Death of a Valentine Part 21

A car drew up outside. "That's my Bill!" said Charlotte and ran out to meet him.

Josie opened her handbag and slid the pregnancy kit inside.

When they came in, arm and arm, Josie got to her feet. "I'll leave you to it," she said. "Congratulations again."

"Let me show you the pregnancy kit," said Charlotte. "d.a.m.n. Where is it? I'm so excited I can't remember where I put it. Never mind. I've made an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to get it confirmed."

"Should you be drinking?" asked Bill.

"I'm going to get right blootered and then I'm not going to drink another thing until the baby is born. Open up another bottle!"

Josie stopped at the supermarket where they sold bags of ice. In her car outside, she dropped the kit into the ice, wrapped in a polythene bag. The day was freezing so she hid the bag in the garage.

Hamish phoned Jimmy the next day. Josie had arrived and he had told her to do the rounds of the faraway areas. "So did he confess?" asked Hamish.

"That he did. When we told him his wife had turned on him, he cracked. I think he's a haggis supper short o' the neeps. He was obsessed wi' Annie and added to that he's as arrogant as the devil. She lost interest in him and he decided to get rid of her in the nastiest way he could think of."

"What about Cora? Has she been charged as an accomplice?"

"She has. But she'll get off lightly. She'll even make bail."

"Why?"

"She said she was terrified of him."

"Nothing terrifies a woman like Cora."

"Hamish, the poor woman was married to a triple murderer. She said she couldn't bear it any longer so it was she who sent in yon package of photos."

"I don't believe it for a minute."

"Well, that's what she's saying. Wasn't you, was it?"

Hamish thought quickly. It would do no good to tell Jimmy the truth because in order to prove Cora wrong, he would need to admit to having broken into the Baxters' home.

"Me? Not on your life," he said.

But privately he thought that Cora had been in the grip of an obsession almost as mad as that of her husband. Respectability and her position as a councillor's wife was her life and the very air she breathed.

Hamish found Josie good company in the weeks that followed. Josie cunningly knew instinctively that if she betrayed any romantic feelings towards Hamish, then he would back off. He even took her out for dinner a couple of times. The villagers thought they were watching a budding romance, and hadn't Mrs. Wellington said she was sure there would soon be a wedding?

Meanwhile, Josie laid her plans. She had paid over one thousand pounds to a shady doctor in Strathbane to give her a certificate saying she was pregnant.

Just as the snows were beginning to melt and a balmy wind was bringing the first hint of spring, she called at the police station.

"Hamish, I'm pregnant," she said.

Chapter Eleven.

Their tricks and craft hae put me daft, They've ta'en me in, an' a' that They've ta'en me in, an' a' that -Robert Burns -Robert Burns The news of Hamish Macbeth's engagement to Josie McSween was greeted with delight in the village of Lochdubh. They were such a suitable suitable couple. She was a pretty wee la.s.sie and a policewoman, too. couple. She was a pretty wee la.s.sie and a policewoman, too.

Only Angela Brodie was worried. One evening, shortly after the announcement of Hamish's engagement, her husband confided in her that Hamish had come to him one morning, demanding a drug test, but that the forensic lab had stated that he was clear.

She knew Hamish better than most. Although he smiled on Josie and escorted her about, Angela sensed a bleakness in him. She didn't like Josie. She thought there was something sly about her.

Also, Hamish, who usually dropped in for a chat, had been avoiding her. She found him one morning, leaning on the wall overlooking the loch, with his animals at his heels.

"Hamis.h.!.+" she hailed him. "I haven't had a chance to talk to you. So you're finally going to be married? Congratulations."

"That iss verra kind of you, Angela." His eyes were flat and guarded. "I'd had best be getting along to the station."

"Wait a moment. Are you happy?"

"Of course," said Hamish, and he strode off.

Angela was walking back home when she met Mrs. Wellington. "Isn't it exciting?" said the minister's wife. "I've come to think of Josie as my own daughter."

"I don't think Hamish is very happy," said Angela.

"It doesn't matter if he's happy or not. He got the girl preg..." Mrs. Wellington actually blushed.

"Do you mean Josie's pregnant?"

"Don't tell a soul. I shouldn't have said anything."

"I don't think Josie is my husband's patient."

"Well, no. It would spoil the occasion if people thought it was a shotgun wedding."

"Which doctor did she go to?"

"I remember she said it was a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane."

Angela phoned the television studios in Glasgow and asked to speak to Elspeth Grant, saying she was a friend. She was told Miss Grant was broadcasting but if she left her name and number, Miss Grant would phone her back.

Worried that her husband might drop in, find out what she was doing, and accuse her of interfering, Angela paced nervously up and down. At last the phone rang and, with relief, she heard Elspeth's voice on the line.

"It's about Hamish," said Angela. "Have you heard he's to be married?"

"Yes, I got an invitation to the wedding."

"Elspeth, something is wrong. He is not happy. Josie is supposed to be pregnant. Could she be tricking him? Oh, Elspeth, I do wish you would come up here and find out for sure."

"Wait a minute. Are they living together?"

"No, Josie is at the manse with Mrs. Wellington. I a.s.sumed it was because people here are a bit old- fas.h.i.+oned."

"But he is seen out with her?"

"Yes, I saw them at the Italian restaurant just the other day. Hamish was quiet and polite. Josie chattered on and on. But there's more. Hamish went to my husband some time ago claiming he had been drugged and got samples and rushed off to the forensic lab in Strathbane with them. The lab said he was clear."

"I remember Lesley at the lab. She was keen on Hamish and I always think she upped and married her boss just to show him. Look, I'll get some leave of absence and get up there. But Hamish wouldn't fall for a fake pregnancy, if that's what it is. Doesn't she go to Dr. Brodie?"

"No, she goes to a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane."

"I'll see you as soon as I can."

Several times, Josie had been on the point of calling the whole thing off. She had hoped to get into bed with Hamish long before the wedding and therefore be able, possibly, to become genuinely pregnant. But Hamish had said that he would marry her and look after her, but he did not want to have s.e.x with her. Josie had wept and pleaded but Hamish was adamant.

Her mother had arrived to stay at the manse. Flora McSween was thrilled to bits. Because Josie's father was dead, she was to be given away by her uncle Bob. The wedding gown was a miracle of white satin and pearls.

Flora did not suspect anything wrong. Josie told her often how much in love she and Hamish were. Any odd bouts of weeping on her daughter's part, Flora put down to wedding nerves. She mostly lived in paperback romances and kept as much of the real world at bay as she could.

Hamish was loyal to Josie in that he did not confide in anyone how miserable he was at the prospect of being married to her. Never before had his police station home and his bachelor life looked so dear. There was only a trickle of work to keep him busy, although he travelled over his large beat as much as he could.

Strathbane, on the other hand, was in the grip of drug wars. Jimmy had agreed to be his best man but had not been near the police station and so had no inkling that Hamish was miserable at the prospect of the wedding. And for the villagers, Hamish put on a good front, smiling affectionately at Josie when they were out together, thanking people for their wedding presents, and saying, yes, he hoped the sun would s.h.i.+ne on the important day.

Angela was feeling frantic. She had phoned Elspeth again, and Elspeth said that she was in difficulties trying to get away but would be there as soon as she could.

So it was a week before the wedding when Elspeth at last drove north and booked into the Tommel Castle Hotel. She dumped her bags in her room and went straight to the police station. There was no reply to her knock. She searched around until she found the spare key under the doormat and let herself in.

Elspeth studied the papers on his desk and found a map with a route marked in red. Hamish must be out on his beat. She picked up the map and decided to see if she could find him somewhere on the road. It would be better if she could ask him questions away from the village.

Hamish thought he would have felt less miserable if the weather had not been so glorious. Misery on a sunny day always seemed intensified. He had given up calling on people on his beat, feeling that he could not bear any more congratulations.

He parked on a hill above Braikie and tried to cheer himself up by thinking of the son or daughter he might have. But Josie had supplied him with warning pamphlets about how family pets could become jealous of a baby and about how they could cause dangerous allergies. He had shut her up by retorting that if that were the case, they would need to live separately.

Josie had handed in her notice. He stifled a groan. She would be there with him, night and day. How could he have been so stupid? He didn't usually drink much-only the odd gla.s.s of whisky-but he had drunk more than he usually did at that wedding.

They were going to Porto Vecchio in Corsica for their honeymoon. That was Josie's idea. Hamish had reluctantly agreed. Flora was paying for the wedding so he felt that he was obliged to pay for a honeymoon.

He got out of the Land Rover and let Sonsie and Lugs out as well. The mountains behind him soared up to a perfectly cloudless blue sky; in front of him the sea sparkled in the suns.h.i.+ne with myriad lights. The clean air smelled of thyme and peat smoke, wafting up from the chimneys of the town below him. Hamish gave a superst.i.tious s.h.i.+ver. He suddenly felt as if he were seeing such a view for the last time.

A rifle bullet smacked into his chest. He caught a glimpse of Cora Baxter rising from the heather and hurrying off down the brae before he collapsed to the ground and blackness settled on him.

Elspeth drove through Braikie and out on the north road. Something off to her right caught her attention. She stopped and saw the police Land Rover up on the hill. She could just make out a uniformed figure lying beside it.

She ran up the hill, calling out, "Wake up, Hamis.h.!.+ It's me, Elspeth!"

But when she reached him and saw the dark stain of blood on his regulation jersey, she let out a wail of despair. Sonsie and Lugs were guarding the body. She took out her phone and shouted down it for help from the emergency services. Then she knelt down in the heather beside him, feeling for a pulse. There was one, but it was faint.

She pressed a handkerchief to the wound and whispered, "Oh, Hamish."

His eyes flickered open. He said in a whisper, "Cora Baxter," and then lapsed into unconsciousness again.

It seemed an age before she heard the whirring blades of a helicopter overhead and the siren of an ambulance coming out from the town.

The ambulance came b.u.mping up the hill over the heather and the helicopter landed.

"He's been shot!" said Elspeth to the paramedics. "Cora Baxter did it."

"It's bad," said the leading paramedic. "The helicopter had better take him down to the Raigmore Hospital in Inverness."

"I'm going with him," said Elspeth. An oxygen mask was placed on Hamish's face. Elspeth climbed aboard the helicopter and sat beside Hamish, praying as she had never prayed before.

The news that Hamish Macbeth was in intensive care hit the village of Lochdubh like a bombsh.e.l.l. The whole village including Josie would have descended on Inverness had not Dr. Brodie informed them all that Hamish was not to be allowed any visitors.

Then further news came in that Cora Baxter had been arrested for the attempted murder of Hamish.

Josie fretted and worried. The wedding was postponed. If Hamish survived, he would expect her to be showing signs of pregnancy by the time he got out of hospital. She had been dieting so as to be slim on her wedding day. She decided the best thing would be to put on weight.

Because Elspeth had done such a dramatic piece on television, she was told to take as much time up in Inverness as she wanted. She was sitting in the waiting room when Jimmy Anderson arrived.

"What's the news?" he asked.

Tears rolled down Elspeth's cheeks. "It's still bad. They got the bullet out. He lost a lot of blood. But the bullet seems to have missed any vital organs and gone right through the shoulder. Why did that d.a.m.n woman do such a thing?"

"These small towns," mourned Jimmy. "In a big city, to be a councillor's wife is no great shakes. But her position in the community had been everything to her. She must be mad. She knew what her husband had done and kept quiet about it."