There was a wallet containing credit cards in the name of Hamish George, a passport and driving license. It was odd, he thought, when one was at the very bottom of the police force rung, how one would never dream that they could get all this stuff ready so quickly.
He wished he could wear his own clothes. But when he was finally dressed in the biscuit-coloured Armani suit, shirt, silk tie, gold cuff links and gold watch, he realised what a good idea it was. He felt like an actor dressed for a part.
Carrying the coat over his arm, he went into the living room and sat down to wait for Olivia. At last her bedroom door opened and she came out. Hamish blinked at the transformation.
There was now something subtly common and coarse about Olivia. Her hair was piled on top of her head in an elaborate arrangement of curls and loops. She was wearing a power-dressing suit, large shoulder pads, very short skirt and with the jacket worn over a white silk blouse decorated with many gold chains. She wore heavy eye makeup and had painted her mouth to look much fuller and pouting. Her stiletto heels had platform soles.
She pirouetted in front of him. "Well, do I look like a drug dealer's wife?"
"I don't know what one looks like," said Hamish, "but I should think she'd look like you."
"Right, let's get all our stuff into the car. I have good news for you. They have given us a couple of bodyguards."
"Why?"
"Because that will add to our image. It also gives us protection. They'll be waiting for us at the hotel."
Hamish found he was slightly irritated that they were not to be on their own. He was afraid that their "muscle" might turn out to be two plainclothes who positively shouted out that they were detectives.
Once their new belongings were loaded in-Olivia had said to leave their own stuff behind and someone would pick it up later-he drove the Mercedes towards the Grand Hotel.
He passed over one of his credit cards, startled at the price of the room, which seemed to him a horrendous amount. But then the Grand was a pretentious hotel.
It turned out that a suite had been booked for them. There was a sitting room with bar and television, a large bedroom with a double bed and en suite bathroom and then a small bedroom off it. Olivia indicated the small bedroom. "That's where you will be sleeping."
"Don't you think the hotel staff will find it odd that a powerful man like me doesn't sleep with his wife?" asked Hamish.
She looked at him with a frown. "Damn, I suppose you're right. Just keep to your own side of the bed."
"Yes, ma am."
"And you'd better get used to calling me Olivia."
The phone rang and Olivia jumped a little. So she had nerves after all. She answered it and said, "Come along."
She turned to Hamish. "That's our muscle. Let's have a look at them."
After a few moments, there was a knock at the door. Two huge men walked in. It was in that moment that Hamish realised that a lot of detectives, apart from the fresh-faced Sanders, actually looked like hoods. All you had to do was change the clothes. Both men were wearing conservative suits, but one had a black shirt and no tie and the other a scarlet shirt, also no tie. They had the stone-dead eyes of hardened criminals.
They sat down and surveyed each other. "You're not from Glasgow," said Olivia.
"No, Scotland Yard. Drug squad," said one with a face like a hatchet. "I am DC Brompton and this is DC King."
"I'll need your first names."
"Kevin and Barry."
"Right. Now I, as you have probably been briefed, am Chief Inspector Chater. You will from now on call me Mrs. George. This is PC Hamish Macbeth, who is posing as my husband, Hamish George. We'll now go over everything again."
As she outlined how Hamish had got them into all this, their new bodyguards listened stolidly. But occasionally one of them would flick a deadpan look in Hamish's direction and Hamish could sense each of them was silently damning him as some amateur Highland fool.
Olivia summed up. "So the meet is tonight at Lachie's at nine o'clock. We'll take it from there."
Hamish was becoming increasingly worried. A lot of money had already been laid out on this operation. What if, so his anxious thoughts ran, Angus and Bob were nothing more than drug takers and would introduce him to some friend at Lachie's posing as a drug baron so that they could pick up their fee?
Kevin spoke. "I don't like the idea of Hamish posing as an associate of Jimmy White. In the underworld of drugs, gossip travels fast. You don't want Jimmy saying he's never even heard of him. I would suggest, make Hamish the head of a new syndicate with ties to Turkey. If the money he's offering seems to be big enough, then they might take the bait."
The three of them discussed this idea as if Hamish wasn't there.
At last Hamish felt he ought to assert himself. "Why don't you just let me play it by ear?" he said.
"Are you good at that?" asked Barry doubtfully.
"Och, yes," said Hamish with a confidence he did not feel.
"I think that's all we can do now," said Olivia briskly. "Lachie's is quite close. We'll leave here at ten to nine."
After the bodyguards had left, Olivia dialled police headquarters on her mobile to ask if they had raided the Owens place yet and if anything had been found. She listened carefully and then rang off. "They're going through the Owens home and the church at the moment. We'll need to wait a bit."
Hamish took out one of his paperbacks and started to read. Olivia paced up and down.
"I don't know how you can be so calm!" she burst out.
"The way I see it," said Hamish, putting his book down, "is that if we can't do anything right now, we may as well find ways to pass the time."
"I suppose," she said restlessly.
"I tell you what," said Hamish. "We take that monster of a car out for a drive. It's a grand day. May as well show you the scenery."
Soon they were driving away from Strathbane. "I've never had a car like this afore," said Hamish. "Look at all these gadgets."
"Where are we going?"
"I thought I might show you Lochdubh."
"You'll be recognised."
"I've an idea." Hamish swung the car around. He drove back a little way into town and stopped outside a shop. He went in and emerged with a down-the-river hat, which after he had got in the car, he put on. Then he took the wraparound sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on as well. "No one in Lochdubh will recognise me like this," he said.
He drove off again. "When we get to Lochdubh I'd like to take you for a walk about the place but that would be too risky."
"The scenery's incredible," said Olivia. "So wild, so savage."
"Sometimes in winter it can be very bleak," said Hamish, "but the landscape is never the same. The changing light alters the perspective so that the mountains never look the same."
"So much purple heather," murmured Olivia.
"You'll have the heather on the mountains at Loch Lomond."
"But not like this! Miles and miles of purple flowers. And that yellow gorse. So much colour."
The big car cruised towards Lochdubh. "I must admit," said Hamish, "there are a lot of moments when I wish I had minded my own business. I wish right now I were going home, back to the police station."
Olivia looked at him curiously. "You really love it here, don't you?"
"Yes, I'm happy most of the time," said Hamish, "except when I land myself in things like this."
Detective Chief Inspector Blair called in early at police headquarters. Superintendent Peter Daviot espied him and summoned him to his office. "I thought you weren't due back until Monday," said Daviot.
"Oh, you know me," said Blair with a cheesy smile. "Can't keep me away from the office."
"We have a big secret operation going on here," said Daviot, and told him about Hamish Macbeth posing as a drug baron.
Blair listened intently. From Daviot's enthusiasm for what he privately thought was a daft scheme, he knew that any rubbishing of Hamish Macbeth would not go down well.