the waves were rising and he battled through one after the other.
At last he saw her some yards in front of him and called loudly to her. She saw him, rather than heard him, for the wind whipped his words away. She was still wearing her glasses. How odd, he thought madly, that her glasses had managed to stay on. The sun glinted on them, giving her a blind look. Then she raised her arms to heaven and sank under the waves like a stone.
¦
Deacon and Clay had been phoned by Crick. They had come with Maggie and, joined by Dermott, Tracey, Andrew and Doris, they stood on the edge of the water and watched as Hamish struggled back, holding Miss Gunnery in his arms.
Clay and Crick waded in to help him as he neared the shore. Together they carried Miss Gunnery’s limp body on to the sand. Maggie moved in and began applying all the artificial respiration techniques she had learned. Far away sounded the wail of an ambulance siren. At last, Maggie sat back on her heels and shook her head.
“She’s dead,” she said flatly.
The wind rose even higher, the white sand snaked along the beach and began to sing a dirge for Miss Gunnery.
“So let’s have it then,” said Deacon to Hamish. “Mr Biggar here says you accused Miss Gunnery of the murders. What proof had you?”
“None,” said Hamish, pulling his dry clothes over his wet underwear. “Chust intuition.”
“Oh, shite, man. If you’ve driven that lady to her death by your harassment…”
“She’ll hae left proof somewhere,” said Hamish wearily. “And I’m going to look for it.”
“You won’t find it,” Deacon shouted at his retreating back. “Don’t you know all the rooms were searched several times?”
Deacon waited until the ambulance men arrived, until he had had a full report from Andrew about what had happened in the lounge before Miss Gunnery had swum to her death, before setting off in pursuit of Hamish.
“That Blair ower in Strathbane was right,” he grumbled. “Hamish Macbeth is stark-staring mad.”
¦
Hamish sat on the bed in Miss Gunnery’s room and looked about him. He was bone-weary. He had had to dive and dive before he had managed to get her. He had searched already, but there was nothing in her suitcase, or in the drawers, or in the bedside table. Then he thought: the police had not been looking for drugs, so their search would only have been through her belongings. So where would be the obvious place? He rolled back the carpet, but the floorboards did not seem to have been disturbed. Then he went out and went along to the communal bathroom. The toilet had an old–fashioned cistern, the type that is set high up, with a chain dangling from it. He stood on the pan and lifted the lid of the cistern. Nothing in the cistern, he thought, feeling around with his hand. And then, because he was so very tired, as he was about to replace the lid, it slipped out of his hands and fell on the floor. And there, staring up at him, taped to the underside of the cistern lid, was an oilskin packet.
He climbed down, sat on the floor, and ripped the packet free, wondering vaguely where, in this day and age of plastic, Miss Gunnery had been able to find oilskin. And for one moment, before he opened the packet, he wondered if it might turn out to have nothing to do with Miss Gunnery but was something criminal hidden by Rogers.
But on opening it he found two envelopes. One was addressed to himself.
He opened it.
“Dear Hamish Macbeth,” he read, “In the event of anyone being falsely accused for the murders, I have written this confession of what I have done.”
He had a feeling of relief as he read on. The murder of Harris had been on impulse. Miss Gunnery had come across him that day in Skag. She had pleaded with him to give Doris her freedom. She had told him she knew what it was like to be in love. He had made several crude remarks about her lack of any attraction, called her a warped little spinster, and turned away. She had picked up the driftwood and hit him with it as he stood at the edge of the jetty. When he had fallen in the water, she had been about to run for help. But then she had thought of Doris and Andrew. She, Miss Gunnery, did not believe in God or divine retribution. As far as she was concerned, she was soon to die, and that would be the end of everything. So why not just let Harris die? Furthermore, she herself might be sent to prison for assault and she had no intention of spending her remaining days behind bars. So she had left him and then had done her clumsy best to see that no one else should suffer. Then MacPherson had approached her, said he had seen her and demanded money. She told him she would pay him. But, she had written in that old– fashioned italic writing so rarely seen these days, she felt that he did not deserve to live either. So she had gone quietly into his shed when he was working at his desk, seized up the scissors and driven them into his neck. The scissors were wrapped in a plastic bag and buried under the lilac tree in the garden of the boarding-house at the back. Her fingerprints would be found on them. “I did not lie about sleeping with you to give myself an alibi, Hamish,” she ended, “but to give you one because I love you.”
Hamish put it down on the floor and opened the other envelope. It contained a will form. Miss Gunnery had left everything she owned to Tracey.
? Death of a Nag ?
11
What beck’ning ghost along the moon-light shade
Invites my steps, and points to yonder glade?
—Alexander Pope
The following morning, Hamish sat for the last time in the interview room with Deacon. Clay had been sent out.
“Now,” began Deacon, “take me over it again. Why did you suddenly come to the conclusion that a woman like Miss Gunnery had committed two murders?”
“I had been feeling uneasy about her for some time,” said Hamish, “but I thought that was because she was falling in love wi’ me. It stopped me from thinking about her too much. And she seemed so kind. Kind to me over the death of my dog, kind to the Brett children, kind to Tracey. You could say that it was that kindness that killed Harris. She thought she was giving Doris all the love and new life that she had been cheated of herself.”
“I told you – a repressed spinster,” said Deacon.
“I still don’t agree wi’ ye. There’s folks these days won’t even use the word ‘spinster’, it’s become such an insult. What woman these days is even still a virgin at her age?”
“She was,” said Deacon with satisfaction. “Preliminary pathologist’s report.”
“Oh, well,” said Hamish huffily, “if ye knew all about it, why didn’t you suspect her yourself?”
“Now, now, I’m not saying you haven’t been clever. But what made you think of her?”
“It was when I learned she had made Heather tell that lie. I was uneasy about Cheryl’s supposed confession. I realized I hadn’t been thinking clearly about her. There were all sorts of little things: lying about having been in bed with me; telling me to look up her friend in Cheltenham and ask about her cat and then not showing any interest in the animal when I came back; her friend implying that she was worried about something other than the murders; and then there was a photograph of her and her friend in their tennis whites. I remembered seeing Miss Gunnery in her swimsuit and noticing she had very strong forearms, although it didn’t register at the time. I realized that, desperate and strong enough, she could have stabbed MacPherson with the necessary force. You found the scissors?”
“Aye, right where she said they would be. We’ve sent them off to be checked for fingerprints. But what could you have done had she stuck to her original story, said she was innocent?”
“I would ha’ got you to pull Doris in and then tell Miss Gunnery she had been charged with the murder and, worn down with brutal police questioning, she had confessed and was talking about taking her own life.”
“You’re a ruthless man, Macbeth. Wouldnae think it to look at you.”
“I can’t be doin’ wi’ murder,” said Hamish severely. “Mind you, I’m feeling rather stupid. There I was having dinner and making friends with a woman who must have been as mad as a hatter and I didnae suspect a thing.”
“Well, you got a result anyway.” Deacon picked up a paper-knife and twisted it this way and that. “You’ll be
