Free Death of an Outsider by M.C. Beaton Page A

Mainwaring.
    She was wearing a squashed felt hat and a waxed coat over a navy dress with a white sailor collar, a photograph of which had appeared several months ago in one of the Sunday colour supplements: ‘Order now. Special offer. Flattering to the fuller figure.’ A strong smell of peppermint and whisky blasted into Hamish’s face as she cried, ‘William is missing. He hasn’t been home for two nights!’
    ‘Come in, Mrs Mainwaring,’ said Hamish. ‘Sit yourself down.’
    Jenny came through and stood in the office doorway. ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
    ‘Mr Mainwaring is missing,’ said Hamish. ‘Look, Mrs Mainwaring, has he done this before?’
    ‘No, never. I mean, yes, he has, but he’s always told me or left a note.’
    ‘And where does he go?’
    ‘Glasgow or Edinburgh. He likes to go to the theatre.’
    ‘Alone?’
    ‘Yes, of course.’
    Hamish thought that William Mainwaring might possibly have a mistress in Glasgow or Edinburgh – either that or be staying away out of sheer malice. ‘I think you should give it a little more time,’ he said soothingly. ‘He’ll be back.’
    Jenny came forward and stood with her hand on Mrs Mainwaring’s shoulder. ‘And I think you ought to look for him,’ she said sharply. ‘Can’t you see how distressed Mrs Mainwaring is?’
    ‘All right,’ said Hamish reluctantly. ‘I’ve got to look for Sandy Carmichael, and so I may as well look for Mr Mainwaring at the same time.’
       
    Ian Gibb was a budding reporter. He was on the dole, but he scoured the countryside in the hope of a good story. Occasionally one of the Scottish newspapers used a short piece from him, but he dreamt of having a scoop, a story that would hit the London papers.
    That day, his sights were lower. With all the fuss about the decline in educational standards, he had decided to write a feature on Cnothan School. The school was run on the lines of an old-fashioned village school. It taught all ages up to university level. Education standards were high and discipline was strict. Teachers wore black academic gowns in the classroom and mortar-boards on speech days. The headmaster, John Finch, was an ageing martinet, the type of headmaster of whom people approve after they have left school and do not have to endure being taught by such a rigid personality themselves.
    The headmaster had agreed to see him, but, true to his type, planned to keep Ian kicking his heels outside the headmaster’s study for a full quarter of an hour.
    Ian was moodily wishing he could light up a cigarette. He was sitting on a hard bench with his back against the wall. But after five minutes of waiting, he was joined by a teenage girl. ‘Hallo,’ said Ian cheerfully. ‘In trouble?’
    ‘Oh, no,’ said the girl. ‘I am one of the school prefects, and Mrs Billings, the English teacher, has sent me along to report that two of the girls are misbehaving in class. I’ll wait till you’re finished.’
    ‘Maybe you’d better go first,’ said Ian, feeling disappointed in this girl, whose Highland beauty had initially charmed him. There was something cold-bloodedly precise about her manner. ‘I’ll be a while. I’m interviewing Mr Finch for my newspaper.’
    ‘Which newspaper is that?’
    Ian didn’t have a newspaper, being a freelance. He only hoped one of them would take his education article. But he said, ‘ The Scotsman ,’ hoping to impress.
    ‘Oh, that’s why he’s seeing you,’ said the girl sedately. ‘ The Scotsman ’s a good paper. I didn’t think he’d want to see a reporter, mind. I thought he would call it sensationalism.’
    ‘What? Education?’
    ‘No, the witchcraft story.’
    Ian stiffened. ‘Oh yes, that,’ he said casually, although it was the first he had heard of it, as he lived in Dornoch. ‘Bad business.’
    ‘I don’t approve of it myself,’ said the girl primly. ‘But there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind the Mainwarings were asking for it.’
    There