we’ll get along just fine.”
By the time the days dragged on until the end of June, Josie was bored. There was no way of getting to him. She could not tempt him with beautiful meals because Mrs. Wellington had decided not to let her use the kitchen, saying if she wanted an evening meal she would cook it and bill headquarters for the extra expense, and when, one evening, Josie plucked up courage and suggested to Hamish that she would cook a meal for them both, he had said, “Don’t worry, McSween. I’m going out.”
It wasn’t that Hamish did not like his constable, it was simply that he valued his privacy and thought that letting any woman work in his kitchen was a bad idea. Look what had happened when he had been briefly engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Without consulting him, she’d had his beloved stove removed and a nasty electric cooker put in instead. No, you just couldn’t let a woman in the kitchen.
Josie had three weeks’ holiday owing. She decided to spend it with her mother in Perth. Her mother always knew what to do.
Josie was an only child, and Mrs. Flora McSween had brought her daughter up on a diet of romantic fiction. Just before she arrived, Flora had been absorbed in the latest issue of The People’s Friend. The People’s Friend magazine had grown and prospered by sticking to the same formula of publishing romantic stories. While other women’s magazines had stopped publishing fiction and preferred hard-hitting articles such as “I Had My Father’s Baby” and other exposes, People’s Friend went its own sweet way, adding more and more stories as its circulation rose. It also contained articles on Scotland, recipes, poetry, knitting patterns, notes from a minister, and advice from an agony aunt.
The arrival of her copy was the highlight of Flora’s week. When her daughter burst in the door, saying, “It’s no good, Ma. He’s barely aware of my existence,” Flora knew exactly who she was talking about, her daughter having shared her romantic dreams about Hamish over the phone.
“Now, pet,” said Flora, “sit down and take your coat off and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea. Faint heart never won a gentleman. Maybe you’ve been trying too hard.”
“He calls me McSween, he send me off hundreds of miles to check on boring old people and make sure they’re all right. I’m so tired of smiling and drinking tea and eating scones, I could scream.”
“You know what would bring you together? A nice juicy crime.”
“So what if there isn’t one in that backwater? What do I do? Murder someone?”
Chapter Two
The woman is so hard
Upon the woman.
– Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Hamish barely thought about Josie. He was cynically sure that she would not last very long.
Now that she was away on holiday, he could put her right out of his mind. He was not very surprised, however, that on the day Josie was supposed to be back at work, her mother phoned to say her daughter had come down with a severe summer cold. She said a doctor’s certificate had been sent to Strathbane.
Hamish said that Josie was to take as long as she liked and sent his regards.
“What exactly did he say?” demanded Josie when her mother put down the phone.
“He sent you his very warmest wishes,” said Flora, exaggerating wildly.
Josie glowed. “I told you, Ma, absence does make the heart grow fonder.”
One of the real reasons Josie was delaying her return by claiming to have a cold was that, although she would not admit it to herself, she preferred dreams to reality. Just so long as she was away from Hamish, she could dream about him gathering her in his arms and whispering sweet nothings. He said all the things she wanted him to say.
But that message about “warmest wishes” buoyed her up so much that she decided to return in two days’ time. “You don’t think Strathbane will phone the doctor to check up?” she asked anxiously. Flora had stolen one of the certificates from the doctor’s pad when he was not looking.
“Och, no. You’ll be just fine.”
So Josie eventually set out with a head full of dreams-dreams which crashed down to her feet when Hamish opened the kitchen door and said, “Hullo, McSween. Are you fit for work?”
Work turned out to be a case of shoplifting over in Cnothan. Rain was drumming down and the midges, those Scottish mosquitoes, were out in clouds, undeterred by the downpour.
The job was very easy. The shopkeeper had a video security camera and had identified the thief. “I’ll go right now and arrest him,” said Josie eagerly.
“Now, I wouldn’t be doing that, lassie,” said the shopkeeper. “It’s just some poor auld drunk who took a bottle o’ cider. I won’t be pressing charges.”
“So why did you drag the police all the way here?” demanded Josie angrily.
“I didnae know it was him until I looked at the video fillum.”
The rain had stopped when Josie left the shop. She pulled out her phone to call Hamish and then decided against it. If she called at the police station to deliver her report, surely he would have to ask her in.
Sure enough, Hamish did invite her into the kitchen, but there was a woman there, sitting at the kitchen table. She was a cool blonde in expensive clothes. Hamish introduced her as Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Josie knew from headquarters gossip that this was the woman Hamish had once been engaged to.
She delivered her report, saying angrily that she should have been allowed to make an arrest.
“Oh, we don’t arrest anyone up here if we can possibly avoid it,” said Hamish. “Take the rest of the day off.”
Josie stood there, hopefully. There was a pot of tea on the table and cakes.
“Run along,” said Hamish.
“You could have given her some tea,” said Priscilla.
“I’m keeping her right out,” said Hamish. “If she gets a foot in the door, before you know it she’ll be rearranging the furniture.”
“Where’s she staying?”
“Up at the manse.”
“How gloomy! She must be feeling very lonely.”
“Priscilla, she’s a grown-up policewoman! She’ll need to make friends here just like anyone else. How long are you staying?”
“Just a couple more days.”
“Dinner tonight?”
“All right. The Italian’s?”
“Yes, I’ll meet you there at eight.”
Unfortunately for Hamish, Josie decided to have dinner out that night. She stood hesitating in the door of the restaurant. To Hamish’s annoyance, Priscilla called her over and said, “Do join us.”
Hamish behaved badly during the meal, sitting in scowling silence as Priscilla politely asked Josie about her work and her home in Perth. She seemed completely unaware of Hamish’s bad mood. Josie translated Hamish’s discourtesy into a sort of Heathcliff brooding silence. Such were her fantasies about him that at
