“It can be a lonely place. Usually the English we get are drunks or romantics, and I would say you do not fall into either category.”
“Hardly,” said Patricia with a fluting, humorless laugh. “I am a writer.”
“Of what?”
“Detective stories.”
“I read a lot o’ those,” said Hamish. “You must write under another name.”
“I regret to say my books have been out of print for some time.”
“Ah, well,” said Hamish awkwardly. “I am sure you will find the inspiration up here.”
“I hardly think the county of Sutherland is overrun with criminals.”
“I meant, it’s a funny landscape which can produce the weird fancies.”
“My last detective story was set in Scotland, but the others, mainly in the south, were village mysteries.”
“Like Agatha Christie?”
“A little better crafted, if I may say so,” said Patricia, again with that irritating laugh of hers.
“Then it iss the miracle that yours are out o’ print,” said Hamish maliciously.
“It is not my fault. I had a useless publisher, who would not promote them properly, and a worse agent,” snapped Patricia, and then, to her horror, she began to cry.
“There, now,” said Hamish. “Don’t greet. You havenae settled down after all the travel, and it’s been a grim winter. I would like to read one o’ your books.”
Patricia produced a small, white, starched handkerchief from her handbag and wiped her eyes and blew her nose.
“I think I am too out of touch with the modern world to write a detective story again,” she said, all the time wondering why she was confiding in a village policeman.
“I could help you wi’ a wee bit o’ information, if you like.”
“That’s very kind of you. But I do not think it would do much good. I’ve tried to write another one with a Highland background, but my mind seems set in England.”
“Perhaps you should get to know a few of us better,” said Hamish, “and then it might come easier.”
“Perhaps,” she echoed sadly.
“Although, if I may point out,” said Hamish cautiously, “Cnothan is not the friendliest village in the place. In fact, I would say it’s a sour little dump.”
She gave him a watery smile. “Not like Lochdubh?”
“There’s nowhere like Lochdubh,” said Hamish stoutly. “Maybe if you stopped writing for a bit, it would all come back. Do you fish?”
“I still have my rods, but I haven’t done any fishing for a long time.”
Somewhere in Hamish’s head a warning bell was beginning to clang, telling him to stay away from lame ducks in general and this woman in particular, who had been locally damned as an “awfy auld snob.” But he said, “I hae the day off tomorrow. I’ll take ye out on the Anstey if ye want.”
This met with Patricia’s ideas of what was right and fitting. Fishing on a Scottish river with a policeman as ghillie was socially acceptable to her mind.
“Thank you,” she said. “I will need a permit.”
Hamish shifted uneasily. “Oh, I’ll see to that. Pick you up at nine in the morning.”
They chatted pleasantly through the rest of the meal, Hamish amiably but Patricia betraying with each further sentence the awful rigidity of her attitudes.
They separated at the end of the meal, each with different thoughts, Hamish regretting his generous gesture and Patricia feeling quite elated. Hamish Macbeth was really quite intelligent, she thought. It was a shame he was only a village policeman. Perhaps with her help he could make something of himself. And so Patricia drove happily homewards, not knowing she had joined the long list of women who thought they could change one contented, unambitious Highland constable.
¦
She felt the glorious blustery morning that dawned was a good omen. But nine o’clock came and went and she began to feel panicky. If Hamish did not come, then it meant slipping back into that depressing isolation which had become her way of life.
And then at half past nine, she saw to her relief a police Land Rover lurching over the potholes in the road, a fishing rod sticking out of the window.
She went out to meet him. “Sorry I’m late,” said Hamish. “Have you got waders? I forgot to ask.”
“Yes, although I haven’t used them for some time. I hope they’re still waterproof,” said Patricia.
“We’ll take your car if you don’t mind,” said Hamish. “I’m not really supposed to drive people around in a police car unless I’m arresting them.”
Soon they were fishing on the river Anstey. The mountain-tops were clear against a blue sky for the first time in months. Patricia found to her delight that she had lost none of her old skill. She was just about to suggest a break for lunch when the enterprising constable said he had brought along a picnic. Patricia had caught two trout and Hamish one.
“Afore we have our food, I would suggest we pack everything up and put it in the boot o’ your car,” said Hamish.
“But why?” She felt sharply disappointed. “I hoped we would have some more fishing.”
Hamish looked around, scanning the riverbanks and the surrounding hillsides. “Aye, well, we’ll do that, but chust let’s put the stuff away.”
They stripped off their waders and dismantled their rods and put all the fishing impedimenta in the boot of Patricia’s car.
Hamish produced a picnic basket from which he removed thick chicken sandwiches and a flask of coffee.
They were sitting on a flat rock beside the river when a truculent voice behind them said, “I hope ye havenae been fishing this river, Macbeth.”
“Oh, it iss yourself, Willie,” said Hamish without turning around. “No, no, Miss Martyn-Broyd and myself was chust having the picnic.”
Patricia swung round, her mouth full of sandwich.
“Willie MacPhee, the water bailiff,” said Hamish, his eyes signalling a warning.
Willie was a thick-set man with beetling brows in a red weatherbeaten face. He had a heavy round chin, but his head tapered to a narrow crown, giving the appearance of a face seen reflected in a shiny balloon.
He lumbered up to Patricia’s car and peered in the windows. Patricia’s heart beat hard. All at once she knew Hamish’s reason for shutting all the fishing stuff up in the boot. He did not have a fishing permit!
Willie came back and stood over them. “I hope ye know, missus,” he said, addressing Patricia, “that ye cannae fish the Anstey without a permit.”
The daughter of the land agent felt quite queasy. She wondered why she had never stopped to consider how a Highland policeman could even afford the probably horrendous price of a fishing permit. But she did not like being loomed over.
Miss Patricia Martyn-Broyd got to her feet.
“Are you accusing me of
Willie gave an odd, ducking movement of his head, like a dog backing down before a more powerful adversary.
“Just making sure,” he said sulkily. “Macbeth here has no respect for the law.”
With that, he lumbered off.
Patricia waited until she was sure he was out of earshot and then rounded on Hamish. “How could you? And you a policeman.”
“Well, I’m a Highlander as well, and it iss considered no crime up here to take a fish from the river.”
“If it is no crime, then why do they have game laws and why do they have water bailiffs?”
“That,” said Hamish, unrepentant, “is to add a spice o’ danger to the sport. We’ll just enjoy our meal and try the river again.”
“Are you mad? I, for one, do not want to appear in a Scottish sheriff’s court.”
