‘Half-past eight, I think.’
‘Right. I wonder whether there would be any joy in having a swim in the loch? It ain’t the plunging-in I mind; it’s the perishing getting-out.’
For what it might turn out to be worth, there was one scrap of information which, after breakfast on the following morning, Dame Beatrice gleaned from a previously untapped source. This was a boy of sixteen who had not been questioned by the police for the simple reason that he had not been in the hotel at the time of their visit.
It was Laura who discovered him and obtained an item of information while Dame Beatrice was interviewing the chamber-maids.
‘You’d better talk to him, I think,’ she said to her employer. ‘He says he was “away to Oban” when the police called, but he did encounter a stranger whom he describes as “a black man”. That, in these parts, could mean anybody darkish – a Spaniard or a Pakistani – let alone a Sudanese the colour of a black boot.’
‘What is the youth’s name?’
‘Wullie MacKay.’
‘And where shall I find him?’
‘In the yard behind the scullery. He’s gutting fish we’re to have for lunch. The hotel buys in bulk from the quayside and the eviscerations are one of Wullie’s jobs. He seems to be a man-of-all-work.’
Dame Beatrice opened the conversation with the lad by asking how the name of the hamlet ought to be pronounced. She gave her own phonetic rendering of Saighdearan.
‘Och, no!’ said Wullie, far too polite to show amusement. He pronounced it for her.
‘Ah! Sy-tshir-un! ’ echoed Dame Beatrice . ‘I am obliged to you. Would it have a meaning in English?’
‘Aye. Saighdearan will be meaning Soldiers.’
‘Indeed? It ties up with Fort William, I suppose?’
‘That place,’ said Wullie darkly, ‘will be having another name put upon it when we get our way.’
‘You are a Scottish Nationalist, are you? But surely your own name is William? Besides, what about William Wallace? He was also a great nationalist, although, I believe, by birth a Welshman.’
Wullie threw away the entrails of the fish he was cleaning and they were swooped upon by a squawking, hostile bird. He said, ‘I’ll no play with words. What would it be that you are wanting with myself?’
‘A description of the black man.’
‘Och, him!’ said Wullie, evincing no surprise. ‘He was a little, thin fellow, maybe like a tinker, but I think he was a foreign man. Besides, he had money. He was showing me an English five-pound note and saying it would be for myself if I would tell him which coach-party was staying here and what would be the name of the driver.’
‘And could you tell him that?’
‘Och, aye.’
‘And he gave you the five pounds?’
‘That, no.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘I kenned the was up to no good, so I was telling him the wrong party and the wrong driver. He said that was no’ what he was after and he ganged away and took the five pounds with him.’
‘Did you ever see him again?’
‘I did not.’ He threw a fish-head to a passing cat and bent all his attention on his work.
‘Well, it is a pity that you should be done out of five pounds because of scruples which become you,’ said Dame Beatrice, producing an equivalent bank-note and laying it on the end of the wooden block on which he was so sedulously operating. ‘Would you care to comment on an idea which I entertain? I think your black man was an Italian.’
‘Keep your money, lady. I couldna say what his nationality might ha’ been,’ said Wullie, pointedly ignoring the gift. ‘He was no’ from these parts, anyway, and I didna trust him.’
Dame Beatrice left the five-pound note where it lay and went back to Laura.
‘I tried another long shot,’ she said, ‘but it did not even leave the bowstring. Our next approach must be to the local inhabitants, as you suggested.’
‘There can’t be many of those. I’ve talked to the manager and, except for the people who run the motel and the restaurant and that scruffy good-pull-up-for-carmen along the road, the only birds who are more or less resident, he tells me, are a man called Carstairs and the Whites.’
‘And these are?’
‘The people in those villa residences up on the slope behind us. Carstairs is an artist and a bird of passage. White is a chap who runs a boat-hire business in Fort William.’
‘Let us have speech with these local in-habitants, then.’
‘Do we put our cards on the table?’
‘If you think that would be the best approach. I shall leave Mr Carstairs and the Whites to you while I tackle the motel and the holiday cottages. The lorry drivers’ café can come later.’
‘If we get no joy from the other places, you mean. Right. How would it be if I represented myself as Knight’s sorrowing sister, all bemused and bothered by his mysterious disappearance? I’ll get as close a description of him as I can from the people here, and then I’ll put on a Niobe act, shall I?’
‘Niobe wept for her children, not for her brother Pelops.’
‘I bet Carstairs and the Whites won’t bother about that. Anyway, there can’t be anything much to do here except watch the comings and goings at the hotel. I don’t wonder Carstairs is migratory. Greatly as I love my native land, I don’t think I could stick it in a place like this all the year round. It must be miserably dull for Mrs White. Carstairs, I’m told, is a bachelor and more often away than not, so he’s all right, I suppose, and White has his business in Fort William. Wonder whether Mrs White will talk to me? I daresay she will be glad of a good gossip.’
‘You had all this from the manager here?’
‘Yes, and from some of the maids.’
‘I suppose you did not find out what was in the suitcase which Knight left in his room?’
‘Yes, I did ask, as a matter of fact. There were his pyjamas, a light dressing-gown, his washing materials and a good navy-blue suit which the manager says he put on in the evenings.’
‘No spare underwear?’
‘Oh, yes, of course. A clean shirt and a pair of briefs, but that is the sum total.’
‘So, wherever he went —’
‘Looks as though he meant to come back, doesn’t it? I think we’re looking for another body.’
‘There could be other explanations, but that seems the likeliest at present.’
CHAPTER 9
Saighdearan, Place of Soldiers
« ^ »
White’s middle name was MacGregor. Laura learned this when she called at the bungalow. A woman answered the door.
‘Mr MacGregor White?’ she asked, when Laura enquired for him.
‘Well, yes, if it isn’t Mr Lamont White,’ said Laura, who had taken an instant dislike to the woman, who, from her accent, was English. ‘The Whites are almost bound to be one or the other, aren’t they?’
‘I wouldn’t know. I happen to be English.’
‘I wonder whether you can help me? I am trying to find out what has happened to the driver of a County Tours coach which pulled up at the hotel here a few days ago.’
‘Are you from the police? I have already answered their questions.’
‘I am connected with the Home Office and we have been authorised to make our own enquiries.
‘The Home Office?’
Laura produced one of Dame Beatrice’s official cards.
‘This is my employer,’ she said. The woman read the card and opened the door wider.
‘You’d better come in,’ she said, ‘although there is absolutely nothing I can tell you. I saw the coach you mean. It came in at about six in the evening and went off again next morning – to Skye, my maid tells me. Then it returned. That is all I know.’
‘You could see the coach from your windows?’
‘Come and look for yourself. Not that I have time to spare looking out of windows, I assure you.’
There was a coach belonging to another tours company standing in the yard of the hotel. Laura had had a steep climb up a lane to reach the bungalow from the hotel, so the coach looked to be a long way below her and her main view was of its roof. It would be quite possible to see people getting in and out of it, she thought, but not so easy, perhaps, to give a clear description of them.