Hamish looked at her with interest. “I thought he was quite ordinary and pleasant. What’s up with him?”
“Oh, he’s perfectly polite, but too polite, if you know what I mean. Kept thanking me and thanking me and saying what a lot of trouble he must be putting me to until I felt like smacking him, like a fly, splat!”
“You should read about the strong silent men in his books,” said Hamish, “with their whipcord muscles and their craggy faces softening with tenderness.”
“Inside every weak man there’s a macho man who only gets out on paper?” said Priscilla with a laugh. “I know a woman in London who writes romances and hasn’t got one romantic thought in her mind off paper. Oh, look at this old photograph. What splendid hats the women wore then.”
Did Priscilla ever have any romantic thoughts, Hamish wondered, studying her as she bent her head over the framed photograph she had picked up. And yet, she had had an inner glow when John Burlington had been around.
“Heard from that Burlington fellow?” he asked.
“Mmm? Oh, yes, he writes and phones regularly. He seems to be making tons of money.”
“And you like that?”
“I admire successful people, and talking about success, how’s the case going, Sherlock?”
“I’m still groping about in the dark,” said Hamish mournfully.
“Suspects,” said Priscilla briskly. “There’s the husband, Paul. All that shattering grief could be an act.”
“Aye, and then there’s Parker. Sneaky and weak enough to use poison. Who else?”
“Well, there’s poor Dr Brodie. He’s been drinking a lot recently. Looks miserable. Says he feels his wife has been taken over by a creature from another planet.”
“Archie Maclean or Mrs Maclean,” said Hamish. “Trixie Thomas ruined that marriage.”
“And there’s Iain Gunn.”
“What, over a lot o’ wee bats?”
“The bats are no more. You should have servants, Hamish. An endless source of useful gossip. It fell down last night, Gunn says.”
“Then he probably did it himself and I’ll hae the devil of a job proving it,” said Hamish. “But he wouldn’t kill just to get a wee bit more land.”
“Oh, yes he would. Or rather, that’s the gossip. He craves land and more land. You know what land greed’s like.”
“Fair enough, but I thought all that talk about Gunn’s greed was jist caused by jealousy. Maybe they could be right. Either there’s someone else we haven’t thought of or that’s the lot o’ suspects.”
“Has Mrs Kennedy’s background been gone into?”
“It would have been and if there had been anything there, Anderson would have told me.”
“Well, there’s Angus Macdonald.”
“Why him?”
“Look at it this way.” Priscilla leaned forward eagerly and he caught a whiff of French perfume. “He lost face over that wrong prediction about the general election. He could have poisoned that whisky himself.”
“And killed Trixie Thomas first? Come on, Priscilla.”
“I suppose it is rather far-fetched. But he could still have poisoned that whisky. I mean, Hamish, you don’t believe in the second sight, do you?”
“Yes, I do. I think there’s a handful of people who get a brief insight about something that’s going to happen about once in their lives. It’s hard to prove. So many people say after a disaster or a death that they had a premonition.”
“Where are you off to now?” asked Priscilla in surprise as Hamish made for the door.
“I’m off to continue to look for cans of rat poison called Dead-O. Could you ask the housekeeper if she ever bought any? Here’s the key for the cottage.”
He raised his hand in farewell and walked out. Priscilla crossed to the window and watched him go. She felt a little sad that Hamish did not seem to show the old eagerness to be in her company.
Hamish drove into the village and parked outside the Brodies’ house.
Angela was in the kitchen, sitting at the table, reading something. He brightened, thinking she had returned to her old ways until he saw she was reading a recipe for vegetarian lasagne.
“I came to ask you if you bought some rat poison called Dead-O about a year ago,” said Hamish.
“No, we’ve never had rats. Wait a bit. We had mice and I bought some rat poison.”
“Have you still got it?”
“Come out to the shed and we’ll have a look.”
He followed her into the garden. The shed was scrubbed and clean. All the cans of pesticide on the shelf about the door were gleaming, and forks and hoes and spades were all polished as well.
“I’m proud of this,” said Angela. “I gave it a good clean out only the other day.”
Hamish took out a handkerchief and gently lifted down a can of Dead-O. He twisted open the top. It was half full.
“You used a lot,” he said.
“I hate mice. Nasty things. Of course, I was slapdash then, I never read the instructions, just put down saucers of the stuff all over the place. It certainly got rid of the mice. Now, is there anything else? I’m very busy.”
“You’ll be going to the funeral,” said Hamish.
“Yes, of…of course.”
Hamish touched his cap. “I’ll see you there.”
Everyone had turned out for Trixie Thomas’s funeral, even Mrs Kennedy and her brood. The church was noisy with the sound of women weeping as Mr Wellington read the service and grew louder as the congregation followed the coffin to the graveside in the churchyard on the hill above the church.
Paul Thomas was being supported by two of the men from the village and looked on the point of collapse. Dr Brodie was standing beside Hamish. “I’d better give that man a sedative and put him to bed as soon as this is over,” he said.
“I’d look to your wife as well,” said Hamish. “She’s in a bad way.”
The doctor’s face hardened. “Silly bitch,” he said viciously and Hamish wondered whether he meant Trixie Thomas or his wife.
After the graveside service was over, everyone went to The Laurels where Mrs Wellington was presiding over the funeral baked meats. Whisky was poured out all round and gradually the atmosphere began to lighten. One man told a joke, another capped it, and soon the gathering began to sound like a party.
The men of the village were glad that Trixie Thomas had been laid to rest.
Hamish saw Iain Gunn and went over to join him. “I’m surprised to see you here,” said Hamish.
“I never miss a funeral,” said Iain, taking another glass of whisky from a selection of full glasses on a table.
“I hear that old building of yours mysteriously fell down,” said Hamish.
“Aye, providential that. I’ll hae no more trouble from the bird people.”
“But you’ll have trouble from me,” said Hamish. “I have to investigate that building and make sure you didn’t do anything to it to make it collapse.”
“Wouldn’t ye be better off finding the murderer than harassing a poor farmer over some flying rats?” sneered Iain. “But you’ll find nothing, I can assure ye o’ that.”
“Did a good job on it, did you?” said Hamish cynically.
Blair came rolling up, a glass in one meaty hand. “Listen, copper,” he snarled, “hae yet got all these cans o’ rat poison yet?”
“No, I’m still looking.”
“In the bottom o’ a glass? Hop to it, sonny.”
Iain Gunn sniggered as Hamish left.
Hamish walked around The Laurels and went in the door at the back. The small Kennedy child called Susie was eating a huge lump of cake.
“Bad for your teeth,” said Hamish.
“Get lost,” said the child, her voice muffled by the cake. He made for the door and she said, “or gie me some
