“But an amateur could do it?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“Got to go.” Hamish dashed out of the pub, leaving Jimmy staring after him.
He drove fast all the way to Lochdubh. He parked at the police station. The door was locked. He fumbled with his new ring of keys until he got the right ones and unlocked the door.
The door to the police office was standing open. There was no sign of Angus and, worse than that, no sign of John Heppel’s computer.
He rushed along the waterfront to Sea View. Mrs. Dunne said that Angus had packed up and left.
“I’m a fool!” said Hamish, and she stared at him in amazement.
It was only when he was walking back to the police station that he realised there had been no welcome from Lugs. With a feeling of dread in the pit of his stomach, he went back into the police station calling for his dog. No Lugs.
Angus didn’t have a car. Angus would have to have taken the bus.
Hamish drove back to Strathbane with the siren on and the blue light flashing. He went straight to the bus station. He questioned the clerk at the ticket office and was told that a young man with a dog had booked a ticket on the Inverness bus.
He headed off for Inverness. Angus knew that Hamish could not report him to the police.
In Inverness he checked first at the bus station and found that so far no one of Angus’s description had been booked on a Glasgow or Edinburgh bus. He then called at bed and breakfasts, one after the other, without success, until he remembered there was a YMCA.
The man who ran the hostel said that someone of Angus’s description with a dog had called in looking for a room about half an hour ago. He told him they couldn’t take the dog as well.
He might be walking the streets, thought Hamish, running back to where he had parked the Land Rover.
♦
“Come on, Lugs!” said Angus, dragging on the leash. He had taken a great liking to Lugs and had got the dog to come with him by saying, “We’re going to see Hamish,” something that Lugs had seemed to understand. Now the dog kept sitting down and looking at him balefully out of those odd blue eyes of his.
“I’m going to leave you,” said Angus furiously. He dropped the leash and walked on. Lugs stared after him and then pricked up his huge ears. Just as the police Land Rover rounded the corner of the street, Lugs darted forward and sank his teeth into Angus’s trousers.
“Get off!” howled Angus. There was a tearing sound as the seat of his trousers came away in Lugs’s teeth.
The next thing Angus knew, a furious Hamish Macbeth was climbing down from the Land Rover. Angus began to run, but Hamish, who had won cups for crosscountry running, brought him down with a rugby tackle, jerked him to his feet, and shook him till his teeth rattled.
Then he handcuffed him and shoved him in the back of the Land Rover. He tenderly lifted Lugs onto the passenger seat.
“You are going back to Lochdubh,” he shouted at Angus. “You are going to check back in at Mrs. Dunne’s and go on as if nothing has happened, or I will beat the pulp out of you. You couldn’t get into the hard drive, could you?”
“No,” whimpered Angus.
“Why not?”
“It wasnae my fault. Man, nobody in the country could get into that hard drive. Someone used a programme that doesnae just delete the files but overwrites them with random garbage, maybe seven times.”
“That would take a great deal of computer knowledge, wouldn’t it?”
Angus hung his head. “Not these days. It was originally a U.S. government programme, but anyone can buy the software.”
“I can’t turn over that computer – you do still have the computer?” asked Hamish.
“Yes.”
“I should never have tried to let you off the hook. When this case is over, get yourself out of Lochdubh. I’ll neffer, neffer forgive you for trying to steal my dog. Are your e–mails still on the computer?”
“No, I used that programme I was telling you about to delete them.”
“Where did you buy it?”
“I pirated it.”
“So you’re a double thief as well as a dognapper.”
“You’re never there,” protested Angus, “and I thought Lugs liked me.”
“You thought wrong. Now, chust shut your stupid face.”
At Mrs. Dunne’s Hamish waited until Angus was let in; he had taken off the handcuffs and relieved him of the computer. He went back to the police station and fried liver to give Lugs a generous supper. After he had eaten, an exhausted Lugs fell asleep and began to snore.
Hamish sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. He had taken risks before but never one as dangerous or stupid as this.
He rose and pulled down the ladder that led to the loft. He climbed up and hid the computer among all the junk he had stored up there, thinking it might come in useful sometime.
Then he climbed back down and began to pace back and forth. Maybe he was becoming obsessive about that script. Maybe he should be concentrating on Patricia Wheeler. Where did she live? What had she been doing on the night John was murdered?
He sighed. He would go back to interviewing the cast in the morning, and this time he would ask them all where they had been on the night of the murder and take their home addresses.
♦
Matthew Campbell walked out to the forecourt of the Tommel Castle Hotel the following morning. Thanks to Elspeth, their story was coming along nicely. She had suggested they write it like an old–fashioned detective story. Famous writer, quiet highland villages, suspicion and fear.
He took a deep breath of the clear air. Elspeth had introduced him to her old boss, Sam, who ran the Highland Times. Somewhere at the back of his mind, Matthew was beginning to wonder what it would be like to be a local reporter in this highland location.
It was a long time since he had felt so energised and healthy. Then there was Freda. He thought about her constantly. They had arranged to have dinner together that evening, and he found his senses tingling in happy anticipation.
Elspeth came out to join him. “What a lovely day,” said Matthew.
“We don’t often get days like this in winter,” said Elspeth. “What should we do today?”
“Let’s see that copper friend of yours and see if he’s got anything for us.”
But when they went down to the waterfront, it was to find a preoccupied Hamish, who said, “I haven’t time just now. Maybe talk to you later.”
Elspeth felt crushed. Hamish didn’t even seem to see her.
♦
Hamish and Jimmy went doggedly from one television person to another, writing down where each one had been on the evening of the murder and taking down home addresses.
Blair appeared at one point, but for once both Hamish and Jimmy appeared to be working so hard that he didn’t have anything to complain about. Police were now searching Lochdubh for John’s computer, and Hamish kept thinking uneasily about the computer lying up in the police station loft.
“I think we’ve got everyone,” said Jimmy at last. “We should go to Strathbane and check around Patricia’s neighbours.”
“I would like to talk to one of those girls again. See if they could maybe get me a copy of the script.”
“Man, you’ve got that script on the brain. I don’t think it’s got anything to do with anything. Let’s check Patricia Wheeler’s address first.”
“Would you mind doing that, Jimmy? I’ll meet up with you in that pub next to headquarters at, say, eight.”
“All right. But you’re buying.”
♦
Hamish – in his uniform this time – waited across the road from Strathbane Television. Kirsty Baxter, the one who looked like a shampoo advertisement, emerged on her own. Hamish quickly crossed the road and waylaid her.