Death of Yesterday (16 page)

Detective Chief Inspector Blair was back on duty and grinned when he saw Hamish. “There you are, laddie,” he crowed. “And deep, deep in the doo-doo.”

He went off laughing as Hamish took the lift up to the top floor. Secretary Helen gave him a thin smile and told him to wait. If he fires me, thought Hamish gloomily, Dick will be left to police my beat and I will lose my home.

At last he was ushered in. He stood nervously in front of Daviot’s desk while the superintendent signed some papers. Then Daviot finally looked up.

“This is a bad business, Macbeth,” he said in the quiet voice he used when he was really furious. “I told you to leave Gilchrist alone and you take an unauthorised trip abroad to pester his wife. I have been lenient with you in the past, too lenient. But this is simply too much. You’re fired.”

In Hamish’s mind, his police station, sheep, hens, pets, all whirled away in a black mist. He’d had an uneasy feeling that, in reporting his visit to Estonia, it might mean Brenda had nothing to fear . . . and yet . . .

“You should realise, sir, that I must have had a good reason.”

“Really? Out with it!”

“It’s like this, sir . . . May I sit down?”

“No.”

“It iss verra odd,” said Hamish, his highland accent strengthened by his nervousness, “that Mrs. Gilchrist has been travelling for a long time. When I approached her, I could swear she was frightened. Why? Don’t you think she might at least have been curious instead of telling me to get lost? Only people with something to hide send the police packing. There have been three murders and I have to look for anything at all that does not fit. And instead of reporting me, you would think that Mr. Gilchrist would want to do his utmost in helping the police instead of blocking us at every turn. The reason the staff at the factory won’t say anything, I am sure, is because they have been told not to and have been threatened with losing their jobs. Surely every penny should be going into the factory and not paying for the boss’s wife’s unlimited travel.”

“I happen to know,” said Daviot frostily, “that Mrs. Gilchrist is a very wealthy woman in her own right.”

“Where does her money come from?”

“Camford Dog Food. When her parents died, she, her sister, Heather, and her brother, Luke, sold the business for a great sum of money. Now, if that is all . . .”

“Look, sir,” said Hamish, “if you take me out of the investigation, you won’t get anywhere. I know how the locals think. Give me a little more time and I am sure I can get one of them to talk. I solved the wheelchair murder. I am not stupid. Have my past successes nothing to say for me?”

“Mr. Blair is perfectly competent to head the investigation.”

“Mr. Blair is a member of your lodge. That means he is friendly with Mr. Gilchrist. That means that no one will talk to him, least of all Mr. Gilchrist.”

Daviot sat scowling. He had to admit that Strathbane police were enduring a lot of criticism in the press over the unsolved murders. He also had to admit in all honesty that Macbeth’s quirky and unusual ways had produced dramatic results in the past. Besides, his wife was determined to cultivate a friendship with Priscilla Halburton-Smythe and had hopes that her engagement to Hamish might be on again.

“All right,” he said finally. “I will give you one more chance. But be discreet. Keep away from Gilchrist until you have any proof of actual wrongdoing, and I mean concrete proof.”

“What was Brenda Gilchrist’s maiden name?” asked Hamish.

“Camford, like the dog food,” said Daviot reluctantly.

When Hamish returned to the police station, he could hear Dick singing hoarsely above the hum of the new Dyson vacuum cleaner which he had won on a television quiz—
Have You a Clue?
Hamish felt a stab of irritation. It should be a wife he was coming home to, not some fat, lazy policeman.

He shouted at Dick to switch off the vacuum and told him that they had to go out and research the background of Brenda Gilchrist, her brother, and sister.

“Why?” asked Dick plaintively.

“Because I’ve got a hunch there’s something wrong.”

“I’ve just heard the shipping forecast,” said Dick.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“We’re to be hit by the tail end of an American hurricane later today. There’s a red alert. Don’t drive unless you have to.”

“Dick, it blows like hell most of the time in Sutherland. Get your uniform on.”

The wind was howling dismally and ruffling the black waters of the loch in Cnothan when they parked outside the factory. The winds of Sutherland usually started with this howling sound which then rose to an eldritch screech and then rose even higher to a peculiar banging sound as if the rain clouds were colliding.

“Going to be bad,” muttered Dick. “Who are we going to talk to?”

Hamish glanced at his watch and then reversed the Land Rover until it was outside the Loaming. “Maisie Moffat will be along soon. If we can get her aside and buy her a few drinks, we might get some background on Brenda.”

“Why don’t we ask that odd job man who takes her to the airport?”

“Maybe later.”

They parked and entered the pub. Hamish bagged a corner table. Dick went over to a blackboard to see what was on order for lunch. “What do you want?” he called over one chubby shoulder. “They’ve got lasagne and chips today.”

“Nothing. Just a tonic water,” said Hamish.

Dick came back to join him, carrying the tonic water for Hamish and a half-pint of lager for himself.

Dick’s lasagne arrived after ten minutes. “That actually looks good,” said Hamish, surprised.

“They get a tray of it from the Italian restaurant in Lochdubh,” said Dick. “Do you think Sonsie and Lugs will be all right?”

“They’ll be fine,” said Hamish. “They’re probably along at the kitchen door of the Italian restaurant, cadging food. Here’s Maisie.”

Maisie had just entered with several other members of the staff. Hamish rose and went to meet her. Dick saw him talking to her and then she followed him reluctantly to join Dick.

“Dick, get Miss Moffat a large vodka and Red Bull,” said Hamish.

When Dick went to the bar, Hamish said, “All I want is a bit of background on Brenda Gilchrist.”

“Oh, her? She back yet?”

“No, but did she always travel like this?”

“Only this year. She was more o’ a Women’s Institute type. Good works if it meant she could boss people.”

“Where did she come from?”

“I didnae ken. But she was Camford Dog Food. The factory was down in Inverness. Ta.” She took the drink Dick was offering her and took a great gulp.

“Did you ever meet her sister?”

“Came up once or twice. Didn’t lower herself to speak to the staff. Just looked around the place.”

“And the brother, Luke?”

“Never saw him.”

“Dick, get Miss Moffat another drink.”

Dick cast a fulminating look at his cooling lasagne and stumped up to the bar.

“I’d appreciate it,” said Hamish, “if you did not tell anyone what I was asking about.”

“I wouldnae dare,” said Maisie. “I can tell you that if Mr. Gilchrist heard I’d be out o’ a job.”

“So why are you talking to me?”

She grinned, taking her fresh drink from Dick. “’Cos I knew you’d get me a drink and I can usually only afford to order a shandy at lunchtime. Go doon tae Inverness and ask the dog food people. They’d know more about the family than me.”

“We shouldn’t be doing this,” grumbled Dick as Hamish took the road to Inverness under an increasingly black sky. “What if the Inverness police see us?”

“I looked up the dog food place. It’s actually outside Inverness on the Black Isle.”

“The Black Isle’s flat,” said Dick gloomily.

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“We’ll be blown over.”

“Havers!”

Meanwhile, Geordie Fleming had not gone for lunch. Instead he had gone home to put another dose of poison at the roots of the monkey puzzle. He had tried again to get permission to cut it down and had once more been turned down. Geordie had heard the dire weather forecast so he poured a lot of poison down on the left-hand side of the tree. The wind would blow fiercely from the west and with any luck, the weakened roots would send the tree toppling over sideways so it would not hit the house. The top of the tree was already swaying in the screeching gale.

He hated that tree with a passion. Because of it blocking light from the house, he had to burn electric light during the day, even in summer.

* * *

As Hamish drove into the Black Isle, the Land Rover bucked and swayed dangerously.

The Black Isle is not an island but a peninsula, surrounded on three sides by water: the Cromarty Firth on the north, the Beauly Firth to the south, and the Moray Firth to the east. It got its name because snow was supposed never to lie on it.

Hamish found the industrial site outside Conan Bridge. He parked in the lee of one of the dog food factory’s buildings. He and Dick walked round to the reception area at the front, bending before the wind, hanging on to their caps.

They asked to see the manager and were told by a small man in a brown overall that Mr. Frith would be with them shortly.

Mr. Frith was just as small as his receptionist, a stocky man just under five feet tall with piercing, elongated bright green eyes. It was, thought Hamish, as if the factory were staffed by elves.

“You’ve just caught me,” he said. “I was about to send the staff home. We’re in for a bad one.”

“I know,” said Dick. “I’ve been trying to tell my sergeant that.”

Hamish ignored him. “I wanted to know a bit about the Camford family who used to own this factory.”

“You’ll need to ask them.”

“Where do they live?”

“Cromarty. It’s a big Georgian house in the centre of the town called Gateside. The father used his family name for the dog food, and the new owners kept calling it that.”

“Cromarty!” panted Dick, nearly breathless from the buffeting of the wind which had struck them, full force, as they had left the reception office. “It’s too far in this weather.” He fastened his seat belt and looked hopefully at Hamish.

“We’re going,” said Hamish. “I haven’t come all this way to give up.”

Dick could only thank his stars that the Black Isle was not blessed with too many trees. As it was, Hamish had to swerve several times to avoid debris on the road.

Hamish had been born in Cromarty, but his parents had moved to Rogart over near Golspie when he was small.

When they reached the house, a rowan tree had blown down and was blocking the drive.

A thin man was tugging ineffectually at the branches of the fallen tree. “Where can I find Mr. Camford?” shouted Hamish above the screaming wind.

“That’s me. What’s up? Come into the house.”

They followed him into a dim, stone-flagged hallway and then into a sitting room furnished with a Chesterfield sofa and two easy chairs. Dim oil paintings were hung on two walls. The third wall was covered with an old-fashioned glass-fronted bookcase full of leather-bound books which looked as if they had not been read since the eighteenth century. A coal fire sent out puffs of smoke. The room was cold and smelled of damp.

“It’s just a routine enquiry,” said Hamish. “We’re still in the process of excluding people from our enquiries. When your sister Brenda married Harry Gilchrist, did she put much money into the dress factory?”

“He thought she was going to. But she wanted the money for herself. She said she believed in men standing on their own feet. Bit of a letdown for old Harry. But he’s made a go of it. Brenda got the bulk of the money, you know. Father left the factory to her and not much to me and Heather. I asked her for some to help modernise this place a bit but she refused. Now, I gather, she does nothing but travel.”

“Where can I find your sister Heather?”

“She’s travelling as well. Went off with Brenda. I get a postcard from time to time. I wish she’d get back. I don’t care if the housing market is low. I’d really like to get rid of this place.”

Hamish walked over to a table by the window which contained framed photographs. He picked up one of them, recognising the woman he had spoken to in Tallinn. Beside her was a woman he assumed was Heather. “Your sisters?”

“Yes.”

“May I keep this?”

“What . . . ?”

But before he could finish, there came an almighty crash from over their heads, and rubble and soot fell down the chimney. Luke Camford ran outside. Hamish tucked the photograph into his capacious oilskin pocket and then they followed him.

“A chimney’s gone through the upstairs,” he shouted. He pulled out his mobile. “I’d better get the fire brigade. Damn. No signal. You’re the police. Do something!”

“Are we going to the fire station?” asked Dick as they drove off.

“No. He’ll need to fend for himself. I don’t want to advertise our presence more than necessary.”

Geordie Fleming had not allowed for the fact that if you live in a place with a high dam at one end of the loch and mountains and gully on the other side, then where you live becomes a victim of cross-winds. The tree was beginning to creak and sway alarmingly. He phoned the office and said he was not feeling well. He wanted to be on hand for his triumph when the beastly thing blew down.

“Where’s Fleming?” demanded Pete Eskdale. “The boss is shouting for him.”

“Haven’t seen him,” said the secretary, a small girl with hair as ginger as Pete’s. “We should all be allowed to go home. There are reports of damage all over the village.”

“I’ll ask around,” said Pete.

He had just left when she received the phone call from Geordie saying he was ill. Gilchrist was somewhere about the factory. She went in search of him, telling everyone she came across to tell the boss that Geordie was at home, sick.

* * *

Geordie sat at his living room window amid the horrendous tumult of the storm, watching the tree as it bent and swayed. He began to notice uneasily that the howling wind was switching from east to west and then to the north as it was channelled down the gullies of the mountains opposite.

He decided to go into the kitchen and fix himself a strong drink.