Death Of An Addict

three walls, and beside the fireplace on the fourth was a CD player and neat stacks of CDs.

'Are these your company?' he asked, waving a hand to the bookshelves.

'Sure,' said Sean, settling into a battered armchair and indicating its twin opposite. 'But you didn't come here to talk about books.'

'Two cars going in the direction of Glenanstey were sighted this afternoon. Did you maybe happen to notice them?'

'At what time?'

Hamish thought hard. Felicity had arrived back at what time? Six o'clock. And he had seen her down at Patel's just before that. 'Say about five,' he said.

'I was in here listening to music,' said Sean. 'Didn't hear a thing. You know when I saw you, I thought for a moment you'd come about the monster.'

'Monster? The Loch Ness Monster?'

'No, there's a lot of fuss over at Loch Drim. Two of the women saw a monster. They phoned the police in Strathbane, but whoever they spoke to told them to go and have a cup of black coffee.'

'Why didn't they phone me?' asked Hamish crossly. 'Drim is on my beat.'

'Said it was too important for a local bobby to deal with.'

'And how do you know this? Folks say you never see anyone or go anywhere.'

'I go around to get my bit of shopping. Folks have a way of talking in front of me as if I'm deaf and invisible.'

'That's your own fault. You never talk to anyone.'

'I didn't retire to the Highlands of Scotland to talk to anybody.'

'Why did you come here? Where in Ireland are you from?'

'Mind your own business, Officer.'

'Well, if you can't help me,' said Hamish, rising and walking to the door, 'I'd better call over at Drim and take a look into this other business.'

Sean's eyes twinkled up at him.

'I think you'll find Jock Kennedy, who runs the general store, has thought up a way of drumming up business.'

'It would amaze me,' said Hamish bitterly, 'seeing how much they hate outsiders in Drim.'

Hamish was always puzzled that two such contrasting villages as Lochdubh and Drim could be situated on his beat. Lochdubh always seemed light and friendly. Drim was all that on the surface, but underneath there were black passions among the villagers, easily stirred up.

He thought that perhaps it had a lot to do with the location. It lay at the end of a black sea loch surrounded by towering mountains. It was almost as if the geography had made the people turn inwards upon themselves, suspicious of strangers, and anyone from outside was a stranger.

He drove down the twisting road to the village and parked outside Jock Kennedy's general store.

The shop was closed up for the night so he knocked loudly at the side door which led to the Kennedys' flat over the store.

The burly figure of Jock Kennedy answered the door.

'What's all this about a monster?' asked Hamish.

Jock came out and closed the door behind him. 'Walk a bit with me, Hamish. I don't want Ailsa getting any more daft ideas.' Ailsa was his wife.

They walked down to the water's edge. Little waves rippled at their feet. A seagull called mournfully; in one of the cottages behind them, a woman admonished her child. Then there was silence, the silence of Sutherland, sometimes so complete it hurts modern ears.

Jock heaved a sigh, and then said, 'I don't want Ailsa or her friend Holly to be encouraged in this nonsense.'

'You'd best tell me what the nonsense is all about, Jock.'

'They were out walking along towards the sea.'

Hamish looked down at the black loch and then at the steep mountainsides which sloped straight down into the water.

'I've never been along there. I didn't know there was a path.'

'You cannae see it from here. It's little more than a rabbit track. Ailsa and Holly went out the other evening. They are both on some exercise regime. They say just up almost at the head of the loch, they saw two great glaring green eyes staring at them out of some huge bulk in the water. It began to move silently towards them and they screamed and ran. Then they worked up all the other women in the village and reported it tae Strathbane police and were told to drink lots of black coffee. The police thought they'd been drinking hooch.'

'There's been a lot of Highland drunks recently reporting sightings of UFOs,' said Hamish. 'It was the bad time to call.'

'Anyway, I don't want them encouraged. There's a lot of phosphorescence in that loch and it produces queer effects.'

'I'll just take a stroll along there,' said Hamish. 'We'll let it drop for the moment, Jock, but if anyone else sees anything, there'll have to be a proper investigation.'

'Let's hope that'll be an end of it,' said Jock. Hamish touched his cap and made his way along the edge of the loch. He found the path at the westward end of the village. As Jock had said, it was little more than a rabbit track. He strolled along. He was glad he had brought his torch, the towering mountains made the blackness of the night even blacker.

He welcomed the exercise. He wanted something to take his mind away from Tommy. After a while, he could hear the waves breaking on rocks ahead. So it would be around this point that Ailsa and Holly had seen their monster.

He swung his torch across the loch and let out a gasp as eyes stared straight back at him, eyes red in the torchlight. Then he laughed. Seals, nothing but seals. A whole colony of them. That must have been what Ailsa and Holly saw. He walked right to the sea, nonetheless, without coming across anything sinister.

His thoughts turned again to Tommy Jarret on the road back. It was a shame that one so young should have to die. But the more he thought about it, the more it seemed to him that the poor fellow had taken an overdose. Felicity had looked frightened at the sight of Hamish outside Patel's because she was an odd wispy creature who probably lived in some sort of private soap opera.

In the morning, he woke to marvel, not for the first time, at the mercurial changes the weather in the Highlands was capable of. Before he had gone to bed, the sky had been cloudless. Now it was raining steadily, with low clouds shrouding the tops of the mountains.

He did his chores about his croft at the back of the police station and then went indoors and changed into his uniform and phoned Strathbane police headquarters and asked to speak to Jimmy Anderson.

When Jimmy came on the line, Hamish asked if there had been any information from the pathologist. 'You're too early, too soon,' said Jimmy. 'Give the man a bit o' time. You're not still suspecting murder?'

'I reserve judgement,' said Hamish. 'What was in thon book he was writing?'

'I don't know.'

'What d'ye mean you don't know?' demanded Hamish sharply. 'He was writing about his experience with drugs. There could have been some useful names in there. I thought maybe you'd taken some pages away.'

'No, I didn't. Come on, Hamish. I grilled that bastard, 'member? Couldn't get the name of his suppliers out o' him. Why the hell would he put them in a book?'

'Just a thought,' said Hamish huffily.

'He died of an overdose, plain and simple.'

'While you're on the line, Jimmy, do you remember a couple of women in Drim reporting the sighting of a monster?'

'Not me. What are they up to in that nasty place? Trying to invent another Loch Ness Monster?'

'I shouldnae think so,' said Hamish. 'Do you 'member when that minister's wife and that television lassie produced that TV play featuring Drim? At first the tourists came in coachloads and the villagers didnae like it one bit. They even put a sign at the top of the road saying COACHES NOT WELCOME.'

'Hamish, between the drunks up in your part of the world and the druggies down here, we get reports of