“Go back to Mrs. Fleming’s room and see if you can see anything that might have been missed.”
♦
Robin felt uneasily that as the superior officer she should be taking the initiative, not Hamish. But Daviot’s rejection had thrown her, and she was sure he would do everything in his power to block any promotion. She wished these murder cases would get solved quickly now so that she could put in for a transfer.
Mrs. Dunne was furious. She followed them up the stairs to Dora’s room protesting that she kept a decent house and somehow it was all Hamish’s fault. Hamish and Robin went into Doras room, and Hamish shut the door firmly in Mrs. Dunne’s angry face.
There was a sour smell in the room. “She doesn’t believe in washing much,” said Robin, wrinkling her nose, “and her dirty clothes are lying everywhere.”
“Let’s see these curtains,” said Hamish. He knelt down on the floor and studied the unpicked hem. The curtains were acid green and of a cheap synthetic material. They were short, and when he drew them closed, the light shone through them. “That’s how they saw the envelope of drugs,” he said. “They would look at the curtains and see it outlined against the light. And look. The stitches are very neat. I cannot imagine one such as Dora Fleming being a good needlewoman.”
“So you think the drugs were planted?”
“Maybe. Let’s have a good look around.”
They searched the room thoroughly but found nothing incriminating. “I tell you what,” said Hamish. “Do you mind if I leave you alone for a bit? I’ve a personal call to make.”
“And I’ve got someone to see in Strathbane,” said Robin. She had decided to confront Daviot and see if she could use a bit of emotional blackmail on him.
“Right. I’ll meet you back at the police unit at, say, three o’clock.”
♦
Hamish headed up to the hotel. He had a sudden longing to see Priscilla, to sit in her calm presence as he had done in the past and talk about the case.
He found her in the gift shop, selling a mohair sweater to a tourist. After she had finished, Hamish asked, “Any chance of a talk?”
“I’ll just close up the shop and tell Mr. Johnson if anyone wants anything to tell them to come back later. You look worried.”
She locked the shop door. “We’ll use the gun room.”
“I hope it’s kept securely locked,” said Hamish uneasily.
“It’s locked and burglar-alarmed.”
Hamish waited while Priscilla unlocked the gun room door and reset the alarm. They sat down in battered old leather chairs. A reflection of Priscilla’s face swam in the glass of one of the cabinets, and dust motes danced in the shafts of sunlight coming in through the windows.
Hamish began to talk, going over everything he had learned.
He wound up by saying, “I fear there is something far wrong with Jock Fleming. What sort of man sneaks out at night to have sex with his ex-wife up against a garden wall?”
“It’s a new one for you, Hamish. You see, I don’t think you’ve come across someone so completely amoral as Jock Fleming before. It is my opinion he would screw the cat.”
“Has he made a pass at you?”
“Not even a flicker. It’s my money he’s after. And there’s a point: You say drugs were found? Maybe Jock’s a drug addict.”
“I don’t believe it. Neither Jock nor Dora shows the slightest sign of drugs – unless you count alcohol as a drug. I think someone really did plant it there and someone very clever who knew that with the sun shining through those cheap curtains, the envelope would be spotted.”
“So either someone knew about the fire door or someone managed to get in during the day unseen. How could they do that?”
“Mrs. Dunne doesn’t lock the outside door during the day. It took a strong nerve to sneak in there and calmly sit sewing that envelope into the curtains. I’d better ask around again. Maybe someone saw someone going into Mrs. Dunne’s who doesn’t live there.”
“There’s something mad, calculating, and cunning about our murderer,” said Priscilla. “And somehow, though Jock may not be the murderer, it’s something to do with him. Unless, of course, Effie’s sister is right and she really did commit suicide and Hal’s wife knew about his will and decided to finish him off before he got married to whoever he was talking about.”
“That’s if there was another woman,” said Hamish. “He could just have been saying that out of malice.”
“And yet he went out in the middle of the night to meet someone.”
“Could be someone from his past, someone we don’t know about.”
“What about Betty Barnard?”
“Hard to imagine,” said Hamish stiffly. “Oh, well, I’d better get off and start questioning people. That means starting with the Currie sisters, since they’re next door to Sea View.”
♦
Hamish started by questioning Nessie Currie, mentally editing out the Greek chorus that was her sister.
“I saw no one going in there that shouldnae be going in there,” said Nessie. “There was just the folks that live there when I looked and the postie.”
“What time of day did you see the postie?”
“Must have been about lunchtime yesterday.”
“But the postman only delivers at nine in the morning.”
“Then it must have been a special delivery because he walked right in.”
“Did you see him come out?”
“I’ve got more to do with my day than stand on my doorstep and watch people.”
“What did this postman look like?”
“Tall. One of thae baseball caps. Couldn’t see his face.” It could have been easy for someone to masquerade as a postman, thought Hamish. Navy clothes, a canvas bag, and a baseball cap pulled well down. Must have known Dora Fleming wasn’t due back for a while. So we’re looking for a man. Maybe it’s Jock, after all.
He thanked Nessie and went along the waterfront, questioning one villager after another. A few had seen the postman. He had arrived on a bicycle, but they could not add anything further to Nessie’s description of him.
Then Hamish remembered that the hotel had a few bicycles for use by more energetic guests.
He headed back to the hotel and asked the manager if he could take a look at the bikes.
“Go and take a look yourself,” said Mr. Johnson. “They’re in a shed by the kitchen door. It’s not locked during the day. No one’s taken one out for months.”
Hamish went round to the back of the hotel. He could hear the clatter of dishes from the kitchen. He went to the shed and opened the door. There were six mountain bikes.
At first, they all seemed to be clean and oiled. The roads had been dusty. He went from one to the other. The one at the end had a thin film of dust on it. Need to get this fingerprinted, he thought. Things are looking bad for Jock.
He went back to the mobile unit to meet Robin. Her face was flushed, and she looked as if she had been crying.
Robin had gone to Strathbane to see Daviot. He had received her coldly. Robin asked him what had happened between them, and he had said his affair with her had been nothing but a bit of dangerous folly and that he loved his wife.
Upset and furious, Robin tried to hint that she could make life difficult for him if the affair ever came to light.
“If you do that,” Daviot had said, “I will deny everything. I should never have got mixed up with a harpy like you. I am arranging for you to be transferred to Inverness. You start there next week. My secretary will give you the details.”
Robin knew she was beaten. If she did make the affair public, then she would be found to be the guilty one in the chauvinistic world of the police force.
She seemed barely to listen when Hamish told her about the bicycle and suggested they both go to Strathbane to interrupt Jimmy’s interview.