His thoughts then turned to Gilchrist and his Highland curiosity about the dentist was fully roused. Hamish had never met the man. He would phone up and say he could not see him that day and then he would make another appointment. If Gilchrist showed any signs of removing the tooth, he would remove himself from that dentist’s chair and go to Inverness. But that way he would be able to see the dentist and form his own opinion. It was all so easy to lose one’s reputation in the Highlands of Scotland where one tall tale was embellished and passed, around and another added to it.
The phone rang shrilly from the police station office. He got gingerly out of bed and went to answer it. It was from the owner of a hotel fifteen miles away on the Lairg road, complaining he had been burgled the night before.
Hamish promised to be over as soon as he could, dressed again, got into the police Land Rover and drove out to The Scotsman Hotel where the burglary had taken place. He expected to find vandalism, broken windows, the bar a mess, but it transpired that the break-in had been a professional one. The safe in the office had been broken into and the week’s takings stolen.
The safe looked heavy and massive and the door undamaged.
“How did they get into that?” he asked, pushing back his peaked cap and scratching his fiery red hair.
The manager, Brian Macbean, nodded to two men, who swung the safe round.
“Oh, my,” said Hamish. For the back of the safe had been made of a panel of chipboard which the burglar had simply sawn through.
He took out his notebook. “Can we sit down, Mr. Macbean, and I’ll take some notes. Then I’ll phone Strathbane and get them to send a forensic team over. How much was in the safe?”
“Two hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”
“What on earth were you doing keeping that amount of money on the premises?”
“It’s the giant prize for this Saturday night’s bingo session. Man, we’ve got folk coming from every part of the Highlands.”
“So someone knew about it, and someone knew about the back of the safe.”
Macbean, a squat, burly man with thinning hair, looked morose. “The big bingo night’s been in all the local papers, so it has.”
“But why cash?” Hamish was puzzled. “A cheque would ha’ done.”
“That was the attraction. It was all in twenty pound notes. All the press photographers were coming. It would have made the grand picture, some winner with all those notes.”
Hamish licked the end of his pencil. “So why the wooden back on the safe?”
“I needed a safe and there was this one over at the auction rooms in Inverness. I thought that would do me fine.”
“And probably charged the owners for a real safe.”
Macbean looked mulishly at the floor and did not reply.
Hamish patiently took him through exactly when the theft had been discovered and then said, “Who knew the safe had a wooden back?”
“The barman, Johnny King, and one of the waiters, Peter Sampson. They helped me bring it back from Inverness.”
“What about your family?”
“Well, of course they knew. My wife, Agnes, and my girl, Darleen.”
Hamish racked through his mind for any gossip he might have heard about Macbean’s family, but could dunk of nothing in particular. “I’ll need to interview the barman and the waiter,” he said, “and then I’ll talk to your wife and daughter.”
“Whit! Leave my family out of it.”
“Don’t be daft, Mr. Macbean. They might have seen something or heard something. How old is Darleen?”
“Twenty-two.”
“Where is she now?”
“She’s over at the dentist in Braikie with her mother.”
Gilchrist again, thought Hamish, and then realised with a sort of glad wonder that the hellish pain in his tooth had subsided.
“How come a Highland hotel can afford to offer such a huge money prize?”
“We run the bingo nights all year round with small prizes and the profits are put in the bank. I drew the big money out of the bank in the middle of the week.”
“I’ll just use the phone there,” he said, “and call Strathbane, and then I’ll take a look around.”
Detective Chief Inspector Blair when contacted said he was busy on a drugs job but would send his sidekick, Jimmy Anderson, over with a forensic team.
Hamish examined the hotel office. Apart from the gaping hole in the back of the safe, there was no other sign of a break-in that he could see. “You discovered this in the morning,” he said. “What was going on here last night?”
“There was a ceilidh.”
“How many people?”
“About a hundred or so. But the office was locked.”
Hamish examined the office door. It was wooden with a frosted-glass panel. The lock was a simple Yale one, easily picked.
The barman and the waiter were brought in. Hamish questioned them closely. They hadn’t finished their duties until one in the morning and then had gone straight to bed. The barman, Johnny King, was a sinister-looking man in his thirties with his hair worn in a ponytail and his thin face marred by a long scar. Peter Sampson, the waiter, was a small, smooth-faced youth of about twenty.
After he had finished interviewing them, Hamish walked around the public rooms of the hotel. It was typical of the more depressing type of Highland hotel, everything in pine and plastic and with the once gaudy carpets looking as if they badly needed shampooing. Tartan curtains hung at the windows and the walls were ornamented with plastic claymores and plastic shields along with bad murals of depressing historical events like the Battle of Culloden and the Massacre of Glencoe. The artist had not liked Bonnie Prince Charlie, for there he was with a cowardly look on his white face fleeing the Battle of Culloden.
And he hadn’t liked the Campbells either, witness their savage and gleeful faces as they massacred the Macdonalds of Glencoe.
“What’s the polis doing here?” demanded a shrill voice behind him.
He swung round. A small blonde middle-aged woman stood glaring at him. Her hair was wound around a forest of pink plastic rollers and a cigarette hung from thin lips, painted orange. Beside her stood a tall, sulky girl in micro skirt and black suede thigh boots, fringed suede jacket and purple blouse. Her makeup was dead-white, her lipstick purple and her black hair gelled into spikes.
“Mrs. Macbean?”
“Aye, what’s it to you?”
“The safe in the office was broken into last night, Mrs. Macbean,” explained Hamish patiently.
“The bingo money! It’s gone?”
“All gone,” said Hamish.
“Cool,” said Darleen. Her eyes were flat and dead. Valium or sheer bovine stupidity, thought Hamish.
“Where is he?” demanded Mrs. Macbean.
“In the office,” said Hamish, and then turned away as he heard cars driving up outside.
He went out to meet the contingent from Strathbane.
Detective Jimmy Anderson’s foxy features lit up in a grin when he saw Hamish.
“If it isnae Mr. Death hisself,” he said cheerfully. “Where’s the body? Wi’ the great Hamish Macbeth on the scene, there’s bound to be a body.”
“No body. The safe’s been broken into like I told you. I figure someone from the hotel did it.”
“Aye, maybe, Hamish. But what makes you think that?”
“I chust have this feeling.”
“The seer of Lochdubh,” jeered Jimmy. “Man, I could murder a dram. Any chance of them opening up that bar?”
“You shouldnae be thinking o’ drinking on duty,” said Hamish primly.
“Och, Hamish, it’s only on the TV that they say things like that.”
“And in police regulations.”