He was ushered into the hotel lounge to wait. A log fire was crackling up the chimney. To his relief, Lesley arrived five minutes later. She took off her heavy coat, revealing a plain black wool sweater and black corduroy trousers and serviceable boots. Her face was free of any make-up. Not hopeful signs, thought Hamish, who was always on the lookout for a new romance.
“So, any more news?” he asked as they walked into the dining room.
“Nothing much apart from a furious bollocking from Blair. He really does hate you. She had been viciously stabbed by someone in a rage. It’s hard to pinpoint the exact time of death but from the report of the contents of her stomach, or rather what they could guess the contents were from a charred body, I guess it was sometime during the night and when she was asleep. There are no defensive wounds. I think it was the first stab that killed her, right in the heart.”
“I’ve been thinking about the fire,” said Hamish. “At first I thought it was done in a last-minute panic to cover up any forensic evidence, but now I wonder. Potassium nitrate isn’t just lying around. Someone had to have ordered it. Someone had to have got a key to the place somehow. I don’t want it to turn out to be one of the villagers, but a lot of people still leave a key in the gutter above the door. I do myself. Maybe someone knew about a spare key. Catriona was a stranger. She wouldn’t think of searching in the gutter. Anyway, her name, last known was a Mrs. McBride. She performed an illegal abortion on a woman who subsequently bled to death.”
“There’s no need for back-street abortions these days,” said Lesley. “Shall we order? The waiter’s hovering and we’re the only customers.”
It was a set menu. They ordered game soup, followed by roast rabbit and a bottle of Merlot.
When the waiter had left, Hamish said, “It was evidently a doctor’s wife who went on the game to make a bit of extra money. She was afraid her husband would find out, him being in the Freemasons and the Rotary Club. But it’s a good motive for murder.”
“So you’d better find out who this doctor is.”
“Jimmy’s working on it,” said Hamish.
He had to admit that she looked quite pretty in the soft lighting of the dining room. He wondered if she had a boyfriend. Maybe she was married! He judged her to be about the same thirty-something age as himself.
She was not wearing any rings but that might not mean anything. She would not wear rings when she was working.
“I just hope it doesn’t turn out to be someone in the village,” said Hamish. “Maybe she was married. Are you married yourself?”
“Was. Not now. The food here is very good.”
Recognising a no-go area, Hamish ate steadily and then returned to discussing the case. “It was really meant to look like a hate murder. And the fire…I wonder if someone really cold and calculating, and knowing about the superstition of the villagers, staged that fire when it would have the most effect.”
“You mean the wrath of God?”
“Or the devil come up from hell to take her home.”
“How can you live in such a place?”
“You are not a highlander, are you?” asked Hamish.
Those large blue eyes stared at him. “What’s that to do with it? I’m from Perth, actually.”
“Strange things do happen up here. I think it’s to do with the rock. It’s some of the oldest in the world and the soil on top is very thin. I sometimes think the ground in some places records strong feelings. You can go up some of the remote glens and get an overwhelming feeling of tragedy and then you find out that glen was the scene of a massacre after Culloden when the Duke of Cumberland’s troops were not just routing the last of Prince Charlie’s supporters but killing indiscriminately.”
“Fanciful,” she said briskly, “but hard to believe.”
“Oh, it helps to keep an open mind. How are you getting on in your job?”
“Well. I don’t drink to excess and I don’t play rugby and I’m a female. They play silly tricks on me and it’s getting wearisome. I’d like to see this case through to the end and then I think I’ll get a transfer to Strathclyde.”
“Anything that could be described as sexual harassment?”
“Lots.”
“There you have them, lassie. Simply tell the lot of them that you are thinking of bringing a case of sexual harassment against them, and it’ll amaze you how they back off.”
“I’ll try that. Thanks. One thing puzzles me about the case. I would have thought it impossible to move about a village at any time of night without someone noticing.”
“I thought about that. Whoever it was could have approached the cottage from the back through the communal grazing ground.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” said Lesley. “Why aren’t you married?”
“I’m choosy,” said Hamish. “Let’s talk about something else.”
Somehow the conversation became stilted after that. Hamish had been about to suggest they take their coffee through to the lounge in front of the fire but he suddenly missed the love of his life, Priseilla, with such a sharp pang that it amazed him. To Lesley’s surprise, he quickly drank his coffee and called for the bill.
She found a sudden interest in this constable whom she had a few moments ago been privately damning as a local hick. He certainly was attractive looking with his flaming-red hair and hazel eyes. And he must be well over six feet tall.
When they emerged from the hotel, it was to find the fog had lifted and an icy wind was blowing down from the mountains.
“My turn next time,” said Lesley.
“Aye, well, maybe when all this is over,” said Hamish. He walked her to her car, shook hands with her, and said good night.
♦
Once back in the police station, he phoned Jimmy. “Any news of that doctor?”
“Aye, we found him all right. We traced him through a report in the paper about his wife being found dead in the street. Reason for the death was all hushed up. He’s a Dr. Wilkinson, a general practitioner, and, get this, a friend of Daviot’s.”
“Oh, my.”
“So we had to handle him with kid gloves. No getting him down to headquarters for a grilling. Daviot insists on handling it personally. But it seems to be a dead end. The doctor was off at a medical convention in Glasgow during the whole week covering the time she was murdered.”
“You can skip out of those conventions without anyone noticing,” said Hamish.
“Aye, well try telling that to Daviot. As far as he’s concerned, the investigation into Wilkinson is finished and crawly Blair is going along with it.”
“I think it’s got something to do with frustrated men,” said Hamish. “Hear any talk about a brothel?”
“Just the usual ones in Strathbane.”
“I cannae see any of the villagers going to one of those,” said Hamish.
“Sometimes,” said Jimmy, “a woman’ll set up on her own. Do it on the quiet. Just a few customers.”
“If it’s anywhere near Lochdubh, it’d need to be somewhere not overlooked,” said Hamish. “Gossip would have spread around if a lot of different men were seen coming and going from a house.”
“Why are you so interested in a brothel, Hamish? It’s got nothing to do with the case.”
“Unless it was someone to do with McBride or whatever her real name is. Also, I don’t want to find one of those places where girls are tricked into coming over here from Eastern Europe and forced into prostitution.”
“Come on! They’d hardly set up shop in a godforsaken place like Sutherland.”
“Maybe.”
♦
Hamish, going out to give his sheep their winter feed in the morning, found the ground covered with a light coating of snow. This was unusual, even for November. Because of the proximity of the Gulf Stream, Sutherland often escaped the harsher winters of central Scotland. Everything was still, grey, and quiet.