“But he’s got boobs!”
“Silicone injections, Hamish. The marvels of modern science.”
“Tcha.” He switched it off.
“Don’t worry, Hamish. The moral revolution’s coming. Reaction will set in and even mild womanizers like yourself will be regarded as evil beasts.”
“I am not the womanizer,” said Hamish. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Along the corridor and on your left. Have a bath while you’re at it. I left one of Daddy’s clean shirts on the chair in there for you.”
“He’ll kill you!”
“I really don’t take any notice of his rages any more,” said Priscilla. “If someone’s always raging about something or another, one ceases to listen.”
Hamish bathed and shaved and felt considerably better. He said goodbye to Priscilla and drove to the manse and collected Mrs Wellington despite protests from the minister. Instead of going to the police station, he drove up on the moors and parked off the road on a heathery track.
“Willie’s at the station,” he said, “and I’m still trying to protect you, but I don’t know how long I can go on doing it. I want the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Now, you were at the bus on the night of the murder. When exactly?”
“Nine o’clock,” she said in a dull voice.
“Why did you go?”
“I pleaded with him to give me that video. He asked for a thousand pounds. I began to cry. I begged him. I said I could not possibly get that amount of money and he…he laughed at me. I was only there for a few minutes. I realized it was hopeless, so I left. My husband grabbed me outside. He demanded to know what I had been saying, why I had been there, but I could not tell him. Then he returned to the manse later and said Sean had told him I was worried about losing my faith. For one wild moment I felt hope. Sean had not betrayed me. Perhaps he would relent. And then I realized that of course he would not tell my husband the truth while there was still hope of getting money out of me for his silence.”
“And you went back out again? Where? Back to the bus?”
Mrs Wellington hung her head. “I couldn’t go back. There were men there.”
“Men!” Hamish howled in exasperation. “What men?”
“Mr Ferrari from the restaurant and two others.”
“Good God, woman,” raged Hamish, “why did you not tell me this before?”
She raised her head and glared at him with something of her old manner and said distinctly, “Because if they killed him, I was not going to betray them for doing a service for mankind!”
Hamish forced himself to be calm with an effort. “So where did you go?”
“Down on the beach. I walked for a long time, a very long time. I thought of walking into the water and putting an end to the misery, but I could not even find the courage to do that.”
“Look,” said Hamish urgently, “Mr Wellington’s a Christian minister of the church. It is his duty to forgive. Why don’t you tell him?”
“No man is a Christian when it comes to his own wife,” she said. “I can’t.”
“You may have to,” warned Hamish. “I’d best see Mr Ferrari…and you had better start saying your prayers again.”
¦
Half an hour later, Hamish was sitting opposite Mr Ferrari in the flat above the restaurant. It always amazed him that a man who looked so Italian could have such a strong Scottish accent.
“Well, Mr Ferrari,” began Hamish, “I have it on good authority that yourself and two men were up at that bus on the night of the murder.” Mr Ferrari went as still as a lizard on a rock when a shadow crosses it. His old unblinking eyes surveyed Hamish from among the network of brown wrinkles on his face. “I guess the other two men were Luigi and Giovanni,” said Hamish.
“That is so,” said Mr Ferrari. He took a small black cheroot out of a box on a table next to him and lit it carefully.
“Why did you not tell me?” demanded Hamish.
“Because none of us committed murder, therefore the purpose of our visit was irrelevant,” said Mr Ferrari, blowing a perfect smoke ring in Hamish’s direction.
“Anything that happened on the night of the murder is relevant,” said Hamish. “Either tell me here or come to the station with me and make a statement.”
There was a long silence. Then Mr Ferrari said, “I have come to love this village. I am part of it. I am involved in the welfare of Lochdubh. Sean Gourlay in the eyes of the villagers had outstayed his welcome. It was evident to all that he was the reason for Mrs Wellington’s distress, although no one knew why. I took it upon myself to tell him to move on.”
“With threats?”
“Dinnae be daft,” he said, his accent broadening. “I told him if he stayed on I would see to it that the shops did not serve him.”
“And what did he say to that?”
“He said he would move.”
Hamish leaned back in his chair and momentarily closed his eyes. He was in no doubt that Mr Ferrari had threatened Sean with physical violence. Perhaps he had carried out that threat.
“I will type up a statement,” said Hamish, “and get you to sign it. I will also have to take statements from Luigi and Giovanni.”
Mr Ferrari carefully stubbed out his cheroot. He looked thoughtfully at Hamish from under heavy-lidded eyes. “I am not pleased that you are pursuing inquiries into the death of a piece of shit,” he said evenly. “I am not pleased with you at all, Sergeant.”
“Listen to me, Mr Ferrari,” said Hamish, standing up, “this is not Italy. There are no headmen in this village, and I for one will not tolerate anyone who tries to achieve his ends with threats. You are not pleased with me! Just who the hell do you think you are?”
Hamish stalked back to the station and typed up the statement. He took it back and waited until Mr Ferrari signed it and then took statements from Luigi and Giovanni.
At five o’clock, Luigi and Giovanni called at the police station. With many smiles and deprecatory waves of the hands they said they had come to collect Mr Ferrari’s television set, which had been ‘on loan’.
“You must hae done something to make them mad,” said Willie after they had left, carrying the set between them. “Och, jist when I thought I might have a chance wi’ Lucia.”
“You’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell,” said Hamish with true Highland malice. “The only thing that’s likely to marry you, Willie Lament, is a vacuum cleaner.”
“Fat lot you know,
Hamish slumped down in his favourite armchair, tossed his cap on the floor and stretched out his long legs. He thought of the Curries, of Angela Brodie, of Mrs Wellington and groaned. “Damn all women,” he said and closed his eyes and fell fast asleep.
He plunged straight into a dream in which he had just got married to Priscilla and they were on their honeymoon. They were in a hotel bedroom and Priscilla was undressing and he was staring in horror at her flat, muscled, hairy chest. “What’s the matter, Hamish?” laughed Priscilla. “Didn’t you know I was a man?”
He woke up sweating and stared sightlessly across the room, his heart pounding. What a nightmare! It must have been because of the awful day and because of that transvestite he had seen on television.
And then he sat up straight. When he had woken Cheryl yesterday morning, she had been groggy with sleep and she had been wearing a dirty old night-gown. How could she have fled from him on a scooter one minute and been in bed the next? The route the figure on the scooter had taken through the trees had been away from the direction of the campsite.
He dived through to the office and phoned Strathbane and asked to speak to Jimmy Anderson. “Whit now?” demanded Jimmy.
“Look,” said Hamish, “this may be a daft question, but among the so-called pop singers in Strathbane, is
