Part 8 (2/2)
”I told her I would kill her,” whispered John. ”I shouted it. I'll have to tell Blair-I think Jeremy heard me.”
”Mr Blythe? Why would he hear you? Is his room next to hers?”
”No, he was out in the corridor when I left.”
”What will we do, Mr Macbeth?” pleaded Heather.
”I think you should tell Mr Blair. If there's one thing that makes a detective like Blair suspicious, or any detective for that matter, it's finding out someone's been hiding something. The pair of you have got nothing awful in your past that Lady Jane was about to expose?”
Both shook their heads.
”And apart from the short time that Mr Cartwright was with Lady Jane, you were together all night?”
”Why do you ask?” Heather had turned white.
”I ask,” said Hamish patiently, ”because any copper with a nasty mind might think that one of you might have sneaked off and b.u.mped her off, if not the pair of you.”
”We had better go,” said Heather. ”Tell Mr Blair we're taking the cla.s.s up to the Marag to fish. It's near enough. We must go on as if nothing had happened.”
After they left, Hamish, who had already heard the sound of voices from his office at the front, ambled through with a cup of tea in one hand.
”Shouldn't you be in uniform?” growled Blair, who was seated behind Hamish's desk flanked by his two detectives.
”In a minute,” said Hamish easily.
”And I told you to keep out of this. That was the Cartwrights I saw leaving.”
”Aye.”
”Well, what did they have to say for themselves?”
”Only that they knew something they hadn't told you and now thought they should. Also that they were taking the cla.s.s up to the Marag which is quite close so that you can go and see any of the members quite easily.”
”For Jesus b.u.g.g.e.ring Christ's sake, don't they know this is a murder investigation?”
”Find any clues?” asked Hamish.
”Just one thing. If it had been like today, we might have found more traces. But most of the ground was baked hard. The procurator fiscal's report says she was strangled somewhere else and dragged along through the bushes and then thrown in the pool.”
”And what is this clue?”
”It's just a bit of a photograph,” said MacNab, before Blair could stop him. ”Just a bit torn off the top corner. See.”
He held out the bit of black and white photograph on a pair of tweezers. Hamish took it gingerly.
It showed the very top of a woman's head, or what he could only guess to be a woman's head because it had some sort of sparkly ornament on top like the edge of a tiara. Behind was a poster with the part legend BUY BRIT-.
”That might have been Buy British,” said Hamish, ”which means it would have been taken in the sixties when Wilson was running that Buy British campaign and that would therefore eliminate the younger members of the fish...”
”Listen to the great detective,” jeered Blair. ”We all reached that conclusion in two seconds flat. Why don't you trot off and find out if anyone's been raiding the poor box in one of those churches. d.a.m.n ridiculous having so many churches in a wee place like this.”
Hamish turned to amble out. ”And get your uniform on,” shouted Blair.
”Now,” said Blair, rustling through sheafs of statements. ”According to these, they're all innocent. But one of them was so afraid that Lady Jane would print something about them that they killed her. So chase up all these people we phoned yesterday and hurry them up. And that includes background on the Roths. See if there's been a telex from the FBI. Find out if any of them have been in trouble with the police, although I think you'll have to dig deeper than that.”
Hamish changed into his uniform, admitting to his reflection in the gla.s.s that he, Hamish Macbeth, was a very angry man. In fact, he could not quite remember being so angry in all his easygoing life. He was determined to go on talking to the members of the fis.h.i.+ng school until someone said something that gave himself away. He was not going to be frightened because it was a murder investigation. All criminals were the same whether it was a theft in the school or poaching deer on the hills. You talked, asked questions, and listened and watched and waited. The h.e.l.l with Blair. He would go up to the Marag and find out what Jeremy had been doing outside Lady Jane's room. As he left by the back door, the press were entering the police station by the front. At least Lochdubh would be spared their headlines until the following morning. The newspapers were always a day late.
In any common-or-garden murder, the press would not hang about longer than a day or two. But this murderee had a t.i.tle and the location was well away from their office with out-of-town expenses, so they would all try to spin it out as long as they could. Of course, Lady Jane had been one of their own, so to speak, and Hamish had learned from his relative in Fleet Street some time ago that the press were not like the police: they were notoriously uninterested in anything that happened to one of their ranks except as a subject for gossip.
The day was warm and sweaty, and although the rain had stopped, there was a thick mist everywhere and the midges were out in clouds. Hamish took a stick of repellent out of his tunic pocket and rubbed his face and neck with it.
When he reached the Marag, it was to find the fis.h.i.+ng school diligently at work, looking like some old army-jungle movie, as each one had a mosquito net shrouding the face.
Hamish scanned the anonymous figures, picked out Heather and John by virtue of their expert casting rather than their appearance, and Charlie because of his size and because his mother was sitting on a rock nearby, flapping away the mosquitoes and watching her son as if expecting him to be dragged off to prison at any moment. Hamish went to join her.
”I think this is ridiculous,” she burst out as soon as she saw him. ”It's horrible weather and the whole school should be broken up and sent home.”
”They seem quite happy,” said Hamish.
”I don't understand it,” wailed Mrs Baxter. ”Those Cartwrights suggested the school should try to go on as if nothing has happened, and they all leapt at it when just a moment before they had been threatening to ask for their money back. I told my Charlie he he was coming straight home with me, and he was coming straight home with me, and he defied defied me. Just like his father.” Two large tears of self-pity formed in Mrs Baxter's eyes and she dabbed at them furiously with a tissue. ”I knew I should never have let Charlie come all the way up here. The minute I got his letter, I was on the train.” me. Just like his father.” Two large tears of self-pity formed in Mrs Baxter's eyes and she dabbed at them furiously with a tissue. ”I knew I should never have let Charlie come all the way up here. The minute I got his letter, I was on the train.”
”Aye, and when did you arrive?”
”I told told the police. I got to Lochdubh just after the terrible murder.” the police. I got to Lochdubh just after the terrible murder.”
”Then how is it that Mrs MacPherson down at the bakery saw you the night before?”
”It wasn't me. It must have been someone else.”
”Blair will check the buses and so on, you know,” said Hamish. ”It's always better to tell the truth. If you don't, it looks as if you might have something to hide. Did you know Lady Jane was a newspaperwoman?”
Mrs Baxter sat in silence, twisting the damp tissue in her fingers. Rain dripped from her soutwester. ”She's been around the neighbourhood asking questions,” said Mrs Baxter at last in a low voice. ”I've never got on with my neighbours and I know they told her all about the divorce. But what's divorce? Half the population of Britain get divorced every year. I've nothing to be ashamed of and that I told her.”
”You told told Lady Jane?” Lady Jane?”
”Well, I phoned her before I got on the train,” said Mrs Baxter miserably, ”and I said if she wrote anything about my Charlie I would...”
”Kill her?”
”People say all sorts of things they don't mean when they're angry,” said Mrs Baxter defiantly. ”This is a wretched business. Do you know that detective, MacNab, was round at the house last night asking for Charlie's leader?”
”No, I did not. I'm shocked.”
”So you should be. Suspecting a mere child.”
”It is not that that shocks me but the fact that they did not immediately check all the leaders earlier in the day. Was anyone's leader missing?”
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