Death of a Valentine - M. C. Beaton [10]
“Not until the fair closes down,” said Hamish. “There’s sometimes a rough element in the evening.” And he strolled off, leaving Josie glaring after him.
By the time the fair began to close down at eleven in the evening, Josie was tired and all her romantic ideas about Hamish Macbeth had been sweated out of her system. He was an inconsiderate bully. He would never amount to anything. He was weird in the way that he shied away from making arrests.
She sat beside him in mutinous silence on the road back to Lochdubh, planning a trip to Strathbane on the Monday morning, turning over in her mind the best way to get a transfer back again.
“You may as well take the day off tomorrow” were Hamish’s last words that evening to her.
Hamish was outside the police station on the following Sunday morning, sawing wood, when he heard the shrill sound of the telephone ringing in the police office. He ran in and picked up the receiver. Jimmy Anderson was on the line. “You’d better get over to Braikie, Hamish. We’ll join you as soon as we can.”
“What’s up?”
“Sir Andrew Etherington collected thon tiara from the town hall first thing this morning. He was on the way back to his home when there was a blast up ahead and a tree fell across the road. Four fellows he didn’t know appeared and said they’d move the tree if he’d sit tight. Now Sir Andrew gets out of the car to go and help. He gets back in his car and waves goodbye to those helpful men. He’s nearly at his home when he realises that the box wi’ the tiara is no longer on the seat beside him.”
Hamish scrambled into his uniform and then phoned Josie and said he’d be picking her up in a few moments. Josie complained that she was just out of the bath.
“Then take your car and follow me over,” said Hamish. “The tiara’s been stolen. Get on the road towards Crask. Take the north road out of Braikie and you’ll see my Land Rover. Some men got a tree to fall over the road, blocking Sir Andrew’s way, and when he got out to help them someone nicked the tiara.”
Hamish was cursing as he took the Braikie Road. Every year the safety of that tiara was his responsibility.
As he drove through Braikie and out on the north road, he slowed down until he saw a rowan tree lying by the side of the road. He stopped and got out.
He remembered that tree, for trees were scarce in Sutherland apart from the forestry plantations, and such as survived were miserable stunted little things bent over by the Sutherland gales. The rowan tree, however, had been a sturdy old one sheltered from the winds in the lee of a hill that overshadowed the road. The bottom of the trunk had been shattered by a blast. He went across to where the tree had once grown and studied the blackened ground. He guessed a charge of dynamite had been put at the base of the tree.
He straightened up as Josie’s car came speeding along the road. He flagged her down and said, “You wait here for the forensic boys. I’ll go on to the shooting box.”
The shooting box was a handsome Georgian building, square-built with a double staircase leading up to the front door.
Hamish knew that the front door was never used so he went round to one at the side of the building and knocked. A grisled old man, Tom Calley, who worked as a butler during the shooting season, answered the door. “It’s yourself, Hamish. A bad business.”
“I’d like to speak to Sir Andrew.”
“I’ll take you to him.”
“Has he got a shooting party here?”
“Not yet. The guests are due to arrive next week for the grouse. There’s just Sir Andrew and his son, Harry.”
“No other help but yourself?”
“A couple of lassies frae Braikie, Jeannie Macdonald and her sister, Rosie.”
Hamish followed him up stone stairs to a square hall, where the mournful heads of shot animals looked down at him with glassy eyes.
Tom led the way across the hall and threw open the door to a comfortable drawing room, full of shabby furniture and lined with books.
Sir Andrew put down the newspaper he had