Hamish Macbeth 18 (2002) - Death of a Celebrity (9 page)

“Here and there.”

“Now, that’s not an answer to be giving a policeman. If I was nosy enough I could find out.” He lifted a bottle of whisky down from the cupboard. “Jimmy hasn’t left much but there’s enough for a dram. Are you a gypsy?”

She coloured slightly. “What makes you say that?”

“Just an idea.”

“I’m half a one. My mother was a Grey but broke with them to marry a plumber down in Inverness. He went off and left her after I was born, but she had a lot of pride and wouldn’t go back to her family. She said she was sick of moving the whole time. She was bright. She worked as a secretary and put me through school. I was going to go to university, but she got ill with cancer, so I got a job in Inverness in a factory out in the industrial estate and nursed her till she died.”

“So where did you get your journalistic experience?”

“I didn’t. I haven’t. I was doing secretarial work like my mother, but it was boring. I saw a small item in the
Inverness Courier
about Sam starting a paper up here. I travelled up and asked him for a job. I suggested the astrology and the recipes and the home hints. He asked me to produce examples, and I had several articles already written. He was impressed so he employed me. I got a room in the village, so here I am.”

“And do you enjoy it?”

“Oh, yes. Something different every day. One day a baking competition, another, a murder.”

“Think of getting a job on one of the nationals? There were a few reporters from the big papers around the village right after the murder.”

“I shouldn’t think so. Sam lets me be my own boss.”

“So is Angus Macdonald going to take over the astrology column?”

“No. Sam says that people like my way of doing it.”

“And have you heard anything that might interest me?”

“Not a whisper.”

They sipped their whisky in companionable silence for a while. Lugs put his head on Elspeth’s knee and gazed up into her face with his blue eyes. “What an odd dog,” she said. “Some of the villagers are a bit afraid of Lugs. They think he’s someone who’s come back, because of those eyes of his.”

“There’s still a good few of them around here that still think folks come back as seals,” said Hamish.

“And do you?”

“No, though mind you I’ve seen seals out on the rocks that look like some of the villagers.”

“I can’t imagine, say, the Currie sisters as seals.”

“I can. They would organise the whole colony. In no time at all, those seals would be fund raising for charity and turning up at church.”

“So what’s your next move?”

“In this case?”

“Yes.”

“I’m going to interview Felicity Pearson tomorrow.”

“The researcher?”

“Herself.”

“Which means you suspect her,” said Elspeth.

“Why would a mere village bobby want to go to Strathbane to interview someone not on his beat?”

“I have a feeling about the lassie.”

“Why her? Why not one of the others? Her bosses, for example. She was having affairs with both of them.”

“How did you hear that?”

“Word gets around.”

“So why did you tell me you had heard nothing?”

“I knew you would know.”

“How?”

“I cannot reveal my source, Officer. I’d best be getting home.”

She put on her coat and Hamish walked her to the door. She turned and looked up at him. Those silver eyes of hers seemed to suddenly grow larger. He found himself saying, “Perhaps we might have dinner one evening?”

“Yes, that would be fine. Shall we say Sunday at eight?”

“Yes,” said Hamish.

Her eyes suddenly seemed to diminish to their normal size. “See you,” she said cheerfully and swung out into the dark night where the blazing stars above were reflected in the black waters of the loch.

Felicity had a flat in what had once been a manse. Church ministers were expected to have many children in the last century, so the Victorian building had provided ample space for modern flat conversions.

Hamish pressed the bell marked 2A and was buzzed into an entrance hall. Felicity opened a door on the left. “I hope you are not going to take up too much of my time,” she said. “I’m busy.”

“And so am I,” rejoined Hamish. “Murder takes up a lot of a policeman’s time.”

The living room looked like a shrine to what Felicity considered the days of her success. There were photographs of her in studios, on sets, out in the countryside with a camera crew, at television parties, laughing loudly and showing as many teeth as Cherie Blair.

It was a bleak room, because it had the Victorian height of ceiling, and it was cold.

Hamish removed his cap and set it on a coffee table. “I don’t really know what more I can say that I haven’t already,” said Felicity. “I mean, everything’s been checked.”

He studied her. She was wearing a pale blue lambs-wool sweater and a string of cultured pearls with a tweed skirt. Her hair was scraped back in a knot. Her eyes were light, no colour, and restless.

“The BMW that Crystal was supposed to have been driving…”

“What do you mean?” demanded Felicity shrilly. “Of course she was driving it!”

“Well now, that is the strange thing,” said Hamish. “The car was spotted on the Drim road, but the driver was wearing dark glasses and a big hat. We have a video security camera film from the garage opposite her place and it shows her leaving in the morning, without the hat and glasses and with her hair up, so what does that tell you?”

“That she had a hat and glasses in the car and put them on later.”

“No. Whoever attacked her did it outside the car. At one point she was lying in the heather. An attempt had been made to disguise that fact. Her hair had been brushed down but a couple of tiny little bits of heather were still caught in it.”

“She was probably driving with the windows open and some bits of heather got blown in on it,” said Felicity. “Then she knew she was going to be on camera soon, so she probably brushed her hair out herself.”

“My, you do have the answers, Miss Pearson. Tell me about yourself. How did you get started with Strathbane Television?”

She glanced impatiently at a clock on the wall, but she said, “I came to Strathbane Television ten years ago. I was secretary to Rory MacBain. He gave me a chance of being a researcher, then a director, and then he gave me my own show,
Countryside
. It was my idea to have a Gaelic show.”

I wonder if she had an affair with Rory, thought Hamish.

“How did you feel, Miss Pearson, when your show was axed?”

“Well, it was a bit of a blow, but Rory told me it was only temporary, that they would find something else for me. I thought, mind you, that he would at least have suggested I direct one of Crystal’s shows instead of making me a researcher.”

“And what was it like working for Crystal French?”

She smoothed out a pleat in her tweed skirt with a careful hand, her head down. “You know how it is, one just goes with the flow.”

“No, I don’t know how it is. From what I have learned of Miss French’s character, I would have thought it would have been very humiliating indeed.”

“Well, it was a bit,” she mumbled. “When she learned that she was there to replace my show, she asked to see a video of it, and then she trashed it in front of me and everyone. She ordered me around like a slave, getting me to do her shopping for her and make her appointments at the hairdresser.”

“Were you having an affair with Rory MacBain?”

Colour flooded her face. “Of course not! How can you even suggest such a thing? I will report you to your superiors.”

“Just doing my job.” Hamish consulted his notes. They had been sent over that morning by Jimmy Anderson. “You talked to Mrs. Wellington, the Currie sisters, Mrs. Brodie, people in Patel’s grocery store, and finished with Mary Hendry. You went to Mrs. Hendry at eleven and did not leave until twelve noon. Why so long?”

“I was tired of the job. I knew I wouldn’t get anyone to say anything bad about you and that Crystal would be furious. Mary was sympathetic. We had tea and talked a long time.”

“About what?”

“Chit-chat. Life in general. It’s been checked.”

“So I see.”

“I don’t know why you’re questioning me again,” said Felicity. “What about all the other people who must have wished her dead? There was that crofter…”

“Barry McSween. He’s got a good alibi.”

“Not him. Johnny Liddesdale.”

“Why him?”

Felicity bit her lip. “I’m not supposed to tell you. He phoned up after the ‘Myth of the Poor Crofter’ show. He said he would kill her.”

“Why has no one been told about this?”

“There were a lot of calls like that. I can’t remember the other ones. I remembered him because the others were just members of the public. He was the only one who had been interviewed.”

“So why weren’t you supposed to say anything?”

“Rory said it couldn’t have been him because he’s just a wee crofter and if it came out, it would look bad for the television station, I mean riling someone decent like that.”

“Is there anyone else you’re not telling me about?”

“No, I think that’s it. Can I go? I’m running late.”

“Are you getting your show back again?”

“They said I would. But they’ve changed their minds.” She stood up and picked up her handbag.

“I’ll see myself out,” said Hamish, getting to his feet. “But I may need to question you again.”

Hamish went straight to police headquarters and typed out his report. When he had finished, Jimmy Anderson said, “I’ll take that up to Carson. You wait here.”

Carson read the report and then read it again. He raised his eyes. “Have you seen this?”

“No, I haven’t read it. I brought it straight up.”

“Macbeth says that Felicity Pearson, in his opinion, had been possibly having an affair with Rory MacBain, and that would be another reason for her hating Crystal. There’s something else. That crofter, Johnny Liddesdale, who was on one of the shows, phoned up and threatened to kill Crystal. I don’t know how Macbeth does it, but couldn’t any of my detectives have found this out before? Is all detection to be left to a village policeman? I shall see Rory MacBain myself. Tell Macbeth he’s to go and talk to this crofter.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jimmy rattled back down the stairs. “Hamish, you’re to go and talk to the crofter.”

“I might have a word with Carson before I go,” said Hamish. “I mean, I think Felicity Pearson’s flat should be searched.”

“We already searched it for the hat and glasses, along with everyone else’s home.”

“You see, we weren’t looking for hairpins,” said Hamish. “Crystal French had her hair up, so she would use blonde hairpins. Felicity Pearson would have dark ones.”

“Carson’s just gone out,” lied Jimmy. He felt Hamish had gained kudos enough.

“All right. I’ll maybe see him later,” said Hamish.

As Hamish left police headquarters, he glanced up at the windows and then stiffened. He could see Carson, his back to the room, looking as if he were dictating letters. Now why did Jimmy…?

His hazel eyes narrowed. He went back into the building, not to the detectives’ room but to the general operations room, and said to the policewoman who had been there at the television interviews, “Can I borrow your computer, just for a few moments?”

She nodded. Hamish typed busily and printed it out and then ran up the stairs to Carson’s office. Jimmy was waiting outside. “What are you doing here?”

“Just putting in a further report about these hairpins.”

“You’d better get off and see that crofter. I’ll take it in to him.” Blue eyes met hazel for a long moment. Then Hamish suddenly jerked open the door to Carson’s office. “Hey!” shouted Jimmy. “You can’t just walk in there!”

“Don’t you knock?” demanded Carson wrathfully.

“I’ve got a further report, sir,” said Hamish meekly. “Awfy sorry to bother you.”

He laid it on Carson’s desk and walked out, closing the door quietly behind him. Jimmy was no longer waiting. Hamish grinned and walked down the stairs, whistling.

Johnny Liddesdale, he thought, as he parked the car outside the croft house. Couldn’t be him. But then the seemingly meek, he had discovered in the past, could be frightening when roused.

The crofter answered the door to him. He was a small, neat man with thick grey hair carefully parted and brushed, grey clothes, greyish skin. “It iss yourself, Hamish,” he said. “Come ben.”

Hamish walked into the kitchen, admiring, as he had done before, the beauty of the ladder-backed chairs that Johnny had made himself. “Will you be taking a dram?”

“No, I’m driving.” Hamish put his cap on the kitchen table and sat down. “Tea would be nice, though.”

“I wass chust making a pot.” Hamish waited until Johnny placed teapot and cups on the table.

“Now, Johnny,” said Hamish gently. “I’ve heard a report that you phoned Strathbane Television and threatened to kill Crystal French.”

“Yes, I did indeed, Hamish. I wass that upset. Oh, man, she made such a fool o’ me and worse. Times are hard, Hamish. I’ve got cousins and nephews all over the place. I neffer married, as you know, but I’ve got four sisters and lots of aunties. They’ve been phoning me up asking for money, saying they saw the programme and I wass the millionaire and not letting them know. And me worried sick about money.”

“I’ll have to ask you, Johnny, what were you doing on Monday? Don’t panic. I’m asking everybody.”

“I wass doing the usual jobs, mending fences, moving the sheep to the upper field, cutting logs, stacking peats.”

“Anyone see you?”

“I don’t know if they did. You can ask at the next croft, that’s Bert Mackenzie. He may ha’ seen me out and about.”

“I’ll check that. Not like you to threaten to kill anyone.”

“It wass chust wan o’ those things you say when you’re overwrought. You know me, Hamish, I wouldnae hurt a fly.”

Hamish’s eyes wandered to an open copy of the
Inverness Courier
spread out on the table. He saw the headline,
AMERICAN STAR VISITS INVERNESS
. Jolene Carey, a famous country and western singer, was touring Scotland on holiday. He suddenly remembered seeing a news item about her bidding for Shaker furniture. He looked thoughtfully at Johnny’s beautifully crafted chairs.