Death of a Maid

him shouting, “Why did you kill him?” I couldn’t hear what Crystal replied. I was curious. I crept up the stairs. “You stupid tart,” Freddie was saying. “We’ll need to get rid of the body. I don’t want the police around here. I’ve got the half of Debrett’s downstairs.” I heard him coming to the door of the room, so I nipped back downstairs. I don’t know what they did with the body. After that, Crystal told me she was getting out of the life. The next thing I knew was six months later when she invited me to her wedding in the Chelsea registry office. A year later, one of the girls told me she had bumped into Crystal. She said Crystal had gone all tweedy and respectable. Crystal told her she was divorced and was going somewhere to start a new life and where nothing from her past could catch up with her. I should have known it was a lie when she told me she was having an affair. There’s nothing like being a working girl to put you off men for life.”

“You’ll need to make a sworn statement,” said Hamish.

“Will my past life come out? I’ve gone respectable, and I don’t want the neighbours to know.”

“I’ll try to keep it quiet. A detective will be calling on you soon. Don’t run away again, or they’ll find you. And do not contact Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson, or we will arrest you. What was her name before she married?”

“Crystal Jackson.”

¦

Hamish drove back to the airport, left the rented car, and caught the plane to Inverness. He had a sudden idea of how to clear up the murders, get back at Blair, and avoid any threat of promotion at the same time.

He had the tape with him in the Land Rover. In his pocket was a powerful little tape recorder. He had recorded everything Bella had said.

He went to police headquarters in Inverness and asked to speak to Inspector Cannon.

He had to wait some time before she appeared. “What is it?” she asked harshly. “Come to gloat?”

Hamish smiled. “How would you like to get your own back?”

¦

In an interview room, Mary Cannon listened in growing excitement as Hamish described all he had found out about Crystal Barret-Wilkinson. She listened to his taped interview with Bella and then took him to another room with a video player and watched the tape.

At last, she said, “It’s enough to get a warrant to search her house. But it’s still pretty circumstantial. If she gets a good lawyer, she could walk free or at least get a ‘not proven’ verdict.”

“I have a suggestion to make,” said Hamish. “It might just work…”

¦

Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson opened the door and looked haughtily at the tall policeman. “What is it now, Officer? It’s ten o’clock in the evening.”

“I’d better come in,” said Hamish. “I have come to accuse you of the murders of Mrs. Gillespie and Shona Fraser.”

“You’re mad. Oh, come in. This is rubbish.”

In her sitting room, Hamish removed his cap and sat down and regarded her steadily.

“Well?” she demanded.

“You’d best sit down.”

She sat down in a chair facing him.

“We have a videotape from Trant Television which shows you working as a madam at a club in Beauchamp Place in London. I also have this interview with Bella Robinson.”

She listened while he played the tape, the many rings on her fingers digging into her clenched hands.

“So,” she said when the tape finished, “I was a tart managing tarts, and it was a long time ago. I had nothing to do with the murders. The professor has confessed.”

“Not to the murders, he hasn’t,” said Hamish. “Mrs. Gillespie recognised you from the television programme and blackmailed you. You’ve had a lot of luck. Not at first, mind. I think you tried to run her down, but that didn’t work, so you followed her to Moy Hall to the clay pigeon shoot and tried to kill her there. You found out her schedule and simply waited outside the professor’s for her. Maybe you’d decided to try to talk her out of it or even threaten her to keep quiet. Whatever she said drove you into a mad rage, and you struck her down with her bucket. Then Shona Fraser called on you. Maybe she’d just decided to go around everyone and do a bit of detecting on her own. She, too, recognised you. Maybe you heard her outside phoning me on her mobile. You drove towards Lochdubh. Maybe you’d seen that Land Rover parked up on the hill.”

“What Land Rover?”

“Geordie McArthur’s.”

“Never heard of him.”

Hamish experienced a twinge of doubt. He felt she was telling the truth.

“Okay. So you used your own car. Maybe you hid in the shadows by the police station until you saw her arrive, then you struck her down. You dragged her over to push her into the water, but the body fell into a rowing boat. You went down the stairs, but maybe you heard someone and cut the painter and let the boat drift off.”

Hamish saw uneasily that she was beginning to relax.

“And you have forensic proof to back up all your wild imaginings?”

“We’ll get it. We’ll search this place from top to bottom.”

“Let me get this straight. You say you’ve come here to arrest me for two murders, but you are only a village constable. There are no high-ranking police officers, no detectives. Is this flight of fancy all your own?”

Hamish shuffled his boots. “It iss like this. I haff been working on my own. But I haff enough here to start a full investigation. It would save time if you came quietly.”

“Oh, I may as well come with you to police headquarters and show you up for the fool you are.”

She went over to the table where her handbag lay. She opened it and whipped out a gun and pointed it at Hamish.

She laughed. “You should learn not to confront criminals on your own.”

“So you did the murders?” Hamish regarded her steadily.

“Yes, I did, but you’re never going to prove it because you aren’t going to walk out of here alive.”

She shot Hamish Macbeth full in the chest and watched with satisfaction as he keeled over on the floor.

? Death of a Maid ?

10

He was amazed how so impotent and grovelling insect as I (these were his expressions) could entertain such inhuman ideas.

—Jonathan Swift

Crystal Barret-Wilkinson kicked Hamish’s body savagely with her foot. “Now I’ve got to figure out how to get rid of you,” she said aloud. “I can’t go on being lucky. I could hardly believe no one had seen me when I bashed that nosy researcher. God, I need a drink.”

She put down the gun and went to a side table laden with bottles.

Then she screamed as her arms were wrenched behind her back and handcuffed. Mary Cannon cautioned her for the murders of Mrs. Gillespie and Shona Fraser. She had already telephoned for reinforcements.

Hamish’s idea had been that Mary come in the back door of the house and stand listening as he tried to get a confession out of Crystal.

Now Hamish Macbeth was dead, and Inspector Gannon would have a hell of a lot of explaining to do.

She thrust Crystal down into a chair and stood over her. “Stay where you are, you murdering bitch, until reinforcements arrive.”

Crystal subsided meekly, and then suddenly her booted foot lashed out and caught Mary full in the stomach. Mary doubled over with pain and fell to her knees.

And then Crystal heard a movement. Harnish Macbeth was getting unsteadily to his feet. She let out a scream of pure terror and ran for the door.

Hamish followed in pursuit. Despite the Kevlar bulletproof vest he had been wearing – he had borrowed it from Inverness police headquarters while Mary was getting ready – the blow from the bullet had hurt like hell. He felt unsteady on his legs.