free whisky, then Jimmy would be back again and hopefully with more interesting information.
Having got rid of the detective, he went through to his kitchen and faced the tweedy bulk of the minister’s wife.
“What I want to know,” said Mrs. Wellington pugnaciously, “is what you’re doing about it.”
“The murder? There’s not much I can do, Mrs. Wellington. I’ve been told to keep off the case.”
“It hasn’t stopped you before I can’t stand that man Blair. You must go and see Annie Ferguson. He has reduced that poor woman to a shaking wreck. That beast, Duggan, seduced her and took her good name away.”
Hamish blinked. “I didn’t think in these free and easy days that women had any good name to take away at all.”
“I’ll have none of your cynical remarks. She sent me to get you. She feels if she does not get help soon, then Blair will arrest her.”
“I’m on my way,” said Hamish, delighted to have an invitation to see the very woman he was interested in interviewing.
“And if that pig Blair says anything to you,” said Mrs. Wellington, “tell him I sent you to see her.”
“Right,” said Hamish. He ushered her out and then set off along the waterfront towards Annie’s little cottage, which was situated just before the humpbacked bridge which led out of Locbdubh.
It was amazing, he marvelled, as he surveyed Annie when she opened the door to him, that you could think you knew someone quite well and then discover that you must hardly have known them at all. But who would think that Annie of all people, with her corseted figure and rigidly permed grey hair, would indulge in passion with a bit of rough like Duggan? “Come in,” said Annie. “I don’t know what to do.” Her voice trembled.
She led Hamish into a neat living-room filled with bits of highly polished furniture and bedecked with photographs in steel frames. There was an old-fashioned upright piano against one wall, with a quilted front and brackets for candles.
Lace curtains fluttered at the open cottage windows, and from outside came all the little snatches of sound of the normal everyday life of Lochdubh – people talking, children playing, bursts of music from radios, and cars driving past along the sunny road.
“So what’s been going on, Annie?” asked Hamish.
“Sit down,” she urged, “and I’ll make us a nice cup of tea and I have baked scones. You aye liked my scones, Hamish.”
Hamish was so anxious to hear what she had to say that despite his mooching ways, he would, for once, have gladly dispensed with the tea and scones, but one could not refuse hospitality in a Highland home. He waited impatiently as she fussed about, bringing in the tea-tray with the fat, rose-decorated china teapot, matching cups, cream jug and lump sugar. Then the golden scones, warm and oozing butter.
Hamish dutifully drank one cup of tea and ate two scones and then said, “So tell me about it.”
“I think God is punishing me,” she said. Her eyes began to water in the way of someone who has cried and cried for days.
“Now, now,” said Hamish, wondering not for the first time why when things went wrong entirely through people’s own making that they should wonder what God had against them. “Just tell me slowly and carefully. And remember. Nothing shocks me.”
“You’re a good man, Hamish. Randy and I fell into conversation in Patel’s store. I was buying flour and he said he thought I was probably a good cook. I said, in the way we have in the village, “Oh, drop by one day and I’ll give you some of my scones.” So a day later, he did that and we got talking. I’ve never travelled further man Glasgow, Hamish, and his stories fascinated me. Also…he looked at me as if I were a woman, you know, and my ain husband didn’t even do that in the later years afore he died, if you take my meaning.
“I wouldn’t have let things get far, but he said he fancied me. I said I was a respectable body and a village was a hotbed of gossip and I had no desire to ruin my reputation. He pointed out that he came in the back way. No one had seen him. No one would know. So…I let him.”
“You had an affair with him?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you kept it quiet, I’ll say that for you. So what went wrong?”
“He asked me to do a nasty and evil thing.”
“You can tell me,” said Hamish soothingly. “Now what was it?”
Her voice broke as she said, “I cannae tell anyone. Dirty, evil beast!”
“Now, Annie, it’s a wicked world out there and we lead the sheltered life in Lochdubh. It may be nothing that horrible. Just spit it out and you’ll feel better. I won’t say a word to Blair.”
“Do you mind not looking at me when I tell you?”
“I’ll go and look out of the window.”
He rose and went and stared through the lace curtains.
The Currie sisters, Jessie and Nessie, were walking slowly past, arguing about something, shopping baskets over their arms.
“He came to me one night about three days afore the murder,” said Annie in a choked voice. “He said he had bought me a wee present and he wanted me to put it on afore we went to bed.”
“What was it?”
“It was a suspender belt, black stockings wi seams and…and…purple silk crotchless knickers. He wanted me to wear them in bed.”
Hamish felt a sudden desire to giggle.
“I told him, I told him straight to his face, I was not a whore. I told him that my Hector, God rest his soul, had never even put the lights on once in the bedroom in all our marriage days, and the dirty animal had the nerve to tell me I was becoming boring and he felt like spicing things up a bit. I threw the filthy garments of Satan on the fire and told him to get out. He stood there laughing at me, like the demon he was. I said I would kill him. We were through ben the kitchen and I started to throw things at him. He left by the front and I threw a pot at his head, and now Blair will be hearing about it.”
Hamish turned round. Annie’s plain face was scarlet with shame.
“Now look here, Annie, you must not distress yourself. No one needs to know, although it is not very shocking at all. You just tell the police that he made a pass at you and you threw him out. Simple. I mean, you didn’t exactly tell Blair that you had been sleeping with Randy.”
“Oh, Hamish, I never thought of that.”
“Did you tell anyone other than Mrs. Wellington?”
She shook her head.
“So don’t. Just stick to the story I gave you. No need to say anything else. Tell me, what did Mrs. Wellington think of Randy’s…er…behaviour?”
“She told me that men were like that, because she had read about it, and I wasn’t to worry. She said they sold underwear like that in the city shops and Lochdubh must be the last place in the world where they sold knickers with elastic at the knee. But I found that hard to believe. What self-respecting woman would wear stuff like that?”
“Don’t distress yourself further, Annie. I have to ask you this. What were you doing on the evening of the murder?”
“I was at home until the fight I went to watch, for I hoped you’d beat the living daylights out of him.”
“Might have at that,” said Hamish, who didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. “Do you know that Randy was drugged wi’ chloral hydrate before he was shot?”
“What’s that?”
“It’s an old-fashioned sleeping draught. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who might still have some?”
“No, but Dr. Brodie would know. He’s been the doctor here for some time.”
Hamish silently cursed himself for not having thought of such an obvious thing himself. “I’ll go and have a wee word with the doctor. So are you feeling better, Annie?” He stood up to leave and she rose as well. She kissed him on the cheek and looked up at him from under her sparse eyelashes. “Thanks, Hamish. Call on me anytime. Has anyone ever told you, you are a very attractive man?” Hamish disengaged himself hurriedly and made for the door.
