“I think I’d better be going, Harry. You’d best get one of the women to help you with Heather.”
“I don’t need anyone,” said Heather, “Da and I are best left alone.”
Hamish went out, puzzled. He had never met anyone like Heather before. He wondered if Priscilla could make anything of her.
He decided that instead of going to the community hall to interview the villagers himself, he would start off with the hairdresser, Alice MacQueen, and find out if Betty had said anything. Alice MacQueen had already suffered being interviewed by Blair and it took Hamish some time to soothe her ruffled feathers. She was a faded woman with small features and a pinched mouth. Her dark-brown hair was worn in the old–fashioned chrysanthemum style she inflicted on her customers and highlighted with streaks of silver.
Her ‘shop’ was in her converted front-room and smelled of chemicals and hot hair. “What I am trying to find out from you, you being obviously a verra sensitive and noticing sort of lady, is if Betty Baxter, when she had her hair done, seemed any different from usual.”
“Well, she talked a lot, but then she always did.” Alice wrinkled her brow. “But she looked…triumphant. She looked as if there was some secret she was hugging. Maybe found herself another fellow.”
“Not Peter Hynd?”
She snorted. “Him? He’s long gone. Anyway, he wasn’t interested in Betty. She ran after him like a great cow.”
Hamish asked more questions and then gave up. The one satisfaction he had was that this murder investigation would lead to finding out where Peter Hynd was. Although he had left the village, the police would want to ask him if he had any idea who might have killed Betty.
He was about to go up to Jimmy Macleod’s house when Jimmy Anderson came running up just as Hamish was leaving the hairdresser’s. “Looks like an accident after all,” he said.
“What? What about that bruise on her neck?”
“Blair’s jist got that out o’ her man. That wee Heather tells Blair her father has something to say. Seems Harry skelped her one with a half-frozen cod on the back of the neck yesterday when he saw she’d been back to the hairdresser to get blonded.”
“But what broke her neck then?”
“It was a freak accident. It was the way she fell among the rocks. She’s got a broken arm as well. Pathologist made a second examination before they took the body away.”
“Has he gone? I want a word with him.”
“He’s gone and everyone else is packing up.”
“Just like that? Okay, so Harry hit her with a cod, but couldn’t someone have pushed her – deliberately pushed her hard onto the rocks?”
“No use trying to talk me into seeing it as murder. I jist want tae get to the pub afore they close. Try Blair.”
“Have better success talking to Harry’s cod.”
Hamish went up to the row of police cars; Blair was laughing uproariously at something one of the policewomen lad said. His piggy eyes fastened on Hamish and he scowled. “Jist as well it was an accident, Hamish, or there’d be an inquiry about why ye were neglecting your duties and had the radio switched off.”
“You mean like Donan’s inquiry?”
“None of your lip!”
“Look,” said Hamish earnestly, “why are you all so eager to accept the diagnosis of accident? The woman was obviously going to meet someone. She had a phone call, she got her hair bleached, and she was all dressed up.”
“Och, who can tell what goes on in the crazy minds of these teuchters,” said Blair, who hailed from Glasgow and considered all Highlanders barbarians. “I’m telling ye, it was an accident plain and simple.”
“At least find out where Peter Hynd went and ask him some questions.”
“The case is closed. It’s different fur you layabouts. We’ve got murder and mayhem daily in Strathbane.”
Hamish made a disgusted sound and went back to the Baxters’ house. The press had gone, the policeman had gone. He knocked at the door. It was opened a crack and Heather’s grey eyes peered out. She saw Hamish and opened the door wide. “Da’s gone to bed,” she said.
“Heather, I don’t want to distress you further, but what’s all this about your father hitting your mother with a codfish?”
“It wass yesterday,” she said in a singsong voice, and he was forcibly reminded of a good child reciting poetry at a school function. “She wass standing by the cooker and they had a quarrel. That’s when it happened.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“Da thought he would get into trouble, but I told him it wass better to tell the truth.”
Hamish eyed her narrowly. “You wouldn’t make up a story to protect your father, would you, Heather, and find you were protecting a murderer instead?”
“I don’t lie,” she said fiercely.
Hamish went back to the police Land Rover and sat in it, moodily staring down at the loch. He felt that if he did not investigate this case further, it would nag at him until the day he died. Yes, he was lazy, but the taking of human life was the ultimate crime and he could not believe Betty’s death had been an accident.
He was due a three weeks’ holiday. His bank account was showing a modest sum of money. He had planned to take Priscilla on holiday. He struck the steering wheel. But what would the fair Priscilla say when he asked her? What would she think as a vision of the intimacy of a hotel bedroom rose in her cold mind? But he made up his mind. He would drive back and ask her. If she refused, then he would use the holiday to find Peter Hynd.
He drove out of Drim and straight to the Tommel Castle Hotel. There had been a special reception and dinner for the new guests. When he went in, they were in the bar, Priscilla among them in a flame-coloured silk dress, laughing and talking with two of the men. The men were worldly, expensive-and sophisticated-looking in their evening dress. He felt suddenly gawky and ill at ease. Priscilla looked up and saw him, and the laughter left her face and her eyes took on a guarded look. She walked up to him. “Hamish?”
“Can we talk?”
“I’m very busy,” she said coolly. “Oh, come into the office.”
They walked into the hotel office. “Now, Hamish,” said Priscilla briskly.
“It iss not the business meeting,” retorted Hamish huffily. “I’ve decided to take a three weeks’ holiday, and I thought we could just pack up and go somewhere.”
“Just like that?”
“Why not?”
“What were you doing driving Sophy Bisset back from Inverness? And I gather you had a splendid time having lunch and going to watch a dirty movie.”
“Priscilla, I told you I was going to Inverness. I happened to run into Sophy, that was all. Then I heard about the death at Drim and dropped her at the bus stop at Bonar Bridge. No doubt the Currie sisters reported it all.”
“Not to mention Sophy herself.”
“I’m telling you, there wass nothing to it.” His Highland accent was becoming more sibilant, a sign that he was upset. “Let’s not quarrel. Let’s talk about this holiday.”
“I cannot possibly go off on holiday now. We are too busy.”
“Priscilla, you’ll need to chuck the hotel work when we’re married.”
“Why? We’ll need the money,” she said brutally. “Have you any idea what a dress like this costs?” Priscilla knew she was behaving badly, and like most hurt people was taking a vindictive pleasure in it. “When we are married, if we are married, then I shall get Pa to pay me a salary. I do the work of two, sometimes more. Then there’s the gift shop to run.”
“I have no intention of living off my wife’s earnings,” said Hamish stiffly.
“Why am I so different?” she asked sweetly. “You mooch off everyone else in Lochdubh.”