“See you then,” said John. “‘Bye, copper.”
“You know,” said Hamish thoughtfully, “I could swear his clothes were tailored in London. I didnae think that bank managers these days earned enough to wear expensive suits and holiday at posh hotels in the Highlands.”
“Scottish and General is an important bank, Hamish. What don’t you like about him?”
“I didnae say I didn’t like him. I chust think there’s something odd about him.”
“Could you be a little bit jealous?”
Hamish’s face and temper flamed. “Fancy yourself, don’t you?” he said nastily and walked out.
He stood outside on one leg like a stork and wondered what had crane over him. He put his head round the gift-shop door and said, “Sorry,” and then walked off towards the Land Rover. He forgot quickly about John Glover because he was suddenly very curious to talk to Rosie Draly.
When he parked outside, he could see her working at a word processor by the window of the living-room, her face lit by the green light from the screen. He went up the short path and knocked at ate door. From inside, she swore loudly and clearly, “Shit!” Then he heard the sound of high heels clattering across the floor.
She swung the door open and looked him up and down, from his red hair gleaming under his peaked cap to his large regulation boots.
“I suppose it’s this murder,” she said. “Come in.”
He followed her into the living-room and looked covertly around. The stone-flagged floor was uncarpeted, and despite a peat-fire smouldering in the grate, the room was stuffy and cold. There were makeshift bookshelves, planks resting on bricks all along one wall, crammed with hardbacks and paperbacks. There were a battered sofa and two chairs, and a dining table on which the writer had been working. Harrush was surprised. He had somehow expected a writer of romances to have a more cosy life-style.
“Well, what do you want to know?”
“May I sit down?” asked Hamish, removing his cap.
“Suit yourself.”
He sat in one of the chairs and surveyed her. She was wearing black trousers and one of those striped French sailor’s tops which middle-aged women seem to go in for. Her high-heeled shoes were scarlet and strapped, almost old-fashioned, the jtldad a French prostitute wore when leaning against a lamppost in a fifties movie. Her fair hair was neat and curled to JE frame her neat, closed face. Her mouth was thin and small, hardly the mouth of a passionate woman, hardly the mouth of a woman who knew anything about romance at all.
Hamish’s first question surprised her. “Why romances?”
“Why not?”
“I just wondered.”
“I write historical romances set in the Regency period,” she said patiently. “That’s eighteen eleven to eighteen twenty. It’s a period in history I know a great deal about.” Hamish wanted to ask her if she knew a great deal about romance but some-bow guessed that the question would irritate her and he did not want to make her angry before finding out what she had had to do with Randy Duggan.
“I won’t keep you long,” he said. “I gather you had a row with Randy Duggan, the man that’s been murdered.”
“Oh, him. He was one of the locals I talked to. I’m tired of writing historicals. I wanted to try my hand at a detective story. I became interested in using real people. He seemed an Meal character for a villain.”
“So what was the row about?”
“I can’t remember any row.” She lit a cigarette.
“You were overheard.”
“Damn this place! You get more privacy in the city. It was all tiresome. He came on to me and I told him to get lost and we exchanged a few insults.”
Despite the tarty shoes, Hamish could not imagine any man making a pass at Rosie, but then, Archie Maclean and Andy MacTavish had both seemed somewhat smitten. He was not getting very far and Blair might soon send someone or come himself to interview her and find out he had already been there. Bugger Blair! This was his beat.
“I would really like to read one of your books,” he said.
“Then I suggest you buy one,” snapped Rosie. “I only get a certain amount free from the publisher and I like to keep them. Why do you want to read one? To find if there are dark recesses in my character which make me a possible murderess?”
“Something like that,” said Hamish and smiled at her.
“You’re honest, I’ll admit that,” she said returning his smile.
“Why did you come here…to Sutherland?”
“I thought I would write a historical based on Bonnie Prince Charlie and would soak up the atmosphere.” She looked at the rain streaming down the window. “Instead, you could say, the atmosphere soaked me.”
“So do you plan to stay on?”
“For a bit I paid too much for this cottage and I have found out it will be difficult to sell unless I can find some other sucker sold on the Highland dream.”
“Och, the place is just fine if you would stop looking for what isn’t here,” said Hamish.
“I’ll tell you what isn’t here.” She ground out her cigarette and lit another. Bands of cigarette smoke now lay in layers across the stuffy room. “Help. If I need a repair to the roof or someone to dig the garden or a tap fixed, I get the same old story…I’ll be round tomorrow, but tomorrow never comes up here. There’s been a leaking tap in the bathroom since I how to fix a new washer on it.”
“Have you got the new washer?”
“Yes, why?”
“I’ll fix it for you. I’ll get the tool-box from the Rover.”
“Thank you,” she said, surprised. He went out into the driving rain and soon returned bearing his tool-box. She showed him where the bathroom was. After what seemed to her only a few moments, he returned and said, “That’s it fixed.”
“Marvellous. Look, I’m sorry I was so rude. Here’s one of my books.” She picked one off the table. “It just arrived yesterday.” Hamish looked at a hardback called The Viscount’s Secret. “Thank you,” he said. “Don’t you want me to sign it for you?”
“Of course,” said Hamish quickly. “The name’s Hamish Macbeth. Tell me, Miss Draly, how far have you got with this detective story?”
“Not far at all. It was just an idea.”
“And how was the murder to be done? Insulin? Rare South American poison known only to a tribe up the Amazon?”
“Nothing like that.” Her face, which had softened after the pap repair, had become closed and tight again. “I must get on with my work.”
“Just one more thing. What did you think of Randy Duggan? Did you believe his stories?”
“He bragged so much about himself, it was hard to tell what was true and what wasn’t. But I’ve travelled in the States, and yes, I would say he had been there.”
“Why did you want to cast him as the villain?”
“Becausehe was such an old-fashioned sort of bully.”
“And Archie Maclean and Andy MacTavish? How were they to feature in the story?”
She got to her feet and clacked on her high heels over to the living-room door. “They weren’t,” she said. “I just wanted some local colour. Now, if you’ve finished…?”
He left, feeling baffled. He felt he still knew nothing about ter. He decided to go back to the police station and read the book she had given him to see if that would give a clue to her character.
But he found Blair waiting for him, an angry Blair. “I hope too havenae been poking your nose into this case, Macbeth,” he growled.
“Wouldn’t dream of it said.” Hamish, lying with all the true ease of the Highlander. “I am just going through to my office to check the sheep-dip papers. Then there’s that break-in over at Cnothan.”
Blair’s piggy eyes glared at him. The detective chief inspector was impatient to solve this case and prove he had done so without any help from Hamish Macbeth. “I’m surprised you’re still on the force,” said Blair. “But then,
