“Where’s your friend?”
“Jerry? He’s gone back to London.”
Hamish glanced covertly at her hands. Ringless.
“Do you want coffee?” Priscilla indicated the coffee machine in the corner.
“No, I’m here on official business.”
She raised a pair of perfect eyebrows.
“Do you get those shaped?” asked Hamish.
“What?”
Hamish flushed slightly. “Never mind. Is your father about?”
“He’s over at the hotel. Why?”
“He was seen by the tramp, Sean, rowing with Fergus Macleod.”
“But that would be about the hotel garbage. Remember I told you we had to get a private contractor to pick it up?”
“But that was after he had disappeared.”
“Hamish, my father is not a murderer.”
“But he was rowing with Fergus and never said a word about it.”
“You know what he’s like. Fergus was probably poaching. You all poach. Even you, Hamish.”
“I’ll just be having a word with him.”
“That might be a good idea,” said Priscilla coldly, “instead of talking to me. Unless you think I’m a suspect.”
“No need to get snappy. I’m off.”
“I’ll come with you.”
They walked across to the hotel after Priscilla had locked up the gift shop. “Things quiet?” asked Hamish.
“I’m afraid so. Twelve people from an engineering company had booked in for the fishing, and they cancelled at the last minute. Didn’t give any reason. You won’t find Daddy in the best of moods.”
“I thought he’d given up bothering about the hotel. I thought he left it all to Mr. Johnston.”
“Oh, he gets periods when he swoops down on everyone. Doesn’t last long.”
They walked into the reception. “Is the colonel about?” Priscilla asked the girl behind the reception desk.
“Colonel Halburton-Smythe’s round at the back, talking to the gardener.”
They walked through the hotel lounge and through the open French windows to the garden. It was not a flower lover’s garden. A huge lawn dipped down to the river, and under the windows were beds with laurel bushes and forsythia and ornamental heather.
“I don’t care how wet it’s been,” the colonel was shouting. “I want that lawn mowed now!”
“Daddy!” called Priscilla. The colonel swung round, his angry face relaxing at the sight of his daughter. Then he saw Hamish Macbeth behind her, and his scowl returned.
He walked up to them. “What is it?”
“Around the time Fergus Macleod disappeared, you were heard down by the river having a row with him.”
The colonel goggled at Hamish, and then he half turned away and stared down the lawn. “Oh, that? I caught him poaching and sent him off with a flea in his ear.”
Hamish looked at the set of the colonel’s shoulders and noticed the way he would not turn directly round to face them, and was sure the colonel was lying.
“It was on the radio and in the newspapers that we were appealing for anyone who had seen or talked to Fergus around the time he went missing, and yet you did not come forward,” said Hamish.
“I’d dealt with the man. I didn’t want to get him into trouble over poaching.”
Hamish reflected that the colonel reported every poacher he could catch to the police. “But Fergus was dead when we made that appeal.”
“It had nothing to do with me!” shouted the colonel. “If you go on like this, I will report you for police harassment.”
“And if you go on like this,” said Hamish evenly, “then Detective Chief Inspector Blair will be along to see you.”
“There’s no need to make such a to-do about it,” said the colonel, his manner becoming suddenly conciliatory. “Priscilla, why don’t you take Hamish into the bar and get him a drink?”
“I don’t need a drink. I’ll check with Mrs. Macleod as to whether Fergus was in the habit of poaching, and if he wasn’t, I’ll be back.”
Hamish walked off followed by Priscilla. She caught up with him and said soothingly, “Don’t worry. Whatever it is, I’ll get it out of him.”
“Give me a ring right away. I’m sure it’s really nothing, but I wish people wouldn’t lie to us. They often do over small matters, and all it does is muddy the waters.”
He drove back to Lochdubh, thinking about Priscilla, wishing she would go away again, back to London, and stop this haunting little feeling of something valuable lost.
♦
When Hamish drove up to Martha’s cottage, he was glad to see the children playing in the garden. Children were so resilient. If only this murder could be solved and the shadow lifted from Lochdubh. Johnny volunteered the information that his mother was in the kitchen. The door was open, so Hamish walked in. The place looked brighter and lighter already, he thought, and there was a vase of wildflowers on the kitchen table.
“What is it?” asked Martha anxiously when she saw him.
“It is just a little thing, Martha. Was Fergus a poacher?”
“No. I mean he couldn’t have been. He never cooked anything for himself, and if he’d caught a fish, he would have had me cook it. And he didn’t like fish at all. He was a meat and potatoes man. What’s this about?”
“Fergus was seen up at the Anstey on the colonel’s estate. I wondered what he would be doing up there.”
“He often took his bottle off somewhere quiet when he planned to get drunk.”
“Aye, that could be it. How are you getting on?”
“We’re doing fine.” She turned a rosy colour. “Did Clarry tell you…?”
“Yes, but I’d keep it quiet at the moment, Martha. You know what folks are like. They might think it odd you getting engaged so soon after your husband’s death.”
“I haven’t said a word. And I told the children not to say anything.”
“But you’re doing fine?”
“As well as can be expected. Everyone’s been awfully kind. Angela gave me a red carpet for the bedroom, but it was so nice, I put it in the living room. Brightens things up no end.”
“Take care of yourselves, then. Fergus didn’t have any dealing of any kind with the colonel up at Tommel Castle?”
“No, only that the colonel phoned when Fergus was missing and complained about the garbage not being picked up.”
Hamish left with a heavy heart. The colonel was involved in some way, but Hamish certainly did not feel he could possibly be guilty of murder. Certainly not of double murder. He must work harder, question and question and question, or he would need to turn those letters over to Strathbane. In all his worry, he forgot about the impending visit on the following Wednesday of Mrs. Fleming and her dignitaries.
∨ Death of a Dustman ∧
6
Now, thieving Time, take what you must –
Quickness to hear, to move, to see;
When dust is drawing near to dust
Such dimunitions needs must be.
Yet leave, O leave exempt from plunder
My curiosity, my wonder!
—Mark Antony DeWolfe Howe
Jimmy Anderson called in to the police station that evening. He was unshaven and looked tired.
“Anything?” asked Hamish.
“Just it’s beginning to look as if it was done by someone who knew what they were doing. I mean, it was planned.”
“How do you make that out?”
“Any whisky?”
Hamish went to the cupboard and took down the whisky bottle and set it and a glass in front of the detective.
Jimmy poured a glass and leaned back in his chair. “All the surfaces in that kitchen and the doorknob had been wiped, and he or they, on the road out, wiped the floor behind them as they went.”