“Fifteen years ago.”
“So you wouldn’t have been that young.”
“Do you usually shell out compliments like that?”
“Sorry. Tell me more about Dingwall.”
“You know Dingwall. I can’t tell you much more. The police there are very good.”
“Have much to do with them?”
She laughed. “You’re beginning to suspect I have a murky past. No, it was nothing like that. Some nasty person sent me a blackmailing letter.”
Hamish sat up straight. “What about?”
“I was to leave two hundred pounds in ten-pound notes in a bag on a bench at Dingwall railway station at midnight, or the blackmailer would tell everyone that I had been married to a murderer. So I went straight to the police. They got a bag and stuffed it with paper and told me to leave it on the bench as instructed. They kept watch but no one turned up. I didn’t hear any more, but it soured Dingwall for me, so I got the job in Edinburgh.”
“Did you have an accountant in Dingwall?”
“What an odd question! No, I had no need of an accountant. I did my taxes myself. Still do.”
Hamish wanted to tell her that Fergus had worked as an accountant in Dingwall, but she would ask if he had continued as a blackmailer, if Fergus had been the one trying to blackmail her in Dingwall, and Hamish did not want to say anything that might betray anyone in Lochdubh.
But he did not believe in coincidences. Here was a schoolteacher who had once worked in Dingwall, who had been blackmailed. And she had moved to Lochdubh.
“Why?” he asked abruptly. “Why Lochdubh?”
“I was working in a large comprehensive in Edinburgh. I could have got a job in a private school with smaller classes, but I was still idealistic, thought I could bring my educational skills to those who were not so fortunate in their upbringing.” She sighed. “It was a nightmare. The pupils were rowdy and noisy. Big loutish boys and girls who had so many parts of their body pierced, they were like walking pin cushions. I stuck it out for quite a while. I didn’t make many friends because most of the teachers moved away quite quickly and found work elsewhere, or, after their brutal experiences, left teaching altogether. I became weary. I wanted a quiet life until my retirement. I saw the job was going here and applied for it and got it.”
Hamish thought hard. He wondered if they had dug into Fergus’s past properly. He would suggest to Jimmy that a trip to Dingwall might be a good idea.
“That was a lovely meal,” said Moira. “Next time it’s on me.”
“That would be grand,” said Hamish, calling for the bill. “Look, you might hear or notice something which might relate to the murder. If you hear anything that might be relevant, please let me know.”
¦
With Jimmy’s permission, Hamish drove off the following morning to Dingwall with Lugs beside him. The wind had shifted around to the east and it was a bright, cold day.
Dingwall is blessed with convenient car parks at the back of the main street. Hamish drove into one of them, told Lugs to wait, and climbed down from the Land Rover and walked through one of the narrow lanes which led from the car park to the main street.
It is a busy, Highland town with a good variety of small shops, mostly Victorian, grey granite; prosperous, decent and friendly.
Hamish stopped in the main street and took out a piece of paper on which he had noted the name of the firm for which Fergus had once worked: Leek & Baxter, chartered accountants.
The office proved to be above a bakery. He walked up the shallow stone stairs, redolent with the smell of hot bread and sugary buns, and opened a frosted-glass door on the first landing, which bore the legend LEEK & BAXTER in faded gold letters.
Inside, at a desk, an elderly lady was hammering away at an old Remington typewriter. She looked up as Hamish entered, sighed, and then stood up, saying, “I suppose you want tea.”
“Actually, I came to see one of the partners.”
“Mr. Leek is busy and Mr. Baxter is out. Mr. Leek will be free in ten minutes so you’d better have tea.”
“Thank you.” Hamish sat down on a leather-covered chair. She walked to a kettle in the corner and plugged it in. He watched, amused, as she carefully prepared tea – tea leaves, not bags – and then arranged a small pot, milk jug, sugar bowl and plate with two Fig Newtons on a tray and carried the lot over to him and placed the tray on a low table in front of him.
“Thank you,” said Hamish again.
Her sad old face looked even sadder as she resumed her seat behind the typewriter. “I missed out,” she said.
“On what?”
“On women’s lib, that’s what. You won’t get the young things these days to make tea.”
“Then you shouldnae do it if you don’t want to,” Hamish pointed out.
“I can’t stop. I’m the generation that makes tea for men.” She sighed again. Then she said, “What brings you?”
“Fergus Macleod. Did you know him?”
“Yes, I was here in his day.”
“And what did you make of him?”
“I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“Try.”
“He was a wee scunner and that’s a fact. Always complaining and bullying. I got my own back, though.”
“How?”
“He had terrible hangovers, see, and when he had one, I’d wait till he got level with my desk and drop something noisy and make him jump and clutch his head.”
“Why did he get fired? He did get fired, didn’t he?”
“It was the drink. He was getting worse, and some days he wouldn’t even turn up.”
“Not fiddling the books, was he?”
Her face took on a closed look. “I wouldn’t be knowing about that,” she said. “If you don’t mind, I’ll get back to my typing.”
“Why don’t you have a computer?”
“I asked them, but they said no, that if they got me a computer they would need to send me on a course, and they couldn’t afford to let me have the time off.”
She started to bang away at the keys again. Hamish drank tea and ate biscuits. The door to an inner office opened, and a man came out. He nodded to the secretary, looked curiously at Hamish, and then made his way out. The secretary rose and went into the inner office and closed the door behind her. Hamish could hear the murmur of voices. Outside, somewhere at the back of the building, children were playing, their voices shrill and excited. The fruit crop was late this year, so the children were being allowed extra holidays to help with the picking.
The secretary emerged. “You’re to go in,” she said.
Mr. Leek was as old as his secretary, small and stooped with grey hair and gold-rimmed glasses. “Sit down,” he said. “I do not know what more I can tell you than I told that detective from Strathbane.”
“I am just trying to build up a picture of Fergus Macleod,” said Hamish patiently.
“He was good enough when we took him on, or rather, he seemed good enough. Then he began to get a reputation as a drunk and then there were too many absences from work, and we had to let him go.”
“That doesn’t give me much of a picture of the man. What, for example, did he say when you told him he was fired?”
“Nothing, at that time. He just went.”
“But later?” prompted Hamish.
“He came back a week later, very drunk, and started cursing and threatening and throwing things about the office. I called the police, and he was taken away. But we did not press charges.”
“Was there anything else?”
“Like what?”
“Like fiddling the books?”
