The smile had left Betty’s face and she looked at Jim anxiously. The wind soughed through the skeletal branches of a dead ash tree over their heads, a curlew piped from the heather. The wind had dropped in that uncanny way of Sutherland winds, and all was still.
Jim pointed the pistol directly at Priscilla’s heart. “Goodbye, Miss Toffee-Nose.”
“NO!” screamed Betty and stood in front of Priscilla with her arms spread wide.
Priscilla in that split second should have tried to escape, but she seemed rooted to the spot, staring at Betty’s dead body, spread-eagled at her feet. She looked up and across at Jim. “You meant to kill her anyway.”
“Well, well, Miss Clever-Clogs, how right you are.” He raised the pistol again.
¦
Hamish Macbeth raised the deer rifle to his shoulder. He knew, as any policeman should, that he should shout a warning. He saw Jim’s grinning face in the telescopic sight and took careful aim.
Priscilla had decided to run for it. She darted to the side, tripped on a rusting piece of farm machinery, and fell panting on the ground. She heard a shot. She twisted round and looked at her tormentor. He was standing, swaying, his face a mask of blood.
And then he fell headlong and lay still.
Priscilla tried to stand up. But her legs would not hold her. Hamish found her kneeling on the ground, retching miserably.
He passed her a handkerchief. She finished vomiting and looked at him, her eyes widening. “Hamish?”
“Aye.”
“Black hair doesn’t suit you.” She began to giggle weakly and then she began to cry. He took her in his arms, talking softly as he would to a hurt child.
“There now, there now. Hamish is here. It’s over. You’re safe. It’s all over.”
Police sirens wailed from the road in the distance. The shots had been heard.
“Listen tae me,” said Hamish urgently as he heard cars start to bump down the long rutted road that led to the deserted farm, “you heard me shout a warning. Right? Got that? You heard me shout a warning.”
She nodded dumbly.
Cars screeched to a halt. Blair’s thick Glaswegian accent shouted, “You there! Leave the woman alone and walk towards us with your hands on your head.”
Hamish stood up. “It’s me…Hamish Macbeth,” he said. “Ower there’s your Gentleman Jim. I had tae shoot him. I gave him a warning.”
Blair’s face was purple and thick veins stood out on his forehead. Hamish stood swaying on his feet with fatigue. There he was with his dyed-black hair and his scraggly Mack moustache and Blair suddenly saw him through a red mist. Macbeth had caught the most wanted criminal in Scotland, Macbeth had found the murderer of Duggan.
He stumbled forwards, his thick hands groping blindly for Hamish’s neck. It took the full efforts of Macnab and Anderson to stop Hamish Macbeth being strangled by a superior officer.
? Death of a Macho Man ?
11
We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice peg,
We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: “It’s clever, but is it Art?”
—
Hamish Macbeth was on sick leave – by orders. He was told lot to talk to the press. Strathbane was wondering what to do with this maverick policeman.
He was so tired, he did not care. He was also suffering from delayed shock. He knew that if he had shouted a warning to Jim, the man might have swung that gun away from Priscilla, but that had been a chance he had not been willing to take. He had killed a man who had murdered without concience, and yet the dead face of Gentleman Jim haunted his dreams.
There was a sign on the police-station door referring all calls to Cnothan, and yet the press, knowing that he was in there, rang the doorbell and telephoned constantly. He began to feel he was under siege. During the night, under cover of darkness – for the light nights of mid-summer were over – he put out food for his hens. Then, packing up a bag, he began to walk along the deserted waterfront. His police Land Rover would be delivered back to him the next day. He knew that he was shortly about to be tangled up in miles of red tape. He would need to explain why he had taken off for Glasgow on his own, why he had not told Strathbane what he was doing, why he had spoken to a reporter, and why and how he had shot a man, not with a gun issued by the police but with a deer rifle.
He still felt incredibly weary and his bones ached from al the running he had done. His dyed hair was showing glints of red at the roots and there was a sore mark on his face above in mouth where he had ripped off the moustache which Josie hat helped him to stick on so well.
He walked towards the humpbacked bridge. The cottage of Willie and Annie Ferguson were in darkness. He wondered if his friendship with Lucia and Willie would ever be the same again.
He stood for a moment on the bridge and stared down at the rushing waters of the river, swollen with all the recent rain.
For the first time, he wondered if he was really suited to the police force. His pig-headed desire to do things on his own was not what was expected of a good policeman. But it was a life he loved, a life he was used to. He turned and looked back at the sleeping village strung out along the waterfront. Had he been born with some sort of ambition by-pass? He had not travelled very much, had not really wanted to. He was an arm chair traveller, content to watch exotic countries from the comfort of his armchair. By modern-day standards, he was a failure, a drop- out.
He trudged on up the hill. Priscilla would not be awake, but there would be the night porter on duty and he would ask for a room for the night and be able to rest up away from the press, and gear himself up for the horrendous amount of paperwork that lay ahead of him.
¦
Priscilla awoke with a cry. In her dream, Jim was once more facing her with the gun, but this time he had shot her, and when she awoke, her heart thudding against her ribs, she could still feel the impact of that dream bullet.
She climbed out of bed and went and stood by the window, hugging her shivering body. As she looked down from the castle window, she saw the weary figure of Hamish Macbeth trudging up the drive.
She scrambled into a sweater and jeans and ran down the stairs to find Hamish arguing with the night porter, a surly individual, who was telling him he would need to return the next morning to get a room.
“Never mind him,” said Priscilla. “Come with me, Hamish. I’ll find you something. Would you like coffee or a drink?”
He ran his hand through his dyed hair. “I could murder a whisky.”
“Whisky it is.” Under the disapproving stare of the night porter, she reached under the counter and unhitched the key to the bar, went across to it and unlocked the grille. She poured two fine old malt whiskies. “Let’s sit down. Come to escape from the press?”
“Aye,” said Hamish, sinking gratefully into one of the large chintz-covered armchairs in the bar. “It’s a wee bittie late for me to start obeying orders, but I may as well try. I think I’d soon be out of a job.”
“You were very unorthodox,” said Priscilla. “But with all that media attention, I don’t think they would dare fire you.”
Hamish brightened. “I hadn’t thought o’ that.” Then his face fell. He took a gulp of whisky. “I was thinking on the road up here that maybe I am not suited to the force at all. Is there something badly wrong wi’ me that I don’t want promotion or travel or anything like that?”
Priscilla looked at him with a sudden rush of affection, “Oh, Hamish, the number of times I’ve wished you’d get off your Highland arse and do something with your life! But maybe you’ve got something the rest of us could be
