Death of a Valentine - M. C. Beaton [19]
“Name?”
“Percy Stane.”
“And where does he work?”
“Waste disposal. Across the hall.”
“Right.” Hamish got to his feet. “Did you get all that, McSween?”
Josie blushed. She had been daydreaming.
Hamish sighed and took out his notebook. “Right, Jessie, I’ll need you to go over it again.”
Percy Stane—what misguided parent called a child Percy these days? wondered Hamish—turned out to be a spotty youth of nineteen years. He had thick glasses through which pale blue eyes stared at them like a rabbit caught in the headlights.
“We just want to ask you a few questions about Annie Fleming,” said Hamish. “Did you send her a valentine?”
Percy’s eyes darted this way and that. “We have good forensic evidence,” said Hamish severely, hoping Percy would think his card had been found.
“I-I d-did s-send one,” he stammered.
“Now, that’s all right,” said Hamish soothingly. “You didn’t send her a parcel?”
Hamish’s mobile phone rang. “Excuse me,” he said. He answered it. It was Jimmy. “Thought you’d like to hear the latest. At the autopsy, they found tablets of Ecstasy sewn into the hem of her jacket. It fortunately hadnae been burnt, thanks to that McGirty woman.”
“I’ve just learned she had been frequenting a disco called Stardust in her lunch break,” said Hamish.
“Good man. I’ve been dying for an excuse to raid that place for ages.”
Jimmy rang off.
Hamish went and sat down facing Percy again. “Did you say anything in your valentine?”
Percy blushed deep red. “Do I have to tell you?”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t put a poem. I just wrote, ‘Come back to me. Love, Percy.’ ”
“So she had been your date?”
“Not exactly.” Percy wriggled in his hard chair. “Annie was always flirting and I thought she fancied me. I couldn’t look at my girlfriend after Annie came on to me. I thought about her night and day.”
“You mean Jessie Cormack?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t it strike you as rather mean that Annie would flirt with you and then turn cold when she’d got you away from her friend?”
“I was…dazzled.”
“Did you follow her?”
He hung his head.
“Come on, laddie. Out wi’ it!”
“I called in sick one day and went to the wildlife park. As I approached, she was just driving off. I followed. She went to a disco. I followed her in. She was over at the bar with some lowlife, laughing and drinking. I went up to her and she threw her head back and laughed. I said, ‘What about a dance, Annie?’ and her face went all hard and the fellow with her said, ‘Bugger off or I’ll glass your face.’ ”
“What did he look like?”
“Greasy hair, black eyes, leather jacket, tattoo of a snake on his wrist, and a bit older than her. He frightened me. I got out of there. I was determined to stay clear of her, but after a few days, I…I…”
“You followed her again?”
“I waited outside her house one morning to try to speak to her but she said if I didn’t leave her alone, she would call the police. That frightened me. My valentine—well, it was one last desperate try.”
“Did you see her with any other man, other than this fellow at the disco?”
He shook his head.
“Did you know she took drugs?”
Percy looked shocked. “She couldn’t, she wouldn’t…”
“She did,” said Hamish flatly. “I’ll be talking to you again.”
Out in the hall again, Hamish said, “Back to Jessie.”
“How did you know she took drugs?” asked Josie.
Hamish told her what Jimmy Anderson had said. He opened the door to Jessie’s office. She was sitting at her computer typing busily.
“Stop for a minute,” ordered Hamish. “Did you know that Annie took drugs?”
“No!”
“Never talked about it? Never hinted?”
“Not a word.”
“I’ll be back to see you. Here’s my card. If you can think of anything, phone me up. There may be something you’ve forgotten.”
Hamish dropped Josie off at her car. “I’m going back to Lochdubh,” he said. “You may as well get home and change. Take it easy. The snow’s still light but it could get heavy any moment.”
Josie drove off, peering through the windscreen as the hypnotic flakes swirled and danced in front of her. At the manse, she changed into civilian clothes and brushed down her