Hamish was relieved when they drifted into a shoal of mackerel and shrieks of excitement as the fish were landed drove thoughts of murder out of the heads of the party. Hamish agreed as they made their way back to the harbour that he would phone the hotel and tell the Rogerses that he would cook the mackerel for their tea. They ate sandwiches in the pub and then headed home with their catch, Hamish having found out that there was to be a dance in the Church of Scotland hall that evening and suggesting they all go. Dermott said he would stay behind with the children so that June could have a night out. They seemed to have the ideal marriage.
He did not expect that Doris would be able to go with them, but Bob Harris was absent from the tea table as they laughed and joked and ate grilled mackerel and voted Hamish cook of the year.
They gathered in the lounge to sort out who would go in which car. Cheryl and Tracey were both wearing very short black leather skirts with very high heels and skimpy tops with plunging necklines. Their blonded hair had been backcombed and left to stand on end. Miss Gunnery was a surprise. She had left off her glasses and her brown hair was combed down to her shoulders, soft and wavy. She was wearing a plain white blouse and black skirt and modest heels but she looked softer and more vulnerable. June was amazing in a shocking-pink chiffon dress with thin straps and a fake diamond necklace. Doris Brett had brushed down her hair and put on a plain black dress. She had a very good figure and Hamish noticed gloomily that Andrew Biggar was taking in that fact as well.
Miss Gunnery asked Hamish to drive her car, saying she couldn’t see a thing without her glasses. Cheryl and Tracey went with them.
Hamish had thought it would be a sort of ceilidh with reels and country dances, but it turned out to be a disco full of thin, badly nourished teenagers, brought up on a diet of bread and frozen food. Scotland has one of the worst diets in the world, shunning fresh fruit and green vegetables. Scotland is also famous for bad teeth and Hamish noticed that some of the young teenagers had dentures. The old idea still prevailed. If you have a toothache, get the tooth extracted.
“I can’t do that sort of dancing,” said Miss Gunnery. “They look like a lot of dervishes.”
“Oh, you jist throw yourself around,” said Hamish amiably. “Follow me.”
His long, gangling figure threw itself this way and that, and since his movements seemed to have absolutely nothing to do with the beat of the music, the others joined him on the floor. If Hamish could make such a fool of himself, then they could, too.
It turned out to be a happy evening, and the teenagers who came up to talk to them turned into ordinary pleasant young people. One youth approached Hamish and whispered, “Hey, Mac, we got a drink outside.” Glad to see some of the old Highland traditions still existed, Hamish followed him outside, where he joined a group of youths. One passed him a half bottle of Scotch and Hamish took a hearty swig.
“Nice to see young people still around the villages,” he said. “I thought you would all be in town for the evening.”
“We hiv our ain fun,” said one, proving it by lighting up a joint. “Fancy a bit o’ skirt, grand-dad?”
Hamish, who was in his thirties, ignored the ‘grand-dad’ and the smell of cannabis. He was on holiday, and unless someone slew someone in front of him, he did not plan to become a policeman again until the holiday was over.
“I’m with my own party,” he said amiably.
“Och, them,” said the youth derisively. “I mean bint, get a leg ower.”
“Oh,” said Hamish, the light dawning. “You mean a brothel.”
“Aye, Maggie Simpson’s, down the end of the main street.”
Hamish wondered suddenly if that had been the house he had seen Bob Harris leaving. “Not tonight,” he said. He crossed the road to the pub, bought a half bottle of whisky, and returned and passed it around. He found that not one of the youths was employed, that all dreamt of going to London or Glasgow. The boredom of their days was alleviated by a combination of drink, hash and videos. And yet they seemed a nice enough bunch. A generation or two ago, before the dole was enough to drink on, they would have found work in fishing or farming. But they were as much slaves to pleasure and idleness as any dilettante aristocrat of a century ago.
He went back into the church hall and stared in delight at the spectacle of Miss Gunnery dancing with a slim leatherclad youth. Miss Gunnery appeared to have left her inhibitions behind with her glasses and hairpins. She was shaking and moving with the best of them. In a dark corner of the hall, Doris and Andrew were sitting side by side, talking intensely.
He took June Brett up for a dance, but she said she couldn’t abide ‘this modern stuff’ and insisted on shuffling around trying to get him to do a foxtrot to a disco beat.
Hamish could not but help feeling pleased with himself. He knew his efforts were making it a happy holiday, even for such as the dreadful Cheryl and Tracey, who were dancing with stiff stork-like movements in their very high heels, their faces animated under their masks of dead-white make-up and purple eyeshadow.
It certainly never crossed his mind that this would be their last happy evening together, and that he himself would do something before the night was out that would start a chain of events leading to murder.
∨ Death of a Nag ∧
3
Fighting is all a mistake, friend Eric,
And has been so since the age Homeric…
—Adam Lindsay Gordon
When they arrived back at the boarding-house, Hamish noticed the way Doris’s anxious eyes flew to an upstairs window. A light was shining out into the odd twilight which replaces darkness in a northern summer. That would be her room, thought Hamish, the one at the front, next to mine.
Inside, he said his goodnights and made his way upstairs and then took Towser out along the beach for a walk. As soon as he returned to his room, he heard Bob Harris’s voice, loud and clear. “What the hell do you think you were doing, dressing up like a tart? Get that muck off your face. You look like a whore. A dance in a church? Are you out of your head? I don’t know why I put up with you. You make me sick. You go around making sheep’s eyes at men, but no one notices you. You’re insignificant. Always were. God knows why I married you.”
Doris whimpered something and then began to cry.
The nag’s voice went on. “Of course, you think that Biggar chap is interested in you but he’s just playing the gallant officer and gentleman. Never been married, I should guess. Too much fun with the chaps, if you ask me.”
Then Doris’s voice, shrill and defiant, “He’s not gay! You’re horrible.”
There was the sound of a smack, followed by a wail of pain from Doris.
Without stopping to think, Hamish went next door and hammered on it. Bob Harris opened the door, his face flushed with drink.
“What do you want?” he snarled.
Hamish shouted, “Look, man, I’m trying to have a peaceful night, and if you don’t stop nagging your wife, I’ll kill you, you bastard!”
The normally mild-mannered Hamish heard the echoes of his voice echoing around the silent house, the listening house.
“You long drip of nothing!” Bob Harris swung a punch at Hamish, who blocked it and then socked him right in the nose.
“Jist shut up!” roared Hamish.
He went back to his room and slammed the door.
An almost eerie silence fell on the boarding-house. Hamish shrugged. He hoped that would shut the nag up for the rest of the holiday.