“That’s kind of you. I suppose a writer must suffer for his art.”
¦
Hamish decided he was wasting his time at the hotel. Surely the villagers were the best bet. He called on Archie Maclean first. “I cannae ask you in, Hamish,” said Archie. “The wife’s down in Inverness visiting her sister. She’ll check when I get back to make sure I havenae dirtied anything.”
“I won’t bother you,” said Hamish. “But I want you to do something for me. It’s a bit of a joke…”
¦
When Hamish had finished preparing Harold Jury’s highland welcome, he realised he would have to visit the Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, Lochdubh’s spinster twins. They noticed everything that happened in the village.
He could only hope that they had not yet learned of Irena’s profession.
? Death of a Gentle Lady ?
4
—Sir Walter Scott
Hamish parked on the waterfront and walked towards the Currie sisters’ cottage. Anxious to delay going in, he stood with his back to the loch and surveyed his home village, sharply aware, not for the first time, how much he loved the place.
It was dark, and lights shone from the windows of the small whitewashed cottages. You could tell the time of day by the smells in Lochdubh, thought Hamish. Morning was redolent with bacon and eggs and strong tea, intermingling with the scent of peat smoke from newly lit fires. Then, no such thing as lunch in Lochdubh. Dinner was in the middle of the day. Complex smells of soup, beef stew, roast lamb, and again strong tea – tea with everything, and it must be nearly black in colour. High tea was at six o’clock. No one wanted newfangled oven chips. Chips must be fried in cholesterol-building lard. High tea brought the smell of kippers or sliced ham along with the sugary smell of cakes, because no high tea was properly served unless there were plain cakes and iced cakes. Supper was cocoa-and-toasted-jam-sandwiches time.
Hamish sniffed the chocolate-scented air. Suppertime already. Nine o’clock. With a sigh he approached the Curries’ cottage. The door opened just as he reached it.
“We saw you hanging about across the road,” said Nessie. “Wasting police time, that’s what you were doing.”
“I need to ask you some questions,” said Hamish.
“Come ben.” Hamish followed her into the small front parlour. Jessie Currie was watching television. “You interrupted this programme, this programme,” said Jessie, who always repeated the last words of her sentences.
“It’s fair amazing the way you can keep one eye on the telly and keek out o’ the window with the other,” said Hamish.
“Oh, sit down and get on with it,” said Nessie. “Well, my lad, you had a lucky escape. A prostitute! We could hardly believe our ears.”
“Believe our ears,” echoed her sister, her eyes glued to a fornicating hippo on a wildlife programme.
Hamish sighed. They complained of leaks at Number 10; they complained of leaks at the White House. But those were nothing compared with the Highlands of Scotland, which leaked information day in and day out like a sieve.
“You ken Mrs. Cullie, her what lives up the brae?”
“Aye.”
“Her niece is a nurse at Strathbane hospital and she heard that fat detective, Blair, laughing fit to burst a gut. She asked him what the matter was and when he could finish laughing he said he’d just received a phone call and learned you were about to wed a hooker.”
For once Jessie was too engrossed in the programme on television to echo her sister’s comments. A wildebeest was being savaged by a pack of hyenas. Probably the producers of the programme orchestrated the kill, thought Hamish cynically.
“Forget about that,” said Hamish crossly. “Now, yesterday morning, someone made a call from that phone box on the waterfront, around eleven o’clock. Did you see anyone?”
“Let me think. Oh, turn the sound down, Jessie. Aye, I mind I was coming out o’ Patel’s. He’d just got in some nice ham. I like a slice of ham at teatime. I’d got that and a can of Russian salad. What else? Oh, I know, another packet of beef lard. You can’t make proper chips with oil. And – ”
“For heffen’s sakes!” howled Hamish. “Forget the shopping list and chust be telling me who you saw.”
“No need to shout, laddie. It was a woman, quite tall, wearing a headscarf, but she had brown hair, I could see that, and dark glasses. She was wearing a tweed jacket and shooting breeches, lovat socks and brogues on her feet. The headscarf was a red-and-gold pattern.”
Hamish wrote busily in his notebook. “Anything about her face?”
“She had a big mole on her chin, on her chin,” said Jessie.
“That’s all we could see,” said Nessie. “Those dark glasses were so big.”
“Did you see anyone speaking to her?”
“Mrs. Wellington tried to. Bu the woman just put her head down, got on her bike, and pedalled off.”
“On a bike? What kind of bike? Mountain bike?”
“No, it was one o’ thae old-fashioned ladies’ models with the basket on front. We used to call them sit-up- and-beg, didn’t we, Jessie?”
But Jessie had returned to watching her wildlife programme, where the helicopter carrying the cameraman was buzzing a herd of antelope and sending them stampeding in panic.
“I’ll go and see Mrs. Wellington,” said Hamish, closing his notebook.
“You’d better get yourself over to the hospital for a blood test,” said Nessie.
“Why?”
“You could have AIDS.”
“I neffer slept with the lassie,” shouted Hamish.
¦
He shook his head in bewilderment as he walked up to the manse. He should not let the Currie sisters rile him, but they always managed to.
Mrs. Wellington answered the door to him. “Come in, Hamish. I’d offer you a cup of tea but I don’t want to catch one of those sexual diseases.”
“I did not even kiss her,” said Hamish grimly. “All I want from you is a bit of information. Now, yesterday morning, the Currie sisters said you tried to talk to a tall woman who then rode off on a bike.”
“Oh, her. I was about to welcome her to the village and tell her about the church services, but she just ignored me.”
Mrs. Wellington’s description of the woman tallied with that of the Currie sisters. Hamish thanked her and picked up his peaked cap, which he had laid on the kitchen table. Mrs. Wellington whipped a disinfectant wipe out of its packet and scrubbed the table where his hat had been lying.
Hamish sighed. The news that he had been on the point of marrying a prostitute would be all around the village, and would seep up to the Tommel Castle Hotel. The colonel would no doubt phone his daughter, Priscilla, to tell her all about it.
He collected the Land Rover and went back to the police station. He fed the dog and cat but only made a sandwich for himself. He sent over the description of the mysterious woman to Strathbane and was about to go to bed when Jimmy Anderson arrived.
“I could almost wish Blair were back on his gouty feet to take over,” groaned Jimmy. “Daviot’s decided to head the investigation himself.”
“Surely anything’s better than Blair.”
