Charlotte, a chubby, cheerful girl, hugged Josie and said, “You’re just in time.”
“What for?”
“I’m about to crack open a bottle of champagne. I’m pregnant. I got one of those kits that advertises it can tell you you’re pregnant before you know it yourself. See! Look at that blue line. You sit down, pet, and I’ll open the champers.” Charlotte opened the door of the drinks cabinet and the tinkling strains of “Highland Laddie” filled the room. Josie stared down at the pregnancy kit as if mesmerised. If only Hamish had really seduced her and she had got pregnant, he’d need to do the honourable thing.
“Here you are,” said Charlotte, handing her a glass.
“Congratulations,” said Josie. She took a gulp of champagne and felt the relief of having alcohol once more coursing through her body.
She had been to school with Charlotte and so they drank and talked about former school friends.
A car drew up outside. “That’s my Bill!” said Charlotte and ran out to meet him.
Josie opened her handbag and slid the pregnancy kit inside.
When they came in, arm and arm, Josie got to her feet. “I’ll leave you to it,” she said. “Congratulations again.”
“Let me show you the pregnancy kit,” said Charlotte. “Damn. Where is it? I’m so excited I can’t remember where I put it. Never mind. I’ve made an appointment with the doctor tomorrow to get it confirmed.”
“Should you be drinking?” asked Bill.
“I’m going to get right blootered and then I’m not going to drink another thing until the baby is born. Open up another bottle!”
Josie stopped at the supermarket where they sold bags of ice. In her car outside, she dropped the kit into the ice, wrapped in a polythene bag. The day was freezing so she hid the bag in the garage.
Hamish phoned Jimmy the next day. Josie had arrived and he had told her to do the rounds of the faraway areas. “So did he confess?” asked Hamish.
“That he did. When we told him his wife had turned on him, he cracked. I think he’s a haggis supper short o’ the neeps. He was obsessed wi’ Annie and added to that he’s as arrogant as the devil. She lost interest in him and he decided to get rid of her in the nastiest way he could think of.”
“What about Cora? Has she been charged as an accomplice?”
“She has. But she’ll get off lightly. She’ll even make bail.”
“Why?”
“She said she was terrified of him.”
“Nothing terrifies a woman like Cora.”
“Hamish, the poor woman was married to a triple murderer. She said she couldn’t bear it any longer so it was she who sent in yon package of photos.”
“I don’t believe it for a minute.”
“Well, that’s what she’s saying. Wasn’t you, was it?”
Hamish thought quickly. It would do no good to tell Jimmy the truth because in order to prove Cora wrong, he would need to admit to having broken into the Baxters’ home.
“Me? Not on your life,” he said.
But privately he thought that Cora had been in the grip of an obsession almost as mad as that of her husband. Respectability and her position as a councillor’s wife was her life and the very air she breathed.
Hamish found Josie good company in the weeks that followed. Josie cunningly knew instinctively that if she betrayed any romantic feelings towards Hamish, then he would back off. He even took her out for dinner a couple of times. The villagers thought they were watching a budding romance, and hadn’t Mrs. Wellington said she was sure there would soon be a wedding?
Meanwhile, Josie laid her plans. She had paid over one thousand pounds to a shady doctor in Strathbane to give her a certificate saying she was pregnant.
Just as the snows were beginning to melt and a balmy wind was bringing the first hint of spring, she called at the police station.
“Hamish, I’m pregnant,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
Their tricks and craft hae put me daft,
They’ve ta’en me in, an’ a’ that
– Robert Burns
The news of Hamish’s Macbeth’s engagement to Josie McSween was greeted with delight in the village of Lochdubh. They were such a suitable couple. She was a pretty wee lassie and a policewoman, too.
Only Angela Brodie was worried. One evening, shortly after the announcement of Hamish’s engagement, her husband confided in her that Hamish had come to him one morning, demanding a drug test, but that the forensic lab had stated that he was clear.
She knew Hamish better than most. Although he smiled on Josie and escorted her about, Angela sensed a bleakness in him. She didn’t like Josie. She thought there was something sly about her.
Also, Hamish, who usually dropped in for a chat, had been avoiding her. She found him one morning, leaning on the wall overlooking the loch, with his animals at his heels.
“Hamish!” she hailed him. “I haven’t had a chance to talk to you. So you’re finally going to be married? Congratulations.”
“That iss verra kind of you, Angela.” His eyes were flat and guarded. “I’d had best be getting along to the station.”
“Wait a moment. Are you happy?”
“Of course,” said Hamish, and he strode off.
Angela was walking back home when she met Mrs. Wellington. “Isn’t it exciting?” said the minister’s wife. “I’ve come to think of Josie as my own daughter.”
“I don’t think Hamish is very happy,” said Angela.
“It doesn’t matter if he’s happy or not. He got the girl preg…” Mrs. Wellington actually blushed.
“Do you mean Josie’s pregnant?”
“Don’t tell a soul. I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“I don’t think Josie is my husband’s patient.”
“Well, no. It would spoil the occasion if people thought it was a shotgun wedding.”
“Which doctor did she go to?”
“I remember she said it was a Dr. Cameron in Strathbane.”
Angela phoned the television studios in Glasgow and asked to speak to Elspeth Grant, saying she was a friend. She was told Miss Grant was broadcasting but if she left her name and number, Miss Grant would phone her back.
Worried that her husband might drop in, find out what she was doing, and accuse her of interfering, Angela paced nervously up and down. At last the phone rang and, with relief, she heard Elspeth’s voice on the line.