“How’s that new schoolteacher getting on?”
“She’s left. Funny thing. I thought she was a really sensible woman. She runs about the village, all excitement, and tells everyone she’s got a job at Eton. I thought, that’s funny, I thought they’d mostly be masters there. So after she left, I phoned Eton College.”
“And they hadn’t heard of her?”
“Exactly. The woman’s a raving fantasist. She was friendly with the banker’s wife, who then tells me the woman was always a compulsive liar. I’m telling you, Jimmy, the things that people in this village knew that they didn’t bother to tell me!”
“And what about your love life?”
“What love life?” said Hamish. With all the drama of the arrest of Kirsty, he had forgotten about that dinner date. And then Priscilla had received another contract job, in Milton Keynes this time, and had taken herself off.
“And how’s your ex-copper?”
“Clarry is the happiest man you’ve ever seen. He’s got famous chefs checking in at the Tommel Castle to try to find out his secrets.”
“That’s grand. Oh, by the way, that Fleming woman lost her job as environment officer, and not only that, she didn’t get elected again at the last council elections. She was beaten by a wee lassie from the Green Party, would you believe it?”
“Horrible woman. I’ve a funny feeling I haven’t heard the last of her.”
Jimmy drained his glass and stood up. “I’d best get going. I’ll give your love to Blair.”
“Aye, you do that.”
Hamish went indoors and fed Lugs and then took the dog for a walk along the waterfront. Everything seemed placid and blue. Even the normally black waters of the sea loch reflected the blue sky. A yacht sailed lazily past, heading out to the open sea. The sound of a jazz tune being played on a radio drifted across the water. He leaned on the old stone wall and breathed in the fresh, sunny air.
Two tourists, a middle-aged couple, were standing a little way away from them. He judged them to be tourists and probably American because they wore sensible summer clothes and shoes, whereas the locals wore pretty much the same clothes as they wore all year round, being used to the very short summers and very, very long winters. He heard the woman say in a voice with a Midwest twang, “Isn’t it just perfect? I would love to live in a place like this.” And the man answered with a smile, “Everything’s possible. I wonder what the house prices are like around here.”
Hamish sighed. People who came on the sunny days were often seduced by the sheer beauty of the place. They enthusiastically decided to move house, but, faced with the ferocious winds and the almost perpetual night of winter, they soon sold up and moved on.
“Afternoon, Hamish. You smell of whisky.”
Hamish turned round and saw Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, standing next to him.
“I just had the one. Jimmy came calling.”
“What do you think about Kirsty?”
“I’m a bit taken aback, to tell the truth. She
“Well, she’s back now. Some of us went up to see if she needed anything, but she said she was just fine and didn’t even invite us in. What a lovely day!”
“Aye, it is that. When you look around, it’s hard to think that anything violent ever happened here. I thought Kirsty would have been selling her story to the newspapers. Her lawyer’s fees must have taken most of what she got.”
A sudden shadow swept over them. Angela looked up at the sky. “Look at that cloud covering the sun. Where did it come from? The sky was as clear as anything a minute ago.”
Lugs suddenly let out a long, wild howl.
Hamish crouched down by his dog. “What’s the matter, Lugs?”
Lugs threw back his shaggy head with the big peculiar ears and let out an even louder howl. Villagers began to gather around. “Take the beast tae the vet,” said Archie Maclean. “He’s probably eaten something that’s hurt him.”
“It’s a death, that’s what it is.” Jessie Currie’s voice.
Hamish scooped the still howling dog into his arms. “I’ll take him home first and see if I can calm him down.”
The dog was shaking and howling as Hamish carried him into the police station. And then suddenly he went quiet and licked Hamish’s nose, almost apologetically.
Hamish set him down. Lugs wagged his tail and went to his water bowl.
He stood for a long moment, looking down at his dog, and then suddenly he was off and running to the Land Rover.
I’m being daft, he told himself. But he put on the siren and accelerated out of the village, not stopping until he skidded to a halt in front of Kirsty Ettrik’s cottage.
The door was standing open. He ran up to it and inside the house, shouting, “Kirsty!”
Then he stopped short. Dangling from a hook on a beam in the kitchen was the lifeless body of Kirsty Ettrik. A kitchen chair lay on the floor where she had kicked it over.
He took another chair and stood up on it and forced himself to feel for a pulse. The body was still warm, but there was no life there. He took out a pocket knife and cut the body down and laid it on the floor. He went into the bedroom and got a sheet and covered those awful, bulging, staring eyes. There was an envelope on the table addressed to Elspeth MacRae, and an open sheet of A4 paper on which Kirsty had written, “I can’t live with myself any more.”
Hamish backed away to the door and took out his phone and called Strathbane.
Then he sat down in the sunshine outside to wait. He could not bear to go back inside the house.
¦
By evening, Kirsty’s body had been removed, Hamish had typed up his statement in the police station and sent it to Strathbane. In the letter to Elspeth, Kirsty had left the croft house to her.
Lugs came in and put a paw on Hamish’s knee.
“Who are you?” asked Hamish, looking down at the dog. Then he shook his head as if to clear the nonsense out of it. Some of the locals still believed that the dead came back as seals. He was getting as nutty as they were.
But he sat there a long time, thinking of the hell that had been Kirsty’s life.
“What a waste,” he muttered. “What a waste.”
A voice called from the kitchen. “Anybody home?”
Priscilla!
He leapt to his feet and went through to find her standing there, smiling at him.
She was wearing an impeccably tailored trouser suit, and not one hair on her blonde head was out of place.
“I thought you were in Milton Keynes.”
“That job’s finished. Care for that dinner we never got around to?”
Only for a moment did he hesitate. Only for a moment did his mind warn him against opening up old wounds. Who was it who had said, ‘There are no new wounds. Only old wounds reopened’?
But every minute of life was surely for living, for any enjoyment one could get. Seize the moment.
“Be with you in a minute,” said Hamish Macbeth. “I’ll just change out of my uniform.”
