wait.
“The higher up they are,” said Hamish gloomily, “the longer you have to wait. Have you seen
“I don’t spend my life in pubs,” said Jimmy. “Man, I thought you’d be in a better humour after seeing that video.”
Hamish shrugged. “I don’t know what it is about this place, but it gives me the creeps. Maybe it’s because there are so many egos bottled up in the same building.”
“Come on, you crabbit copper. I thought that Jessma Gardener was pretty nice.”
“Maybe.”
A secretary approached them and said in accents of stultifying gentility, “Mr. Terrent will see you now.”
“I thought his name was Tarrant,” said Hamish maliciously.
She did not deign to reply but led them through double glass doors to a lift, ushered them in, and pressed the button for the fifth floor. On the fifth floor they followed her through a long corridor to a door at the end. She knocked. A voice said, “Come!”
I hate people who say “Come,” thought Hamish.
She opened the door. “The pelice er heah, Mr. Terrent.”
A small man with a large black beard stood up from behind a massive desk. “That will be all, Miss Patty. Oh, wait a minute. I am sure the gentlemen would like some coffee.”
“Please,” said Jimmy.
“Good, good. Sit down. Two coffees, Miss Patty.”
“What ever happened to women’s lib?” asked Hamish when Miss Patty had retreated. “I thought it was no longer politically correct to order secretaries to fetch coffee.”
“Bugger political correctness,” said Harry. “That’s all old hat. Women have finally woken up to the fact that they
“It appears he was murdered,” said Jimmy. “We wondered if he had bad relations with anyone here.”
“You surprise me,” said Harry. “We are one big happy family here. How can you even think such a thing? You saw the hate in those villagers’ faces.”
“Aye,” said Hamish. “But you see, I know these villagers very well, and I cannot think one of them could commit such an elaborate murder.”
“You keep calling it murder,” said Harry. “Last heard, poor John had left a suicide note.”
“We believe he was murdered with naphthalene,” said Hamish.
“What’s that?”
“You get it from mothballs.”
“Then it must have been someone in Lochdubh. The whole place is mothballed. I went there once and I thought, set your watch back one hundred years.”
The door opened and Miss Patty came in carrying a tray with coffee jug, milk and sugar, and cups.
“Anyway,” went on Harry, “I simply cannot believe that anyone would want to murder John Heppel.”
Miss Patty dropped the tray with a crash. Milk and coffee spilled over the carpet.
“You stupid girl,” roared Harry. “Clean that mess up and get out of here! No, on second thought, leave it until the police have left.”
“I’m so sorry,” wailed Miss Patty.
“Sod off,” said Harry brutally.
He turned to Jimmy and Hamish. “Where was I? Ah, yes, John. He was working on a script for us for
“Who is the director?” asked Hamish.
“An English chap called Paul Gibson.”
“May we speak to him?”
“Not today. He’s up round John O’Groat’s way. On location.”
“When will he be back?”
“Tomorrow.”
Hamish produced a card. “Would you please ask him to phone me? And I would like to see the script.”
Harry buzzed his secretary. When she appeared, Hamish noticed she had been crying. “Get me John Heppel’s script for
“Mr. Gibson has it with him.”
“What’s he doing carrying it around?”
“I don’t know, I’m sure.”
“Okay, get lost. I’ll call you.”
Miss Patty went out.
“Was it a good script?” asked Hamish while Jimmy threw him a bored look, wondering at all the questions.
“As I said, it was magnificent. I tell you, he had the right idea. Just because it’s a soap doesn’t mean that we can’t have a literary script.”
“And what was the plot?” asked Hamish.
For the first time, Harry looked uncomfortable. “Well, it was about a murder.”
“Describe it.”
“There’s this brilliant writer, and all the other writers are jealous of him and he begins to receive death threats. He moves to the Highlands and falls in love with Annie, one of our main characters, who is being raped by the laird. It looks like suicide because the gun is found in his hand.”
“How original,” said Hamish dryly. “I’ll bet someone noticed he was left-handed but the gun was in his right hand.”
“How did you guess?”
“Just intuition,” said Hamish sarcastically.
“Anyway, the writing was pure Dostoyevsky.”
“You mean the man who wrote
“Amazing. A learned policeman.”
Hamish had actually only read the title in the local mobile library when he was searching for a detective story.
“And you can’t think of anyone here who might hate him?”
“No one at all.”
“Did you commission him to write a script, or did he approach you?”
“I had known him before.” Harry looked uneasy. “We were friends in our youth in Glasgow.”
“In the slums?”
“Well, now, John was indulging in a little bit of exaggeration there. He was actually brought up in Bearsden.”
“That’s pretty posh.”
“You see, working class is all the thing these days. If a writer comes from a cosy background and starts writing a book set in the slums, people might think he didn’t know what he was writing about.”
“Did he always write?”
“He always tried.”
“What was he doing when you knew him?”
“He was an income tax inspector.”
“That’s enough to get anyone murdered,” said Jimmy.
“My friend is dead,” said Harry coldly. “I don’t like your tone.”
“Who was he in contact with here apart from you?” asked Hamish.
“He had consultations with the director and the script editor.”
“And who is the script editor?”
“Sally Quinn.”
“May we speak to her?”