“Here, ye daft gowk!” roared Diarmuid. “Whit dae ye think ye’re daein’?”
“Stop it, Hamish!” screamed Jenny. “You’re ruining Diarmuid’s present.”
Hamish dropped the soap packet and pulled on his oilskin cape. “Tell Blair I’ll be away for a wee while,” he said.
Diarmuid and Jenny stared at each other in amazement as Hamish hurtled out of the kitchen door. The Land Rover had been returned by Anderson. They heard a roar as it started up and skidded off down the drive.
“Don’t worry, Mr. Sinclair,” said Jenny. “I’ll get the vacuum and take the top off and get all that soap up. I’m not telling Blair anything. He’ll just roar at me and say Hamish is mad and I won’t be able to disagree with him!”
¦
The train that had brought Diarmuid Sinclair back to Cnothan had also brought the day’s supply of papers. Perhaps because he had not had time to think up any choice nuggets of flowery prose, Ian Gibb had jumped from amateur reporter to professional in one bound. The
Blair’s fury now knew no bounds. He received several very nasty phone calls from his superiors. He had tried to get the pathologist to lie and say that Sandy’s murder had been suicide and the pathologist had duly reported this in his report.
The Detective Chief Inspector saw his job at risk. He went to the police station to take his fright and temper out on Hamish Macbeth and nearly had a fit when he found no Hamish but a crofter and that artist, playing with toy trains on the kitchen floor.
As the day wore on and there was no sign of Hamish, Blair sat down to compose a report. If he got any satisfaction out of this mess, it would be the satisfaction of getting Hamish Macbeth fired.
Two days went by. The blizzard was over and the roads were clear and the press were gathering like vultures. Blair’s Chief Superintendent in Strathbane had read his report on the iniquities of Hamish Macbeth, had asked a colleague what it was all about, and the colleague had said laconically that the village copper was rumoured to be the one who had solved two previous murders in Sutherland although Blair had taken the credit, and so Blair’s report was probably spite.
The Chief Superintendent had phoned Blair and had told him acidly not to waste time writing stupid nonsense about a local bobby but to get on with solving the crime. “What about the lobsters?” Blair had wailed. He was told that the matter of the lobsters would be coped with when and if Blair got his murderer.
He tossed and turned all night. Hamish had not run off for fun, he decided. Hamish Macbeth had found an important clue and wasn’t sharing it. If he solved this crime, there would be no chance of Blair’s getting the credit. Hamish had had a taste of filling a police sergeant’s boots. He had probably become power-mad. Not, thought Blair, as the pale dawn crept into the hotel bedroom, that Hamish had shown any great flair for detective work in the past. It had been all luck. In each case, Hamish had all the suspects together and had confronted them and the guilty one had cracked.
Blair sat up suddenly. That was it! He would round up everyone he could think of who might have had a grudge against Mainwaring and hold a meeting in The Clachan. He would keep them there and sweat them for as long as the law allowed until something gave.
He picked a half bottle of whisky up from the bedside table and drank a hearty swallow. As the spirit shot from his stomach to his brain, he became more convinced that his plan would work.
When Hamish Macbeth came gangling back, he would find the case solved.
? Death of an Outsider ?
9
Truth will come to light
murder cannot be hid long.
—William Shakespeare
They had all been cooped up together in The Clachan, on and off for two days now. Tempers were wearing thin, and several of the people present now had their lawyers in attendance.
It was this communal, brutal interrogation that was infuriating them all. Jenny’s walks with Mainwaring and his criticism of her painting were out in the open, as was Helen Ross’s visit to Inverness. Jamie Ross tried to punch Blair and was held back by his lawyer. The lawyer explained that Mrs. Ross had never intended to have an affair with Mainwaring but had gone with him, with her husband’s full knowledge, to find out what he was up to. Mr. Ross had suspected Mainwaring of being about to start up a rival business.
Jenny was then accused of having an affair with Mainwaring. When she hotly protested, she was told bluntly that as she was sleeping with the local bobby, it followed her morals were questionable. Jenny promptly crossed the room and hired the services of the Rosses’ lawyer, and Blair glared at her in baffled fury.
He was just getting his teeth into Agatha Mainwaring again when the door of The Clachan swung open and Hamish Macbeth strode in. He tugged off his oilskin cape and looked sadly around the assembled group. Mrs. Struthers was crying quietly and her husband was comforting her. Helen Ross had lost all her usual poise and was lighting one cigarette from the butt of another. Hamish could smell Alistair Gunn’s fear from across the room. Davey Macdonald, Alec Birrell, and the mechanic, Jimmy Watson, were all there with their wives and daughters. Mrs. MacNeill was there, too. Harry Mackay was sitting next to the Rosses, almost hidden behind a cloud of blue cigarette smoke. All eyes turned in Hamish’s direction.
“You can all go home,” said Hamish Macbeth wearily. “Except for Harry Mackay. He’s the murderer.”
There was a terrific uproar. Ignoring Blair’s blustering and roaring, Hamish Macbeth walked across the room and stood over the estate agent. In a clear voice he charged him with murdering both William Mainwaring and Sandy Car-michael.
“I’m in charge o’ this case,” shouted Blair, making himself heard at last. “Mackay’s got no motive.”
Hamish drew up a chair in front of the estate agent and, not taking his eyes off him, he said, “He had a very strong motive.” Harry Mackay sat very still, a forgotten cigarette smouldering between his fingers and a half-smile on his face.
“This is what happened,” said Hamish, still looking steadily at Mackay.
“I had an idea and went down to Edinburgh to the head office of the estate agents. I was told you had indeed got a client for Mrs. Mainwaring’s property. His name is Paul Anstruther, formerly of Cnothan, and he’s a general contractor, or listed as that. I went to see him and he told me he was thinking of turning them into holiday cottages and letting them out. I pointed out that people weren’t going to pay much for a holiday cottage in the wilds of Scotland when they could get the let of one in Spain and get sunshine as well. He just laughed and said there were plenty of people interested.
“I went from there to the offices of the
“When Anstruther learned he might be involved in a murder case, he caved in. The deal would have gone through the estate agent’s books in the normal way. When Anstruther got the compensation from the government, he would wipe out Mackay’s debt and still have a fortune. It is my belief that if Mackay had not moved to wipe out that debt, then Anstruther would have had him wiped out. The police tell me there’s been bad stories about the ways he copes with people who don’t pay up. Anstruther was brought up on the croft next to Mainwaring’s. He felt that Mainwaring must have known about the railway and had conned his relatives into selling the croft cheap. Anstruther planned to set up as a crofter until the compensation came through. As the son of a crofter and having
