Waiting until she was out of sight, Priscilla followed along the Strathbane road at a leisurely speed.
When she arrived in Strathbane, she took out a folder of maps and selected a street map of Strathbane and located Winnie Mandela Court and drove there. It turned out to be one of those depressing Stalinist tower blocks boasting a broken urine-smelling elevator and acres of graffiti. Priscilla trudged up the stairs. A group of skinheads barred her way on the first landing. “I am from the Social Security Department,” said Priscilla frostily, “investigating dole claims.”
They shrank back and let her past. Priscilla reflected that if she had said she was a policewoman, they would probably have beaten her up.
Finally she reached number 40 along a rubbish-littered balcony which afforded a view of the grim harbour. The door was answered by a massive woman with dyed-blonde hair and a face so covered with broken veins that it looked like an ordnance-survey map. “What d’ye want?” she asked, the watery eyes of the habitual drinker raking Priscilla up and down.
“I am from the Daily Bugle,” said Priscilla. “We are interested in buying your brother’s story about police brutality.”
“Come in,” said Bridget eagerly. “I phoned youse lot up but you says you weren’t interested.”
“Some amateur took the call.” Priscilla was ushered into a living-room which was awful in its filth and dreariness. She sat down on a hard chair after looking suspiciously at the greasy stains on the upholstered ones.
“I’ll tell you all I know,” said Bridget.
“My newspaper is prepared to pay a large sum, but I need to see your brother in person. Do you by any chance have a visitor’s pass?”
Her eyes gleamed. “I have one for tomorrow morning – ten o’clock.”
Priscilla opened her handbag and took out her wallet. She extracted two twenties. “Just something on account.” Bridget snatched up the notes and tucked them down somewhere near her heavy bosom. She went over to a battered handbag on an equally battered sideboard and took put a pass. “How much will the Bugle pay?” she asked. “Thousands?”
“It’s up to the editor.”
Refusing all invitations of tea, stout, and gin, Priscilla took her leave. She-drove off and parked in the multi-storey in the centre and decided to call at the estate agent’s, Cummings and Bane, just to see if there were any more properties on the market. She would not nag Hamish into staying in Strathbane, but there might be something between Lochdubh and Strathbane.
The young man leaped up to greet her, as hopeful as ever. He produced folders of houses and Priscilla sat down and went through them. She came to Peter Hynd’s cottage and looked at it curiously. She tapped it with her fingernail. “I knew Mr. Hynd,” she said. “Any idea why he left?”
“Och, I don’t think I thought to ask,” said the young man. “You know how it is, the English come and go. Are you interested, Miss Halburton-Smythe?”
“Not in Drim, no. Exceptionally beautiful young man, Mr. Hynd.” Priscilla opened another folder.
“I couldn’t say,” said the estate agent.
Priscilla looked up quickly. “But you saw him!”
“Aye, but be had such a bad cold, poor man. His voice was rasping and he had a scarf up round his face. He said he was protecting us from his germs.”
“What colour of hair?”
“I can’t say as I can remember. Tracey, do you call to mind that young Mr. Hynd, the one with the property over in Drim?”
“The one with the cold?”
“Aye, him. What colour was his hair?”
“Fairish, I think. Had one of those deerstalkers on, like Sherlock Holmes.”
Priscilla stored up this information to tell Hamish. She looked through some more folders but with the feeling that Hamish Macbeth would not like any of them. She thanked the young man and left. She was reluctant to return to Lochdubh. She decided to buy herself a tooth-brush, a change of clothes, and check into The Highlander, Strathbane’s main hotel, and stay the night. It would be pleasant to be in someone else’s hotel for a change.
♦
Just before ten in the morning she joined the queue of depressed and depressing women waiting to get into the prison. Some of the women tried to engage her in conversation but she snubbed them, being tired of making up stories about herself and so, to a sort of Greek chorus of “Stuck-up bitch,” she finally-made her way into the prison.
Dolan appeared on the other side of the glass and stared at the vision that was Priscilla in amazement. “They said it was my sister,” he exclaimed.
“Listen very hard to me,” said Priscilla, leaning forward.
“I am Hamish Macbeth’s fiancée, and I am here to tell you that if you do not withdraw your complaint of police brutality, I will have a word with the sheriff, who is a personal friend, and make sure you are put away for a long stretch in Inverness prison, where Hamish has many friends among the warders. Not only that, I have many connections and I will hound you, both inside prison or out, even if it means sending one of the gamekeepers after you with a gun.”
“Wait till I tell the polis about you,” jeered Dolan. “More threats.”
“And who will they believe?” she mocked. “Me or you? Go ahead. I will prove you are a liar. I’m out for your blood, Dolan.”
Dolan looked at her beautiful and implacable face and cringed. He believed every word she said. Like quite a lot of criminals, he thought he was often in prison because society was unfair, because ‘They’ had had it in for him since the day of his birth, ‘They’ being the establishment.
He was sure this beautiful bitch would poison the sheriff’s mind.
“And if I withdraw the complaint, will ye have a word in my favour with the sheriff?” said Dolan.
“Of course.”
“Oh, well, I suppose,” he grumbled.
“Do it,” hissed Priscilla.
Later that day, a surprised Hamish Macbeth received a call from Jimmy Anderson to tell him that not only had Miss Tabbet withdrawn her complaint against him – not to mention her claim for a new frying-pan – but that Dolan had withdrawn his complaint as well.
“Thank heavens,” said Hamish. “I wonder what came over them.”
“Aye, it’s the grand day for you, Hamish, because when Dolan was pressed to say why he had made the complaint in the first place, he said Blair had talked him into it. So Blair’s on the carpet.”
Hamish decided to drive up to Tommel Castle and tell Priscilla about it and found her just arriving as he drove up.
After he had told her his news, he listened in amazement as she told him her part in it and then said in admiration, “Ye get more like me every day.”
“Yes, I’m turning out to be a good liar,” agreed Priscilla. “I’ll be poaching my father’s salmon next. But there’s something else.” She told him about the mysterious Peter Hynd who had appeared at the estate agent’s muffled up to the eyebrows.
His hazel eyes gleamed. “I’d better get down to Inverness and see those lawyers. What was the name again? Ah, Brand and MacDougal in Castle Wynd. I’ll drive down tomorrow.” They had walked into the hotel reception as they were speaking. “Would you care to come with me?”
“I’d love to, but there’s a new party of guests arriving tomorrow.”
“I’ll let you know how I get on. Free for dinner tonight?”
Her face took on a guarded look. “I’ve got to check the accounts with Mr. Johnston, but if I get through it quickly enough, I’ll drive down and see you.”
He masked his disappointment and irritation with an effort. She had done sterling work in getting him off the hook with those complaints, and he fought down a feeling that he would gladly have faced any inquiry board in return for a warmer and less efficient fiancée.