She had a round face and large grey eyes. Her mouth was small and thin. She was wearing a tweed skirt, crepe blouse, and a long woollen cardigan.
She looked Hamish up and down and demanded, “What do you want?”
“Just a wee chat.”
“I don’t have time for wee chats. I have already complained about that man Blair and his manners.”
“I have heard,” said Hamish, “that you are an intelligent and perceptive lady. You seem to me the type of lady who might notice things other people do not.”
She hesitated, and then said, “You’d better come in.”
In the living room, a man was slumped in front of the television set. “Archie,” said Mrs. Styles, “you’d better leave us a minute.”
Her husband – Hamish assumed it was her husband – got up and shuffled out without a word. He was a small, stooped man wearing a suit, collar, and tie but with battered old carpet slippers on his feet.
“Sit down, Officer. Wait till I turn the television off. Right. Now, what do you want to know?”
Hamish sat down and looked around the living room as he did so. He found it surprising. He would have expected it to be sparkling clean, but it was messy with discarded magazines and newspapers. The fireplace was full of ash.
“I gather that Mrs. Gillespie could be a bit of a bully.”
“Yes, she was, but she got nowhere with me with that sort of behaviour. I kept after her and made sure she did her job properly.”
“When was she last here?”
“Five days ago.”
“Did you guess she might have been blackmailing people?”
“No, I did not. Of course, she wouldn’t try anything like that with me. I would have gone straight to the police.”
“Were you surprised to learn she had been murdered?”
“Yes, I was. I mean, this is Braikie.”
“There have been murders here in the past.”
“It was probably some traveller, one of these New Age people.”
“We don’t get the New Age people up here,” said Hamish. “The locals are liable to chase them off with shotguns.”
“Well, ever since they built the new motorways, all sorts of weird people come up from the cities.”
“Did Mrs. Gillespie ever talk to you about the other people she cleaned for?”
“I do not tolerate gossip. Besides, when she was here, I was usually out and about. I do a great deal for the church.”
Hamish persevered but could not get any useful information out of her. As he was rising to leave, he noticed a framed photo on a side table. It was of a very beautiful young girl, standing by the wall of some seafront, her long black hair blown by the wind. “Your daughter?” he asked.
“I do not have children. Believe it or not, that was me as a young lassie.”
In the small hallway just before the front door was a hat stand of the old·fashioned kind with a mirror and a ledge in front of the mirror. Hamish noticed that both the mirror and the ledge were dusty. He estimated they hadn’t been cleaned for some time.
He decided to return to Lochdubh and collect his pets and then go to Strathbane and read the report on the late Mr. Fleming’s death. There seemed to be a board meeting going on inside his head. One voice was wondering whether Mrs. Styles was as innocent as she would like to appear, another querying the death of Bernie Fleming, another wondering whether Elspeth was romantically involved with Luke Teviot, and suddenly another little voice asked whether Mrs. Gillespie had left a will.
¦
Hamish collected Lugs and Sonsie and drove quickly to Strathbane. At police headquarters, he sat down and switched on the computer and searched until he found the report of Bernie Fleming’s death. He read it and reread it but it seemed an open-and-shut case. Accidental death.
He went up to the detectives’ room and found Jimmy Anderson just leaving. “I’ve been checking up on Bernie Fleming’s death,” said Hamish. “Nothing there that I can see. Did Mrs. Gillespie make a will?”
“Yes, I phoned round every solicitor in Braikie until I got the right one. She left everything to her husband. Oh, and one other thing. She left a sealed packet of mementoes to be given to her friend Mrs. Samson.”
“He won’t have given it to her,” said Hamish. “I mean, he’ll have to wait for the outcome of the police enquiry.”
“As a matter of fact, he gave it to her this morning. She called at his office in a cab. He said he didn’t see the harm in it because it wasn’t money. He’s a bit young and naive.”
“We’ve got to get to Mrs. Samson fast!”
“Why?”
“Don’t you see? Mrs. Gillespie might have left her copies of the stuff she was using to blackmail people. We’ve got to get to her as quick as possible. I’ll drive. You’ve been drinking already.”
¦
Hamish put on the siren as they raced toward Braikie. “You don’t think anything could happen to her this early?” asked Jimmy, looking nervously back at Hamish’s wild cat, Sonsie.
“Even if she’s all right, we need to know what was in that package,” said Hamish. “Oh, damn it. Sheep on the road. Get out and chase them, Jimmy.”
“Chase them yourself. I’m your superior officer. I don’t chase sheep.”
Hamish stopped the Land Rover, and Jimmy watched, amused, as Hamish, his arms going like a windmill, sent the sheep scurrying off into a nearby field.
Hamish heaved a sigh of relief when he at last gained the shore road leading into Braikie. He screeched through the town, the siren blaring, and up to the villas where Mrs. Samson lived.
His heart sank when he turned into her street. Outside her house, it was chaos as the local fire brigade battled with the searing flames that were engulfing the house.
“Is she in there?” cried Hamish, leaping down from the Land Rover.
“Can’t get near the place to find out,” said a fireman. “Stand back.”
Hamish made a run for the front door, but before he could reach it, the glass-paned door exploded and a great sheet of flame burst out, driving him back.
Blair arrived and demanded to know what was going on. Hamish told him that Mrs. Samson had collected a package from the solicitor that morning.
“So,” explained Hamish, “someone knew about that package, and someone must have been frightened that it contained blackmailing stuff. If she made one phone call, we can trace it.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Blair saw Shona arriving and said quickly, “You’d better get back round all the suspects again and find out where they were.”
Hamish took one last look at the blazing house before he turned away. Old Mrs. Samson could not possibly be alive in that inferno, and whatever papers she had received from the solicitor would have gone up in flames with her.
¦
Hamish decided to begin at the beginning and go back and see Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson. He was driving through Braikie’s main street when at first he thought he saw a ghost. The elderly figure of Mrs. Samson was looking in the window of the bakery. He screeched to a halt. Lugs let out a sharp bark of protest. Hamish jumped down from the Land Rover.
“Mrs. Samson,” he cried. “Do you know your house is on fire?”
“What!”
“It’s in flames. I’d better take you back there. The firemen think you’re still inside.”
She put her hand to her chest, and he supported her, frightened she would faint. Then he helped her up into the Land Rover. She huddled in the passenger seat, muttering, “Oh, my house.”
“Was it insured?” asked Hamish.
“Aye.” A little colour began to return to her cheeks. “I’ll maybe be able to get myself a nice wee bungalow,
