Great teeth plunged into her leg. She let out a scream of pure terror. Then she disappeared under the waves and a red stain spread out over the blue water.
It took a long time to recover the bits of Sandra from the sea and put them together with a woman who was missing from the condominium. Her flat was searched and several stolen passports recovered. Then it was wondered how she had managed to pass through passport controls at airports, where she would get fingerprint and retina scrutiny. But Sandra had driven to Mexico, picking out-of-the-way border controls, and once she was in Mexico had bribed a trucker to take her across the border into the States.
From fingerprints found in her flat, Interpol identified her at last as the missing Sandra Prosser.
Hamish Macbeth had to read about it in the newspapers, angry that neither Jimmy nor anyone at Strathbane had taken the trouble to tell him. Normally lazy and unambitious, and usually glad of a chance to go fishing, he nonetheless could not shake off his irritation. He finally drove to Strathbane and ran Jimmy to earth in the detective’s favourite pub.
“Why didn’t you tell me Sandra Prosser had been found?” demanded Hamish.
Jimmy grinned. “You mean, what was left of her? A fitting end. She lived with a shark and got killed by one.”
“So why didn’t you tell me?”
“Stop glaring at me. I’ve been right busy. I somehow thought you’d hear. Sorry. Have a real drink.”
“I’m driving,” said Hamish huffily.
“Well, now you’re here, I’ll give you the latest horror story in the Prosser saga. Someone in Jensen Beach took a photo of her. Some woman taking a picture of her child but there’s a clear shot o’ Sandra in the background. They start backtracking through her travels. Found she had been staying in a hotel in Santiago and had spent the night with a young man called Jaime Gonzales, subsequently reported missing. He worked at a clothing firm. He handed in his notice the day after his fling with our Sandra—who had been trying to find him, and paid a girl at the hotel to interpret for her. Next thing, Jaime’s mother reports him missing. As they live in a shantytown, the police don’t care much. The interpreter said that Sandra was very angry. I think this Jaime stole money from her. The safe in the villa in Rio had been cleaned out. I think she caught up with him and killed him to get the money back. Of course, she must have been really tough to live with a psycho like Prosser.
“Cheer up, Hamish. It’s the final chapter. You can write The End and get back to poaching.”
Hamish decided to do just that. When he returned to the police station, he collected his rod and fishing tackle and, with the dog and cat at his heels, walked up over the moors until he came to the upper reaches of the River Anstey.
Keeping a careful eye out for the water bailiff, because the fishing rights belonged to Colonel Halburton-Smythe, he cast his fly on a glassy pool and felt, for the first time in ages, all the dark worry of the Prosser case fade away.
He broke off for a picnic lunch and had just opened a thermos flask when Sonsie gave a warning hiss but Lugs wagged his tail.
Hamish stood up and saw Elspeth Grant coming down the heathery slope towards him.
“You gave me a fright,” he said. “I thought you were the water bailiff. How did you find me?”
“Elementary, my dear Watson. It’s a fine day, the murders are over, and I remembered this was your favourite poaching site.”
They sat down together on a flat rock by the pool. “Coffee?” asked Hamish.
“Fine. Just black.”
“You look like your old self,” said Hamish. Elspeth’s hair was frizzy, and she was wearing an old sweater over a pair of jeans. “What brings you?”
“Just a holiday.”
“I would have thought they would have sent you back up on the Prosser case.”
“I didn’t want to risk anyone pinching my job as a news presenter so I got a new contract stating that that was my sole job. So, in future, everyone can murder everyone up here and you won’t see me. Tell me all about it.”
“Too fine a day,” said Hamish. “I want to forget it.”
Elspeth studied him with those silvery Gypsy eyes of hers. “Prosser evidently knew this territory like the back of his hand,” she said. “Funny him falling down that gully.”
“I don’t want to talk about it!” snapped Hamish, and in a milder voice, “Sandwich? It’s chicken.”
“Thanks. It won’t be one of your hens, anyway. You just let them die of old age. I’ll take you for dinner tonight. Don’t stand me up. Eight o’clock?”
“I’ll be there. I think maybe I’ll pack up. The fish don’t seem to be biting. I really ought to go over to Drim and see how Milly Davenport’s getting on.”
Milly had never lived in a house with a cesspool before. So when the sink and toilet started backing up, she phoned Ailsa for help. Ailsa gave her the number of a local man who would come and pump out the cesspool.
Three men with a truck with a big tank on the back arrived. “I mind the drain is somewhere ower here,” said the boss. He approached the flower bed where the money was buried. “Not there, surely,” shouted Milly.
“No, no, missus. Jist the ither side, covered in the gravel.” He scraped the gravel away and revealed an iron cover. He wrenched and turned and finally pulled the cover off. A fountain of excrement, fuelled by trapped gases, blasted into the air, spraying everyone with the worst kind of filth.
It poured down into the flower bed and Milly thought with dread of the case of money buried underneath.
When the gusher subsided, the boss, seemingly unfazed by the fact that he was covered in brown unmentionable, put the huge hose into the drain and then started a motor in the truck. Milly ran into the house and stripped off her clothes and had a shower. Then she dressed in clean clothes and went outside again.
The smell was awful. Amused villagers had gathered to watch. A cesspool clearance was regarded as a rare show. When the job was pronounced finished, Jock Kennedy and some of the men asked Milly if she had a hose.
“Yes,” said Milly. “There are some gardening things in a shed at the side there. What are you going to do?”
“We’ll chust be washing this muck off the garden.”
Milly thought frantically of the buried money. “Oh, don’t bother…,” she began, but Jock was already walking to the shed.
He came back with a long coil of hose. Not bothering to ask Milly’s permission, he went into the house and fed the hose from the kitchen tap round to the front of the house and began to drench the garden.
Finally Jock stopped and looked up at the black clouds streaming in from the west. “Storm’s coming, Milly,” he said cheerfully. “That’ll finish the job.”
To Milly’s dismay, Ailsa, who had joined the watchers, said cheerfully, “I think we could all do with a cup of tea.”
Milly felt she could not refuse. They would wonder why. Jock, Ailsa, and the villagers gathered in the kitchen. Milly made endless cups of tea and sliced cake. Outside the wind screamed and the rain flooded down.
After two hours, they left. Milly hurriedly donned a raincoat and rain hat and went out into the garden. The screaming gale lifted her hat from her head and sent it sailing off.
She went to the shed and took out a spade and began to dig. The excrement had sunk down into her new flower bed, and the smell was awful. She hoisted out the attaché case and carried it into the kitchen.
She laid it on the table and opened it. The notes inside were brown with the muck from the cesspool and soaking wet.
Milly found a ball of string and began to put lines of string across the kitchen. Then she began to gingerly sponge each note and pin it up to dry. She stoked up the Raeburn stove and returned to the long, long job of cleaning the banknotes.