“We want to ask you about Annie Fleming,” said Hamish.
Josie got an inner glow. Hamish was beginning to say we.
“Poor girl. Any idea who did it?”
“Not as yet. I must ask you this: Did Annie Fleming make a pass at you?”
“By all that’s holy, someone who doesn’t think she was a saint. Yes, she did.”
“Explain what happened.”
The classroom smelled of chalk, sweat, and dust. Outside the wind howled and screeched.
Harry leaned on his desk. “Annie was very good at English. Then she started waiting in the classroom until the others had left, asking me questions. I began to feel uneasy because other members of the staff began to tease me about being seen alone with Annie. So I told her that if she had any questions, to put them in writing and leave them on my desk and not to stay behind in the classroom. I was very firm with her. I held the door open for her and she…she stuck her tongue in my ear.
“I told her I would report her and she laughed and said who would ever believe me and if I didn’t keep my mouth shut she would report me for having tried to rape her. I felt nothing but relief when she left the school for good.”
“Who’s the chemistry teacher here?”
“Sol Queen. But I hardly think…”
“Where can we find him?” asked Hamish.
Harry glanced at his watch. “He’ll be in the staff room having a break. I’ll take you along.”
Various teachers were standing at an open window in the staff room, smoking and braving the gale that was blowing in.
“Sol,” said Harry. “The police want a word with you.”
An elderly teacher turned around. He had sparse grey hair and thick glasses. “We can’t talk here,” he said. “Come outside.”
Josie and Hamish followed him into the corridor. “What is it?” he asked, peering myopically up at Hamish. Hamish thought that Annie could hardly have made a pass at this elderly gentleman, so he asked instead, “Is there anyone you can think of who might have the expertise to make a letter bomb?”
“Funnily enough, I’ve thought of that. But I cannot think of anyone at all-apart from me. I mean, I would know which chemicals to use, but I would not know how to install the fuse. That takes a lot of sophisticated knowledge.”
Hamish had a sudden idea. “Do you have computer classes in the school?”
“No. We were supposed to get them, but there is so much else needing to be done here. The roof’s in need of repair and it would mean finding extra money over the cost of the computers to hire another teacher.”
Hamish thanked him and then, as they walked towards the entrance, he phoned Jimmy. “Did forensics go through Annie’s computer?”
“She didnae have one,” said Jimmy. “Her father says that computers are the instruments o’ the devil. They searched the one at the wildlife place but nothing but business on it.”
Hamish rang off. “I can’t think of any young person who didn’t use the Internet,” he said. “There’s that new Internet café, just off the main street. Let’s try there.”
The Internet café was run by a Pole, Lech Nowak, and the place was full of Polish accents as other immigrants e-mailed home.
Hamish asked whether Annie Fleming had ever used the café. “The girl that was murdered? No, she never came in here,” said Lech.
Another possible lead gone, thought Hamish gloomily.
The café sold snacks, so Hamish suggested they should both eat something. He hoped his pets were all right back at the police station. He was worried that the hit man might call back to finish the job and shoot the animals.
After they had finished eating, Hamish said, “I’m going back to that minister’s. I know the parents have probably been interrogated but I want to speak to them myself. But I would like you to go back to the town hall and have a talk with Percy Stane. Make a friend of him. Sympathise. See if you can get anything more out of him and in a roundabout way, see if he got any phone calls from Mark.”
Hamish was not looking forward to interviewing the Flemings. What sort of parents had produced such a manipulative drug-taking daughter?
Chapter Seven
In for a penny, in for a pound-
It’s Love that makes the world go round!
– W. S. Gilbert
Josie didn’t get much out of Percy. He protested that he had never even met Mark Lussie, nor had he received any phone call. Josie tried to trick him by lying and saying she knew he had received a call from Mark Lussie, whereupon the usually rabbit-like Percy had rallied, telling her that she was lying and he would put in an immediate complaint about police harassment. Alarmed, Josie protested that perhaps she had received false information, but Percy simply held the office door open for her and told her to go.
The early northern night had fallen, and the wind whipped clouds across a cold little moon overhead.
Josie suddenly had an idea. She would get a taxi, go back to Lochdubh, clean up the police station, and have a hot supper waiting for Hamish when he returned.
Hamish, meanwhile, was facing Mr. and Mrs. Fleming. He had expected to confront a pair of parental tyrants but found Annie’s mother and father to be decent, ordinary, and grief-stricken.
“I believe, if you don’t mind my saying so,” said Hamish, “that you appear to have been rather strict with your daughter.”
“We only did it for her own good,” said Mr. Fleming. “She never protested. She was a good girl. I won’t believe all those nasty stories that folk are circulating about her.”
“Annie did have drugs on her body,” said Hamish.
“Someone must have tricked her. We brought her up to fear the Lord and do the right thing.”
Hamish turned his attention to Mrs. Fleming. She was in her late fifties, and he judged she must have had a baby later in life than most mothers. Her face had the drained, exhausted look of someone who has been crying for days.
“Mrs. Fleming,” asked Hamish, “do you know of any particular friends she might have had?”
“No, she didn’t socialise much with the young people from the church. She seemed happier with our friends when we had them round for tea.” Hamish guessed that tea meant high tea, still served in the north in a lot of households instead of dinner.
“May I have the names of your friends?”
“Well, there’s the Baxters.”
“That would be your neighbours-Cora and Jamie Baxter?”