Death of a Valentine - M. C. Beaton [82]
“Who was on the phone, dear?” asked Milly.
“Just an old army friend. Look, do something useful. I’m going out for a walk tomorrow. Get some exercise. Get the sweep in and get the damned chimney cleaned! If anyone calls, tell them I’ve gone abroad.”
In less remote parts of Scotland, people had their chimneys vacuum cleaned. But in Drim, villagers relied on the services of the itinerate sweep, Peter Ray, with his old-fashioned brushes.
Chimney sweeps are still regarded as lucky at weddings, especially if they kiss the bride. Pete made extra money from being hired to kiss brides even though people swore he had only two baths a year: one at Christmas and the other at Easter. Mostly he was as black as the soot he took from the chimneys. He lived in a hut high up on the moors between Lochdubh and Drim. He drove an old-fashioned motorcycle with a sidecar to carry his brushes.
Milly obtained his phone number by calling the local store. Just before he arrived, the captain said mysteriously that he planned to be out for some time and repeated that if anyone asked for him, to say he had gone abroad.
The sweep arrived just after he had left. Milly took one look at his soot-covered appearance, gave him a mug of tea, and then rushed to spread newspapers and old sheets over the drawing room carpet. She then said she was going to walk down to the village to get some groceries. She asked Pete how much it would cost and then gave him the money, saying if she was not back by the time he had finished, to leave by the kitchen door, lock the door behind him and put the key through the letterbox. She had a spare key. Milly was determined to be out of the house for as long as possible in case whoever it was her husband wanted to avoid should come calling. Milly knew herself to be incapable of lying without giving herself away.
Also, she had had little chance of meeting any of the women from the village and was longing to talk to someone, anyone, who was not her husband. She spent very little in the local shop, knowing that her husband took a malicious delight in not giving the locals any custom, but she chatted to several of the women and a Mrs. Mackay invited her back for tea.
Happy for the first time in ages, Milly returned home after several hours. She was annoyed to find the kitchen door standing open, and then assumed that either the sweep had forgotten to lock it or that her husband had come back. Milly picked up the sheets from the floor and put them in the laundry room. There were still crumpled newspapers in the hearth where she had left them to catch any fall of soot. Milly decided to have a glass of whisky before she did any more cleaning. She took one of her husband’s precious bottles of malt whisky from the sideboard and poured herself a generous measure. Her husband would not approve, but he was often so drunk in the evenings that she was sure he would assume he had drunk the whisky himself.
She sat down in the drawing room, sipping her drink and staring at the large stone fireplace. She had enjoyed her little bit of freedom. If only her husband would go away more often! “If only,” whispered a nasty little voice in her head, “he were dead.”
Feeling guilty, Milly took another sip of her drink, listening all the while for her husband’s return. The wind had got up and was blowing around the house.
Plop! Plop! Plop! Milly stiffened. What was that noise? A leaky tap in the kitchen? No, the noise seemed to be coming from the fireplace. Darkness was falling. She got up and switched on all the lights.
Plop!
The noise was coming from the fireplace. She walked over to it and stared. Something dark was falling in drips onto the paper. The chimney was old. If you bent down and looked up it you could see the sky. Perhaps it was rain.
She caught a drop on the back of her hand and then held her hand under a lamp on a table by the fireside.
Milly let out a whimper of fear. Blood!
By the time Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth arrived from Lochdubh, Milly had shut herself in the kitchen. “It’s blood dripping down the chimney,