Death of a Gentle Lady - M. C. Beaton [81]
‘You had their names and descriptions,’ said Hamish. ‘Why didn’t you just report them?’
‘George knows where my mother lives in Bonar Bridge. He said if I told anyone, they would kill her.’
‘Lassie, the police could have put your mother under protection.’
‘With Blair in charge?’
‘Oh, well, maybe you have a point. What’s the next job?’
‘They came round today. I said I wouldn’t tell them anything more and they beat me. I still wouldn’t tell them but they hurt me so much, I told them that the post offices were no longer under surveillance. George said something like “Leave her.” Then as they went out, I heard one of the others say, “Braikie tomorrow’ll be our last anyway.” I’d better get my coat. You’ll be taking me in.’
‘Let me think.’ Hamish ran his long fingers through his flaming red hair. ‘Who’s your doctor?’
‘Dr Sing.’
‘Sympathetic?’
‘He seemed like a nice man. I only saw him the once when I had a sprained ankle.’
‘Get me his number.’
Supplied with the phone number, Hamish phoned Dr Sing and asked him to call, adding that it was a police matter.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Alice.
‘Try to get you out of this.’
When Dr Sing arrived, Hamish said, ‘Miss Donaldson has been beaten up during some undercover work. We fear this might be because of some informant at headquarters. Until we investigate further, we want you to sign her off for two weeks suffering from injuries incurred after a bad fall down the stairs. You would be helping an investigation considerably if you could do this.’
Dr Sing was a young doctor, recently qualified and anxious to please. He wrote out the certificate and would have examined Alice but Hamish said a police doctor had already had a look. ‘But the certificate has to be issued by her own doctor,’ said Hamish.
When the doctor had left, Hamish said, ‘Get over to your mother in Bonar Bridge and get her off to a wee hotel somewhere until this blows over. Now, if these men are caught and your name comes up, don’t say I had anything to do with it or we’ll both be out of the force.’
‘I don’t know how to thank you,’ said Alice.
‘Just move fast and get out of here,’ said Hamish. ‘Have you got a car?’ She nodded. ‘Pack quickly and off you go!’
Hamish stopped on the road back to Lochdubh and bought three fish suppers to feed his pets and himself, wondering all the time how to catch the men who proposed robbing the Braikie Post Office. They were getting bolder, he thought. The others had mainly been sub post offices in general stores, but Braikie was a pedigree one and quite new. No one could understand how Braikie, a remote highland town, should get a new post office when the government was proposing to close so many down.
Twice Hamish had been promoted to sergeant and twice he had been demoted. During the two periods he had held the rank of sergeant, he had policemen working under him. One was Willie Lamont, who had married the daughter of an Italian restaurant owner and left to work in the restaurant. The other, Clarry Graham, was now employed as a chef at the Tommel Castle Hotel. He decided to get them to help him. If he got a squad from Strathbane, they would insist on knowing how he got the information about the proposed robbery. Or Blair might take over and make a mess of it.
Hamish had a sudden image of Blair being blasted to death by a shotgun and he smiled. It was great that some of the things inside his head never got to the outside, he thought.
In the morning, Hamish, flanked by Clarry and Willie, broke the news to the alarmed postmistress, Ellie Macpherson, that he expected the place to be raided. Unfortunately for Hamish, Ellie was the leading light of the local dramatic society and also a sort of female Walter Mitty. He