creaked in the wind on two thin iron chains. He wondered whether Heather Gillespie would be out at work, if she did work, but as he opened the gate, he saw a slim figure heaving sandbags in front of the door.
“Miss Gillespie?” Hamish suddenly wondered whether Heather Gillespie was married.
She turned around. Her eyes sharpened in alarm when she saw his uniform.
“May we go inside?” asked Hamish, holding on to his cap against the screeching wind. She silently led the way.
Another living room, this one sparsely furnished in assemble-it-yourself table and chairs. Hamish recognised them, having seen them offered in a DIY shop in Inverness. The room was very cold. The fireplace had been sealed off. An unlit two-bar electric heater stood in front of it.
Heather Gillespie was very thin but with a large heavy head covered in a shock of ginger hair. Her eyes were her finest feature, being large and silvery grey. The colour of Elspeth’s eyes, thought Hamish, and suddenly wondered whether she had arrived yet.
“I have bad news,” said Hamish. “I am afraid Mrs. Gillespie is dead.”
“A stroke?” demanded Heather.
“No, I am afraid herself was murdered.”
She turned very pale. “Can I get you something?” asked Hamish.
“No, no. It’s the shock. How? When? Where is my father?”
“Mrs. Gillespie was murdered this morning outside the home of Professor Sander. Someone struck her down. Your father has been told the sad news. For some reason, he thought the news would sound better coming from the police.”
“Dad’s not a well man. I can understand that. I’d better go to him.”
“Do you know of anyone who would wish your mother harm?”
“Just about everyone.”
“Miss Gillespie…it is
“It is now. I was married, but after the divorce, I reverted to my maiden name.”
“May I sit down for a minute?”
She indicated the table at the window, and both of them sat down. Beyond the window, the sea tumbled and roared with increasing frequency.
Hamish took out his notebook. “What was the name of your ex?”
“Tom Morrison.”
“Where can I find him?”
“In Braikie. He runs the local garage.”
“Any children?”
“No. Look, what’s this got to do with my mother’s murder?”
“I wass chust wondering,” said Hamish, the sibilance of his accent showing he was becoming nervous, “whether your mother had anything to do with the break-up of your marriage.”
A fat tear ran down Heather’s cheek, followed by another and another until she was sobbing helplessly. Hamish saw a box of tissues on the coffee table. He fetched it and put it down beside her.
She wiped her eyes and blew her nose. Then she said in a low voice, “Ma told me that Tom was having an affair with Bertha Maclean, the local tart. I challenged him, and he said Ma was a nasty auld liar. I followed him one night and saw him go up the stairs to her flat. That was enough for me, and I filed for divorce. After the divorce, I met Bertha in the street and had a go at her. She said she had breast cancer and a few of the villagers had been helping her out. Tom had called round to fix a few things in the flat for her.
“I asked Tom about it, and he said Bertha at first didn’t want anyone to know she had cancer and had sworn the few people helping her to secrecy. I shouted at him that he could have told me. He said he was sick of living with a woman who was so much under her nasty mother’s thumb and he could kill the old bitch. He said Ma had told him that I was sick of being married to him. Of course, I denied it, but the damage had been done. I’ve barely spoken to my mother since.”
“But she isn’t really your mother, is she?”
“No, but my own mother died when I was three years old, and I got in the way of calling her Ma.”
Hamish reflected that Mrs. Gillespie must have been an evil influence, although Tom and Heather certainly did not seem to have trusted each other very much.
“I’d better go and see Dad,” said Heather.
“I’ll help you with the sandbags first,” said Hamish.
She looked at her watch. “It’ll be all right now. The tide’s on the turn.”
¦
Elspeth Grant had unpacked her suitcase and was looking out of the window of the Tommel Castle Hotel down to where the little whitewashed houses of Lochdubh fronted the sea loch. She opened the window and breathed in a great gulp of pine-scented air.
It was great to be back. There was a knock at her door. She opened it. Bessie, one of the maids, stood there, holding clean towels. “Welcome back, Miss Grant,” she said. “You’ll be up here reporting the murder?”
“Murder? What murder?”
“Poor auld Mrs. Gillespie. Someone brained her with her bucket.”
Elspeth suppressed a sudden mad desire to laugh. “Who was Mrs. Gillespie?”
“Herself was a cleaner, lived over Braikie way. You’ll be seeing Hamish?”
Before Elspeth could reply, Luke Teviot strolled in.
“Hullo, sweetheart,” he said cheerfully. “What does one do for entertainment around here?”
Bessie’s eyes widened. She put the towels in the bathroom and then scurried off to spread the news around that Elspeth Grant had come up to the Highlands with a boyfriend.
¦
The light was fading fast as Hamish walked into the garage run by Tom Morrison. There was a man in faded blue, oil-stained overalls bent over a car engine.
“Mr. Morrison?”
“I’m just about to close up. What do you want?”
He straightened up. He was a short man with a square, pleasant face and a shock of black curly hair.
“Have you heard about the murder?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, it’s all over the village.”
“Tell me where you were this morning.”
“You mean, you think I murdered the auld scunner? No, that I did not. I was right here. My assistant, Tolly, he was here the whole time. Folks came by for petrol from the pump. I can give you their names.”
“No, that’ll be fine,” said Hamish, not only feeling sure Tom was telling the truth but also not wanting to waste valuable time going through his list of customers. “Tell me about Mrs. Gillespie. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to murder her?”
“My first thought,” said Tom, wiping his hands on a rag, “is that it could be anyone. She was not liked. But murder! No, I can’t think of a person who would do that. I’ve felt like it sometimes. She broke up my marriage to her stepdaughter. But it’s a lang, lang way between thinking and doing.”
“Will you be getting back with Heather now?” asked Hamish.
“I don’t think so. She didn’t trust me, and when there’s no trust in a marriage, it’s no good.”
“If there’s no jealousy in a marriage,” said Hamish, “then there’s no love.”
“I know you, Macbeth. You’re not married, so what would you know about it?”
“A lot, believe you me. Now, I want you to think hard about who she knew and who she might have been blackmailing.”
“Blackmail!”
“Perhaps. There wasn’t a scrap of business papers in her home. Do you happen to know if she owned any other property?”
Tom shook his head. “Better ask Heather or her father.”
“I will. I’ll come back tomorrow for a chat.”
¦
Hamish drove straight to Lochdubh. Jimmy was waiting for him outside the police station. “I thought you’d
