The wind suddenly dropped and all was very quiet and still. He reflected that it must be the turn of the tide. It was a phenomenon he had noticed before. Just at the turn of the tide, nature held its breath – no bird sang, everything seemed to be waiting and waiting. And then, sure enough, as if someone had flicked a switch, everything started in motion again.
He got up and decided to go straight back to the hotel, collect a couple of paperbacks, and walk Towser along the beach. He occasionally wondered who it was who had searched his case but decided it had probably been Rogers, whose motive had been nothing more sinister than vulgar curiosity.
He felt a pang of guilt at not rejoining the others, but then reminded himself severely that he was not related to them, barely knew them, neither was he on police duty. If Bob Harris murdered his wife, then that was his business. And so, comforting himself with these callous thoughts, he loped home, collected Towser and the paperbacks, and set out along the beach in the opposite direction from Skag. He found a comfortable hollow and settled down to read with Towser at his feet. It would not get really dark. A pearly twilight would settle down about one in the morning for about two hours.
He read a tough-cop American detective story. The detective in it seemed to get results by punching confessions out of people, which gave Hamish a vicarious thrill as he thought of the scandal and miles of red tape that would descend on his head if he tried to do the same thing. The story ended satisfactorily with the detective incinerating the villains in a warehouse and getting a medal for bravery from the mayor in front of a cheering crowd on the steps of City Hall. America must be a marvellous country, thought Hamish wryly, if any of this was real. He imagined what would happen to him if he did the same thing. He would be hauled up before his superiors, who would want to know first of all why he had tackled the villians single-handed and not called for back-up, and why he had wrecked three police cars. Then he would be told that when he had finished writing all that out in triplicate, he would be interviewed by the gentlemen who owned the warehouse and their insurance company to explain why he had torched billions of dollars’ worth of stock.
With a sigh of satisfaction, he stood up and stretched and set off back along the beach for the boarding-house.
He had been looking forward to reading the other book, but Bob Harris was berating his wife next door and she was crying. Hamish ripped up pieces of tissue paper to form earplugs, buried his head under the pillow and fell asleep.
♦
Hamish had fully intended to keep the next day for himself, but when he entered the dining room for breakfast, all eyes turned to him hopefully. It was the sight of Doris’s sad face that made up his mind for him. He suddenly did not care whether Doris fell in love with Andrew or not. She might have a little happiness to remember in her otherwise miserable life.
“Whit are we daein’ the day, Hamish?” Cheryl called over to him.
“I thought you would all have had enough of bloody civil servants,” growled Bob Harris. “Petty little bureaucrats.”
Hamish ignored him. “I was down at the harbour yesterday evening,” he said, “and I noticed that you can hire a boat and fishing tackle. Anyone for fishing?”
They all agreed, with the exception of Bob, who sneered, “Fishing’s for fools.”
Dermott Brett said he would take his car into Skag because he didn’t want the children too tired with the walk before the day started. “Are you taking Towser?” asked Heather.
“Yes,” said Hamish. “He likes boats.”
Miss Gunnery said she would take her car as well and offered Hamish a lift. She frowned when Cheryl and Tracey begged a lift as well but said reluctantly that they could come too. Andrew and Doris said nothing. Hamish sensed a waiting in Doris. She was hoping she could slip away.
Nonetheless he was surprised when they all gathered on the harbour to find that Andrew had driven Doris in his car.
“Where’s Bob?” asked Dermott.
“He doesn’t want to come,” said Doris curtly.
They went to a hut at the back of the harbour where a surly man said he would supply them with tackle and take them out. They all paid their share of the cost. It was a large open boat with an outboard. The day was grey and still, the water flat and oily.
The boat owner, Jamie MacPherson, issued them with old lifejackets and even found some small ones for the children. He tried to object to Towser until he saw the party was going to cancel the trip if the dog wasn’t allowed on board.
They all climbed down a seaweed-slippery ladder from the jetty and on to the boat. Hamish had taken a dislike to Jamie, but he had to admit the man was efficient. He had small rods for Heather and Callum and even a small stick with a thread and a bent pin on it for the toddler, Fiona. They chugged out into the North Sea until the boat stopped and they began to rig up their lines. There were various false alarms. Doris caught a bit of seaweed and June Brett, an old shoe.
The day was hazy and lazy and then Heather said suddenly, “Someone ought to kill Mr Harris.”
“That’s enough of that, miss,” said her mother sharply and then looked apologetically at Doris.
“A lot of people want to kill Bob,” said Doris. “Don’t get angry with the child.”
“Why did you marry him?” asked Heather in her clear piping voice.
“People change,” said Doris on a sigh.
“It’s not easy to kill someone,” said Hamish, wondering if one of them might betray that he or she had searched his suitcase and knew he was a policeman.
Andrew laughed and then asked the question Hamish had been dreading. “Which branch of the civil service are you in, Hamish?”
“Min of Ag and Fish,” said Hamish, meaning the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
“Anyone there you would like to kill?”
“Aye,” said Hamish, thinking of the bane of his life, Detective Chief Inspector Blair, “there’s this big fat Glaswegian wi’ a sewer mouth.”
“I always think the best murders are when they are committed by someone who doesn’t know the victim,” said Miss Gunnery.
“There iss no such thing as a good murder,” said Hamish repressively. His Highland accent took on that sibilancy it always did when he was upset. “There iss nothing good in the taking of another’s life.”
“Well, I think that awfy Bob Harris waud be better dead,” said Tracey.
“Please do not say such things in front of Doris,” said Andrew sharply.
“She waud be glad tae see the last o’ him,” retorted Cheryl.
“In a book I was reading at school, the wicked girl in the remove was killed with a rare South African poison,” said Heather.
“You won’t get rare South African poisons in Skag,” said Hamish. “Murders are usually done in rage and they’re dreary and simple – a blow tae the head, a push down the stairs, an electric heater chucked in the bath, or something that looks like a climbing accident.”
“If he had come with us,” said Heather eagerly, “we could have pushed him overboard and said it was an accident.”
“What about Mr MacPherson there?” said Hamish, jerking his thumb at the surly man at the tiller.
“We would need to pay him hush money,” said Heather.
She was told sharply by her mother to be quiet, but the fish weren’t biting and somehow the subject of killing Bob Harris just wouldn’t go away. Miss Gunnery raised a laugh by saying the food at the boarding-house was enough to kill anyone, and that started a discussion of the various methods of poisoning, from simple broken glass in the pudding to arsenic in the tea.