jetsam strewn across the road as a reminder of the ferocious storm.
Blair was standing outside Freda’s house. He looked tired and unshaven. His heavy face darkened when he saw Hamish Macbeth arriving.
“I think we should keep Macbeth on the case,” said Daviot. “He knows the locals better than anyone. You have something to say, do you not, Constable?”
Hamish stood before Blair, his face the very picture of contrition. “I am right sorry I shouted at you, sir,” he said. “Please accept my apology.”
Blair opened his mouth to blast Hamish, but Daviot said quickly, “Good, that’s settled. Get off to the school, Macbeth.”
Suppressing a grin, Hamish drove off to the school. To his surprise, he saw Pat Mallone driving away from the school with Jenny beside him and wondered what they had been doing.
¦
Pat Mallone was elated. He had a decent story at last. He forgot that the whole thing had been Jenny’s idea. Jenny had said that maybe Freda had committed suicide because she had been bullied. There was a lot of bullying went on in schools. To humour her, he had gone along with her idea and had struck gold. They had caught the teachers as they were arriving at the school and they had talked freely about how Freda’s mother was a demanding tyrant and how Mr. Arkle had made the girl’s life hell. Pat and Jenny had tried to interview Mr. Arkle, but he had snarled at them and rushed off into the school.
Pat also ignored the fact that it was Jenny’s sympathetic manner which had elicited the quotes. Bullied to death. What a story!
Back at the
Jenny sat down beside Pat at his desk. When she saw what a bad typist he was, she said, “I’ll type. You dictate.”
By altering a lot of Pat’s clumsier sentences, she felt it was a good article. It only showed what Pat could do with a strong woman to help him. Jenny’s spirits had risen and she dreamt of a great and successful future for both of them.
¦
Hamish guessed that Pat and Jenny had spiked his guns. A furious Mr. Arkle refused to let him speak to the teachers. When Hamish told him that he would arrest him and charge him with obstructing the police, Arkle relented. But when Hamish interviewed the teachers, all were wishing they had not criticised their head teacher, so they did not mention his treatment of Freda but confined themselves to comments that they believed Freda’s mother to be demanding and difficult.
For want of a better idea, he decided to have another go at Joseph Cromarty. He found the truculent ironmonger in his dark shop. The sun now only shone on the other side of the street. The nights were drawing in fast. Soon the sun would rise at ten in the morning and set at two in the afternoon. Winter was one long dark tunnel in northern Scotland.
“What d’ye want?” demanded Joseph. “I’m busy.”
“Aye, I can see that,” said Hamish sarcastically, looking around the empty shop. “Now, you were once overheard saying you felt like killing Miss McAndrew…”
“So what? Me and a lot o’ other people.”
“What other people?”
Joseph scowled horribly. “I cannae bring them to mind. Leave me alone.”
“Think, man. I’m not accusing you of anything. Haven’t you heard anything, seen anything?”
“I thought the murders were solved,” said Joseph. “That wee girl, Freda, did them.”
“No, she didn’t. That was a suicide, pure and simple.”
“Come on! There was a polis in here earlier saying as how everything was wrapped up.”
“He made a mistake,” said Hamish wearily.
He tried a few more questions without getting anywhere. Hamish wandered over to the post office. He hoped it might be quiet and that he might have a chance to have a word with Mrs. Harris, but it was full of chattering women, all exclaiming and gossiping about Freda’s death.
They fell silent when they saw him. He asked them all if they could think of anything, any small thing, that might help to solve the murders. Startled faces looked at him. Shocked voices exclaimed that they had heard Freda Mather was a murderess. Hamish’s news that Freda had nothing to do with the murders sent them all scurrying off.
“Are you sure Miss Beattie never said anything to you about why she left Perth?” Hamish asked Mrs. Harris.
“Just that she had been unhappy at home and that her parents were awfy strict. Maybe you should try Billy again. He’s still out on his rounds but he should be back any minute. He starts around six in the morning with his deliveries. He drives his van in round the back.”
Hamish left and went up a lane at the side of the post office and waited patiently in the yard at the rear.
After a ten-minute wait, the post office van came into the yard. Billy climbed out and greeted Hamish with, “I shouldn’t feel happy about that wee lassie’s death, but to tell the truth, it’s a weight off my mind. I thought that bastard Blair would never give up suspecting me.”
“I’m afraid whatever policeman has been gossiping around Braikie is wrong, Billy. Freda took’ her own life and I’m willing to bet anything she had nothing at all to do with the murders.”
Billy sat down suddenly on an upturned crate. “Will this all never end, Hamish? It’s a misery at home with herself nagging me from morn till night. Now Amy’s gone, life looks awfy bleak.”
Hamish pulled up another crate and sat down next to the postman. “Are you sure, Billy, she never gave you a hint of why she left Perth?”
“Well, she would talk a lot about how strict her parents were. Things like that.”
“What about old boyfriends?”
“No, never.”
“Was she frightened of anyone?”
“She was frightened of the poison-pen writer.”
“Why frightened, Billy? People were angry and upset, but frightened?”
“Our affair meant a lot to her, as it did to me. She said, “If she takes this away from me, there’ll be nothing left.””
“Wait a bit. When she was talking about the poison-pen writer, she said ‘she’?”
“I never gave it much thought. I mean, we all thought it must be some woman. I mean, it’s hardly the thing a man would do.”
“But there was a case recently of a man in England who was exposed as a poison-pen writer and the story was in the Scottish papers.”
“I don’t remember that.”
“Billy, I want you to think and think hard. Go over all the conversations you had, and if you can remember the slightest thing, let me know.”
“But what would that have to do with the death of Miss McAndrew?”
“Some way they’re tied together.”
“I’ll do my best.”
? Death of a Poison Pen ?
9
—Blaise Pascal
At the end of a long day, Hamish returned to his police station. He checked on his sheep and locked his hens up for the night. There was a fox roaming around and Hamish knew if he saw it, he would take
