“Did you hear them having a row or anything?”
“No, they went on like strangers. It was probably him that did it. And I don’t care any more. Nothing’s going to bring her back.” Tears rolled down his cheeks and Hamish patted him awkwardly on the shoulder.
“Can I have a look at his room?”
“It’s full of forensic people, dusting everything in sight although they’ve already dusted everything and I don’t know what they hope to find. I wish everyone would go away and leave me alone.”
Hamish went back to the police station in time to meet Priscilla who was just driving up.
Although he was glad to see her, he found with surprise that his heart no longer gave a lurch. They sat in the kitchen and Hamish told her about the seer and the first husband.
“You would think it would be one of the locals trying to poison Angus,” said Priscilla after listening in attentive silence.
“Why?”
“Well, someone was very afraid that Angus might have divined something, and only the locals would think that. I can’t see either Paul Thomas or this first husband believing in the second sight.”
Hamish poured more tea. “I think that a frightened murderer might be prepared to believe anything. I hope he doesn’t go ahead and arrest John Parker without any evidence. I would like to have a word with him.”
“Blair’s capable of anything. Oh, that’s clever,” said Priscilla, noticing the screen door.
“It was a couple of American tourists gave me the idea,” said Hamish. “I wish I could have a word with that Carl Steinberger. He was staying there at the Thomases for a couple of nights. Where was he from again? I know, Greenwich, Connecticut. He may be back home now. Excuse me a minute, Priscilla. I’ll phone the police in Greenwich and ask them if they know Carl Steinberger’s phone number.”
He was halfway out of the kitchen when Priscilla rose to her feet. “Don’t worry, Hamish,” she said. “I think I’ll call on Angela Brodie. I’m worried about her.”
Hamish stopped. “Why?”
“She makes me uneasy. You can’t go around taking on someone else’s personality without something cracking,” said Priscilla.
She drove down to the doctor’s house, thinking about Hamish Macbeth. Although he had been as friendly as ever, something had gone out of that friendship. Hamish was no longer shy of her, she thought, nor was his whole mind on her when she was there. She felt uneasily that part of his mind had dismissed her.
Priscilla walked up the path to the kitchen door and then stood motionless, with her hand on the doorknob. From inside came a faint humming sound, a familiar sound. A picture of Trixie rose vividly in Priscilla’s mind. She pushed open the door and went in.
Angela was sitting spinning wool, her thin face intent. She was wearing jeans and sneakers and a shapeless white T–shirt with the legend Save The Bats emblazoned on the front.
She looked up and saw Priscilla. “Oh, Miss Halburton-Smythe,” said Angela, getting to her feet. “Would you like a cup of coffee?”
Priscilla looked around the gleaming and sterile kitchen. Angela put beans – from Nicaragua, where else? thought Priscilla – into the coffee grinder. Priscilla sat down at the kitchen table. It was amazing, reflected Priscilla, how a hairstyle could alter a woman. Angela’s perm showed no signs of growing out. Hard little curls rioted over her head, making her hair look like one of those cheap wigs from Woolworths. Her mouth appeared to have become thinner with little tight lines at the corner of the mouth.
“I didn’t know you had a spinning wheel,” said Priscilla.
“Paul gave it to me,” said Angela. “Poor man. He didn’t want to keep it in the house. He said every time he looked at it, he could see Trixie sitting there.”
“How are things going?” asked Priscilla.
“Not very well,” said Angela, feeding coffee into the machine. “The meeting of the Anti-Smoking League was last night. And do you know how many turned up? Two. And one of them was that layabout, Jimmy Fraser, who thought it was a stop smoking class.”
“That might be a better idea,” said Priscilla. “You might get more results by helping people to stop smoking than by putting a sort of prohibition ban on the stuff.”
“Anyone in their right mind should know it’s dangerous to smoke.”
“But it’s an addiction, like drinking, like eating too much sugar. I read an article which said that addicts are more open to suggestion as to how to stop than outright militant bans. Look at Prohibition in the States with people drinking disgusting things like wood alcohol and going blind. I’m sure a lot of people drank more during Prohibition than they would have done if the stuff was available.”
Angela folded her lips into a stubborn line. “Trixie used to say that people didn’t know what was good for them. They need to be taken in hand.”
“You can make a lot of enemies, Mrs Brodie, if you try to be nanny to the world.”
“That’s a bitchy thing to say!”
“And so it was,” said Priscilla contritely. “I’m concerned for you, Mrs Brodie. You seemed a happier person before Trixie Thomas arrived on the scene.”
“I was half alive,” said Angela fiercely. “There’s so much to be done in the world. Trixie used to say that if everyone just sat around doing nothing, then nothing would be done.” She took a deep breath and said triumphantly. “I am declaring Lochdubh to be a nuclear-free zone.”
“Oh, Mrs Brodie! You yourself?”
“I’m forming a committee.”
Priscilla felt at a loss. There was something badly wrong with Angela Brodie. She wondered whether the doctor’s wife was at the menopause. She had grown even thinner, not the willowy slimness she had had before, but a brittle thinness. Her fingers were like twigs and there were deep hollows in her cheeks. Priscilla suddenly wanted to get out. An old–fashioned fly paper was hanging from the kitchen light and dying flies buzzed miserably, trapped on its sticky coating.
“I’ve suddenly remembered something,” lied Priscilla, getting to her feet. She could not wait any longer in this suffocating atmosphere for that coffee to fill the pot, drip by slow drip.
She turned in the doorway. “Do you know, Mrs Brodie, that Angus Macdonald claims someone tried to poison him today by leaving a bottle of poisoned whisky outside his door?”
“Silly old man,” snapped Angela. “It’s years since he did a day’s work. Him and his silly predictions.”
Priscilla went outside and took a deep breath of warm damp air. The wind had dropped and a thin drizzle was falling. She wondered how Hamish was getting on with his phone call.
Hamish had found everything remarkably easy. The police in Greenwich, Connecticut, knew Carl Steinberger. He owned a small electronics factory outside the town. They gave Hamish the number and Hamish dialled and asked for Carl Steinberger.
In his usual Highland way, Hamish did not get right to the point but waffled on about the screen door and the flies and the weather until Mr. Steinberger interrupted him gently with, “Look, officer, it’s great talking with you, but I’m a busy man.”
“Can you tell me what you made of the Thomases?” asked Hamish. “The wife’s been poisoned.”
“Jesus! What with?”
“Arsenic.”
“Rat poison? Something like that?”
“We can’t find anything,” said Hamish. “That other lodger, John Parker, turns out to be her first husband.”
“I can’t tell you anything,” said Mr Steinberger, “except that we didn’t like her. My wife said she had a knack of making her husband look like a fool, but we didn’t pay much attention. The place was clean and the food was good. She was a great baker. We must have put on pounds. But there was no fun in eating her cakes because her husband was on a diet and he would sit at the table and glare at every crumb of cake we put in our mouths. That John Parker took his meals in his room and typed when he wasn’t out walking. Can’t tell you any more.”