“Fergus didn’t even like fish, Priscilla. Your father’s lying.”
“So you say.”
“Oh, Priscilla, this is important. If he phones, find out where he is. I’ve got to talk to him.”
“I can’t think he would have anything to do with this. Have you considered that Fergus might have been at the river to find a quiet place to get drunk? And that Daddy might just have assumed he was poaching? He thinks that everyone near that river is poaching. He once bawled out an innocent family of picnickers.”
“Could be. But I’d still like to speak to him.”
Priscilla’s face took on a closed look. Hamish surveyed her for a moment and then said gently, “You know something’s wrong, Priscilla. Please try to help me on this one. Two men are dead.”
“I’ll do my best,” she said stiffly. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, Hamish, we’ve just had new bookings to replace the ones we lost, so I’ve got to get on.”
Hamish left and then wondered what to do next. He rang Jimmy Anderson’s mobile. “Is Kirsty Ettrik ready to see anyone yet?”
“No, she’s still heavily sedated, and the doctors won’t let anyone near her. I’m up at Angus’s croft. We’re still looking for clues. I think you should still keep going round the village from door to door, Hamish. Someone must have seen or heard something.”
Hamish rang off. He decided to call on Josie Darling again.
Josie answered the door to him. Her face was blotchy with tears. “It’s you,” she said in a bleak voice. “I heard about Angus.”
He followed her in. “I gather you’ve been telling everyone that you jilted Murdo.”
“I wasn’t going to let everyone know the rat had jilted me,” she said. “It was going to be such a beautiful wedding.”
“Josie, I want you to think about Fergus’s visits to you. Didn’t you threaten to go to the police?”
“I didn’t. I was too ashamed. It’s all Darleen McPhee’s fault.”
“Who’s Darleen McPhee?”
“She’s a girl I work with in the bank.”
“So what’s she got to do with it?”
“She was always bragging about her boyfriends and hinting that I’d never get a man. The day I walked in with my engagement ring and flashed it in front o’ her stupid face was the best day o’ my life. I couldn’t let her know I’d been jilted. Now I’ve got to go back to work and tell her the wedding’s off.”
Fergus must have been acute enough to guess at such desperate vanity, thought Hamish.
“Tell me about Fergus,” he said. “What was his manner when you last saw him?”
She sank down in a chair and scrubbed at her eyes with a grimy handkerchief. “He was different,” she said at last.
“What d’ye mean, ‘different’?”
“Well, joking, excited. Funny, that was the only time he didn’t ask for the money.”
Hamish’s hazel eyes sharpened. That could only mean one thing. Fergus was blackmailing someone with real money. His heart sank as he thought of the colonel. But then he reflected that there was no way the colonel would kill anyone. Somehow he believed that the murders had been planned. Dumping Fergus’s body in the bin, he was sure, smacked more of revenge than any effort at concealment. Whoever put the body there could not know that the Currie sisters rarely put rubbish in the bin, that they recycled what they could.
He thanked Josie and left and drove to Callum McSween’s croft. Callum was out in the fields with his sheep. Hamish waved to him, vaulted a fence and walked across the springy turf to join him. There is very little arable farming in Sutherland. The land is mostly used for sheep rearing because the hard old rock which makes up most of Sutherland is only covered with a thin layer of soil.
“I’m getting ready for the sales in Lairg,” said Callum. “Thank God I’ve got the garbage job because sheep prices have been dropping like a stone.”
“You go around the crofts and houses. What’s the gossip about Angus’s murder?”
“They’re all shocked. We all thought we knew Angus, but no one really knew him that well. He must have said something to Kirsty.”
“We’ll need to wait until she recovers a bit,” said Hamish. “Keep listening, Callum, and let me know if you hear anything.”
As he made his way back to the police station, he reflected on the oddity of the case. How could a man walk out to meet someone in the Highlands and not be noticed? Fergus must have been seen in Lochdubh. Unless, of course, he had walked straight up through the grazing land at the back of where his cottage lay and met someone up on the hill.
When he got back to the police station, Clarry called from the police office: “Is that you, sir? Anderson’s on the phone.” Hamish went through and took the receiver from Clarry.
“I’m down in Strathbane,” said Jimmy, “and I’m a bit tied up. I want you to go and talk to that schoolteacher. Find out if Cartwright is her married name and what her husband’s name was. It’s all a bit odd. You see, I checked with the police in Dingwall, and they have no record at all of any trap to catch a blackmailer. I checked the schools in Dingwall as well, and there’s no record there of a Mrs. Cartwright ever having been employed as a teacher.”
“Why would she lie?”
“That’s something you’d better find out, and quick, too.”
“Why’s Blair leaving me in peace? It hasn’t ever mattered before what Daviot said. He likes to rile me.”
“He’s in hospital.”
“Nothing trivial, I hope?”
“Something up with his kidneys.”
“The whisky is what’s up with his kidneys. I’ll get onto the schoolteacher right away.”
“I’m going out again,” Hamish called to Clarry. “Could you take Lugs for a walk?”
“I’ve got to get some shopping. I’ll take him with me.”
Hamish walked along to the cottage next to the school and rapped on the door. Moira Cartwright answered it. “Come in,” she said. “How are you getting on with the case?”
He followed her into the living room of the cottage, removed his peaked cap and sat down.
“I’m here to find out why you told me that story about the blackmail attempt in Dingwall,” he began.
“Would you like some tea?”
“No, just answer the question. The police in Dingwall have no record of any trap set up for a blackmailer fifteen years ago, nor is there any record of you having ever taught in Dingwall. So were you lying?”
There was a long silence. The wind had started to rise outside, the vicious wind of Sutherland that whipped across the county with ferocious force.
Then she said, “Yes.”
“Why on earth?”
“Do I have to tell you?”
“Of course you have to tell me. Headquarters have been checking up, and they want an answer.”
“I’m a fantasist. Anyway, when I saw the look on your face when you walked into that restaurant, I guessed you had made a mistake, that you had seen my niece and thought she was the schoolteacher.”
“So you decided to waste police time and present me with a red herring?”
“Yes.”
Hamish studied her face and then said slowly, “You’re still lying. And I am going to stay here until you tell me the truth.”
She looked at him helplessly and then said, “If I tell you, she’ll never forgive me.”
“Who?”
She gave a helpless shrug. “Fiona McClellan.”
“The banker’s wife?”
She nodded.
Hamish took out his notebook. “Begin at the beginning and go on to the end.”
“We’re old school friends. We both went to school in Edinburgh. We wrote to each other from time to time. I finally wrote and said I was taking the job in Lochdubh. She phoned me up. She said I wasn’t to tell a soul but she was being blackmailed and told me about it. I told her to go to the police, but she said her husband couldn’t bear another scandal. I called on her just after I arrived. She said she had told you and that you were trying to keep it quiet for a bit. But I thought, she’ll never be happy until the murderer is caught and how can you go about finding the murderer if you didn’t know Fergus was a blackmailer, so I decided to tell you I had been blackmailed.”