“Just keep searching,” said Priscilla.
Time passed. After an hour, Hamish looked up at the sky. Black clouds were beginning to stream across the stars, although there was still no wind at ground level.
The papers that had been searched were being laid aside, newspapers, letters, comics, but nothing from the hotel.
“It was a good idea, Priscilla,” groaned Hamish. “But there’s practically nothing left, and now I’m in bad trouble for having wrecked a bottle bank.”
“That bottle bank swung out in an arc,” said Priscilla. “Maybe some of the stuff went over the harbour wall.”
Hamish thrust his torch in his pocket and vaulted over the harbour wall and down onto the stony shore of the sea loch. He took out his torch and swung it in a wide arc.
Then he saw a large manila envelope lying near the water. He walked to it and picked it up. Holding his torch under his armpit, he opened the envelope. It was stuffed with letters and faxes, headed IONIDES PLC. He sat down on the shingle and began to go through them.
Then he found one from Ionides’s London office. “Dear George,” he read. “How’s the work on the hotel going? I mean, your rival. I know you’re mad about fishing, but it’s an expensive gamble, and what if them up at the Tommel Castle carry on regardless, even after you’ve pinched their staff and poisoned their water? Besides, you’ll be stuck with two hotels in the back of beyond. Then what about that other business? Are you sure the police aren’t sniffing around? To risk so much just for fishing! Anyway, let me know if I can help. Your loving brother, Harry.”
He tucked it carefully into his pocket and read the others. There was a fax. “Dear Harry. Everything is OK. Don’t worry. The police here are morons and the one in this village is subnormal. Come up, soon. Once I get the Tommel Castle, I can restock the river. Love, George.”
“Gotcha!” said Hamish.
He ran to the wall and heaved himself up over the top. “It’s all right, folks,” he called. “I’ve got what I wanted.”
“What did you find?” asked Priscilla.
“One incriminating letter. One incriminating fax. I’ll have Jimmy and the boys up here in the morning.”
People were yawning and drifting away.
“What about all this paper?” demanded Mrs. Wellington.
“We’ll see to it in the morning,” said Hamish.
Tarn released his crane from the bell bank and then backed off, shouting a warning. The great bell bank fell to the ground with a hollow clang and rolled on its side and then lay there, mouth gaping.
“I’ll be down in the morning,” said Priscilla. “Don’t worry about running me home, Hamish. Mrs. Wellington says if you want to phone, she’ll take me back.”
Hamish nodded and then sprinted for the police station. He phoned Jimmy at home and rapidly described what he had found. “Grand!” said Jimmy. “Got the bastard. I’ll be along with the men in the morning, and I’ll hae a search warrant.”
“I don’t think Ionides is back yet.”
“Doesn’t matter. We’ll get that secretary of his to open up everything.”
“What time will you be here?”
“The earliest I can manage.”
“I’m beat. I’ll set the alarm.”
Hamish stretched and yawned. There was a pile of fax paper lying by the machine. He could see it was headed STRATHBANE COUNCIL. That damn woman again. She could wait.
♦
As Hamish slept with Lugs curled against his side and through the wall Clarry, unaware of the drama, slept as well, the wind of Sutherland rose outside. It hurtled down the waterfront. Paper danced elaborate entrechats in the air. Paper stuck to fences and garden walls. Paper hung from lamp standards. And then, as if satisfied with the chaos it had caused, the wind roared away to the east and a quiet dawn rose above Lochdubh.
♦
Mrs. Freda Fleming sat at her dressing table in the morning, anxiously surveying her makeup. It was certainly very heavy, but she would look all right on camera. She had tried to contact Hamish Macbeth the day before but had failed to get him. She had then phoned Callum, who had reported that the village looked clean and neat. Anyway, she had faxed Macbeth exact instructions of what was to be expected. She hoped he had found a photogenic child to present the bouquet. It was a pity the London papers had shown no interest, but Grampian television had said they would cover the Greening of Lochdubh. The local papers were coming, and some of the Glasgow newspapers were sending their local men. She had memorised her speech over and over again. She had been worried about the weather, but it was a beautiful morning.
♦
Hamish was awakened by a ferocious knocking at the door. He opened it and found an excited Jimmy Anderson on the step. “Come on, Hamish, and see the fun. That secretary, Miss Stathos, is yelling and shouting in Greek.”
“Be with you in a minute.”
Hamish washed and dressed. He went out of the station and then blinked at the mess of paper all over Lochdubh. Well, they could all clear it up later.
♦
Tom Stein groaned as his alarm clock went off. He covered the Highlands for the Glasgow Morning News. He had a sour mouth and a blinding hangover, and he remembered he was supposed to get over to Lochdubh and cover some dreary cleanup campaign thought up by that poisonous Fleming woman. He shaved and dressed and then drank two Alka Seltzers, wincing at the noise as the tablets fizzed in the water. In this modem age, he thought bitterly, Alka Seltzer should by now have invented a silent tablet.
He was a middle-aged man with a thin face marred by lines of disappointment. As an elderly actor will take part in yet another crowd scene and dream of glory, so Tom dreamed of having a scoop, having his name on the front of the London papers. But he suffered disappointment after disappointment. Hadn’t he sent the first reports of the murder in Lochdubh? But the Glasgow Morning News had sent up their own man, and anything he had written had been incorporated into the staff man’s story. Tom was a freelancer. He sometimes got a few items in the other papers, but only the Glasgow Morning News paid him a retainer.
He drank a cup of black coffee and shuddered. He certainly wasn’t going to hit the headlines with this one. There was a knock at the door of his little bungalow, situated in what had once been a respectable suburb of Strathbane but which was going rapidly downhill.
It was his photographer, an equally tired and perpetually disappointed man called Paul Anstruther.
“You ready to go?” asked Paul.
“May as well, but if they publish one line, I’ll shoot myself in surprise.”
♦
“Nothing,” said Jimmy in disgust. “But thanks to you, Hamish, we can charge him with intent to ruin the Tommel Castle. But, man, we cannae charge him with murder.”
A crowd had gathered to watch the police activity. Jimmy had actually arrived at six in the morning. It was now eight and Lochdubh was coming alive.
Josie Darling noticed Geordie Liddell standing at the edge of the crowd in full Highland regalia. She went up to him. “You off to the Games?”
“Yes,” said Geordie. “What’s going on?”
“Don’t know. Will you be tossing the caber?”
“Aye, and throwing the hammer.”
“Is the hammer very heavy?”
“Weighs a ton,” said Geordie. “I’ve got it in the Jeep. I’ll show you.”
He went to his Jeep and returned swinging the long, heavy, metal hammer. “Try lifting it, Josie.”
“I can’t.” She giggled. “My, but you’re strong!”
Geordie grinned and flexed his muscles under his green velvet jacket. Then he heard Hamish shouting, “I hear a helicopter.” The crowd fell silent.
♦
“It’s so damn early in the morning,” groaned Tom Stein as he and his photographer got into a minibus marked PRESS.