switched the channel. On BBC2 was a wildlife programme and he knew some creature was going to rend and destroy some other creature before the end of it. He switched again. There was a Victorian drama running which he knew would probably mean explicit sex under the corsets. There must have been a good few families in Victorian times who led blameless lives, but not according to television. The last channel available was showing a buddy- buddy, black cop, white cop bonding movie. Hamish settled back happily to watch fictional mayhem in the streets of Los Angeles.
Gradually his eyes began to close and then he plunged down into a deep, dark dream where he was in the dentist’s chair and Gilchrist was leaning over him brandishing the drill. “This won’t hurt,” said Gilchrist, shaking his shoulder.
Hamish awoke with a start to find that it was Sarah who was shaking him by the shoulder, holding a sheaf of paper.
“Success!” she said. “I just printed out everything I thought you might want.”
Hamish rubbed his eyes and sat up straight. “This is marvellous,” he said, blinking at the sheaf of papers.
“The pathologist’s report is on top,” said Sarah proudly.
Hamish rose and switched off the television and then looked in amazement at the clock. “I am sorry, lassie. It’s gone two in the morning.”
“I can sleep late tomorrow. Read the pathologist’s report first.”
Hamish sat down again and began to read carefully. “There iss the thing,” he said at last. “Nicotine poisoning, and the man didn’t smoke. He was hoisted into the chair and his teeth drilled after death. My! I don’t know a thing about nicotine poisoning.”
“I believe you can get enough nicotine out of three cigars if you have the right equipment,” said Sarah, sinking into an armchair. “I remember we did an experiment in the lab at school. The teacher wanted us to see how much gunk came out of a single cigarette.”
“Maggie Bane was a physics student.”
“Doesn’t mean she was a chemistry student.”
“But surely it’s the same sort of thing.”
“Not really,” said Sarah. “I had a friend who was brilliant at physics at school but who nearly failed his chemistry exams.”
“It would need to be someone then with access to lab equipment.”
“I don’t know if it would be that difficult. Any school lab equipment would do. Something like a still would do as well.”
“A still! I’m sure there’s plenty o’ illegal stills about the Highlands. In fact, I’ve an idea how I can find out where one is. Can I run you back to the hotel and then I’ll sit up and go through these. How did you get to the restaurant?”
“I walked.”
Hamish looked at her high heels. “It’s quite a way. I should have collected you. I wasnae thinking straight. How did you manage to break into the main police computer?”
She grinned. “Trade secret.”
He grinned back, liking her immensely, but too excited about the papers in his hand to indulge in any more carnal thoughts.
He drove her back through the night to the Tommel Castle Hotel.
“He’s at it again,” said Nessie Currie to her sister as she let the curtain fall back into place.
“Who? Who?” demanded her sister, Jessie, from the darkness of the double bed.
“You sound like an owl,” said Nessie. “That Hamish Macbeth, that’s who it was, driving that lassie who’s staying at the Tommel Castle.”
“Priscilla was too good for him, too good for him. He’s a philanderer. Poor Priscilla, poor Priscilla.”
Sarah got down from the police Land Rover, went round to the driver’s side and standing on tiptoe, kissed Hamish on the cheek through the open window.
“Will I see you tomorrow?”
“I’ll be out and about on my rounds,” said Hamish. “I’d like to talk to you about what I’ve read. I’ll call you around lunchtime.”
He waved and drove back to the police station and then settled down to read all the statements.
Jeannie Gilchrist, the dentist’s ex-wife, had told the CID pretty much what she had told him. Mrs. Harrison’s statement seemed even madder than anything she had said to him. Now to Maggie Bane. His eyes widened. There was nothing in her statement to say that she ever had any relationship with Gilchrist. Surely she knew that in the Highlands very little could be kept secret. And if the police found out she had actually been having an affair with Gilchrist, they would suspect her even more. Mrs. Albert, the woman who had come with her small son, Jamie, just after Hamish had found the body, stated that she had never been to Gilchrist before. She’d heard some stories that he’d ‘mucked-up’ people’s teeth, but she hadn’t the time or money to go traipsing to Strathbane or Inverness and Gilchrist was cheap.
Other patients interviewed said pretty much the same thing. They had been suddenly hit, like Hamish, with blinding toothache and all they could think of was getting to the nearest and cheapest dentist. People sometimes said, “I wonder what Britain was like in the thirties or forties?” Try the Highlands of Scotland, thought Hamish. Bad teeth, stodgy food and the last corner of Britain where’s women’s lib had not found a foothold. He remembered the wife of a crofter who rose early to clean the rooms at a hotel and then to serve the breakfasts. When she returned to the croft, she had to help with the lambing. In the evening she returned to the hotel to serve the dinners, and one night when she returned home at midnight, she had said to her husband, who was lying on the hearth rug in front of the fire, “I think I’d better see the doctor, Angus. I’m that tired these days.”
“Och, woman,” said Angus, “I’ll tell ye what’s up with ye. Ye’re chust damn lazy.” And the crofter’s wife had laughed with pride and admiration, saying, “That’s men for you.”
He flipped over the pages. Ah, here it was. One of the townspeople, a Mrs. Reekie. “Mr. Gilchrist was romancing that Maggie Bane. I seen them with my own eyes, going into her house, night after night and not driving off till the morning either.”
That statement had been taken by Detective Harry MacNab, not long after Hamish had seen Maggie Bane. Blair would read that and have the receptionist picked up again and taken to Strathbane for another grilling.
But what was missing from all the statements, from townspeople, from patients, was the necessary hatred. Had it not been that a great deal of strength had been required, then Maggie Bane would certainly be the number one suspect in his book. Unless she had an accomplice. There was that mysterious hour she had taken off to go shopping. There was surely something she had not been telling the police apart from her affair with Gilchrist. Or if she had nothing to do with the murder, had Gilchrist been expecting someone, someone he had not wanted her to see or hear?
He returned to the pathologist’s report. The nicotine had been put in the coffee. The pathologist seemed sure of that. Again back to Maggie Bane.
He picked up her statement. She had made him a cup of coffee as usual and taken it in. He had not drunk it when she was present. She had put it over on the desk by the window and then had left. But she knew, thought Hamish, about all that sugar Gilchrist took in his coffee, sugar that would kill the taste of any poison.
Back to the other statements. Mrs. Macbean. The woman’s bad temper seemed to leap off the page. She had been going to Gilchrist for two years now. She had always had trouble with her teeth. Better to get them out.
The day before the murder had been her daughter, Darleen’s, first visit. No, she had never met Gilchrist outside the surgery.
Hamish rubbed his hand wearily over his eyes. His elation at getting his hands on the pathologist’s report and the other statements was waning fast. He seemed to be in more of a muddle than ever. One thing at a time, he thought, putting the paper aside. A night’s sleep and then start to ask about stills.
¦
In the morning, he decided to take a walk up the hill to visit the seer, Angus Macdonald. Whether old Angus actually had the gift of the second sight, Hamish doubted very much. But Angus maintained his reputation by picking up every bit of gossip in the Highlands that he could.
There was an arctic wind blowing in from the east. The tops of the mountains were covered with snow and a
