Death of a Dustman

morning, and a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

The colonel got to his feet and marched to the door. “Your trouble, Hamish Macbeth,” he said, “is you have no loyalty.”

When her father had gone out, slamming the door behind him, Priscilla sank down wearily into an armchair and groaned. “What a mess. Do you really have to report him, Hamish?”

“There’s a lot more than your father I have to report, Priscilla.”

“The thing is,” said Priscilla, “why did Fergus go to Father?”

“That’s easy. He tries to blackmail Ionides and is told to get lost. Maybe he finds Ionides a bit frightening. So he tries to get money out of the colonel. He may have taken a copy of the fax. He may have thought he’d hit the jackpot and that he could get money out of both. The thing that worries me is that I’m pretty damn sure there’s not an incriminating piece of paper in that office of his. It’s no use getting Callum to search through all the hotel rubbish for papers. After Fergus’s approach, they probably learned to burn anything incriminating. Och, what a mess!”

“Who else are you covering up for?”

“Priscilla, I’m that hungry. I’ll tell you if you get me some food.”

“Wait there.”

Hamish lay back in the chair and closed his eyes. He was depressed and weary. I’m losing my touch, he thought. Dammit, I’m losing my brains. Where have I got for covering up for people? What if it isn’t Ionides? But it’s bound to be.

He fell into a light sleep and jerked himself awake when Priscilla came in bearing a tray of sandwiches and a pot of coffee.

“Your policeman is doing wonders in the kitchen. He’s a natural. He must be earning a bit as well. Three of the diners have sent him their compliments along with a tip. I’ve never known that to happen before.”

She sat down and waited until Hamish had wolfed down all the sandwiches.

“So what’s been going on?” she asked.

Hamish began at the beginning, telling her all about the letters, all about the blackmail, about how the new schoolteacher had lied.

Priscilla waited until he had finished. He had expected her to call him a fool, forgetting that his lingering resentment at Priscilla often put words into her mouth that she never used.

Then she said calmly, “I don’t really see what else you could do.”

He raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“I mean, think about it, Hamish, you’ve always managed to succeed by using your intuition rather than your brain.”

Hamish winced.

“You know what I mean. You must have had a gut feeling that no one in this village would kill one of their own. I’m thinking of Angus. But I see your dilemma. You really can’t hold out any longer. But when you get permission for this police search, a whole team will come from Strathbane, and we can leak it to the press. A stink like that will hurt Ionides’s trade and might make any of the staff who’ve decided to leave us think again.”

Hamish’s face brightened and then fell. “But I can’t help thinking of poor Mrs. McClellan and Mrs. Docherty, dragged off to Strathbane to be grilled by Blair.”

“Someone told me he was ill.”

“I’ll bet he’s back on duty and nastier than ever. That man’s got the most resilient kidneys and liver in the world. If he dies and there’s ever an autopsy and they take those organs out, they’ll be able to bounce them along the floor like rubber balls.”

“We must try to think of something,” said Priscilla.

Despite his worry, Hamish was warmed by that ‘we.’

“Somehow,” Priscilla went on, “we’ve got to think of a way of finding a bit of proof within the next few hours.”

“It is a self-imposed deadline, Priscilla. I could always put it off for another day.”

“I don’t think you can put off Father’s bit of proof. I know he’ll be in trouble, but Ionides mustn’t be allowed to get away with it.”

They sat in silence. If only this case were solved, thought Hamish. If only we could sit here like in the old days.

Priscilla sat up straight. “The bottle bank,” she said. “The one with the paper.”

“What about it?”

“I went to Patel’s last Sunday to buy the papers, and you know what the Sunday papers are like, full of stuff nobody wants to read, supplement after supplement. They’ve got as big as American papers. I remember reading once that there was a newspaper strike in New York, and they sold the British papers on the street, and one man lifted a whole pile thinking it must be like The New York Times, and the bundle he took must be all the one paper. Anyway, I put the papers in the car and took out all the bits I didn’t want to read to put in the bottle bank. There was even an article in one about saving the forests, and yet I had a whole tree’s worth to throw away.”

“Where’s this leading, Priscilla?”

“The bottle bank was full. It hadn’t been emptied.”

“You mean, any stuff from the hotel might have been shoved in there?”

“It’s a long shot.” Priscilla sank back in her chair. “But the bottle bank weighs a ton. How could we ever get the stuff out?”

“Tarn Gillespie over at Braikie’s got a crane.”

“The phone’s over there, Hamish. Let’s get started.”

“Won’t Ionides smell a rat when he sees all the activity?”

“Someone said he took off in his helicopter. With any luck, he won’t be back until morning at the latest.”

“Right!” Hamish sat down at Priscilla’s desk and pulled the phone towards him. He phoned Tarn Gillespie. “Tarn, it’s Hamish here. It’s an emergency. I need you to bring your crane down to Lochdubh to lift up the bottle bank. There’s evidence in there that might save some people in the village from a lot of trouble.”

A voice quacked at the other end. Hamish turned to Priscilla. “He says he can lift it up, but we’ll need something to open it at the bottom.”

“A crowbar,” said Priscilla calmly. Hamish turned back to the phone. “Chust bring the crane along, Tarn. We’ll do the rest.” He replaced the receiver and then said, “Now we need searchers.”

“Let’s go for broke and get out the whole village,” said Priscilla. “Move over. I’m going to phone Mrs. Wellington.”

“She’ll never go for anything illegal like this!”

“She will if I ask her.”

Priscilla changed places with Hamish and dialled the number of the minister’s wife. “Mrs Wellington,” began Priscilla. “We – that is, Hamish Macbeth and myself – are having the bottle bank with the papers opened up. We need to collect any correspondence to the new hotel for evidence.”

Hamish heard Mrs. Wellington’s booming voice asking questions. “If we don’t,” said Priscilla when the voice at the other end of the line had finally fallen silent, “then some of our own could be under suspicion. I feel we all have a God-given duty to help the righteous.” Priscilla winked at Hamish.

Then Hamish heard her say: “That’s very good of you. The fishermen? But they’re out at the fishing. Oh, I’ll tell Hamish.”

When she rang off, she said, “We’ll need to be quick. The fishermen haven’t gone out because there’s a storm forecast.”

“Good, let me have the phone, and I’ll call Archie and get the men rounded up.”

After Hamish had given Archie instructions, he said, “I’d better get going.”

“I’m coming with you. Wait till I find a sweater.”

When Priscilla and Hamish drove down into Lochdubh, figures were appearing at doors of cottages. Other figures were making their way along the waterfront towards the bottle bank. It looked as if the whole village was on the move.

They gathered around the bottle bank. Hamish stood up on the seawall beside the bottle bank and said, “I am looking for any correspondence to do with the new hotel. I need your help to go through everything and give me