“I should get you to a hospital. You’ll be suffering from smoke inhalation.”
“I’m fine. You’ve got your murderer and I’ve got a great story.”
“The trouble is,” said Hamish, “if he ever recovered his wits, he can deny the whole thing. It’s going to be one of those cases based on circumstantial evidence. Oh, we can get him for holding you at gunpoint, but if he gets a clever lawyer, the lawyer will try to persuade the jury that because of one crime, the police were fitting him up for another.”
Her silvery eyes gleamed. “Hamish, I’ve got him saying he did it on tape.”
“You darling! How? Where?”
“I told him I was looking in my handbag for a cigarette, and I switched on my tape recorder.”
“Could you go and get it? I’d better stay here outside the office just in case he tries to make a break for it.”
Elspeth darted off. Clarry, the chef, had reverted in manner to the days when he used to be on the police force. “Move along there,” he was saying to the onlookers. “There’s nothing to see. Guests, go back to your rooms, and you television lot go back to the lounge and Mr. Johnson will find you rooms for the night.”
Mr. Johnson came up to Hamish. “The snow’s stopped, but I’m getting all those mobile units moved out onto the road, or the helicopter won’t be able to land.”
“Where’s Matthew Campbell?” asked Hamish.
“He was snogging with the schoolteacher in the corner of the bar. Here he comes.”
“Where’s Elspeth?” asked Matthew.
“She’s probably up in her room filing the story of a lifetime. Didn’t you hear what was going on? She was held by the murderer at gunpoint.”
Freda came up and put her arm through Matthew’s. “What’s going on?”
“Come with me,” said Matthew. “I’ve been missing out on a great story.”
Hamish waited and fidgeted. What was taking Elspeth so long?
At last she appeared and handed him the tape. “It’s all there.”
“What kept you?”
“I was making a copy. He’s very quiet in there. Is he all right?”
Hamish unlocked the office door. Paul was sitting slumped in a chair, his handcuffed hands behind him. His eyes were vacant Hamish locked the door again.
“I think he’s lost it,” he said. “I think this is one that won’t stand trial. His lawyer will claim he’s unfit to stand because of insanity.”
“I’d better get back upstairs,” said Elspeth. “I’m going to have heavy expenses. My suitcase was open on the bed with my clothes in it, and they’re all soot-blackened. What did you use for the fire?”
“Clarry scorched a mixture of rubber and something on a stove, and we lit a fire in a steel bin at the end of the corridor. Are you sure you shouldn’t be going to hospital?”
“No, I’m fine. Got to go.”
Then Hamish heard the roar of a helicopter and went to the door of the hotel. The snow had stopped, but the blades of the helicopter were whipping up a blizzard of their own.
Jimmy Anderson and his colleague, Harry MacNab, were the first out, followed by policemen.
“He’s in the office, Jimmy,” said Hamish, “and here’s a tape of his confession. But he seems to have lost his wits, so I don’t think you’ll get much out of him.”
“Faking it?”
“I don’t think so. I think he was insane all along and now he’s gone over the edge.”
“You’ve solved this case. You’d better come back to Strathbane with us.”
“Would you mind handling it yourself, Jimmy? I’ve left my dog at the police station.”
“For heaven’s sake, Hamish.”
“I’ll send over a full report. Honest.”
“What exactly happened?”
In a few brief sentences Hamish outlined how he had begun to suspect Paul, about the kidnapping of Elspeth and the rescue.
“Right. I’ll take him in. Don’t you want to come back with us and rub Blair’s nose in it?”
“No, I’m fine. You go ahead.”
“He’ll try to take the credit.”
“Let him.”
“Hamish, you could get that friend of yours, Angela, to look after Lugs. You don’t want Daviot to hear how you solved the case in case he promotes you out of Lochdubh.”
“Maybe.”
“I think there’s more than one madman here. Anyway, get that statement over as soon as possible.”
“Where is Blair, by the way?”
“He’d checked out for the night. I’ll wake him up when we get back.”
¦
Hamish retrieved his snowshoes from the kitchen and strapped them on outside. But when he reached the road, he was able to take them off again. The road had been ploughed and gritted again. The cities of the south might wait in vain for a snowplough or gritter, but the little roads of Sutherland were well serviced. He trudged down to the police station.
When he switched on the kitchen light, nothing happened. He fished out an old hurricane lamp and lit it Lugs woke up and demanded food. Hamish gave him a dog biscuit instead. Lugs was getting too fat and had been fed already.
He felt bone-weary, but he knew that with a power cut, his computer wouldn’t work and he would have to go to Strathbane, after all.
? Death of a Bore ?
13
—Oliver Goldsmith
Hamish peered up at the blazing stars as he drove along. The winds of Sutherland were like stage curtains, whipping back the clouds to reveal another scene. A small pale blue moon cast an eerie light over the white landscape.
When he crested a rise and saw Strathbane below him, it had been sanitised by snow, lights twinkling through the whiteness like a Christmas card. His parents had told him that Strathbane had once been a prosperous fishing port but that a combination of highland laziness and brutal European Union fishing quota had sent it into decline. Then a new motorway from the south had been built, allowing drugs and villains to travel north in comfort and set up new markets.
He parked outside police headquarters and went up to the detectives’ room. Jimmy hailed him. “They’re keeping him under suicide watch for the night until the police psychiatrist interviews him in the morning. Why did you decide to come?”
Hamish told him about the power cut. “Well, grab a computer and start typing,” said Jimmy.
As he typed his report, Hamish could only marvel that his obsession with that script had paid off. He had once been on a case where a scriptwriter had been murdered by an author. What made some writers and would-be writers so dangerously vain and unstable? Maybe they were like actors, always craving attention, not quite grown up.
Hamish just wanted to get the report finished and get home. It was a relief to think that Superintendent Daviot would be safely home in bed, and by the time he turned up for work in the morning, Blair would be ready and waiting to take the credit.
He did not know that at that very moment Blair was closeted upstairs in the super’s office, talking to Daviot.
