possible to reform anyone. Hamish looked cynical. He was sure that once Tracey was back in Glasgow with her family and friends, all thoughts of reform would go out of her head.
He returned to the police station to spend the rest of the day sifting through the statements and studying all the forensic evidence. Somewhere amongst all this pile of paper was surely a clue to the identity of the murderer: Doris and Andrew both had motives, as had June and Dermott. At last he gave up and drove into Dungarton and bought Miss Gunnery a tartan travelling-rug to replace the one in which he had buried Towser.
He gave the rug to Miss Gunnery and suggested they have dinner out that evening. Hamish was becoming worried about his dwindling finances. He felt cheated of a holiday he had initially planned to go on somewhere later in the year, but the trip south and all the other expenses had eaten into his reserves.
To his surprise, Miss Gunnery said firmly that she would pay for dinner, provided they took Tracey along with them. Hamish did not want to have any part in the reformation of young Tracey, considering her a lost cause, but felt it would be uncharitable to say so.
Like quite a lot of small Scottish towns, Dungarton boasted a Chinese restaurant in the main street, directly opposite the Indian one. It was a Saturday night and the place was quite full. Hamish looked around at the placid Scottish faces munching through crispy noodles and bean sprouts at the other tables and thought how untouched by the nasty world they all looked, safe and secure, never having known anything of the underworld stirred up by murder.
“So how was Cheryl?” he asked Tracey.
“Fine,” she said. Her hand holding the fork trembled slightly. “Och, when can ah go hame?” she suddenly wailed.
“Soon, I think,” said Hamish. “The police have your home address and your statement. They’ll warn you not to leave the country, and that will be that.”
“Bob Harris was a scunner,” said Tracey.
“Yes, he was,” said Hamish, “but no one has a right to take anyone’s life, Tracey.”
She stared at him with large frightened eyes, looking young and lost without her usual armour of paint and hair gel. “Do ye believe in hell, Hamish?”
“Aye,” sighed Hamish Macbeth. “But not in the afterlife, Tracey. We’re all living in it, one way or the other, right now.”
? Death of a Nag ?
10
But Guilt was my grim Chamberlain
That lighted me to bed.
—Thomas Hood
Hamish realized as he awoke next day that he had not reassured Miss Gunnery about the welfare of her cat, and what was even more strange was that she had not asked him about the cat or about her friend, Mrs Agnew.
He plunged in right away when he met her at breakfast assuring her that Joey looked fit and well. She thanked him in an abstracted voice. The murders were beginning to tell on her. Her interest in Tracey had seemed only momentarily to lift the strain. She had dark circles under her eyes and wisps of hair were escaping from her normally severe hair-style.
Everyone else seemed to be feeling equally gloomy, despite the delicious breakfast. Mrs Aston, a cheerful and motherly figure, apparently unaffected by the criminal goings-on of her sister and brother-in-law, delivered and collected plates.
“You’ll be going to church,” she said to all at large.
“Good idea,” said Hamish suddenly. He was worried about the silent, downcast Brett children. Church was as good a place as any to go to on a Scottish Sabbath.
It is amazing in this modern age how such a group of normally irreligious people can suddenly decide in adversity that church is a very sensible place to go to. But then, there are no agnostics on the battlefield.
The day was quiet and calm and quite chilly when they went out to the cars, all too exhausted with worry to contemplate the walk to Skag. Crick, on duty at the door asked them where they were going and made a note of it in his book.
They arrived at the Church of Scotland in good time for the start of the service. The church was plain and devoid of ornament. They sat in one of the hard pews and listened to a wheezy organ murdering Bach.
The minister was an imposing figure, like one of the lesser prophets, with a flowing grey beard and shaggy locks. Hamish could not decide whether his eyes were burning with religious zeal or whisky. There was a strong suggestion of the actor about him. This was no clap-happy Christianity, no tambourines or steel guitars, only dreary hymns sung to the asthmatic music of the church organ.
Then the minister leaned over the pulpit and began his sermon, the theme of which was honesty being the best policy. He obviously believed more in a God of wrath than one of love and certainly appeared convinced that the dishonest were condemned to the hell of eternal fire. Without his overwhelming presence, the words would have seemed a mixture of the trite and the mad, but his voice rang round the church, conjuring up for Hamish a vision of the days of John Knox. How Mary Queen of Scots must have disliked that man!
When they emerged from the church, it was to find the weather had changed again and a hot sun was blazing down. But it was a subdued party who gathered by the cars. Tracey was weeping quietly and Miss Gunnery had an arm about her shoulders, young Heather was as white as a sheet, and Hamish cursed all Bible-bashing clerics.
They drove back to the boarding-house. I am sick of this place, thought Hamish. I want shot of it. I want to go home. And then he realized that Tracey was tugging at his sleeve. “A word wi’ ye,” she whispered. “No’ inside. Let’s walk down to the beach.”
As he walked off with her, Hamish was conscious of Miss Gunnery’s eyes boring into his back. For a brief spell, the spinster’s interest in Tracey had seemed to lift her growing obsession for him, Hamish. He hoped it wouldn’t come back.
“What is it, then?” he asked when they had reached the shingle bank. “Let’s sit down, Tracey. You’re in an awful state.”
Tracey sat down beside him, her thin white legs sticking out in front of her from under her short skirt. “I cannae keep it tae masel’ any longer,” she said. “I know who did those murders.”
His heart beat hard against his ribs. “Who?” he demanded sharply. “Out wi’ it!”
A glassy wave curled on to the white sand below the shingle bank.
“Cheryl,” said Tracey. “It was Cheryl.”
He felt a great lifting of his spirits. “How do you know?”
“She told me when I visited her in prison. She said she did it for kicks. She bragged aboot it.”
“You’ve got to tell the police,” said Hamish.
“You’re the police!”
“I mean, them in Skag. Come on. You’ll feel better when you get it over with.”
As they walked up to the boarding-house, Miss Gunnery ran to meet them. “Is anything the matter?”
“Not now,” said Hamish. “Later.”
He drove off to Skag with Tracey. Several times on the short journey, his heart misgave him when she muttered something to the effect of being disloyal and ‘grassing’ on her friend, and each time he assured her she was doing her duty.
They had to wait until Deacon and Clay were brought over from Dungarton, driven by Maggie.
In the interviewing room, Tracey, who appeared to have cried herself out, made a statement about what Cheryl had told her.
After she was led out by Maggie to wait for Hamish, Deacon said with great satisfaction, “Thank God, that’s over.”
“Aye,” said Hamish, “you can thank God, all right. We were all at the kirk this morning and that hell-fire preacher seems to have got to Tracey. The others will be right glad and yet…”
