Death of a Valentine Part 18

Josie sat mutinously in Mrs. Wellington's car the following morning. She had been appalled to learn that the minister's wife was taking her to an AA meeting in Strathbane. Deaf to her protests, Mrs. Wellington had said that if Josie did not go, she would tell Hamish that Josie had been drunk. Mrs. Wellington had also found two precious half bottles of whisky in Josie's underwear drawer and confiscated them.

As the car neared Strathbane, Josie protested, "I'll be stuck in a room with smelly old drunks in dirty raincoats."

"It's where you belong," said the minister's wife. "But I happen to know respectable people go to these meetings."

She parked outside a church in the town centre. "There's a lunchtime meeting here. It's only an hour long. I'll see you inside and come back and pick you up when it's over."

A tall man in a business suit was standing at the door, acting as a greeter. "This is Josie," boomed Mrs. Wellington. "First meeting. Look after her."

"Will do. Come along, Josie. I'll introduce you. My name's Charlie."

There were twelve people in the room, all smartly dressed and clear-eyed. Josie would have felt better if they had been dirty old men. There was no one to feel superior to. They pressed literature on her and gave her a cup of tea. Then they all sat around a long table. A woman was the speaker. Josie mutinously did not listen to a word. What had it to do with her? What a stupid place and what stupid slogans pinned up on the walls-LIVE AND LET LIVE, EASY DOES IT, things like that. Stuff for morons, thought Josie.

But she pinned an interested look on her face, wondering all the time what Hamish was doing. Was he really interested in Elspeth? What chance had she compared with a television star? The newspapers said that Elspeth's engagement had broken off.

She realised with a start that the chairman was addressing her. "As it's your first meeting, Josie, you don't have to say anything."

"Thank you," she said. "I think you are all so brave."

It went round the room. People talked about free-floating anxiety, about loneliness of spirit, about selfishness. What has all this b.o.l.l.o.c.ks got to do with drink? thought Josie.

At last the dreadful meeting was over. People gave her phone numbers and wished her luck, along with a meeting list. Josie thanked them all and hurried out to where Mrs. Wellington was waiting for her.

"How did you get on, Josie?" she asked.

"Fine. Nice people. I've got a meeting list."

"Good girl. You'll be all right now."

Vodka, thought Josie. I'd best try vodka. It doesn't smell.

If she had been listening at the meeting she would have heard a woman say that she had started drinking vodka because she thought it would not smell and everyone had burst out laughing.

On the way back, her mobile rang. It was Hamish. "You're probably still in bed," he said. "I'm over in Braikie. Percy's dead."

"I need to get over to Braikie," said Josie. "There's been another death."

"This is horrible," said Mrs. Wellington. "Braikie is becoming like Chicago!"

When Josie arrived in Braikie, it was to find the small town full of policemen going door to door, but there was no sign of Hamish. She asked one if he had seen him and was told that Hamish was back in his police station.

Josie hurried back to Lochdubh. She went straight into the police station without knocking, a fact that Hamish, crouched over sheets of notes, noticed with annoyance.

"Next time, knock at the door," he snapped.

"I wondered what you wanted me to do today. I thought you would be in Braikie."

"I was," he said curtly. "But after chapping at a few doors as instructed by Blair and being told that the police had already been around, I thought I'd be better back here trying to figure out who killed Annie. Everything leads from the first murder."

"I'll help you," said Josie, starting to take off her coat.

"Good," said Hamish. "Get yourself over to Cnothan. There is a Mrs. Thomson, number nine, Waterway-that's down at the loch. She says she's been burgled but she has phoned before complaining about one thing or the other and it always turns out to be a figment of her imagination. Still, she sounded genuinely upset this time."

Josie trailed miserably off. Hamish had a sudden qualm of conscience. "Are you feeling better?" he called.

Josie came hurrying back. "I still feel a little weak."

"Help yourself to a coffee before you go. There's some on the stove."

"Can I bring you one?"

"What? Okay."

Josie happily busied herself in the kitchen, looking about herself with possessive eyes. The kitchen was too small. It could be extended. Copper pans, hanging on hooks, she thought dreamily.

She took Hamish a mug of coffee. He leaned back in his chair and wrinkled his nose. "Have you been drinking vodka?"

"No!" exclaimed Josie, feigning outrage.

Hamish shrugged. "Smells like it to me. Drink your coffee and get over to Cnothan."

Josie put her own mug down on the desk next to his and pulled up a chair.

"Take your coffee into the kitchen," ordered Hamish.

Josie trailed off. He just didn't know what was good for him, she thought. The cat suddenly looked up at her with yellow eyes and gave a low hiss. I'd better make friends with those animals, thought Josie. I'll start to bring them food. If I drug Hamish, I'll need to drug them as well.

The days for Hamish crawled past as he waited for the autopsy report. Finally Jimmy called. "This is a right mess," he said. "There was a quant.i.ty of sleeping drug in the boy's stomach along with a lot of whisky. The pathologist says that from the angles of the cuts, it looks as if someone did it for him. Have you worked out anything at all, Hamish? We're getting desperate."

"I found a video in his desk."

"Have you been withholding evidence?"

"There was nothing on it but mair evidence of Percy's obsession with Annie. It was a video of her as the Lammas queen last summer."

"I'm coming over to see it," said Jimmy.

"Meet me at the hotel then," said Hamish. "I have a video machine here but I tried it last night and it wasnae working."

Mr. Johnson let them use one of the hotel rooms. Once more the sunny scene sprang into view. "Thon provost seems pretty friendly," said Jimmy. "See the way he presses his big fat hand on her shoulder?"

The tape ran to the end. Hamish switched it off. They sat looking at each other gloomily while the melting snow outside dripped from the eaves like tears.

"Wasted journey," complained Jimmy. "I'll take this tape with me. I'll slide it into the evidence locker. You know Blair. Even if this is of no importance, he would use your withholding evidence to suspend you. Where's McSween?"

"Over at Cnothan on a burglary."

"She's a bonnie la.s.s, Hamish. You could do worse."

"She haunts me. I always get the feeling that she's brooding brooding over me." over me."

"Och, man, that's just male vanity."

"Maybe. She's probably making a pig's breakfast of the investigation."

But Josie was determined to do things properly. To her surprise, she found there was definite evidence of a break-in. The back door had been jimmied open. She phoned Strathbane for a forensic team but the name of Mrs. Thomson was well known and Josie was told they had n.o.body to spare. So she got a fingerprint kit out of her car and dusted for prints. Mrs. Thomson had kept the missing money in a drawer by her bed. Josie lifted two good fingerprints from the drawer and rushed the evidence to Strathbane, where she trawled the fingerprint files on the computer. Her eyes lit up when she got a match.

Jimmy had just arrived back when Josie triumphantly showed him the evidence. The culprit was Derry Harris, a local Cnothan layabout. Jimmy pa.s.sed the news to Police Inspector Ettrick, who got two police officers to go back to Cnothan with Josie and make the arrest. The money was recovered, and Josie basked in the inspector's praise.

She arrived at the police station in Lochdubh that evening with a packet of fish for Sonsie and a packet of lamb's liver for Lugs.

Hamish listened while she described the solving of the burglary. "Good girl!" he said. "Well done!" Josie glowed.

"I suppose you'll be going to the wedding on Sat.u.r.day."

"What wedding?" asked Josie.

"Muriel McJamieson is marrying John Bean. They are both villagers so everyone's invited. I'm surprised Mrs. Wellington hasn't told you."

The truth was that Josie had seen as little of Mrs. Wellington as possible, telling that lady every evening that she was off to a meeting. Her brain raced. There would be drinking at the wedding. She would need to make sure Hamish had a few drinks and then lure him back to the station and drug him.

She realised for the first time that if she appeared cold and detached, Hamish would drop his guard.

So she said casually, "I'll think about it. I'll be on my way, sir."

She's turning out all right after all, thought Hamish.

Josie drove up to the Tommel Castle Hotel and asked if Elspeth was still there.

"She's hiding in her room," said Mr. Johnson. "She's leaving in the morning."

"May I have a word with her?" asked Josie.

The manager looked at her doubtfully. "Is it police business?"

"No, just a wee chat."

"I'll phone her."

He rang Elspeth's room and said, "Policewoman McSween is downstairs and wants a word with you. No, it's not police business."

He put down the phone and said, "You can go up. Room twenty-one."

Elspeth answered the door and looked curiously at Josie. "What is it?" she asked. "Is Hamish all right?"

"I just wanted to ask your advice."

"Come in."

Josie sat down on the bed and looked up earnestly with her big brown eyes at Elspeth.

"You are a woman of the world," began Josie.

A line from a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta flashed into Elspeth's brain: "Uttering plat.i.tudes / In stained gla.s.s att.i.tudes."

"What's that got to do with anything?" she asked.

"I'm old-fas.h.i.+oned," said Josie piously. "Not like you. If a man sleeps with me, do you think he ought to marry me?"

"Are we talking about Hamish?" asked Elspeth.

"I didn't say that."

"Well, these days, women must take responsibility as well as men. Unless you've been raped, you haven't a hope in h.e.l.l if it was only a one-night stand." Elspeth's face hardened. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have packing to do. I suggest you consult a professional."

She went and held open the door.

Josie left, burning up with fury. What did she know about anything? But Josie hoped that Elspeth would think that she had meant Hamish.

Hamish lay in bed that night, reading a detective story. He sighed as he finally put the book down. Fictional detectives never seemed to be hit with long days and weeks of not having a clue. "I'd give anything for even a red herring," he said to his pets before he switched out the light. His last gloomy thought before he went to sleep was that Blair would hound and hound until he found any suspect.

Josie craved a drink. She had been frightened to hide any more in her room in case Mrs. Wellington found the bottles. Without a drink, she felt she could not go through with the plan of trapping Hamish.

She had a bottle of vodka hidden under the roots of a rowan tree in the garden. Josie waited and waited until she was sure her hosts would be safely asleep. She crept along the corridors. So many rooms and the Wellingtons childless! The manse had been built in the days of enormous families. Down the stairs, treading carefully over the second one from the bottom that creaked, out into the bl.u.s.tery cold, taking out a pencil torch and heading rapidly for the rowan went Josie. She scrabbled in the roots of the tree until her fingers closed over the vodka bottle.

Holding it to her chest, she scurried back to the manse. As she got to the foot of the stairs, she noticed that the light was on in the landing. Glad she was still in uniform, she stuffed the bottle into an inside pocket of her coat. Mrs. Wellington was coming out of the bathroom. "I forgot to take my sleeping pill," she said. "Goodness, you're late."

"I went for coffee with some people after the meeting," said Josie.

"Oh, good girl! Night, night."

"Good night," said Josie, scuttling down the corridor to her room.