Death of a Dentist

∨ Death of a Dentist ∧

9

Alice was puzzled. “In our country,” she remarked, “there’s only one day at a time.”

—Lewis Carrol

As he drove to Braikie, Hamish wondered what Fred Sutherland had to tell him. Whatever Fred had to tell him about Kylie was probably something he knew already.

There is very little daylight in the north of Scotland in whiter and Hamish, still tired, still with sore ribs, felt he had been living in a long dark tunnel for some time.

He parked outside the dress shop. Slowly he mounted the stairs, past the dentist’s surgery. He then realised he had been making his way up the stone staircase by the light of the street lamp outside. There was no light on the staircase. He went down to the surgery door and looked up. The light-bulb on the socket on the first landing was not there.

He went back to the Land Rover and got his torch and began to climb the stairs again. His senses were alert now, listening for any movement, any sound, as wary of danger as an animal in the woods.

He knocked at Fred Sutherland’s door. Then he flashed the torch upwards. No bulb in the light socket here either.

He tried the handle. The door swung slowly open. “Fred,” called Hamish. “Fred Sutherland?”

Was this another trick by Kylie and her friends? But then old Fred would never be a party to it.

He found the light switch and pressed it down. The little entrance hall was bleak and bare.

He then went into the living room. Fred Sutherland lay dead on the floor, his head bashed in. Someone had struck him a cruel and savage blow on the forehead.

Hamish knelt down by the old man and felt for the pulse which he knew already he would not find. His first guilty and miserable thought was that this was what became of involving the public in a murder enquiry. He saw the phone on a little table by the fireplace and went and lifted the receiver. The phone was dead. He looked down at the cord and saw that it had been cut near the wall.

He darted down the stairs to the Land Rover and contacted Strathbane on the radio and then, that done, went back up the stairs to wait. Without touching anything, he studied the scene. There was no sign of forced entry. The television set was still there. No drawers had been ransacked. It looked as if Fred had not kept the outside door locked. Someone had walked in and bludgeoned him to death in the doorway of his living room. Hamish then looked sadly at the old framed photographs dotted about the room: Fred, handsome and gallant in army uniform, Fred with a pretty girl on his arm, then a wedding photograph.

The contingent from Strathbane finally arrived, headed by Detective Chief Inspector Blair, red-eyed and truculent, with pyjama bottoms peeking out from below his trousers, showing he had been roused from bed.

Hamish told Blair about the message from the old man. “Right,” snapped Blair, “let’s get this girl in for questioning. Why didn’t you tell us about her before, Macbeth?”

“I had only just found out,” lied Hamish. “I have a report typed up I was going to send over to you tomorrow.”

Blair looked at him suspiciously. “Your trouble, Macbeth, is that you like to keep everything to yourself. If I find you caused this old boy’s death by not reporting what you know about this girl to us in due time, I’ll have ye off the force.”

Hamish gave him Kylie’s address. He was sure she would not tell about the entrapment – unless of course she panicked when the police arrived and assumed that was why they were there.

When two detectives and a policewoman had been dispatched to Kylie’s address, Blair turned again to Hamish. “So what was in this mysterious report o’ yours about mis girl?”

“There was nothing much,” said Hamish. “She’d been out on a date with Gilchrist and he made a pass at her. She threatened to tell everyone about it and he promised to buy her a car. A month passed. No car. When she approached him, he told her no one would believe her.”

“You should have phoned all that in right away,” howled Blair. “God protect me from daft, stupid Highland policemen!” Blair hailed from Glasgow. But guilt-ridden Hamish was not going to tell his superior officer that he had requested Fred to ask about and find out what he could about Kylie.

He asked if he should be at Strathbane for the questioning of Kylie Fraser, and Blair grunted, “We’ll see. Where does she work.”

“In the chemists along the street.”

“We’d best be having a word with her boss. What’s his name?”

Hamish remembered going into the shop, remembered the small fussy man. What had Kylie called him? “Cody,” he said suddenly. “Mr. Cody.”

“Well, to save you hanging around here, find out where Cody lives and get yourself over there.”

“But Kylie Fraser…”

“Och, I think we’ll do just fine withoot the great brain o’ Hamish Macbeth. And how many times do I have tae tell ye tae address me as ‘sir’?”

Hamish looked up Mr. Cody’s home address in the telephone book and took himself off. He was tortured with pictures of poor dead Fred Sutherland who would still be alive if one daft policeman had not asked him to investigate a murder.

Mr. Cody lived in a trim bungalow called Our House on the edge of the town. Hamish glanced at his watch. It was only ten at night. It seemed as if a lifetime had passed since he had left Lochdubh that evening.

He rang the doorbell and waited. It was answered by a rigidly corseted woman. He wondered vaguely why women in the north of Scotland still squeezed themselves into old–fashioned corsets while their fat sisters of the south let it all hang out.

“What’s happened?” she cried when she saw Hamish’s uniformed figure.

“I am just here to have a word with Mr. Cody.”

“What about? Is it his sister? Is it bad news?”

“No, no,” said Hamish soothingly. “Just part of our investigations.”

“You’d better come in. Charles! It’s the police for you.”

The small, fussy-looking man Hamish had seen first in the chemists came down the stairs. He had grey hair neatly combed back, round glasses and a small mouth. He was wearing a fawn cardigan over a shirt collar and tie and grey trousers and highly polished black shoes.

“How can I be of help to you, officer?” he asked. “We’ll go into the lounge. I hope the shop has not been broken into.”

“No,” said Hamish. He followed him into an overfurnished room and took off his cap.

“Mr. Fred Sutherland has been found dead, murdered.”

Mr. Cody looked startled. “Who is he?”

Hamish thought suddenly of the little table in the living room on which the phone rested in Fred’s flat. There had been a small array of medicine bottles beside the phone.

“He lived above the dentist, Gilchrist.”

“But this is terrible…terrible. Who would do such a thing? And why ask me?”

“It concerns your assistant, Kylie Fraser. Mr. Sutherland left a message on my answering machine this evening, saying he had found something out about her and asking me to call. Detectives are questioning Kylie. Can you think what it might have been that he found out?”

Mrs. Cody was sitting across from them. “I told you and told, you to get rid of that flighty piece,” she said. “She hangs about with some of the worst elements in the town.”

The pharmacist ignored his wife. “I had no trouble with her in the shop. I know she has a bit of a reputation, but during working hours, she’s pleasant and hard-working and the customers like her. She sells quite a lot of cosmetics for me.”

“And wears most of them all at once on her stupid face,”’ said his wife waspishly.

“Say Mr. Sutherland had really found out something about her, someone didn’t want us to know about,” said Hamish, “have you any idea who that someone would be?”

He shook his head. “I really don’t know.” A little wire-haired dachshund appeared from behind the sofa, went to Hamish and pressed its small shivering body against his legs. He leaned down to pat it.

“Just in the line of enquiry, can you tell me where you were this evening?”

“What time?”

“Say between eight o’clock and half past nine.”

“I had a coffee with my wife and we watched a quiz programme on television and then I took Suky out for his usual evening walk.”

“Where did you go?”

“Just up to Brady’s field at the end of the houses. Suky likes to run about the field looking for rabbits. He disappeared for quite a time and I had the devil of a job getting him back.”

“I thought Suky was a girl’s name,” said Hamish.

“Oh, well, we call him that,” said the pharmacist, pressing his hands together. “This has been a great shock. I did not know the man…what was his name?”

“Sutherland. Fred Sutherland. There is no other pharmacist in Braikie, surely.”

“No, I’m the only one.”

“I noticed Mr. Sutherland had several medicine bottles in his flat. I am sure if I go back and look at the labels, I will find the name of your shop on them.”

Mr. Cody coloured up. “You are making me feel guilty when I have no reason to feel guilty. Kylie hands me prescriptions and I make up the bottles and pills and paste labels on them. I cannot remember every name.”

“But a resident of Braikie who had probably been going to you for years!”

“I am afraid my memory is not what it was.”

“So there is nothing more you can tell us about Kylie? She did not confide in you?”

“No, of course not. We were employer and employee. She would hardly giggle to me about her boyfriends.”

“Did you know she had gone out with Gilchrist? That she claims he came on to her and that he slapped her face? She threatened to tell everyone and he said if she kept quiet he would buy her a car. But he subsequently told her that since it was her word against his, everyone would believe him.”

“This is what comes of employing a girl like that,” said Mrs. Cody. “She’s not our sort. This is what comes, Charles, from associating with a low-life creature like that.”

“It is very hard to get staff,” said Mr. Cody furiously. “Kylie has stayed longer than anyone else. The young people here prefer to stay on the dole and do a bit of moonlighting. I am sorry I cannot help you further, officer, but I know very little about Kylie.”

“I must warn you that you will be subjected to more questioning,” said Hamish.

He said goodbye to them and then drove as fast as he could to Strathbane. He was anxious to sit in on the questioning of Kylie.

He was lucky in that the detectives sent to get her had not found her at home and had finally run her to earth in the pub and that Blair had radioed them by that time with instructions not to say anything to her. Ignoring a filthy look from Blair, he took a chair in the corner of the interrogation room, just in time to hear Kylie, who was fed on a regular diet of American movies, plead the Fifth Amendment.

“This is Scotland,” growled Blair, “and no’ Chicago.”

“What’s it about?” asked Kylie, her eyes flickering to where Hamish sat in the corner.

“Fred Sutherland has been murdered.”

“What! Thon auld fellow what lived above Gilchrist?” Her face went white under her makeup. “What’s that to do wi’ me?”

“Mr. Sutherland left a message on PC Macbeth’s answering machine tonight, saying that he had found out something about you. When PC Macbeth went to see him, he found he had been brutally murdered.”

“But I was in the pub all evening. Ask anyone. Ask the barman.”

“We will. But we hae a fair idea what it was that Sutherland wanted tae tell Macbeth. You had a fling wi’ Gilchrist.”

He shouted this last accusation in her face.

To Hamish’s surprise, the colour began to come back into Kylie’s cheeks. She gave a resigned little shrug. “Well, you knew about that.” She jerked her head in Hamish’s direction. “He knew about that.”

Blair took her all through her date with Gilchrist, about the promise of the car. He accused her of having got some of the young hoodlums she hung out with to murder the dentist. He ranted and raved, but Kylie remained immovable. She had a cast-iron alibi for the whole evening and that was that Sutherland had probably found out about her going down to Inverness with Gilchrist and that was what he wanted to tell Hamish. Why he had been murdered, she had no idea. It was up to them to find out who did it. In fact as the wearisome questioning continued, Kylie became more relaxed as Blair became more furious and frustrated.

At last she was warned to keep herself in readiness for more questioning and a policewoman was told to escort her back to Braikie.

Hamish went wearily back to Lochdubh to type up his reports – first the one on Kylie and Gilchrist which he had said he had already done, and then of his interview with Mr. Cody.

He finally went to bed and fell asleep and dreamed guilty dreams of a dead Fred Sutherland reaching up from an open grave and crying, “You could have saved me. It’s all your fault, Hamish Macbeth.”

♦

His first thought the next morning was that he should start off at the Old Timers Club that Fred had talked about. He had said he would ask questions there. Perhaps he had a particular friend he had confided in.

His heart was heavy as he took the road to Braikie. He stopped abruptly outside the road leading up to the Smiley brothers’ croft A troll-like figure was repairing the fencing. He got down and walked up, wondering if Blair had gone mad and released the brothers.

But as he drew closer, he saw the man was neither Pete nor Stourie but of similar build and appearance and just as hairy.

“Who are you?” asked Hamish.

The man glowered at him. “I’m Jock Smiley, their cousin. Are you the bastard what put them away?”

“Me and others,” said Hamish, “and they were prepared, to murder me.”

“They neffer harmed a fly in their lives. All they did was make a wee bit o’ whisky which is every Highland-man’s right.”

“Oh, come on. Pull the other one. They had a major business. This was the bootlegging on a grand scale.”

“It’s got nothing to do with me anyway,” said Jock. “Bugger off.”

Hamish walked back to the Land Rover. What a pity there had not been proof that the Smileys had killed Gilchrist. They were the only suspects who had the strength, character and expertise to do it.

♦

The Old Timers Club was in a smart new community centre opened, said a plaque on the front, by Princess Anne in 1991. Marvelling not for the first time at the energy of the Princess Royal, Hamish pushed open the door and went in.

Various people were sitting around, watching television, playing cards, or gossiping.

An elderly woman came forward to meet him. “Can I help you, officer?”

“I would like to talk to someone who knew Fred Sutherland well.”

“Oh, poor Fred. That’s young people for you these days. They would kill a man for twopence.”

Hamish reflected that as far as anyone had been able to judge, nothing had been stolen from Fred’s flat.

“But Mr. Tarn Carmichael was a great friend of Fred’s,” she went on.

“Is he here?”

“No, it’s a wee bit early for Tarn. But I can give you his address. He lives above the bakers just along from the chemists in the main street.”

Hamish thanked her and left. He walked along to the bakers and up a stone staircase at the side of the shop. MR. T. CARMICHAEL was on a neat name plate outside the door of a first floor flat. He knocked and waited. A little gnome of a man answered the door wearing a dressing gown over striped pyjamas. Tufts of grey hair stuck up on his head. His nose was very large and his eyes very small and sharp.

“You’ve come about Fred,” he said heavily. “Come in. You’re Macbeth.”

Hamish followed him into a cosy little living room where a coal fire blazed on the hearth.

They both sat down. “Last night,” began Hamish, “Mr. Sutherland left a message on my answering machine saying he had found out something about Kylie Fraser and then he was murdered. Did he tell you what it was?”

Old Tarn shook his head. “He was that excited, I can tell you that. He fancied himself as Inspector Poirot. Questions, questions, questions. He was so proud you had told him to help.”

“I think I helped to kill him,” said Hamish miserably.

The sharp old eyes looked at his distressed face. “Now, then, laddie,” said Tarn, “don’t be getting yourself in a bind. We’ve all got to go sometime. Fred was so happy and interested and he’d been gloomy and distressed of late. He smoked about eighty a day and I don’t think he would have kept his health much longer. I’ll miss him. There’s not that many men around the club. It’s aye the ladies who outlast us. So that made the pair of us great favourites. An interest in the ladies is something you dinnae lose with age although you can do damn all about it.”

“Was there any particular lady he was friendly with?” asked Hamish.

“Aye, Annie Tame. She’ll be in a sore state over his death.”

“And where does she live?”

“She’s got a wee bit o’ a croft house out near Mrs. Harrison, her what was soft about Gilchrist. It’s called Dunroamin, right on the road. You can’t miss it.”

“I wonder why Mr. Sutherland didn’t tell you what it was he found out,” said Hamish.

“All he said was, “I think I’m on to something, Tarn, but I’ll let you know after I’ve had a word with that policeman.” I’m telling ye, he had the time of his life.”

Hamish stood up. “I only wish he were still alive. I think I’ll have this on my conscience till the end of time.”

Tarn put one old gnarled hand on a large Bible on the table next to him. “You cannae criticise the ways o’ the Lord. If Fred had been meant to live, then he would have lived on. I gather he was hit on the head.”

“Yes, I should think he died instantly.”

“Look at it mis way, a short sharp death was a kinder way for old Fred to go than coughing out his life.”

Hamish thanked him and left. As he drove out on the road to where Annie Taine lived, he thought again about Mrs. Harrison. Perhaps he should see her again. But he went straight to the cottage called Dunroamin first.

Mrs. Annie Taine was a well-preserved seventy-something with hair of an improbable blonde. Her eyes were red with weeping. “Poor Fred,” she said when she saw Hamish. “What a dreadful thing to happen.”

She invited Hamish in. How independent these old people were, thought Hamish, the ones who managed to keep fit enough to manage a home of their own. Everything in her little living room was neat and sparkling.

“I have just come from Mr. Tarn Carmichael,” began Hamish, “and he told me you were a particular friend of Mr. Sutherland. He was interested in the death of Mr. Gilchrist and I gather he was asking questions. He left a message for me last night to say he had found out something about Kylie Fraser. Did he tell you what that something was?”

She shook her head. “He was so excited. I think he dreamed of standing up in court and giving evidence. He asked me to repair a small tear in his best suit for him because he said that would look grand in front of the television cameras. We didn’t take him seriously. I suppose we all seem a bit gaga at times. And men are such little children. Always living in Walter Mitty dreams. Let me think. He did say something.”

Hamish waited.

“He said, “The things middle-aged men get up to wi’ wee lassies, you’d never believe.””

Hamish gave a little sigh. “I suppose he was talking about Gilchrist.”

“You mean Mr. Gilchrist and Kylie. My!”

“He didn’t get anywhere with her but I suppose Fred Sutherland found out and that’s what he wanted to tell me.”

“But don’t you see,” cried Annie, “that must have been the reason Fred was killed! Kylie hangs out with some awful fellows at the pub.”

“There was no reason for Kylie to worry. I already knew, you see, and she knew that.”

She clasped her hands and looked at him beseechingly. “You must find out who did this wicked thing. Mr. Gilchrist was a nasty man and no one really mourns him, but everyone loved Fred.”

“I’ll do my best,” said Hamish, “but if you find out anything or remember anything, please let me know.”

She promised she would. He then went to Mrs. Hamson’s but she was not at home. He then remembered he had asked Mrs. Edwardson of the dress shop to ask about Kylie as well and thought he had better warn her.

She was there as usual in her empty shop among the droopy dresses and china dummies with 1930 faces and improbable wigs.

“You don’t need to worry about me,” she said in answer to Hamish’s warning. “I haven’t been asking about although I did warn Kylie you’d been asking about her. I’ve got so much to do here, you see.”

“Such as what?”

She bridled. “Serving customers, of course, making alterations, and taking inventory of the stock.”

Hamish’s Highland curiosity almost prompted him to ask her when she had last sold anything at all.

“So you haven’t heard anything that might be of help to me?”

“Not really, and I do not see why I should do your job for you, Officer.”

“I’ll leave you to all your customers,” said Hamish with a flash of Highland malice. “I’ll chust be fighting my way to the door through them all.”

He stood outside the shop, irresolute. Then he saw Jimmy Anderson loping down the street.

“Just the man,” hailed Jimmy. “Let’s go for a dram.”

They walked in silence to The Drouthy Crofter. The bar was empty.

Hamish knew Jimmy had to be fueled up with whisky before he could get any information out of him and so he bought him a double and said, “Let’s sit down over there. What’s the latest. Was anything stolen from Fred Sutherland’s flat?”

“No sign of it. He wasnae the type o’ old boy to keep it under the bed either. How did you get on with Kylie’s boss?”

“Not very far. He kept her on because she was a steady worker and the customers liked her. I see his point. The young people up here like to go on the dole and do a bit of moonlighting. They’re hardly the workers o’ the world. This is the second time someone has gone up that stair to commit murder and no one’s seen anyone. Certainly the lights were out on the stair but there was a streetlight outside.”

“I’ll tell you something about Braikie,” said Jimmy. “Has it ever dawned on you how dead it is, even in the middle o’ the day? What am I talking about? Especially in the middle o’ the day. Down south the supermarkets are open the whole time and some o’ the Asian shops are open round-the-clock, but up here everything closes down as tight as a drum at lunchtime. Then any other wee town in Scotland, you’ll aye see groups o’ people standing about talking. Not here. It’s as bad as that other hellhole, Cnothan. I’ve been watching. About nine in the morning, everyone goes to the shops, get what they want and disappear. By ten o’clock, the place is as dead as anything. Around five o’clock, just before the shops close, they all come out again. The young people spend their day in this pub after they awake about two in the afternoon, and the old people go to that club of theirs. A special bus goes round and collects them at nine in the morning. The middle-aged stay at home and watch the soaps. I’m telling you, Hamish, if I had to live in Braikie, I’d cut my wrists.”

“What’s happened to Kylie now?”

“Back at Strathbane for questioning. She’s got a lawyer now.”

“Who’s she got?”

“Mr. Armstrong-Gulliver.”

Hamish raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’ll cost her a pretty penny. How can she afford him, and where are her parents and who are her parents?”

“Mother. Single mother in Inverness. On the game. Hasn’t seen Kylie for two years. Broken home. Violence.”

“What do you make of Kylie?”

“Sexy little piece, but as hard as nails. I’ve seen strong men crumble before Blair. But not our Kylie.”

Hamish leaned back in his chair. “If Gilchrist were still alive, I would be suspecting him o’ the murder of Fred to keep the old man’s mouth shut about him and Kylie. There’s something verra obvious we’re missing, Jimmy.”

“The fact is,” said Jimmy, “we’re cluttered up wi’ crime and suspects. There’s that robbery at the hotel and Mrs. Macbean being an auld flame o’ Gilchrist. There’s the Smileys and their illegal still. You said they were going to drop you in a peat bog? Do that to a copper and you’ll murder anyone.”

“I don’t know,” said Hamish. “There’s something about that mad couple that belongs to the Highlands long gone. I don’t think mentally that they’d got as far as the nineteenth century let alone the twentieth.”

Jimmy laughed. “They had all the twentieth-century equipment to make the hooch.”

“Aye, but to them that was a Highlander’s legitimate livelihood and a nosy policeman in their minds is the same as a visit from the redcoats in the eighteenth century. Into the bog with them.”

“Sounds daft to me. Anyway, now Kylie’s got her hotshot lawyer, Blair’ll need to treat her with kid gloves. Ach, I’m sick o’ the whole thing. The super says to Blair, “Are you sure Hamish hasn’t come up with something? He usually does,” and Blair oiled and crept and said, “Yes sir, I’ll ask him,” and then went down to the detectives room and took his temper out on all of us.”

“Another drink?” asked Hamish.

“Aye, that would be grand.”

As Hamish stood at the bar ordering the drinks, he noticed the pub was beginning to fill up. Perhaps he, Hamish Macbeth, had too free and easy an approach to law and order. He should have arrested Kylie for trying to entrap him in a rape scene, he should have arrested the seer for buying illegal whisky, or more likely, accepting it from the Smileys, he should have never gone to the Smileys’ on his own that night. He felt he was the muddled, bumbling Highland idiot that Blair often claimed he was.

He took the drinks back to the table, aware of the hostility towards himself and Jimmy emanating from the other customers.

“Look at this lot,” sneered Jimmy. “A good day’s work would kill them.”

Hamish kept his own thoughts. He thought that living on the state was a very seductive situation. Why would anyone want to go out to work when they didn’t have to? The jobs in the Highlands, farmworkers, forestry men, ghillies and gamekeepers, were all too physical for a new generation brought up on alcohol and instant food. He envied Jimmy in a way for he often wished he was not able to see the other point of view.

“So to get back to the case,” said Hamish, “I called on that old bat, Harrison, but she wasn’t at home.”

“She’s in the Raigmore Hospital in Inverness. Had a stroke.”

“When?”

“Last night. She was lucky. There was a local passing just as she keeled over in her living room. The curtains were drawn back and he saw her from the road and he had a mobile phone in his car, too. She could have lain there for days.”

“So we come back again to Maggie Bane,” said Hamish. “That’s the trouble with this latest murder and this Kylie business. We’re forgetting that Maggie Bane was the one with the real reason for hating Gilchrist. What if she knew or overheard his plans to go off with the terrible Mrs. Macbean? Then why did she go off for an hour that morning of all mornings? Damn, I think I’ll go back and have a wee word with her.”

“Better you than me,” said Jimmy. “What an ugly voice that lassie has!”

♦

Hamish found Maggie Bane in the middle of packing up her belongings. “What’s happening?” he asked. “Are you leaving?”

“I can’t stay here after all the scandal,” she said in her harsh voice, that voice which sounded so odd coming out from such a beautiful face. “I’m going home to my parents. I’m putting this place up for sale.”

“Do police headquarters know you are leaving?”

“Yes, I told them and left them my new address.”

“You’ve heard about this latest murder?”

“Yes, I heard it on the radio this morning.”

“And what do you make of it?”

She sat down on the floor beside a packing case as if suddenly weary. “It can’t have anything to do with Mr. Gilchrist’s murder.”

“Well, Mr. Sutherland lived above the surgery and he left a message for me that he had found out something about Kylie Fraser.”

Her face hardened. “That little slut!”

“Did you know Mr. Gilchrist tried to lay her?”

“That’s her story. He told me she came on to him and got bitchy when he turned her down.”

“Nothing about promising her a car if she kept her mouth shut?”

“Rubbish.” Maggie’s eyes blazed. “Let me tell you something, and I’ve already told the police this, Kylie Fraser is the biggest liar in the Highlands. She thought she could get any man she wanted and in order to fuel this myth, she made up wild stories.” She stood up and began to lift books into one of the packing cases. Her arms, Hamish noticed, were very strong.

“If you don’t mind my saying, Miss Bane,” said Hamish, “you look verra fit. Take much exercise?”

“I play a lot of squash.”

“Squash?”

“Yes, it’s the only thing I’ll miss about Braikie. There’s a very good squash club. Didn’t you know? Three nights a week. Mr. Dempster, who’s got the biggest house in the town – he owns a factory in Inverness – had a court built onto his house and started the club.”

“When exactly are you leaving?” asked Hamish.

“A week’s time.”

Hamish stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”

“I hope not,” she said acidly. “I never want to see another policeman again.”

Hamish hesitated in the doorway. “What will you do?”

“I got a letter from one of my old tutors this morning. The only person to write me a nice letter, I may add. He suggested I come and see him with a view to finding me a good job. He said a good way to get over a horrible experience like this was to be successful.”

At least I’ve done some good, thought Hamish, by going to see that tutor. Let’s just hope that the only person I’ve been able to help doesn’t turn out to be a murderess.

He went back into Braikie. As he walked up the stairs towards Fred Sutherland’s flat, he met a forensic team coming down the stairs in their white overalls.

“Anything?” he asked hopefully.

The leading man shook his head. “Not a print anywhere apart from the old man’s.”

Hamish was turning away when he noticed a dark stain in the passageway leading to the stairs. “What’s that?” he asked sharply. “Blood?”

The man grinned. “Dream on. We know what that is.”

“And what’s that?”

“Dog piss, Sherlock.”

“Oh.” Hamish stood irresolute. The forensic team looked at him impatiently. He pulled himself together and stood aside to let them past.

He wandered out in the street, pulled off his cap and scratched his fiery hair furiously. There was something there on the edge of his mind. A small boy chasing a ball cannoned into him, regained his balance and shouted, “Whit are ye standing there like a big drip o’ nothing fur?” and then ran on. Now if I gave that horrible little boy a clip round the ear, thought Hamish, I would make headlines in the newspapers next day, be suspended from my job pending a full enquiry. Maybe that was what was up with Kylie and her friends. They had grown up in a world of lax teaching, lax morals, junk food for the body and junk food for the mind. Then there was this wretched business of believing children innocent and precious things. Hamish remembered his own childhood, running with his friends, barbarians all, but kept in check by the disciplines of police, church and school. So today murders by children were becoming distressingly common. Perhaps the bad old days when all children were guilty until proved innocent in the eyes of the adult world had something going for it. He found he was getting cold and brought himself out of his musings.

He suddenly thought of Sarah and had a sharp desire to see her again. There was nothing more he could be expected to do that day and a pleasant evening and – hope upon hope – pleasant night with Sarah was just what he needed.

♦

He arrived at Tommel Castle Hotel and went into reception. “Hullo, Hamish,” said Mr. Johnson. “Bad business, mis murder of the old man.”

“Yes, I’ve just come from Braikie. Miss Hudson in?”

“Didn’t you know? She’s left.”

“Gone?”

“Aye, she went up to see auld Angus and then she comes back, all pinched and strained and asks for her bill. She phoned from reception. I listened, of course.”

“Of course,” echoed Hamish in a hollow voice.

“She said, “It’s me, Sarah. Oh, darling, I’ve missed you so much. I’m sorry I ran away. It’s all been a terrible mistake. I’ll try to get the evening flight from Inverness. Can you meet me at Heathrow?” Whatever he said, I don’t know because I could only hear her side of the conversation. Then she said, “You will? Oh, thank you, darling. I’ll phone you from Inverness and confirm I’m on the plane. Love you, too.””

“Wass it her husband?”

“I got an idea it was.”

“Funny Priscilla didn’t mention she was married. And,” said Hamish, growing angry, “it’s even funnier that she didn’t say a blind word to me.”

“Well, that’s women for you.”

Hamish slouched off. He felt truly miserable and rejected. Perhaps she had left a note for him at the police station. But when he got there, there was only an electricity bill lying on the doormat.

He sat down at his desk in the police office and buried his face in his hands. He shouldn’t feel this bad. It had only been one night and she had backed away from him ever since.

He suddenly knew he could not sit in the police station on his own. He locked up and headed back to Braikie. He would investigate something, anything – anything to keep his mind off Sarah. Where to start, he wondered as the orange sodium lights of the town stained the nighttime Highland sky.

What about that squash club? Might pick up something about Maggie Bane that he did not already know.

He told the owner, Mr. Dempster, that he just wanted to watch the matches and was taken up to a long gallery above the squash courts. Maggie Bane was in one, smashing balls with great energy, her black hair flying. She was playing with a thin, grey-haired muscular woman. In the next court a small round man was playing a tall well-built fellow. Hamish was about to turn away, when he suddenly turned back and focused on the small round man. It was the pharmacist, Mr. Charles Cody. Hamish watched in amazement the speed and power the little man put into his game.

He went slowly down the stairs and let himself outside. A cold wind had sprung up, coming in from the west, bringing with it the smell of the sea.

Now here, thought Hamish, with a fast beating heart, was a man who would know how to make nicotine poison, a man with enough strength to heave the body of a dead dentist up into the chair.

But why? What reason?

Fred Sutherland had found out something about Kylie. Hamish, like everyone else, had assumed the something was about Kylie and Gilchrist. But just suppose that something had been about Kylie and her boss.

What sort of man was Cody really? He had strength. He certainly played a ruthless game of squash.

Wait a bit. His wife had said he had been out walking the dog.

But now he thought of it, that had been a very frightened dog.

There had been dog urine on the stairs leading up past the surgery to Fred’s flat. Could forensic tell one dog’s urine from another? Bound to.

But why? Why murder Gilchrist and then Fred?

Surely it might mean that Cody had been having an affair with Kylie. The dentist had been revenge and poor Fred because somehow the old man had let slip that he was going to tell what he knew.

He could go back into the club and question him. But he suddenly wanted the right scenario, the right setting to make the man crack.

And then he thought of the formidable Mrs. Cody. He would go to Cody’s home and wait for his return.