Maggie Bane answered the door and her face fell when she saw him. “I’m sick of the police,” she said harshly.
“Just a few more questions,” said Hamish soothingly.
“But two detectives have already been here this morning,” she wailed. “And yesterday, that horrible fat man, Blair, kept shouting at me and did everything but charge me.”
“It’s like this, Miss Bane. It’s a murder enquiry and I am sure you would be happy if we found the murderer. I think the answer to the murder must surely lie in Mr. Gilchrist’s personality and who he knew, and who better to tell us than yourself?”
She fidgeted on the doorstep and then said reluctantly, “You’d better come in.”
She led the way into a living room. It was furnished with a three–piece suite covered in flowered chintz. There was an electric fire, two bars, the kind that eats up electricity, the kind everyone in the Highlands bought in the heady days when they blocked off their coal fires under the impression that the Hydro Electric Board was going to supply cheap electricity. I mean, it all came from water, didn’t it? Too late they found themselves faced with some of the highest electricity charges in Britain and yet the electric fires remained and the coal fires stayed blocked up. Women in the Highlands, it seemed, did not want to go back to the days of shovelling coal and raking out ashes. There was a noisy flowered wallpaper on the walls, bamboo poles with writhing green vegetation. There was a square dining table at the window with a bowl of artificial flowers on it. A low coffee table stood in front of the sofa, with glossy magazines arranged in neat piles, rather like in a waiting room.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“No, thank you,” said the normally mooching Hamish, but he was anxious to get down to business.
She began to cry. “You think I’m a suspect,” she said when she could. “The police never take hospitality from people they think are guilty.”
“Och, no,” said Hamish. “I’m too anxious to get on with the questions, that’s all. You go and dry your eyes and make us a cup of coffee.”
Maggie gulped and nodded. She was a beautiful girl, he thought, when she had left the room, but with such an ugly voice, such an aggressive voice. She wasn’t aggressive at the moment and again he had an uneasy feeling that Maggie Bane was maybe one of those women who could cry at will.
He looked around the room for any sign of a desk, but there was not even a sideboard or cupboard which might house letters or documents.
Now, if he was one of the detectives in the stories he liked reading, he would seduce her and when she was asleep, search her bedroom and handbag. He grinned to himself. From his experience, he would probably sleep like a log and have to be awakened by her.
After some time, he was just beginning to wonder if she had run away, when the door opened and she came in carrying two mugs of coffee on a tray with milk and sugar.
“Were you fond of Mr. Gilchrist?” asked Hamish, once he was handed a mug of coffee.
“He was a good boss.”
“He was divorced. Was he going with anyone?”
“He liked the ladies, but I do not think there was anyone in particular.”
“And what about you, Miss Bane? Are you engaged?”
She held out one slim left hand. “See? No rings.”
Hamish took a deep breath. “Were you at any time romantically involved with Mr. Gilchrist?”
She flushed angrily. “No, I was not!”
“I’m bound to hear if you were,” said Hamish gently. “You know what it’s like up here.”
“We went out for dinner once or twice. You know how it is. Some days were very busy and it seemed natural for both of us to have a bite to eat before we went home.”
Hamish made a mental note that there had probably been something going on. Gossip would already have been running rife all over the Highlands. At first people would be discreet because the man was so recently dead, but within a few more days tongues would begin to wag.
“Have you any idea why someone would hate him so much to kill him?”
She shook her head. “I think it was just some maniac who came up when I was out.”
“Ah, about your going out. You have probably been questioned about that, but I must ask you again – why so long and why on that particular day?”
“I’m sick of this!” she said, her ugly voice rasping across the neat impersonality of her living room. “It was a quiet day. It was a chance to do my shopping. That’s all.”
“Are your parents alive, Miss Bane?”
“Yes.”
“And where are they?”
“Dingwall.”
“They must be concerned about you. Have they been to see you?”
“I haven’t had much to do with them since I left university.”
Hamish looked surprised. “Which university?”
“St. Andrews. I got a scholarship.”
“Did you stay the full course? Did you get a degree?”
“Yes, I studied maths and physics.”
Hamish leaned back in his chair and studied her thoughtfully. “And you worked for Gilchrist for five years! That must ha’ been about your first job. Why should an attractive and highly educated young woman go to work for a dentist in a small town in Sutherland?”
“There are not many jobs around and just because one has a degree, a good job doesn’t automatically follow.”
“Yes, but…”
“Constable Macbeth,” said Maggie firmly, getting to her feet, “I do not think you realise how tired and upset I am. I am in no fit condition to answer any more questions today.”
Hamish rose as well. He looked at her thoughtfully. “I’ll be back.”
When he left, he half turned at the garden gate. So many questions unanswered. The main question was why she had buried herself in a dull town like Braikie, working as receptionist to a dentist with a bad reputation.
For the first time, he felt like giving up and letting Strathbane get on with it. What could one Highland constable do who did not have access to all the information, all the statements? He did not even know how Gilchrist had been killed.
∨ Death of a Dentist ∧
4
I regard you with an indifference closely bordering on aversion.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
Hamish parked the car at the police station, locked his hens away for the night, checked on his sheep, and then went for a walk along the waterfront in the watery greenish light of the Highland gloaming. The little waves of the sea loch, calmer now that the wind had moderated, slapped at the pebbled shore. A phone box by the harbour seemed shockingly scarlet in the soft gloom and muted colours of its surroundings. There were smells, of tar and fish, and diesel mixing with smells of cooking and strong tea as the villagers prepared their evening meals.
The lights of television sets flickered behind cottage windows, bringing the outside world to Lochdubh where villagers probably studied the latest fighting in Somalia with indifferent eyes while they talked about more interesting death close at hand.
“Hamish!” The voice was loud and peremptory. Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, marched towards him. She was armoured in tweed, as usual, and on her head was a green felt hat with a pheasant’s feather stuck in the hatband.
He looked wildly around, seeking some avenue of escape, but he was in full view of her.
She came up to him, her bulldog face heavy with accusation.
“What are you doing about this dreadful murder?”
“I’m doing the little a Highland policeman can. If you have any complaints, you should talk to the superintendent, Mr. Peter Daviot.”