Death of a Maid Read Online Free Page B

Barret-Wilkinson, has been found murdered.’
    ‘Michty me! Mind you, I thought she was a nasty woman, but Mrs Barret-Wilkinson swore she was the best cleaner ever. When I had the flu last winter, I got her to clean for me. She nearly
gave me a relapse, bang-bang-banging with that bucket of hers and looking into drawers where she had no right to look. Where was she murdered?’
    ‘Outside Professor Sander’s place.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘It looks as if someone brained her with her bucket. What’s Mrs Barret-Wilkinson like?’
    ‘Verra much the lady. Verra proper. English, of course.’
    ‘What’s herself doing up here?’
    ‘Quality of life.’
    ‘Oh, that. Did she find it?’
    ‘Says she does.’
    ‘I’ll be off then. Where’s her house?’
    ‘It’s that big villa, just up on the rise above the village. There’s a monkey puzzle tree at the gate.’
    Hamish went out to the Land Rover and collected two bowls and a can opener from the back. He filled the bowls and let the dog and cat out. They both sniffed the food and then looked up at him
with accusing eyes.
    ‘Eat it,’ ordered Hamish. ‘Nothing else for you pair until this evening.’
    He ate his sandwich and drank water and looked out over the sea loch. The wind was beginning to come in great gusts. He finished his sandwich, put the dog and cat back in the car, carried their
empty bowls down to the water and rinsed them out, before returning to his vehicle and driving off. The light drizzle was turning to heavy rain.
    He drove up to the villa and then up the short curving drive. As well as the tall monkey puzzle at the gate, the garden was crammed with laurel bushes and rhododendrons. The wind was cut off by
the high stone wall which surrounded the garden. Rain plopped from the leaves of the bushes.
    Hamish rang the bell and waited. The door was answered by a tall woman. She was dressed in a well-tailored tweed suit. The tweed was not new – such as Mrs Barret-Wilkinson, Hamish guessed,
would be too sophisticated to be caught wearing brand-new tweed – and yet the clothes sat oddly on her as if her normal style might be something more towny.
    ‘Mrs Barret-Wilkinson?’
    ‘Yes. It is I.’
    He judged her to be somewhere in her middle forties. She had thick brown hair pulled back into a knot, a long nose and small, intelligent eyes. She looked something like a collie.
    Hamish removed his cap. ‘I am Police Constable Hamish Macbeth. May I come in? I have some bad news.’
    Most people would have blurted out, Is it my son? My daughter? Or some close relative. But she merely nodded and turned away.
    He followed her into a dark hall and then into a large sitting room on the ground floor. It was decorated like a scaled-down version of the drawing room of a stately home. The sofa and chairs
were upholstered in striped silk. The curtains at the windows were of heavier silk. Over the fireplace was a portrait of Mrs Barret-Wilkinson – apparently an oil portrait – but
Hamish’s sharp eyes registered that it was a photograph, cleverly treated to look like an oil painting. A log fire crackled on the hearth of a marble fireplace.
    She sat down and gestured to him to do the same. Her stockings were thick, and her feet were encased in sensible brogues.
    ‘So tell me your bad news,’ she said calmly. Her voice was English upper class.
    ‘I’m afraid your cleaner, Mrs Gillespie, has been found murdered.’
    ‘Good heavens! That’s a blow. Now where am I going to get another maid?’
    She surveyed him quietly. Why didn’t she ask how Mrs Gillespie was murdered and where? wondered Hamish.
    ‘Tell me about Mrs Gillespie,’ said Hamish. ‘Was she a threat to anyone? Did anyone dislike her enough to kill her?’
    She gave a little laugh. ‘My dear man, I was not on familiar terms with the home help. I haven’t the faintest idea. Might be the husband. It usually is.’
    ‘The husband has an alibi. Where were you this morning, between, say, the hours of