“It’s too soon after all the shocks for Mrs. Davenport to be disturbed. I’ll just be seeing you out.”
Hamish suddenly sensed evil in the room, but he did not know which one of them was emanating it.
He held the drawing room door wide. “Good day to you.”
Charles Prosser said haughtily, “We’ll be back to see you when this interfering policeman is not around.”
“No you won’t,” said Milly, getting to her feet. “I’ve had enough. Don’t come back. I haven’t any money.”
“What’s this?” asked Hamish. “Have you been harassing Mrs. Davenport for money at such a time?”
“We’ll be on our way,” said Bromley. They pushed past Hamish and left.
Milly sobbed quietly while the sound of their car died away. “Look here,” said Hamish, “that money was got from them by fraud. You are not responsible.”
“I was thinking of selling the house,” said Milly, drying her eyes. “But the village people are so kind. I’ve never really had friends of my own since I got married. To tell the truth, I didn’t like their wives, but Henry insisted they were my best friends.”
“Will your sister-in-law have left you anything in her will?”
“I very much doubt it.”
Hamish took out his phone. “I think I’ll just be calling in a few favours from a couple of men on the Forestry Commission. As soon as all the shrubbery is taken away, you’ll get a clear view of who’s approaching the house.”
There was a knock at the door, and Milly winced. Hamish went to answer it. But it was Ailsa and Edie bearing a cake. “We thought a bit o’ cake might cheer her up.”
Milly appeared behind Hamish. “How kind of you. Let’s go into the kitchen. The drawing room is cold.”
Hamish returned to his phone call. “Two forestry men’ll be along this afternoon,” he said.
“What do I pay them?” asked Milly.
“Nothing. Like I said, they’ll take away the wood as payment.”
When Hamish arrived back at his police station, he phoned the hotel and found to his dismay that none of the four had checked out. For once he would have welcomed Detective Inspector Blair with his bullying ways. Why wasn’t he up at the hotel grilling them?
He phoned Jimmy and asked. “I’m on my road over,” said Jimmy. “Blair smells that this is a case that’ll never be solved. He’s got a glowing report on all four men from the regiment. He says I’ve got to concentrate on the villagers in Drim. He says they’re probably all inbred and daft. He says some lunatic stuffed the captain up the chimney. He says we cannot go around annoying brave soldiers.”
“Ex-soldiers,” corrected Hamish, “and they were up at Drim this morning, trying to get money out o’ Milly.”
“Where are they now?”
“Tommel Castle.”
“I’ll just be having a wee word wi’ them.”
“Drop in here first. I’ve got an idea.”
When Jimmy arrived, demanding whisky as usual, Hamish said, “Has anyone looked into how their businesses are doing?”
“Don’t think so.”
“All of them or one of them must be desperate for money or they wouldn’t go to such lengths.”
“I’ll use your phone and get on to it. Where’s Elspeth? I heard she’d been spotted.”
“Down in Surrey, trying to get some background.”
“Good luck to her. But believe me, the police down there have been thorough. Wait! I’ll use your phone and get on to them and see if one of the four has a failing business.”
Hamish waited. The wind was rising like a bad omen. It had a peculiar keening sound, heralding worse to come.
Ailsa, Edie, and Milly were eating cake and drinking coffee when someone knocked at the door. “I’ll go,” said Ailsa.
After a few minutes, she called, “It’s that reporter, Tam Tamworth.”
“Oh, show him in,” said Milly.
“Are you sure you want to be speaking to the press?” asked Ailsa.
“Tam swears he won’t publish anything until the murders are solved. And he’s kind.”
Ailsa ushered Tam into the kitchen. He was carrying a bunch of yellow roses, which he presented to Milly. “How lovely, Tam. I’ll put these in water.”
Ailsa winked at Edie, and both women rose to their feet. “We’ll leave you to it, Milly. Phone if there’s anything you want.”
After they had gone, Tam nervously cleared his throat and said, “It’s my day off.”
“Then how nice of you to come to see me.”
“I wondered if you felt like a trip to Strathbane this evening for dinner.”
“Oh… I don’t know. Wouldn’t it look odd so soon after the funeral?”
“I don’t think anyone will notice us. It just crossed my mind that it might be a wee bit o’ a tonic to get out o’ here. And you did want to see a movie.”
“Oh, it would. Coffee?”
“I’ll be on my way and pick ye up at seven o’clock.”
Jimmy came back from his phone call. “Dead end. Yes, they investigated their finances and all are well off.”
“It’s because they’ve been conned out of the money,” said Hamish slowly. “The captain made a fool of them. I’ll swear to God one of them hated him violently and the others are covering up.”
Elspeth was feeling she had made a wasted journey. She had hit a brick wall everywhere she went. The four men were considered model citizens. Not one of them had a dishonourable discharge from the army. When she had tried to pump the adjutant about the captain’s suspected selling of arms in Northern Ireland, she was told roundly that it had all turned out to be nonsense. Her researcher, Betty Close, worked hard and seemed eager but there was something about the girl that Elspeth did not like. Betty was small and sallow with a little beaky nose and a small mouth. Her one beauty lay in her eyes, which were large and dark brown, fringed with heavy lashes. She dyed her long hair black and had an irritating habit of tossing it around as if advertising shampoo.
Betty wanted Elspeth’s job. She wanted everything that Elspeth had, from her flat down by the River Clyde to her status at the television station.
She knew Elspeth was worried about losing her job as a news presenter. Betty had overheard the head of news and current affairs saying that if Elspeth could make anything of the
“So are we back off up to peasant land?” asked the soundman, Phil Green.
“Not yet. I want to go via London. I’ve got to see an old friend in the City. I wonder if these four men are as successful in business as they claim. Why are they so desperate to get their money back? Is it just because they were conned?”
“London it is,” said the cameraman, George Lennox, gloomily.
The four men waited a couple of days before venturing to visit Milly again. As they approached, they saw that all the shrubbery in front of the house had been cleared away so that anyone approaching from any angle could be clearly seen.
They got down from their vehicle and rang the bell. Ailsa Kennedy answered the door. “Whit?” she demanded.
“We are here to call on Mrs. Davenport.”
“If you want money out o’ her, forget it. We’ve phoned thae lawyers and you’ve no’ got one damn thing in writing to say you ever lent him the money. You’ll not come here again, pestering the poor woman.”
Her place was taken by a large man with big ears. “I’m Tam Tamworth from the
