Hamish sighed and took out his notebook. “Now, Mrs. Mainwaring, if we can just get down to the facts.”
“Put your book away. I can’t be bothered. I am not really interested in who it is. I can’t take something like that personally when it was all directed at William.”
“What shall I tell your husband?”
For the first time a little crack appeared in Mrs. Mainwaring’s self-assured manner. “Have a whisky,” she said, and lumbered out of the room without waiting for an answer. “The coffee will do just fine,” Hamish called after her. “I am driving.”
There was no reply. She was gone a long time. At last she returned with a whisky decanter, a siphon of soda, and a cup of coffee and a plate of scones. She put the coffee in front of Hamish and then poured herself an enormous glass of whisky and soda and lit a cigarette. She poured the drink down her throat and let out a long sigh. There came the sound of a car approaching. Mrs. Mainwaring moved like lightning. She stubbed out her cigarette and opened the window, letting the gale howl through the room. She seized the whisky decanter, the ashtray, and her glass and ran out.
In what seemed like two seconds she was back, breathing heavily and smelling strongly of peppermint. She closed the window and sat down primly on the edge of a chair. Mainwaring came into the room. “So you’ve actually turned up,” he said to Hamish. “Who did it?”
“I don’t know,” said Hamish mildly. “I was just interviewing your wife.”
“You won’t get much sense out of Agatha,” said Mainwaring. His small blue eyes turned on his wife. “What are you wearing that old tweed skirt and jumper for? Didn’t that dress I ordered from the mail order arrive yesterday?”
“Yes, dear,” said Mrs. Mainwaring meekly. “I was saving it for best.”
“And what is a better occasion than your husband’s company? Go and put it on.”
Mrs. Mainwaring’s colour was high as she left the room. A moment later there came the sound of a car starting up.
“Gone off in a huff, as usual,” said Mainwaring. “Now, I assume you have already dusted the churchyard wall for fingerprints.”
“No, I haven’t,” said Hamish crossly. “I suggest the best thing to do is to phone Strathbane and ask them to send a team from Forensic. They won’t budge for me but they might do it for you. Not that there’ll be any fingerprints worth having from that wall, and since it was probably not done by hardened criminals, even if you got fingerprints, it wouldn’t do much good.”
“What you are trying to say is that you’re damned lazy and don’t want to be bothered,” said Mainwaring.
Hamish got to his feet. “I will investigate the case for you as I would for anyone, but I would get further and faster without the hindrance of your insulting and spiteful remarks. You’ve got a nasty tongue. I want a quiet time here and I don’t want another murder investigation. So if you want my advice, stop putting people’s backs up or you’ll end up at the bottom of Loch Cnothan one of these days!”
∨ Death of an Outsider ∧
3
How beastly the bourgeois is especially the male of the species –
—D.H. Lawrence
Bewildered and unhappy, Hamish drove off. He had lost his temper two times that morning when he normally lost it only about two times a year. Far away, at the foot of the long, twisting road, he could see the houses of Cnothan. From this distance, the town had a temporary look, as if this ancient land of rock and thin earth were one day going to give a massive shrug and send all these petty humans and their squabbles to eternity. It was as if the land itself did not like incomers, or, as they were often jeeringly called in the Highlands, white settlers. An ancient hostility emanated from the fields, from the humped Neolithic ruins that dotted the landscape.
Across the fields came the dreary om-pom of the diesel train’s klaxon, tugging at something in Hamish’s memory. The sound of a diesel train, he thought, was never so haunting as the whistle of the old steam trains, which could conjure up visions of bleak distances with one solitary wail.
He slowed as he came to the Cnothan Game and Fish Company. There was something so cheerful and friendly and prosperous about the place that Hamish drove in and sauntered toward the office.
A very small, gypsy-looking man came out to meet him. “Jamie Ross,” he said, holding out his hand. “You’re just in time for coffee.”
“I’m Hamish Macbeth.”
“I know,” said Jamie. “Who doesn’t? Sit yourself down.”
There was a jug of steaming coffee standing ready, made by one of those American coffee machines that first pioneered good coffee in the Highlands of Scotland, replacing the bitter sludge which had masqueraded as coffee before.
The office was bright and warm. “Do a lot of business?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, but mostly with London. Lobsters, smoked salmon, and venison. I’ve just bought three new refriger trucks to take the goods down to the market at Billingsgate. Finish your coffee and I’ll give you a tour.”
While Hamish drank his coffee, Jamie continued to talk proudly of his business, how he had four fishing boats over on the west coast and was well on the way to making himself a fortune.
Then he took Hamish round the long, low buildings, housed deer carcasses, giant beasts pathetic in death, row upon row of them. The next building was a shop that sold commercial frozen packaged meals as well as smoked salmon, pheasant, grouse, and partridge. The last building they came to had three enormous lobster tanks, each surrounded by a low concrete wall, the water alive with crawling black lobsters. “See this one,” said Jamie, lifting black monster out of the water. “Eight pounds in weight.”
“And how much will that fetch in London?” asked Hamish.
“Oh, about twenty-five pounds. In fact, you could say about a pound sterling for every year of its life. That lobster’s about twenty-five years old.”
“So how much is in the three tanks – I mean, how much is all this worth?”
Jamie grinned. “There’s about six thousand pounds’ worth in each tank. The water’s salt, of course, and the filters you hear bubbling away there keep the water clean.”
“Man, you must be kept busy,” marvelled Hamish. “Ever get a day off?”
“Haven’t had one in years,” said Jamie. “But I’ll be going down to Inverness at the weekend for my son’s wedding. All the family’ll be there, so I’ll need someone to mind the store for the first time.”
“Would you like me to drop in at the weekend and see if everything’s all right?” volunteered Hamish.
“No, nothing can go wrong. I’m not worried about burglars. Never had a break-in in Cnothan. I’m more worried about the filters packing up. I’ve got a local man, Sandy Carmichael, who’s going to act as watchman.”
Hamish raised his eyebrows. “Not the town drunk, him with the horrors.”
“The same. But he’s going straight and there’s no harm in him at all. Of course, Mainwaring got to hear of it and dropped by to warn me and yak on about how dangerous it was to employ a drunk. I hate that man; I’d feed him to the fish if I thought I’d get away with it. Interfering, pontificating nuisance. I liked him at first. Funny, that. He was a breath of fresh air. Charming, friendly. Then he buys a book on scientific fish-farming and tries to involve me in it. No business head whatsoever. Or I assume the man has no business head, for I was to put up the money for the venture, which he would run. I fended him off as politely as I could. He became more insistent. Then he started to get rude and make some patronizing remarks about how ill-run my business was. I wanted to buy one of those croft houses out beyond his for my uncle. I told him about it when we were friends. Next thing I know, he’s bought the place himself, and now it stands empty. I know he did it to spite me. I was not interested in the land, only in the house for my uncle. Mainwaring uses the croft land, of course, or the Crofters Commission would step in.”