When Hamish put away his notebook, Milly asked plaintively, “But why Giles? Prosser never knew him, I’ll swear.”
“Prosser wants you on your own so he can search for the money. I warn you again that if you find it, you must phone me right away and get Tam here to write a story about it.”
There was a knock at the door. “That’ll be my photographer,” said Tam.
“You mean you’re going to write a story?” asked Milly.
“Look, dear, I’m a reporter and I can’t sit on this when all the press’ll be around soon. Just a picture of you and then I’ll write it up. I’ll keep the rest o’ the press away from you.”
“Good idea,” said Hamish. “I hope you’ve got enough groceries in because you’ll be under siege for the rest of the day.”
Hamish and Priscilla went outside. “Thanks,” said Hamish. “The least I can do is buy you dinner tonight.”
“The Italian’s? Eight o’clock?”
“Grand.”
Ignoring the reporters, they climbed into their respective vehicles and drove off.
Back at the police station, Hamish began to worry again about his dog and cat. He had a feeling that Prosser was still going to come after him. Sonsie and Lugs were greedy, and if anyone left out poisoned meat for them, he was sure they would gobble it down. But he couldn’t keep moving them out, as some time had passed and he didn’t know when any attack might come.
He put them in the Land Rover and then drove up round the outlying crofts, asking if any stranger had been seen, but no one had spotted anything. Every guest at the hotel had been thoroughly checked through the police computer.
He returned in the evening, changed into his best suit, and brushed his red hair until it shone. Leaving the dog and cat behind, he walked along to the restaurant, wondering why he should feel so excited at the prospect of dinner with Priscilla. Again, he decided it was like the cigarettes he often craved. Addictions never quite went entirely away.
Halfway to the restaurant, he had an uneasy feeling of being watched. He swung round several times but the waterfront was empty.
In the ruins of the hotel which stood by the harbour, Prosser watched him go. He had disguised himself with a moustache and beard and had false identity papers showing that he was an ornithologist.
The moment of reckoning had come at last, he thought. He would pick the lock on the police station, shoot those damn animals, and then wait for Macbeth.
Priscilla was as cool and elegant as ever. She was wearing a smoky blue cashmere twin set over fitted dark blue corduroy trousers and high-heeled black leather boots.
Hamish’s pleasure at seeing her was dimmed slightly. He had that old longing to say or do something which would break through that calm veneer. Wasn’t it her very lack of any passion whatsoever that had made him break off the engagement?
But she was always interested in his work and it helped him to go over the cases and to speculate if and when Prosser would arrive.
“Surely he’s out of the country by now,” said Priscilla. “It would be madness to come back here.”
“He is mad. Only a psychopath goes around killing people the way he does, and he has all the extreme vanity of the psychopath. Oh, well, I’ve got a more immediate worry: they’ve decided to billet another constable on me and I’ve got to put the stuff back in to the spare room.”
Prosser picked the lock on the police station front door, not knowing it was hardly ever used; Hamish and the villagers used the kitchen door. He pushed and strained and finally got it open. He looked up and down. No one around. He entered the room and fell over several piles of junk on the floor. Hamish had dumped some of the stuff from the spare room onto the living room floor. Where were these damn animals?
He went into the kitchen and risked switching on the light. Lugs stood glaring at him out of his blue eyes.
“Goodbye, doggy,” said Prosser with a grin and raised his revolver.
Where the cat came from, he did not know. Sonsie flew straight at him. She was a big wild cat and the onslaught knocked him off-balance and he fell backwards onto the floor. He screamed as the cat bit into his neck, right into the carotid artery. He tried to seize the cat but she leapt back. Blood was pumping out of the wound on his neck. He staggered to his feet, looking for his gun, but the dog sank his teeth into his leg. The cat jumped on his back and began clawing at his head.
His eyes grew dim and he fell to the floor, blood pumping from his neck.
Hamish and Priscilla were just finishing their meal when Willie Lamont, the waiter, approached the table, looking worried.
“Sonsie and Lugs are outside and Sonsie’s covered in blood.”
Hamish, followed by Priscilla, rushed out of the restaurant. Hamish knelt down by his cat. Sonsie gave a deep throaty purr. “Get me a sponge and water,” he shouted over his shoulder to Willie, who had followed them out.
When Willie reappeared with a sponge and a bowl of water, Hamish gently sponged the cat’s fur and heaved a sigh of relief. “She’s not injured. I’d better get back to the station.”
“Maybe you’ve got rats,” suggested Willie.
“I’ll see,” said Hamish, thinking, Not with that amount of blood.
He and Priscilla quickly walked to the police station. Hamish unlocked the door, noticing that the kitchen light was on. “Stay back,” he said to Priscilla. “It might be Prosser.”
He went to the henhouse where he had hidden a rifle and brought it out, following by the startled clucking of his hens.
“Wait here,” said Hamish. He swung open the kitchen door.
A man was lying there in a large pool of blood. Hamish felt for a pulse and found none. He bent down and ripped off the beard and moustache. Prosser.
He went out to Priscilla. “It’s Prosser. He’s dead.”
She walked into the kitchen and turned white at the sight that met her eyes.
“Better phone Strathbane,” she said.
“No!” shouted Hamish. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because they’ll soon find out my cat killed him and they’ll have Sonsie put down.”
“What? For getting rid of a serial murderer?”
“Blair will see to it. Damn. I’ve got to move this body. He’s bound to have a stolen car. I’ve got to get rid of it as well. I don’t want it found near the police station. You guard the body and don’t let anyone in.” Hamish went into the office and came back wearing a pair of latex gloves. He gingerly searched in Prosser’s pockets until he found a set of car keys.
When he had gone, Priscilla felt she could not bear the sight of the body and found a travel rug in Hamish’s bedroom and threw it over the horrible sight that was Prosser’s body.
After what seemed an age, Hamish came back and said, “There’s a vehicle parked behind the old hotel. I’ll get rid of it later. He must have bought it, as he had the keys and hadn’t hotwired it. I’ve got to get this body somewhere and dump it. The Land Rover’s outside. I’ve got a couple of pairs of thae forensic overalls. We’ll put them on and get the body in the Land Rover.”
Struggling and panting, because Prosser was heavy, they managed to lift the corpse into the back of the Land Rover. Hamish had found Prosser’s revolver and had tucked it into one of the dead man’s pockets. “Thanks, Priscilla,” whispered Hamish. “You can go home now.”
“You’ll need a lookout. We may as well go together. Don’t argue. I’m trying very hard not to be sick.”
Hamish put a wheelbarrow in on top of Prosser’s body. They both got in, and he drove off under the blazing stars of Sutherland, into the soaring mountains. The sky was clear but there was the faint metallic smell that heralded snow in the air when he finally stopped.