“Will I go to prison?”
“I’m afraid so. What happened?”
“Did you know he beat me?”
“I chust learned that yesterday.” He took her hand in his. “Tell me, Kirsty.”
She started to speak in a flat, emotionless voice, as if giving evidence in court. With a flash of intuition, Hamish realised she must have lived in dread of this moment, had rehearsed what she must say.
“We got married when we were both eighteen. Too young. Maybe children might have made a difference. No, that’s wrong. I’m glad we didn’t have children, seeing the way it worked out. The work on the croft got harder. Every time he made some money from the sheep at the sales, he would start out on another idea. First it was the goats. Well, they kept breaking out, and they are very destructive animals. He sold them at a loss. Then it was the deer. But he wouldn’t build a proper deer fence, so the beasts just disappeared one night.
“Like all Highlanders, he liked his dram, but it got more and more. The first time he hit me, he was that remorseful after, I thought he would never raise his hand to me again. But he did, over and over. He liked Fergus because Fergus was a drunk, and Angus had become one, too.”
“He didn’t have a reputation of being one,” said Hamish.
“Oh, he would never get drunk in the village. He would sit in the evenings, drinking steadily, and watching me, watching me, enjoying my fear. He never knew about that hundred pounds worth of premium bonds. I kept them hidden. I dreamed of winning. He thought if we had money, everything would be all right.
“Then I won. And the cheque arrived. Like a fool I told him. It was immediately his money. He said he’d take it down to the bank and put it in our joint account. He said he was tired of the rough weather in Sutherland, and we would buy a nice farm down in Perthshire, and I saw that he would spend all the money on this farm, he would mismanage it, and the beating would go on. He had been putting up a shelf in the kitchen. The phone rang and he went to answer it. While he was on the phone, I picked up the hammer and hefted it in my hand. I can’t say for sure what happened immediately after that, but he came back and sat down and picked up the cheque and said, ‘Get my coat. I’m off to the bank.’
“I snatched the cheque out of his hands and said, ‘It’s mine.’ He swung round and his face was mad with fury. Then he turned back and stared straight ahead and said, “Give me that cheque, or you know what’ll happen to you.”
“Everything went blank, and when I came out of it, I was standing there with the bloody hammer in my hand, and he was lying dead on the floor. I took the cheque and hid it up in the rafters. Then I cleaned every surface. I’d forgotten that they’d expect to find my fingerprints everywhere, this being my home. I took a cloth and swept the floor towards the door. Then I went out and stuffed the cloth somewhere. I can’t remember. Then I went in and phoned and then took his bloody head in my hands and waited. I felt nothing. It was only after that the horror came.”
“What about the whisky bottle on the table and the two glasses?”
“I did that. I wanted it to look as if he was expecting someone from outside.”
Hamish released her hand and took out his mobile phone, called Strathbane and requested escort for a prisoner, giving them the address and directions.
“Did Angus ever hit you so hard you had to go to the doctor?”
“Yes, he broke two of my ribs one night. He was clever. He never hit me where it would show. I went to Dr. Brodie, who sent me to hospital.”
“What did you tell Dr. Brodie?”
“I said I had fallen.”
“And he believed you?”
“No. I had been to him the year before with a broken arm. I said I must be accident prone. But he was looking at the bruises on my arms. He said, “You’d better stop lying and report that husband of yours to the police.””
“So why didn’t you?”
“It had been going on so long…so long. I kept making excuses for him. I couldn’t begin to think how to manage on my own. I felt lost.” She began to cry in a dreary, helpless way. Angus Ettrik, thought Hamish, if you were alive today, I might be tempted to kill you myself.
He rose and took the pot off the stove and put on the kettle. He went into the bedroom to get Kirsty’s coat. Two suitcases were lying packed on the bed. She must have been planning to go away somewhere.
He picked up her wool coat and walked back into the kitchen and placed it on a chair. He waited until the kettle had boiled and made a pot of tea. He put a mug of hot, sweet tea in front of Kirsty and handed her a clean handkerchief ‘Drink that,’ he ordered. ‘You’ll need a good lawyer, Kirsty. You can afford it now.’
“Won’t they freeze my money?”
“The money’s yours. You didn’t get it as the result of a crime. Do you want me to get you a good lawyer?”
She nodded. He took out his phone and dialled a number in Inverness. He outlined the case rapidly and told the lawyer to make all haste to police headquarters in Strathbane.
Then he waited and waited. The snow started to fall gently, great white lacy flakes. At last, he heard the sound of the police siren.
When the police arrived, he turned and charged Kirsty Ettrik with the murder of her husband, Angus. He waited until she was led to the police car. He watched until the flashing blue light disappeared into the snow.
With a heavy heart, he got into the police Land Rover and drove back to Lochdubh.
? Death of a Dustman ?
EPILOGUE
—William Shakespeare
It was once more a sunny summer’s day in Lochdubh. Hamish Macbeth and Detective Jimmy Anderson sat out in deck chairs in the police station front garden. The sky above was as blue as the eyes that shone in Jimmy’s foxy face. Hamish often marvelled that a man who drank so much could remain looking so fit and healthy.
“So she got off,” marvelled Jimmy again. “I couldnae believe it. Kirsty Ettrik got off! Mind you, it was thanks to about every villager here going down to the High Court and swearing blind that she had been tormented and beaten near to death by that husband of hers. Took the shine out of your case, Hamish. Daviot wonders how you could have possibly not known what was going on when everyone else in the village did.”
“I can be a bit stupid,” said Hamish, preferring to forget that he had organised the lying himself. He felt a bit guilty. He had hoped that his work for Kirsty would have got her a lighter sentence. He had not expected her to walk free.
“Still, that’s another case cleared up. Nothing else happening?”
“Nothing, I’m glad to say. Been as quiet as the grave here.”
“What happens to that hotel at the harbour?”
“Still bound up in red tape, so it sits there, rotting again. Peter McLeigh, who used to own the bar, managed to buy it back, however he did it, so the locals have someplace to go again. Man, you should see it. I thought he would smarten it up. Ionides had all the dirty old tables and fruit machines and stuff cleared out. He was going to make it into a gift shop. But Peter’s put everything back the way it was, even the dirt. It looks as dreary as ever.”
“It’s Calvinism,” said Jimmy lazily. “They think drinking in dreary surroundings is appropriate. So where’s Kirsty now?”
“Back at the croft house. She’ll probably sell out to her neighbour, Elspeth MacRae, and move on.”
“I would have thought she would have wanted to stay, considering the way everyone stood up for her.”
Hamish did not reply. He knew the villagers felt she had deserved some kind of punishment. They would not be too friendly towards her, to say the least.
Jimmy reached down and picked a whisky bottle off the grass at his feet and poured himself another generous measure.
