Death Of An Addict

'Find anything?' he asked.

'Nothing in the kitchen, bedroom or living room. There's nowhere else. We're just finishing up.'

'Nothing in the upstairs room?' asked Parry.

Felicity began to cry. Sanders ignored her.

'What upstairs room?'

'I'll show you.'

Parry led the way into the bedroom and pointed to the celling which had been covered with an Indian curtain. 'Up there is a trapdoor. I made a spare room upstairs.'

'Where's the ladder?'

'It's in this cupboard.'

Parry opened a cupboard and brought out a folding steel ladder. Sanders opened it up, mounted it and then tore the curtain away from the ceiling and dropped it on the floor. He raised the trapdoor and looked around and then smiled. The whole of the floor of the room was covered in mushrooms, drying out, piles and piles of liberty caps- magic mushrooms.

He climbed back down, grinning in triumph. 'She's got enough magic mushrooms up there to send the whole of Strathbane on a trip!'

Barry Owen and his wife, Dominica, walked a little away from the church. 'Where did you find him?' Dominica jerked her thumb back at the church.

'He turned up yesterday at the service,' said Barry. 'I had a word with him. He was sleeping in his car. I offered him the job of painting and caretaking.'

'God, you're naive,' sneered Dominica. 'I go away for a few days and you risk taking on someone we know nothing about.'

'I am a good judge of character,' said Barry huffily, unconsciously echoing Hamish Macbeth.

'I tell you what we are going to do,' said Dominica. 'We're going back in there and you will get him down from that ladder and I will speak to him… alone.'

Barry shrugged. 'I've got to go down into the town anyway. You'll find he's harmless.'

'Hey, you up there!'

Hamish looked down. Dominica Owen was standing there, her hands on her hips, glaring up at him.

'What iss it?' he asked, his accent made sibilant by nerves.

'I want a word with you.'

Hamish reluctantly placed the paintbrush on top of the pot of paint, which was balanced on a cross beam, and slowly made his way down the steps. He followed her through to the kitchen.

'Sit down,' she commanded.

He sat down at the kitchen table and looked at her meekly.

'Who are you?' she demanded.

'Hamish George.'

'And you are unemployed?'

'Yes.'

'But you must have worked at some time?'

'Crofting. I wass a shepherd.'

'So what happened?'

'I got a bit funny and low in my head. I couldnae get out o' bed in the morning.'

'Who were you a shepherd for?'

Hamish suddenly clutched her hand between his own. 'You must help me,' he wailed.

'What with?' she demanded in an exasperated voice, and tried to drag her hand away, but he had it in a strong grip.

'With the black devils that come into my brain,' said Hamish. 'You must exercise them.'

She succeeded in snatching her hand away. 'Exorcise, you village idiot,' she corrected.

Dominica looked at Hamish in distaste. A thin trail of spittle was running from a corner of his mouth down his chin.

'You're drooling,' she said sharply, and Hamish muttered, 'Sorry,' and wiped his chin with the back of his hand.

'You will need to speak to my husband about your devils,' she said, getting to her feet. 'Get back to work.'

Hamish gave her a vacant look and shambled off.

'Trust you to employ the village idiot,' she said to her husband later. 'There must be a lot of inbreeding in the Highlands and Islands. Oh, well, he seems harmless enough.'

Sanders was determined to get something out of Felicity Maundy. A charge for possession of the mushrooms, he knew, would probably get her a suspended sentence.

She had screamed and cried and protested and called him 'fascist pig,' but now she was silent and mulish.

He wondered briefly if she had an eating disorder. Her wrists and ankles looked thin and fragile. Or, he then wondered cynically, did she go out of her way to cultivate a waiflike image as a shell of protection?

He returned to the attack. 'You told PC Macbeth that your income was from the dole.'

Silence.

'Answer me!' Sanders thumped the table between them in exasperation.

'Yes,' she whispered.

'Louder. For the tape.'

'Yes!' she shouted.

'And yet according to your bank, a regular monthly sum of eight hundred pounds is paid into your account. The cheque comes from a Mr. James Maundy. Your father?'

'You have no right to poke your nose into my affairs,' she hissed.

Sanders sighed. 'Don't you see? You are a very silly girl. You wear expensive clothes. Where did you get the money? If we had not found out your father was sending you a generous allowance, we would have assumed that you had got the money pushing drugs, hard drugs, for you won't get much for your bloody, stupid mushrooms. Still, I may as well ask. Have you been pushing drugs?'

'No!'

'Very well, then. Let's discuss the death of Tommy Jarret.'

He noticed the sudden stillness, the rigidity of her body. He suddenly decided to take a chance, although he cursed the running tape and the presence of the policewoman behind him. What he was about to do could get him into serious trouble. He could only be glad about one small thing. She had not asked for a lawyer.

He leaned forward and stared straight into her eyes. 'We know you killed Tommy Jarret,' he said.

He fully expected her to shout another no, and then to threaten to call down the wrath of the authorities on his head.

But she began to shake and tremble. 'I didn't mean to,' she said, and then she began to weep, great tears coursing down her face.

He handed her a box of tissues and waited, suppressing a rising feeling of excitement. When she had calmed down slightly, he said soothingly, 'You'll feel better if you let it all out. What happened?'

She continued to gulp and sob for what seemed to Sanders a long, long time. Then she dried her eyes and said in a dry whisper, 'I didn't mean to.'

'Tell me about it.'

'Tommy told me he had been going to this church in Strathbane.'

'The Church of the Rising Sun?'

'Yes. He said Barry Owen, the preacher, was very spiritual. Tommy said he still often had a terrible craving for heroin, but that Barry had told him that if he got in touch with God, then he would be able to fight the craving. He… he told me, he felt so earthbound, that although he believed in God, he could not get a sense of God. I… told him, I told him about the mushrooms, and about how they made things of the spirit so tangible.'

She hung her head.