthalene poisoning.’

‘But he wouldn’t have sat there and crunched mothballs.’

‘Exactly He had a weak heart.’

‘Wait a bit. Surely a poison like that would induce vomiting?’

‘It did. Someone cleaned him up and scrubbed the floor. It’s a stone-flagged floor, but we found some traces between the stones.’

‘There were rugs on the floor when I was there.’

‘Indeed. Our killer must have taken them away.’

‘And the ink?’

‘The only way I can think to explain it is this: Perhaps the mothballs were melted by heat into black liquid. The liquid was mixed with whisky. Say someone held a gun on him and forced him
to drink the mixture. When he started to vomit, his attacker watched him until he died and then poured ink into the mouth. Rage over, the killer suddenly decided to fake a suicide and closed the
mouth and wiped off the excess ink. Then he scrubbed away the vomit and took away the rugs after typing that suicide note on the computer.

‘I got John Heppel’s medical records. He suffered from high blood pressure and his heart was weak. I should think he died very quickly. There would not be much vomit. I decided to
call on you because it is the most interesting case I have come across. So hate-filled and elaborate. I saw the villagers attacking him on television.’

‘It can’t be one of them,’ protested Hamish.

‘Why not?’

‘I can just about imagine one of them lashing out, but this one was planned.’

‘Do you know anyone in Lochdubh who would have mothballs?’

‘About everyone, I should think. I’ve got them myself. I found my uniform had moth holes in it a while back, so I bought some mothballs from Patel’s grocery.’

‘But surely it must be someone in the village. This tea is very good, by the way.’

‘It’s the water. What about Strathbane? Heppel was doing something for television there. I’d like a word with them, but I fear Mr Blair would not permit it.’

‘Give me a minute,’ she said. Professor Forsyth took out her mobile phone and walked outside the police station.

After a few minutes she came back. ‘I’ve just had a word with Mr Daviot. He says he will get Jimmy Anderson to meet you there.’ She grinned. ‘Mr Blair is to continue to
interview the villagers. Any more of that tea?’

The Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, were ushered into the mobile police unit parked on the waterfront. Blair was sitting behind a desk, having finished with his press
interview.

He eyed them with disfavour, thinking they would both look well in a production of
Arsenic and Old Lace.
They were identical twins with tightly permed white hair and thick glasses. Both
wore long tweed coats smelling of mothballs.

‘Sit down, ladies,’ barked Blair.

They sat down primly on two hard chairs and faced him.

A rising gale outside shrieked around the mobile police station.

‘I hope you’ve got this van well anchored down, anchored down,’ said Jessie. ‘The wind’s awfy strong, awfy strong.’

‘Forget about the wind,’ barked Blair. ‘Why did you murder John Heppel?’

‘We didn’t, you silly man,’ said Nessie.

‘Where were you on the Monday night when John Heppel was murdered?’

‘At what time would that be?’

‘Between five in the evening and ten.’

‘That’s easy,’ said Nessie smugly. A great buffet of wind rocked the mobile police station, and the sisters held on to the edge of the desk.

‘I said that’s easy,’ shouted Nessie above the shriek and roar of the wind. ‘As representatives of the Lochdubh Mothers’ Union, we were visiting the Strathbane
Mothers’ Union. We took the bus to Strathbane at four-thirty, and we didn’t get back until after ten.’

‘I’ll check your alibi,’ said Blair.

Both sisters rose to their feet.

‘Oh, you do that, you daft auld man, auld man,’ said Jessie.

‘I’ll hae the pair of you for insulting a police officer.’ Blair got up as well.

At that moment there was a tremendous howling, shrieking sound approaching down the loch.

The sisters, who knew the terrors of the sudden Sutherland storms which sometimes came roaring in from the Atlantic, scampered for the door and flung it open and escaped on to the
waterfront.

A few moments after they had left, a mini-tornado picked up the mobile police van and threw it like a child’s toy into the loch before roaring on up and dying on the mountains.

Alistair Taggart, who had been sheltering in a doorway, ran across the road and down the steps to the pebbly beach. He stripped off down to his underpants, waded into the loch and began to
swim.

Blair was struggling and gasping. ‘I cannae swim,’ he choked out.

Alistair grabbed him as he was about to sink. ‘Lie still,’ he shouted, ‘and I’ll pull you in.’

Two constables who had been with Blair were already battling for the shore. The press had erupted out of the local bar and were busy filming as the wind howled and roared.

Blair was carried by the villagers into the pub.

Jessma Gardener, soaked and shivering, held out a microphone to Alistair, who was being wrapped in blankets. ‘You’re a hero. What is your name?’

‘Alistair Taggart.’

‘What do you do, Alistair?’

Alistair looked straight into the camera lens. ‘I am an author,’ he said. ‘I write in the Gaelic.’

Hamish found Jimmy in high good humour when he arrived at police headquarters in Strathbane. ‘Hamish, you’ve got to look at this video I made of the lunchtime
news.’