The wind had died as suddenly as it had sprung up. It was still blowing hard far up in the sky, for ragged black clouds were tearing across a small cold moon. He set off over the surrounding fields calling “Smoky!” but there was no sign of any cat.
He wearily returned to the croft house and knocked on the door. Again he waited and called out “Police” in answer to her sharp demand to know who was there. “Have you got a photo of the cat?” he called. After some time, the door opened on the chain. She handed a photograph to him. “I want a receipt,” she said. He wrote out a receipt and went on his way.
♦
The next day, Hamish forgot about the cat. He had a more important burglary to investigate in a neighboring village.
Cnothan, less rigid on the subject of Christmas than Lochdubh, had planned to decorate its main street with fairy lights. Now they were gone. He set out, enjoying the faint glow from a red sun which shone low on the hills. All was still after the gales of the day before. Smoke rose up from cottage chimneys in straight lines. The waters of the sea loch were flat and still, one great mirror reflecting the clouds and mountains above.
Hamish did not like Cnothan, the least friendly place in the Highlands. He marvelled that Cnothan of all places should want to brighten the place up with lights. He went to the home of the chairman of the parish council, a Mr. Sinclair, who had reported the burglary. The door was opened by Mrs. Sinclair who told him he would find her husband at his shop in the main street. The shop, it turned out, sold electrical goods. Hamish grinned. Nothing like Highland enterprise when it came to making money.
Mr. Sinclair was a smooth, pompous man. There is not much of a pecking order in the north of Scotland and so often the shopkeeper is head of the social world. He had an unlined olive face, despite his age which Hamish judged to be around fifty. His unnaturally black hair was combed straight back and oiled.
“Was the shop burgled?” asked Hamish, looking around.
“No, we didnae have the lights here,” said Mr. Sinclair. “They were kept in a shed up by the community hall.”
“Maybe you’d better take me there.”
“You’ll need to wait until I’m closed for lunch. This is my busiest season.”
Hamish looked around the empty shop. “Doesn’t look busy now.”
“Temporary lull. Temporary lull.”
Hamish looked at his watch. Ten to one. Oh, well, only ten minutes to wait. Sod’s law, he thought bitterly as a woman came in at exactly two minutes to one and started asking about washing machines.
It was quarter past one before she finished asking questions and left without buying anything. “I hate that sort of woman,” grumbled Mr. Sinclair after he had locked up and led the way up the main street at a brisk trot. “I think they come in just to pass the time. Here we are.”
The door of the shed was open. A smashed padlock lay on the ground. “Did they take anything other than the lights?” asked Hamish.
“Yes,” said Mr. Sinclair. “They took the big Christmas tree as well.”
“Och, man, someone must hae seen someone carrying a great big tree!”
“You can ask. I’ve asked. Has anyone seen a thing? No.”
Hamish squatted down and studied the ground. “There’s no dragging marks,” he said. “Must have been more than one o‘ them. How big was the tree?”
“About eight feet.”
“Aye, well, one man would ha‘ dragged it. So it was several of them. And no one saw them. So it stands to reason they must have gone up the back way.” He stood up and looked down at Mr. Sinclair from his greater height. “I never heard afore that the folks of Cnothan wanted anything to do with Christmas.”
“I was elected chairman of the council this year and I managed to persuade them. I was backed by the minister. We took up a collection.”
“And your shop supplied the lights?”
“Yes. Do you mind if I get home for something to eat?”
“You run along. I’ll let you know if I find out anything.”
Behind the community hall, Hamish noticed common grazing land. There was a gate leading into it. Hamish bent down again. There were little bits of fir needles on the ground. So they had gone this way. Where to? Who would want to take a Christmas tree and lights?
After searching around some more, he went into a café and ordered a sausage roll and a cup of coffee. The roll was greasy and the coffee, weak. He approached the slattern who ran the café and asked, “Are there folks in Cnothan who were against having Christmas lights in the main street?”
She blinked at him through the steam from a pot on the cooker behind her. With her wild unkempt hair, her thin face and red eyes, she looked like one of the witches who had appeared to the other Macbeth.
“Aye, there’s some o‘ those,” she said.
“Like who?”
“Like Hugh McPhee. He went on and on about them.”
“And where can I find him?”
“Down at the fishing shop by the loch.”
At the bottom of the main street lay the loch, one of those products of the hydro-electricity board. Hamish could remember his mother telling him about how people had been moved out of their villages to make way for these artificial lochs. But they had all been promised that waterpower would mean cheap electricity and only found out too late that the resultant electricity was not cheap at all. There was a drowned village under Loch Cnothan at the far end. There was something dismal about these man-made stretches of water, he reflected. There weren’t any of the trees and bushes around them that you found in the natural ones. At one end of the loch was a great ugly dam. The sun was already going down when Hamish reached Mr. McPhee’s shop.
Mr. McPhee sat like a gnome behind the counter of his dark shop among fishing tackle.
Hamish explained the purpose of his visit. “So what’s it got to do with me?” asked Mr. McPhee. He was a small gnarled man with arthritic hands.
“I heard you were against the whole business o‘ the lights,” said Hamish.
“‘Course I was. It was that man, Sinclair. Get’s hisself elected tae the council and afore you know it, he’s got an order for the lights.”
“So you weren’t objecting on religious grounds?”
“No, you’ll need tae go tae Bessie Ward for that. She says the lights are the devil’s beacons.”
“And where will I find her?”
“Her cottage is at the top o‘ the main street. It’s called Crianlarich.”
“Right, I’ll try her.”
Back up the main street. It was bitter cold and the light was fading fast. He found a small bungalow with the legend CRIANLARICH done in pokerwork on a small wooden board hung over the door on two chains.
He rang the doorbell, which played a parody of Big Ben.
“What is it? Is it my sister, Annie?” asked a solid-looking matron on seeing a uniformed policeman.
“No, nothing like that,” said Hamish soothingly. “I am asking questions about the missing Christmas lights.”
“Whoever did it was doing the work of the Lord,” she said. “You’d best come in.”
Hamish followed her into a highly disciplined living room. Church magazines on a low table were arranged in neat squares. Brass objects on the mantel glittered and shone. Cushions were plumped up. Against the outside streetlights, the windows sparkled. The room was cold.
Hamish took off his cap and balanced it on his knees. “I am asking various prominent residents of Cnothan if they might have any idea who did it,” began Hamish.
“I neither know nor care.” Mrs. Ward sat down opposite him. Her tight tweed skirt rucked up over her thick legs, showing the embarrassed Hamish support hose ending in long pink knickers, those old–fashioned kind with elastic at the bottoms. “The Lord moves in mysterious ways,” she added sententiously.