Death of a Maid

“I’ll need a receipt.”

“Of course, you’ll get a receipt.”

“Eileen!” called James.

His secretary came in. Her hair was gelled into spikes, and she wore a low-cut blouse exposing an area of freckled bosom. Although she was young, her face was already set in a sullen look. Her make-up was as thick as a papier-mache carnival mask.

“Get the box with Mrs. Gillespie’s papers.”

“Okey-dokey.”

Hamish waited anxiously. The wind rattled the window-panes, and a smouldering coal fire in an old Victorian fireplace suddenly burst into flame.

At last, Eileen returned with a large deed box.

“I think you’ll find everything is in there,” said James.

“Did she have an accountant?” asked Hamish.

“Not as far as I know. She wouldn’t need one. She probably never paid taxes. She must have earned very little cleaning houses.”

“She had a tidy sum of money. Didn’t you look?”

“No, why should I? As far as I was concerned, she was eccentric, and if she wanted to go on paying me to keep all her papers, I was quite happy.”

Hamish wrote out a receipt, thanked him, and left, clutching the box. He decided to look at the contents first before turning them over to police headquarters.

¦

Elspeth and Luke had begged the use of a desk in the Highland Times, the local newspaper with an office in Lochdubh, and were busy filing a joint story.

“Are you sweet on that copper?” asked Luke when they finished.

“Of course not,” said Elspeth. “I knew him when I used to work up here.”

Luke studied the smoke rising up from his cigarette and drifting over the No Smoking sign on the wall. “I thought you were. There was a sort of atmosphere.”

“Get this straight,” said Elspeth angrily. “Hamish Macbeth was once engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Her parents own the hotel we’re staying at. He never got over her.”

“Dumped him, did she?”

“No, strange to say, he dumped her.”

“So why…?”

“Leave it, Luke.”

¦

In the police station office, Hamish opened the box and began to go through the contents. He found the deeds to the house, electricity and gas bills up to the previous month, and a bankbook showing the amount of money he already knew about from the printout. But no blackmailing material.

He phoned Jimmy and told him of the find and said he would deliver the box to police headquarters. “Don’t bother,” said Jimmy. “I’ll come over and collect it. If I don’t get some time away from Blair, I’ll strangle him.”

Hamish went along to the general store and bought a bottle of whisky. Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, was buying cat food.

Her thin face lit up when she saw Hamish. “How are things going, Hamish? We hardly see you these days – that is, unless you want to offload your animals onto me.”

“Sorry. I’ll be round soon. How’s the writing going?”

“Slowly and painfully.” Angela had won a literary award for her first novel. “Getting that award didn’t give me confidence. It did the opposite. I feel I can’t match up to the first book. If this murder case you’re on ever gets solved, would you read some of it for me? Tell me what you think?”

“I’m no literary critic.”

“But you’re a reader.”

“All right.”

“What’s the whisky for?”

“Jimmy Anderson,” said Hamish. “I’d better feed him as well.”

“I wouldn’t bother,” said Angela, who knew Jimmy of old. “Whisky is food as well as drink to that man.”

Hamish returned to the police station, where he cooked up some venison liver for the dog and cat before making himself a sandwich and a cup of tea. He had just finished eating when Jimmy arrived, cursing the solicitor for not having told them about the papers he was holding.

“And he gave me the impression that the package was left for Mrs. Samson in the will. Anything blackmailable in there?” he asked.

“Nothing. Sit down and I’ll get you a dram. The bankbook’s interesting. The cash payments started two years ago – at first just a few modest payments in her checquing account, then they begin to increase. Maybe she hinted at something and one of them cracked and paid her money and she realised she was on to a good little earner. I think she was blackmailing more than one person. I think she was blackmailing several. We’ll need to dig into the backgrounds of everyone she cleaned for.” Hamish poured a measure of whisky into a glass and put it on the kitchen table next to Jimmy.

A particularly thunderous roar of wind shook the police station. “I don’t know how you can bear that wind,” grumbled Jimmy. “We’re protected by the surrounding buildings in Strathbane, but up here, the noise wears a man down.”

“The gales are getting worse,” said Hamish. “And the waves are getting higher. I hope I don’t live to see Lochdubh washed away.”

“Dead-alive hole,” said Jimmy callously. “Wouldn’t be any great loss. Now, let’s start with Professor Sander.”

“What did you make of him?” asked Hamish.

“Trissy little man. Furious with us for asking questions.”

“What’s he a professor of?”

“Was. Retired. English was his subject. He produced a popular biog called Byron: The Tortured Years. Did well. Hasn’t done anything since. Never married.”

“Might be an idea to check the Sex Offenders Register.”

“We screwed up in Scotland, remember? About six thousand sex offenders before 1997 weren’t put on the list. Still, it’s worth a look.”

“Which university was he at?”

“Strathbane.”

“Hardly an academic place. I believe they even give degrees in car maintenance these days.”

“Blair’s got a team of coppers out ferreting around. No one saw anyone near Mrs. Samson’s house before it went up in flames. But the fire chief thinks the fire started at the back door, and anyone could get to that over the fields.”

“Arson?”

“Not sure yet. Takes ages.”

“Where’s Mrs. Samson going to stay?”

“They’re putting her up at the old folks’ home, High Haven, for the moment. She can’t buy anything else until she gets the insurance money.”

“I forgot to ask the solicitor how large the package was,” said Hamish. “She was carrying a large handbag. If she’s still got the stuff and if it contains blackmail material, her life could be in danger.”

“Why worry?” asked Jimmy. “One blackmailer less would please me.”

“Aye, but it would be another murder to solve. Did you interview any of the folk she cleaned for?”

“Apart from the professor, I went with Blair to interview Mrs. Fleming. Blair was all over her. He told me afterwards she was like a fairy.”

“She’s a fairy who threw a vase at me,” said Hamish. “She lives quite near. She could have nipped over the garden fence and poured petrol through the back door.”

“Then there’s Mrs. Styles, the one that Blair fell foul of. What about your Mrs. Wellington?”