Willie Lamont, the waiter who had once been a police constable, came rushing up. “Champagne,” said Luke.
“What’s the celebration?” asked Willie.
“Miss Grant is ‘maybe’ going to marry me.”
Hamish felt just as if a heavy wet stone had settled in his stomach.
Lucia, Willie’s beautiful Italian wife, came out of the kitchen to offer her congratulations.
“It’s a joke,” said Elspeth desperately, but Willie arrived with the champagne.
To Luke’s horror, Willie, who had given the bottle a good shake in the kitchen, opened it with a flourish and champagne sprayed all over the place.
“What do you think you’re doing?” shouted Luke.
“This is what they do at Le Mans,” said Willie.
“Well, this isn’t Le Mans!” howled Luke, picking up a napkin and dabbing at champagne stains on his suit.
Lucia hurried off and came back with an unshaken bottle. “On the house,” she said, “and I hope you will both be very happy together.”
“Give the copper a glass,” said Luke.
But when they looked across the restaurant, Hamish Macbeth was gone.
♦
Hamish drove steadily towards Cnothan under a darkening sky which matched his mood. Black clouds were streaming in from the west.
It was nothing to him, nothing at all, he told himself savagely. If Elspeth wished to marry that dissipated reporter, it was her problem. His stomach gave another dismal rumble.
His cat and dog, full of food from the kitchen, slept peacefully in the back.
Cnothan was the least favourite place on his beat. He always thought of it as a sour, unwelcoming village. After a few enquiries, he found that Mrs. Forest lived in a cottage facing the dark loch, man-made by the Hydro Electric Board.
The cottage, like the others strung out along the loch, were relics of the old village, most of which had been drowned in the loch.
Hamish wondered what the previous inhabitants had been like. Maybe they had been warm-hearted and cheerful. Had many of them stayed on in the new village? How odd to think that down in the depth of the black waters were the remains of homes.
He knocked on the door of Mrs. Forest’s cottage and waited. He was about to turn away when the door opened and a bent, elderly woman stared up at the tall constable. She put a liver-spotted hand to her chest, her old eyes widening with alarm.
“It’s nothing serious,” said Hamish soothingly. “I’ve just got a few wee questions to ask about Mrs. Gillespie.”
“You’d best come ben.”
She stood aside. Hamish walked past her. She shut the door. “To your left,” she said.
Hamish walked into a low-ceilinged room. She settled herself in a chair by the fire and pointed to a chair opposite her. Hamish sat down and held his cap between his knees.
“I believe Mrs. Gillespie used to work for you.”
“Only for a short time. I moved here mainly to get away from her.”
“Why?”
She clasped her hands together tightly. “Do I have to tell you?”
“I will try to keep anything you tell me in confidence. She was blackmailing you, wasn’t she?”
“Yes. I suppose she was.”
“Please tell me what it was about.”
“I was in Glasgow during the war. I got pregnant by an American serviceman. Lovely man, but he got killed in action. It was considered a sin in those days. My parents had me locked up in a hostel for unmarried mothers. My baby, a boy, was taken away for adoption, but, at that time, I was kept on in the home, doing laundry, scrubbing, things like that. It was inhumane. I escaped one day with two of the other women, and we went straight to a newspaper office and told them everything that was going on. They splashed the story, and the place was closed down.
I kept the newspaper cutting, and the Gillespie woman found it. I had a wee collection of china figurines. She demanded them and said if I didn’t give them to her, she would tell everyone my secret. I loved those figurines. I told her I was going to the police. She panicked and said she had just been joking. I sacked her and told her if I heard one murmur of my secret in Braikie, I would go to the police. She left me alone after that, but the very sight of the woman turned my stomach, so I sold up and came here. Does this need to come out?”
“No,” said Hamish, “I’ll make sure it doesn’t. But murder is murder. I can’t see you having the strength to brain her with her bucket, but have you any idea who might have done it?”
“I really don’t know. But to be honest, if I did, I don’t think I would tell you. She got what she deserved.”
♦
When Hamish left, he wandered up the main street to a café and ordered a mutton pie and chips. Someone had left a newspaper on the table open at an article about poor diet.
He promised himself to start eating fruit and vegetables as he washed down the pie with strong tea. Then when he finished, he went back to Lochdubh, hoping there might be something in Terry’s investigations to give him a clue.
Terry had left the police station, but there was a neat pile of printouts beside the computer.
Hamish gave his pets water and then settled down to read. The forensic report stated that there were no prints on the handle of the bucket: it had been wiped clean. And that was that. No tyre tracks, no hairs, no threads of cloth, nothing. He was not surprised. He remembered all the police cars arriving. He remembered pointing out the signs of a scuffle in the gravel and Blair ignoring him and walking all over the evidence with his big boots. The autopsy report was what he expected. Her death had been caused by a massive blow to the head which had crushed her skull.
As yet, there was no autopsy report on Mrs. Samson. He turned to the various interviews of the suspects. He sighed. There seemed to be nothing there more than he had found out already.
It was dark outside, and the rising wind soughed round the building. He leaned back in his chair.
At least a good picture of the late Mrs. Gillespie was beginning to emerge. The reason for her blackmailing activities was power rather than money. How she must have enjoyed getting something as simple as free cream cakes!
His thoughts moved to Elspeth. Would she really marry that reporter? Did it matter? He thought ruefully that he had had ample time in the past to propose marriage to her himself. Was he playing dog in the manger?
He switched on his answering machine. He did not expect any messages from Blair. Puffed up with the idea of a documentary on him, Blair would do anything he knew to keep him in the background. There was a brief one from Jimmy. “We don’t seem to be getting anywhere with this, Hamish. Any suggestions? Found anything out?”
Then there was one from Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. “I’ve been reading about the murder, Hamish. I haven’t heard from you in ages. How are you getting on? Give me a ring if you’ve got the time.”
No, thought Hamish. I’m not going down that road again. I was all excited when I thought she was coming back to live here, but she only stayed for a short time and I barely saw her. He fought down that old treacherous feeling of longing. He realised the next message was from Shona Fraser.
“We’re not going to go on with the documentary on Detective Chief Inspector Blair. I’ve been doing research on you, and I guess you acted stupid to get out of the television thing. But I’ve found out something interesting. I’ll call at the police station at nine this evening and let you have it.”
Oh, dear, thought Hamish. A Blair with fame snatched from him would be in a filthy mood and would soon be on the phone to vent some of his spleen on one local constable.
Hamish typed out a report of everything he had learned that day including his views that Mrs. Gillespie had only wanted power not money and might have contrived to win prizes at bingo by blackmailing Miss Greedy. He explained that it would account for the lack of any large sums being drawn out of the suspects’ bank accounts. Then he sent it on to Jimmy.