“Just the once,” said John. “It didn’t work out. We divorced some years ago. My fiancee, Betty, works in the bank as well.”
Hamish would enjoy this situation, thought Priscilla.
? Death of a Macho Man ?
4
Our murder has been done three days ago,
The frost is over and done, the south wind laughs.
—
After they had jumped over Wilfie’s gleaming white steps and driven back to Tommel Castle Hotel, Priscilla wanted to go to her own quarters and leave John to greet Betty on her arrival. But John was most insistent that she stay to meet her. Guilty conscience, thought Priscilla, feeling sour. They sat in the bar and made desultory conversation. He certainly is getting very keyed up about her arrival, mused Priscilla, noticing the way the normally calm John started every time he heard a sound outside.
At last there was the crunch of car wheels on the gravel outside. “That should be her,” said John. He jumped up and straightened his tie at the bar-room mirror, smoothed his hair and turned and said to Priscilla, “Come along. You two should get on famously.”
Priscilla followed him into the reception hall. Mr. Johnson had gone to open the door. Betty arrived in a gust of damp wind and rain. She was small and dark and plump and aged about forty.
John kissed her on the cheek. “Good journey?”
“Rotten,” she said.
“Priscilla, my fiancee, Betty John. Betty, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Her father owns this place.”
“Any hope of a drink?” asked Betty, as the porter struggled in with five pieces of matching luggage. “Of course,” said Priscilla. “The bar is still open to residents.”
Betty, like John, had a Glasgow accent, quite light, not as broad as Blair’s, say. She had black hair and large black eyes and quite a swarthy complexion. She was wearing a well-cut; tweed suit and silk blouse. She exuded strong vitality and sexiness. Although she could not be described as beautiful or even pretty, she made Priscilla feel colourless.
“If you’ll both excuse me,” said Priscilla after Betty had been served with a large whisky, “I really must go to bed now. I have an early start in the morning.”
But Betty had begun to tell John about the iniquities of British Rail and neither seemed aware of her going.
¦
Hamish stretched his long legs and put down Rosie’s book; with a sigh. The plot had been simple. Viscount finds girl, viscount loses girl, viscount finds girl. There was nothing in it to betray anything about Rosie’s character. It was written in a mannered style, competent, literate and strangely lifeless. Hamish, on the occasions when he had been trapped in Highland hotels and boarding-houses, had, during the course of reading anything to hand, read several romances. Some were badly written but they had all been romances, in that the scenes of passion had conveyed something of the author’s personality and energy. Rosie’s love scenes, even allowing for the fact that the genre hardly called for bodice-ripping and lust, were strangely flat. Perhaps she hid her personality in her books as effectively as she hid it in real life. He decided to have a further talk with Archie in the morning.
¦
The small population of Lochdubh awoke in amazement to a sunny day with a fresh, drying breeze. The forensic men still combing Duggan’s cottage whistled as they worked and even Blair was seen to smile.
Hamish Macbeth dressed and washed and went outside to enjoy the glory of the day. There were cheerful cries and shouts from the harbour, where the fishing boats were unloading their catch. The twin mountains behind Lochdubh showed their peaks against a clear blue sky for the first time in weeks. Heather blazed on the hillsides, and the rowan trees were already beginning to show scarlet berries. Gorse grew in clumps on the lower slopes of the mountains, acid yellow, adding colour to what had been for too long a dreary rain-washed scene.
And then Hamish saw the tall figure of Detective Jimmy Anderson strolling along. He hailed him. “Too early in the day for a dram?” called Hamish, knowing that whisky could draw information from this sidekick of Blair’s.
“Never too early,” said Jimmy cheerfully. “Lead me to it.”
Hamish went into the police office and took a bottle of Scotch from the bottom drawer of his desk and poured a good measure into a tumbler.
“Cheers,” said Jimmy. “Did you hear that Duggan was drugged before he died?”
“I did hear something like that.”
“Blair’s furious wi’ the pathologist. The man kept saying to Blair, “I told you the other day.” Blair swears he didn’t. You were lucky not to fight Duggan.”
“Why?”
“Found a nasty pair of brass-knuckle dusters in his cot.”
“I thought that might be the case,” said Hamish, remembering how Andy had told him that Duggan had worn gloves. “Its the great pity we have to find the murderer of such a man.”
“Aye. Man, this whisky’s the grand stuff. Blair’s going mad wi’ all the suspects.” Hamish’s hazel eyes sharpened. “Who, for instance?”
“Well, wee Archie Maclean was heard threatening him, and then Duggan had a fight with some forestry worker called MacTavish.”
Blair had been busy, thought Hamish.
“Anyone else?”
“A woman.”
“Which one?” Hamish waited for the name ‘Rosie Draly,’ but Andersen’s next words surprised him.
“A widow. Mrs. Annie Ferguson.”
“Oh, come on! Our Annie?”
“He’d been getting his leg over there.”
“Who says?”
“She says.”
“Neffer!”
“Fact. She went to Blair and said he would find out soon enough.”
“I’m slipping,” said Hamish ruefully. “I havenae been paying a bit o’ attention to the gossip in this village and forgetting that it should be part of my job.” He thought rapidly. Annie Ferguson, trim, respectable, late forties, church-goer – and Randy!
“Okay, she had a fling with him,” said Hamish, “but why did she think she had to tell Blair about it? You would think a respectable body like her would want to keep quiet I mean, no one would have gossiped to Blair about it.”
“She didn’t exactly say she had an affair with him, come to think of it. Blair’s nasty mind jaloused that. She said she chased Duggan out of her cottage a week ago and threw several pots and pans after him. She shouted that she would kill him.”
“She said he asked her to do something nasty, something that no man should ask a woman to do.”
“The mind boggles. What was it?”
“That she willnae say. She just sobs and cries and says she cannae utter the dirty words.”
Hamish’s Highland curiosity was rampant. He suddenly wanted shot of Jimmy so that he could go and question Annie.
“You know Blair,” Jimmy was saying. “It’s a wonder he didn’t arrest her on the spot, he’s that keen to wrap up this case.”
“Hamish Macbeth!” called an imperious voice from the kitchen.
“That’s Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife,” said Hamish. “You’d best be off.”
“Can I take the bottle with me?”
“No, you can’t,” said Hamish, seizing it and putting it firmly back in the bottom drawer. If Jimmy wanted more
