Betty Close did not lose her job because when it came to grovelling, she could out-grovel Detective Inspector Blair. Instead, she was suspended for a month.
She decided to use her time off following up the death of the Edinburgh prostitute instead of moping in her flat in Glasgow. She got off at Waverley Station and made her way up the Mound to the Royal Mile.
People have been living in the Royal Mile for the last seven thousand years. It runs from the Castle to Holyrood Palace down the shoulder of a former volcano. Betty’s grandmother had told her that when she was a child, she remembered the tall tenements on the Royal Mile containing some really dreadful slums. But restoration and cachet had turned the famous street into somewhere desirable to live.
Betty found the actual address, which she had discovered by trawling through back numbers of the Edinburgh papers. The death of Sarah Brogan had only qualified for a small paragraph in the Scotsman. The procurator fiscal had refused to pass a verdict of suicide, and it said the police were still investigating.
The tenement was up a close off the Canongate, a close being the narrow passage that led to the flats. She had brought with her still photographs of the four men. Betty started at the top flat where Sarah had lived. There was no police tape on the door. She pressed the bell, but nobody answered. There was no answer at the flat across the landing, either.
Betty tried a flat on the next floor down. The whole building seemed expensive and well maintained. She reflected that the late Sarah must have been very good at her job. This time someone did answer the door, a small thickset man with a balding head and small black eyes.
Betty showed him the photographs and asked if he recognised any of the men. She explained that she was investigating Sarah’s death for a television documentary. He put on a pair of glasses and carefully studied the photographs.
“No, I can’t say I recognise anyone,” he said at last. He had a voice which the Scots would describe as “refeened,” rather strangulated as he tried to imitate a “posh” English accent.
“Can you think of anyone who lives here who might have known her?” asked Betty.
He shook his head. “We keep ourselves to ourselves. The other residents are practically all out during the day. I’d suggest you come back sometime after six o’clock. It’s a good thing the fire brigade were quick off the mark or I’d have lost my flat as well.”
She found that what he had said about the other residents being out during the day was true. She pressed bell after bell on her road down without success. She tried a few of the neighbouring shops and a coffee shop, still failing to find anyone who had known Sarah.
Betty passed the time by going down to Princes Street and looking at the shops. A true Glaswegian, she felt out of place in Edinburgh and found herself longing to get the train back to Glasgow. But just before six o’clock, she wearily trekked back to the Canongate and entered the close leading to the tenement. The aristocracy, she remembered, used to live in the Royal Mile but had deserted it in the eighteenth century to move to the New Town behind Princes Street. It was still daylight outside but the close was dark and the lamps had not been lit, no doubt as one of the new measures to leave lights off as long as possible to save energy.
There was a dark alcove in the close. Just as she was passing it, she received a smashing blow on the skull. She died instantly and did not feel the hands that shoved her small inert body into a large suitcase on wheels.
Betty had been an orphan and a menopause baby. She had no brothers or sisters, and the only relation she had known had been her mother’s sister who died the year before of cancer. And because she had been suspended for a month, no one noticed she was missing.
Her body in the suitcase loaded down with stones eventually lay at the bottom of a quiet stretch of the Gareloch in Argyll after being tipped over the side of a rowing boat.
Back in Lochdubh, Hamish was relieved to find that the four men had left, so there was no fear of Milly being bullied further. But now he had the weight of worry that the murderer might be one of the locals. He diligently went all over the area where the captain might have walked, talking to crofters, and then to every house in Drim but without any success.
Just to be sure, he checked up on Edie Aubrey. On the day of the captain’s death, she had been seen with Ailsa. There was no indication that she had gone near the captain’s home.
He wondered, as spring eased into a glorious early summer and bell heather began to bloom on the flanks of the towering mountains, whether this would be a case he would ever solve. He itched to go down to Guildford. He had holiday owing but felt reluctant to use up his dwindling bank balance on what could be a wild goose chase prompted by his desire to find a murderer outside of his beloved Sutherland.
One fine morning, he wandered out onto the waterfront and leaned on the wall overlooking the loch. The air was clean and fresh, scented with pine from the forest across the loch and with the more homely smells of frying bacon and baking scones. Angela Brodie came hurrying to join him.
“Hamish, I’ve just been correcting the proofs of my new book.”
“So that Edinburgh publisher’s turned out all right?”
“Oh, he’s great. I’m going down to Edinburgh to have lunch with him tomorrow. How’s the case going?”
“I cannae get anywhere, Angela, and that iss a fact,” said Hamish, the strengthening of his accent showing that he was upset. “I fear it’s going to turn out to be one of the locals. You weren’t the only one.”
“Who…?”
“I cannae be saying. I feel like taking time off and going down to Guildford but I’m a bittie stretched at the bank.”
“Milly gave me back that money, so I could give you some.”
“No, I couldn’t be taking it. I want to be able to enjoy a grand day like this without the shadow of those damn murders hanging over the place. Who else goes for long walks?”
“Not many of us. You know what it’s like in the country. Some of them at the end of the waterfront even drive their cars along to Patel’s. Oh, I know. I’ve thought of someone. Do you remember Effie Garrard?”
“Of course. The one that was murdered and pretended to be an artist when it turned out to be her sister’s work.”
“Well, the sister, Caro, spent some of the winter down in Brighton but she’s back. She’s had that awful corrugated iron roof taken off and a good slate one put on instead. I heard she likes to go for long walks.”
“I’ll try her.” Hamish sighed. “I’m at a dead end anyway. Tell me, Angela, I never asked. You’re no fool. What was there about the captain that made you believe him?”
“I suppose he had the professional fraudster’s gift of finding out people’s dreams and playing on them. I felt hurt, rejected by my old publisher. He was so easy to talk to. I hear how he treated his poor wife like dirt but he made you feel you were the most important person in the world.”
Hamish was once more amazed that Caro Garrard had decided to keep the cottage in the Highlands which had once belonged to her murdered sister.* The new slate roof gleamed in the sunlight, and the walls had been newly whitewashed.
The door was standing open. “Anyone home?” he called.
Caro came to the door. She was a small housewifey-looking woman. No one could have guessed by just looking at her that her exquisite pottery sold for large sums, as did her small paintings of birds and flowers.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said. “What do you want?”
“A wee chat.”
Caro suddenly grinned. “How nice to be in the Highlands where a policeman asks for a wee chat instead of saying severely, We want you to accompany us down to the station. Come in.”