Harris?”
He hesitated and then gave a curt “Yes.”
“And what did she think about it? I know you are a middle-aged man, but to mothers, sons never grow up. Had she met Mrs Harris?”
“No.”
“But she knew. What did she think?”
“I do not know. I refused to discuss the matter with her.”
“You must have seen an end to this. What did you envisage?”
Andrew sighed. “I lived from day to day. I hoped Doris would sooner or later get up the courage to leave him.”
The questioning continued. Where had they gone, apart from the Chinese restaurant, and when? At last, they were released. Maggie came in to clear away the empty cups as Deacon said to Hamish, “Well, I think they’re both mad. Why didn’t they just hop into bed and have a fling?”
“You’re looking at two old–fashioned people,” said Hamish. “It struck me for the first time looking at them both that they love with the intensity of a Romeo and Juliet. They had everything against them: disapproving mother, bullying husband. But this is the real thing, this is the stuff the poets wrote about, and that’s why Andrew Biggar followed her up here.”
“Havers. You’re a romantic.”
“I am the realist. Some surprising people are capable of the finer feelings,” said Hamish huffily.
Maggie went out with the tray. Could Hamish Macbeth love like that? Was he right? Did that sort of love still exist when everything these days was sex, sex, sex? Perhaps she would see if he was free for dinner. That new short black skirt with the slit up the side hadn’t been worn yet.
She hung about outside the interviewing room.
But Hamish was waiting inside to see Alice Brett.
? Death of a Nag ?
9
Love’s like the measles – all the worse when it comes late in life.
—Douglas William Jerrold
Hamish, who had been studying his notes, looked up curiously as Alice Brett was ushered in. He had expected a legal secretary to turn out to be somewhat like Doris Harris in appearance, prim and neat. But Alice Brett was fleshy. She had a loose, floppy bosom and rather big loose arms, as if they had once been muscled and the muscle had gone into flab. Her heavily painted mouth was very thick and full, and she wore an orange lipstick which had the ‘wet’ look, so that it was hard to look anywhere else but at that huge glistening mouth. Her eyes were large and rather fixed. She was wearing a short-sleeved summer dress. She had large plump feet in white high-heeled shoes.
Clay switched on the tape again. Deacon consulted some notes and then began. “Mrs Brett, you say you came up here after the murder, and yet you checked out on holiday the week before. You will be interested to know that your neighbour, Mrs Dibb, now stands by her original story and has made a statement. She said you told her a week before the murder of Mr Harris that you had received a letter saying that your husband was cheating on you, and that you were going up to Scotland. Was that letter from Harris?”
“I want a lawyer,” said Mrs Brett.
“You’ll get one. But try to co-operate. If you did not murder Mr Harris, then you have nothing to fear.”
Hamish spoke suddenly, “The thing that is bothering me,” he said, “was that there was hardly time for Harris to have written to Mrs Brett here. We had all been here only a few days when the murder took place.”
Deacon looked at him in surprise. Then he glared at Alice Brett. “Out wi’ it. Who told you about June?”
“I’m saying nothing until a lawyer gets here.” Alice folded her baggy arms over her baggy bosom and faced them mutinously.
And then Hamish Macbeth had one of his flashes of Highland insight.
“I know who wrote to you,” he said.
“How? Who?” asked Deacon.
“It was June,” said Hamish flatly. He looked straight at Alice Brett. “June wrote to you, didn’t she?”
She stared back and then sneered, “Oh, well, if the silly trollop has told you, there’s no point in me denying it. The bitch. Let my man go and all that crap.”
“So why didn’t you approach them when you came up here?” asked Hamish. “You weren’t staying in Skag. I’m sure of that.”
“I stayed a bit away,” she said sulkily. “I stayed in Forres. I drove over one day. You were all on the beach. It was the children. I can’t have any. It made me sick. But I suddenly didn’t want him any more. I went to tell him so. Of course June and the children weren’t anywhere around. You know how I got my revenge? Not by murdering Harris. Why should I? I didn’t know the man. I got my revenge by saying he could have had a divorce any time he wanted, and then I saw the look on his face. He was mad with fury, thinking of all the wasted years.”
“And you let him believe that you had found out about him and June through the newspapers?”
“I didn’t tell him who had written to me. It didn’t seem important any more.”
A possessive, ugly leech of a woman, and with another flash of insight he realized why such a woman would be prepared to let a husband go.
“You didn’t much care one way or the other,” said Hamish, “you having a new man of your own.”
“I’ll kill that Dibb woman,” she shouted. “Some friend. Can’t she keep her bloody mouth shut?”
“Who is this man?” asked Deacon.
Her eyes flashed hatred in the direction of Hamish Macbeth.
“A Mr John Trant. He lives in Grays. He’s a builder.”
Deacon settled down then to take her over all her movements since receiving the letter from June. She no longer said she needed a lawyer but answered in a dull, flat voice.
When they had finished with her and she had left the room, Deacon turned on Hamish. “You might have told me all you knew about her, Macbeth,” he said. “I’ve got no time for ye if you’re going to be secretive.”
“I didn’t know,” said Hamish mildly. “It just came to me. Harris wouldn’t know her address, and the only person I could think of who might have an interest in letting Alice know the truth was June. Also, about the other man, a creature like Alice Brett wouldn’t have even considered letting Dermott have his freedom unless she had another man lined up.”
“It could be,” said Deacon slowly, “that Brett thought Harris had written the letter.”
“But Alice arrived after the murder,” Clay pointed out.
“Unless, of course,” said Hamish, “Alice met Dermott secretly before the murder. Perhaps her visit to the boarding-house was to finalize things.”
“We’d better have June and Dermott Brett in again.” Deacon rose, put his head round the door and shouted at the desk sergeant to get someone to collect them.
“Is that how you go about cases?” he asked Hamish. “Guesswork? That can be a dangerous thing. Whit if you were wrong?”
“Then all she had to do was deny it. Seemed worth a try.”
“Aye, that’s all very well, but me, I prefer solid police work and hard evidence. Just look how you came a cropper over the wrong body over at Drim.”
“But I found out the murderer,” protested Hamish. “Look, I’ve been meaning to ask you. For the next few days, is there a possibility of a room in the police house at Dungarton? I don’t want to go on staying at that boarding-house.”
“Why?” demanded Clay. “You can watch them.”
“I find it a bit o’ a strain,” said Hamish.
“You’re a policeman, dammit.”
“But a policeman usually doesn’t hae to live with the suspects.”
“You stay where you are, laddie,” said Deacon. “Clay, give Maggie a shout and get her to make some tea and
