She thought Hamish was probably some eccentric and the stories about him had been wild exaggerations. Hadn’t Blair often told her that Macbeth was some highland idiot who just occasionally got lucky?
Hamish came back, dressed in his uniform, and said, “Just a minute. I’ve got to let my hens out.”
Robin suppressed an exclamation of irritation.
When he returned, Hamish then fussed about filling up the animals’ water bowls. When he finished, Robin said impatiently, “Can we get started?”
“I’ve got to walk my beasts. Come with me, and we can talk as we go along.”
I should have brought a camera, thought Robin. No one would ever believe this.
As they strolled along the waterfront, Hamish told her everything he had found out.
After he had finished, he said, “I thought we might go up and see the sister, Caro Garrard. You question her, and I’ll see if there is any variation in her statement. Then we’ll try some of the others. It’s ower early. We’ll need to wait a bit until folks wake up.”
Nessie and Jessie Currie peered through their net curtains. “He’s got a lassie with him,” said Nessie. “Oh, my, she must have spent the night. She should be warned.”
“Warned,” echoed Jessie.
Robin noticed that two small women were approaching them. Hairnets covered their tightly permed hair, and they were wearing identical dressing gowns over flannel men’s pyjamas. On their feet, each wore a pair of Snoopy slippers. The morning sun glinted off their glasses.
Hamish saw them and said hurriedly, “Let’s get back to the police station.”
“Not so fast!” shouted Nessie.
“So fast,” echoed her sister.
Hamish groaned and stopped. “Young woman,” said Nessie, “they may have loose morals in the cities, but in Lochdubh, we are decent, God-fearing people.”
“I am Detective Robin Mackenzie,” said Robin, her fluting South Uist accent cutting through Jessies usual echo. “I arrived at the police station at six o’clock this morning to begin work. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Just came out to say welcome,” mumbled Nessie, and the twins bolted back towards their cottage.
“If the rest of the inhabitants are as deranged as that pair, I’m not surprised there have been two murders up here,” said Robin.
“They’re very nice women,” said Hamish defensively. He hated any of the inhabitants being criticised by outsiders.
They walked back to the police station. “I’ll fix us an omelette for breakfast,” said Hamish.
In the kitchen, Robin noticed that the cat and dog stared at each other for a long moment and then slouched out. “Where are they going?” she asked.
“Who?”
“Your cat and dog.”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish crossly, lifting the lid of the stove and dropping in slices of brown peat. He knew exactly where they had gone. They had gone back to his bed to continue sleeping, but he did not want to tell her that.
“I’m chust going out to get some eggs,” he said.
Bloody women, thought Hamish as he collected fresh eggs from the hen house. I’m surrounded by them.
He returned to the kitchen and began to beat up the eggs for an omelette.
Robin watched him. Her heart was sinking rapidly. She should be out there with the experts, not stuck in this kitchen with this lanky policeman and his weird cat and weirder dog.
The omelette was excellent but the coffee dreadful. She edged her cup aside.
“I’ll make us some tea,” said Hamish. “That coffee’s a disgrace, and so I shall tell Patel.”
“Is it instant?”
“Yes, it’s called High Mountain Blue. It was on special offer. I think it’s made from the sweepings on the floor after they’ve processed the real stuff. After we see Caro, the sister, I think we should pay a visit to the seer, Angus Macdonald.”
This is truly awful, thought Robin. I’m stuck with a copper who believes in clairvoyants.
Hamish saw the expression on her face and grinned. “Angus is an old fraud, but he bases his so-called predictions and insights on listening closely to gossip.”
Caro Garrard looked at them wearily when they arrived on her doorstep. “More questions?”
“Just a few,” said Hamish amiably. “May we come in? This is Detective Mackenzie.”
“Don’t be long,” Caro said. “I slept badly last night, and I was planning to go back to bed.”
They sat down round the work table. Hamish removed his cap. A sunbeam shone on the rich red of his hair. I wonder if he dyes it, thought Robin. She cleared her throat and took out her notebook.
She took Caro over everything she had told Hamish. Caro wearily replied to her questions. Then Robin asked, “Just how furious were you when you discovered she had been passing your art off as her own?”
“I was very angry,” said Caro. “Oh, it wasn’t just that. It was an accumulation of all her other troubles I’d had to put up with. I sometimes think I would be married now if she hadn’t messed things up for me. No, I didn’t kill her. That murder wasn’t done by someone in a hot rage. It was cold and calculating.”
♦
“I think she did it,” said Robin as they got back into the Land Rover.
“Why?” asked Hamish.
“She was calculating enough to initially hide the fact that she was not in Brighton but up here, having it out with Effie.”
“We’ll see.” Hamish drove in the direction of the seer’s cottage. He stopped the car at the foot of a hill and said, “We’ll need to get out and walk. His cottage is up there.”
Angus’s cottage was perched on the top of a hill with a winding path leading up to it.
The seer opened the door to them just as they arrived on his doorstep. “Come ben,” he said. “What have you brought me?”
Hamish had forgotten that Angus always expected a present. “I haven’t had time,” he said. “We’re in the middle of an investigation. Look, I’ll get you a salmon later.”
“A real one out o’ the river,” ordered Angus, “and not one o’ thae ones out o’ the fish farm.”
Robin looked around the living room curiously. It was a low-ceiling room with an armchair on one side of the fire and two ladder-back Orkney chairs on the other. There was a table covered with the remains of breakfast by the small window set deep into the thick stone wall. The air was scented with peat smoke from the smouldering fire. Angus put an old blackened kettle on a hook over the fire. Hamish knew the seer had a perfectly good electric kettle in the kitchen but used the old·fashioned way of boiling water to impress visitors.
Angus sat down in the armchair, and Robin and Hamish took the chairs on the other side of the fire. “And who is this young lady?” asked Angus, stroking his long grey beard.
“I am Robin Mackenzie,” she said. “I am a detective who has been sent up here to work closely with Constable Macbeth.”
“And hating every minute of it,” said Angus. “Poor wee lassie sitting there thinking, what am I doing stuck here with this loon?”
Robin’s face flamed. “Nothing of the kind.”
Angus heaved himself to his feet. “Kettle’s boiled. I’ll just get the cups and an ashtray for you, Miss Mackenzie.”
“I don’t smoke!”
“Yes, you do,” said Angus, disappearing into the kitchen.
Hamish looked amused. “Is he right?”
“I’m trying to give up,” said Robin. “Oh, what the hell.” She took offher jacket and, rolling up the sleeve of her blouse, ripped off a nicotine patch and threw it on the fire. She replaced her jacket, opened her handbag, and took out a packet of Bensons. Hamish watched hungrily as she lit one up. He had given up smoking a long time ago, but the craving for a cigarette had never quite left him.