“Obstructive lot,” said Anderson.
“Oh, I’m with you there. But Blair usually gets you to bludgeon people so much they end up telling you something – anything concrete to get you off their backs.”
“Grand whisky, this,” said Anderson.
Hamish looked at him sharply. “In other words, you’ve all decided it would be better not to find the murderer.”
“I didnae say that,” said Anderson, holding his glass up to the light and squinting at it.
Hamish turned over the statements. “Here! What was Mrs. Struthers doing in The Clachan?”
“Oh, her. Collecting for famine relief in the Third World. Evidently she turns up with her tambourine on a Saturday night because she knows the drunks will hand over their money easily.”
Hamish moved on to Jenny’s statement. He wondered that Blair had accepted it without comment. She had gone for a walk on Saturday morning with Mainwaring up to Clachan Mohr. They often went up there and took a flask of coffee. He had insulted her work. He had been laughing and smoking his pipe in between insulting her. She had smacked his face and knocked the pipe from his mouth. Then she had run away.
“I’m surprised Blair has such sensitivity towards the artistic soul,” said Hamish drily.
“Meaning what?” asked Anderson lazily.
“Meaning Jenny Lovelace and Mainwaring.”
“Och, all that stuff about artistic integrity and wounding her very soul? In Blair’s opinion, she’s a hot little baggage who was being screwed by Mainwaring and the affair turned sour.”
“Watch your mouth!” said Hamish furiously.
“Keep calm, friend. I’m not saying it. I’m only saying how Blair said it.” Anderson wondered whether to add that Blair had said that anyone who got into the sack with a daftie like Hamish Macbeth would open her legs for anyone, but decided against it.
Hamish fought down his anger. He was dismayed to realize he was furious because Blair’s nasty comments held the ring of truth. Mainwaring had been nearly sixty and hardly an Adonis. But he had been a well-built man, and that marriage-of-true-minds bit might have been very seductive to a woman like Jenny.
The door of the police station opened and Diarmuid Sinclair walked in. Anderson gulped down the whisky in his glass and, picking up the bottle, walked off with it.
“You’re really coming out of your shell,” said Hamish as the crofter sat down. “Gadding about like a two-year-old. I’m off to Inverness in the morning, so if you want me to save you a trip, I’ll buy that present for you. I’ve got to go to the Glen Abb Hotel to check Ross’s alibi.”
“No,” said Diarmuid. “I ha’ a mind to go masel’. While you’re there, book me a room at the Glen Abb, and see it has the telly and a private bathroom.”
“And dancing girls? You’re living it up. What are you going to get young Scan?”
“A train set,” said Diarmuid dreamily, “wi’ wee houses and fields and tracks and all.”
“Set you back a bit,” said Hamish. “Not to mention the price o’ a room at the Glen Abb.”
“I’ve a good bittie put by,” said Diarmuid. “You jist book me the room for Friday night.”
♦
After the crofter had left, Hamish drove over to Mrs. Mainwaring’s and asked for a photograph of her husband. He had a vague notion of sending it down to London to Rory Grant on the Daily Recorder. The riots in Paris were over and the journalist might be able to find something out about Mainwaring from the newspaper files. He stayed as short a time as possible. The house and Mrs. Mainwaring depressed him. Ashtrays were overflowing and dust had settled on everything, and Mrs. Mainwaring had been well and truly drunk.
When he returned to the police station, he could see the lights shining from Jenny’s cottage. He wanted her again. A cynical voice in his head told him he could if he wanted.
His conscience fought it down. Hamish did not believe in love without responsibility. One more night in her arms and then he really would have to propose to her.
He settled down to read the Xeroxed papers thoroughly. Along with the statements, there were reports on Mainwaring’s background from the police in the south. Mainwaring’s brother, a lawyer, had said that Mainwaring had borrowed large sums of money from him over the years and had never paid them back. He had ended up refusing to see him or communicate with him. Mainwaring’s two sisters said pretty much the same thing. Mainwaring’s parents were dead. He had inherited a tidy sum from them when he was still a comparatively young man. He had bought an hotel in Devon, but had seemed to run it like a sort of ‘Fawlty Towers,’ insulting the regular customers. Three years later, he had declared himself bankrupt.
Then came the surprise. Mainwaring had been married twice before. One wife, the daughter of a garage owner, had divorced him, and the other, an elderly lady, had died of a heart attack. A police comment said that Mainwaring had a reputation for having great success with the ladies.
Hamish fished out the photograph of William Mainwaring and looked at it. The small prissy features set in the large round head looked out at him. Amazing, thought Hamish. No accounting for taste.
♦
As the small train chugged out of Cnothan next morning, Hamish settled back in his seat and felt himself begin to relax. Cnothan and all its dark hates and enmities and Bible-bashing religion was losing its grip on him and he was journeying towards the light. That’s just what it was like, he thought. It was as if Cnothan were some science-fiction black mist that twisted and turned the minds of all who lived in it.
The train crawled its way round the hillsides, stopping and starting, finally picking up speed until at last it clattered over the points into Lairg station, the first civilized outpost in Hamish’s mind. The sky was turning light and the birds were chirping in the trees. He leaned out of the window and watched the man in charge of Lairg station bustling about. Hamish knew him of old. He was like a station-master in a children’s book, rosy-cheeked, white hair, kindly eyes twinkling behind spectacles, unfailingly helpful, unfailingly good-humored.
Now Lairg, as Hamish remembered, was very like Cnothan in size and design. It, too, was the centre of a crofting community. But it was a bustling, cheerful, welcoming place.
The days were getting rapidly lighter. One long ray of sun struck the top of the station roof. There was a tinge of warmth in the air. That was the way of winter in the Highlands. It seduced you into thinking it had lost its grip and then came roaring back. The train moved off in a series of jerks, through Ardgay, Tain, Fearn, Invergordon, Dingwall, Muir of Ord, and on to Inverness.
The restless sea-gulls of Inverness were screaming overhead when he got off at Inverness station. The Tannoy was belting out a Scottish country-dance tune. Hamish was tempted to spend a day going around the shops, tempted to forget about the investigation. What on earth could he find out at this late date that the Inverness police could not? He was not wearing his uniform, correctly guessing that Blair had not warned the Inverness Police Department of this intrusion into their territory.
Inverness is the capital of the Highlands, crowded, busy, lively, and almost beautiful if you keep your eyes away from a big, grey, ugly modern concrete building that squats by the side of the River Ness and quite ruins the view of the castle.
It was past this architectural monstrosity that Hamish went, and then along Ness Bank to the Glen Abb Hotel.
The hotel had been created out of two large Victorian villas. The clever owner had kept the cosy Victorian effect with large overstuffed armchairs and log fires. The chef was French and the prices as high as those in a West End London restaurant, but the owner, Simon Gaunt, knew there was a lot of money in and around Inverness and not too much to spend it on in the way of entertainment.