Death of a Sweep - M. C. Beaton [75]
‘No, no, missus. Jist the ither side, covered in the gravel.’ He scraped the gravel away and revealed an iron cover. He wrenched and turned and finally pulled the cover off. A fountain of excrement, fuelled by trapped gases, blasted into the air, spraying everyone with the worst kind of filth.
It poured down into the flower bed and Milly thought with dread of the case of money buried underneath.
When the gusher subsided, the boss, seemingly unfazed by the fact that he was covered in brown unmentionable, put the huge hose into the drain and then started a motor in the truck. Milly ran into the house and stripped off her clothes and had a shower. Then she dressed in clean clothes and went outside again.
The smell was awful. Amused villagers had gathered to watch. A cesspool clearance was regarded as a rare show. When the job was pronounced finished, Jock Kennedy and some of the men asked Milly if she had a hose.
‘Yes,’ said Milly. ‘There are some gardening things in a shed at the side there. What are you going to do?’
‘We’ll chust be washing this muck off the garden.’
Milly thought frantically of the buried money. ‘Oh, don’t bother …’ she began, but Jock was already walking to the shed.
He came back with a long coil of hose. Not bothering to ask Milly’s permission, he went into the house and fed the hose from the kitchen tap round to the front of the house and began to drench the garden.
Finally Jock stopped and looked up at the black clouds streaming in from the west. ‘Storm’s coming, Milly,’ he said cheerfully. ‘That’ll finish the job.’
To Milly’s dismay, Ailsa, who had joined the watchers, said cheerfully, ‘I think we could all do with a cup of tea.’
Milly felt she could not refuse. They would wonder why. Jock, Ailsa, and the villagers gathered in the kitchen. Milly made endless cups of tea and sliced cake. Outside the wind screamed and the rain flooded down.
After two hours, they left. Milly hurriedly donned a raincoat and rain hat and went out into the garden. The screaming gale lifted her hat from her head and sent it sailing off.
She went to the shed and took out a spade and began to dig. The excrement had sunk down into her new flower bed, and the smell was awful. She hoisted out the attaché case and carried it into the kitchen.
She laid it on the table and opened it. The notes inside were brown with the muck from the cesspool and soaking wet.
Milly found a ball of string and began to put lines of string across the kitchen. Then she began to gingerly sponge each note and pin it up to dry. She stoked up the Raeburn stove and returned to the long, long job of cleaning the banknotes.
Hamish Macbeth drove up to Milly’s house. He wrinkled his nose at the smell, which had never quite gone away. He knocked at the door. There was no answer, although he could see Milly’s car parked at the side of the house. He thought that she must be down in the village. But after so many scares and murders, he wondered if she was all right. He tried the door and found it unlocked.
Milly had heard the knock at the door but decided if she did not answer it, whoever it was would go away.
She was just pinning up a wet note when she sensed a presence behind her and turned round. Hamish Macbeth stood there.
‘I see you’ve found the money,’ he said.
‘It’s my money,’ said Milly shrilly.
‘Oh, aye? And do you often wash it? I’ve heard of laundering money but this is the first time I’ve seen it actually done.’
‘It’s mine,’ said Milly desperately. ‘It was my husband’s and now it belongs to me.’
Hamish sat down slowly at the kitchen table. He took off his hat. If he put in a report, it would show that Milly had every intention of keeping the money. By the mess of it, it must have been buried in the garden. He had heard over in Lochdubh about the cesspool clearance. Prosser had been a criminal, and the money should be impounded.
Milly stood before him, tears running down her face. What an irritatingly weak woman, he thought savagely, realizing for the