“He said that with the noise you lot made arriving from Strathbane, the Smiley brothers would get to hear of it before you even left.”
“Aye, he had a point there,” said Jimmy. “But we’ll be careful.”
“Be quick,” urged Sarah. “He may be in danger.”
¦
Hamish had fallen into an uneasy sleep when he suddenly awoke. Someone was opening the trapdoor. He made a dash for the stairs, A shotgun was being pointed straight at him through the trapdoor.
“Back off, Hamish,” came Stourie’s voice, “or I’ll blast your head off.” He pressed a switch by the stairs and the cellar was flooded with harsh light.
Stourie eased his way down the stairs followed by Pete, “Tie him up and gag him,” Stourie instructed his brother.
“People know I’m here,” said Hamish desperately.
“Aye, well, if they knew you were here, where are they?” sneered Smiley. “We all know you fancy yoursel’ as the Lone Ranger. Tie him up, Pete.”
Hamish was trussed up, and a broad piece of sticking plaster was pasted over his mouth.
“That’s him dealt with,” said Pete. “What do we do now?”
“Wait till the fuss dies down and make sure no one comes here looking for him and then we’ll drop the cratur in the nearest peat bog.”
“Aye, that’ll do fine,” said Pete. He stretched and yawned. “I’m dead tired. Let’s get some sleep.” He gave the trussed Hamish a vicious kick in the ribs.
Then both brothers went up the stairs, switching off the light and leaving Hamish Macbeth lying on the floor, helpless in the darkness.
It was dawn before police and detectives began to spread out over the moors outside the Smileys’ croft.
Blair roused from his bed was in a foul mood. “Close in,” he said. “That girlfriend o’ Macbeth’s said it was that shed he was interested in.”
Inside the croft house, a dog began to bark furiously. “That’s it!” shouted Blair. “Go for it! Fast!”
Men smashed in the door of the shed, just as the Smileys erupted from their house. “What the hell’s going on here?” shouted Stourie.
Blair went up to him. “We believe you are holding a policeman.” And let’s hope these weird-looking buggers have killed him, thought Blair suddenly. A life without Hamish Macbeth. Bloody marvellous.
“Whit policeman?” asked Stourie.
“Call off your dogs,” shouted Blair as two dogs snapped at his ankles.
“Down boys,” growled Stourie. “You’re going to have to pay for the damage to that lock.”
Blair grunted by way of reply and walked into the shed and looked around. “Nothing here,” said Jimmy.
“Ach, I should have known it,” said Blair, his voice heavy with disgust. “Hamish and his hysterical women. And do you know the price o’ this operation? We’ll search the house anyway. Come on then. Nothing here.”
Downstairs, Hamish heard him. In desperation he twisted and wriggled across the floor and kicked out savagely with his bound feet at a row of bottles.
“What was that?” said Jimmy Anderson at the doorway of the shed.
“I heard nothing,” said Stourie.
Silence again.
“Come on!” snapped Blair.
Crash!
“Jesus, it’s coining from under the floor. There’s a basement.”
“There is not.” A film of sweat covered Stourie’s face despite the cold of the dawn.
“Search all over the floor,” howled Blair. He had been so anxious to prove that Hamish Macbeth’s girlfriend had instigated a useless and expensive search that he had called off the search too soon.
“Over here,” called a policeman, scraping aside the straw over the trapdoor.
Blair lumbered over. “Unlock it,” he said over his shoulder to Stourie.
“I dinnae hae a key,” howled Stourie.
Blair nodded to a policeman who came forward with a sledgehammer and brought it down on the lock and smashed it.
The trapdoor was thrown back. Blair went down. Behind him Jimmy Anderson had found the light switch.
Blair looked at the bound and gagged figure of Hamish Macbeth.
He stooped over him and savagely ripped the gag from his mouth. “You’re in deep shit, man,” he said. “You’re going to have to explain why you decided to do this on your own and why you withheld information.”
¦
It was a long, long day for Hamish Macbeth. He had to type out reports to explain why he had decided to investigate on his own. He learned that The Scotsman Hotel had been raided and all the bottles removed from the bar. Macbean had been arrested and charged with supplying illegal liquor to his customers and had been bailed to appear at the sheriff’s court in Strathbane in a month’s time.
Blair tried to make as much trouble for Hamish as possible, but Superintendent Peter Daviot had said with irritating mildness that they would probably have never got on to it were it not for Hamish’s unorthodox investigations. Hamish had not broken into the property. The door of the shed had been unlocked.
So Hamish was finally free to go. Blair’s parting shot was that there was no police car available to take Hamish to Lochdubh and so he could walk. The last buses had gone by the time Hamish left police headquarters. He stood miserably out on the Lochdubh road, trying to hitch a lift. But cars which might have stopped for a policeman in uniform were not going to stop for a tired, unshaven man in black sweater and trousers.
Then just when he had given up hope of ever getting back to Lochdubh that night, the Currie sisters drew up beside him in their battered little Renault.
“You were on the six o’clock news,” said Nessie as she drove off.
“It’s getting like Chicago – Chicago,” put in the repetitive Jessie.
Hamish dozed in the back seat until they drew up outside the police station. He blinked awake. “Someone’s there,” he said. “The lights are burning.”
“It’ll be that girlfriend of yours,” sniffed Nessie.
Hamish walked into the police station. Sarah was sitting at the kitchen table.
“How did you get in?”
“I found the key under the doormat,” said Sarah. “I’m glad you’re safe. I heard about it on the news.”
“I’ll just see to the hens and sheep.”
“The sheep have had their winter feed and the hens are locked up for the night,” said Sarah. She added, seeing the look of surprise on his face, “My father is a farmer in Shropshire.”
“I know little about you.” Hamish sat down wearily at the table. “I gather it was you who called police headquarters. They planned to drop me in a peat bog. They were running a big operation. The police have been raiding hotels and bars all over the place. The owners of The Drouthy Crofter in Braikie have been charged along with a lot of others.”
“Well, now you’re home safe, I’ll be off,” said Sarah.
“Won’t you stay a bit?”
“No, you look exhausted. There’s a casserole for you in the oven.”
She stood up. He went to kiss her but she brushed past him, her head ducked.
“Sarah!” he called. But the closing of his kitchen door was the only answer he got.
¦
The next day was as cold as iron. The birds were silent. Hoar frost glittered on the grass and on the branches of trees. Ice glittered in puddles. Outside the police station, the loch lay flat like glass.
It seemed a cold, friendless world where romance had died.
Hamish decided he’d had enough. His ribs hurt where he had been kicked and there was a sore red patch about his mouth from the gag. It was up to Strathbane with all their forensic resources, computers and reports to solve this case. He had been neglecting his domestic duties about the croft. He cleaned the police station thoroughly and then went out and fed his sheep. Towser’s grave lay on the hill above the police station, a sad and
