Death of a Chimney Sweep - M. C. Beaton [8]
It was Ailsa. “Everything all right?”
“Sort of,” said Milly.
“Don’t let her bully you. See you tomorrow.”
“Who was that?” demanded Philomena.
“Just a friend,” said Milly.
“Now, listen to me,” said Philomena, looming over her. “My brother believed in people knowing their place. He would turn in his grave if he thought you were consorting with the villagers.”
Milly sighed. “He’s not in his grave yet.” And with a sudden spurt of courage, “If you go on nagging like that, Philomena, someone will murder you!”
Philomena slowly backed away. “I’m going to my room,” she said. She felt suddenly nervous. What did she really know of Milly?
Tolly had retreated to his police car and started the engine and heater running. When he felt warm again, he switched the engine off. He had hidden the police car a little way down the hill where he could still get a good view of the house. His eyes began to droop. The night was very still. Then he thought he saw a black shadow approaching the house. He straightened up and slowly got out of the police car without slamming the door behind him.
Taking his baton, he crept towards the house, his heart beating hard. He knew all of a sudden that he had been neglecting his duty by sitting in his car some yards away from the entrance.
He scurried up the short drive, looking to left and right. Tolly decided to call for backup. He wanted to stay alive to collect his pension in four years’ time. He took out his mobile phone. Then from behind him, the police radio in the car—which he had forgotten to switch off—crackled into life reporting a burglary down at the docks in Strathbane. “I need backup,” he yelled into his phone. “Intruder at Drim!”
Something heavy struck him on the back of the head and he fell unconscious.
Lights went on in the house. Milly had heard Tolly’s call; it had awakened her from an uneasy sleep. Philomena joined her on the landing. “Call the police,” she whispered.
“Haven’t you got a mobile?” asked Milly.
“It’s downstairs in my handbag.”
“Mine, too, and the phone’s in the hall. What are we going to do?”
Hanging on to each other, they crept down the stairs. Milly grabbed the phone in the hall and called the police.
Hamish Macbeth was awakened by the shrill sound of the telephone. He struggled out of bed, ran to the office, and listened in alarm when he was told there was something bad happening at the Davenport house in Drim.
When he got there, the small figure of Tolly was being carried into an ambulance. Police Inspector Mary Benson was in charge of operations. She was a matronly looking woman whose grey hair and rosy cheeks belied a ruthless efficiency.
“What on earth happened to the wee man?” asked Hamish.
“Someone bashed him on the head,” said Mary. “He was just shouting something into his phone about an intruder when it happened.”
“Is he bad?”
“Looks bad. We can only hope for the best. You should have done the job yourself, Macbeth. His police radio was blaring away, enough to alert anybody that the house was watched.”
“Whose fault is it that I was sent a dangerously inept policeman, ma’am?”
“Don’t get cheeky with me. Join the search.”
“Yes, ma’am,” said Hamish gloomily.
“We’d best get these women off to a safe house for a bit.”
Hamish went up the drive and round to the kitchen door, shining his torch on the ground, searching for footprints. But the ground was hard and dry, and a lot of the path was covered by weeds and heather. The captain, thought Hamish, must have had something that the murderer desperately wanted. And how had the man arrived? Had he left a car somewhere and walked over the hills?
He would need to return as soon as it was daylight and search again.
Milly had always wondered how any human being could take the life of another. But after a week in the safe house in Strathbane with Philomena, she felt she understood. The “safe house” was actually a small flat. She had to share a bedroom with her sister-in-law. At first, Philomena would not let her go out at all, saying