“Aye,” said Hamish, “but there’s a lot still to be explained.”
“Such as?”
“Who on earth was Randy Duggan, for a start? Why the plastic surgery? And why,” said Hamish, leaning forward, “should Beck admit to a murder he did not commit?”
Geordie stared in dismay. “What are you talking about, Hamish?”
“I don’t believe he killed Duggan. He killed Rosie, yes, but not Duggan. And this is Scotland, not England. A confession on its own isn’t enough. They’ll need to dig up some more proof, although, if I know Blair, he’ll try not to.”
Geordie protested, “But why would he admit to it?”
“I think his obsession with Rosie turned Beck’s brain. I think he hated his wife with a passion because she would not give him his freedom when he wanted to leave her and marry Rosie, I think he thought he would confess to Duggan’s murder to get revenge on her and also to make him look more macho, not some wimp dying of love for a woman, but an action man.”
“That’s guesswork. Look, Hamish, it’s over and we can all return to normal. You’re only trying to stir up things because you’ve got a hunch. Folks here say you’re easygoing and would rather go fishing than solve crimes. What’s come over you?”
Hamish’s normally lazy expression vanished and a hard look came over his face. “I may be easygoing with small little crimes in the village that can be sorted out by me, Geordie, without bringing Strathbane into it. But when it comes to murder, then justice must be done, and justice isn’t pouncing on some fellow who gives a convenient confession. I will continue to ferret away, Geordie, until I find the real killer. It could ha’ been anyone.” He let a little silence fall. The rain drummed steadily on the bushes outside the window. Then he spoke again. “It could have been you.”
“Me!” squeaked Geordie. “Why me?”
“He humiliated you publicly.”
“And you think that would make me kill the man? Because I was humiliated? Look at me, Hamish was a schoolteacher, long years of teaching snotty little boys who took the piss out of me on every occasion. Teachers who were promoted over my head for no other reason than that they were rugger buggers or sleeping with the head’s wife. I tell you, man, with me, humiliation’s a way of life!”
Hamish got up to leave. “Chust remember, Geordie,” he said quietly, “that I’m still looking.”
After he had left, Geordie stared bleakly for a long time at the chair in which Hamish Macbeth had been sitting, and listened to the relentless sound of the rain.
¦
Hamish glanced at his watch and then set off towards Lucia and Willie’s cottage by the bridge. When he arrived, Willie; was polishing the kitchen counter white the beautiful Lucia minted her nails bright red.
I
Willie came in from the kitchen, a cleaning rag in his hand. “Glad it’s all over, Hamish,” he said cheerfully. “Isn’t this awful weather? They say there’s more perception forecast for the morrow.”
“Precipitation,” corrected Hamish. “And it’s not all over, Willie. You, as an ex-policeman, should know that. Beck’s confession to the murder of Randy is just a bit too pat.”
“I think,” said Lucia in measured tones and with a toss of her black curly hair, “that your nose is out of joint because Blair solved the murders.”
“It wass not Blair,” said Hamish crossly. “It was me that found out Beck was guilty of Rosie’s murder. But I do not believe for a moment that he killed Duggan.”
“Of course he did,” shouted Wfflie. “It’s over, all over, and you’re just stirring up muck out of vanity.”
“I believe,” said Hamish, holding on to his temper, “that someone in Lochdubh killed Randy and I am going to find out who that someone is and my personal feelings for any of the inhabitants of Lochdubh will not get in the way.”
“Meaning you still think I might be guilty!” exclaimed Willie.
“You or Lucia.”
“Get out of my house…now!” yelled Willie, flapping the cleaning rag and filling the air with the smell of ammonia. He rushed and opened the door and stood by it. Hamish turned in the doorway and looked back at Lucia. Her eyes were wide with fear.
¦
He turned his coat collar up against the rain and went back to the police Land Rover and got in. “Time to make someone else’s life a misery,” he said to the windscreen wipers as they slashed against the streaming rain. He drove off and around the loch to where the pine forest stood and then up one of the forestry tracks, rolling down the window until he could hear the crash of falling trees.
Andy and some of the other forestry workers were in a clearing. Hamish arrived just as another of those spindly, grey-trunked forestry pines, which never looked like real trees, came crashing down. It was not like the Brazilian rain forest, thought Hamish. Because of the demand for wood, the north of Scotland was gradually being covered by forest. The companies did their best, growing ornamental trees by the sides of the roads and setting out picnic tables and benches in the clearings, but these were bastard trees, crammed together, thin and dripping in the soft air.
Andy came forward to meet him. “Just taking a break, Hamish,” he hailed him. “Going to brew up some tea.”
“Not for me,” said Hamish. “Can we have a chat?”
“Aye, come ower here. What’s up? Can’t be this murder business. That’s all solved.”
They walked slowly over a thick carpet of pine needles and sat down opposite each other on a pair of tree stumps.
“I am not satisfied it was Beck who killed Randy,” began Hamish.
He was prepared for anger, denial, but Andy looked at him with mild eyes and said surprisingly, “Now there’s the funny thing. Maybe it was because I was so sure that Randy was wan o’ thae big-time criminals that I couldnae swallow the fact that it was done by Rosie’s boyfriend. The thing is no one saw him round the village, although no one’s been watching like they do in the good weather. Folks are mostly indoors of an evening, wi’ the telly switched on. But I’ve got this feeling in my bones.”
Hamish looked at him with relief in his hazel eyes, “I thought you’d start shouting at me like some o’ the others.”
Andy grinned. “I may have had a fight with Randy but at the time I thought I had lost fair and square. I only learned about the knuckledusters afterwards. At the time, I didn’t feel mad, see. Just ashamed of myself. Told myself I should keep oot o’ fights. Maybe if the fight had been public like the one he was going to have wi’ you, I might have been madder.”
“But have you any concrete reason for supposing that Randy was not killed by Beck?”
“Och, not really. When I heard about it, I just got this idea that it was all too pat. There’s been people afore, you know that, Hamish, who’ve confessed to murders they didn’t do to get a bit of the limelight. It’s not as if we have the death penalty.”
“Aye, but the silly folk who confess to the murders they did not do are people who haven’t committed murder at all. There’s no doubt in my mind that Beck killed Rosie.”
“If that’s the case, Hamish, I don’t envy you the job o’ finding out who really did it with the trail cold and you not allowed to use any of the services in Strathbane.”
“I’ve managed before,” said Hamish mulishly, “and I’ll manage again on my own. I think I will have that cup o’ tea, Andy.”
They walked back to join the other men. “We’ll all be getting webbed feet if this goes on,” said Hamish. “And have you seen the forecasts for the south of England? Sunshine every day.”
“That’s the English for you,” said a forestry worker who had overheard Hamish’s last remark. “They take the best of everything.”
¦
Hamish drove round to Annie Ferguson’s and parked outside. As he climbed down from the Land Rover, he saw Willie outside the Italian restaurant. Willie gave an odd little duck of his head and scuttled out of view.
Annie Ferguson opened the door just as he was raising his hand to knock it. “Oh, it’s yourself, Hamish, come
