drop you in a peat bog? Do that to a copper and you’ll murder anyone.”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish. “There’s something about that mad couple that belongs to the Highlands long gone. I don’t think mentally that they’d got as far as the nineteenth century let alone the twentieth.”
Jimmy laughed. “They had all the twentieth-century equipment to make the hooch.”
“Aye, but to them that was a Highlander’s legitimate livelihood and a nosy policeman in their minds is the same as a visit from the redcoats in the eighteenth century. Into the bog with them.”
“Sounds daft to me. Anyway, now Kylie’s got her hotshot lawyer, Blair’ll need to treat her with kid gloves. Ach, I’m sick o’ the whole thing. The super says to Blair, “Are you sure Hamish hasn’t come up with something? He usually does,” and Blair oiled and crept and said, “Yes sir, I’ll ask him,” and then went down to the detectives room and took his temper out on all of us.”
“Another drink?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, that would be grand.”
As Hamish stood at the bar ordering the drinks, he noticed the pub was beginning to fill up. Perhaps he, Hamish Macbeth, had too free and easy an approach to law and order. He should have arrested Kylie for trying to entrap him in a rape scene, he should have arrested the seer for buying illegal whisky, or more likely, accepting it from the Smileys, he should have never gone to the Smileys’ on his own that night. He felt he was the muddled, bumbling Highland idiot that Blair often claimed he was.
He took the drinks back to the table, aware of the hostility towards himself and Jimmy emanating from the other customers.
“Look at this lot,” sneered Jimmy. “A good day’s work would kill them.”
Hamish kept his own thoughts. He thought that living on the state was a very seductive situation. Why would anyone want to go out to work when they didn’t have to? The jobs in the Highlands, farmworkers, forestry men, ghillies and gamekeepers, were all too physical for a new generation brought up on alcohol and instant food. He envied Jimmy in a way for he often wished he was not able to see the other point of view.
“So to get back to the case,” said Hamish, “I called on that old bat, Harrison, but she wasn’t at home.”
“She’s in the Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. Had a stroke.”
“When?”
“Last night. She was lucky. There was a local passing just as she keeled over in her living room. The curtains were drawn back and he saw her from the road and he had a mobile phone in his car, too. She could have lain there for days.”
“So we come back again to Maggie Bane,” said Hamish. “That’s the trouble with this latest murder and this Kylie business. We’re forgetting that Maggie Bane was the one with the real reason for hating Gilchrist. What if she knew or overheard his plans to go off with the terrible Mrs. Macbean? Then why did she go off for an hour that morning of all mornings? Damn, I think I’ll go back and have a wee word with her.”
“Better you than me,” said Jimmy. “What an ugly voice that lassie has!”
¦
Hamish found Maggie Bane in the middle of packing up her belongings. “What’s happening?” he asked. “Are you leaving?”
“I can’t stay here after all the scandal,” she said in her harsh voice, that voice which sounded so odd coming out from such a beautiful face. “I’m going home to my parents. I’m putting this place up for sale.”
“Do police headquarters know you are leaving?”
“Yes, I told them and left them my new address.”
“You’ve heard about this latest murder?”
“Yes, I heard it on the radio this morning.”
“And what do you make of it?”
She sat down on the floor beside a packing case as if suddenly weary. “It can’t have anything to do with Mr. Gilchrist’s murder.”
“Well, Mr. Sutherland lived above the surgery and he left a message for me that he had found out something about Kylie Fraser.”
Her face hardened. “That little slut!”
“Did you know Mr. Gilchrist tried to lay her?”
“That’s her story. He told me she came on to him and got bitchy when he turned her down.”
“Nothing about promising her a car if she kept her mouth shut?”
“Rubbish.” Maggie’s eyes blazed. “Let me tell you something, and I’ve already told the police this, Kylie Fraser is the biggest liar in the Highlands. She thought she could get any man she wanted and in order to fuel this myth, she made up wild stories.” She stood up and began to lift books into one of the packing cases. Her arms, Hamish noticed, were very strong.
“If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Bane,” said Hamish, “you look verra fit. Take much exercise?”
“I play a lot of squash.”
“Squash?”
“Yes, it’s the only thing I’ll miss about Braikie. There’s a very good squash club. Didn’t you know? Three nights a week. Mr. Dempster, who’s got the biggest house in the town – he owns a factory in Inverness – had a court built onto his house and started the club.”
“When exactly are you leaving?” asked Hamish.
“A week’s time.”
Hamish stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”
“I hope not,” she said acidly. “I never want to see another policeman again.”
Hamish hesitated in the doorway. “What will you do?”
“I got a letter from one of my old tutors this morning. The only person to write me a nice letter, I may add. He suggested I come and see him with a view to finding me a good job. He said a good way to get over a horrible experience like this was to be successful.”
At least I’ve done some good, thought Hamish, by going to see that tutor. Let’s just hope that the only person I’ve been able to help doesn’t turn out to be a murderess.
He went back into Braikie. As he walked up the stairs towards Fred Sutherland’s flat, he met a forensic team coming down the stairs in their white overalls.
“Anything?” he asked hopefully.
The leading man shook his head. “Not a print anywhere apart from the old man’s.”
Hamish was turning away when he noticed a dark stain in the passageway leading to the stairs. “What’s that?” he asked sharply. “Blood?”
The man grinned. “Dream on. We know what that is.”
“And what’s that?”
“Dog piss, Sherlock.”
“Oh.” Hamish stood irresolute. The forensic team looked at him impatiently. He pulled himself together and stood aside to let them past.
He wandered out in the street, pulled off his cap and scratched his fiery hair furiously. There was something there on the edge of his mind. A small boy chasing a ball cannoned into him, regained his balance and shouted, “Whit are ye standing there like a big drip o’ nothing fur?” and then ran on. Now if I gave that horrible little boy a clip round the ear, thought Hamish, I would make headlines in the newspapers next day, be suspended from my job pending a full enquiry. Maybe that was what was up with Kylie and her friends. They had grown up in a world of lax teaching, lax morals, junk food for the body and junk food for the mind. Then there was this wretched business of believing children innocent and precious things. Hamish remembered his own childhood, running with his friends, barbarians all, but kept in check by the disciplines of police, church and school. So today murders by children were becoming distressingly common. Perhaps the bad old days when all children were guilty until proved innocent in the eyes of the adult world had something going for it. He found he was getting cold and brought himself out of his musings.
He suddenly thought of Sarah and had a sharp desire to see her again. There was nothing more he could be expected to do that day and a pleasant evening and – hope upon hope – pleasant night with Sarah was just what he needed.
¦
