Death of a Nurse (Hamish Macbeth, #31)
M. C. Beaton
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This book is dedicated to all the Tapping family:
Dave, Zoe, Rachael, Matthew
and last, but not least, Harry.
With affection.
Chapter One
I wish I loved the Human Race;
I wish I loved its silly face;
I wish I liked the way it walks;
I wish I liked the way it talks:
And when I’m introduced to one
I wish I thought What Jolly Fun!
—Sir Walter A. Raleigh
Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth was in a sour mood, despite the sunny, windy weather. His new sidekick, policeman Charlie Carter, was giving him claustrophobia. Admittedly, Charlie was kind and amiable and worked hard. But he was big, very big. Hamish was tall but Charlie was taller and broader, and he was clumsy. He fell over the furniture, he broke china and glass, and when Hamish shouted at him, he looked so miserable that Hamish immediately felt guilty.
Hamish’s odd-looking dog called Lugs walked at his heels as did his wild cat, Sonsie. Wild cats are an endangered species and Hamish was always afraid that Sonsie would be taken away. As if sensing his master’s bad mood, Lugs looked up at Hamish with his strange blue eyes.
The breeze sent sunny ripples dancing across the sea loch. The village of Lochdubh in Sutherland looked like a picture postcard with its row of small eighteenth-century whitewashed cottages facing the sea loch. Hamish was leaning on the seawall, thinking dark thoughts about getting Charlie transferred back to Strathbane, that ghastly town full of drugs and crime.
He turned away from the wall, and that was when he saw a vision. A nurse came tripping along with a shopping basket over her arm. From her jaunty cap to her candy-striped dress and her black stockings, she looked like a fantasy nurse. She went into Patel’s grocery store and Hamish followed. He waited outside until she emerged with a basket full of groceries over her arm. He swept off his cap. “May I carry your messages for you?”
She smiled up at him from a perfect oval of a face. Her large eyes were grey and fringed with heavy lashes. Her hair, under the cap, was fair and glossy.
“Thank you,” she said. “But my car is right there.”
“I’ll put them in the boot for you,” said Hamish. “Do you work near here?”
“Yes, I am a private nurse. I take care of old Mr. Harrison.”
“He lives in that old hunting lodge out on the Braikie road,” said Hamish. “But he had a nurse, a Miss Macduff.”
She laughed. “He fired her and employed me. So you’re the local copper.”
“Hamish Macbeth. And you are?”
“Gloria Dainty.”
He put her basket in the boot. She bent over the boot to arrange something and the frisky wind lifted the skirt of her dress, revealing that those stockings were held up with lacy suspenders.
“I’ll follow you,” said Hamish. “I haven’t said hullo to Mr. Harrison.” He had actually visited the old man, ignoring the fact that Mr. Harrison had said sourly that he did not want visitors. But he was determined to further his acquaintance with Gloria.
Charlie Carter knew in his bones that Hamish wanted rid of him. He could not bear the idea of leaving Lochdubh. He was trying to make a cup of tea without breaking or spilling anything when there was a knock at the door. When he opened it, he found Priscilla Halburton-Smythe smiling at him.
“I’m afraid Hamish is out,” said Charlie. “I’m about to make tea. Like some?”
“Yes, please.” Priscilla sat down at the kitchen table. Various pieces of china, recently mended, stood on a piece of newspaper. “Have you been breaking much?” she asked sympathetically.
“Hamish gets so mad at me,” said Charlie. “And that makes me worse. Fact is, it is a wee station and we’re two big men.” He poured tea carefully and then sat down gingerly opposite her. Even sitting down, his head was near the low ceiling. The kitchen chair creaked alarmingly under his weight. His normally pleasant face looked so miserable that Priscilla was touched. Because of her beauty, until Charlie came along, Priscilla had never been able to have a male friend.
“I’ve just remembered something,” she said. “In the basement at the castle, there’s a little apartment which used to be the butler’s place before we turned it into a hotel. It has high ceilings.”