Death Of A Snob Part 13

"I want these back," shouted Hamish.

The man hurled them down on the pavement, shrugged and followed the now slowly moving garbage truck along the street.

"Treasure trove," said Hamish. "Let's get these back inside and hae a look."

Diarmuid was still practising how to raise that eyebrow as they entered the sitting-room, Hamish holding the two bags.

"We'll chust go through these," said Hamish.

"Mmm." Diarmuid did not even turn round. There must be some way he could achieve it, but try as he would, both eyebrows kept going up at the same time.

Hamish opened one bag and Harriet the other and they began to sift, through the papers. Then Hamish whistled through his teeth. "Look at this."

Harriet took the proffered page.

There was no doubt, it was part of a steamy novel. He took it from her and asked Diarmuid, "Is this your wife's handwriting?"

Diarmuid turned reluctantly away from the mirror. "Yes, that's Heather's, all right. What's this all about?"

"Did you really call Jessie to get her to come to Eileen-craig?" asked Hamish. "Or did she phone you?"

Diarmuid looked uneasy. "Well, it's hard to remember. I was in shock."

"It's vena important!"

"Well," mumbled Diarmuid, "she did phone me, as a matter of fact, just to find out how I was getting along, and I told her about Heather's death and she said she would come upright away. She asked me to phone and arrange for a boat to collect her at Oban."

Without asking his permission, Hamish picked up the phone and dialled Jessie's number. There was no reply. "Come on," he said to Harriet. "I've an awful feeling she's gone."

They took a taxi the short distance to Jessie's. It turned out to be a bas.e.m.e.nt flat. He did not even bother to ring the bell. There was a forlorn, deserted air about the place. A woman was leaning against the railings outside talking to another woman. Hamish approached them.

"Have you seen Miss Jessie Maclean this morning?" he asked.

"Aye," said one of the women placidly.

"Do you know where she was going?" Hamish demanded, "Shopping?"

"No' unless it was shopliftin'," said the woman and her friend laughed heartily at her wit. "She hud two suitcases. Yes, she left aboot an hour ago wi' her man."-"Whatman?"

"Her fella. An accountant, I think that's what she said."

Hamish thought hard. Spain! That was where she had said she might go. He turned to the woman again. "May I use your phone? I am a policeman."

"He must be in trouble again, Betty," said the woman's friend.

"In trouble? What this about trouble?" asked Hamish feverishly.

"Her man, her boyfriend. He'd done a stretch in prison, I know that," said the woman called Betty, "because Mrs. Queen doon the road's son used tae go tae school wi' him and recognised nun and knew all aboot him."

"Phone, please," begged Hamish.

"I'll take him in," said Betty to her friend. She led Hamish up to the front door above Jessie's bas.e.m.e.nt, opened it with her key and let him into a dark hall. Hamish and Harriet waited in an agony of impatience while she fumbled with the key to the door of her ground-floor flat.

"In the hall on the table," said Betty.

The hall was actually a dim corridor. Hamish searched through the phone book and then dialled Glasgow Airport. "Yes," came the metallic voice from the other end in reply to Hamish's question. "There's a plane due to take off for Spain. It's a charter flight delayed for mechanical reasons, but expected to leave any minute now."

Hamish asked to be put through to airport security and introduced himself. "Find Out if there's a Jessie Maclean on the flight to Spain, that charter flight."

There was a long wait and then he was told there was no one of that name on the flight. He turned to the woman who was standing in the hall with a small pocket calculator, obviously working out how much to charge him for the call. "What's the boyfriend's name?" he demanded.

"Macdonald," she said. "Willie Macdonald."

Hamish spoke quickly into the phone and then waited impatiently.

Back came the reply after five agonizing minutes. "Yes, there is a Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald on board."

"There's a murder suspect on that plane," said Hamish. "Get Mr. and Mrs. Macdonald off it and keep them at the airport." Harriet, listening, heard the voice at the other end quack indignantly.

"Yes, yes," said Hamish. "I'll get the proper authority. Don't let mem get away!"

He put down the phone and said to Harriet. "Let's go."

"Whit about paying for the call?" demanded Betty. He handed her a pound note and, dragging Harriet after him, ran out and down the street, looking for a cab. It was Hogmanay, New Year's Eve, he thought. There would be very few, if any, free cabs about. And then he saw a taxi with its light on rounding a corner and raced for it, with Harriet tumbling after him. He told the cabby to take them to police headquarters.

"How are you going to manage it, Hamish?" asked Harriet anxiously. "You've no proof. I mean, you've proof that she pinched Heather's book but no proof she murdered her."

"I'll get proof," said Hamish, leaning forward and willing the cab to go faster.

At Glasgow police headquarters there were more delays while a detective sergeant phoned Strathbane to establish Hamish's credentials. But Hamish was lucky, Blair was still on holiday, and it was Jimmy Anderson, slightly drunk, who said that Hamish Macbeth was Scotland's answer to Kojak, and if he said there was a murderer at Glasgow Airport, then there surely was.

Soon Harriet found herself crammed into a police car along with Hamish, two detectives, and a policewoman while a carload of four policemen followed behind. They had only gone a little way when Hamish shouted, "Stop!"

The detectives stolidly watched Hamish Macbeth hurtle into a hairdressing salon called 'Binty's Beauty Parlour'.

"Whit's he daein'?" asked one laconically. "How should I know?" retorted the other. "Them Highlanders are all daft. Ye cannae figure oot the way their minds work. Maybe it's the mountains. Something tae do wi' the alt.i.tude. It affects their brains. Maybe he wants tae look nice for the arrest and is getting his hair cut."

Hamish emerged carrying a paper bag and climbed back info the police car. The detective, driving, said with heavy sarcasm, "Any mair shopping you would like to do?"

"No," said Hamish. "Chust make it quick."

The detective put on the siren and off they went again. Harriet clutched Hamish's hand hard as houses streamed past under the winking lights of the Christmas decorations. At one point, they had to swerve wildly to avoid a drunk weaving across the road. Glasgow had obviously started the New Year's celebrations early.

Hamish gave the detectives an outline of his investigations and Harriet could practically feel disbelief emanating from the square shoulders of the detectives in the front seat, detectives who were used to drunken murders, savage gang fights on the housing estates, but not to sophisticated rigmaroles about books.

Fortunately, it was only a short trip to Glasgow Airport. Harriet blinked in the lights as the detectives, who obviously knew where they were going, led them along a corridor away from the staring pa.s.sengers and into a room marked 'Security'.

And there was Jessie Maclean with a tall, weedy man sitting beside her. On a long table in front of them were their suitcases.

Jessie turned white at the sight of Hamish, but she said nothing. "Open the suitcases," ordered Hamish. Jessie slowly produced the keys. Hamish searched one of Jessie's pale-blue suitcases carefully after examining the pa.s.sports. Their pa.s.sports, which showed they were married, had been issued only a few weeks before.

Then he found the contract for the book and sheets of headed paper, "Jessie Maclean, Literary Agent." He silently took Jessie's handbag from her and tipped out the contents. In it was a banker's draft for the money.

Jessie glared up at him after stuffing everything back into her bag and clutching it tight. "That money's mine," she said. "I earned it. I wrote the book."

Hamish put both hands on the other side of the table and leaned forward.

"What were you doing on Eileencraig the day Heather Todd was murdered?"

"You're daft!" screamed Jessie. "You all saw me arrive. You can't keep me. Let me out of here..."

Hamish smiled and slowly straightened up. He turned round and took the bag he had brought out of the hairdressers' from Harriet. He turned back and opened it and edged out of the bag a handful of red hair, a wig.

Harriet reflected dizzily that she had read of people turning green but had never seen it before that moment. Jessie's face was an awful colour under the harsh glare of the strip lighting overhead..

She rounded on her husband. "You stupid b.a.s.t.a.r.d!" she screamed. "You told me you'd burnt it." She tried to rake his face with her nails and was dragged off, still screaming, by the detectives to a corner of the room, where she suddenly subsided into noisy sobs.

"Well, Willie Macdonald?" demanded Hamish. "Ybuy better tell all or you'll find yourself on a murder charge as well."

"Don't tell him," gulped Jessie between sobs.

"It wisnae anything to do wi' me," said Willie, looking down at the table. "Jessie told me the auld bag had written a book but didnae want anyone to know about it in case it got rejected, so she asked Jessie tae type it oot and put her name down as literary agent. Jessie thought it was a right load o' rubbish. Then she got a phone call frae New York offering her a half a million on behalf of her client. She thought the whole thing up herself. Naethin' tae dae wi' me. She telt' me she killed her. She hid ootside that health farm and watched fur the opportunity."

His thin, weak face suddenly looked up at Hamish in puzzlement. "But how did ye find the wig? I burnt it, like she said, in a bin in the garden at the back o' her flat."

"And so you probably did," said Hamish pleasantly. "This is a wig I bought at a hairdressers' on the road here."

"You b.a.s.t.a.r.d," whispered Jessie suddenly. "I could have got away with it."

One of the detectives read the charges. "We'll take them back to headquarters and get their statements. We'd better get your statement as well, Macbeth." He held out his hand. "Detective Sergeant Peter Sinclair, Macbeth. It's been a pleasure watching ye work: But man, man, ye took a chance buying that wig."

Hamish shook hands with-him, and then, putting an arm around Harriet's shoulders, he followed police and prisoners outside to the car.

When they finally emerged from police headquarters, all the city bells were ringing. A drunk reeled past, red-eyed under the street lights. "Happy New Year," he shouted.

"And so it is," said Hamish. He put his arms around Harriet and held her close and bent his head to kiss her. He finally raised his head and looked down at her curiously. She was stiff in his arms and she had only endured that kiss.

"I think," said Harriet breathlessly, "that we should call on Diarmuid."

"Why?" demanded Hamish, made cross by rejection.

"The police'll have phoned him."

"Well, it's New Year's Eve and I have a feeling he'll be all alone. Did you notice the times we were there that the phone did not ring once? No one calling to offer their condolences?"

"Very well, then," said Hamish sulkily. "But I eantefl you this, Harriet. I wish he had done it."

They couldn't get a cab, so Hamish went back into the police station and begged a lift in a squad car.

As he rang Diarmuid's doorbell and waited, hoping that the man wouldn't answer, he wondered why Harriet had disliked that kiss. She was attracted to him, he was sure of that. He was just about to turn away, relieved, when the hall light went on and then Diarmuid answered the door. He was wearing pale-blue silk pyjamas and a white satin dressing-gown with his initials monogrammed in gold on one pocket.

"Hamish and Harriet," he exclaimed. "How good of you to come. This is a terrible business. A terrible business. The police told me about it."

"Have you no one with you?" asked Harriet as they followed him up the stairs and into the sitting-room. Diannuid litthe gas fire. "No," he said. "It's with it being New Year's Eve. I phoned a few people but they were all busy. Can you tell me about it, Hamish? All I got from the police was that Jessie had murdered my wife and that they would be calling on me in the morning to take a statement."

Hamish sat down. He looked curiously at Harriet, a question in his eyes. She flushed slightly and looked away.

"It's like this," said Hamish in a flat voice. "Your wife wrote a steamy romance..."

"Heather? She never would!"

"I don't think she thought of it as popular writing," said Harriet. "She probably set out to write a literary novel and mat's the way it came out. She must have read an awful lot of that land of book, and with enjoyment, too. You can't really write what you don't like to read."-Diannuid put a finger to bis brow and frowned. Does the man never stop acting? thought Hamish angrily.

"She did read a lot of them," he volunteered, "but it was because she said she was writing a speech to give to the Workers' Party on decadence and the decline of moral standards in popular fiction."

What had Heather really been like under all that political pose? wondered Harriet. She must have needed a fantasy life to read and enjoy and absorb so many s.e.xy romances.

"Anyway," said Hamish, anxious to get this visit over with quickly, "the police telephoned the owner of The Highland Comfort this evening. Jessie, padded out and wearing a red wig, just walked in about two weeks before the murder. She said she wanted a working holiday and he was glad to get her. No, he didn't ask for her employment card. He told the police that Jessie had told him her employment card was being sent on. He said Jane had spoiled things for him by paying high wages. He paid abysmal wages, as it turned out, so the island women who used to work for him preferred to wait until the season started and work for Jane."

"What name did Jessie use when she was working mere?" asked Harriet.

"That's where I could kick myself," said Hamish ruefully. "She went under the name of Fiona Stuart, Heather's pseudonym.

"She said she didn't mean to murder Heather. She had some idea that if she told Heather, they could split the proceeds fifty-fifty, and she meant to suggest to her that they didn't let Diarmuid know. On her afternoon off, she hid behind that pillbox and saw us all coming out. Then she saw Heather and you, Diarmuid, having that row and Heather stalking off on her own. She followed her and when she considered they were both far enough away from the health farm, she caught up with her. Heather was amazed to see the efficient secretary, rising, it seemed, out of the moorland, wearing a red wig and with her cheeks and figure padded out.

"They walked together towards the west coast and that crag, and as they went, Jessie told Heather about her plan to split the proceeds. Heather was very excited, elated. She said her book was a literary work of art. She babbled on about possible lecture tours in the States. Jessie interrupted at last by asking her if they had a deal. Heather looked at her in surprise and said of course they hadn't a deal.

"Jessie then asked bitterly if-she could at least depend on her agent's fee of fifteen per cent. Heather sneered that Jessie was nothing but a little secretary and was paid well for her duties and there was no need for her to get greedy. By this time she was standing on that crag. She looked out to sea and began to talk again about how famous she would be.

"Jessie said she suddenly thought of all the drudgery, all the work she had done for Heather, and she saw red. She saw a large, sharp rock lying on the ground at her feet. She picked it up and smashed it iflto the side of Heather's neck. Heather fell down on that little beach and lay still. Jessie threw the rock into the sea and ran all the way back to the hotel and waited until she heard the news next day that Heather's body had been found. She phoned you, Diarmuid, saying she was in Glasgow and you told her about Heather and she offered to come up. She was working in the bar that night and that was where you phoned to Angus Macleod to ask him to go and pick up Jessie. Jessie then approached Angus and said she was fed up with the hotel and wanted to leave, and as he was going to Oban anyway, he could take her.

"Once in Oban, she went to lodgings she had already hired and packed up the wig and the padding. Now the thing is, I do not think the murder was unpremeditated, because she had all the business papers and copies of Heather's will and insurance in a case already with her. All she had to do was travel back with Angus and then act the part of perfect secretary."

"Did her husband put her up to it?" asked Harriet.

"Husband? What husband?" demanded Diarmuid.

"She had married a criminal, Willie Macdonald," said Hamish. "He had just got out of prison after serving a sentence for defrauding the company he had worked for as an accountant. He would know about cas.h.i.+ng bank drafts and everything like that. But no, Jessie was the sole planner of the whole thing."

"Goodness," said Diarmuid weakly, "and to think I have had a murderess working for me!"

Suddenly he leaned forward and said eagerly, "Heather left me everything in her will. Of course, up till now 'everything' was nothing but debts. Will I get the money for the book?"

Hamish looked at him with distaste. "Oh, yes," he said.

"And although all this publicity will be very painful," put in Harriet, "it should help sales immensely."