Hamish studied it. There was the payment of two hundred, probably from Mrs. McClellan, then there was another payment of five hundred pounds, and everything else was Fergus’s salary.
“I may ask you to pay back the money he extorted from people, Martha. But I can’t do anything until I find the murderer. You see, the thing is, if I take the letters to the police, a lot of innocent villagers might suffer, get their reputations ruined. I must ask you not to talk about this.”
“I wouldn’t dream of it,” gasped Martha. “Oh, the shame of it!” She suddenly turned a muddy colour. “But Hamish, what if one of them he was blackmailing killed him, and they think I’ve got the proof?”
“I’ve thought of that, believe me. Whoever did it will know your cottage has been searched from top to bottom. You were searched, weren’t you?”
She nodded dumbly.
“How they missed that bit in the bedroom floor is beyond me.”
“They weren’t looking for anything like that,” said Martha. “I mean, I showed them the will, the bankbook, but there was nothing else in that drawer, and they seemed satisfied with that. They were talking about some football match back in Strathbane and wondering if they could wrap things up and get back in time.”
Hamish reflected that people only read in their newspapers about murderers being caught by one hair or saliva on a cigarette and never heard about the ones where the investigating team wanted to get back in time for a football match and possibly missed something important. If Martha had killed her husband, whatever clues might have been left had been scrubbed away by the helpful ladies of Lochdubh.
“I’ll let you know how I get on,” he said. “But I can only keep this quiet for a few days.”
He was heading for the door when Martha asked, “How’s Clarry?”
“He’s fine.”
“Give him my regards.”
“Will do.” Hamish walked out. He had a sudden awful thought that a battered wife like Martha might have seen in Clarry the husband she had always wanted and had hammered her husband to death. He shook his head to clear it. He’d better interview the other suspects fast and trust to his instinct.
He walked down to Mrs. Docherty’s cottage and knocked on the door. Her husband, he remembered, worked at the fish counter in a supermarket in Strathbane. Mrs. Docherty opened the door. Her eyes dilated with fright, and then she masked it with fury. “This is police harassment.”
“You must have been expecting me to call for some time. How long was Fergus Macleod blackmailing you?”
She stood very still. Then she said wearily, “You’d better come in.”
She led the way into a tidy little living room. “I prayed he would have got rid of that letter. I knew the police had searched his cottage. When I didn’t hear anything, I thought I was safe. Will I be arrested?”
“Not yet,” said Hamish. “I’m trying to keep it quiet for a few days. But if I don’t find the murderer in that time, I’ll need to go to Strathbane. What happened?”
“I’m fifty-five.”
“I don’t see what…”
“Listen. Us women up in the Highlands don’t reach the menopause until fifty-seven. Sometimes the scientists say it’s the fresh fish and others say it’s the whisky. Anyway, I knew I hadn’t long. To be a real woman, that is. I was in Strathbane, shopping, and I decided to go to the bar of the Royal Hotel for a drink. That’s where I met Pat. You’re not taking notes.”
“Not yet,” said Hamish. “Just let’s hope it won’t be necessary.”
“Anyway, we got talking. I drank a bit too much. He made me laugh. Then he suggested I come back that evening to spend the night with him. Just like that. I said, why not? I didn’t really mean to keep that date. I mean, I knew I was a bit drunk and shouldn’t even be driving. When I got home, Roger phoned.”
“Your husband?”
“Yes. He said he was going to the Rotary Club. He said he would be staying the night with a friend of ours. I must have been mad. I decided to go for it. It wasn’t worth it. I felt miserable and ashamed in the morning. Just to get away nicely, like a fool I gave him my address. When I got that letter, I didn’t put it in one of the paper boxes, I put it in with the general rubbish. But that ferret of a man was sifting through everyone’s rubbish.”
“Why now?” said Hamish. “I mean, why did he suddenly start blackmailing? I mean, if that letter had been in the box for papers, I could understand it. I could understand him being tempted. But to suddenly take it out of the general garbage. Maybe he’d already stumbled onto something profitable.”
“I’m not the only one?”
“No. Where were you the night Fergus was murdered?”
“I went out to a meeting at the church, came home, watched a bit of television with my husband and went to bed. Oh, please, can you try to stop this getting out?”
“I’ll do my best. Let me know if you hear anything. Anything at all.”
“I must have been mad,” she said, half to herself. “I’ve always been respectable. The boys are doing well, both in jobs in Glasgow. I blame the television.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, women like me sit up here in the very north of Scotland, night after night, watching beautiful people. Morals never seem to bother them. Then the day comes when women like me think, I’ll have some of that. And some of that turns out to be a sordid night with a travelling salesman. Men sleep around, why shouldn’t women? That’s what they preach on the box. But to old–fashioned women like me, I can’t get rid of the old values of loyalty and modesty. Do you remember when modesty in women was considered a virtue?”
“I’m not old enough,” said Hamish ruefully.
♦
After he had left Mrs. Docherty, he went back to the police station. Jimmy Anderson was sitting in the police office, his feet on the desk.
“Where’s Clarry?” asked Hamish.
“I sent him off on a tour of the village, asking as many people as possible if they saw anything. I’ve got two coppers from Strathbane doing the same thing. Get anything?”
“Not much,” said Hamish.
“That’s not like you. Come on. You’ve got something up your sleeve.”
“Not me. I’m off to check some of the outlying crofts. What are you going to do?”
“Coordinate,” said Jimmy vaguely. “Take that weird dog of yours with you. I thought he wasn’t going to let me into the station.”
“So how’d you get in?”
“One whole packet of chocolate wafer biscuits.”
“Whit? You’re a bad man, Jimmy. You’ll ruin his teeth.”
Hamish went into the bathroom and collected his toothbrush and toothpaste. Then he grabbed the unsuspecting Lugs from under the kitchen table and began to forcibly brush the dog’s teeth. Then he put the dog down in front of his water bowl. He drank thirstily and then looked accusingly up at Hamish.
“Come on, boy. It’s no use you looking at me like that. How can you bite Blair if your teeth fall out?”
Soon Hamish was driving off out of Lochdubh with a sulky Lugs on the seat beside him.
Angus Ettrik’s croft lay off the Drim Road. He turned up a narrow lane, stopping at one point to get down and shoo some of Angus’s sheep back into the fields.
Angus’s wife, Kirsty, was hanging out sheets in the garden, although it was not really a garden, more a dump for old machinery. A washing machine leaned against a television set. Two rusting cars and various bits of machinery stood testament to the Highland crofter’s weakness. Nothing was ever thrown away because it ‘might come in handy sometime.’
“What’s up?” asked Kirsty, coming towards him. She was a small, dark, gypsy-looking woman.
“Angus about?”