glittering tiara and announced solemnly, “I now crown Miss Annie Fleming the Lammas queen.”
Everyone cheered. Annie graciously waved a white-gloved hand. She was helped down from the platform and back onto the float. Her throne was carried up onto it. The pipe band struck up again and the float, pulled by a tractor, moved off.
“She’s off round the town,” said Hamish. “You stay here and I’ll follow and keep my eye on that tiara.”
Hamish loped off. Josie miserably watched him go. She had looked forward so much to spending the day with him. But she suddenly had work to do.
People who owned houses along the shore road leading into Braikie, and who had been unable to sell their properties because of the frequent flooding from the rising sea, were gathering in front of the platform, heckling Mr. Tarry. He was a plump, self-satisfied-looking banker.
The provost saw the arrival of his official Daimler on the road outside the field and, climbing down from the platform, he tried to ignore the crowd and make his way to it. “You listen tae me,” shouted one man, and, trying to stop him, grabbed him by the gold chain.
Josie sprang into action. She twisted the man’s arm up his back and dragged him to the side. “You are under arrest,” she said, “for attempting to steal the provost’s gold chain. Name?”
“Look, there’s a mistake. I chust wanted to stop him and get him to answer my questions.”
“Name?”
“Hugh Shaw.”
Josie charged him and then proceeded to handcuff him. She heard cries of “Get Hamish,” and “Whaur’s Macbeth?”
Hamish came running back into the field. A boy had sprinted after him and called him back.
Josie said, “This man, Hugh Shaw, tried to steal the provost’s gold chain.”
Hamish looked down at her wearily. He knew Hugh owned a bungalow on the shore road. “Were you just trying to get his attention, Hugh?” he asked.
“Aye, that I was, Hamish. Thon fat cat has bankrupted the town, and until that wall is built there’s no hope o’ getting my place sold.”
“Take the handcuffs off, McSween,” said Hamish.
“But-”
“Just do it!”
Red in the face, Josie unlocked the handcuffs. Hamish raised his voice. “Now listen here, all of you. The only way you’re going to get that wall built is to do something about it yourselves. There are out-o’-work bricklayers and dry-stone wallers amongst ye. We’ll work out some fund-raising scheme and build the damn thing ourselves.”
There was an excited murmur as the news spread back through the crowd. The local minister, Mr. Cluskie, mounted the platform and went to the microphone. He announced that Hamish Macbeth had come up with a very good idea to save the seawall. He said a meeting would be held in the church hall on the following evening to discuss ideas for the fund-raising. This was greeted with loud cheers. Then Hugh called for three cheers for Hamish Macbeth.
Josie stood off to the side. She was a small woman but she began to feel smaller and smaller, diminished, melting in the heat.
“The tiara!” exclaimed Hamish and set off at a run.
He knew that the tiara, when the procession reached the town hall, would be placed in a safe and replaced with a gold cardboard crown for the queen to wear for the rest of the day.
He jumped into the Land Rover and headed for the town hall in the centre. To his relief, Annie was being helped down from the float. The tiara was put back on the cushion, and Councillor Jamie Baxter took it off into the hall. Hamish followed.
“I just have to see it’s in the safe all right,” he said to Jamie’s back.
“Och, man, each year you worry and each year it’s fine. Sir Andrew Etherington’ll be down on the morrow to collect it as usual.”
Nonetheless, Hamish insisted on supervising the installation of the tiara in the town safe.
Then he returned to the fair and joined a miserable-looking Josie. After Hamish had run off, the crowd had shunned her as if she had the plague. “Let’s go over to the refreshment tent,” said Hamish. “We need to talk.”
Josie trailed after him. “Sit down,” ordered Hamish. “I’ll get some tea.”
He returned with a tray bearing a fat teapot, milk, sugar, mugs, and two sugar buns.
“Now,” he said, “you have to use your wits. You have to understand the local people. Where those bungalows are on the shore road was once considered a posh bit o’ the town. Then the sea rose and rose. They got flooded time after time. Times are hard and now the people who own these houses wonder if they’ll ever see their money back. A good seawall would stop the flooding. The houses could be repaired and be sellable again. Tempers are running high. They feel the provost and councillors have bankrupted the town. It should have been obvious to you that Hugh was just trying to stop the provost.”
“But he grabbed his chain! If that’s not theft then at least it’s assault.”
“Look here, I go out of my way not to give normally respectable people a criminal record.”
“What about targets?”
“I never bother about government targets. Do you want me to get like thae English-arresting wee kids for carrying water pistols and giving some child a criminal record for carrying a dangerous weapon, and all to meet targets?”
“But if you don’t get enough targets, you don’t get promotions!”
“I didn’t even want this promotion. I want to be left alone. Now drink your tea, and if you are not happy with the situation get back to Strathbane.”
One fat tear rolled down Josie’s hot cheek, followed by another.
“Oh, dinnae greet,” said Hamish, alarmed. “You’ll need to toughen up if you want to keep on being a policewoman. It’s not your fault. They’d love you in Strathbane for any arrest. Things are different up here.” He handed her a soot-stained handkerchief which he had used that morning to lift the lid of the stove. He had to keep the stove burning if he wanted hot water from the back boiler. He had an immersion heater on the hot water tank but he found it cheaper to use peat in the stove because peat was free. He had a peat bank up at the general grazing area.
Josie sniffed and wiped her face with a clean part of the handkerchief.
“Drink your tea and we’ll go out. Look as if you’re enjoying the fun of the fair and folks will forget all about it. That Annie Fleming must be about the most beautiful girl in the Highlands.”
“Oh, really?” said Josie. “Didn’t look anything special to me.”
Josie thought hopefully that by enjoying the fun of the fair, Hamish meant they should go on some of the rides together, but he ordered her to police the left-hand side of the fair while he took the right.
It was a long hot day. Josie had set her hair early in the morning but it was crushed under her hat, and trickles of sweat were running down her face. By evening, when Hamish briefly joined her, she asked plaintively when they could pack up.
“Not until the fair closes down,” said Hamish. “There’s sometimes a rough element in the evening.” And he strolled off, leaving Josie glaring after him.
By the time the fair began to close down at eleven in the evening, Josie was tired and all her romantic ideas about Hamish Macbeth had been sweated out of her system. He was an inconsiderate bully. He would never amount to anything. He was weird in the way that he shied away from making arrests.
She sat beside him in mutinous silence on the road back to Lochdubh, planning a trip to Strathbane on the Monday morning, turning over in her mind the best way to get a transfer back again.
“You may as well take the day off tomorrow” were Hamish’s last words that evening to her.
Hamish was outside the police station on the following Sunday morning, sawing wood, when he
