Death Of An Addict

Hamish George-I believe that's the name you were using at the church.'

'How did you know that?'

'We have our methods, Watson.'

'I'll need to know your first name. I cannae call you ma'am the whole time.'

'It's Olivia.'

Hamish smiled. 'A pretty name.'

'Don't get any ideas, Constable, and remember at all times when we are not on the job that I am your superior officer.'

'Yes, ma'am,' said Hamish meekly,

'You may as well start calling me Olivia and get into the act. Here's our food.'

Hamish picked away at a truly dreadful plate of fish and chips while Olivia sawed her way through a tough steak.

'Tell me, ma'am,' he said. 'I mean Olivia, are you going to be dressed like that?'

'No, I shall look the part. What about you?'

'I've got a good suit,' said Hamish proudly, who had bought a Savile Row one in a thrift shop.

'We'll lend you some accessories. A gold Rolex, few bits like that.'

'I'll go home this evening and get my suit.'

'That's the last time you'll go near that police station of yours until this is all over. What will you tell them at the church?'

'I don't need to tell them anything,' said Hamish with a grin. He told her about the loan sharking.

'Good. We'll pull them in today and keep them in. No bail for them.' She took out a notebook and wrote in it and tore off a leaf. 'That's our address. Be there at seven this evening. I'll go and tell headquarters about the church. Get back there and pack up your stuff. If they're around, pick a quarrel with them and walk out.'

'Want coffee?' asked Hamish.

'No, I'll be off. See you later.'

Olivia made her way briskly out of the restaurant. It was then that Hamish realised he did not have enough money on him to pay the bill and that he had left his chequebook and bank cards back in Lochdubh, not wanting to take them to the church in case the Owens searched his belongings.

The dining room was empty apart from four other diners. Hamish's waitress appeared to be the only one on duty. She was standing looking out of the window.

'Here, you!' called Hamish rudely. 'What about bringing some coffee?'

She threw him an outraged look and stalked off into the kitchen.

Hamish slid out of his seat and was out of the restaurant and out of the hotel door as fast as he could.

He could not afford a cab and so had to walk all the way back to the church. To his relief, there was no sign of the Owens.

He packed up his few belongings and put them into Sean's old car and drove off.

He stopped at Sean's to pick up the police Land Rover and tried to persuade the old man to give him a refund because he hadn't had the car all week.

'Away with ye,' said Sean. 'That's a valuable car and twenty-five pounds was a damn cheap price for a week's rental. I should've charged you more.'

Hamish had a fleeting, treacherous thought that maybe he should have taken Tommy's parents' money. He drove back to the police station.

Lochdubh lay spread out under a sunny, breezy sky. Wind whipped up the sea loch into waves. Washing on lines flapped gaily like flags welcoming him home. He felt he had been away for years instead of a matter of hours. Inside him, he felt a little twinge of dread. What if he could not pull it off? What if his cover was blown? What if it came to the crunch and he was asked for the money? He could not envisage Strathbane police headquarters handing over fifty thousand pounds.

He let himself into the police station. He wished he could confide in someone, share the burden. But even if Priscilla should suddenly arrive back from London, he knew he could not even tell her.

He began to pack his one and only good suit and his few respectable shirts. He also packed several paperbacks. There might be long periods of waiting. He wondered about Olivia. Was she married? She must be tough and competent to have reached the rank of detective inspector.

The police station was so comfortable, so familiar, so safe. It was tempting to manufacture some illness and beg off the job. With a sigh, he finished his packing, carried the suitcase out to the police Land Rover. He would drive it to headquarters, leave it there and walk along to his new address.

He drove to the doctor's and told Angela he was going to visit his parents in Rogart and stay with them for a bit. To his embarrassment, Angela made him wait while she took a cake out of the oven, let it cool and then boxed it up. 'Its lemon sponge,' said Angela. 'A present for your mother. Let me know how she likes it.'

Feeling guilty, Hamish took the cake and said his farewells.

Some time later, Olivia opened the door to him. Their 'new home' was a bungalow furnished in dreadful taste: fake log fire, velvet three-piece suite, noisy wallpaper, horrible oil paintings of hills and glens, glass coffee table and a giant television set.

'Who usually lives here?' asked Hamish, putting down his suitcase and placing the cake box on the coffee table.

'Some friend of Superintendent Peter Daviot who's letting us have the use of it. You brought cake?'

'Aye, one of my friends thought I was going to see my mother and gave me a cake for her.'

'We may as well have some. I'll make some tea. Your bedroom's second on the right down the corridor. Put your things away.'

She was wearing a shirt blouse tied at the waist and jeans. They should have put a man on the job, thought Hamish. It didn't matter how liberated the decade, women aroused protective feelings which could get in the way.

When he had put his things away, he returned to the living room. The sponge was on a plate with the tea things on the table.

'Your friend's sponge seems to have fallen in the middle,' said Olivia.

'Oh, well, that's Angela,' said Hamish. 'Heart of gold and the worst baking in the Highlands.'

'Maybe if we eat the outside and leave the soggy bit in the middle, it'll be all right.'

But it tasted as bad as it looked. Angela had used so much lemon and so little sugar that the sponge actually tasted sour.

'Don't let's bother with it,' said Olivia. 'Let's get down to business. You are a headman for Jimmy White's syndicate in Glasgow. You want to do business in the Highlands.'

'And what do the Highland lot think of that?'

'We'll find out. According to DC Sanders, who will be joining us shortly, they are a small outfit suddenly getting larger. Somehow, they are getting shipments of drugs into the country, undetected. Our job is to somehow find out where on the coast the supplies are coming in. Glasgow CID recently seized two shiploads so it's feasible that someone from Glasgow would come up here to purchase drugs.'

'Fifty thousand pounds is not going to impress them.'

'They're still not that large an outfit.' The doorbell rang. 'That'll be Sanders,' she said, going to answer it.

DC Sanders came in, looking more like a picture on a cornflakes packet than ever.

'Sit down, Sanders,' said Olivia. 'Tea?'

'Yes, milk and two sugars, please.'

'Help yourself,' said Olivia curtly, as if to say it was not a senior officer's job to pour tea just because that senior officer happened to be a woman.

'Tell Hamish what you know about the drug situation in Strathbane,' she commanded. 'I am getting in the way of calling him Hamish because we need to pose as man and wife.'

'It's like this,' said Sanders. 'We raided houses and arrested pushers. The pushers are usually small fry who are on drugs themselves. Through them we sometimes get one of the middlemen but never anyone at the top. Lachie's has been raided several times. We found some of the young people with ecstasy tablets but that was all.'