Hamish sat down suddenly. “I’m happy for you, Clarry, but you’re going to need to keep quiet about this.”
“Why? I want to tell the world.”
“You’ll be telling no one until this case is closed. Blair gets wind o’ this, and you’ll be suspect number one again. Get round there and tell Martha and the kids to be quiet about it.” The phone rang in the police office. “I’ll get that,” said Hamish. “Off you go now!”
Hamish ran into the office and picked up the phone. At first he could not make out anything but a screaming babble coming over from the other end. Then he made out a woman’s voice shouting, “It wass the dog. You brought the evil.”
“Kirsty!” he said with a stab of alarm. “What’s happened?”
“He’s dead!” she screamed.
“What happened?”
Her voice sank to a whimper. “Blood. Blood everywhere.”
“I’ll be right there.” Hamish slammed down the phone and fled out to the Land Rover.
His heart was beating hard. If this turned out to be another murder, he would need to hand those letters over. He phoned to Strathbane from the Land Rover and reported a suspected murder, hoping all the time that it would turn out to be an accident.
The Land Rover bumped over the heathery track leading to Angus Ettrik’s croft. He parked outside the cottage. The door was open. He went inside. Kirsty Ettrik was sitting on the kitchen floor, cradling her husband’s bloody head in her hands and keening.
“Get away from him, Kirsty,” ordered Hamish, “and let me have a look.”
He knelt down on the floor and felt for Augus’s pulse. No life. No life at all.
He pulled out his mobile and called Strathbane again and reported a murder. He called for an ambulance, and then called Dr. Brodie and told him to come quickly. Then he took Kirsty by the shoulders and lifted her up onto a chair.
“When did you find him?” he asked.
Between sobs, she choked out that she had gone into the village to do some shopping and had returned and found him lying on the kitchen floor.
Dr. Brodie was the first to arrive. He examined Angus and then shook his head. “A murderous blow,” he said.
“Do something about Kirsty then,” said Hamish. “She’s falling apart with shock.”
While the doctor attended to Kirsty, Hamish had a look around the flagged kitchen. A bottle of whisky was open on the table with two clean glasses standing behind it. Angus had been expecting someone. Highland hospitality decreed that the whisky bottle was always left open when a guest was expected.
Kirsty had just swallowed two pills. Hamish went over and crouched down beside her. He said gently, “Kirsty. Angus was expecting someone. Who was it?”
“He didn’t tell me,” she said in a trembling voice. “He was excited. He said to take myself off and not hurry back. He said our troubles were over.” And she fell to weeping again.
“Leave her,” said Dr. Brodie quietly. “She’s too distressed.”
The ambulance arrived. Hamish went out and told the ambulance men they’d have to wait until the police and forensic team arrived. His heart was heavy, but deep inside he still had this stubborn loyalty to the people the horrible Fergus had been blackmailing.
The wail of sirens sounded in the distance. Hamish hoped that Blair was off work, but as the first car swept up, he saw that familiar heavyset figure in the backseat.
¦
It was a long night. If whomever Angus had been expecting had arrived by car, it was difficult to tell, for the heathery rough track leading to the croft had not retained any tyre marks. Dr. Brodie said firmly that Kirsty was too deeply in shock to be interviewed further that night and had her taken off to hospital in Strathbane. Blair, furious, tried to protest, but Dr. Brodie’s decision was backed by the police pathologist.
Jimmy Anderson took Hamish aside. “I dialled 1-4-7-1 on the phone to see if he had any calls, and he had the one, from a call box, the same call box which was used when Fergus got his call. What’s going on? Were they friends?”
“He said he had no quarrel with Fergus,” said Hamish. “This is bad.”
“Aye, they’re out combing the countryside, waking up people and asking if they saw a strange car, or any car, heading in this direction. Where’s your sidekick?”
“I left him to man the phone at the police station,” lied Hamish, who realised with horror that he had completely forgotten about Clarry. “We can’t get much further, it seems to me, until the wife recovers enough to speak to us.”
“Did you find anything over at Dingwall?”
Hamish realised in that moment that he would need to let something out. He hoped Annie Robinson would forgive him.
“Blackmail!” exclaimed Jimmy. “Man, now there’s something. Say Fergus was murdered for blackmailing someone, and Angus knew who it was, and took over where Fergus left off, it stands to reason we’re looking for the same murderer.”
“Aye, it looks like that.”
“So,” said Jimmy, his foxy face alight, “he could have maybe – Fergus, I mean – have been blackmailing more than one. And how would he have found out anything, hey? By raking through the garbage to see if folks had got everything into the right containers. Better tell Blair.”
Hamish waited for the inevitable. He was standing outside the cottage when Blair barrelled truculently up to him. “What’s this about that woman over in Invergordon?” he snarled. “Where’s your report?”
“I had just got back and wass going to type it up,” said Hamish, “when I got the call from Kirsty.”
“You get back down there and start typing. I want all of it. We’ll pull her in for questioning.”
Hamish drove off. His heart was heavy. Just because he had not liked Annie Robinson, just because she did not live in Lochdubh, he had turned her over to the police.
Clarry was just returning to the police station when Hamish drove up. “Get yourself up to Angus Ettrik’s,” said Hamish. “He’s been murdered. See if they need you.”
Clarry hurried to his old car, which he kept parked out on the road. Hamish went into the police office, switched on the computer and began to type while the pale dawn rose outside the window. When he had finished, he sent over his report and decided to get some sleep. He washed and changed into civilian clothes and decided to sleep with them on in case he was roused by Blair. Blair would no doubt howl at him for not being in uniform, but he did not want to sleep in all that scratchy serge. With Lugs curled against his side, he fell into a deep sleep, only struggling awake at ten in the morning as he heard a knock at the kitchen door.
The banker’s wife, Mrs. McClellan, stood there. “Come in,” said Hamish. “I was just about to make some coffee. Like some?”
“No, I won’t be long. I remembered one little thing.”
“What’s that?” asked Hamish, plugging in the kettle. He felt he needed a cup of strong coffee to help him wake up properly.
“The last time Fergus Macleod called to see me, he was quite genial – I mean, he wasn’t his usual sneering self. He was bragging how he would soon be getting out of Lochdubh to start a new life. That’s it, I’m afraid.”
“Nothing more?”
“No, but it occurred to me that what he might get out of me was hardly enough to enable him to start a new life somewhere else. And it almost seemed as if he had lost interest in what I could give him. I mean, maybe he’d found someone rich.”
“I’d best ask around again,” said Hamish. “Have you heard? Angus Ettrik has been murdered.”
“The crofter?”
“Himself.”
“That’s terrible. What evil’s come to Lochdubh?”
“Whatever it is,” said Hamish grimly, “Fergus Macleod did something to bring it here.”
¦
