“And you’re sure it was her?”
“If you can find another lassie in the Highlands wi’ thon orange hair, it’ll be a miracle. No, it was her all right. Foul-mouthed creature, but then a lot of them are.”
“And she didn’t leave the room at any time during the show?”
“Naw, that lot are like camels. Once they’ve got an audience, they can go on for hours and hours.”
Hamish thanked him and left, feeling depressed.
But he got into the police Land Rover and drove off in the direction of the travellers’ campsite.
As he parked outside the field, he noticed the flurry of activity the sight of him caused. Weird figures were seen scuttling here and there, doors banged shut as children were scooped up and carried inside. It was as if a monster had arrived, but Hamish guessed they were probably hiding drugs or items of petty theft.
Only one woman stayed where she was, stirring something in a cooking pot over an open fire.
Hamish approached her. “Where are the Stoddarts?” he asked. She was a thin, fantastically dressed creature, wearing a heather coronet on her tangled locks. A long Indian cotton dress hung about with beads and brooches was wrapped around her body. She turned pale dim eyes up to him and frowned as if he had asked her to expound Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. “The Stoddarts,” he prompted.
“Ower there,” she said, pointing in the direction of a small caravan painted bright blue.
Hamish walked up to it and knocked on the door. A vague-looking bearded man answered it.
“Mr Stoddart,” said Hamish, “is Cheryl Higgin’s here?”
“Come in,” he said and retreated back into the dimness of the caravan, which still had its curtains drawn closed. The confined space smelled of unwashed bodies. The bearded man joined a slattern of a girl, no doubt his wife, at a table at one end. Both were watching television on a small black-and-white set placed on the table. Hamish looked round. At the other end of the caravan was a bunk with a flaming-orange head poking above the pile of bedclothes. He went over.
“Cheryl,” he said.
She twisted round and looked up at him. Then her mouth opened and a stream of abuse poured out. Hamish waited patiently until she had run dry, guessing correctly that Cheryl’s outpourings were part of a long-established pattern.
When she fell silent, he perched on the end of the bed and said quietly, “Now you’ve got that out of your system, I want to ask questions about you and Sean, not the usual ones.”
She gazed at him sullenly.
“Why did you leave Sean?” asked Hamish.
“It wasnae any kind o’ life,” she said bitterly. “I think he wus screwed in the heid. He would get visits from thae awful old women frae the village and ask me to take a walk and sometimes I couldnae get back to ma bed till after midnight.”
Hamish felt suddenly miserable. He did not want to ask any further questions but knew he had to.
“Who were these women?”
As if she sensed that he didn’t really want to know, Cheryl brightened visibly and something like a look of satisfaction came into her eyes. “Well, there was that fat Wellington cow, for one. “Dear Sean, I’ve just baked this cake specially for you.” Ugh. Then there was a wee wumman wi’ glasses who sounded like a jammed record.” Jessie Currie, thought Hamish. “Aye, and the doctor’s wife, too.”
“Anyone else?”
“Isn’t that enough?”
“How often did Sean beat you?”
She sat up in bed and hugged her thin arms about her body. “Get oot o’ here,” she muttered.
“All right, I’ll leave that question aside for the moment. Have you any idea what the relationship between Sean and these women was?”
“It couldnae hae been sex,” she jeered. “He strung them along so he could get presents o’ food and cakes.”
“Money?” asked Hamish sharply, remembering the missing hundred pounds.
“No,” she mumbled, her head going down again.
He tried and tried but Cheryl said she had nothing more to tell. As far as she knew, Sean enjoyed causing a flutter among the middle-aged women of the village, and yet Sean must have done something wrong, for after his death no one had a good word to say for him.
Hamish finally gave up and left. He stood outside the caravan and looked slowly around at the other caravans and ancient buses which were dotted about the field. He felt sad and weary and so had a sudden understanding of why these unlovely people stepped out of society and took to the road. No responsibilities, no rent, no jobs, unless playing the occasional gig could be called a job. No hard drugs; drink, glue, or hashish when they could get it. They helped each other out, romanticized their life-style, and often got other people to believe in that romance. Let other people pay the taxes to supply them with dole money, let other people build and maintain the roads they drove on, let other people clean up the mess they left behind; they were the Peter Pans who had found a way of never growing out of adolescence, and the rest of the world was one indulgent parent to see to their needs.
A small fine rain was scudding in on a warm west wind. The woman was still stirring that pot, although the fire had blown out. Hamish gave himself a mental shake. It was unlike him to stand moralizing in the middle of a damp field when he himself was hardly one of the world’s exemplary workers.
So what had Sean done with the women? he wondered as he drove north again. Had he talked them into some sort of mental crisis, like the one he had inflicted on the minister? He had undoubtedly possessed a certain magnetism. But what had he done to drive someone to bashing his face and head in? It had been a murder done in pure hatred.
Mrs Wellington, Angela Brodie, and Jessie Currie would have to be questioned again, and this time without their minders: Mrs Wellington without the minister, Angela without Dr Brodie and Jessie without Nessie.
Evening was settling down on Lochdubh as he drove down the hill in the heathery twilight. The fishing boats were setting out to sea. Smoke rose lazily from chimneys and a group of children were playing on the beach, their cries as shrill as the calls of seabirds. But the blackness, the malignancy that lay under it all would never go away unless he found out who had murdered Sean.
He went into the police station, thinking wryly that for all his impatience with Willie, he was becoming spoilt by being perpetually waited on.
But Willie was in the living room slumped in front of a television set. “Where did that come from?” asked Hamish.
“Mr Ferrari,” said Willie dully. “It’s an auld one o’ his. He’s got one of the new ones. This one disnae have the remote control.”
“That’s grand,” said Hamish. “What’s on?”
“I dinnae know and I dinnae care. I don’t like television.”
Hamish sat down opposite him, first turning off the set.
“Out with it, Willie.”
“It’s a serious matter and I don’t want tae have to put up with your usual levitation.”
“No levity, I promise.”
“I was at the restaurant,” began Willie.
“You’re always at that restaurant,” said Hamish impatiently.
Willie threw him a hurt look.
“I’m sorry,” said Hamish quickly. “What happened? Was it anything to do with Lucia?”
Willie nodded.
“Did you make a pass at her and get your face slapped?”
Willie sat up straight. “I would never lay a finger on that lassie if she didnae want it.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“I shouldnae hae been listening,” said Willie. “Lucia said there was a new dish the cook, Luigi, wanted me to try. It was this morning and the restaurant wasn’t opened yet. So I was sitting at the table over by that auld fireplace and I could hear Mr Ferrari quite clearly. He was talking to someone in the room above, a man. I heard the name Sean Gourlay and that’s when I started to listen.”