‘My man will be back,’ said Mrs McFee, ‘to his dinner. Hae ye supped?’
‘Booked lunch at the hotel,’ said Laura. ‘Did your husband ever mention a foreigner who booked a boat from Mr White’s yard about a week ago?’
‘What way would he be mentioning that?’ Mrs McFee enquired.
‘Because the police are after the man and we’re hoping that Mr McFee may be able to tell us where he went. I suppose he returned the boat?’
‘That’s no business of mine.’ The woman, who had been friendliness itself up to this point, looked suspiciously at Laura. ‘You’ll be a police-woman?’ she asked.
‘No, but a man has been murdered and we are acting on behalf of the tour company which employed him.’
‘You’re no’ the police?’
‘No, but we are working in close collaboration with them. Is your husband likely to be long?’
‘Och, no. It’s gone noon. He’ll be here soon enough. I’ll get you a chair.’
‘We’d rather look round the shop,’ said Laura. Dame Beatrice, who had left them during the exchanges, came to the proprietress with a Highland brooch which, when she had paid for it, she pinned to the lapel of her tweed jacket. Laura also decided to make one or two small purchases and, as she was being given her change, a stocky man came into the shop and handed Mrs McFee a parcel.
‘I got it from McLeod,’ he said. ‘It’s a fush.’
‘The ladies wish to speak with you, Jock.’
‘Och, aye.’ He did not seem in the least surprised. Laura took it that this was his accustomed reaction to any news, good or bad. She herself, however, was surprised by Dame Beatrice’s question to him.
‘Would you have any idea,’ she said, ‘how long Mr Carstairs has been away?’
‘Carstairs?’
‘And whether he is married?’
‘Now how would I ken that?’
‘Because you are a sociable, gregarious man who likes to get to know the neighbours. I think you lived in your employer’s bungalow in Saighdearan while you were working down at Mr White’s boatyard in Fort William. Mr White seems to be a taciturn, unfriendly man and his wife has, I would think, the English suburban determination to keep herself to herself, but you are from…’
‘Kirkintilloch. Aye, White will be what I call a Black Highlander. You’re right enough there. But you were speaking of Carstairs. He isna married – that is, I never saw a wife. He took on yon wee house in Saighdearan maybe two years ago and he runs a big green car, a Wolseley. I dinna ken what might be his business, but it was seldom he stayed in Saighdearan, so at my guess he travelled in some kind of goods, but he was not a man you could question.’
‘We were told he was an artist.’
‘Och, weel noo, he micht be juist that same.’
‘Did he ever hire a boat?’
‘No’ to my knowledge.’
‘Was he an Englishman?’
‘Aye.’
‘How long is it since you gave up your summer employment with Mr White?’
‘Last Saturday.’
‘Was Mr Carstairs at Saighdearan when you left?’
‘He wisna, but he had been there, on and off, for the past year.’
‘On and off?’
‘Aye. Times he would be there, but most times not. But what way are you speiring at me wi’ all this?’
‘Because I represent the Home Office and am working with the police. We think Mr Carstairs may be able to help our enquiries into a case of murder – double murder.’
‘Losh! Ye dinna say!’
‘Is there anything else you can tell me about him?’
‘I dinna ken. He was a pleasant enough wee man.’
‘You mean he was a small man?’
‘Five foot seven at the most, but awfu’ strong in the arms and shoulders. He telt me once that his hobby was lifting weights, barbells, ye ken, and the like. Aye, and his press-ups! Ye’d think the man would drop dead of heart-failure.’
‘Did you ever see him in conversation with a dark-skinned man, a foreigner?’
‘No’ to my recollection. It’s little I saw of him at all.’
‘Did you, by any chance, hire out a boat to a foreigner, possibly an Italian, recently?’
‘A wee, wee man awfu’ like a monkey? He spoke to White, no‘ to me. But it wisna for a boat. He had his own cruiser. It was about a fault in the engine, but White couldna help him.’
‘Did you see the County Tours coach come in last week?’
‘I did not. I was down at the boatyard with Mr White until eight o’ the clock.’
‘You know that, after the trip over here and after the coach-party had lunched at the hotel and looked at the shops, the coach-driver disappeared?’
‘Aye, so I heard.’
‘Did you set eyes on him at all before he went?’
‘I did not. They would have been back from Skye before I left the boatyard and come the morn he was awa’, or so it was telt me.’
Laura drove Dame Beatrice back to Saighdearan. The late afternoon turned misty and a penetrating rain began to fall, so that the windscreen wipers were busy all the way from Kyle of Lochalsh to Saighdearan and the views, including that of Ben Nevis, were lost in impenetrable haze.
Laura spoke little during the journey. For one thing, she needed all her concentration to look out for the headlights of oncoming cars and to keep her own vehicle safely on the road; for another, although she was burning with curiosity, she thought it better to ask no questions, although she felt sure that she knew in what direction Dame Beatrice’s thoughts had travelled during the interview with McFee. Just as they left Fort William, however, Dame Beatrice spoke.
‘So we have to find out whether Carstairs and Knight are one and the same man,’ she said.
‘Do you think that’s likely?’
‘I think it is most unlikely. Knight would hardly bring a coach to a place where he was already known as Carstairs.’
‘It depends upon whether the manager of the hotel knows him as Carstairs, doesn’t it? If Carstairs never patronised the hotel under that name, the manager wouldn’t recognise him as Knight. I looked out of Mrs White’s window, at her suggestion, when I visited her and I wouldn’t guarantee to recognise anybody who got down from the coach, so she need not have made the connection.’
‘We had better find out whether Carstairs ever visited the hotel. If he did, he certainly cannot be Knight.’
‘We’re suspicious of Knight, it seems. Why should we be?’
‘A precautionary attitude only. He may be as innocent (and as dead) as Noone and Daigh. On the other hand, he may be their murderer. His “illness” is a suspicious circumstance in itself. If he is a guilty man he might find it convenient to “disappear” in order to lead us to assume that he, too, had been murdered.’
‘Why would he want us to assume that?’
‘If he is the murderer or an accomplice it might be to his advantage that the police should waste valuable time in looking for him in the wrong place. Noone was murdered near Hulliwell Hall and his body found there. This finding of the body was not part of the murderers’ plan and must have given them food for thought. Then it must be known by now that Daigh’s body also has been found, again in the place where he was last known to be alive. The criminals had to make a hasty revision of their plans, I think, for they had counted upon a long period of search and doubt, with perhaps no police activity at all if it were taken for granted that the drivers had disappeared voluntarily.’
‘So the situation, as they saw it once the bodies were found, demanded a third disappearance which might indicate a third murder, you think, and while the police who, because of the discovery of the bodies, are now hot-foot on the trail, go chasing around Saighdearan and Fort William, the murderers are sitting pretty in some quite other place. Where, do you suppose?’
‘I think we must leave that to the police to find out. There is little we can do about the matter now, except to suggest that they get on the track of Carstairs, of whom, no doubt, McFee and the Whites, between them, can furnish a reasonably accurate description. If this description of Carstairs appears to tally with Basil Honfleur’s and the women clerks’ description of Knight, our part in this matter would appear to be over, but I am sure they are not the same man.’