Hamish wondered whether to interview the parents and then decided it was a bit early to subject them to more questioning. Blair would already have had a go at them.
He was about to get into the Land Rover when he heard someone calling, “Officer!”
He turned round. Mrs. McGirty was standing on her front door step waving to him. He went up to her. “Have they found out who did this terrible thing?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“You must find out. Annie was a saint and a good member o’ the kirk.”
“Maybe I’ll be having a word with the minister.”
Josie, meanwhile, was interviewing Annie’s former head teacher, Miss Gallagher.
“Annie was a very bright pupil,” said Mrs. Gallagher, a small, motherly-looking woman. “I thought she would be going on to university and interviewed her parents but they said that their daughter wanted to be at home and look after them.”
“Were they ill in any way?” asked Josie.
“No, that’s what was odd. They are both hale and hearty.”
“Was Josie well liked at school?”
Mrs. Gallagher hesitated.
“I know you don’t like to speak ill of the dead,” said Josie, “but it is a murder enquiry and one of her boyfriends was shot dead this morning outside the sheriff’s court.”
“This is terrible. Just terrible,” gasped Mrs. Gallagher. “To be honest, Josie did not have many friends amongst the girls. Looking the way she did, she was a great favourite with the boys but then even they began to shun her.”
“Do you know why?”
“I’m afraid not. It’s a terrible thing to say about the poor lass, but she almost seemed to enjoy her unpopularity, as if it gave her a certain power, as if she was looking down on all of them. I did send her to the school councillor.”
“Why?”
“When a beautiful girl like Annie Fleming goes on the way she was doing, I begin to wonder if there might not be a certain trace of the psychopath there. If you go along the corridor, you’ll find Miss Haggerty’s name on the end door. I will phone her and tell her you are coming.”
Miss Haggerty was a thin, frail woman with grey hair, spectacles, and a tired face. “Oh, Annie,” she said in reply to Josie’s questions about what she had thought of her. “I could not get anywhere with her. It was during her last year. She said she was looking forward to leaving the school because she found the other pupils too young for her. That was all she would say. She had good marks and seemed cheerful. Bright children often feel isolated, and Annie was very bright.”
“Did you think she might be a bit of a psychopath?” asked Josie.
“Oh, no, simply highly intelligent.”
“Manipulative?”
“I do not think she could manipulate me in any way.”
Josie left the school feeling downcast. Her phone rang. It was Hamish. “I’m not getting anywhere,” said Josie.
“I’m going to see the minister, Mr. Tallent. Like to come?”
“Where are you?”
“Outside her house.”
“Be right with you.”
Josie hummed a cheerful tune as she drove along. All was not lost. Hamish had obviously forgiven her for poking around his home.
Chapter Five
Nobody who has not been in the interior of a family can say what the difficulties of any individual of that family may be.
– Jane Austen
“He may have been diddling her,” said Josie as they both got out of the Land Rover at the minister’s home.
“Who?” demanded Hamish.
“Her own father.”
“For heffen’s sakes, lassie, have you lost your wits? You’ve been watching Law and Order Special Victims Unit.”
“It happens in these backwards places,” said Josie defiantly. “Lots of incest.”
“Look here, McSween, I don’t want to pull rank on you, but I am going to. When we get in there, keep your mouth shut. In future, address me as ‘sir.’ ”
Josie went bright red and hung her head, making Hamish feel like a pompous idiot. And yet it was time that Josie started behaving like a policewoman.
Hamish rang the bell of the manse cottage and waited. It was a two-storeyed Victorian sandstone building fronted by a garden full of laurels and rhododendrons on either side of a brick path. He pressed the bell and waited.
The door was opened by a squat man wearing black clericals and a dog collar. “I hope you are not here to bother the Flemings,” he said.
“I didn’t even know they were here,” said Hamish. “It’s you I want to be having a word with.”
The minister led the way into a dark study, sat down behind a large desk, and indicated with a wave of his hand that they were to be seated in two chairs opposite. Hamish took off his cap and placed it on the desk.
“Get that thing off my desk!” snapped Mr. Tallent.
Hamish put his cap on the floor beside his chair. “I don’t want any germs from your head on my desk,” said the minister.
He had large angry grey eyes framed with thick spectacles. The skin of his face was thick, open-pored, and creased in folds rather than wrinkles. His grey lips were large and fleshy.
There was little of gentle Jesus meek and mild about the face opposite, thought Hamish cynically. This minister, he judged, probably preached a grand hellfire sermon on Sundays.
“As you know,” began Hamish, “we are investigating the murder of Annie Fleming. Did you know her very well?”
“I am a great friend of the family. Annie was a beautiful God-fearing angel. Whoever did this will burn in hell for eternity.”
“So Mr. and Mrs. Fleming are staying with you?”
“Yes, they could not possibly go back to that house until the police have finished with it and the kitchen is repaired.”
“Was Annie particularly friendly with any member of your congregation?”
“I do not know.”
“Did you know that Annie had been having a fling with her boss?”
“What do you mean? Speak plainly.”
“She’d been having sex with him.”
“Rubbish. Who is spreading this filth?”
“Her boss, Bill Freemont, admits to it. A neighbour saw him going in to spend the afternoon with her when she was supposed to be off sick. Annie also frequented a disco over her lunch break.”