Two days later, he looked out of his window and saw a low black Mercedes stopping outside his flat. His heart sank as he saw crime boss Big Shug climbing out of the car.
Roger shoved a pistol in the waistband of his trousers and went to open the door.
Big Shug looked like a prosperous Glasgow businessman from his well-tailored coat to his shining shoes.
“Been reading about me, have ye?” asked Roger. “Come in.”
“I don’t go much by what the papers say,” said Big Shug. “But I’ve got a difficult job and I want you to off someone for me.”
Roger said cautiously, “Are you sure the person you want to off isnae me?”
“Come on, laddie. When have I ever let you down? This is a delicate one. It’s a woman. Anything against that?”
“Not a thing.”
“Why did you kill Barry?”
“He would have talked and the drugs would have been traced right back to you.”
“Aye, well, let’s get going.”
“Now?”
“No time like the present.”
“Who is she?”
“Tell you when we get there.”
Big Shug sat in the front with his driver and Roger sat in the back with one of his henchmen. No introductions were made. The Mercedes slid smoothly off.
“Where are we going?” asked Roger as the car began to drive along the Dumbarton dual carriageway.
“Relax, laddie. A wee bit before Helensburgh.”
A thin mist was hovering over the Gairloch as the Mercedes slid into a deserted building site. “Where is she?” asked Roger as he got out of the car.
“Along presently.”
Big Shug whipped a gun out and shot Roger in the stomach. “That’s one for Barry,” he said. “He was a pal o’ mine and he never would ha’ talked.”
He marched up to where Roger lay writhing on the ground and put two bullets into his head.
“Right, lads,” he said. “Get to work. This site’s held up forever waiting planning permission. Nobody’ll be along here for ages.”
His two henchmen dug a grave in the soft ground, dropped the body in, filled in the hole, and patted it flat with the backs of their spades.
They all got into the Mercedes and drove off.
Two little boys crouched behind a rickety wall of planks, having seen the whole thing. Rory Mackenzie was eight years old and his brother, Diarmuid, ten. “Do you think yon was real?” whispered Rory. “Maybe they was filming Taggart.” He was referring to a popular Scottish television crime series.
“I think we’d better tell the police anyway.” Diarmuid took out his much-prized mobile phone and dialled 999.
Chapter Eight
Love is like a dizziness,
It winna let a poor body
Gang about his bizziness.
– James Hogg
The murders of Mark Lussie and Annie Fleming had disappeared from the newspapers and from any of Strathbane’s investigations. Hamish greeted the news of Roger Burton’s murder with relief. It was Strathclyde’s case, and, as he alone was still determined to solve the local murders, he was happy to let them get on with it.
Strathbane was a violent town, and the police were used to having unsolved murders on their books.
Josie begged leave to visit her mother, and Hamish let her go. Flora McSween welcomed her daughter and asked how her “romance” with Hamish was getting on.
Josie said that Hamish had taken her to a local dance, and Flora eagerly begged for details. Not wanting to disappoint her mother, Josie gave a highly embroidered account full of “speaking glances” and “warm clasped hands,” which, to a less woolly-minded romantic than her mother, would have sounded like something out of the pages of a Victorian novel.
But as she talked, Josie’s imagination, fuelled by a generous glass of whisky, began to make her lies become reality. Acute jealousy made her think of Priscilla as a rival, although she did not tell her mother that Hamish had gone off with Priscilla and had not returned until the following day.
Then Flora said, “I’ve been meaning to throw a lot of old stuff out of the attic. It’s been up there for years and years. Some of it’s even your Great-Great Aunt Polly’s belongings. I know they’re a part of family history but I thought some of the old clothes could go to the local dramatic society.”
“I’ll have a look tomorrow,” said Josie.
On the following morning, Josie, nursing a hangover, climbed up to the attic, a small room at the top of the Victorian house which had once been used by a maid. Her mother followed her. “Look at all this stuff,” said Flora. “What I want you to do, pet, is take a look through it and see if there’s anything you want. I phoned the dramatic society and a couple are coming around this afternoon. I’ll leave you to it.”
Josie sat down and gloomily surveyed the jumble piled up around the room. Her mother had already labelled several of the old steamer trunks CLOTHES, PHOTOGRAPHS, and SHOES.
Feeling she could not really be bothered and wondering whether her mother had any Alka-Seltzer in the house, Josie decided to sit as long as she could, nursing her hangover, and then say there was nothing she wanted. She had no interest in family history. There were plenty of photographs downstairs of her late father whom she dimly remembered from her childhood as being an angry violent man, particularly on Friday evenings when he came back from the pub.
Her eyes fell on an old desk in the corner. It had a square wooden box on the top. Josie rose to her feet. Her mother had not said anything about jewellery. But perhaps there might be something valuable in there.
She opened the lid. It was full of old bottles of medicine and pillboxes. She was about to close the lid again when she noticed that one dark green bottle with a stoppered top had fallen on its side. It was labelled LAUDANUM. She lifted it out. It was full. She remembered reading in historical romances that laudanum was tincture of opium. She looked down into the jumble of medicines and found another bottle, also full.
After her failure to drug Hamish, she had vowed she would never, ever do anything so crazy again. But…maybe she would take them. You never knew…
Hamish meanwhile had set out to interview all the women in the case again. He was having a hard time with Cora Baxter, who seemed to think it the height of impertinence that a lowly police sergeant should dare to question a councillor’s wife. Hamish first asked her if she had visited the town hall on the evening Mark Lussie was murdered and then asked her if she had, or if she knew anyone who had, a knowledge of chemistry.
Her formidable bosom heaved. “Are you daring to suggest that I had anything to do with Annie’s murder? I shall report you to your superiors.”
“By all means,” said Hamish, hoping she would do so and that his sergeant’s stripes would be removed along with Josie. “I am simply-”
The door to the living room crashed open and Jamie Baxter strode in. “What’s going on here?”
“Oh, Jamie,” wailed Cora. “This terrible man is accusing me of murder!”
“This is too much, Macbeth,” said Jamie. “Get out of here this minute and don’t ever bother my poor wife again.”
Hamish tried to protest that he was only doing his duty but he was firmly shown the door.
He trudged along to Mrs. McGirty’s. As the frail old lady answered his knock, Hamish realised that she was the last person in the world to make a letter bomb, but maybe she heard useful gossip.
“Come in,” said Mrs. McGirty. “I’ll put the kettle on. Go into the living room and take a seat.”
He was glad to see she had a real fire. He remembered his mother telling him that at one time when the Hydro Electric Board had started up, the Highlands were promised cheap electricity. Fireplaces were blocked up and electric fires placed in front of them: old oil lamps which now would fetch a good bit of money in some auction room were tossed out with the rubbish. The electricity turned out to be expensive but a lot of people kept the electric fires, the house-proud ladies of the Highlands claiming that peat and coal fires caused dust.