Death of a Sweep - M. C. Beaton [29]
‘Up at the hoose. What do you want to be bothering her for?’
‘Just a helpful gossip.’
‘Oh, well, you know the way.’
Jock had knocked down an old fishing cottage at the back of the shop and replaced it with a rather awful pebble-dashed bungalow. The builders had not allowed for the fierce gales funnelled down the loch. The old cottage had stood side-on to them with very thick walls. The new building was on a little rise facing down the loch. Hamish clutched his cap and rang the bell.
Ailsa answered it and said, ‘It’s yourself. I’ve just put the kettle on.’
Hamish eased past her and walked into the kitchen. He noticed that despite the double-glazing on all the windows, little draughts were somehow escaping into the house. The kitchen was cold.
‘Tea?’
‘Aye, that would be grand,’ said Hamish.
He waited until Ailsa made a pot of tea and put it on the table with two mugs. ‘Now,’ she said. ‘What brings you?’
Ailsa was still a good-looking woman, Hamish noticed, with her thick red hair and creamy skin.
‘Did you see that bit about Angela on the telly?’ asked Hamish.
‘Aye. Poor soul.’
‘Well, it couldnae help but cross my mind that there might be other folk that the captain took money from.’
Ailsa’s eyes became blank. ‘Now, I would not be knowing about that.’
Hamish stared dreamily at the ceiling. ‘I think when she sells the house, Mrs Davenport will be looking to pay back as much as she can. Now, if someone in Drim was feeling the pinch, and all because of that fraudster, wouldn’t it be chust grand if that person knew he or she might be getting their money back?’
There was a long silence. The wind screeched around the house like a banshee.
Ailsa suddenly rose to her feet. ‘I’m not saying anything, mind. But let’s drop in on Edie.’
As they walked to Edie’s home, Hamish remembered that when a charming young Englishman had caused a flutter amongst the hearts of the women of Drim, Edie had set up an exercise class in the village hall as they all tried to lose weight.
Edie answered the door to them. ‘This is nice,’ she said. ‘Come ben.’
She led the way into a small, shabby living room. ‘Nobody else dead, I hope?’ she said.
‘I wondered if you knew that Mrs Davenport plans to refund as much of the money as she can that her husband tricked people out of?’ said Hamish, reflecting that he’d better go and see Milly afterwards and tell her about it.
‘Go on,’ said Ailsa softly. Edie was a thin, scrawny woman wearing a pink tracksuit. Hamish judged her to be somewhere in her sixties. She was heavily made up, from mascara on her sparse eyelashes to bright red lipstick on her small drooping mouth. No teeth, thought Hamish. Dentures. Women of her generation often got all their teeth pulled out at an early age ‘to get it over and done with’, sometimes after only about two extractions. They never thought how their faces would begin to droop and how the shape of the mouth would be spoiled.
Edie’s bony shoulders rose in a dismal little shrug. ‘I’ve been a right fool. You remember, Hamish, when we had that murder here? Before that, I ran the exercise classes. It was all such fun and excitement. I was out for a walk one day and saw the captain up ahead of me. I thought I’d take him to task for not shopping at the village store. Thae supermarkets are killing off all the wee shops. It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is!’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Hamish soothingly. ‘And then what happened?’
‘He wasn’t what I expected. He was awfy kind and polite. He said he would start to buy groceries at the shop. He said it must be a lonely life for a sophisticated lady like me. I found myself telling him about missing all the excitement I’d had when I ran the classes. Oh, he said, you should start an exercise salon in Strathbane. I said I hadn’t the money. He said that he’d a friend in Strathbane who would back me if I put in a small down payment but it’d need to be in cash.
‘I asked him how much and he said, one thousand pounds. Well, I just had that much and not much over in my post office savings account, but after we’d talked for a long time and