“She had a tooth drawn.”
“How long was she with him?”
“Half an hour.”
“And so it was coffee break time. You took him in a cup of coffee?”
“Yes. At ten o’clock. I told him I was stepping out to buy a few things from the shops.”
“Show me where the coffee things are kept.”
She rose and went over to a low cupboard next to the tank of dead fish. “Why are these fish dead?” asked Hamish.
“I don’t know. I followed all the instructions properly but they died a week ago.”
Hamish looked into the depths of the murky tank. “You should have a filter and the tank should have been cleaned.”
“I didn’t want the things,” said Maggie, crouching down by the cupboard. “It was Mr. Gilchrist’s idea. When they died he ordered me to clear out the tank and throw the dead fish away but I told him to do it himself.”
“And he agreed?”
“What does it matter now?” demanded Maggie in that sharp, ugly voice of hers. “He’s lying dead next door.”
“We’ll get back to it later.” Hamish bent down in front of the cupboard. “So this is where you keep the coffee things.” There was a can of instant coffee and three cups and saucers and two spoons, a bowl of lump sugar, and a carton of milk. “I’d better not touch anything here until the forensic team arrives,” he said.
He was itching to go out and ask if anyone had been seen entering the surgery after ten o’clock. But he did not want to leave her alone. “How many lumps of sugar did Mr. Gilchrist take in his coffee?”
“Six lumps.”
“Six! There’s a packet of biscuits at the back,” he said, peering into the depths of the cupboard. “Gypsy Creams. Did he have any of them?”
“He usually had two with his coffee but he said he didn’t want any biscuits this morning.”
“Did he say why?”
Maggie Bane stood up and suddenly began to cry. Hamish got slowly to his feet. “You’d best go and sit down,” he said, although he could not help wondering whether the tears were genuine or not. Maggie’s ugly voice robbed her of femininity and any softness.
He went back into the surgery and stared down at the dead man. If he had been poisoned, and Hamish suspected he might have been, then the killer had waited in the surgery for him to die and then had taken the cup and saucer and washed both. Hamish shook his head. Had he been arranged in the chair after death? Surely a poisoned man would writhe and vomit, stagger to the door for help.
Wait a bit, he thought. He, Hamish, had arrived just after eleven. When he had felt the pulse, the body was still warm.
He went back to the reception. Maggie had stopped crying and had lit up a cigarette.
“You went out to buy some things,” said Hamish, “and yet you didnae get back here until after eleven. A long coffee break. Did you always go out?”
“No, hardly ever.”
“And was the coffee break always an hour?”
“No, half an hour.”
“So what kept you?”
“There wasn’t another patient expected until that woman and her child turned up, Mrs. Albert and wee Jamie.”
“But you gave me the impression when I phoned for an appointment that he was busy all day.”
“It’s business,” she said wearily. “Mr. Gilchrist didn’t like his clients to know that he wasn’t fully booked.”
Police sirens sounded, coming down the street. “This is the lot from headquarters,” said Hamish.
When Blair lumbered in, a heavyset man whose fat face always seemed to be sneering, accompanied by his sidekicks, detectives Anderson and MacNab, and then the forensic team, pathologist and photographer, Hamish hurriedly, outlined what he had found, and then suggested he should go out and try to find out if anyone had seen anything.
“Aye, all right,” growled Blair ungraciously. “We don’t want you getting in the way o’ the professionals.”
Hamish went out onto the landing. The staircase led to an upper floor. A man was leaning over the banister, looking down.
“Whit’s going on?” he asked.
Hamish went up the stairs. “There’s been a bit of an accident. I am a police officer.”
“Aye, I ken you fine. You’re thon Hamish Macbeth from Lochdubh.”
He was an elderly man, small, gnarled, wearing the odd mixture of pyjamas, dressing gown and a tweed cloth cap on his head.
“Come ben,” he said as Hamish reached the upper landing. Hamish followed him into a small, neat flat.
“What is your name?”
“Fred Sutherland.”
“Right, Mr. Sutherland, the situation is this. Mr. Gilchrist has been found dead.”
“Murdered?”
“We don’t know yet. Now, did you hear any odd sound from downstairs between ten this morning and eleven?”
“Nothing oot o’ the way. Usual dentist’s noises.”
“But he didnae hae a customer between those hours. What do you mean, dentist’s noises?”
“Just that damn drill. I’ve got the dentures. Had them for years. But I tell you, laddie, every time that drill goes, my false teeth ache.”
“I’ll be back,” said Hamish and shot out the flat and hurtled down the stairs.
The surgery was crammed with police. Hamish shoved his way in and said to the pathologist, “Have you looked at his teeth?”
The pathologist, a tall, lugubrious man, looked up from his examination in surprise. “He’s a dentist. He looks at other people’s teeth.”
“Chust look at them,” begged Hamish, “afore rigour sets in too bad.”
“I was just about to examine the mouth.” The pathologist prised the mouth open and shone a torch, into it.
Then he looked up at Hamish with a startled expression on his face. “How did you know about this?”
“Know about what?” howled Blair.
“A hole has been drilled in each tooth.”
“After death?” asked Hamish.
“I do not know,” said the pathologist slowly. “The face is discoloured, yes, but I would expect signs of a struggle and bruising.”
“How did you…?” began Blair.
But Hamish ignored him. “There’s something else. If he had been poisoned wi’ something, surely he would have writhed about. Could someone have lifted him off the floor after death, put him in that chair and drilled his teeth?”
“Could be.”
Blair managed to interrupt. “How did you know the teeth had been drilled?”
“A wee man who lives above the surgery heard the drill going when Gilchrist was not supposed to have a patient.”
“But someone could have dropped in.”
“Aye, but I wass beginning to get the feeling the man might be hated.”
“I’ll go and see your wee man myself.” Blair set off.
Hamish then went downstairs to the dress shop underneath. A bell clanged above the door when he opened it A fussy little woman came forward to meet him.
“I am a police officer,” began Hamish.
“What’s all the row upstairs?”
“Mr. Gilchrist is dead.”
She was a neat middle-aged woman with neat closed features and white hair in a rigid perm. “Oh, dear. Is there anything I can do to help? Was it a heart attack?”
“No. What is your name?”
“Mrs. Elsie Edwardson.”
“And you own this dress shop?”
“Yes.”
“Did you notice anyone going up the stairs to the dentists between, say, ten and eleven o’clock?”
“Is it murder?”
“We don’t know yet.”
“Well, let me think. Dear me, this is quite a bit of excitement for us all.” Her eyes gleamed. “Nothing usually happens in Braikie. Nobody even knows where Braikie is. I once went on a holiday to Scarborough and people had not only not heard of Braikie, they’d never heard of the county of Sutherland. That receptionist, that bad-tempered girl, Maggie Bane, I saw her go out but I couldn’t be sure of the exact time.”