Death of an Addict (3 page)

Hamish pushed back his peaked cap and scratched his fiery hair in bewilderment. ‘But how did this happen so soon? How could it? Did he drive down to Strathbane?’

‘I didn’t see him go.’

‘What about visitors? Where were you yourself this afternoon, Parry?’

‘Here, now. You are neffer thinking I did it!’

‘Come on, Parry. I want to know if you were around the croft. You might have seen someone or something.’

‘I ran over to Dornoch to see about some spare parts for my car. I wass away the two hours.’

Hamish heard the wail of a police siren. ‘That’ll be Strathbane. I hope it’s not Blair.’ Detective Chief Inspector Blair was the bane of Hamish’s normally quiet
life.

But it was Blair’s sidekick, Detective Jimmy Anderson, who came in. Policemen and a forensic team crowded in after him.

‘No Blair?’ asked Hamish.

Jimmy snorted with contempt. ‘Blair wouldn’t move his arse for a dead junkie.’

‘Could be murder,’ suggested Hamish.

‘Oh, aye,’ sneered Jimmy. ‘The great detective has pronounced judgement. A junkie wi’ a record is found dead with a syringe beside him and you ignore the
obvious.’

‘I was talking to him earlier today,’ said Hamish stubbornly. ‘And I could have sworn he would never go back on the stuff.’

‘Let me tell you this, Hamish. Drugs is a dirty business. It gets them and it keeps them. Stuck up here in the backwoods wi’ your sheep, you don’t see much of life.’

The pathologist, Mr Sinclair, pushed his way past them. ‘Give me some peace,’ he said, ‘until I have a look at this.’

Everyone walked outside. ‘Now,’ said Jimmy, turning to the crofter, ‘you’re Parry McSporran.’

‘Aye.’

‘Who’s in the other chalets?’

‘Only a wee lassie called Felicity Maundy.’

‘Let’s go and see her. May as well pass the time until Sinclair finishes and then the forensic boys will have to dust the place.’

At that moment Felicity came driving up. Her face turned white when she saw all the police cars.

She stopped and got out slowly. Hamish thought she looked as if she might faint.

‘What do you know about this?’ demanded Jimmy, advancing on her with a truculence worthy of his master, Blair.

She looked about her in a dazed way. ‘Wh-what?’

‘Tommy Jarret’s dead.’

‘He ... he
can’t
be.’

‘It looks like an overdose.’

‘But he was
clean
,’ wailed Felicity, and then she began to cry.

‘You’ll get nothing out of her that way,’ said Hamish. ‘I’ll get her a cup of tea. Come along, Miss Maundy. Time to have a word with you. We’ll just go to
your chalet and have a cup of tea.’

She was unresisting as he led her towards her chalet. ‘Got the key?’ he asked.

‘I n-never bothered locking up.’

He opened the door and led her inside. Her chalet was identical to Tommy’s except that dried herbs hung from hooks in the ceiling, there was a knitting machine in one corner and a sewing
machine in the other. ‘Now sit yourself down,’ said Hamish soothingly.

He went into the small kitchen. There was nothing but herb tea so he made a cup of camomile and took it to her.

Hamish watched her as she sipped her tea and then said gently, ‘Why were you so upset when you saw me outside Patel’s today?’

‘I didn’t even see you,’ she said, her eyes moving this way and that like a hunted animal.

‘We’ll leave that one for the moment. When did you last speak to Tommy?’

‘Today. He asked me to get him some groceries from Patel’s. He was working hard on his book.’

‘How well did you know him?’

‘Not very well. He was just a neighbour. He wouldn’t have taken drugs.’ She began to cry again.

Hamish saw a box of tissues on the kitchen counter and handed it to her. She blew her nose noisily. Hamish waited until she had recovered, thinking hard all the while. Why was she so shattered,
so distressed, if she and Tommy had only been neighbours?

‘And before you left,’ he continued, ‘did you see any strange people around? Hear a car?’

She shook her head. ‘A couple of cars passed me on the road to Lochdubh heading the other way, but I didn’t notice them particularly.’

‘You must have noticed something about them,’ said Hamish sharply. ‘Colour? Large, small?’

She shook her head wearily. ‘One was small and black, I think, and the other grey, and a bit bigger.’

‘Hatchback? Saloon?’

‘I don’t know,’ she wailed. ‘And you’re harassing me.’

Hamish decided to get back to her later. ‘I’ll send a policewoman to sit with you.’

He went out again and found a policewoman and directed her to Felicity. He approached Parry. ‘What’s the latest?’

‘I heard thon pathologist say it’s an open-and-shut case of an overdose.’

Hamish fretted because he felt he was being kept out of things. But, he reminded himself, it was his own fault for having decided to remain an ordinary copper instead of taking promotion when it
had been offered.

After a long wait Jimmy Anderson, who had gone back into the dead man’s chalet, emerged.

He came up to Hamish. ‘They’re taking the body away. They’ll know more about what happened after a postmortem. But it all seems very straightforward. No murder for you,
Hamish.’

‘That book he was writing,’ said Hamish. ‘He was writing a book about his experience with drugs. Anything there? I mean anything that might have incriminated anyone?’

‘We’re looking into it,’ said Jimmy sharply. ‘Why don’t you just get back to your beat and let us sort this out.’

‘This is my beat,’ said Hamish huffily.

‘Aye, well, it’s not as if you can do anything. Had the wee lassie anything to offer?’

‘She said he was all right. She asked Tommy if he wanted any groceries, then she drove to Lochdubh. She said two cars passed her on the road going the other way but when I pressed her for
a description, she started on about harassment, so I got out of there and sent in a policewoman.’

‘If it was a murder case,’ said Jimmy, ‘she could howl about harassment until she was black in the face, but this is just an accidental death.’

‘But Glenanstey is a dead end. After here the road doesnae go anywhere,’ protested Hamish.

‘Aye, but there’s a wee road afore here that goes to Crask,’ said Jimmy.

He walked off. Still Hamish waited until at last the pathologist emerged and headed for his car. Hamish rushed over to him.

‘What’s the verdict?’

‘Oh, it’s yourself,’ said Sinclair, the pathologist, sourly. ‘It looks like an overdose. Anderson said he took heroin.’

‘What’s a lethal dose?’ asked Hamish.

‘In a non-tolerant person the estimated lethal dose of heroin may range from two hundred to five hundred milligrams, but addicts have tolerated doses as high as eighteen hundred milligrams
without even being sick. But there’s an odd thing about heroin addicts.’ Dr Sinclair leaned his cadaverous body against his car and settled down to give a lecture. ‘The reason for
tolerance to heroin is partially conditioned by the environment where the drug was normally administered. If the drug is administered in a new setting, much of the conditioned tolerance will
disappear and the addict will be more likely to overdose. Some pundits in the States believe that most of the OD cases are because of adulterated heroin. But oddly enough, British addicts who get
clean heroin have about as high a mortality rate as Americans who shoot street crap. The health problems of addicts come from the use of needles, the presence of adulterants in the drug, the poor
nutrition and health care associated with the hardcore addict –’

‘Wait a bit,’ Hamish interrupted. ‘I saw Tommy today and he was healthy and happy.’

The pathologist sighed. ‘Any addict is a tricky person. Very sneaky. He could have been talking to you and planning all the time in his brain when he was going to shoot up.’

‘Could the dose have been forcibly injected?’

‘There are no signs of violence or of forced entry to the chalet.’

‘There wouldnae be any signs of forced entry. He probably kept his door unlocked day and night. I wonder about that book he was writing,’ murmured Hamish. ‘Oh, dear, I think
that must be the boy’s parents arriving.’

A stolid, middle-aged couple were getting out of a police car. The woman, plump and matronly, was weeping, her husband with the blank look of shock on his face.

Hamish said goodbye to the pathologist. There was nothing more he could do. But he took Parry aside.

‘Look, Parry, Jimmy Anderson will get mad if I interfere but could you do me a wee favour? If you get a chance to speak to the parents – they’ll be getting Tommy’s
effects – ask them if I could have a look at what he was writing.’

‘I’ll do that. Are you off then?’

‘I’ll just stop at the Irishman’s cottage at the Crask turn. He might have seen some cars.’

Sean Fitzpatrick was a crusty old man. No one was quite sure when he had arrived from Ireland, only that he was a retired builder. He had bought a ruin of a cottage and had
restored it. The locals had tried to be friendly but as they said, ‘Sean likes to keep himself to himself.’

Hamish had only exchanged a few ‘good days’ with the man but any attempt he had made to stop the police Land Rover and get out when he saw the old man working in his garden had
resulted in Sean scuttling indoors.

He drove up, parked and got out. The sky was still brightly lit by a full moon. A thin thread of smoke was rising from the cottage chimney up to a black velvet sky where only a few faint stars
glimmered. The black clouds he had seen earlier had retreated. The evening was cool and the air was sweet.

A deer, magnificently antlered, stood silhouetted on the crest of a hill above the little cottage with the moon behind it, as if posing for a photograph, and then disappeared with one long
bound.

The peace of the evening entered Hamish’s soul. He felt sure now that Tommy had indeed taken an overdose. It was his own vanity, he thought ruefully, that had made him want to find out if
it was murder, because he had instinctively liked and trusted Tommy.

He opened the green-painted gate and walked up the short path and knocked at the door.

He waited patiently. At last the door opened a crack and an eye looked out at him.

‘Police, Mr Fitzpatrick,’ said Hamish. ‘A wee word with you, please.’

The door opened wide. Sean Fitzpatrick was stooped and old but his eyes were bright and intelligent in his tanned and seamed face.

‘What is it about?’ he asked cautiously. He had a light pleasant Irish accent. Probably west coast, thought Hamish.

‘It’s about one of Parry McSporran’s tenants. He’s been found dead of a drug overdose.’

‘And what has that to do with me?’

‘Can I come in?’

‘All right,’ said Sean reluctantly. ‘Just for a minute.’

Hamish tucked his cap under his arm, ducked his head under the low doorway and followed Sean inside, curious to see how this recluse lived.

Well, the answer is all here, thought Hamish, looking round the living room. Crammed bookshelves took up three walls, and beside the fireplace on the fourth was a CD player and neat stacks of
CDs.

‘Are these your company?’ he asked, waving a hand to the bookshelves.

‘Sure,’ said Sean, settling into a battered armchair and indicating its twin opposite. ‘But you didn’t come here to talk about books.’

‘Two cars going in the direction of Glenanstey were sighted this afternoon. Did you maybe happen to notice them?’

‘At what time?’

Hamish thought hard. Felicity had arrived back at what time? Six o’clock. And he had seen her down at Patel’s just before that. ‘Say about five,’ he said.

‘I was in here listening to music,’ said Sean. ‘Didn’t hear a thing. You know when I saw you, I thought for a moment you’d come about the monster.’

‘Monster? The Loch Ness Monster?’

‘No, there’s a lot of fuss over at Loch Drim. Two of the women saw a monster. They phoned the police in Strathbane, but whoever they spoke to told them to go and have a cup of black
coffee.’

‘Why didn’t they phone me?’ asked Hamish crossly. ‘Drim is on my beat.’

‘Said it was too important for a local bobby to deal with.’

‘And how do you know this? Folks say you never see anyone or go anywhere.’

‘I go around to get my bit of shopping. Folks have a way of talking in front of me as if I’m deaf and invisible.’

‘That’s your own fault. You never talk to anyone.’

‘I didn’t retire to the Highlands of Scotland to talk to anybody.’

‘Why did you come here? Where in Ireland are you from?’

‘Mind your own business, Officer.’

‘Well, if you can’t help me,’ said Hamish, rising and walking to the door, ‘I’d better call over at Drim and take a look into this other business.’

Sean’s eyes twinkled up at him.

‘I think you’ll find Jock Kennedy, who runs the general store, has thought up a way of drumming up business.’

‘It would amaze me,’ said Hamish bitterly, ‘seeing how much they hate outsiders in Drim.’

Hamish was always puzzled that two such contrasting villages as Lochdubh and Drim could be situated on his beat. Lockdubh always seemed light and friendly. Drim was all that on
the surface, but underneath there were black passions among the villagers, easily stirred up.

He thought that perhaps it had a lot to do with the location. It lay at the end of a black sea loch surrounded by towering mountains. It was almost as if the geography had made the people turn
inwards upon themselves, suspicious of strangers, and anyone from outside was a stranger.

He drove down the twisting road to the village and parked outside Jock Kennedy’s general store.

The shop was closed up for the night so he knocked loudly at the side door which led to the Kennedys’ flat over the store.

The burly figure of Jock Kennedy answered the door.

‘What’s all this about a monster?’ asked Hamish.

Jock came out and closed the door behind him. ‘Walk a bit with me, Hamish. I don’t want Ailsa getting any more daft ideas.’ Ailsa was his wife.

They walked down to the water’s edge. Little waves rippled at their feet. A seagull called mournfully; in one of the cottages behind them, a woman admonished her child. Then there was
silence, the silence of Sutherland, sometimes so complete it hurts modern ears.