long bony hand crept out from under the sofa and tapped her foot. She stilled a scream.
“What’s the matter?” demanded Henry.
But Priscilla had recognized that edge of navy sweater above the hand. “I’m still shaky,” she said with a laugh. “Come and walk with me in the garden. I’ve got to get some fresh air. It’s stifling in here.”
Hamish waited until the sound of their voices had died away. Then he rolled out from under the sofa, opened the drawing room window, and climbed out. He made his way cautiously round the castle to the front without meeting anyone. The press had gone. His car was hidden behind the vast bulk of the Helmsdales’ antique Rolls- Royce. Towser gave him a sad, reproachful look.
“Aye, it’s like an oven in here,” said Hamish. “I’ll just take you home and give you a drink of water.”
The sunlight was now soft and golden as Hamish drove along the waterfront. Fishing boats were lined up at the pier, bobbing gently in a slow oily swell that was rolling in from the Atlantic. I hope it disnae rain, thought Hamish. I still have things to look for.
When he had fed and watered Towser and turned the dog loose in the garden, he poked around his small kitchen looking for something to eat. There was nothing in his refrigerator but an old piece of haggis and some black pudding. He opened the food cupboard and found a can of beans. Then he went out to the hen-house and collected five eggs.
He was settling down to a dinner of fried egg and beans and strong tea when he heard Towser yipping an ecstatic welcome.
“Come in,” he shouted, “the door’s open.”
Thinking it would be one of the villagers, he got to his feet to look for another cup.
“And what were you doing, hiding under the sofa, Hamish?” said a cool, amused voice.
Hamish put the heavy pottery cup he had just lifted out back in the cupboard and brought down a delicate china cup and saucer instead.
“It’s yourself, Priscilla,” he said. “Sit down and have a cup of tea.”
“Is that your dinner?” asked Priscilla.
Hamish looked thoughtfully at his half-eaten eggs and beans.
“Well, to my way of thinking, it is more like the high tea,” he said eventually. “I would not be distinguishing it with the title of dinner. Do you want some?”
“No, I have to get home soon. Dinner is at eight and I’ve got to change. But I’ll have a cup of tea. Now, Hamish…”
“I was searching for clues,” said Hamish, looking at her hopefully.
Priscilla slowly shook her head. “The truth, Hamish.”
Hamish gave a sigh. “I was that thirsty and I wanted some tea. Jessie saw me sitting down behind the sofa and gave me some when no-one was looking. Then I felt guilty and I thought your father would have a fit if he saw me, so I slid under the sofa. I couldnae bear the idea of you courting and me listening,” said Hamish, blushing and averting his eyes, “so I had to attract your attention.”
“You are the most terrible scrounger I have ever met,” giggled Priscilla. “Still, it can’t have been nice for you having to deal with Blair again. What a brute of a man! Thank goodness it was an accident. Can you imagine if someone had bumped off the terrible captain what it would be like? All our faces splashed over the tabloids.”
Hamish buried his nose in his cup. “Does it no’ surprise you,” he said at last, “that it wasn’t a murder?”
“Not really,” said Priscilla, after a pause. “The world’s full of hateful people, but no-one bumps them off. Too often the people murdered are innocent kids going home from school or old-age pensioners. Things are getting worse in the South, you know. Sutherland must be the last place on God’s earth where you don’t have to lock your door at night.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure o’ that,” said Hamish. “I’m troubled in my mind. I keep seeing him with his chest shot to hell, hanging over that wire fence like a bunch o’ rags. I knew of him afore this – the wild Captain Bartlett. Never to speak to, mind. I mean, I knew him by sight. He was full of life and not so bad when he hadn’t the drink taken. The fence wasn’t all that high. He had long legs on him. The way I see it, he would normally have pushed the wire down and stepped over.”
“It’s an accident that’s happened before, even to good marksmen, Hamish.”
“Aye, maybe.”
“You’re not eating your food.”
“I hate baked beans,” said Hamish, loudly and forcibly. What he really meant was that he hated Priscilla’s being engaged to Henry Withering, and felt he must vent his feelings somehow.
“Oh, wait a minute. I’ll be back soon,” said Priscilla, exasperated.
She returned five minutes later carrying a small parcel. “I knocked at the back door of the butcher’s. Mr MacPherson was still there and I got you two lamb chops. Go and get some potatoes out of the garden and I’ll fix you dinner.”
Soon Hamish was sitting down to a meal of grilled lamb chops, fried potatoes, and lettuce from the garden.
“It’s very kind of you, Priscilla,” he said. “I don’t want to keep you. I thought you would be wanting to run back to Henry.”
“I’ll see him at dinner,” said Priscilla vaguely.
Priscilla was filled with a sudden reluctance to leave the narrow, cluttered kitchen at the back of the police station. The back door was open, and homely smells of wood-smoke, kippers, and strong tea drifted in as the villagers of Lochdubh settled down for the evening. It was six-thirty, but very few people, apart from the Halburton-Smythes, ate as late as eight in the evening.
Henry had kissed her very passionately and said he would join her in her bed that night. At the time,
Priscilla had said nothing to put him off, feeling it ridiculous in this modern day and age to hang on to a virginity she was soon to lose anyway. But Hamish emitted an aura of an old–fashioned world of courting, walking home in the evening, and holding hands; a world where it was all right to remain a virgin until your wedding night.
What would it be like, mused Priscilla, to be a policeman’s wife? Perhaps the sheer boredom of living in a tiny remote place like Lochdubh would make her nervous and restless. And yet she had said she would live there with Henry.
“I had better go home,” she said, collecting her handbag.
“Aye,” said Hamish sadly.
They stood looking at each other for a long moment and then Priscilla gave an odd, jerky nod of her head and turned and left.
Hamish sat for a long time staring into space. Then he got out the car, called Towser, and drove off in the direction of the Halburton-Smythes’ estate. He had driven halfway there when he saw the poacher, Angus MacGregor, walking along. He was not carrying his gun and had the dazed look of a man who has been asleep all day long.
Stopping the car, Hamish called him over. “I should book you, Angus,” he said.
“Whit fur?” demanded the poacher, his bloodshot eyes raised to the sky as if calling on heaven to witness this persecution at the hands of the law.
“I found you dead-drunk down at the harbour this morning,” said Hamish, “and in your back pocket was a brace o’ grouse. You’d been poaching on the Halburton-Smythes’ estate again, ye daft auld fool.”
“Me!” screeched Angus, beating his breast. He began to rock to and fro, keening in Gaelic, “Ochone, ochone.”
“Shut up and listen to me. I’ll not be taking you down to the police station. I hae something in mind for you,” said Hamish, staring ahead, drumming his long fingers on the steering wheel.
Then he said, “I want to see you the morn’s morn with that dog o’ yours, Angus. I’ve a bit o’ work for you.”
“And what iss a man to get paid?”
“A man gets nothing. A man does not get his fat head punched. Be at the police station at six, or I’ll come looking for you.”
Hamish drove off. He drew to a halt again where he had seen the helicopter and got out with Towser at his heels.
