The twins were spinsters of the parish, still alike in their sixties, both having rigidly permed white hair and thick glasses.
“Awful, her turning out to be a tart,” said Nessie.
“Tart,” echoed her sister, who always repeated the end of what her twin had been saying.
“How did you hear?” asked Hamish.
“It was Mrs. Baxter, the councillor’s wife,” said Nessie. “Herself was down at Patel’s this afternoon. He’s got a special on tinned salmon. She bought ten cans! I said, ‘That’s not very fair. You should leave some for us locals,’ but she paid me no heed at all. So then I says, poor Annie Fleming, and herself whips around and says, ‘Annie Fleming was a whore.’ Just like that!”
“Just like that,” echoed Jessie.
“Mind you, I did always think she flaunted herself a bit. When are you getting married?”
“Getting married,” put in the Greek chorus.
“I have no intention of getting married,” said Hamish. He stalked off.
Mark Lussie was not a baker. He worked in the bakery as a sort of odd-job man, carrying out trays of cakes, bread, rolls, pies, and buns to the shop from the back. He cleaned the windows, swept the floors, and cleaned the baking trays and the ovens, and all the time he dreamed of greater things. He no longer went to church. He had prayed to be married to Annie and God had let him down so God didn’t exist. He wanted to get out of Braikie and go to Glasgow or Edinburgh, or even London. He had very little in his bank as he had begun to find comfort in drink ever since Annie had introduced him to alcohol.
He turned over and over in his mind everything Annie had said to him. And then like a lightbulb going on over his head as it did over the heads of the characters in the comics he liked to read, he remembered all of a sudden that Annie had said someone had threatened her and he remembered exactly who that someone was.
At first, he saw himself standing up in court in his best suit, giving evidence and being photographed by the newspapers when he left the court.
Then it dawned on him that such knowledge was money and money meant escape.
When he finished work, he went out into the yard at the back of the bakery and lit a cigarette, a new vice. He took out his mobile phone and, looking around to make sure no one was about, dialled a number he had looked up in the phone book in the bakery.
When the phone was answered, he asked to be put through to the person he wanted to speak to. “I know you killed Annie. She said you threatened her. Pay me two thousand pounds or I’ll go to the police. You know the war memorial on the hill above Braikie? Well, be there at midnight with the money or I’ll go straight to the police.”
The voice answered in the affirmative and rang off. Mark stood there, his heart beating hard. He would go to London! Maybe he would be in a bar and this film star would chat him up and take him back with her to Hollywood. He would get away from his home where the new baby cried all night. What was his mother thinking about to go and have another child? And who was the father? She wouldn’t say. Mark’s own father had left his mother shortly after he was born. The church had been a comfort for a while on the long Scottish Sabbath days, but it had let him down in the presence of Annie and her father.
He went back into the bakery and collected four mutton pies which had got a bit bashed and so he was allowed to take them home. There will be no mutton pies in London, he thought.
Mark felt very nervous but he did not drink that evening. He was frightened of falling asleep. Before midnight, he crept quietly out of the house and made his way through all the sleeping silent streets under the light of a cold, pockmarked moon. The streetlights were switched off to save energy. The great stars of Sutherland blazed overhead.
He walked through the town and up the grassy hillock where the war memorial stood, black against the starry sky. He glanced at the luminous dial of his watch. Five minutes to go. He looked up at the sky and saw that the northern lights had started to blaze in all their swirling glory. He had only seen them once before. What was it they called them in school? The aurora borealis, that was it. He felt the very heavens were celebrating the soon-to-happen escape of one Mark Lussie. Then he heard the town clock strike midnight and tore his gaze from the magnificence of the heavens and looked down the hill to watch for anyone approaching.
He never heard the step behind him. A knife was thrust savagely into the back of his neck. Rough hands searched his pockets after he had slumped to the ground and took his mobile phone. Then his assailant crept away.
Mark lay dying as the lifeblood pumped out from the wound in his neck. As the lights of the aurora borealis moved and swirled across the sky, Mark Lussie finally went on his last great journey.
Roger Burton, Barry Fitzcameron’s hit man, crouched behind the sheep shed up on Hamish’s croft. He had instructions to make it look like an accident. But he planned to wait until Hamish Macbeth was asleep, get into the station, and simply shoot him. It would be easy to get into the police station. He had noticed one of the fishermen knocking at the door, carrying two fish. When he didn’t get a reply, he had felt in the guttering above the kitchen door, taken down a key, and unlocked the door. Then he had come out a few moments later, relocked the door, and put the key back up in the gutter. Because Barry had thought Roger meant to stage an accident and because the person to be killed was a police sergeant, he had paid him generously up front. Roger meant to do the deed and clear off to Glasgow.
He waited until Hamish came back and then waited until finally the lights in the police station went off.
He was just about to make his move when the northern lights began to blaze across the sky. He suddenly felt he should leave it-just take Barry’s money and run. But he was a professional and he had a reputation to keep. No one in the criminal fraternity of Glasgow would mind that he hadn’t staged an accident.
He softly made his way towards the kitchen door.
Sonsie awoke and pricked up her tufted ears. Because of the odd telepathy between the two animals, Lugs awoke as well. Sonsie sprang down from the bed where she and the dog had been sleeping and went to the kitchen door. Her fur was raised. Hamish was to wonder afterwards why Lugs had not barked.
They heard the key in the door. Roger loomed up in front of them. When he saw the two animals he raised his gun but Sonsie, the wild cat, flew up at his face and tore her sharp claws down it while Lugs bit his leg. He howled and dropped the rifle.
Hamish came running in. He picked up the rifle and ordered, “Stay there or I’ll shoot.”
He scrabbled in the pocket of his coat hanging on the back of the door and produced a pair of handcuffs. “Over on your back,” he shouted.
Roger rolled over, yelling, “I can’t see.”
“It’s the blood,” said Hamish, clipping on the handcuffs. He grabbed his mobile from the kitchen table and called for help.
It was to be a long night. The deep scratches on Roger’s face were tended to by the medical officer before he was judged fit for questioning. But Roger remained silent apart from saying he was going to sue Hamish Macbeth for the damage to his face. He would not say that anyone had hired him to kill Hamish. Hamish waited in the detectives’ room because Blair would not allow him to be part of the interview. He had asked them to find out Roger’s address so that the place could be searched before anything was destroyed but Blair had snarled at him that he was not in charge of the case and to type up his report.