“Och, ye’ll no’ be paying attention to a thing like that. He riled me up and it wass just the words. Hot air. Everyone says they’ll kill someone when they’re angry with that someone.”
“But that someone doesn’t usually end up dead!”
“I’m not the only one who threatened the big man.” Archie buried his nose in his mug. “I heard about the fight with Andy MacTavish.” Archie raised his head. He smoothed his sparse grey hairs over his bald patch and twisted his neck in his starched collar. “I wass thinking o’ a certain lady.”
“Come on, man. Out with it. I’ll find out soon enough.”
“I should not be blackening the lady’s name.”
“I’m getting more fascinated by the minute. Why this uncharacteristic gallantry?”
“Whit?”
“I mean it’s not like you to bother protecting a lady’s name.”
“How do ye know that?” demanded Archie wrathfully. “Let’s not quarrel,” said Hamish patiently. “You are a suspect, Archie. A lot of people will be suspects. Honest people have nothing to fear.”
“They’ve got everything to fear when a chiel like Blair is barging around accusing everyone.”
“Come on, Archie. Out with it. Who’s the lady?” Archie drained his mug and wiped his sleeve across his mouth. “Rosie Draly,” he mumbled. Hamish looked at him in surprise. “The writer!”
“Herself.”
Rosie Draly had recently bought a cottage out on the Crask road. Hamish had made a call on her when she arrived. She had not been particularly welcoming. She said she did not have much time for the police. Her car had been stolen in Glasgow and the police had not only done nothing, they had been rude.
Hamish knew that she wrote historical romances, mostly set in the Regency period. She did not take part in any of the village activities. She travelled to London quite often to see her agent. She was in her forties, small and trim with fair hair and a small, closed face. He had almost forgotten about her.
“I didn’t know she had anything to do with the villagers,” he said. “How did you get to know her?”
“I wass up her way to see Andy, who lives a wee bittie further on. Andy wasnae home and she wass in her garden and I said, “Fine day,” the way you do and she offered me a cup o’ tea. She wanted to know all about the fishing ‘cos she was putting a bit about a fishing boat in one o’ her books. She gave me one called His Lordship’s Passion. I couldnae read it but the wife said it was rare, all about them lords and ladies.”
“So what’s this about Randy?”
“It wass two weeks ago and it wass blowing up something dreadful and we were all stuck in the harbour. I thought I’d take a wee dauner up there I hae a bit o’ a crack. I liked talking tae her. I heard the shouting when I got outside. A window wass open and I could see as plain as day, herself and Randy. She wass crying and shouting, “I’ll kill you, you moron, you bastard.” And Randy, he laughs and says, “Chust you try, you faded auld bitch.” I got myself out o’ the way, me already getting fed up wi’ Randy and his daft stories. But it couldnae hae been her what did the murder.”
“Whynot?”
“Think, Hamish. A big man like that, and ladies don’t use shotguns. You won’t be telling Blair about her?”
Hamish smiled. “I’ll try not to.”
His next visitor was the forestry worker, Andy MacTavish. He was a big man with a flat-topped head and a thick neck. He looked like an Easter Island statue. “It’s a bad business, Hamish,” he said wearily. “You’ll have to find out who did it or that man Blair will drive me mad.”
“I’m not officially on the case.”
Andy sat down on a kitchen chair which creaked under his bulk. “You can use your brains, which is more than Blair can. I had a fight with Randy. Was you hearing about that?”
“Aye, what brought that about?”
“Hewas insulting a lady.”
Hamish eyed him narrowly. “That lady wouldn’t be a Miss Rosie Draly, by any chance?”
To his amazement, the big forestry worker actually blushed. “Och, Rosie was in the way of talking to me. She wanted to write a story about the Highlands and I was giving her some background. Randy caught me leaving there one day and he sneers that I was getting my leg over. I told him I would knock his silly head off, but he damn near knocked mine off.”
Hamish was all at once thankful that Randy was dead, for he had privately believed that all his bragging about his wrestling and fighting was simply a bluff.
“Did you want to kill him?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, I did that, and I told him so. I didn’t think anyone was around, for we kept the fight private, like, but you know what it’s like here. Someone asked the next day about the fight.”
Andy’s face was still bruised. “They probably took one look at you and knew you’d been in a fight,” said Hamish.
“I could have sworn I could have beaten him,” said Andy half to himself. “He had fists like iron.”
Hamish looked at him. “Did he wear gloves?”
“Boxing gloves?”
“No, any kind of gloves.”
“Aye, he had a pair of leather gloves on.”
Hamish was suddenly impatient to talk to Rosie Draly before Blair got to her, if be got to her, for the locals would not talk willingly to him. He decided to call at Tommel Castle first and see Priscilla. He wanted to find out a little mote about Rosie before he called. It was not often Hamish had to ask Priscilla for gossip, but of late, he had to admit, he had contented himself with his own affairs and had not been much interested in who was doing what in and around the village.
When Andy left, Hamish went out to the police Land Rover, noticing gloomily that it was still raining, heavy rain driven in on an Atlantic gale. He drove up to Tommel Castle, the windscreen wipers working furiously to compete with the slashing downpour.
Priscilla was not in the gift shop. He found her in the hotel reception, coping with an angry French tourist, a small squat woman who was complaining noisily that all the brochures for Tommel Castle Hotel depicted sunshine and blue skies and Priscilla was explaining in very British-accented French that they were not responsible for the Highland weather.
Hamish waited patiently until the row was over and then approached the desk. “Wanted to ask your advice, Priscilla.”
Priscilla looked at him impatiently. She was not feeling very warm towards Hamish Macbeth. Because of ban, she had endured a boring afternoon on his behalf entertaining Mrs. Daviot to tea. But men, Hamish was not supposed to know about that. “All right,” she said ungraciously, “I suppose you want acofree.” She walked off out of the hotel in the direction of the gift shop without waiting to see whether he was following her. She was wearing a well-cut trouser suit with a yellow silk blouse. Her hair was blown about by the wind as she crossed to the gift shop, but a ruffled Priscilla never lasted for very long. As soon as she was inside, she ran a comb through her blond hair, which promptly fell into its usually smooth, well-groomed shape.
She poured two mugs of coffee from the coffee percolator in the comer. “So what’s this about, Hamish? How’s murder?”
“Murder’s not supposed to be my concern. You know, Blair. He’s managed to get the official word to keep me off this case.”
“And you’re not staying off it?”
“Just asking about. Tell me about Rosie Draly?”
“The writer?”
“That one.”
“I put her down as one of the many people who rush up to the Highlands to find the quality of life and then the rain and the midges drive them back down south. I shouldn’t think she’ll last up here much longer. You know how it is, Hamish. We get dreamers and writers and artists, but the Highlands soon defeat them. They think they’re running away to the quiet life, but they forget to leave their characters behind and find it’s the same old thing up here, but just a bit more boring.”