He was met in the hall by a stout middle-aged lady who said, “I am Mrs Rogers’s sister, Mrs Aston. Poor Liz has gone to lie down. She can’t cope here. You must be Mr Macbeth. Tea is just about to be served, if you will step into the dining room.”
Wondering, Hamish went in and joined Miss Gunnery. “I had thought of asking you out for dinner tonight,” he said. “But do you think this Mrs Aston is going to be any better?”
“Let’s see,” said Miss Gunnery. “She seems a very civil and polite woman.”
“She seemed to have heard a description of me,” said Hamish. “I could have been any other policeman.”
The door opened and the Bretts came in. They avoided looking at Hamish and sat down at their table in silence. Then Andrew and Doris came in, followed by a tearful Tracey. They, too, avoided looking at Hamish.
Mrs Aston wheeled in a trolley with three-tiered cake stands on it and proceeded to put one on each table. “Goodness, this is more like it,” exclaimed Miss Gunnery. On the bottom plate were wafer-thin slices of bread and butter, white and brown; on the next plate up, teacakes and scones, golden and fresh-baked, and on the top a selection of scrumptious-looking cakes.
“I wonder what the dish is?” said Hamish. “I smell fish and chips, but to tell the truth, I think I’ve had enough fish and chips to last me a lifetime.”
The trolley creaked in again. But it was fish and chips made surely by the hand of an angel: haddock fillets in crisp golden batter and real chips, rather than those frozen ones.
“This is grand!” exclaimed Hamish.
“And really good tea,” said Miss Gunnery. She looked across to where the three small Brett children sat in old–fashioned, well-behaved silence. “There’s a showing of
“I tell you what,” said Hamish directly to the children, “if your parents’ll let you stay up late, I’ll give you a ride in the police Land Rover.”
Heather’s eyes widened. “With the siren on?”
“I don’t think I can manage that,” said Hamish, “but we could flash the blue light.”
“Och, let’s go,” said Tracey. “It’s started tae pour wi’ rain an’ if we sit in this hellish place, we’ll all go daft.”
There was a definite thawing of the air in the dining room. “Might be the very thing,” said Dermott. “But what if they send for any of us to interrogate us again this evening?”
“They didn’t say anything about it,” said Hamish. “Let’s forget our troubles and eat up and just go.”
“You’ll get into trouble with your superiors for fraternizing with the enemy,” said Andrew dryly.
“Maybe Hamish hopes that if he stays close to us, we’ll reveal something useful,” put in Doris in a flat little voice. There was an uneasy silence.
“No, no,” said Hamish. “I need to get my mind off the case as much as the lot of you. Come on. Let’s give the kids a bit o’ fun.”
And so Maggie Donald, arriving just after tea at the boarding-house to see if she could entice Hamish out to dinner, found him lifting the Brett children into the Land Rover. He told her rather curtly where they were going but did not issue any invitation. Maggie stood and watched as the cars drove off, feeling strangely abandoned and yet wondering crossly at the same time why Hamish Macbeth, a policeman, should want to spend the evening with a group of people among whom was probably a murderer.
The film was a great success. Hamish, who hadn’t seen it before, said to Miss Gunnery that it was just about his intellectual level. Hamish drove the Brett children home and on an empty stretch of road switched on the flashing blue light and the police siren.
Miss Gunnery, following behind, driving Tracey, said, “He is a very unusual policeman, our Hamish.”
Tracey shivered. “They’re all pigs.”
“There is nothing to fear from the police if you keep on the right side of the law,” said Miss Gunnery. “Why don’t you break free of company like Cheryl, Tracey, and make a new life for yourself?”
Tracey, instead of protesting, sat in silence. Then she said, “She belongs to ma sort o’ life. My faither’s in prison.”
“There comes a time, Tracey,” said Miss Gunnery, “when you must break free of your family if you have had an unfortunate upbringing, which I believe you have experienced.”
Tracey gave a harsh laugh. “You know, sometimes when Ah’m comin’ back frae the jiggin’ wi’ Cheryl, and we’ve had a few drinks and we’re laughing and screeching, we see the respectable lassies standing at the bus stop, and they draw back a wee bit as we pass and turn their faces away. Cheryl usually gives them a mouthful, but me…” She sighed. “There’s a part o’ me would like fine tae be one o’ them.”
“You should get some skills,” said Miss Gunnery. “Get yourself a decent job. Goodness, there are so many courses available these days. Talk to your social worker about getting a course in word processing and shorthand. Get a good job, get some digs in a good part of town. There’s an awful lot you can do if you just have the courage. And it takes courage, Tracey. It takes a lot of guts, more guts than it ever takes to shoplift or get drunk. Your clothes and make-up, for example, mark you down as a vulgar tart.”
“Watch yer mouth!”
“I am giving you some straight talking. I feel there is strength and goodness in you, Tracey, that has never been tapped. You could put this horrible experience up here to good effect. You could look back on it as a watershed in your life, the day your life changed. No, don’t protest. Think about it.”
Mrs Aston was waiting for them. “Coffee in the lounge,” she announced.
“That woman is a treasure,” said Andrew as they gathered in the lounge minus June and the children, who had gone upstairs. “I bet it isn’t instant coffee either.”
The coffee was excellent. By a sort of silent agreement, no one talked about the murders, but when Hamish finally went to bed, he reminded himself severely that he was a policeman.
¦
The next morning, Tracey was missing at breakfast. Crick, the policeman on duty, told them that Cheryl had been moved to the women’s prison in Dungarton on remand and that Tracey had gone to visit her. Miss Gunnery heaved a sigh and said half to herself, “Why did I even bother trying?”
Tracey had walked into Skag and caught the bus to Dungarton after having picked up a visitor’s pass at the police station. Her hair was brushed down in a simple style and she was not wearing any make-up. She had put on a plain T–shirt, short skirt, and low-heeled shoes.
The prison was a modern one, with bulletproof glass separating visitor from prisoner. There was a small grille to allow speech. “How’s it goin’, hen?” asked Tracey.
“No’ bad,” said Cheryl with a shrug. “You’re lookin’ a bit plain. What hiv you done tae your hair?”
“Nothin’ much,” muttered Tracey.
“Shouldnae let all this get to ye,” said Cheryl, whose hair was gelled into spikes.
“Cheryl,” ventured Tracey, “I’m sick o’ all this. I’m thinking of gettin’ a career.”
Cheryl cackled with derisive laughter. “Go on, you bampot. They cannae keep me in here fur all that long and then we’ll hae a few laughs.”
“I don’t want any more laughs,” said Tracey. “I’ve had a fright. I want to be respectable.”
Cheryl’s eyes narrowed. She could not bear to see this friend and ally slipping away. “I’ve a secret to tell ye. Lean forward.”
Tracey leaned towards the glass. “I killt them,” said Cheryl. “Both of them.”
“Why?” mouthed Tracey silently.
“For kicks.”
Tracey got to her feet and stumbled out, her hands to her mouth. Cheryl glared after her in disbelief. There was no impressing some people.
¦
Hamish, calling back at the boarding-house later that day after a lengthy discussion about the case with Deacon, wondered what had happened. Everyone was showing marks of strain. Tracey was a shadow of her former flamboyant self. She clung to Miss Gunnery, and Hamish wondered why such a hard piece like Tracey should suddenly decide to befriend the retired schoolteacher. But when he took Miss Gunnery aside and asked her, Miss Gunnery said that Tracey was very young and quite shaken by the murders and good might come of it. It was
