“That’s over on the Moray Firth. I havenae been there, though I’ve been into Forres, which is quite close.” He looked at the coloured photographs. It looked like a Cornish resort with long white beaches, pretty village and harbour. There was also a page of advertisements for hotels and boarding-houses in Skag. “I’ll take this with me, Angela, if you don’t mind.”
“Keep it,” said the doctor’s wife. “It’s one less piece of junk. I can never bring myself to throw magazines out or even take them along to the waiting-room.”
“What’s the latest gossip?” asked Hamish.
She sipped her coffee and looked at him in that vague way she always had. Then she put down her coffee-cup and said, “Well, the biggest piece of gossip apart from yourself is Jessie Currie.”
“What about her?”
“Angus Macdonald, the seer, told her she would be married before the year’s out.”
Hamish’s hazel eyes lit up with amusement. “She didnae believe him, did she?”
“She says she didn’t, but she’s been casting a speculative eye over the men of the village and Nessie is worrying about being left alone.”
“And who is this charmer who’s going to sweep our Jessie off her feet?”
“Angus will only say it’s going to be a divorced fisherman.”
“We don’t have any divorced fishermen!”
“I pointed that out to Jessie and she said, “Not yet.””
“Chance’ll be a fine thing,” said Hamish. “Dried-up old spinster like her.”
“Hamish! That’s cruel.”
“Aye, well, she should mind her own business instead of ither folks’.”
“I really do think you need to get away. Willie Lamont was saying the other day that when you go to the restaurant, you’re always complaining about something.”
Willie Lamont, Hamish’s one-time sidekick, had left the police force to marry a young relative of the owner of the Italian restaurant and worked there much harder than he had ever done when he was a police constable.
“The portions are getting smaller and smaller and the prices higher.”
“Still, it’s not like you to complain. I’ll bet if you had a break from all of us, you’d be very happy to come back and see us again.”
Hamish got up. “We’ll see. Thanks for the coffee.”
He walked along the waterfront and perched on the harbour wall. Towser sighed and lay down. Hamish studied the magazine article. There was an advertisement from a boarding-house called The Friendly House: ‘situated right on the beach with commanding sea views, old–fashioned cooking; special low terms for July, halfboard’.
Hamish lowered the magazine and looked over at the village. It was a largely Georgian village, built all in the same year by one of the dukes of Sutherland to enlarge the fishing industry, trim little square whitewashed houses facing the sea loch. He knew everyone in the village, from people who had lived there all their lives like the Currie sisters, to the latest incomers. He felt better now he had talked to Angela, much better. He had been seeing things through a distorting glass, imagining everyone was against him.
So when he saw Mrs Maclean, Archie, the fisherman’s wife, stumping along towards him, carrying a heavy shopping basket, he gave her a cheery smile. “Lazing about as usual?” demanded Mrs Maclean. She was a ferocious housekeeper, never seen without a pinafore and smelling strongly of soap and disinfectant. Her hair was twisted up in foam rollers and covered with a headscarf.
“I am enjoying the day,” said Hamish mildly.
“How ye can enjoy anything wi’ that poor lassie down in England eating her heart out is beyond me,” said Mrs Maclean.
Hamish studied her thoughtfully and then a gleam of malice came into his eyes. “Priscilla isn’t nursing a broken heart, but some poor fisherman’s wife is soon going tae be.”
“Whit dae ye mean?”
Hamish slid down from the wall, rolled up the colour supplement and put it in his trousers pocket. “Aye, Angus Macdonald told Jessie Currie she’d be married afore the year was out and tae a fisherman, a divorced fisherman. How’s Archie these days?”
“Archie’s jist fine,” said Mrs Maclean, her eyes roving this way and that, as if expecting to see her husband. It was well known in the village that Archie, when not fishing, spent most of the day avoiding his wife, in case she scrubbed him to death, as he put it. “Anyway, it’s all havers,” she said. “Jessie Currie. The very idea.”
And then, to Hamish’s delight, he saw Archie in the distance. He came abreast of the Curries’ cottage and Jessie called something to him over the garden hedge and he stopped to talk to her.
“There’s your man ower there,” said Hamish happily, “and talking tae Jessie.”
Mrs Maclean stared in the direction he pointed and gave something that sounded like a yelp and set off at speed. But Archie saw her coming and left Jessie and darted up one of the lanes leading up to the back village and was gone from view.
Hamish strolled back to the police station, phoned Strathbane and said he wanted to take three weeks’ immediate holiday. Permission was easily granted. The bane of his life, Detective Chief Inspector Blair, was in Glasgow. There had been virtually no crime at all for months, and so it was agreed that Sergeant Macgregor over at Cnothan could take over Hamish’s duties as well as his own. He was free to leave at the end of the week. He phoned the boarding-house in Skag and learned to his delight that, thanks to a cancellation, they had one room free for the very time he wanted, and yes, dogs were allowed.
Feeling happier than he had felt for some time, he then set out to arrange for his sheep to be looked after, his hens and ducks as well, and then decided to pay a visit to the seer to find out what had possessed the old sinner to wind Jessie up like that.
Angus Macdonald, the seer, a big, craggy man like one of the minor prophets, peered all around Hamish looking for a present before he let him in. The villagers usually brought him something, a bottle of whisky or a cake.
“No, I didnae bring you anything,” said Hamish, following him into his small living room. “I don’t want your services. I simply want to know what you were doing telling Jessie she was going tae marry a divorced fisherman.”
“I seed it,” said Angus huffily. “I dinnae make things up.”
“Come on, man. Jessie!”
“Well, that’s whit I seed.”
“That sort o’ rubbish could start gossip.”
“Maybe that’s whit you’re hoping fur, Hamish.”
“How’s that?”
“Stop them gossiping about you and your lassie.”
“I think you’re an old fraud,” said Hamish. “I’ve always thought you were an old faker.”
“You’re jist bad-tempered because ye think nobody loves ye. Here’s Mrs Wellington coming.”
Hamish jumped up in alarm. He scampered off and ran down the hill, seemingly deaf to the booming hail of the minister’s wife.
“That man,” said the tweedy Mrs Wellington as she plumped herself down in an armchair. “I’ll be glad to see the back of him.”
“Is he going somewhere?” asked Angus.
“I met Mrs Brodie just before I came up here. She said that Hamish was thinking of going over to Skag for a holiday.”
“Oh, aye,” said Angus. “Now whit can I dae for you, Mrs Wellington?”
“This business about Jessie Currie. It can’t be true.” Her eyes sharpened. “Unless you’ve heard something.”
“I see things,” said Angus.
“And you hear more gossip than anyone I know,” said Mrs Wellington sharply. “I brought you one of my fruitcakes. It’s over on the counter. You see, Mr Patel at the stores told me that he had seen Archie Maclean talking to Jessie Currie and when he saw his wife at the other end of the waterfront coming towards him, he ran away.”