Free Death of a Maid by MC Beaton Page B

Hamish.
    ‘Here’s something else,’ exclaimed Terry. ‘She was at the clay pigeon shoot down at Moy Hall, outside Inverness. That was January this year. She said a bullet whizzed
past her, missing her by centimetres.’
    Hamish studied the report. The police did not seem to have taken any action whatsoever.
    ‘That seems to be all,’ said Terry.
    So that might explain why she turned the papers or whatever she had over to Mrs Samson, thought Hamish.
    She thought her life was in danger! She wanted to leave some proof of the reason for it behind.
     
Chapter Five
    I waive the quantum o’ the sin,
    The hazard of concealing;
    But och; it hardens a’ within,
    And petrifies the feeling!
    – Robert Burns
    Hamish suddenly realized that he had not seen Matthew Campbell, the local reporter who was married to Lochdubh’s schoolteacher. ‘Where’s Matthew?’ he
called over to Elspeth.
    ‘On vacation,’ she called back. ‘He’ll be furious at missing all this.’
    ‘But we’re not, are we, darling?’ said Luke, and kissed her on the cheek.
    Hamish turned back to Terry, his accent suddenly more marked. ‘Chust let us get on with this. Whit about Professor Sander?’
    But apart from a short paragraph two years ago saying that the professor had given a lecture on Byron at the Braikie high school, there was nothing else. Mrs Styles was mentioned various times
in connection with church works, and there was nothing at all on Mrs Barret-Wilkinson.
    Hamish thanked Terry. He stopped beside Elspeth. ‘A wee word wi’ you in private.’
    ‘Okay, we’ve just finished.’
    They walked together outside. ‘Is that your fellow?’ shouted Hamish, but the screaming gale whipped his words away.
    By unspoken consent, they hurried along to the local bar. ‘What?’ demanded Elspeth when they were inside. ‘No, I haven’t time for a drink. What is it?’
    ‘Is that your fellow?’
    ‘What’s it got to do with you?’
    Hamish suddenly felt silly. ‘Chust wondered.’
    ‘Then go on wondering,’ said Elspeth, and shot out of the door.
    Hamish saw Archie Maclean, the fisherman, sitting at a table beside the peat fire.
    He bought himself a tonic water and went to join him.
    ‘Wimmin trouble?’ asked Archie.
    ‘No, it iss chust this case I’m working on.’
    ‘You know,’ said Archie, ‘I haff been thinking. It iss all around the village that the auld woman, Gillespie, might ha’ been a blackmailer, but I haff the ither
idea.’
    ‘That being?’ The high colour caused by Elspeth’s last remark was slowly subsiding in Hamish’s face.
    ‘It iss this. It wass not the blackmailing at all, at all. It wass the cleaning.’
    ‘Cleaning?’
    ‘Aye. Now, look at my missus. She cleans and cleans and scrubs and polishes from sunrise to sunset and, man, I tell you, Hamish Macbeth, there haff been the times when I haff had the evil
thoughts.’
    Hamish looked sympathetically at Archie in his tight suit. The locals said his wife even boiled his suits in the wash, and Archie always carried around with him an aroma of old-fashioned
carbolic soap and disinfectant.
    ‘Archie, there are times when we all feel like murdering someone, but we don’t do it.’
    ‘Aye, but there is nothing like soap and water and scrubbing for tipping a man over the edge.’
    Hamish suddenly decided to go back and see Mr Gillespie. But when he arrived at the housing estate, he could see police tape across the front of the garden. Jimmy was standing
outside, smoking.
    ‘What’s going on?’ asked Hamish.
    ‘We’re digging up the garden in case she might have buried a box of stuff there.’
    ‘I’m beginning to think Mrs Gillespie knew her life was in danger and the packet given to Mrs Samson contained the genuine articles.’ Hamish told Jimmy about what might have
been two attempts on Mrs Gillespie’s life. ‘All the bank books and stuff were in that box I gave you.’
    Hamish then went to Heather Gillespie’s bungalow, but she wasn’t