His eyes took in the woman’s worn coat. No, there would not be much money to be made from this case.
‘After all I have done for him.’ said Annie, taking out a small white handkerchief and dabbing her eyes. ‘It was I who introduced him to the blessing of the Gospel. I used to read a chapter of the Bible to him every night. I talked to him about his sinful life. Whenever he was backsliding I prayed for his soul.’
‘And?’ said Sam keenly.
‘Recently I noticed a change in him. When I read to him he would stare into space or click his teeth. Sometimes he would mutter to himself. He spent a lot of time in his room. I think he had a woman in there.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘Perfume, powder, things like that.’
‘Who could this woman be? Did he go out much?’
‘He didn’t go out at all. I also found a pile of magazines under his bed. Unspeakable. Naked men and women . . . ’ She paused for a moment.
‘You did not bring them with you?’ said Sam.
‘No, I did not think you . . . ’
‘They would have been evidence,’ said Sam curtly. Why did he have to tell these people everything? Why, since the Clearances, could they not think for themselves? He felt his toothache beginning again. He wanted to hit this woman. Why don’t you fight? he wanted to shout at her.
‘Did you bring a photograph?’ he asked.
‘No, I thought you knew . . . ’
‘I do, I do, but a photograph would have been useful. People change, you know.’
‘But you only saw him last week.’
‘Did I? Maybe I did. But I wasn’t observing. Observation is everything.’ Again he felt a twinge of hatred for this woman who was sitting so docilely in front of him.
‘How long have you been married?’ he asked irrelevantly.
‘Thirty years. I met him when I was coming out of the Claymore Hotel. He was in fact drunk and shouting at the people who were passing. From that moment I decided to save him. I was thirty-five, and all my suitors had left me because I was too religious.’
‘So you are in fact older than him.’
‘By ten years. But that was not a barrier at first,’ and she smiled.
Enough of this, you contemptible woman, Sam thought bitterly. He himself had been married once, but his wife had left him when he had become a detective. Her figure with its black costume, and shoes from Macdonald and Sons, Portree, haunted him still. He pushed the thought away from him.
‘I charge £20 a day plus expenses,’ he said sharply.
‘£20 a day. But how could I . . . Donnie was on the dole and I have my pension.’
‘Do you want him back or don’t you?’ said Sam in a frenzy of rage, though his voice was outwardly calm. He felt a twinge of his arthritis starting. Out of the window he could see people making their way to the Coop next door as if nothing was happening. This is my domain, he meditated, this is the mean street down which I must go. This is where I must come to, after my childhood. He pondered the delights of predestination.
‘I will find the money somehow,’ said Annie pathetically.
‘Good,’ said Sam. ‘Now you may go.’ As she left he had the most intense desire to throw at her the paperweight that was lying on the desk. Highlanders! Would they never learn to give correct efficient evidence? Would they always accept their fate? Why would they not fight for their identity? For their language?
He adjusted his bowler hat and suit from Macdonald and Sons, as he stared into the sinful mirror in front of him. He threw a last look at the photograph of the Rev. John Macdonald which sat on the wall, and made his way down to the pier, where the ferry was waiting.
‘Any news?’ said Norman MacMillan, who had a pile of tickets in his hand.
‘Only the good news of the Gospel,’ said Sam curtly. ‘I would like to ask you, when did you see Donnie Macleod last?’
‘Donnie Macleod,’ said Norman a few times.
(You slow thinking spud, thought Sam savagely, are you some kind of inanimate cabbage? He wanted to kick Norman MacMillan in the shin.)
The wheel of Norman’s mind ground to a halt. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Funnily enough I saw him yesterday. He was on the ferry.’
‘Was he carrying a case?’ asked Sam.
There was another long silence in which Sam visualised a torture machine of the most marvellous complexity.
‘He was, and I thought it funny at the time.’
(Why did you think it funny at the time? He was on a ferry, wasn’t he?)
‘Did he look worried?’
‘Worried? Worried? Worried? No, he didn’t look worried. He said a strange thing to me though. A very strange thing. You must know that I do not know Donnie well. He hasn’t left the house for years. His father, as you remember, was that Angus Macleod who went suddenly mad and jumped over the side of the ferry . . . ’
(These oral stories, thought Sam savagely. This tradition they pride themselves on – how can a detective exist in such an environment. His eye rested on a bollard and he wished he could heave it out of the stone and hammer Norman’s bald head with it.)
‘ . . . not of course that many people speak about it now. But anyway he was standing just about where you are, or perhaps a little to the left, and he said, “A change is good for a man”, just as I was taking his ticket and he was making his way to the ferry. And he looked odd.’
‘Odd. What do you mean by odd?’
‘What do I mean by odd? I mean odd. His eyes were flashing. That’s the only way I can describe it. Flashing.’
(You retarded idiot, thought Sam. That’s the only way you can describe
