He ordered a gin and tonic and then turned and faced the room. His eyes fell on Hamish. He hesitated and then walked over. Incomer, thought Hamish. No local would approach a strange policeman. The minister’s wife, who felt such gestures to be her duty, did not count.
“You’re Macbeth,” he said. “I’m Harry Mackay.”
“You don’t look as if you belong here,” said Hamish.
“Oh, I was brought up here, but I spent a good part of my life in Edinburgh,” said Mackay.
“And what brought you back?”
“I’m an estate agent. I work for Queen and Earl.”
“I didn’t pass your office in the main street,” said Hamish.
“No, you wouldn’t,” said Mackay. “Estate agents are regarded with suspicion. My office is on the other side of the loch, among the council houses.”
“You can’t do much business in this part of Sutherland,” said Hamish, watching as the estate agent lit a cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter.
“Oh, it would surprise you, Macbeth. Do you know Baran Castle?”
“Aye, it’s that big place over to the west. Bought by an American last year.”
“Well, I sold that,” said Mackay proudly. “It’s not the locals who give me the business, but the foreigners and ex-patriots. I sold that castle for over a million pounds. And Kringstein, the local big cheese, bought Strachan House and the estates from me as well. So, how’s crime getting on in Cnothan?”
“I have the case of witchcraft already,” said Hamish.
“The haunting of the Mainwarings? Someone wants that pillock out of here and I can’t blame them. Stuck-up bastard.”
“He hasn’t crossed you, has he?”
“I thought he meant to,” said Mackay with a grin. “He’s bought two more houses and crofts outside the town. Why, nobody knows. He uses the crofts, but the houses just stand empty. His own place is decrofted, and he got the land at the other two decrofted as well. That would be about six years ago. I thought he was going to compete with me by putting them on the market, but not him. Crofts are a pain in the neck to an estate agent anyway.”
There was a short silence while both contemplated the peculiarities of crofting. The word ‘croft’ comes from the Gaelic coirtean, meaning a small enclosed field. In early times in the crofting counties of Shetland, Orkney, Caithness, Sutherland, Ross and Cromarty, Inverness, and Argyll, there was a belief that lengthy tenancy gave right to a ‘kindness,’ or permanency of settlement. But the Highland Clearances of the last century, when the crofters were driven off their hill farms to turn Sutherland into one large sheep ranch, had caused bitter hardship. The Crofting Act was passed to ensure security of tenure; this ended landlord absolutism. Once a crofter had tenancy of his croft or hill farm, he could be sure of no interference from the landlord and he no longer had any fear of being driven off. The crofter could also get the land decrofted – that is, buy it from the landowner at a reasonable price – but few crofters did this. Most were fearful of change, preferring to hang on to their small uneconomical croft units and collect the government grants. Sometimes unscrupulous estate agents let their clients who were buying an old croft house as a holiday home believe that the croft land went along with it.
This practice left the buyers to find out for themselves that crofting land must be worked all the year round or the tenancy is refused by the Crofters Commission, and the assignation of the croft can be blocked by the neighbours anyway, who put up objections to any incomer simply as a matter of habit.
Hamish broke the silence first. “Was there no objection to him getting the other two crofts when he had one already?” he asked.
“People didn’t dislike him as much then as they do now. The two crofts are adjoining the one he inherited from his aunt. But they’re surrounded by moors for miles. There are no other crofters near enough to him to put up a fight. Most of the crofts are to the other side of Cnothan. Besides, it’s happening all over. Some of these crofters have enough land to make up a good-sized farm. Of course, unlike Mainwaring, they don’t bother decrofting it, for they’re afraid of losing the government grants if they do.”
“And no objection from the landowner?”
“Kringstein. Couldn’t care less. You know he hardly gets any rents to speak of from the croft land. Besides, the crofter has more power in the matter than the landowner. The landowner’s got to sell to the crofter if asked and at a ridiculously low price, too. Mainwaring’s not short of a bob, and I could have got the owners of these houses a lot more money. He went along with cash and they sold cheap.”
“Speak of the devil,” said Mackay, twisting his head round. “Here he comes.”
Mainwaring had just entered and walked up to the bar. He was followed by two enormous Sutherland men, both well over six feet in height.
“And who are his companions?” asked Hamish, feeling he should escape before Mainwaring saw him, but being held to his seat by curiosity.
“Alistair Gunn is the one with the leather hat on,” said Mackay. “He works for the Forestry Commission and makes money on the side by working as a ghillie when the toffs come up from London. His friend, Dougie Macdonald, is a ghillie when he’s not collecting his dole and sleeping.”
Hamish had heard that the local landowner, Mr. Kringstein, a toilet-roll manufacturer, ran his home and estates in the time-honoured way. Contrary to gloomy expectations, he went on much as the aristocrat he had bought the land and estates from had done. The ghillies, or Highland servants, made their money when Kringstein had a house party. They went out on the river with the guests and showed them, if necessary, how to fish, and carried their tackle and rowed them up and down.
It was obvious to Hamish that the two ghillies wanted to get away from Mainwaring, but were kept by his side because they had accepted his self-appointed role as laird, much as they resented it. “Do ye know what happened to my aunt the other day?” said Alistair Gunn. “She was on the bus to Golspie and wearing her new fur coat and she could hear this bairn behind her, chattering to its mither, and then she smelt oranges, and the next thing she knew, she could feel something rubbing at the back of her new fur coat.”
“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” said Mainwaring testily, “that happened to everyone’s aunt, and the story is as old as the hills. You were about to say that the next thing your aunt heard was the kid’s mother saying, ‘Don’t do that, dear. You’ll get fur all over your orange.’”
“I wass not about to say that,” said Allistair Gunn. “Not at all. It was a different thing entirely.”
“Then what was it?” asked Mainwaring, his voice full of amused contempt.
“Well, I am not going to tell you, because you are not going to listen,” said Alistair huffily. “You mean you can’t tell me,” jeered Mainwaring. “The trouble with you chaps is that you hear an old story or a joke on the radio and immediately you decide it’s something funny that happened to your aunt or uncle.”
The pub door opened and two other men came in. Alister and his friend hailed them with relief.
“Dearie me,” said Hamish. “Does he always go on like that?”
“Always,” said Mackay gloomily. “He’s spotted yi. Here he comes.”
Mackay reflected he had never seen anyone move with such speed. One minute, the constable was sitting at ease; the next, he had darted out of the door.
Mainwaring dived after him. “Macbeth!” he called. But there was no movement in the darkness.
Hamish, who had run around the side of the pub, waited a few moments, and then started to walk towards the manse.