Death of a Charming Man Read Free Page B

hotel, Mr Johnston popped his head outside the office door and said, ‘Thon Mrs Daviot’s on the line for you.’
    Priscilla brightened. The Chief Super-intendent’s wife. ‘Hello, Mrs Daviot,’ she said.
    ‘Now didn’t I tell you to call me Susan?’ said Mrs Daviot coyly. ‘Ai have been thinking, Priscilla, dear, that there are some vairy nice houses around Strathbane. If Hamish got a promotion, you’d need to live here. It wouldn’t do any hairm to look at just a few of them.’
    ‘I suppose not,’ said Priscilla cautiously. ‘But Hamish might not like it. He’s set on staying in Lochdubh.’
    ‘All that young man needs is a push,’ said Mrs Daviot. ‘Once you get him out of Lochdubh, he’ll forget the place existed.’

Chapter Two
    What ills from beauty spring
    – Samuel Johnson
    Hamish was surprised to find the next day passed without his seeing Priscilla. The short absence rapidly made the heart grow fonder, and he forgot her cleaning and remembered her kisses. The cooker gleamed in the corner of his dark kitchen in all its pristine glory and he felt he had been sparing in his thanks, to say the least.
    By late evening, he was just making up his mind to phone her when Priscilla herself arrived in a cloud of French perfume.
    ‘My, you look grand,’ said Hamish, standing back to admire a short black silk skirt, black stockings, and a glittering evening top.
    ‘We had a reception for the guests, a computer company with money to burn. Nothing but the best. Gosh, I am tired.’
    He noticed for the first time how thin she had become, and the shadows under her eyes.
    ‘You’ll need to learn to relax,’ he said.
    Priscilla sighed. ‘I don’t think I know how to.’
    ‘I’ll show you,’ he said huskily. He wrapped his long arms about her and held her close, and then he kissed her with all his heart and soul. For one dizzying moment she responded, and then he felt her go rigid in his arms. He drew back a little and looked down at her. She was staring over his shoulder at a corner of the kitchen ceiling.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ asked Hamish, twisting his head to follow her gaze.
    ‘There’s a great big cobweb up there. How could I have missed it?’
    ‘Priscilla, forget the bloody cobweb, forget the cleaning, come to bed.’ His fingers began to unbutton the back of her top.
    She twisted away from him. ‘Not now, Hamish, there’ll be time enough for that when we are married.’
    Priscilla blushed the minute the awful words were out of her mouth, those trite words, the cry of the suburban prude. ‘See you tomorrow, Hamish.’ She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and almost ran out of the door.
    As she drove back to Tommel Castle, the seer’s words rang in her head. But if she gave in to Hamish now, she would never have the strength to realize her ambitions for him, and all Hamish Macbeth needed was a push .
    When she reached the hotel, she was met in the reception by Mr Johnston. ‘You’ll need to take over the bar, Priscilla, for the last hour. Roger’s fallen down.’ Roger was the barman.
    ‘Drunk?’ asked Priscilla.
    ‘Again.’
    ‘Been pinching the drinks?’
    ‘No,’ said Mr Johnston. ‘I’ll say that much for him. But the customers will say, “Have one yourself, Roger,” and he does, and the maids can’t mix the fancy drinks.’
    ‘Where’s my father?’
    ‘Gone tae his bed.’
    ‘I’ll do it.’
    ‘You’d better button up the back of that blouse,’ remarked Mr Johnston. ‘It’s nearly falling off you.’
    Priscilla blushed again. ‘Here, I’ll do it.’ The manager buttoned her up, smiling his approval of what he took to be a hopeful sign that Hamish was getting down to business at last.
    The bar, to Priscilla’s relief, was not very full. She relieved the maid, Jessie, who was plaintively asking a customer how to make a Manhattan. The bar closed at eleven. Priscilla glanced at the clock. Not too long to go. Then, as one by one the guests left to go to