Death of a Charming Man

∨ Death of a Charming Man ∧

2

What ills from beauty spring

—Samuel Johnson

Hamish was surprised to find the next day passed without his seeing Priscilla. The short absence rapidly made the heart grow fonder, and he forgot her cleaning and remembered her kisses. The cooker gleamed in the corner of his dark kitchen in all its pristine glory and he felt he had been sparing in his thanks, to say the least.

By late evening, he was just making up his mind to phone her when Priscilla herself arrived in a cloud of French perfume.

“My, you look grand,” said Hamish, standing back to admire a short black silk skirt, black stockings, and a glittering evening top.

“We had a reception for the guests, a computer company with money to burn. Nothing but the best. Gosh, I am tired.”

He noticed for the first time how thin she had become, and the shadows under her eyes.

“You’ll need to learn to relax,” he said.

Priscilla sighed. “I don’t think I know how to.”

“I’ll show you,” he said huskily. He wrapped his long arms about her and held her close, and then he kissed her with all his heart and soul. For one dizzying moment she responded, and then he felt her go rigid in his arms. He drew back a little and looked down at her. She was staring over his shoulder at a corner of the kitchen ceiling.

“What’s the matter?” asked Hamish, twisting his head to follow her gaze.

“There’s a great big cobweb up there. How could I have missed it?”

“Priscilla, forget the bloody cobweb, forget the cleaning, come to bed.” His fingers began to unbutton the back of her top.

She twisted away from him. “Not now, Hamish, there’ll be time enough for that when we are married.” Priscilla blushed the minute the awful words were out of her mouth, those trite words, the cry of the suburban prude. “See you tomorrow, Hamish.” She gave him a quick peck on the cheek and almost ran out of the door. As she drove back to Tommel Castle, the seer’s words rang in her head. But if she gave in to Hamish now, she would never have the strength to realize her ambitions for him, and all Hamish Macbeth needed was a push. When she reached the hotel, she was met in the reception by Mr. Johnston. “You’ll need to take over the bar, Priscilla, for the last hour. Roger’s fallen down.” Roger was the barman.

“Drunk?” asked Priscilla.

“Again.”

“Been pinching the drinks?”

“No,” said Mr. Johnston. “I’ll say that much for him. But the customers will say, “Have one yourself, Roger,” and he does, and the maids can’t mix the fancy drinks.”

“Where’s my father?”

“Gone tae his bed.”

“I’ll do it.”

“You’d better button up the back of that blouse,” remarked Mr. Johnston. “It’s nearly falling off you.” Priscilla blushed again. “Here, I’ll do it.” The manager buttoned her up, smiling his approval of what he took to be a hopeful sign that Hamish was getting down to business at last.

The bar, to Priscilla’s relief, was not very full. She relieved the maid, Jessie, who was plaintively asking a customer how to make a Manhattan. The bar closed at eleven. Priscilla glanced at the clock. Not too long to go. Then, as one by one the guests left to go to their rooms or through to watch television, she noticed one of the most beautiful young men she had ever seen sitting at a table in the corner. He was reading a magazine and had a half-finished pint of beer in front of him. His golden hair gleamed softly in the overhead lights and his long eyelashes cast shadows on his tanned cheeks. He looked up and saw her watching him and gave her a slow, intimate smile, and Priscilla found herself smiling back. Another customer came up and she forgot about the beautiful young man for the moment, but just before closing time he came up to the bar and said, “Have I time for another?”

“Just,” said Priscilla. “Another pint?”

“I’ll have a whisky to see me on my way.”

“Make sure you’re not over the limit,” said Priscilla, holding a glass under the optic. “The police can be quite strict.”

“I shouldn’t think Hamish Macbeth would be too strict about anything,” came his voice from behind her.

She felt a sudden superstitious stab of fear. Was this Angus’s beautiful young man? But she turned around and, putting the glass on the bar, said, “So you know our local copper.”

“He paid a call on me. I live in Drim.”

“Do you have relatives there?”

He paid for his drink. “No, I just wandered in one day and stayed. What about you?”

“My parents run this hotel.”

“Poor you. Hard work, I should think. Ever get a night off?”

“From time to time, when we’re not too busy.”

“You must come over to Drim and see my place,” he said, leaning easily on the bar. He held out his hand. “Peter Hynd.”

“Priscilla Halburton-Smythe.” Priscilla took his hand and then gave him a startled look as something like an electric, charge went from his hand up her arm. “I’m not free even on my nights off,” she said. “I am engaged to be married, and that takes up my time.”

“Who’s the lucky man?”

“Hamish Macbeth.”

He stood back a little and surveyed the cool and sophisticated Priscilla from the top of her smooth blonde head to the expensive French evening top, which was as much as he could see of her behind the bar. “Well, well, well,” he said. “You amaze me.”

Priscilla gave herself a mental shake. Peter Hynd was talking to her as if he had known her for a long time, not so much by his words as by his manner, which seemed to be creating a heady atmosphere of intimacy. To her relief another customer came op and Peter took his whisky and retreated to his corner.

He stayed in the bar until she closed it down and pulled the grille over it. He looked about to speak to her again but she quickly left the bar and went to see Mr. Johnston. She experienced the same feeling as Hamish had had – that once she was out of Peter’s magic orbit, she found she neither liked him nor trusted him. “I must tell Hamish,” she thought, but then forgot all about the meeting until some time later.

♦

Over in Drim the next day, Miss Alice MacQueen was up early to prepare for business, and business had never been so good. She was the village hairdresser and worked from the front parlour of her cottage. Before the arrival of Peter Hynd, she had not been very busy, the women of Drim getting their hair permed about once a year, usually before Christmas. But now her services were in demand, and the number of grey-heads who wanted to be dyed blonde or black was mounting.

Mrs. Edie Aubrey was also preparing for a busy day. For the past six months, she had been trying to run an exercise class in the community hall but without much success. Now her classes were suddenly full of sweating village women determined to reduce their massive bums and bosoms.

In the general store, Jock Kennedy unpacked a new consignment of cosmetics and put them on display. He had found the women were travelling to Strathbane to pay a fortune for the latest in anti-wrinkle creams and decided it was time he made some money out of the craze for youth that the incomer had roused in so many middle-aged bosoms. As his own wife seemed unaffected, he was one of the few in the village who was not troubled by Peter Hynd. Drim did not have any young women, apart from teenagers at school. The school-leaving daughters took off for the cities to find work.

Jimmy Macleod, a crofter, came in from the fields for his dinner, which, as in most of the homes in Drim, was still served in the middle of the day.

His meal consisted of soup, mince and potatoes, and strong tea. He ate while reading a newspaper, folded open at the sports section and propped against the milk jug. He had just finished reading when he realized that something was different. In the first place, his wife should have been sitting opposite him instead of fiddling over at the kitchen sink.

“Arenae you eating?” He looked up and his mouth fell open. “Whit haff you been doin’t tae your hair?”

For his wife Nancy’s normally grey locks were now jet-black and cut in that old–fashioned chrysanthemum style of the fifties, which was the best that Alice MacQueen could achieve. Not only that, but Nancy’s normally high colour was hidden under a mask of foundation cream and powder and her lips were painted scarlet.

She patted her hair with a nervous hand. “Got tired of looking old,” she said. She turned back to the sink and began to clatter the dishes with unnecessary energy.

“You look daft,” he said with scorn. “And that muck on your face makes you look like a hooker.”

“And what would you know aboot hookers, wee man?”

“Mair o’ your lip and I’ll take my belt tae ye.”

She turned round slowly and lifted up the bread knife. “Chust you try,” she said softly.

“Hey, I’m oot o’ here till ye come tae your senses,” he said. He was a small, wiry man with rounded shoulders and a crablike walk. He scuttled out the door. For the first time he regretted the fact that Drim was a ‘dry’ village. He felt he could do with a large whisky. He headed out to the fields. His neighbour, Andrew King, hailed him.

“Looking a bit grim, Jimmy.”

“Women,” growled Jimmy, walking up to him. “My Nancy’s got her face painted like a tart and she’s dyed her hair black. Aye, and she threatened me wi’ the bread knife. Whit’s the world coming tae?”

“Ye’ve got naethin’ tae worry about,” said Andrew, an older crofter whose nutcracker face was seamed and wrinkled. “I ‘member when my Jeannie went daft. You know whit it was?”

“No, that I don’t.”

“It’s the Men’s Paws.”

“The whit?”

“The Men’s Paws. The change. Drives the women fair daft, that it does. I talked to the doctor about Jeannie and he said, ‘Jist ignore it and it’ll go away,’ and so it did.” Andrew fished in the capacious pocket of his coat and produced a half bottle of whisky. “Like a pull?”

“Man, I would that. But don’t let the minister see us!”

♦

Drim’s minister, Mr. Callum Duncan, was putting the finishing touches to his sermon. He gave a sigh of satisfaction. He would now have free time to write to his son in Edinburgh and his daughter in London.

“I’m just going to write to Agnes and Diarmuid,” he said to his wife, who was sitting sewing by the window. “Do you want to add a note?”

“I wrote to them both yesterday,” said his wife, Annie.

“Well, you’d better tell me what you told them so I don’t repeat the gossip.” The minister rose and stretched. He was a slight man with thinning grey hair, grey eyes, and a trap of a mouth. Annie had begun recently to hate that mourn, which always seemed to be clamped shut in disapproval.

A shaft of sunlight shone in the window and lit up Annie’s hair. The minister stared at his wife. “What have you been doing to your hair?”

“I put a red rinse on it,” she said calmly. “Jock has some new stuff. It washes out.”

“What’s up with brown hair?” he demanded crossly. He had always considered his wife’s thick brown hair her one beauty.

“I got tired of it,” she said with a little sigh. “Don’t make a fuss about trivia, Callum, It wearies me.” And she went on sewing.

♦

Harry Baxter drove his battered old truck down the winding road to Drim. He was a fisherman. There had been a bad-weather forecast and so the fishing boat at Lochdubh that he worked on had decided not to put out to sea. He was chewing peppermints because he had spent part of the morning in the Lochdubh bar, and like most of the men in Drim he liked to maintain the fiction that he never touched liquor. Just outside the village he saw a shapely woman with bright-blonde hair piled up on her head tottering along on very high heels. Her ample hips swayed as she walked. He grinned and rolled down the window and pursed up his lips to give a wolf whistle. Then he realized there was an awful familiarity about that figure and drew his truck alongside.

“Hullo, Harry,” said his wife, Betty.

“Oh, my God,” he said slowly in horror. “You look a right mess.”

“It was time I did something tae masel’,” she said, heaving her plump shoulders in a shrug. She was carrying a pink holdall.

“We’d better go home and talk about this,” he said. “Hop in.”

“Can’t,” she said laconically. “I’m off to Edie’s exercise class.” And she turned on those ridiculous heels and swayed off.

♦

There was a fine drizzle falling by early evening. Stripped to the waist and with raindrops running down his golden chest, Peter Hynd worked diligently, as if oblivious to the row of village women standing silently watching him. Rain dripped down on bodies sore from unaccustomed exercise and on newly dyed hair. Feet ached in thin high-heeled shoes. And beyond the women the men of the village gathered – small sour men, wrinkled crablike men, men who watched and suddenly knew the reason for all the beautifying.

“Men’s Paws,” sneered Jimmy Macleod, spitting on the ground.

♦

Several days later, Hamish was strolling along the waterfront with his dog at his heels and his cap pushed on the back of his head. A gusty warm wind was blowing in from the Gulf Stream and banishing the midges for one day at least. Everything danced in the wind: the fishing boats at anchor, the roses and sweet peas in the gardens, and the washing on the lines. Busy little waves slapped at the shore, as if applauding one indolent policeman’s progess.

And then a car drew up beside him. Hamish smiled down and then his face took on a guarded, cautious look. For the driver was Susan Daviot, wife of his Chief Superintendent. She was a sturdy woman who always looked as if she were on her way to a garden party or a wedding, for she always wore a hat, one of those hats that had gone out of fashion at the end of the fifties but were still sold in some Scottish backwaters. This day’s number was of maroon felt with a feather stuck through the front of it. She had a high colour which showed under the floury-white powder with which she dusted her face. Her mouth was small and pursed. “Ai’ll be coming beck with Priscilla to pick you up,” said Mrs. Daviot.

“I am on duty,” said Hamish stiffly.

“Don’t be silly. I told Peter I was taking you off for the day. There is this dehrling house just outside Strathbane I want you and Priscilla to see.”

Hamish opened his mouth to protest that he had no intention of moving to Strathbane or anywhere near it, but realized that would bring a lecture about his lack of ambition down on his head, so he said, “But didn’t you hear? Trouble over at Drim.”

“What sort of trouble?”

Hamish looked suitably mysterious. “I would rather not be saying at the moment.”

Mrs. Daviot grunted and drove off. Not for the first time did she think that Priscilla was not making a most suitable marriage, but on the other hand, had her husband not been Hamish Macbeth’s boss, then she would never have had the opportunity to go house-hunting with such an exalted personage as Priscilla.

“Now, look what I’ve done,” said Hamish to Towser. “Why didn’t I stand up for myself? Och, well, we’ll chust run over to Drim. A grand day for it.”

He walked back to the police station, lifted Towser, who was as lazy as his master and would not jump, into the back of the Land Rover, and drove off. As he plunged down the heathery track which led into Drim, he felt he was leaving all air and sunlight behind. The village lay dark and silent, staring at its reflection in the loch.

He parked outside Jock Kennedy’s store. It was the school holidays, yet no children played, although in these modem times that was not so unusual. Probably they were all indoors playing video games.

The shop had a CLOSED sign hanging on the door. Half day.

He thought that they were all truly spoiled over in Lochdubh since Patel had taken over the store there. Patel was open from eight in the morning until ten at night, seven days a week.

With Towser loping behind him, he made his way up to the manse. The minister would surely be good for a cup of tea. The manse was a square Victorian building built beside the loch, with a depressing garden of weedy grass and rhododendrons. It had been built in the days when ministers had large families, and Hamish guessed was probably full of unused rooms. He went round to the kitchen door and knocked.

After some minutes the minister’s wife, Annie Duncan, answered the door. She was a slight woman with good, well-spaced features and long brown hair highlighted with red.

“Has anything happened?” she asked, staring anxiously at Hamish’s uniform.

“No, I was on my beat and I thought I would pay my respects,” said Hamish.

She hesitated. “Callum, my husband, is out on his rounds at the moment. Perhaps…perhaps you would like a cup of coffee?”

“That would be grand.”

She looked for a moment as if she wished he had refused and then turned away, leaving him to follow. He found himself in a large stone-flagged kitchen. The room was dark and felt cold, even on this summer’s day. It seemed to exude an aura of Victorian kitchen slavery. A huge dresser dominated one wall, full of blue-and-white plates and those giant tureens and serving dishes of the last century. She spooned coffee out of a jar into a jug, took an already boiling kettle off the Aga cooker, and filled the jug. “I’ll leave this to settle for a moment,” said Annie. “Sit down, Mr…?”

“Macbeth.”

“From Lochdubh?”

“The same.”

“So what brings you here?”

“As I said, Drim is on my beat It’s not as if anything has happened.”

“Nothing ever happens in Drim.”

“Except for your newcomer, Peter Hynd. I’ve met him.”

For one moment her face blazed with an inner radiance in the dark kitchen and then her habitual shuttered look closed down on it. “Yes, he is a charming boy,” she said in a neutral voice. She poured a mug of coffee and handed it to him.

“An odd sort of place for a man like that to settle,” remarked Hamish. “I mean, what is there for him here?”

“What is there for any of us?”

“I mean,” pursued Hamish, “the north of Scotland is home to us, but it’s a cut-off sort of place, and there’s no place on the mainland more cut off than Drim. At least in Lochdubh, we get the tourists.”

She clasped her thin fingers around the cup as if for warmth and held the cup to her chest. “I am not from here,” she said. “I am from London.”

“And how long have you been in Drim?”

“For twenty-five years,” she said. She made it sound like a prison sentence. “I met Callum when I was on holiday in Edinburgh. We got married. At first it seemed so romantic. I read all those Jacobite novels, Bonnie Prince Charlie and all that; I read up on the clan histories. The children came, and that took up time. Now they are grown up and gone and there is just Callum and me…and Drim.”

Hamish shifted uneasily, wanting to escape. He had once visited someone in prison in Inverness. He experienced again the same suffocating feeling and desire to escape as he had had then.

He drained his cup. “Aye, well, that was the grand cup of coffee, Mrs. Duncan. I’ll be on my way.”

She gave him a controlled little smile. “Call in any time you are passing,” she said.

Hamish made his way out and took in great lungfuls of air. Towser, who had been left in the garden, wagged his tail lazily. “Since we’re here,” said Hamish to the dog, “we may as well look in on Jimmy Macleod.” He did not know the crofter very well but he was strangely reluctant to call on Peter Hynd again and reluctant to return so soon to Lochdubh, where he still might be scooped up by Mrs. Daviot and Priscilla to go house-hunting.

He wandered in the direction of the croft, which lay just outside the village. Damp sheep cropped steadily at the wet grass. The ground in Drim always seemed to be wet underfoot. He could see Jimmy two fields away, hammering in a fencepost. He made his way across to him.

“What’s up?” cried Jimmy in alarm as he approached. The residents of Lochdubh automatically supposed – and rightly – when Hamish arrived on their doorsteps that he was on a mooching raid, but to the residents of Drim the sight of a policeman still meant bad news.

“Nothing,” said Hamish, walking up to him. “I should come to Drim mair often, then you’d all get used to me. I feel like the angel of death.”

Jimmy gave the fencepost another vicious slam with the sledge-hammer. “Fancy a bit o’ dinner? Nancy aye cooks enough fur a regiment.”

“That’s verra kind of you,” said Hamish, falling into step beside the crofter. “Anything happening in Drim?”

“Naethin’,” said Jimmy curtly.

They walked on in silence until they reached the low croft house. Hamish followed him into the kitchen. “I’ve brought a visitor, Nancy,” said Jimmy. “Manage another dinner.”

“Aye,” she said curtly and threw another mackerel on the frying pan. “If you don’t mind,” said Hamish to her back, “I would like a bowl of water for my dog.”

She reached out and seized a bowl from the drying rack and slammed it down in front of him. “Help yoursel’.”

Hamish filled the bowl with water and put it down in front of Towser. The tension in the kitchen between the married couple seemed to crackle in the air.

“Sit yourself down,” ordered Jimmy, and so Hamish sat down, wishing he had not accepted the crofter’s invitation. Jimmy stared at the centre of the table. The mackerel hissed in the pan. As if sensing the atmosphere, Towser gave a heavy sigh and lay down with his head on his paws.

Nancy slammed plates of food down in front of Hamish and Jimmy and said, “I’m off.”

“You’ll stay right where you are, wumman,” growled Jimmy.

She tossed her dyed black hair and went out of the room. Jimmy picked at his mackerel and then threw down his knife and fork and went out. Hamish could hear him mounting the stairs to where he supposed the bedrooms lay, under the roof. He tried not to listen but they were shouting at each other. “Ye’re makin’ a fool o’ yoursel’ wi’ a fellow half your age, you silly auld biddy.”

“Get stuffed,” came Nancy’s reply. “You dinnae own me.”

“I’ve had enough. Hear this, Nancy Macleod; if you don’t come tae yir senses, I’ll murder that English bastard.”

“Ach, get oot o’ my way, ye wee ferret, or I’ll murder you.”

There came the sound of a blow followed by a cry, and then the deafening crack of a slap and Nancy’s voice shouting shrilly, “Take that, bastard, and neffer lay the hand on me again.” Hamish half-rose in his seat. He hated “domestics,” as marital fights were called in the police. But he heard Jimmy clattering down the stairs and sat down again quickly. Jimmy came in, one cheek bright-red. He sat down and picked up his knife and fork, his calloused hands trembling. Then he threw them down and began to cry.

“There, now,” said Hamish, standing up and going round to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “There, how.”

“I’ll kill that English bastard, that I will,” sobbed Jimmy. “He’s bringing grief tae us all. The women have all gone fair daft.”

“Is he doing anything to encourage the women?” asked ‘Hamish.

“Jist smiles and smiles, kisses them like a Frenchie, smarms all ower them.”

“I’ll maybe be haein’ a wee word with him,” said Hamish. He saw a whisky bottle on the kitchen counter and went over and poured a glassful. “Get that down ye.”

“Neffer had the drink in the hoose except at Hogmanay,” said Jimmy, “until this happened.” The kitchen door opened and Nancy stood there. Her figure had changed dramatically, due, thought Hamish, to some sort of rigid corseting. Her face was highly made up. Her eyes reflected a mixture of wariness and defiance.

“I’m off,” she said and slammed out.

Jimmy drank whisky and ate steadily. Finally he pushed his plate away and rolled and lit a cigarette. Hamish sniffed the air. It was some time since he himself had had a cigarette, but he suddenly had a craving for one.

“Where’s she gone?” he asked.

“One o’ three places. She goes tae Alice MacQueen’s tae get her hair done, or she goes tae that silly biddy Edie Aubrey’s exercise class, or she goes wi’ the others tae lean over the fence at Hynd’s and gawp at him like a lot o’ coos.”

“I think I’ll chust go over tae Peter Hynd’s and talk to him,” said Hamish. “Neffer mind, Jimmy. You know these incomers. They neffer stay long.”

Jimmy said nothing.

Hamish roused the now sleeping Towser and went off. He was beginning to feel very uneasy. As he approached the community hall, he could hear the sound of music. He stood on tiptoe and looked in one of the windows.

To the sound of the music from Saturday Night Fever, the women of Drim gyrated and sweated. Great bosoms bobbed and heaved, and massive backsides hung low over thick thighs.

In front of the class was a thin woman in glasses, as thin and flat-chested as her ‘pupils’ were fat and broad. But there was no sign of Nancy…

He walked on and made his way to Peter Hynd’s. Peter was down in the trench with his pickaxe. Above him stood Nancy with that awful dead-black hair of hers and her old–fashioned stiletto heels sinking into the earth. “Since you’re that busy, I’ll be off,” he heard Nancy say mournfully.

Peter leaped out of the trench. He smiled down at her with that blinding smile of his. “Come later,” he said, “when I’m not so busy.” And then he kissed her on both cheeks, very warmly, each kiss close to either side of the nose. Nancy stared up at him, doting, almost sagging in his arms.

“Fine day,” said Hamish in a loud voice.

Peter smiled. Nancy gave Hamish a look of pure loathing before tottering off.

“Is this a social call?” asked Peter.

“No,” said Hamish curtly.

Peter looked amused. “We’d best go inside, but don’t take too long. I’ve an awful lot to do.”

They went into the kitchen. “Coffee?” asked Peter, holding up a thermos flask. “No,” said Hamish with the Highlander’s innate dislike of taking any hospitality from someone he disliked, or, in the case of Peter, had come to dislike.

“So what brings you?” asked Peter, pouring himself a cup. “I haff come to ask you to leave the women of Drim alone.”

Peter looked at Hamish in amazement and then began to laugh.

“It is not the laughing matter,” said Hamish. “I like a quiet life and I do not want any trouble on my beat.”

“This is marvellous,” crowed Peter. “Are you expecting a crime of passion?”

“Aye, maybe. This is not the south of England. People here know very well how to hate, and hate deeply.”

For one moment, Peter seemed to lose years and looked almost like a sulky schoolboy being reprimanded by a teacher.

But he turned the full force of his charm on Hamish. “Look, I admit my presence here has gone a bit to the heads of the ladies. But have you seen their men? Believe me, in a few weeks, the novelty will wear off and they’ll no more notice me than one of their sheep.”

“They’ll lose interest all right chust so long as you do not continue to feed it,” Hamish went doggedly on, although Peter was beginning to make him feel silly.

“You’re worrying about nothing.”

“Chust try to be as friendly with the men as you are with the women.”

“Be reasonable. That’s a bit difficult. They didn’t want to know me from the beginning. All the offers of help came from the women.”

“Try. It’s a pity there isn’t a pub here.”

Peter grinned. “Oh, but there is.”

“Where?”

“At the back of Jock Kennedy’s after closing time. The minister frowns on all alcohol, and I would guess he’s about the only person in Drim who does not know of its existence.”

Hamish stood up. “Go carefully. The Highland temperament can be dangerous.”

He walked back down to the village. If Jock Kennedy was running a pub without a licence, then it was his job to put a stop to it. But as he looked around the darkness of Drim, he decided to leave it to another day. The men needed their comforts.

He climbed into the Land Rover and sat back and thought about Peter Hynd, and then decided that Jimmy Macleod’s distress had made him take the whole situation too seriously.

One of the men would pick a fight with Peter sooner or later and give him a nasty time of it and then the Englishman would leave.

He closed his eyes, planning to have about ten minutes nap before going back to Lochdubh, lulled by the beat, beat, beat of the music from the community hall. And then, just as his eyes were closing, he saw something that made him open them wide. Peter Hynd was strolling towards the community centre. Hamish slowly climbed down from the car and made his way to the hall and looked in the window just as Peter Hynd strolled inside.

What a fluttering and cackling and fuss! It was just, he thought gloomily, like watching a rooster strut into the farmyard among the hens. Edie Aubrey switched off the music and fluttered up to Peter, who kissed her warmly on the cheek. Hamish turned away in disgust.

Over Edie’s thin shoulder, Peter saw the policeman’s cap disappearing from sight. “Do you want to stay and watch my little class?” asked Edie.

Peter turned and smiled at all the women. The door opened and Nancy Macleod came in, her eyes flashing this way and that. “No, I had better get onwith my work,” he said. “I was just passing and thought I’d drop in to say hello. That’s a new outfit, isn’t it, Edie? Pink suits you.”

Edie smiled at him mistily, feeling the money spent in Strathbane at the sports shop had been worth every penny. When he looked at her like that, she felt like Jane Fonda. Peter made his way to the door, a hug here, a kiss there, ending up with Nancy. “I’ve kissed you already,” he teased and slid past her to the door. Nancy stared after him with a lost look in her eyes.

Peter went back to his cottage highly pleased. He was glad Hamish had seen him. But Hamish needed to be punished. He flicked through the Highlands and Islands Telephone Directory until he found the Tommel Castle Hotel. He began to dial the number.

“I don’t remember you,” said Priscilla.

♦

“I was in the other night,” said Peter, “just before closing time. You warned me not to drink too much.”

“Oh, yes, I remember you now.”

“Look, I feel like a decent meal and I’ve heard that Italian restaurant in Lochdubh is pretty good. Like to join me for dinner?”

“It’s very kind of you, but – ”

“I saw Hamish in Drim this afternoon. Looks like he’s going to be here all day.”

“What is he doing there?” Priscilla’s voice was sharp.

“Just sloping about talking to the locals. I want a bit of company at dinner, Priscilla. It’s not like a date. I know you’re engaged to Hamish.”

“Oh, very well. What time?”

“Eight suit you?”

“Fine.”

“See you then.”

“Bye.”

Priscilla replaced the receiver. Why had she done that?

Well, to be honest, she was furious with Hamish. It was quite clear to her that he had gone to Drim simply to get out of house-hunting. And the house outside Strathbane had been perfect, situated on a rise, good garden, airy rooms, nothing like that poky police station. She experienced a stab of conscience, which was telling her that she should leave Hamish Macbeth’s character alone and not try to change him. But her father had raged about the proposed marriage and had told Priscilla that Hamish Macbeth was a layabout who would never come to anything, and Priscilla was hell-bent on proving her father wrong.

♦

Hamish felt in a mellow mood when he returned to Lochdubh. He could not help contrasting his own village favourably with Drim. The little white houses faced the loch. There was an openness and friendliness about the place. The air was dear and light, with that pearly light of northern Scotland where the nights are hardly ever dark in the summer. A seagull skimmed the loch, its head turning this way and that, looking for fish; a seal rolled and turned as lazily as any Mediterranean bather; people stood at their garden gates, talking in soft Highland voices; and the hum and chatter of the diners in the Italian restaurant came to Hamish’s ears, reminding him that he was hungry.

To make amends to Priscilla, he went into the police station and phoned her. He was told she was out and settled back to wait. If Priscilla was “out,” it meant she was headed in his direction. But as the hands of the clock crept around and his stomach rumbled, he realized that Priscilla must have gone somewhere else. He decided to treat himself to a meal at the Italian restaurant. He ambled along. As he drew nearer, he saw a couple sitting at the front window of the restaurant, noticed the gleam of candle-light on blonde hair, and saw with a stab of shock that Priscilla was having dinner with Peter Hynd. Hamish stood like a heron in a pool, one foot raised, arrested in mid-air. Then he slowly turned and began to walk back the way he had come.