Free Death of a Scriptwriter by MC Beaton Page A

submitted it as his own.’
    ‘Do you have any proof of this?’
    ‘Not yet. But I’ll get it. I’ll go the newspapers with this. I’m sure someone who was in the same class will read it and come forward.’
    ‘Get Jamie in here,’ Harry ordered Sheila.
    They waited in silence until Jamie came in. With a certain amount of relish, Fiona described the reason for Angus’s visit.
    Jamie went off into full rant. ‘How dare you!’ he gasped. ‘That was my script and no one else’s. I gave up that class because they were a bunch of losers. I was wasting
my time and talent on a bunch of no-hopers and wannabes. Och, I remember this Stuart Campbell. Useless wee faggot.’
    Angus punched him on the nose, and Jamie reeled back, blood streaming down his face. ‘Get the police!’ howled Jamie, and Fiona picked up the phone.
    Hamish Macbeth, arriving half an hour later, listened carefully, trying to sort out accusations from the babble of voices that greeted him. Jamie’s voice was loudest,
‘I’m charging this bastard with assault!’
    ‘Wait a bit,’ said Hamish soothingly. ‘Now Mr Harris, as far as I can make out, the situation is this. You found a script of Football Fever amongst your dead
friend’s effects and came to the conclusion that he had written it.’
    ‘I know he wrote it,’ said Angus. ‘It was his style.’
    ‘Charge him,’ said Jamie.
    ‘In a moment,’ said Hamish mildly. ‘We’ll deal with this business o’ the script first. I’ll phone Glasgow police and we’ll take the matter from there.
It should be easy to find someone who was at that class.’
    The anger drained out of Jamie. ‘Let’s just leave it. I’m sorry I called Stuart a faggot. I don’t feel like wasting my time appearing in a sheriff’s court.
I’ve got work to do.’
    ‘But I think the matter should be investigated,’ said Fiona sweetly. ‘Plagiarism is a serious business.’
    ‘You bitch!’ snarled Jamie. ‘You’ve just got it in for me because you’re out of a job.’
    ‘Now I’ve met you,’ said Angus to Jamie, ‘I can’t believe for a minute that you wrote anything as intelligent and amusing as Football Fever . You’re a
dead man.’
    ‘I’ll look into it,’ said Hamish. ‘Although gather the provocation was great, Mr Harris, don’t go around hitting people.’ He turned to Harry Frame.
‘I’ll let you know what I find out.’
    Over in Lochdubh, Dr Brodie received a distress call from the minister’s wife at Cnothan. ‘It’s Miss Martyn-Broyd. She’s wandering around shouting
something about killing someone, and our Dr MacWhirter is on holiday.’
    Dr Brodie drove over to Cnothan. The first person he saw in the bleak main street was Patricia, striding up and down, clenching and unclenching her fists.
    The doctor got out of the car. ‘Miss Martyn-Broyd? I’ll just be getting you home.’
    ‘Leave me alone,’ grumbled Patricia.
    ‘This is a disgraceful way for a lady to behave,’ said Dr Brodie.
    She looked at him in dazed surprise and then began to cry. ‘Get in the car,’ ordered the doctor.
    He drove her back to her cottage. He had called there once before when the local doctor had been on holiday. Patricia had thought she was suffering from a heart attack, but Dr Brodie had
diagnosed a bad case of indigestion.
    ‘Sit down,’ he ordered when they were in her cottage, ‘and tell me from the beginning what’s put you in this state.’
    Patricia began to talk and talk. She showed him the book jacket. She told him about her horror at seeing Penelope Gates on the set and finished by wailing, ‘I’ll be a laughing stock.
I’ll kill that man Gallagher.’
    ‘You’ll only be a laughing stock if you march about Cnothan speaking to yourself,’ complained Dr Brodie. He noticed that Patricia was calm and reasonable now.
    ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what came over me.’
    ‘Have you any friends up here?’ asked Dr Brodie.
    ‘I know people in the