into company registers and find maybe hidden companies?”
“Why?”
“I can’t be telling you the noo but if you help me, you’ll be the first to get the news if anything breaks.”
Tam scratched one of his large ears. “I mind there’s a retired businessman up at Craskie in a wee white cottage called Cruachan just on the left as you approach the village. He’s called John McFee.”
“Thanks. I’ll try him.”
Hamish drove off and took the coast road to Craskie. He spotted the cottage easily. An elderly gentleman with white hair was working in his front garden.
“Mr. McFee,” called Hamish.
“Aye, that’s me.”
He straightened up from weeding, groaned, and clutched his back. “Age is a terrible thing, laddie. How can I help you? I can’t be frightened at the sight of a policeman because there’s simply no one left in my life I care about.”
Will I be like this some day? wondered Hamish. Will there be anyone in my life to care for me?
He stood with one foot raised and his mouth slightly open.
“Don’t stand there, looking glaikit,” said John. “Come ben the house. The midges out here are eating me alive.”
Hamish followed him in to a book-lined living room. There was a peat fire on the hearth and several good pieces of furniture. “Sit at the table at the window,” ordered John, “and I’ll get us some coffee. I don’t like these coffee tables. Can’t stand bending over to drink coffee. Listen to that. The wind’s rising. I hope it blows those damn midges out to sea. Do midges have a natural predator?”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish. “I’ve never really thought about it.”
“I’ll get the coffee.”
Hamish took off his hat and put it on the floor at his feet. The cottage was on a slight rise and afforded a good view of the sea. A patch of blue sky was forming to the west, and seagulls wheeled and dived over the rising waves.
His eyes began to droop and he fell suddenly asleep, waking only when John put a tray of coffee and biscuits on the table.
“Sorry,” said Hamish. “A bad night.”
“So what brings you?” asked John, pouring coffee. There was no evidence of central heating, and the fire gave out little heat. He was wearing two sweaters and thick trousers.
“I need your expertise,” said Hamish. “You’ll have heard about the murders.”
“Yes, bad business.”
“I want to tell you what I know about four men and then hope you can somehow find out which companies they own, particularly if one of them has an umbrella company that covers the fact that he owns a restaurant in Guildford called Timothy’s.”
“Won’t your headquarters have experts?”
“Not that I know of. There’s another thing. The four men sent lawyers’ letters to the captain, but the demands for repayment did not involve a great deal of money. To have killed Captain Davenport in such a vicious rage leads me to believe that he scammed a great deal of money for some venture out of all of them. If you agree, I will arrange some form of payment for you from Strathbane.”
John sighed. “I’m so bored these days, I would do it for nothing.”
“I want you to be very careful,” warned Hamish. “Don’t get close to any of these men or their business. One of them, I am sure, is a murderer.”
Back at the police station, Hamish waited and waited to hear from Jimmy. “I’m coming right over,” said the detective. “Blair’s furious. He wanted it to be one of the villagers. He says the letter is just mad spite but Daviot has sent it off to Guildford. See you soon.”
Jimmy arrived just as the wind had risen to a full gale. “How you can live here beats me,” he complained. “Why is it so cold? It’s summer.”
“Global cooling,” said Hamish. “What have you got?”
“First of all, something bad. Stefan Loncar was booked on the noon plane to Zagreb but didn’t turn up. They searched his flat. He had packed up but there was no sign of him.”
“Someone must have spied me talking to him,” said Hamish.
“Maybe. The four suspects have been brought in for questioning. They lawyered up immediately. It’s English law, see? They don’t need to wait until we allow them lawyers.”
“What about the masks? And what fancy dress party were they going to?”
“They now say there wasn’t any party. They’d been watching the Iraq inquiry and they had these Tony Blair masks and thought it would be a bit of a hoot to wear them. They are all members of the Rotary Club and the Freemasons and you name it. Guildford said they had to let them go.”
Hamish told him about his visit to John McFee.
“Now, there’s a thing,” said Jimmy. “I wanted to hire an expert but Blair blocked it. Says we haven’t the funds.”
“Well, if McFee comes up with anything, you’d better get your chequebook out,” said Hamish. “I not only want to find out how much Davenport tricked them out of, I want to know if they have any connection to Scotland, Edinburgh in particular. Oh, and did they question Timothy again?”
“Yes, he swears blind the four men are regular customers and salt of the earth. His real name is Andreas Gristedes. Greek by birth. How soon can your expert come up with anything?”
Hamish groaned. “Probably a month or so. It isn’t the telly where some geek flicks through a computer and says, ‘Aha!’ Why haven’t you asked for whisky?”
“Drying out.”
“About time.”
“So we have to wait.”
Chapter Eight
—Oscar Wilde
Hamish called on John McFee the next day, anxious for some sort of a result.
“It’s difficult,” said John. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got something. You see, you can hide names of any partners. It depends on what kinds of partners you have. For example, you can have active partner, ostensible partner, silent partner, secret partner, dominant partner, and limited partner. You can also pay to have the names of the partners in the company hidden.
“Then if it’s that secretive, say for hiding companies or laundering money, you could set everything up in Greek Cyprus or Ukraine. I’ll let you know as soon as I get anything.”
When he left John, Hamish stopped on the road back to Lochdubh and called Jimmy. “My expert’s proving slow,” he complained. “Surely you’ve got your own man on it.”
“Fact is, the whole business has gone on the back burner,” said Jimmy. “We’ve got illegal cigarette smugglers and drug smugglers and God knows what other mayhem. The press have forgotten about your case, so the pressure’s off.”
When he had rung off, Hamish sat scowling. He got down from the Land Rover and let the dog and cat out. “Go and play on the beach,” he said. He phoned Elspeth in Glasgow.
“I’m in my dressing room,” said Elspeth. “I’ve only got a few minutes.”
“It’s like this,” said Hamish. “Strathbane have dropped investigating the captain’s death because the press pressure is off. Can you get it on again?”
“I’ll try. Got to go.”
When Hamish returned to Lochdubh, it was to find Angela Brodie pacing up and down outside the police
