missing manuscript and its contents. “Hot stuff, hey?” said Blair with a salacious leer. “I may as well hae a gander at it. Go and find it, Macbeth, and dae something useful fur a change.”
Hamish went off. He searched Maggie’s desk and then moved quietly upstairs to her bedroom and went carefully through all the drawers. But there was no sign of the manuscript and no sign either of any report from a detective agency.
At last Blair left, and the shaken guests and Alison settled down to have lunch in the kitchen.
James looked out of the window and muttered something and then got to his feet and went over and stared out. “Someone had better get onto Strathbane,” he said. “That local bobby’s making trouble.”
The others joined him at the window.
The rain had started to fall quite heavily, but Hamish Macbeth, accompanied by a large mongrel dog, was down on his hands and knees on the gravel in front of the garage, slowly going over every inch of ground.
“Oh, let him get on with it,” said Peter Jenkins impatiently. “He’s better out there than in here bothering us with a lot of questions.”
They all returned to the table but no one seemed to feel much like eating and at last with a clucking noise of impatience, Mrs. Todd removed the plates of unfinished food.
Hamish, oblivious to the rain, slowly edged backwards over the gravel, his nose almost on the ground. Then he moved over to the narrow strip of grass that bordered the right-hand side of the drive. He worked his way along, backing towards the two gateposts.
And then at the bottom of one of the gateposts he found a blackened piece of metal. He looked at it thoughtfully and then fished in his pocket for tweezers and plastic bag and popped it in.
He worked his way forward again while Towser let out a little whimper of dismay and shook himself violently, sending out a spray of water over Hamish’s back. Hamish was just about to give up his search when close by where the car had stood in the garage he found a tiny piece of charred material like felt. He put that in the bag with the metal and then decided to go and see Ian Chisholm.
“Bad business up at the bungalow,” said Ian. “Mind you, that car was a wreck. I hadnae seen it since I did the last repairs but it wisnae in very good shape then and that lassie, Alison, well, herself must hae driven it thousands o’ miles. I suppose it just all blew.”
“Maybe,” shivered Hamish, steaming gently in front of the black cylindrical wood-burning stove in a corner of the garage. “But just suppose, Ian, just suppose you wanted a car tae burst into flames, would this mean anything tae ye?” He extracted the piece of blackened metal and the little bit of cloth from the plastic bag, holding each item up by the tweezers.
Ian scratched his grey hair. “My, my, ye’re after another murder,” he said. “Well, let me hae a think, but it’ll cost ye.”
“Come on, Ian, I’m not asking a favour, I am asking ye to help the forces of law and order solve a murder.”
“A murder that Blair has decided is an accident?”
“Now how did you hear that?”
“Angie Burnside, him that did the garden for Mrs. Baird from time tae time, him was up at the house for he heard the siren and went for a look-see. He was still there when Blair and two fellows come out and he hears Blair say, ‘I’ll hae that Macbeth’s balls fur trying to call an accident murder.’”
“I forgot about Angie,” said Hamish. “I’d better hae a wee word with him. Anyway, use your brain, Ian.”
“I hae a Renault, same age as hers, over here,” said Ian. He went over to a corner of the garage where a battered Renault with a crushed side stood. He raised the bonnet and peered at the engine. Then he called Hamish over. “Let’s see that bit o’ metal again,” said Ian. Hamish took it out with a pair of tweezers and held it up. “Don’t touch!” he warned.
“Aye, that’s a sparking plug,” said Ian. “Look, it could just be done, Hamish, and here’s how.”
“Now, if someone removed the high-tension lead from a sparking plug, and stuck this lead onto another sparking plug and laid it on top of the engine, immediately someone tried to start the engine, a spark would ignite the fumes which could be coming from, say, a petrol-soaked that of felt resting on the engine, and, man, you’d get a bonny fire. But it still cannae be murder.”
“Why not?”
“Well, although the engine would burst into flames, herself would still hae time to open the door and get clear. She’d only get a fright.”
“And if that someone knew she had a bad heart?” “Aye, man, well in that case you’d have a murder.”
? Death of a Hussy ?
6
I am a conscientious man, when I throw rocks at sea-birds I leave no tern unstoned.
—OCDEN NASH
NOW, THOUGHT HAMISH MACBETH, IF I PHONE BLAIR AS A good copper should, Blair will tell me I’m talking rubbish and then slide along to the super and put it in as his own idea. If I am as unambitious as I keep telling Priscilla I am, then why should I bother? But damn it, I
He went into the police station office and pulled forward the typewriter and began to type out a report. When it was finished, he drove to the hotel, and despite Mr. Johnson’s caustic remarks about mooching scroungers, he ran off three copies of the report on the hotel’s photocopying machine. Then he headed out towards Strathbane.
He found, as he drove into the town, that he was experiencing a slight feeling of dread, as if he would never escape again. He was glad he had left Towser behind in Lochdubh. The poor animal would probably think he was going back to the police kennels.
He drove to the police headquarters and left three of the reports plus the plastic bag with the sparking plug and scrap of felt at the desk: one of the reports to go to Detective Chief Inspector Blair, one to Superintendent Peter Daviot, and one plus the bag to go to the forensic department. Then he went back out into the night.
He decided to celebrate with a drink before returning to Lochdubh. He cast his mind back over his busy day. He had not had anything to drink so he could indulge in a small glass of whisky without being in any danger of being over the limit.
Soon Hamish was standing at the bar of an unlovely pub called The Glen, which he had recently patrolled on his beat.
It still reflected the Calvinistic days when drinking was a sin and the only point in going to a pub was to get drunk. There was a bar along the end of a small room. The floor was covered with brown linoleum. There were two tables, a bat tered upright piano, a juke box, and a fruit machine. The whole place smelled of beer, disinfectant, damp clothes, and unwashed bodies, the habitues of The Glen dating from the days when a bath was something you had before you went to see the doctor.
“Evening, Hamish,” said the barman. It had been a source of great irritation to P.C. Mary Graham that the locals on the beat all called Hamish by his first name. “Hivnae seen yiz for a long while.”
“I’m back in Lochdubh,” said Hamish. “I’ll hae a dram.”
“This one’s on the hoose,” said the barman. “Ye’re sore missed, Hamish. That blond scunner’s aye poking her nose in here, looking for trouble.”
Correctly identifying the ‘blond scunner’ as P.C. Graham, Hamish thanked him and then turned and looked around the busy bar. Several of the locals called greetings to him and he nodded cheerfully back. The customers were not working class, rather they were underclass, the denizens of the dole world who lived from one drink to the next. The juke box fell silent. A local who rejoiced in the nickname of Smelly MacCrystal lumbered to the piano. It was rumoured he had once been a concert pianist, but Hamish took that with a pinch of salt. All the habitue’s of The Glen claimed to have been something important at one time, from professors of English literature to jet pilots. But when only half drunk as he was that evening, Smelly could play well and he played all the old and favourite Scottish songs.
“Comeon, Hamish,” shouted someone. “Gieusasong.”
Hamish turned red with embarrassment. He had drunk far too much on the evening of that wonderful day
