money was taken.
The police station was pleasantly warm and Willie’s coffee was good. “I’d best jist sit here by the phone,” said Blair, “while you two go off and take statements. I want to know anyone who saw hide or hair of Cheryl Higgins or anyone who heard the sound of that scooter you were talking about during the night.”
Hamish and Willie agreed to divide the village between them, Willie eagerly volunteering for the part which contained the Italian restaurant.
Despite the rain, little groups of people were standing about, peering anxiously up the hill towards the field at the back of the manse.
All day long, Hamish questioned and questioned, but no one had seen Sean after he had left the church and no one had seen Cheryl. Mrs Wellington had given the police a photograph of Cheryl which she had taken shortly after the couple had first arrived. It was shown on the six o’clock news. By seven o’clock, Cheryl Higgins had walked into the police station at Strathbane, and Blair, hearing about it, had driven back to headquarters. By nine o’clock, Detective Jimmy Anderson phoned Hamish.
“Bad news,” he said. “Cheryl Higgins has a cast-iron alibi.”
“She can’t have,” exclaimed Hamish.
“Aye, but she has. She’s been staying with a bunch of travellers in a field outside Strathbane and she’s been playing the guitar in a group called Johnny Rankin and the Stotters – she being one o’ the Stotters. The pathologist is checking the contents of Sean’s stomach and he says the man was killed at a rough guess between ten in the evening and midnight. Cheryl was playing in Mullen’s Roadhouse, you know, about two miles outside the town, from nine till one in the morning. Then she went on frae there to a party in Strathbane. Witnesses all along the way.”
“But how reliable are the witnesses?” asked Hamish. “Stotter means glue-sniffer, doesn’t it? Is that how the group got its name?”
“Probably. Most o’ them were away wi’ the fairies when we tried to talk to them, but there was the audience, about forty decent, or fairly decent, witnesses. She could ha’ slipped away from the party, for I don’t know if any of that lot knew whether they were coming or going, but the point is the time of the murder and during that time she was performing in front of about forty people at the Roadhouse.”
“I’m surprised any band is allowed to play on the Sabbath in Strathbane,” observed Hamish.
“It’s outside the town, so nobody bothers.”
“So where’s this field she’s living on?”
“On the Dalquhart Road out on the north side, about five miles out on the left. Belongs to Lord Dunkle, him what had the pop festivals back in the sixties. Still thinks he’s a swinger, silly auld scunner that he is. She’s living in a caravan with a couple called Wayne and Bunty Stoddart, old friends from Glasgow. She disnae look at all like the picture the minister’s wife gave us, but it’s her, all right. She’s dyed her hair orange since the photo was taken. In Cheryl’s humble opinion some bampot in Lochdubh upped wi’ the sledgehammer and give him fifty whacks, and good riddance to bad rubbish, she says.”
“Did she suggest anyone?”
Anderson chuckled. “Aye, she did that.”
“Who?”
“Sergeant Hamish Macbeth.”
“Silly bitch.”
“I’m telling you, that pleased Blair no end.”
Hamish sighed. “So I suppose Blair’ll be back tomorrow?”
“No, it’ll be me and Harry MacNab. There’s been a big robbery at the home of one of the super’s friends, so Blair’s jumped at that. He disnae care about the death o’ a layabout. No press coverage in it for him.”
“There’s been a fair amount of press about today,” said Hamish.
“Aye, but they willnae be there tomorrow. Nobody in that village of yours had a good word to say for Sean Gourlay. If they had all said something nice, then the press could have run a ‘much-loved’ type o’ bit. Even the
“Any relative to claim the body?”
“Got a mother in London, respectable body by all accounts. Coming up tomorrow to see the procurator fiscal.”
“I’m surprised the villagers turned out to be so down on Sean. All I got when the couple first arrived was about the romance of the road and leave the poor souls alone.”
“Believe me, the romance wore off, or maybe it’s now that he’s murdered and his past has come out, none of them want to confess to having had a liking for him. But you see what this means, Hamish?”
“I don’t want to.”
“I can see that. It means that mair than likely someone in Lochdubh did it.”
Hamish groaned.
“Cheer up,” said Anderson. “You might find an itinerant maniac, if you’re lucky.”
Hamish said goodbye and replaced the receiver. He pulled forward a sheet of paper. He would need to start with any villagers who had been on friendly terms with Sean. Top of the list were Mr and Mrs Wellington. Then Angela Brodie had been seen visiting the bus. Then came Nessie and Jessie Currie.
He sat back and looked dismally at the short list. He would need to detach his mind from the sore fact that these people were friends. So what had he?
Mr Wellington: lost his faith after a discussion with Sean and started preaching old sermons.
Mrs Wellington: nervous and agitated and not at all anything like her old, confident, bossy self.
Angela Brodie: acting strangely and buying expensive clothes.
Nessie and Jessie Currie: house up for sale, tetchy and miserable.
Well, forget about the murder, he would have to try to find out what Sean had done to these people. In the meantime, Willie could forgo his visits to the Napoli and keep questioning and asking in case anyone had seen a stranger that day.
? Death of a Travelling Man ?
6
—Shakespeare
Despite Blair’s lack of interest, the police were doing a thorough job. The forensic team came back to go over the bus again, inch by inch. The sledgehammer was identified as belonging to the manse, but the bus was also full of items which Sean had borrowed from the Wellingtons. Mr Wellington said the sledgehammer was normally lodged in a shed at the end of his garden. He was not aware that Sean had borrowed it at any time. Hamish had had high hopes for that hidey-hole under the bus, but it turned out to be full of the same bits of rubbish as before. In a neutral voice, he told Harry MacNab and Jimmy Anderson of the women who had been friendly with Sean, relieved in a way that the detectives would be questioning them and not himself. Never before had he been so reluctant to investigate any case. Still, he could not resist asking them at the end of the day how they had got on.
“They’re all white and shaken,” said Anderson, “but that could be because of the shock. I mean, you’ve known all these women for some time now, Hamish, and you can hardly say that any one of them have shown criminal tendencies.”
“Forget about the women; what about the minister?”
“Nice old boy, but odd, really odd. He said something about the hammer of God.”
“He was probably quoting Chesterton,” said Hamish, who had read the Father Brown stories.
“Whoever he was quoting, he seemed smug. He said he’d called on the Lord for help and the Lord had helped, that sort of thing. Was he always that daft?”
“Not that I ever guessed,” said Hamish bleakly. “Did you tell the Currie sisters they would have to stay in the
