Hamish followed her into the bungalow. He felt suddenly weary. He wondered whether to start to tell a series of whopping lies, but one look at Josie’s worried honest eyes made him settle for the truth. “Sit down, Josie,” he said. “It’s a long story.”
Josie listened while he outlined the murders of Duggan and Rosie and then explained what he was doing in Glasgow.
She listened carefully without comment, but when he had finished, she said, “My son, Callum, is away in the Gulf, so you can have his room.” Hamish remembered suddenly her husband had died three years before. “There’s only one thing. Even if you find the real murderer, or anything leading to who the right murderer might be, you’re not going to have a job to go back to.”
“I’ll take that risk. Look, Josie, I think there might be a picture of me in the papers tomorrow. I’ll need to change my appearance.”
“I’ll do my best for you, Hamish. I’ll always do my best for the family. But you’ll need to keep me out of it.”
“I promise, Josie.”
“So how are you going to get about? You can’t drive that police thing.”
“I’ll think o’ something.”
“I’ve still got my poor Johnny’s driving license. You could use that to rent a car. If you’re caught, you must say you broke in here and stole it.”
“You’re a brick, Josie.”
She gave a reluctant laugh. “I’m a daft fool. Well, let’s get started after we have a cup of tea. It’s a good thing for you that I dye my hair. The first thing to do is to get rid of that red hair of yours.”
¦
By late afternoon, Hamish had short black hair, a black moustache made from cuttings of his own hair, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Wearing one of the late Johnny Sinclair’s business suits and in possession of a hired car, he drove into Glasgow. He parked the car and went to a phone box and called an old friend of his, Detective Sergeant Bill Walton.
“Don’t say my name,” said Hamish when Bill came on the phone. “Don’t shop me, Bill, I need to see you.”
“I’m off duty in half an hour,” said Bill in his usual flat voice. Bill, Hamish remembered, never seemed to be surprised at anything. “You’d best come round to my flat. It’s in Bath Street, next to that new hotel.” He gave Hamish the address.
Hamish left the car where it was and then slowly walked to Bath Street. He stood in a doorway opposite Bill’s flat. His heart sank when a police car screamed up, seemingly full of policemen. But only Bill got out and the car drove off. Still Hamish waited until he saw Bill go upstairs.
After a few more cautious moments, he crossed the road and rang the bell. The door buzzer went and he let himself in and climbed the stairs. Bill was waiting at the top.
“You look like a bank clerk on a bad day,” he commented. “It is yourself, is it not?”
“Aye,” said Hamish.
He followed Bill into a dark and dingy flat Bill switched on a two-bar electric heater in the grate and pulled the curtains closed and then switched on the light. Landlord’s furniture, thought Hamish, looking round the dismal living-room, but no sign of any woman. Good. Just Bill.
Bill Walton was a tall middle-aged man with a face like Buster Keaton. “So you’re on the run, are you, Hamish? And in disguise? You’d best have a dram and tell me all about it before I send for the wee men in the white coats.”
So for the second time that day, Hamish talked and talked about the murder cases while Bill listened patiently.
“I’ve never doubted your intelligence before, Hamish,” said Bill when Hamish had finished. “But, man, what were you about to tell a reporter all about it?”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish miserably. “It must have been the damn rain.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You don’t know. You don’t live in the Highlands,” said Hamish obscurely.
“So I’m supposed to turn you in and if I’m found out helping you in this, I’ll lose my job and I haven’t long to go before retirement. But a lot of what you’ve said makes sense, don’t ask me why. This Randy had plastic surgery. How can you pick his face out o’ the rogues’ gallery when the experts couldn’t?”
“I’ll bet they werenae looking hard enough and dropped the whole thing when Beck confessed,” said Hamish. He added shrewdly, “And I’ll bet Blair managed to put up so many backs in Glasgow that they didnae really bother.”
“Dreadful pillock, that man, Blair. I remember when he was a copper down here. Yes, you’re right, he did put backs up. You know how it goes. We don’t like being bossed around by another force, and a Highland one at that.”
“So is there any way I could get a look at the rogues’ gallery?”
“Looking like you do, no one would recognize you. I can just march you into the station. But what rogues’ gallery do you want to look into? Murderers, muggers, rapists? What?”
“If it were a revenge killing,” said Hamish slowly, “then there would be money involved, possibly a lot of money.”
“So you’re looking for a big-time robbery?”
“Something like that.”
“I’ve got a date tonight,” said Bill and then blushed.
“I neffer thought of you as a ladies’ man.”
“I’m not. This is someone special. You’re in for a late night. Off with you now and meet me at headquarters at one in the morning. It’ll be real quiet men. People are always looking through photos. I’ll meet you outside and take you in.”
“Thanks, Bill. I’ll never forget this.”
“I’ve a feeling I won’t either. Now remember, if you’re caught, I didn’t know who you were. You tricked me.”
“I promise.”
“Okay. See you later.”
Hamish went out into the evening. He did not want to go back out to Bearsden. He phoned Josie from a call- box and told her not to expect him back that night. He then went to a cinema. He was never quite sure afterwards what the film was that he saw. The enormity of what he had done was seizing up his brain. Why on earth had he not believed Beck? Why had he not gone to Strathbane with his doubts? Why had he assumed they would take Beck’s word for it without checking thoroughly?
Away from his native Highlands and here in this vast, bustling city full of uncaring people, he felt like the Highland idiot people often thought he was. He could not seem to think clearly any more.
He had a dismal meal in an all-night cafe, and then went back to the car-park and sat and waited for one in the morning. He nearly fell asleep but jerked himself fully awake and glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten to one.
He hurried out of the car-park and raced round to police headquarters. Bill was standing outside, waiting impatiently. “Come on,” he snapped. “I’m beginning to regret this.”
He led the way upstairs after signing Hamish in as Mr. Sinclair. He put Hamish in a bleak cubby-hole of a room and said sternly, “Wait here.” So Hamish waited, listening to the night-time sounds of the city, trying to clear his brain, which was becoming even more fogged with anxiety. After some time, Bill came back carrying heavy books of photographs. “You can start with these,” he said curtly. All his previous friendliness had gone. Bill was obviously regretting his decision to help Hamish.
Hamish took off the glasses and blinked for a moment myopically to get his own very good eyesight back into focus. He began studying the faces in the books while a white-faced clock on the wall ticked away the minutes and then the hours. What would Randy have changed about his features? Nose? Chin? Hairline? He wouldn’t have had plastic surgery for beauty, that was for sure, but simply to hide his identity. At six in the morning. Bill came in and thumped a cup of coffee in front of Hamish. “Going to be much longer?” he asked curtly.
