“Aye, well, that will do for now. If you’ll just send Mrs Cartwright in.”
As John entered the room, Alice was saying with a nervous giggle, “Just think. One of us must have killed her. I mean, it stands to reason…”
It was out in the open now, put into words; that thought they had been keeping resolutely at bay since Lady Jane’s body was discovered.
“He wants to see you,” said John to Heather. He added in a low voice as he held open the door for her, “I told him we didn’t know what she did.”
The door to the lounge opened, and a small, anxious-looking woman dressed in a lumpy, powder-blue dress fussed in, dragging Charlie with her. “I’m Mrs Baxter, Tina Baxter,” she announced, staring around the room with rather bulging blue eyes. “I only arrived today. My poor boy.” She tried to hug Charlie, but he flinched away from this public demonstration of maternal affection.
“You should keep the boy away from this,” said John. “There was no need to bring him along.”
“There was every need,” said Una Baxter. “I was told the police wanted to interrogate the whole fishing class and nobody is going to frighten my little boy with a lot of questions.”
She proceeded to tell the bemused company about her divorce and the difficulties of rearing a boy single-handed, and that Charlie had written to her saying this Lady Jane was a cruel and evil woman. Her words began to tumble out one over the other in an increasingly unintelligible stream.
Then she stopped suddenly and stared at the door with her mouth open. Hamish’s big brass had arrived from Strathbane.
A big, heavyset man draped in a grey double-breasted suit introduced himself as Detective Chief Inspector Blair. He was flanked by two other detectives, Jimmy Anderson and Harry MacNab. Jimmy Anderson was thin and wiry with suspicious blue eyes, and MacNab was short and dumpy with thick black hair and wet-looking black eyes.
“Which one of you runs this school?” demanded Mr Blair. He spoke with a thick Glaswegian accent.
“I do,” said John. “Constable Macbeth is talking to my wife at the moment.”
“Where?”
“In there,” said John. “I’ll show you the way.”
“No need,” said Blair. “We’ll introduce ourselves.”
Hamish got to his feet as the three men entered the small office. Heather gratefully escaped.
“Macbeth, is it?” said Blair, sitting down in the chair Hamish had just vacated. “We’ve got a real juicy one here. Bit out of your league, Constable. The boys and the forensic team are combing the ground. Good bit of work on your part to get the water bailiffs to stand guard.”
He smiled at Hamish and waited for a look of gratitude to appear on the constable’s face at the compliment. Hamish looked stolidly back, and Blair scowled with irritation.
“Yes, well, I suppose they all know they’re supposed to stay put until I’m satisfied that no one in this school did it. School, indeed. All that money and fuss just to catch a fish.”
“I think it would be better if I told them they are not to leave Lochdubh at the moment,” said Hamish. “Them not having the ESP.”
“Enough of that,” snapped Blair. “Before I have the rest in, what do you think the motive was for this murder?”
“I think it had something to do with Lady Jane’s job,” said Hamish slowly.
“Job? What job?”
“Lady Jane Winters was, in fact, Jane Maxwell, columnist for the London Evening Star.”
“That rag! Well, what’s so bad about being a columnist?”
“I understand she specialized in taking holidays where there were going to be small groups of British people. She would find out something nasty about each one, since she liked to prove that everyone has a skeleton in the closet. There have been complaints to the press council, but her column’s been too popular. Folks chust lap it up and think it will never happen to them. Maybe someone in this group knew about her column, although the fact that she was Jane Maxwell was kept a closely guarded secret.”
“And how did you find out if it’s that much of a secret?” asked Blair, his eyes raking over the lanky length of the village constable.
“I naff my methods, Watson,” grinned Hamish.
“I am not putting up with any cheek from a Highlander,” snarled Blair. “How did you find out?”
“I have a relative that works in Fleet Street.”
“And which of these fishing lot knew about her being Jane Maxwell?”
“I do not know,” said Hamish patiently. “I was just beginning to find out when you arrived. I have talked with John Cartwright and you interrupted me when I was in the process of talking to Mrs Heather Cartwright.”
“Before I start with the rest, I’d better fix up accommodation for me and my men. I’ll stay here myself, but it’s a bit pricey for the lot of us. We’ve got five officers combing the bushes along with the forensic team at the moment. I saw that police station of yours. You do yourself very well. Any chance of a spare bed or two?”
“I have not the room. I have the one bed for myself and the other bedroom has not the bed but the gardening stuff and the poultry feed and the bags of fertilizer…”
“Okay, okay, spare me the rural details.” Blair looked piercingly at Hamish, who gave him a sweet smile.
Simple, thought Blair. Would have to be to live here all year round.
He placed his beefy hands on the desk and looked at Hamish in a kindly way. “I’m thinking you’re a wee bit too inexperienced for this sort of high-class crime,” he said. “We’ll use your office at the station because I’m damned if I’ll pay hotel phone prices. I have to fight hard enough to get my expenses as it is. Just you attend to your usual rounds and leave the detective work to us. We’re all experienced men.”
Hamish looked at the detective chief inspector blankly. Only a few minutes before he had been wondering how to keep out of the case. He had taken a dislike to the chief detective and his sidekicks and did not want to tag around after them. But now he had been told to keep clear, well, all that did was give him a burning desire to find out who had killed Lady Jane.
“I’ll be off then,” said Hamish. Blair watched him go and shook his head sadly. “Poor fellow,” he said. “Never had to do any real work in his life before, and, like all these Highlanders, fights shy of it as much as possible. Send in that American couple, MacNab. Typical pair of tourists. May as well get rid of them first.”
♦
Hamish ambled along the front, gazing dreamily out over the loch. The early evening sun was flooding the bay with gold. A pair of seals were rolling and turning lazily, sending golden ripples washing about the white hulls of the yachts and the green and black hulls of the fishing boats.
He saw the slim, elegant figure of Priscilla Halburton-Smythe walking towards him, and, suddenly overcome with a mixture of shyness and longing, he stopped and leaned his elbows on the mossy stone wall above the beach.
She stopped and stood beside him. “What’s all this I hear?” said Priscilla. “The hillside’s crawling with bobbies, putting things in plastic bags.”
“Lady Jane Winters has been murdered.”
“I heard something to that effect. Big, fat, nasty woman, wasn’t she?”
“Aye, you could say that.”
“And who did it, Holmes?”
“I chust don’t know, and I’ve been more or less told to go home and feed my chickens by the detectives from Strathbane.”
“Well, you must be pleased about that. I mean, you never were exactly one of the world’s greatest workers.”
“How would you know that, Miss Halburton-Smythe? It is not as if I have the murder on my hands every day of the week.”
“You must admit when Daddy wants to talk to you about poaching or something, you’re never where you should be. I told Daddy not to worry you about, poachers since you’re one yourself.”