“Come in,” said Hamish, leading the way into the kitchen. He pulled out chairs for them and switched on the electric kettle and took cups and saucers down from the cupboard.
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Sinclair?” said Hamish, measuring tea-leaves into the teapot. “We’re friends of Mr. Johnston, the hotel manager, over at Lochdubh.”
“Aye, I know him well.”
“He told us you might be able to help us. We wass over in Lochdubh the other day. My brother, Angus, has the fishing boat there.”
“I know Angus. No trouble in Lochdubh, is there?” asked Hamish sharply.
“No, none whateffer,” said John Sinclair. He took off his tweed cap and twisted it round and round in his fingers. His wife, Mary, lit up a cigarette and Hamish sniffed the air longingly. He had given up smoking two months ago and wondered if the sharp desire for nicotine would ever leave him. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe disapproved of smoking.
Hamish filled the teapot with boiling water and tipped some of the biscuits from the packet on the table onto a plate. He sat down beside them, poured tea, cast an anguished look at Mary Sinclair’s cigarette, and then said, “What’s it about?”
“It’s like this,” said John Sinclair. “My faither lives outside the town on the road to Lochdubh, not far, about a mile up the road, say. He’s got a bit croft and a cottage. My mither died two years ago, and since then Faither’s shut himself up. He won’t see me or Mary or his wee grandson or anyone.”
“And what is it I can do?” asked Hamish.
“Mr. Johnston told us you had the gift o’ the gab,” said John Sinclair. “We wass hoping you could go out and see Faither and have a blether with him, and see if you can cheer him up.”
Hamish began to feel cheered up himself. This was just the sort of family problem he was often asked to deal with in Lochdubh, where the policeman doubled as local psychiatrist.
“I’ve got business out that way with Mr. Mainwaring,” said Hamish. “I’ll drop by to see your father in the morning.”
John Sinclair had a typically Sutherland type of face, high cheek-bones and intense blue eyes that slanted at the corners in an almost oriental way. Those eyes went blank.
“Och, I wouldnae bother yourself with the crabbit auld man,” said Mary Sinclair, speaking for the first time. She was a small, fat woman with dyed blonde hair cut in what Hamish was already beginning to think of as the Cnothan cut, short and chrysanthemum-like, a style which had been fashionable in the fifties. “Thanks for the tea. We’d best be on our way.”
“I am not a friend of Mr. Mainwaring’s,” said Hamish, correctly interpreting the reason for the sudden coolness in the air. “I am investigating the attack on his wife.”
“Attack!” Mary Sinclair looked amazed.
“Three people dressed as witches jumped out at her last night,” said Hamish.
“Oh, that.” Mary shrugged. “They didnae hurt her, jist gave her the wee fright.”
Hamish looked at her sharply. “You don’t seem very shocked. And anyway, why Mrs. Mainwaring? Why not Mr. Mainwaring, who seems to be the one nobody likes?”
“I don’t know a thing about it,” said Mary quickly, “but if you ask me, you could poison that man, and he’d still be in Cnothan in the morning. Nothing would get rid of him.”
“And so the vulnerable one is attacked? Nasty,” said Hamish. “I mean, the weaker one,” he added in reply to Mary’s blank look.
“I don’t know a thing about it,” she said again. She dragged on her cigarette. Hamish waited for the smoke to appear but it did not. He wondered where it went, or if Mary Sinclair went around with fog-bound lungs.
“Don’t be tellin’ that Mainwaring any of our business,” said John Sinclair. “We keep ourselves to ourselves in Cnothan.”
“Aye,” said Hamish dryly. “I had noticed that. I’ll call on your father tomorrow.”
After the Sinclairs had left, Hamish turned back to the television. The wildlife programme had ended and now a couple with almost unintelligible Birmingham accents were writhing on a bed. He wondered why it was that the actresses television chose for the passionate sex scenes were always scrawny, sallow, and angry-looking. He tried the other channels. On one, the news again, on another, an ‘alternative’ comedian was making up in four-letter words what he lacked in wit, and on the third, there was the umpteenth rerun of The Quiet Man. He switched off the set and stared moodily into space. The wind had risen and was tearing through the trees outside the house. He felt lonely and miserable. Then he thought of Jenny Lovelace, and a little glimmer of light appeared on the horizon of his depression.
¦
The morning was glaring bright and freezing cold. He crossed the road and knocked on the door of Jenny’s cottage.
There was no reply. Feeling cold and miserable again, he returned to the police station and got out MacGregor’s white police Land Rover, noticing without much surprise that it was nearly out of petrol.
He stopped at the garage, calling out ‘Fine day’ to the petrol-pump attendant, who grunted by way of reply and looked at him with hard, hostile eyes.
Hamish waited until the tank was filled up, paid for the petrol, and then said to the petrol-pump attendant, “That’s a nasty, stupid face you’ve got, you unfriendly, horrible man.”
He drove off, leaving the man staring after him, and headed out on the Lochdubh road, wishing with all his heart he were going home. Just on the outskirts of the town were several long, low, white-washed buildings with a sign outside that read CNOTHAN GAME AND FISH COMPANY.
Hamish decided to call in on the way back and see if he could scrounge anything.
The natives appeared to grow friendlier the farther he drove out of Cnothan. By asking a man on a tractor, he was able to find out that Diarmuid Sinclair, John’s father, lived on the hill up on the left of the road a few yards farther on.
There was a path leading up to a small white croft house, but no drive. He parked the Land Rover in the ditch and walked up toward the house.
No smoke came from the chimney and the curtains were tightly drawn. And yet, mused Hamish, the old man could not be too much of a recluse, for the fencing around the croft was in good repair and there was a fair-sized flock of Cheviots cropping the grass.
He knocked on the low door but there was no reply. The wind soughed and whistled through the stunted trees that formed a shelter belt to one side of the house. A flock of sea-gulls wheeled overhead and then landed in the field in front of the house. “Bad weather coming,” muttered Hamish. He tried the handle of the door and found it unlocked. He opened it and went in.
Like most croft houses, it had a parlour, seldom used, to one side, and a living-room-cum-kitchen on the other. He went into the kitchen.
Diarmuid Sinclair sat beside the cold hearth wrapped in a tartan blanket. He looked like one of the minor prophets or the Ancient Mariner seeking one of three to stoppeth. He had a long white beard and glittering eyes, bushy eyebrows, and a rosy, wrinkled face.
“Blowing up outside,” said Hamish. “Cold in here. Want the fire lit?”
Diarmuid looked at him with the sorrowful eyes of a whipped dog, but said nothing.
Hamish made a clicking noise of impatience. He went back outside and round the house to the peat stack and collected some peats. He chopped kindling and took the lot back indoors and proceeded to light the fire.
When it was crackling merrily, he swung the smoke-blackened kettle on its chain over the blaze and then went to a shelf in the corner and found mugs, a carton of milk, and a jar of instant coffee. When the kettle was boiling, he made the coffee, put in plenty of sugar, and, fishing in his pocket, produced a flask of whisky and poured a generous measure in one cup.
He handed the cup to the old man, who drew a wrinkled hand out from under his rug and waved it away.
“I am not wasting good whisky,” said Hamish severely. “Drink it, ye miserable old sinner, or I’ll arrest ye for impeding the law in the process of its duty.”
“I am the sick man,” quavered Diarmuid.
“You look it,” said Hamish heartlessly. “And it’s no wonder, sitting there feeling sorry for yourself and too
