Hamish Macbeth 13 (1997) - Death of a Dentist (3 page)

Hamish leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. “Now there’s a thing. A battered wife and two hundred and fifty thousand pounds missing from the safe. She could get a long way away from him on that.”

“Battered wives don’t usually have the guts to do anything to escape. Not unless there’s another man.”

Hamish thought of the acidulous Mrs. Macbean with her thin, lipsticked mouth and hair in pink rollers and sighed. “No, I don’t think it can be anything to do with her. Thanks for the tea and everything, Angela. I’d best get back to the station.”

Jimmy Anderson was waiting for him. “Typed up your notes yet on that burglary?”

“You said you didn’t want them.”

“Well, I would like them now.” Jimmy followed Hamish into the police station and through to the police office. “Got any whisky?”

Seeing that Jimmy was restored to something like his normal self, Hamish said, “Aye, there’s a bottle in the bottom drawer. I’ll get you a glass.”

“What about yourself?”

“Not me,” said Hamish with a shudder. “I have the tooth-ache.”

“Get them all pulled out, Hamish. That’s what I did. I got a rare pair of dentures. I even got the dentist to stain them a bit wi’ nicotine so they look like the real thing.”

He bared an evil-looking set of false teeth.

Hamish got a glass and poured Jimmy a generous measure of whisky.

“So what’s happening with the burglary?”

Jimmy looked sour. “Nothing. We’ll need to wait for the reports on Macbean and the staff to see if any of them has a criminal background.”

“I hear Macbean beats his wife.”

“This is the Highlands, man. What else do they do on the long winter nights?”

“Just thought I’d tell you, which is very generous of me, considering you sent me away wi’ a flea in my ear. You had a touch of Blairitis.”

“You’d best keep your ear to the ground, Hamish, or we’ll have that pillock, Blair, poking his nose in.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

“Maybe you’d best go back there tomorrow.”

And Hamish would have definitely gone straight to The Scotsman Hotel in the morning but for one thing. After he had typed out his notes for Jimmy, he found the whole side of his face was burning and throbbing with pain. He decided to go straight to Gilchrist and ask him to pull the tooth. He could make time between appointments. There was just so much pain a man could bear. He got into the police Land Rover and set out on the narrow one-track road which led to Braikie. The weather was milder, which meant a thin drizzle was misting the windscreen and the cloud was low on the flanks of the Sutherland mountains.

Braikie was one of those small Scottish towns where Calvinism seems to seep out of the very walls of the dark grey houses. There was one main street with a hotel at one end and a grim-looking church at the other. Small shops selling limp dresses and food of the frozen fish fingers variety were dotted here and there. The police station had been closed down, Braikie having some time ago been considered near enough for Hamish Macbeth to patrol.

But he hardly ever went there and had no reason to.

Braikie might be a dismal place, but he could not rememher a crime ever being committed there.

He asked a local where the dentist’s surgery was and was told it was next to the church. It was situated above a dress shop where dowdy frocks at outrageous prices were displayed in the window, which was covered in yellow cellophane to protect the precious goods from sunlight, even though the dreary day was becoming blacker by the minute. The entrance to the dentist’s surgery was a stone staircase by the side of the shop. He mounted; slowly, holding his jaw although the pain had suddenly ceased in that mysterious way that toothache has of disappearing the minute you are heading for the dentist’s chair.

He stopped on the landing and cocked his head to one side. It was quiet. No sound seemed to filter from inside.

A frosted-glass door with Gilchrist’s name on it faced him. It was the only door on the landing.

With a little sigh, he pushed it open. The waiting room was empty, the receptionist’s desk was empty. The silence was absolute. A tank of fish ornamented one comer, but the fish were dead and floating belly up. A table with very, old copies of
Scottish Field
was in the centre of the room. Hard upright chairs lined the walls.

His tooth gave another sharp wrench of pain, and stifling a moan, he pushed open the surgery door.

A man was sitting in the dentist’s chair, his back to Hamish. “Hullo,” said Hamish tentatively. “Where’s the dentist?”

Silence.

He strode around the front of the chair.

From the white hair and white coat, he realised he was looking at Mr. Gilchrist.

But his face was not white. It was horribly discoloured and distorted.

Hamish felt for a pulse at the wrist and then at the neck.

Mr. Gilchrist was dead.

My name is Death: the last best friend am I.

 

—
Robert Soutfiey

Hamish stood for a moment, shocked. And then the heavy stillness was broken, almost as if the whole of the small town had been waiting for him to find the body.

A dog barked in the street below, its master called it in an angry voice, an old car coughed and spluttered its way, and high heels sounded on the stone staircase outside.

He heard the outside door opening as the high heels clacked their way in. He opened the door of the surgery. A beautiful girl was hanging her coat on a hatstand in the corner. She had glossy jet black hair, a white clear complexion and large blue eyes. She was of medium height with a curvaceous figure and excellent legs. “What do you want?” she snapped, and, oh, the voice did not match the face or figure. But the voice was undoubtedly that of the receptionist, Maggie Bane.

“Who are you?” she went on. Hamish was not in uniform.

“Hamish Macbeth.”

“Well, Mr. Macbeth, Mr. Gilchrist has his coffee at this time in the morning and does not like to be disturbed.”

“He’s dead.”

She did not seem to hear him. She detached a white coat from the coat rack and put it on. “In any case,” she went; on, “your appointment is for three o’clock this afternoon. Not eleven o’clock this morning.”

“He’s dead!” howled Hamish. “Mr. Gilchrist is dead and it looks like poison to me.”

Those wide blue eyes dilated. She suddenly ran past him into the surgery. She stared down at the dead body of the dentist. She stood there in silence. She looked as if she might never move again. “Miss Bane!” said Hamish sharply. “I am a police officer. Do not touch anything. I’ll need to phone police headquarters.”

He walked forward and took her by the shoulders and guided her back to her desk. “Sit down and don’t move,” he ordered.

She sat down numbly and stared straight ahead. He dialled the Strathbane number and got through to Detective Chief Inspector Blair, who listened while Hamish quickly outlined the finding of the body. “I’ll be over right away,” said Blair in his heavy Glaswegian accent. “Trust you to find another body. If ah hadnae enough on ma hands as it is.” Hamish put down the receiver and turned to Maggie Bane. “Do you feel up to answering a few questions, Miss Bane?”

She sat motionless.

“Miss Bane?”

Those beautiful eyes finally focused on him. “I can’t believe it,” she whispered. “I took him in his morning coffee and went out to the shops. Oh, here’s his next patient coming.”

Hamish went quickly to the door. A woman stood there, holding a small child by the hand. “I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” he said. “I am a police officer. Give me your name and address and we will be in touch with you.”

He coped with her startled questions as best he could, noted down her name, address and telephone number, and then went quickly into the surgery, where the dead body lay in the chair, to look for the coffee cup. He found it over by a stainless steel sink. Cup and saucer had been washed.

He went back to Maggie. “Did he usually wash his own cup and saucer after drinking his coffee?”

“No,” she said in a shaky voice. “He just usually left it and I washed it for him and put it away in the cupboard.”

“How long have you worked for him?”

“Five years.”

“I’ll need your home address and telephone number, Miss Bane. I do not want to distress you now with too many questions. When did Mr. Gilchrist start work?”

“At nine o’clock.”

“And you?”

“The same.”

“And was he in a good mood? No signs of depression or distress?”

“What? Oh, do you mean would he have committed suicide? No. He was the same as ever.”

Hamish crossed to the outside door, opened it and hung a CLOSED sign which had been hanging on the doorknob on the inside of the door on the outside doorknob. “What I need at the moment before the contingent from Strathbane arrives is your appointment book. Who had the first appointment?”

“Someone from Lochdubh.” She pulled forward the book. She seemed unnaturally calm now. “Mr. Archibald Macleod.”

Archie, the fisherman, thought Hamish.

“And how long was he with the dentist?”

“He wasn’t. He didn’t turn up.”

“Who did Mr. Gilchrist see before his coffee break?”

“A Mrs. Harrison.”

“Mrs. Harrison from outside Lochdubh on the Braikie road?”

“Yes, her.”

“But she was spreading scandal that Mr. Gilchrist had sexually interfered with her.”

“She’s a nut case. She was always hanging around him.”

Hamish scratched his head in perplexity.

“Mr. Gilchrist must have known what she had been saying about him. Why on earth was he treating her?”

“She was a good-paying customer.”

“Now, let’s go over your own movements. When you came in at nine o’clock, Mr. Gilchrist was the same as ever. Mr. Macleod did not turn up. The next was Mrs, Harrison. What did she have done?”

“She had a tooth drawn.”

“How long was she with him?”

“Half an hour.”

“And so it was coffee break time. You took him in a cup of coffee?”

“Yes. At ten o’clock. I told him I was stepping out to buy a few things from the shops.”

“Show me where the coffee things are kept.”

She rose and went over to a low cupboard next to the tank of dead fish. “Why are these fish dead?” asked Hamish.

“I don’t know. I followed all the instructions properly but they died a week ago.”

Hamish looked into the depths of the murky tank. “You should have a filter and the tank should have been cleaned.”

“I didn’t want the things,” said Maggie, crouching down by the cupboard. “It was Mr. Gilchrist’s idea. When they died he ordered me to clear out the tank and throw the dead fish away but I told him to do it himself.”

“And he agreed?”

“What does it matter now?” demanded Maggie in that sharp, ugly voice of hers. “He’s lying dead next door.”

“We’ll get back to it later.” Hamish bent down in front of the cupboard. “So this is where you keep the coffee things.” There was a can of instant coffee and three cups and saucers and two spoons, a bowl of lump sugar, and a carton of milk. “I’d better not touch anything here until the forensic team arrives,” he said.

He was itching to go out and ask if anyone had been seen entering the surgery after ten o’clock. But he did not want to leave her alone. “How many lumps of sugar did Mr. Gilchrist take in his coffee?”

“Six lumps.”

“Six! There’s a packet of biscuits at the back,” he said, peering into the depths of the cupboard. “Gypsy Creams. Did he have any of them?”

“He usually had two with his coffee but he said he didn’t want any biscuits this morning.”

“Did he say why?”

Maggie Bane stood up and suddenly began to cry. Hamish got slowly to his feet. “You’d best go and sit down,” he said, although he could not help wondering whether the tears were genuine or not. Maggie’s ugly voice robbed her of femininity and any softness.

He went back into the surgery and stared down at the dead man. If he had been poisoned, and Hamish suspected he might have been, then the killer had waited in the surgery for him to die and then had taken the cup and saucer and washed both. Hamish shook his head. Had he been arranged in the chair after death? Surely a poisoned man would writhe and vomit, stagger to the door for help.

Wait a bit, he thought. He, Hamish, had arrived just after eleven. When he had felt the pulse, the body was still warm.

He went back to the reception. Maggie had stopped crying and had lit up a cigarette.

“You went out to buy some things,” said Hamish, “and yet you didnae get back here until after eleven. A long coffee break. Did you always go out?”

“No, hardly ever.”

“And was the coffee break always an hour?”

“No, half an hour.”

“So what kept you?”

“There wasn’t another patient expected until that woman and her child turned up, Mrs. Albert and wee Jamie.”

“But you gave me the impression when I phoned for an appointment that he was busy all day.”

“It’s business,” she said wearily. “Mr. Gilchrist didn’t like his clients to know that he wasn’t fully booked.”

Police sirens sounded, coming down the street. “This is the lot from headquarters,” said Hamish.

When Blair lumbered in, a heavyset man whose fat face always seemed to be sneering, accompanied by his sidekicks, detectives Anderson and MacNab, and then the forensic team, pathologist and photographer, Hamish hurriedly, outlined what he had found, and then suggested he should go out and try to find out if anyone had seen anything.

“Aye, all right,” growled Blair ungraciously. “We don’t want you getting in the way o’ the professionals.”

Hamish went out onto the landing. The staircase led to an upper floor. A man was leaning over the banister, looking down.

“Whit’s going on?” he asked.

Hamish went up the stairs. “There’s been a bit of an accident. I am a police officer.”

“Aye, I ken you fine. You’re thon Hamish Macbeth from Lochdubh.”

He was an elderly man, small, gnarled, wearing the odd mixture of pyjamas, dressing gown and a tweed cloth cap on his head.