“It is that,” said Hamish. “Maybe you’d like to have a bite of dinner with me one night?”
She looked startled and then smiled. “Are you asking me out on a date?”
Hamish thought gloomily about his unlucky love life and said quickly, “Chust a friendly meal.”
“Then that would be nice.”
“What about tomorrow evening? At the Italian restaurant? About eight?”
“I’ll be there.”
“Grand,” said Hamish, giving her a dazzling smile.
Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, was just arriving and heard the exchange. She waited until Hamish had left and then said in her booming voice, “I feel I should warn you against that man, Miss Pease.”
“Oh, why?” asked the schoolteacher. “He’s not married, is he?”
“No, more’s the pity. He is a philanderer.”
“Dear me.”
“He was engaged to Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of Colonel Halburton-Smythe who owns the Tommel Castle Hotel. He broke off the engagement and broke her heart.”
Miss Pease had already heard quite a lot of Lochdubh gossip, and the gossips had it the other way round, that Priscilla had broken Hamish’s heart.
“Oh, well,” said Miss Pease, “he can’t do much to me over dinner.”
“That’s what you think,” said Mrs. Wellington awfully. “Now about the Sunday school…”
♦
Hamish walked along the waterfront and met one of the fishermen, Archie Maclean. The locals said that Archie’s wife boiled all his clothes, and certainly they always looked too tight for his small figure, as if every one had been shrunk and then starched and ironed. The creases in his trousers were like knife blades and his tweed jacket was stretched tightly across his stooped shoulders.
“Getting ready for Christmas, Archie?” Hamish hailed him.
“When wass there effer the Christmas in our house?” grumbled Archie.
“I didn’t think the wife was religious.”
“No, but herself says she’s having none of those nasty Christmas trees shedding needles in her house, nor any of that nasty tinsel. You ken we’ve the only washhouse left in Lochdubh?”
Hamish nodded. The washhouse at the back of Archie’s cottage had been used in the old days before washing machines. It contained a huge copper basin set in limestone brick where the clothes were once boiled on wash-day.
“Well, the neighbors have been dropping by tae use it tae boil up their cloutie dumplings. But dae ye think I’ll get a piece. Naw!”
Cloutie dumpling, that Scottish Christmas special, is a large pudding made of raisins, sultanas, dates, flour and suet, all boiled in a large cloth or pillowcase. Some families still kept silver sixpences from the old days before decimal coinage to drop into the pudding. Large and brown and steaming and rich, it was placed on the table at Christmas and decorated with a sprig of holly. It was so large it lasted for weeks, slices of it even being served fried with bacon for breakfast.
“In fact,” said Archie, “the only one what’s offered me a piece is Mrs. Brodie.”
“Angela? The doctor’s wife?”
“Herself.”
“But Angela can’t cook!”
“I know that fine. But herself says she’s going to try this year. Herself says it’s surely chust like a scientific experiment. You measure out the exact amounts.”
“It never works with Angela,” said Hamish. “Her cakes are like rocks. Come for a dram, Archie. I’ve been talking to the schoolchildren and it’s thirsty work.”
They walked into the Lochdubh bar together.
When they were settled at a corner table with glasses of whisky, Hamish asked, “Do you know any gossip about Mrs. Gallagher?”
“Her, out the Cnothan road? Why?”
“I’ve been thinking. We all know her as a sour-faced bitch. But why?”
“Cos she’s a sour-faced bitch. Postman says she’s got the place like Fort Knox wi‘ locks and bolts.”
“I mean, what soured her? Was she always like that?”
“I think so. Good sheep. Doesn’t have dogs. She just whistles to the sheep, different whistles and they do what she wants. She had one friend.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know if the woman iss still alive. She bought the croft from her. Mrs. Dunwiddy. She went to live with a daughter in Inverness. Wait a bit. Maybe two years back now, someone says to me that Mrs. Dunwiddy had a stroke and she’s in an old folks home in Inverness. What’s she done?”
“She done nothing. She thinks someone’s pinched her cat.”
“Gone wild probably or the fox got it.”
“That’s what I told her.”
“So what d’ye want to know about her for?”
“Curious. That’s all. I think she’s a verra frightened woman.”
“Listen, Hamish, if I lived up there and never spoke to a body except to do a deal for sheep at the sales at Lairg, I’d get frightened as well.”
“I think there’s more to it than that. Oh, and if you hear of someone selling Christmas lights, let me know. Cnothan’s had theirs stolen.”
“There’s a lot o‘ Free Presbyterians o’er there.”
The great essayist Bernard Levin once described the Free Presbyterian as the sort of people who thought that if they did not keep the blankets tight over their feet at night, the pope would nip down the chimney and bite their toes.
“Maybe,” said Hamish. “But I doubt it. The lights were taken along with a tree out of that shed at the community hall. The padlock was smashed. Any loose elements roaming the countryside?”
“Haven’t heard. Don’t get them in the winter.”
“If you hear anything, let me know.”
♦
Hamish returned to the police station to collect the Land Rover and drive to Cnothan.
He was once more examining the shed when Mr. Sinclair came up to him. “You’re not wearing gloves,” he accused.
“Why should I?”
“You’ll be destroying fingerprints.”
Hamish sighed. He knew Strathbane would not send out a team of forensic experts to help solve the mere theft of a Christmas tree and lights.
Ignoring Mr. Sinclair, he set out, stooped over the ground, following the trail of pine needles. He went through the gate into the common grazing ground. No more needles. There must have been more than one. He could imagine them getting it over the gate and then lifting it onto their shoulders. He set off up the hill, doubled over, studying the ground. He guessed they would go fast and in a straight line.
Mr. Sinclair stood watching him until the tall figure had disappeared over the crest of the hill. “That man’s a useless fool,” he said to the frosty air. “It’s a pity Sergeant Macgregor is off ill.” He quite forgot that Sergeant Macgregor would have considered such a trivial theft not worth bothering about. Mr. Sinclair was feeling particularly righteous. He had supplied a new set of lights, which were being put up on the main street at that moment, and he had not charged for them.
Hamish spent the rest of the day searching over the common grazing ground until he came upon the peat stacks on the other side of the hill. There, in muddy, watery ground, he came across tire tracks. They could have been made by one of the locals, but as he studied them, he saw a little cluster of pine needles and some marks made by, he thought, running shoes. He counted the different footprints. Four sets of them. They’d probably come to thieve peats and then thought they might stroll over towards the village to see if there was anything they could lift. He stood studying the prints, trying to build up a mental picture of the robbers. There had been a lot of petty theft over towards Lairg, tools lifted from garden sheds, things like that. He decided to put a full report into headquarters and ask for a printout of areas of recent petty theft in Sutherland. That way he might find the area they were operating from. Because of the pettiness of the other thefts, not much police work had gone into finding the culprits. They would possibly be unemployed, hard drinkers, the sort who preyed on farmhouses and cottages during agricultural shows when they knew people would be away from home.