As the firemen played their hoses on the blaze, Matthew and Freda arrived. Elspeth felt irritated at the sight of Freda. This was a news story, and she didn’t like ‘civilians’ cluttering up the scene. Then Hamish drove up.
Elspeth told him what had happened and about her odd feeling when she was standing outside the cottage.
“Did you smell anything?” asked Hamish.
“Like what?”
“Like petrol.”
“The wind was behind me, so it was probably blowing any smell of petrol away.”
“It must have been deliberate,” said Hamish. “The murderer must have wondered if he had left any trace.”
“But why now?” asked Matthew. “Everyone knows the forensics have finished their investigation. Elspeth, do you think you could file the story? Freda and I hadn’t finished our meal.”
Elspeth stared at him in surprise. What had happened to hotshot reporter Matthew? But she said, “All right. You go ahead. I’ll go to the Highland Times and file from there and send the photographs.”
“You’re an angel. Come on, Freda.”
“You know what I think?” said Hamish. “I’m more than ever convinced our murderer is an amateur, and a panicky one at that. I’ve asked for roadblocks to be set up.”
Hamish then phoned Jimmy and told him what had happened.
“I’ve just heard,” said Jimmy.
“How did you get on with Patricia?”
“Nowhere. She won’t speak without her lawyer. We’re waiting for him.”
Hamish fell silent. He was suddenly worried about Angus Petrie. What if Angus were the murderer, after all? Who but the murderer would want that computer? What if it did turn out to be Angus and he was subsequently arrested? The whole story about how Hamish Macbeth had aided and abetted a murderer would not only get him fired, it would land him in court. If only he had not been so focussed on that missing script. It was only a script, after all, but he had become obsessive about finding it. He had, in fact, become so determined to find it was one of the television people that he might have been overlooking the obvious.
♦
The next morning was damp and drizzly. Hamish took Lugs for an early morning walk along the waterfront. Archie Maclean, the fisherman, was sitting on the harbour wall smoking a roll-up. Hamish wondered, not for the first time, whether Archie ever slept. He was out all night at the fishing but could usually be seen around Lochdubh during the day.
But it transpired Archie had not been out the night before. “There were the waves out there as high as houses,” said Archie. “What’s this about a fire at that bastard’s cottage?”
Hamish told him.
“Probably the fires o’ hell where he lives now coming up through the floor,” said Archie.
“I think they’ll find out it was set deliberately,” said Hamish.
“I iss like thon thing on the telly.”
“What thing?”
“On Boys in Blue.”
“I don’t watch it.”
“It wass on the other night. This man murders his wife and makes it look like suicide. He’s got an alibi that he was somewhere else. Then he thinks they might find some of his – that stuff.”
“DNA.”
“That stuff. So he sets fire to their flat while the forensic team are working. Kills them all.”
Hamish walked on deep in thought. Surely even an amateur would know that the forensic team had finished their work. But what about someone in television? It was a closed world, where he often thought they lived in their fantasies rather than in the real world.
He returned his dog to the police station. There was an angry message from Blair telling him to get over to Cnothan and try to find an eyewitness to the fire.
Cnothan was his least favourite place, being a drab village bordering on a man-made hydroelectric dam and loch. If only John had lived in the village itself, there might have been the chance of an eyewitness. He drove out onto the moors and to the blackened shell that was John’s cottage.
There was a small group of sightseers. He went from one to the other, asking them if they had seen anyone near the cottage the night before, but they all swore they had been nowhere near it. A white-suited forensic team were picking their way through the blackened ruins. The Cnothan fire chief was watching. Hamish approached him. “Set deliberately?”
“Aye,” said the fire chief. “They’re saying it looks that way. Two petrol cans found out the back.”
Hamish returned to the police station and checked his messages. Nothing from Kirsty. He wondered whether they were still filming at the Tommel Castle Hotel and headed there.
The vans were all parked outside. He went into the manager’s office. “They’re all in the lounge,” said Mr. Johnson. “It’s evidently the scene where the wicked laird is charged with rape. They’ve got some Scottish actor trying to do an upper-class English accent.”
“I thought it was only American films where they went in for English-bashing. They want a villain, so they get an English actor.”
“Aye. Did you see Braveheart? What a load of bad historical rubbish.”
“Couldn’t bear to. Can I take a peek?”
“Go on. Be my guest.”
Hamish walked to the doorway of the lounge and looked in. An actor playing a detective stood in front of the fireplace. He pointed at the laird. “You followed Morag Mackenzie down to the beach and there you raped her,” he was saying.
“Oh, I say,” said the laird. “What utter tosh.”
“Cut,” shouted Paul Gibson. He said to the actor who was playing the laird, “Can you put a bit more life in your voice? You’ve just been accused of rape. You should be horrified. Right, get set, everyone. Action.”
Hamish moved away and went outside. It was still drizzling, but there was a patch of blue sky over to the west.
He took out his mobile phone and called Jimmy. “I suppose they’ve checked everyone’s background,” said Hamish. “Anyone with a criminal record?”
“Minor things. Cannabis smoking. That sort of thing. Nothing major.”
“I wonder if any of them are mad.”
“You mean crazy?”
“Yes, a history of mental disorder.”
“If they have, it wouldn’t be on the police files; it would be on their medical records.”
“I think someone really unbalanced is responsible for this. Someone went into a crazy rage and killed John Heppel and then panicked and tried to make it look like suicide. By the way, did forensics ever come up with an explanation as to why they missed taking John Heppel’s computer?”
“They keep saying it was black on a black desk. They must have missed it.”
“That’s very odd. I mean, there they are, looking for hair and fibres and bits of dust, and they miss a whole computer.”
“I think they’re covering up for one of the team. I think it’s likely that one of them said he had loaded it up when he hadn’t. There’s one of them, Jock Ferguson, who’s hardly ever sober. He should have been fired long ago, but he’s a leading light of the Strathbane police rugby team. Drunk or sober, he plays a grand game and they don’t want to lose him. There’s an enquiry going on.”
“Right. Talk to you later.”
Hamish drove back to John’s cottage. The forensic team were just packing up. “Which of you is Jock Ferguson?” he asked.
A huge man stepped forward. Hamish could smell whisky on him.
“I want to know why you missed the computer.”
“I’m sick o’ this,” said Jock truculently. “It was an oversight. That’s all. We’d checked it for prints and there weren’t any and there was nothing on the computer either.”
“But there might have been something on the hard drive.”
“There’s an enquiry going on, and I can’t stand here all day talking to you.”