“You mean you found the missing drugs?” asked Angela eagerly.
“And the money?” put in Mrs Wellington.
“Yes.”
“Where?” asked Angela. “Can’t we have the money back, and the drugs?”
“No, I’m sorry. They’ll have to stay where they are for now.”
When the women had gone, Hamish went through to the office and made notes, writing down what he knew, but without seeing any glimmer of hope.
The phone beside him rang. It was a tearful woman calling to say a truck had crashed into her car up on the moors. He drove off to deal with that but all the while his mind was turning over what he knew and worrying in case one of the three women was a murderess.
It was during that evening when the light began to fade and Willie was whistling to himself in the kitchen as he prepared the supper that Hamish, with a sudden lurch in his stomach, wondered if either of the three might go to the bus to try to find the money or drugs.
He shouted to Willie that he had to go out and to keep his dinner warm and made his way up to the manse field. The bus stood dark and forlorn. Hamish crouched down behind the packing case, deciding to give it an hour or so. Mrs Wellington and Angela, if they wanted to make a move, would do so before bedtime so as not to rouse their husbands’ suspicions by getting up and going out in the middle of the night.
By eleven o’clock he was beginning to shiver, for the night was getting cold. He rose stiffly up from behind the packing case and then crouched down again. Three shadowy figures were at the edge of the field. He waited a moment and then switched on the large torch he was carrying, stood up and shone it straight at the bus. Angela, Mrs Wellington and Jessie Currie swung round and stood hypnotized in the light like startled rabbits.
Hamish walked towards them. Angela was carrying a hammer, no doubt to break the lock.
“I know what you’re after,” said Hamish severely, “and you’re not getting it. Now, I’m going out on a limb and putting my job on the line for the lot of ye. The least you can all do iss not to try to tamper wi’ the evidence more than it’s been tampered with already. Off tae your beds, ladies, and if I see just one of you near this bus again I’ll take the whole lot, video and all, and let Strathbane see it.”
They shuffled off silently, without a word.
Hamish followed them just as slowly. He was haunted by the sight of Angela holding that hammer. You think you know people so well, and when something like murder happens you realize you really don’t know much about them at all. Angela had previously proved herself to be unstable, but the circumstances had been stressful. Mrs Wellington he had believed to be the sort of character of a Good Woman that she presented to the world, and Jessie and Nessie he had regarded affectionately as a couple of jokes. He must try Cheryl again.
♦
Next morning, he told Willie he wanted the day off and asked him to look after things. Hamish cynically noticed his dog, who would normally have been scrabbling at the Land Rover, was happy to be left behind. Towser had been seduced by Willie’s cooking.
He took Willie’s battered Ford instead of the police car, not wanting to advertise his presence in Strathbane to anyone from headquarters.
The farther he drove from Lochdubh, the more he felt like an irresponsible fool. He should never have become so involved with the locals in a murder inquiry. He should have phoned Strathbane, told them about the new evidence, and let them take it from there. For all he knew of them, Mrs Wellington, Angela, or even Jessie Currie might be capable of murder.
If only Cheryl hadn’t so many witnesses. He would no doubt find her again and she would swear and curse and he would get nothing more out of her. He could not tell her about the video without risking exposing the three women.
It was all so hopeless.
He was approaching Mullen’s Roadhouse. He slowed down. A large new poster was pinned up on the window. Top of the bill was Johnny Rankin and the Stotters. He stopped the car and climbed out. They were due to perform that evening.
He decided to phone Willie and say he would be in Strathbane until very late. He had to see that performance and judge if there was any way Cheryl might have managed to slip out. She had that scooter. But it would take about two hours surely to get to Lochdubh, park the scooter outside the village, go to the bus on foot, murder Sean, and then get back.
He was turning the problem over in his mind when a slim figure on a scooter shot past. Under the crash helmet he could see the driver had bright orange hair.
Cheryl!
He set off in pursuit, wishing he were in the Land Rover, wishing he could switch on the siren. The scooter had been painted bright pink and the licence plate was obscured by dirt, but there could not be more than one person in the Highlands with that colour of hair. The figure on the scooter glanced back and then simply swerved off the road on a forestry track and sped through the tall thin pine trees. Hamish swung the car off the road, but after only half a mile the track disappeared and ahead he could see that orange hair flitting off through the darkness of the trees.
He cursed under his breath, turned and went back to the road. He would go on to the campsite and confront Cheryl when she arrived.
When he drove into the campsite, that woman was still there, still stirring the pot. As he was not in a police car or in uniform, no one ran away at his arrival. There were fewer old buses and caravans this time, but the bright-blue one belonging to the Stoddarts was still there. He went up and knocked at the door. Again the thin bearded man answered it.
“I would like to wait until Cheryl Higgins returns, Mr Stoddart,” said Hamish.
“Why wait?” he asked amiably and then stood aside. “Help yourself. Herself’s in bed as usual.”
∨ Death of a Travelling Man ∧
8
What will not woman, gentle woman dare,
When strong affection stirs her spirit up?
—Robert Southey
The Stoddarts were again watching television. Hamish thought, as he leant over Cheryl to wake her, that he would have expected the Stoddarts to be weaving cloth, painting pictures or doing something artistic rather than watching an Australian soap. They did not seem in the least troubled by his presence.
Cheryl came awake, and as soon as she saw who her visitor was, began her usual litany of oaths and curses. Once he could get a word in, Hamish asked, “Where’s your scooter?”
“Whit?”
“You heard.”
“I sold it,” she said sulkily.
“Who to?”
“Some fella I met in a bar.”
“What’s his name?”
“I dinnae ken,” said Cheryl, shifting restlessly among the frowsty bedclothes. “He gied me cash, I gied him the papers.”
“What did he look like?”
“Wee man wi’ a leather jacket and black hair.”
“Why don’t I believe you?” demanded Hamish plaintively. “Were you out this morning?”
“No, I was here in ma bed.”
Hamish stood up and approached the Stoddarts. “Was Cheryl out this morning?”
Wayne Stoddart wrenched his eyes from the television screen. “Don’t ask me, man,” he said. “Only just got up.”
Bunty Stoddart, whose face was hidden under a tangled mass of hair, continued to watch and listen avidly to the Australian soap, a vision of sanitized life in the antipodean middle class.
Hamish returned to Cheryl. “I think it was you I chased this morning. There can’t be more than two of you in the Highlands with that colour of hair.”