small Georgian house wedged in between two antique shops. After some moments, the door was opened by a muscular middle-aged lady.
“Mrs Agnew?”
“Yes, but if you’re selling anything, go away.”
“I have come with a message from Miss Gunnery.”
“Oh, come in, come in. What a terrible thing to happen to her. She was looking forward to a quiet holiday, too.”
Hamish followed her upstairs and into a small dark living room. Heavy carved fruit-wood furniture upholstered in red plush, the type imported from Amsterdam, was set about the room. There was a photograph of Miss Gunnery and Mrs Agnew, taken some years before. They were in tennis whites and clutching tennis rackets. Hamish nodded in the direction of the photograph. “Are you both tennis players?”
“Were…were. We were both terribly keen. We both taught at the same school and played every day after school was over. So how is Felicity?”
“I think Miss Gunnery is feeling the strain. There has been another murder, you know.”
“Yes, terrible, terrible. Are you a friend?”
“Of short duration. We met at the boarding-house. My name is Hamish Macbeth. I am a police constable.”
Her face hardened. “If there is anything you want to know about Miss Gunnery, then I suggest you ask her. I have nothing to tell you.”
“I am here as a friend,” said Hamish patiently. “She simply wanted me to tell you that she was as well as could be expected in the circumstances. I had certain things to do in Worcester and she knew Cheltenham was close. She wass verra kind to me when my dog died.” Hamish wondered whether he would always have this stab of grief when he thought of his lost pet.
“She would be. She’s very sentimental about animals.”
“Miss Gunnery has a cat, I believe,” said Hamish, looking about with affected vagueness.
Mrs Agnew’s eyes crinkled up in amusement. “I know why you’re here. She wanted you to check up on her cat. Joey!”
A small black-and-white cat crawled round from behind a chair. It yawned and stretched. “There you are,” said Mrs Agnew. “Fit and well and full of food. Tell her to look after herself and not worry about anything else. Goodness knows the poor creature has enough to worry about.” She looked at Hamish with sad eyes.
“The murders?”
“What else?” she demanded sharply.
Hamish refused an offer of tea and said he’d better be heading north.
On the long road home, he tried to think about the case but everything seemed muddled in his head. It was only when he was crossing the border into Scotland that he realized that he had not once thought of Priscilla, that she was in the Cotswolds quite near Evesham and that he could have easily visited her. Then thoughts about Doris Harris took over. She had lied by omission, as had Andrew. They had definitely known each other before and Andrew had followed her to Scotland.
¦
Wearily giving his report to a gratified Deacon, Hamish wondered why he felt like a traitor. He handed over the waiter’s statement along with the photographs.
“I don’t know how you did it, laddie,” said Deacon for the second time. “How you managed to find one restaurant where they had been seen together out o’ all the restaurants around is beyond me.”
“‘Intuition,” said Hamish and stifled a yawn. “I’m awfy tired and would like some sleep.”
“Aye, off wi’ ye. We’ll have that pair along here in the morning. Like to sit in on the questioning?”
Hamish hesitated, then reminded himself he was a policeman, and nodded.
He drove home, glad to see all the lights were out in the boarding-house. He fervently hoped that Miss Gunnery was not awake and waiting for him.
He gently unlocked the door – they had all been supplied with keys – and eased himself into the hall. A light immediately clicked on in the lounge. He could see a strip of light under the door, hear Miss Gunnery’s voice calling anxiously, “Is that you, Hamish?”
He ran for the stairs and reached the corridor where his room was situated just as he heard the lounge door opening. He unlocked his bedroom door and plunged in, locked it behind him, and stood with his back against it, feeling like a hunted animal. He would have liked a bath, but that meant he might be waylaid on the way to the bathroom. Without putting on the light, he scrambled out of his clothes’ into his pyjamas, and dived into bed just as he heard footsteps coming up the stairs. A moment later there was a quiet knock at his door and Miss Gunnery called, “Hamish, are you there?”
He let out a very stagy snore, but after another moment he heard her sigh, heard her move away. But instead of plunging down into sleep, his mind stayed resolutely restless and awake. All the people involved in the murders circulated around his brain. He began to wonder what Doris was really like. He had taken her at face value: small, neat, withdrawn, almost prim at times, putting her reserve down to the result of years of bullying. She could have left Harris. There were no children to worry about. But perhaps she had been taken ‘hostage’ by Harris, perhaps she had been kept down and bullied for too long to have a will or mind of her own. But what had happened to her when Andrew had entered her life? Yes, think about that, Hamish Macbeth. Andrew was gentle and mannered, the complete opposite of her boorish husband. There was the spice of secret meetings intensifying the romance. Then Harris would come back from his travels, nagging and yapping and criticizing. So what murderous thoughts began to burn in the quiet Doris’s bosom? Would she not think day in and day out what her life might be if this husband were dead, and might she not discuss it with Andrew?
Then what of the beleaguered Dermott Brett and his secret life? He had obviously been genuine when he believed his wife would never divorce him. Harris threatened his life with June and his children. Rogers was blackmailing him. Could it be that Jamie MacPherson had been blackmailing him as well? What a crowd! Two scrubbers from Glasgow with prison records, one illicit romance, Doris and Andrew, two illicit romances if you counted Dermott and June, one unmarried schoolteacher who was in love with him…Hamish shuddered away from that last thought. He liked Miss Gunnery and did not want to hurt her. He twisted uneasily under the blankets and automatically leaned down to pat Towser and then remembered his dog was dead.
The death of Towser had clouded all his thoughts, making him hate the boarding-house and hate Skag and see everyone he met as a potential murderer. It was time to get to know them all again. No matter what the provocation, normal people did not kill, he firmly believed that. Somewhere, in one of them, there was the capacity to kill. And what of Alice Brett, the legitimate wife? The more he thought of her, the more anxious he became. He should have delayed his journey north and gone to see her. He must call on Deacon in the morning and ask to see a transcript of the interview with her, how much time she had taken off from work and whether she could have travelled up to Skag in time to murder Harris. But why would she want to murder Harris? Say he had written to her, found out her address, and written to her about June and the children. No one liked the source of bad news, but not enough to kill the bearer.
But wait a bit! He kept thinking of it as murder. The death of Harris could have been culpable homicide. Think of this. Alice goes to meet Harris. Say he suggested the jetty. He was a nasty bit of work. He would not be able to resist jeering at her. He had been drunk. Hamish could see him now, swaying slightly, his face flushed and his nag’s voice going on and on. Alice seizes a piece of driftwood and whacks him on the head to shut him up. He sways and tumbles into the water. Terrified, she runs away. Then, say, Jamie MacPherson blackmails her. She has killed once, so it’s easier to kill again.
But how on earth would Jamie MacPherson have got hold of her address?
Then there was that unknown quantity, Miss Gunnery. He should have dug deeper there. By saying she had slept with him, she had established a very good alibi for herself until he had broken it by telling the truth; or, to be honest, because he had been shopped by Maggie Donald. The fact was, thought Hamish ruefully, he hadn’t worked hard enough.
And as if the very idea of hard work exhausted him, he fell fast asleep.
¦
In the morning he put on his police uniform, which he had brought from Lochdubh, and made his way downstairs. Mrs Rogers stopped in the hall at the sight of him, her face suddenly contorted with fury. “You bastard,”
