“Do you know if there’s a woman living in a mobile home near here?” he asked a gnome-like man who answered the door of the croft house.
“Herself has gone,” said the crofter. “It wass chust afore the snow. Big truck moved the whole thing. Tellt someone she was moving ower to Bonar Bridge.”
Hamish thanked him and started off on the road to Bonar Bridge. When he got there, diligent questioning gave him the information that there was a mobile home parked on the riverbank a bit outside the village.
Bonar Bridge has a long history dating from the early Bronze Age settlements. The locals call it Bona, probably from part of its Gaelic name, Drochaid a Bhanna.
After an hour of searching, he found a mobile home, screened by trees, on a grassy bank of the river. An old Rover was parked outside.
He knocked at the door. There was no reply. He tried several times. He turned the door handle. The door swung open. The smell that met him made his heart sink. He went back to where he had parked his Land Rover and put on his blue coveralls and overboots and then donned a pair of plastic gloves. He went back to the mobile home, where the door swung back and forth in the breeze. He went inside.
There was a double bed at the end of the mobile home, and on that bed lay a plump grey-haired woman, her dead eyes staring and her chest covered with dried blood. He stepped outside and phoned Strathbane. Then he went back in again and began to carefully search around. In a drawer, he found a passport. Her name had been Fiona McNulty, aged fifty-five. Along with the passport was a chequebook and various receipts for Calor gas, food, and drink. Under the receipts was a typed note. It read, “You’re next, you whore. I’m coming for you.”
He went back outside and up to his Land Rover. He took out a picnic basket and fed the dog and cat and filled their water bowls. He had a cup of coffee from his thermos but he didn’t feel like eating anything. What on earth, if anything, could connect the dead woman with Ina Braid and Catriona? And this dead woman, Fiona McNulty, certainly did not look like a prostitute.
It seemed to take a long time for the squad to arrive from Strathbane but finally they were all assembled: pathologist, forensic team, Jimmy, and, at the head of it all, a furious Blair, knowing that Daviot would now be on his back for having not persevered in solving the first two murders.
Hamish gave his report and was told by Blair to go and start knocking at doors in Bonar Bridge. Lesley had turned up with the forensic team but she had not once looked at him. Waste of flowers, thought the ever-thrifty Hamish sourly.
Hamish knew more policemen would soon be knocking on doors as well, and he wanted to get ahead of the pack.
An elderly lady inhabited the nearest cottage. She invited Hamish into her neat parlour and exclaimed in shock over the murder. “Such a decent lady,” she mourned. “What’s your name, young man?”
“I’m Hamish Macbeth from Lochdubh,” said Hamish, taking out his notebook. “And you are?”
“Mrs. Euphemia Cathcart.”
“You are English?”
“Yes. My husband was from Bonar and we moved up here when we got married. He’s been dead these twenty years. You sit there and I’ll make some tea.”
Hamish waited until she came back with a laden tray. He brightened. Not only tea but also homemade scones. He was suddenly hungry.
“Did you know the dead woman?” he asked.
“Yes, I did. She was so nice and kind. She would fetch me stuff from the shops occasionally and drop in for a chat. She was from Glasgow but she said she liked the Highlands and when her husband died, she bought that trailer thing and moved up here. She said when she got tired of a place, she could move on. Of course her old car couldn’t pull that great thing but she said there was always someone locally with a truck to do it for her.”
“I don’t want to shock you, Mrs. Cathcart, but there was talk of her being a prostitute.”
“I am shocked. The malicious things people do say. She was a decent lady. One of the best. We became friends right away. I really will miss her. It was probably a poaching gang. They’re vicious, those salmon poachers.”
“But you never saw any men going near her home?”
“Not a one. Don’t you listen to that rubbish. The bad side to some of the highlanders is that they will make up stories.”
“Did she talk about anyone or did she say she had recently been parked over near Cnothan?”
“No, come to think of it, apart from telling me about her young days in Glasgow, she didn’t mention the last place she’d been.”
“And do you know if she was friendly with anyone apart from you?”
“I’m sure there was bound to be someone but she never said…Oh, God! It’s horrible!” She pointed with a shaking finger at the window.
Blair’s face, swollen with booze and contorted with anger, was glaring in the glass.
“It’s all right,” said Hamish soothingly. “It’s chust the boss.”
He went to the door and opened it.
“Whit the hell dae ye think ye’re doing, sitting there on yer arse drinking tea?” howled Blair.
“Mrs. Cathcart here was a friend of the deceased,” said Hamish.
Daviot loomed up behind Blair. “What is going on?” he demanded.
Blair swung round. “I was just asking Macbeth here what he thought he was doing drinking tea with some auld biddy.”
A gentle reproving voice from the doorway said, “I do not like being called an auld biddy. I have just been telling this nice policeman that the poor dear Mrs. McNulty was a friend of mine. You,” she said, glaring at Blair, “are a good example of why people in this country have lost the respect for the police.”
Daviot stepped forward. “I am sure the chief inspector did not mean to insult you. Please carry on, Macbeth.”
Hamish followed Mrs. Cathcart back indoors. “I think I’ve actually got enough for the moment,” he said.
“Just you sit down and finish your tea. It must be horrible working for a man like that.”
“Just one more thing,” said Hamish. “May I have another scone?”
“As many as you like.”
“Thanks. What I really meant to ask was, Did you ever go along to the shops with her?”
“I went the once.”
“Did she seem to be particularly friendly with any of the shopkeepers?”
“I remember there was a Mr. Tumulty at the craftshop. She seemed to be on good terms with him.”
“I’ll try there.”
“Drop by anytime.”
♦
Mr. Tumulty was a small, faded-looking man dressed entirely in grey. He had grey hair and grey watery eyes in a pale face. Hamish judged him to be in his fifties. The news of the murder had spread like wildfire. “This is terrible,” he burst out when Hamish entered the dark little shop. “Who would want to murder poor Fiona?”
“I gather you were friendly with her.”
“We got talking when she came in to buy one of my mohair stoles. She invited me back to her home for supper one night and I had a nice time. I escorted her to the kirk one Sunday. We’ve got a rare fine minister.”
“I have to ask you this, sir,” said Hamish. “Did you know that Mrs. McNulty was suspected of being a prostitute?”
“Never! A more respectable lady you could not wish to meet. That’s a nasty slander.”
“I’ll leave that for the moment. Did she seem to be frightened of anyone?”
“No.”
“When did you last see her?”
“I can’t exactly remember. I phoned her several times but I didn’t get a reply.”
“On her mobile?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll maybe get back to you.”
Hamish went outside the shop and called Jimmy. “I didn’t see a mobile phone in her place,” he said. “Can you get the men to look for it? If we knew who’d been phoning her, that would be a great help. And did she have a computer?”