“I had to answer the phone in the back shop one day and Mrs. Gillespie had dropped in, so I asked her if she would mind the shop. The order book was open on the counter. She must have read it. She said she would tell the local newspaper that all my Scottish tourist goods came from China. The shame! I pleaded with her. She said she wouldn’t say anything if I let her win at bingo. It was horribly easy. She gave me a bingo card with numbers on it. I made sure those were the only numbers to be called.
“Now it’s all come out, and you’re going to arrest me for fraud. I’d rather kill myself. I thought if I could sell the shop, I might get enough to move somewhere far from here.”
Hamish thought rapidly. If he took her in, she would be brutally interrogated by Blair, and she would certainly be charged. Even if she did not kill herself, her life would be over. Such as Miss Creedy just couldn’t bear the shame.
“Where were you the night Shona Fraser was murdered?”
“I was with my sister in Inverness. I went down for a visit and stayed overnight. I gave that detective her address and phone number.”
“Look, I tell you what I’ll do,” said Hamish. “We’ll keep this between us. You overreacted. The locals don’t buy tourist things. They really would have thought nothing of it. When you sell your shop, you’ll work out just how much money Mrs. Gillespie illegally got at the bingo, then we’ll see Father McNulty, and you’ll hand the money back.”
She leaned forward and clasped his hands. “Oh, thank you! I’ve been such a fool.”
“It’s amazing how decent people can be made to feel guilty over little things,” said Hamish. “Mrs. Gillespie preyed on that guilt. Have the police asked you about the bingo? I’m afraid I put in my report that Mrs. Gillespie might have been forcing you to cheat.”
“Yes, they did. But I lied, and poor Father McNulty, believing me innocent, backed me up.”
“Right. We’ll let the matter drop. They’ll have checked out your alibi, and you probably won’t have a visit from them again. So keep quiet until this is all over.”
“Thank you. I shall be in your debt for the rest of my life.” She looked at him with adoring eyes.
“Enough o’ that!” Alarmed, Hamish got to his feet. “Chust forget about it.”
“I must repay you. You are a bachelor. I – I could bake you cakes and clean your house and – ”
“No! Leave me alone. It’ll look suspicious to the police if you start hanging around.”
He left hurriedly as she followed him to the Land Rover, babbling thanks.
♦
Hamish drove a short distance round the next corner and stopped outside Mr. Gillespie’s house.
Mr. Gillespie was at home. He looked frail but happy. “Come in,” he said.
The living room was a clutter of books and DVDs.
Hamish removed his cap and sat down. “Your late wife was a blackmailer,” he said. “Did she just work for those five people – Professor Sander, Mrs. Fleming, Mrs. Wellington, Mrs. Styles, and Mrs. Barret-Wilkinson?”
“As far as I know. One day a week each. She did say she was thinking of leaving Mrs. Wellington.”
“You’re not shocked your wife was a blackmailer?”
“No. Man, I’d started to hate her a long while ago. Nothing awful about her would surprise me.”
“You used to have a good steady job. Why did she take to cleaning?”
“She liked it. I mean, she’d even clean the place to bits here. It’s a sort of power.”
“Has anyone come to see you to ask about her effects? Old letters, things like that?”
He shook his head.
“Did your wife have any close friends, even in the past?”
“Not that I can think of.”
Hamish gave up and left him. His thoughts turned to the formidable Mrs. Styles. Was she as squeaky-clean as she seemed?
He phoned Jimmy. “Any news on the post-mortem on Mrs. Samson?”
“Aye, the procurator fiscal says it was a heart attack, pure and simple. So that’s one murder less. The mobile unit’s packing up. They feel they’ve got everything out your village they can.”
“This Mrs. Styles,” said Hamish. “What was her alibi?”
“I don’t think anyone asked her. She’s such a formidable church person that I think the powers-that-be decided to give her a miss.”
“I’ll try her,” said Hamish, “but be prepared for an angry report about police harassment.”
♦
Hamish was informed by a neighbour that Mrs. Styles was round at the church. He made his way to the Church of Scotland and pushed open the door. Mrs. Styles was up in the pulpit, polishing the wings of the brass eagle which held the Bible.
Hamish wondered whether to trick her into an admission the way he had tricked Miss Greedy, but decided against it. Such as Mrs. Styles would not be easily frightened.
In the organ loft, the organist began to play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue. Dracula music, thought Hamish as Mrs. Styles grasped the brass eagle and glared down at him.
She slowly descended the stairs from the pulpit and approached him, a can of brass polish in one hand and a cleaning rag in the other.
“What is it, Officer?” she demanded.
“I wanted to ask you some more questions about Mrs. Gillespie.”
“What?” She swung round and glared up at the organ loft. “Stop that noise,” she shouted. “I can’t hear myself think.”
The organist ceased abruptly. “What I was wondering…” began Hamish.
But the organist burst into a jaunty rendition of ‘These Boots Are Made for Walking,’ filling the church with noise.
“Outside,” mouthed Mrs. Styles.
They walked out into the graveyard. “That man!” exclaimed Mrs. Styles. “I have complained and complained about him, but no one will listen to me. He’s a sacrilegious disgrace, that’s what he is. Now, what do you want?”
“Mrs. Gillespie, as has been well established, was a blackmailer. I am not suggesting for a minute that she was blackmailing you…”
“You’d better not! I’m a respectable woman.”
“Nobody said you weren’t. But Mrs. Gillespie had a nasty way of poking and prying through her employers’ private papers. Did you ever catch her at it?”
“Yes, I did. But I gave her a sound lecture. She was not a good cleaner, and I was going to fire her.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because I am a Christian. And when she told me she had terminal cancer and that the work was the only thing that kept her mind off her impending death, I kept her on and was lenient with her.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“Six months ago. Her work had become really slack.”
“Her husband is the one who has cancer. There was nothing up with her. If she’d had cancer, it would have shown in the autopsy.”
“I wish I had never let that woman in my house. The more I hear about her, the more horrible she seems.”
Hamish studied Mrs. Styles. She was clear-eyed and arrogant. He was perfectly sure she was telling the truth. Perhaps, he thought, if she’d had a guilty secret, she might have been a more likeable woman.
“Mrs. Styles, if you hear of anything, know anything, please let me know. You can phone me at the police station in Lochdubh.”
“I am an honest woman, I’ll have you know. If I did know of anything, I would have told the police already.”
And that was that, thought Hamish gloomily.
He went back and drove off up into the hills. He finally stopped, got out, and walked to the edge of a cliff above the boiling Atlantic. The waves were hypnotic in their driving immensity as they hurled themselves against the base of the cliff. The air was full of spray. Cormorants rose up from the cliffs and then dived headlong into the sea. A puffin emerged from its burrow on the cliff top, regarded Hamish, and dived back into its burrow again.