Death of a Macho Man

∨ Death of a Macho Man ∧

9

But at my back I always hear

Time’s winged chariot hurrying near

—Andrew Marvell

Priscilla told one of the maids early that evening that Hamish Macbeth was to take part in the hill-running at Cnothan the following day, and the maid told the rest of the staff, who told the guests, and so in an hour’s time the news had reached the village of Lochdubh and spread all over the place.

Many were determined to go over to Cnothan to see Hamish run. Ian Chisholm, the local garage owner, got out his carnival-coloured Volkswagon bus, painted bright red and yellow with the remainder of left-over paints to cover the rust, and put up a handwritten poster advertising a service to the Cnothan Highland Games.

The weather was calm and still, with a low sun shining on the waters of the loch. People were standing outside their cottages, gossiping. After the days and weeks of rain, Lochdubh was drying out and coming to life. Old resentments were forgiven and even Hamish’s affair with Betty was forgotten as the villagers prepared to go to Cnothan to cheer their champion to the finishing line. The fact that Hamish was still looking for the murderer of Duggan had mostly been forgotten and was generally put down to a sort of mental aberration on Hamish’s part. Murder had left Lochdubh, and the sun was shining.

Hamish took his kilt out of the wardrobe, but the moths had chewed several holes in it and the pleats badly needed pressing and there was an egg stain near the hem. He took out a pair of shorts instead and a pair of running shoes. Then he put any thought of the race to come firmly out of his head.

It was only when he awoke on the day of the race that he experienced the first real stab of apprehension. He had done no training at all. He was not particularly fit. He could only hope that the other runners were as ill-prepared. Cnothan was one of the small Highland games, not a big event the likes of Braemar.

Archie Maclean called round as Hamish was getting ready to depart. “I chust thought I would tell you,” he said, “that the water bailiff over at the Cnothan estates is entering. His name is Bill French.”

“So?” demanded Hamish impatiently.

“Himself was in the Special Air Service. Fit as a fiddle, made o’wire and steel.”

“These ex-army men let themselves go to seed pretty quickly,” said Hamish.

“Not this one. Heard he can run like the wind.”

“Och, away wi’ ye, Archie. You’re trying to make me scared afore I even get to the starting post.”

“Not me,” said Archie. “My money’s on you, Hamish, and don’t you forget it, and the whole village is turning out to cheer you on.”

And that made Hamish feel worse than ever.

It got even worse. As he moved off in the police Land Rover, the multi-coloured bus full of cheering villagers moved onto the road behind him, along with a long cavalcade of cars, and when the procession reached the gates of Tommel Castle Hotel, it was joined by even more cars. Hamish saw John and Betty and then Priscilla. He had a gloomy feeling that he was going to let everyone down and make a fool of himself into the bargain.

The sun shone remorselessly down and you could see for miles. No hope of the event being cancelled because of mist or rain. When the marquees and flags of the games appeared down in the valley and Hamish through the open window could hear the skirl of the pipes, he began to feel weak and helpless. He would not get near that prize money and he would have no hope of getting to Glasgow. Why had he been so stiff-necked and proud? Why hadn’t he accepted Priscilla’s offer of money?

He drove slowly into the large field reserved for parked cars and climbed down feeling stiff and old. It was because he no longer had a dog, he thought sadly. Towser had loved long walks in the hills.

Priscilla walked over the still-spongy grass to join him. “You don’t look exactly confident,” she said.

“It was a daft idea,” muttered Hamish in a low voice. “I havenae done any training, and there’s an ex-SAS man competing.”

“You could always cancel.”

“What! With the whole village here to see me! Don’t be daft, lassie.”

“Then just think of the money.”

Unluckily for Hamish, the hill-running was the last event of the day. By the time he had watched the piping championships, caber-tossing, pigeon-plucking, ferret-chasing and all the other many activities, his heart was in his running shoes.

But at last the loudspeaker called for the competitors in the hill-running race to go to the starting line. Priscilla felt sorry for Hamish as his long lanky figure in a brief pair of shorts and a T-shirt sloped up to the starting line, where about fifteen tough and fit-looking men were waiting. Hamish took up his position and waited with a dry mouth. “All the best, Hamish!” shouted some Lochdubhite and the rest of the village spectators began to cheer. He gave a limp wave and a weak smile.

They all crouched ready. Silence fell on the crowd. A curlew piped from the hillside. Then the starting pistol fired and they were off, Hamish set himself an easy pace, determined to do his best. He gained a good bit of advantage over the moorland, having run the course years before, knowing which treacherous bogs to avoid. Ben Loss was not a rock climber’s mountain. Family parties often climbed its heathery flanks to picnic on the top. But for men running flat out, it was a gruelling climb. Hamish could feel his bream getting ragged and hear his heart pounding against his ribs, and to each heartbeat a voice cried in his brain, “Failure, failure, failure.” And men, as he reached the summit and started the downward run, he saw the rest were ahead of him, with the powerful man he had earlier identified as Bill French, the water bailiff, leading the pack. All at once, he wanted to give up and sit down in the heather. His pace lagged. Then he decided to give it his best effort. He took a deep breath and prepared to run down that mountain and back across the moor as fast as he could. And then, just as he paused and stooped to retie the lace of one of his running shoes, there was the crack of a rifle from the heather over to his right and a bullet whizzed over his bent head. In a flash he realized that if he stopped any longer to find out who was firing at him, the marksman would take another shot at him. He set off, this time running for his life.

♦

“Here they come,” cried Archie, who had sharp eyes. Priscilla peered through a powerful pair of binoculars and then lowered them and said in a sad voice, “Hamish is nowhere in sight.”

“He never did any training, never any training,” said Jessie Currie. “He’s too lazy to run, and that’s a fact.”

The villagers gloomily watched the runners coming closer, with Bill French at their head.

Priscilla, worried now that Hamish might have collapsed, raised her binoculars to her eyes again.

And then she shouted to the villagers, who were turning away in disgust, “It’s Hamish! He’s coming! He’s catching up!”

Startled, they all turned back and stared across the moorland.

And sure enough, there came Hamish Macbeth, long red-haired legs pumping like pistons. They started to cheer, at first tentatively and then hysterically, as Hamish pounded on.

“My God,” said Ian Chisholm, “I haff neffer seen the like, and my money was on French!”

Hamish hurtled on. Bill French, hearing the cheering and cries of “Hamish,” turned round, stumbled and fell in the heather and Hamish cleared his body in one great leap and went flat out over the finishing line, where he fell on the grass with his hands over his head.

Priscilla rushed to him. “Well done, Hamish.”

“Shot,” he gasped. “Up the Loss. Someone tried to kill me.”

Priscilla gave a startled exclamation and ran towards the mobile police trailer. When she reported what Hamish had said and brought several policemen back with her, Hamish was sitting with his head in his hands. He quickly told the police what had happened. Soon police could be seen fanning up over the mountainside. Hamish, in a daze, accepted the prize money which, he was vaguely pleased to note, was in cash. A cheque would have disappeared into his overdraft. He then went over to the police trailer and led a second party up the mountain to show them where he had been shot at. But there was no evidence of anything, no spent cartridge cases, no sign anyone had been there, although there was such an expanse to cover, he knew they could well have missed something.

“Probably imagined it, Macbeth,” said Sergeant Macgregor from Cnothan.

“I didn’t,” said Hamish stubbornly. “And I think it’s tied up with the murder of Randy Duggan. Someone knows I don’t believe Beck did it and someone wants me out of the way.”

“Well, we cannae dae any mair but put in a report,” said Sergeant Macgregor sourly, thinking of the paperwork and what Strathbane would say about all these policemen charging overtime looking for a supposed murderer. Hamish arrived back at the police station at ten that night. The phone in the office was shrilling away and he was tempted not to answer it. At last he reluctantly picked it up. Blair’s voice snarled down the line. “Look here, pillock, stop trying to screw up my nicely solved case by wasting police time saying someone’s trying to murder you because you know better than me.”

“I don’t think Beck murdered Duggan,” said Hamish wearily.

“Well, it’s time you did. In fact, I did you a favour. I told Daviot your poor auld brain is a wee bit strained these days and you need a break. Take a week off, he says. I say, do it.”

Hamish opened his mouth to protest and then closed it again. Here was a perfect chance to go to Glasgow. He had the money and now he had the time.

“All right,” he said meekly.

“Tell Macgregor over in Cnothan to cover for ye,” said Blair, and rang off.

Hamish dialled Sergeant Macgregor’s number. “Oh, the hell with it,” said Macgregor when he heard Hamish’s request. “I don’t know why they bother keeping you on the force, and that’s a fact.”

“Anything up?” asked Hamish, hearing an odd note in the sergeant’s voice.

Macgregor looked moodily at the shiny surface of his desk, where a single rifle bullet lay. A small boy had picked it up out of the heather at the top of Ben Loss, just where Hamish Macbeth had said he was shot at, and had brought it to Cnothan police station ten minutes before Hamish’s call. But if he told Macbeth, then it would mean more paperwork. And anyway, it was probably from a deer rifle and had been lying there for ages. Besides, Blair had let him know forcibly that he considered the murder case of Randy Duggan solved and closed.

Macgregor picked up the bullet and then tossed it into the waste-basket. “Nothing’s up,” he said. “Good night to you.”

Hamish wearily ran a hot bath, stripped and climbed into it and promptly fell asleep, waking to find the water stone cold.

Cursing, he climbed out, aching in every bone, and towelled himself down. He went through to bed. The last thing he heard before he fell asleep again was a rhythmic pattering on the window.

Rain had returned to Lochdubh.

♦

He awoke the following morning, thinking that he should pack up and head south to Glasgow. But there was something nagging at the back of his brain. And why go to Glasgow when the murderer was surely still around Lochdubh? And yet, in Randy’s background lay the vital clue to the identity of the murderer. Then the fact that had been niggling away at him suddenly sprang into his brain and he cursed himself for a fool. Blair had said that Rosie Draly had been married and divorced ten years before. Yet Mrs. Beck had given the impression that her sister had never married. Bob Beck had said nothing about any husband. He scampered through to the police office in his pyjamas and dialled Mrs. Beck’s number. With any luck she would be back in London and not yet at work.

Mrs. Beck’s sharp voice answered the phone. “This is Police Constable Hamish Macbeth in Lochdubh,” began Hamish.

“Why don’t you stop persecuting me?” said Mrs. Beck. “Haven’t I suffered enough? My husband a double murderer! I’m afraid to face the neighbours.”

“It’s just one wee thing,” said Hamish soothingly. “Your sister was married?”

“That wasn’t a marriage!”

“Well, was she married, or wasn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“Who to? When? Where?”

“Let me see, it would be in nineteen eighty-five. I didn’t go to the wedding. It was in Inverness.”

Hamish said patiently, although he felt like shouting at her, “What was the name of the man she married?”

“It was a Henry Beale. He was a journalist on the Inverness Dotty.”

“And when were they divorced?”

“He filed for divorce two days after the wedding.” Her voice was full of bitter satisfaction. “That’s why I never think of Rosie having been married.”

“Have you an address for him?”

“Wait a bit.”

And so Hamish waited, listening to the far-away sounds of Willesden. The windows must have been open, for he heard traffic passing and children playing. Then she came back on the line. “Number 423, Tipsel Road.”

“Thanks,” said Hamish quickly, after writing down the address. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything else.”

He sat back and studied the address. Going to Inverness would mean precious time taken off his free week. But he could not ignore the fact that Rosie had been married, however briefly. She had managed to drive Bob Beck to murder. It was a long shot, but could this ex still have strong feelings for her, could he have decided she was having an affair with Randy and killed him? It just had to be checked out. Also, there was still the enigma that had been Rosie. Had she really known anything about Randy’s background?

He packed a suitcase, deciding to drive to Inverness and, if there was nothing interesting there, drive on to Glasgow.

He wished it would stop raining. Nothing had had a chance to dry out. The air outside, he noticed as he slung his case into the Land Rover, was muggy and close. His bones ached abominably after the hill run. He felt weary in mind and body. He wished the sun would shine again and this wretched case would be solved. He hesitated for just a moment before climbing into the driving seat. How easy it would be to let it go. Beck had murdered Rosie. Why not let him take the rap for the murder of Duggan? But the murderer was still here, polluting the very air of Lochdubh, and he would never be able to find out who it was unless he found out exactly who Randy Duggan had been.

All the long way down to Inverness he turned over what he knew about the case in his mind. Perhaps the only reason he was really going to Glasgow was in the hope that there would be something in Duggan’s background which meant that the murderer came from outside, that the murderer would not turn out to be someone in the village whom he knew.

Inverness was busier than ever. Where did they all come from? he marvelled, as he left his Land Rover in the multistorey by the bus station. Crowds everywhere, shopping, shopping, shopping, while the dingy seagulls screamed overhead. He walked up the Castle Wynd. The statue of Flora Macdonald still stared out blindly looking for the return of Bonnie Prince Charlie.

The office of the Inverness Daily was to be found up a stone staircase between two shops. It had a small circulation and ran to only two or three pages of mostly local news. A prize sheep, for example, took precedence over any atrocity in Bosnia.

In a large dusty room were two reporters and two typists, hammering away at computers. Hamish asked for Henry Beale, half expecting to be told the man was either dead or had moved on. A typist with her hair gelled into spikes said laconically, “Isnae here. Sheep sales at Lairg.”

Hamish left quickly and weaved his way through the crowds back to where the Land Rover was parked. Now he had a weary wet drive back to Lairg. He took the Stride Pass after leaving Inverness, through Bonar Bridge, and then up through the heathery hills to Lairg.

The annual Lairg sheep sale was a huge event, the biggest sheep sale in Europe, and as he approached he realized with a sinking heart that there would be plenty of police on duty. He remembered he had a crofter friend in Lairg called Iain Seaton. He, Hamish, was officially on holiday and if asked, he could say he was looking for Iain. The air was full of the cries of sheep. There was a hectic air, almost of gambling fever, as each crofter hoped for a good price. A lot of them were dressed in the sort of clothes that people often believed only incomers, trying to be Highland, affected: knee-breeches, lovat socks, brogues, kilt jacket and tall stick. Hamish went into the shed where the bidding was going on and scanned the crowd. He did not know what Beale looked like but Hamish usually found reporters easily recognizable, as reporters, how ever Highland, carried about with them the same raffish air of their counterparts in London. And then he spotted a man at the edge of the ring, staring with weary boredom out of a pair of bloodshot eyes. He had an air of slightly drunken resentment as if he felt he were meant for better things and better places than the Lairg sheep sale. Hamish then spotted other reporter types nearby, but for some reason he could not explain, he felt sure the man with the bloodshot eyes was Henry Beale. He waited patiently until he saw Beale say something to the photographer next to him and then start edging his way out.

Hamish was across the ring from him but he felt sure that Beale would make straight for the bar.

Sure enough, that was where he found him. It was a sort of cafe-cum-bar, selling coffee, tea, beer, whisky, hamburgers and bacon sandwiches.

Hamish saw Beale’s broad tweed back and tapped him on the shoulder. “What d’ye want?” demanded Beale, swinging round. Hamish was not in uniform. “Mr. Beale? I wonder if might hae a word.”

“Oh, aye, but wait till I get a drink or I’ll never get one, not with this crowd.” Beale ordered three whiskies and when he was served poured them into the one glass. Hamish ordered one as well and then they shuffled outside into the soft rain, all the tables being taken. “I never bother to get water in this,” said Beale gloomily. “There’s enough o’ the stuff falling out the sky.”

“I am PC Hamish Macbeth from Lochdubh,” began Hamish.

“So why the plain clothes?”

Hamish thought quickly. “I am assigned to the CID for this case.”

“What case? Someone buggering their sheep?” sneered Beale. He took a gulp of whisky.

“Rosie Draly,” said Hamish quietly.

“You’ve got someone for that,” he said in a low voice, his drunken pugnacity suddenly leaving him.

“Aye, but we’re just tying up the loose ends.”

Beale gazed mournfully out at the milling throng. “You’ve already questioned me,” he said. Of course Strathbane would have questioned him, thought Hamish.

“No one seems to have given us a verra clear picture of what Rosie Draly was really like,” said Hamish. “Could you talk about her for a little?”

He gave a sigh. “Come over to my car,” said Beale. “This rain’s getting to me.”

He led the way across the road to where a rusting old Volvo station wagon stood with a press sign in its window.

He unlocked the doors. Hamish got in the passenger seat.

“So,” said Beale, after climbing carefully in the other side so as not to spill any of his drink, “what can I tell you that havenae told the others?” No use asking him where he had been on the night of the murder. That would have been covered.

“How did you meet her?”

“She was giving a talk to some writers’ circle in Inverness on creative writing. Why do they call fiction creative writing? What’s uncreative writing?”

“Lairg sheep sale?”

“Aye, you could say that.”

Beale took a sip of his drink before saying, “I wanted just a few paragraphs for the paper. We wouldnae normally have touched it but the editor’s wife was a member of the writers’ circle. Rosie talked a load of crud. She went on in Open-University-speak about linear progression. Know what she meant? The plot, man, the bloody plot. I remember thinking, why didn’t the silly bitch say so?”

“Anyway, I was all set to escape at the end when the editor’s wife insisted on introducing us and then left me with her over the tea and buns. She smiled at me and said those magic words, ‘I’ve got a bottle of Scotch back in my hotel room.’”

“So of course I went with her. Well, she filled me up with Scotch and then she said, ‘I want you to marry me.’ I got such a fright I nearly sobered up. I wanted to lie, to say that I was married already, but she went on talking. She said she had good contacts in newspapers in London and could advance my career, she said she had a good income. And so on. And the more she talked, the more I realized how lonely I was. I’d been married before but she’d run off and left me. I drank more and thought Rosie really looked a bit of all right. We didn’t go to bed and I said yes, I’d marry her. And three weeks later and only meeting for a few lunches and dinners, we were married. I don’t think I was sober for a moment. She paid for everything. She’d said a honeymoon wasn’t necessary, she’d just move in with me. After the wedding we’d go and get her stuff from Glasgow. I sobered up all right on the wedding night. She wouldnae let me near her. She said it was too soon. Give her time. When she went to sleep, I got up to see if there was any whisky left. I found a letter to her sister she had been writing and hadn’t finished and it was all about, ‘You thought I couldn’t get married, did you? Well, this is just to let you know…’ That sort of crap. I sat down and had a long thought. I realized the bitch had coerced me into marriage to get even with this sister. I faced her with it next day and she didn’t say anything, just sat and stared at me. I began to get scared of her. I thought she had a slate loose. I said either she make it a proper marriage, that is sleep with me, or get lost, and she said in a prim little voice – I’ll never forget – ‘Then you had better file for a divorce.’”

There was a heavy silence while Beale nursed his glass and stared out at the rain.

Hamish turned the scene over in his mind and then said softly, “So you struck her.”

“How did you know that!”

“What any man in those circumstances would do,” said Hamish, who could not envisage raising his hand to any woman.

“Aye, well I slapped her about a bit and then I got drunk and then I went to see a lawyer. When I got back, she’d gone land so had the letter to her sister.

“From what I gathered from the police, she had in fact married me just to prove something to her sister. Och, women!” He drained his glass, choked and wiped his mouth. He made restless movements as if to leave. Hamish fished in the capacious pocket of his waxed coat and produced a half-bottle of whisky he had had the forethought to buy in Inverness. He unscrewed the top and filled Beale’s glass right up. “Thank you,” said Beale.

“I hope I’m not keeping you from the sheep sale.”

“Och, no. The usual. I find out who got the highest price and then run a wee bit about the other prices. I’ve been doing it for years. That’s where Rosie got me. Money. Promise of security. Someone to warm my slippers in my old age. What was up wi’ her?”

“Her agent thought she might be lesbian, although there is no proof of that at all.”

“God, I wish there were some proof. Know what I mean? I’ve never felt so rejected and humiliated in my life! I could have killed her.”

Another silence. The rain, increasing in force, drummed on thereof of the car.

“Someone murdered Duggan,” said Hamish quietly.

“Here! What d’ye mean? Beck did it.”

“I don’t think so. I think Beck wanted to get even with his wife. He had done the one murder. Why not confess to the other? The police are all too happy to have it all wrapped up. What do you think?”

“I never knew Duggan.” His eyes were sharp. “So you think it was someone else?”

“Aye. Did Rosie ever contact you again? Did she ever hint she might know something about this Duggan?”

“Never heard a word from the bitch and didn’t want to.”

Hamish, seeing he had finished his drink, poured him another, felt obliged to tell him to be sure and sober up before he drove back to Inverness, and then left him. Afterwards, he was to think that the rain must have affected his brain. It did not dawn on him at the time that he had told a reporter that he did not believe that Beck had murdered Duggan.

♦

Blair was summoned to Superintendent Peter Daviot’s office the following morning. Mr. Daviot had a copy of the Inverness Daily spread out on his desk. “Have you seen this?” demanded the superintendent in a thin voice.

“No, sir,” said Blair curiously, wondering what a paper which specialized in stories no less dramatic man ‘Beauty Ferret Bites Housewife’ could contain that should be so upsetting.

“Macbeth has been shooting his mouth off to some reporter called Beale about how he is looking for the murderer of Duggan, how he does not believe that Beck did it. Dammit, isn’t that the very Beale who was married to Rosie Draly? This is sub judice, apart from anything else. Where the hell is the bastard?”

“We gave him a week off.”

“Then get him and bring him back, and I don’t care if it takes every man on the force to do it.”

Blair went out with a solemn face, but once outside began to whistle a jaunty tune. Macbeth was in deep shit. Life was good.

♦

An hour later, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, icily splendid and splendidly null, faced Blair and Anderson and Macnab in the office of the Tommel Castle Hotel. No, she did not have the faintest idea where Hamish Macbeth had gone. No, she could not even guess. Now, they were very busy, so if there was nothing else…? In a fury, Blair crashed around Lochdubh, bullying and threatening. Then he went over to Cnothan to see Sergeant Macgregor. Hamish might have gone to see his stand-in.

Sergeant Macgregor had not seen the Inverness Daily, so when Blair said curdy, “Macbeth is missing. Have you seen him? Any idea where he is?” the sergeant suddenly thought guiltily of that spent rifle bullet lying in his waste-basket. If Macbeth was found dead and that wee boy came forward to tell the police about the rifle bullet he would be in trouble. He eptitiously pulled the waste-paper basket forward with his foot. “It’s funny you should say that,” he said. “I hae something here I was just going to phone you about.” He bent down jerked open the bottom drawer and then scrabbled quickly the waste-paper basket straightening up, holding out the bullet. “A wee boy found this up on Ben Loss where Hamish he was shot at. I would hae reported it right away, but you said Macbeth was making it up.”

Blair stared at that bullet. The policeman in him warred with the man who would have liked to ignore the whole thing.

“What,” he demanded wrathfully, “are you doing handling the thing with your great fat, stupid fingers? Anderson, take it from him and put it in an envelope.”

Jimmy Anderson took out a pair of tweezers and lifted the bullet from Macgregor’s now sweating hand and dropped it into a plastic envelope. “You’ll hear further of this,” said Blair. “Now where’s Macbeth?”

“I don’t know. He just said he was off for a week.”

“I’ll get that bastard,” growled Blair. But no one thought of calling the Glasgow police.

And Hamish could have continued his investigations quietly when he got to Glasgow had not been for the reaction of Peter Daviot when he heard about that rifle bullet. He had just heard of Hamish’s view that Beck did not murder Duggan. He remembered all me times Hamish had been right when all the evidence pointed the other way. Then Hamish was missing and there was that bullet.

He shuddered to think of the scandal if Hamish Macbeth were found dead. An official photograph of Hamish was dug out of the files and issued to the press. An all-stations alert was put out. They could not rouse Hamish on his radio, for he had switched it off.

♦

Hamish, however, had his car radio tuned into a pop-music station and was whistling along to it as he approached the outskirts of Glasgow. Then the music died away and a serious announcer’s voice said, ‘We interrupt this broadcast for a special announcement’. In a sweat, Hamish listened to the voice which went on to say that Constable Hamish Macbeth was to report to the nearest police station. He pulled into a garage by the side of the road and sat staring miserably through the windscreen. He remembered what he had said to Beale, a reporter, of all people. It was too good a story for Beale to ignore. And then he turned and looked out at the rack of newspapers outside the garage. No photograph of himself stared out from the pages; but he climbed out and bought a copy of the Daily Record. There it was in the stop press. ‘Highland cop who believes Beck currently under arrest for the murder of Randy Duggan did not do it has gone missing. All-stations alert.’

There would be a photograph of him in the papers the next day, he was sure of it. It was a miracle his conspicuous police Land Rover had not been spotted.

He drove to Bearsden on the outskirts of Glasgow, a wealthy suburb, and drove to a trim bungalow owned by some cousin, so distant on the Macbeth family tree, a mere twig, that he had not seen her in years. Her name was Josie Sinclair. To his delight he saw a wooden garage at the end of the small drive next to the bungalow. It was empty. Without checking at the house first, he drove the police Land Rover straight into it, lifted out his suitcase, walked out and closed the garage doors behind him.

A dog barked sharply from within the house, Josie appealed at the back-door, shouting, “Who’s there?”

“It’s me, Hamish.” He strolled forward, carrying his suitcase.

Josie was a small, dark-haired woman with a chinless face and prominent nose.

“Heavens,” she said. “Hamish! I’ve just been hearing about you on the radio. But come in. Tell me what on earth is happening.”

Hamish followed her into the bungalow. He felt suddenly weary. He wondered whether to start to tell a series of whopping lies, but one look at Josie’s worried honest eyes made him settle for the truth. “Sit down, Josie,” he said. “It’s a long story.”

Josie listened while he outlined the murders of Duggan and Rosie and then explained what he was doing in Glasgow.

She listened carefully without comment, but when he had finished, she said, “My son, Callum, is away in the Gulf, so you can have his room.” Hamish remembered suddenly her husband had died three years before. “There’s only one thing. Even if you find the real murderer, or anything leading to who the right murderer might be, you’re not going to have a job to go back to.”

“I’ll take that risk. Look, Josie, I think there might be a picture of me in the papers tomorrow. I’ll need to change my appearance.”

“I’ll do my best for you, Hamish. I’ll always do my best for the family. But you’ll need to keep me out of it.”

“I promise, Josie.”

“So how are you going to get about? You can’t drive that police thing.”

“I’ll think o’ something.”

“I’ve still got my poor Johnny’s driving license. You could use that to rent a car. If you’re caught, you must say you broke in here and stole it.”

“You’re a brick, Josie.”

She gave a reluctant laugh. “I’m a daft fool. Well, let’s get started after we have a cup of tea. It’s a good thing for you that I dye my hair. The first thing to do is to get rid of that red hair of yours.”

♦

By late afternoon, Hamish had short black hair, a black moustache made from cuttings of his own hair, and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses. Wearing one of the late Johnny Sinclair’s business suits and in possession of a hired car, he drove into Glasgow. He parked the car and went to a phone box and called an old friend of his, Detective Sergeant Bill Walton.

“Don’t say my name,” said Hamish when Bill came on the phone. “Don’t shop me, Bill, I need to see you.”

“I’m off duty in half an hour,” said Bill in his usual flat voice. Bill, Hamish remembered, never seemed to be surprised at anything. “You’d best come round to my flat. It’s in Bath Street, next to that new hotel.” He gave Hamish the address.

Hamish left the car where it was and then slowly walked to Bath Street. He stood in a doorway opposite Bill’s flat. His heart sank when a police car screamed up, seemingly full of policemen. But only Bill got out and the car drove off. Still Hamish waited until he saw Bill go upstairs.

After a few more cautious moments, he crossed the road and rang the bell. The door buzzer went and he let himself in and climbed the stairs. Bill was waiting at the top.

“You look like a bank clerk on a bad day,” he commented. “It is yourself, is it not?”

“Aye,” said Hamish.

He followed Bill into a dark and dingy flat Bill switched on a two-bar electric heater in the grate and pulled the curtains closed and then switched on the light. Landlord’s furniture, thought Hamish, looking round the dismal living-room, but no sign of any woman. Good. Just Bill.

Bill Walton was a tall middle-aged man with a face like Buster Keaton. “So you’re on the run, are you, Hamish? And in disguise? You’d best have a dram and tell me all about it before I send for the wee men in the white coats.”

So for the second time that day, Hamish talked and talked about the murder cases while Bill listened patiently.

“I’ve never doubted your intelligence before, Hamish,” said Bill when Hamish had finished. “But, man, what were you about to tell a reporter all about it?”

“I don’t know,” said Hamish miserably. “It must have been the damn rain.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know. You don’t live in the Highlands,” said Hamish obscurely.

“So I’m supposed to turn you in and if I’m found out helping you in this, I’ll lose my job and I haven’t long to go before retirement. But a lot of what you’ve said makes sense, don’t ask me why. This Randy had plastic surgery. How can you pick his face out o’ the rogues’ gallery when the experts couldn’t?”

“I’ll bet they werenae looking hard enough and dropped the whole thing when Beck confessed,” said Hamish. He added shrewdly, “And I’ll bet Blair managed to put up so many backs in Glasgow that they didnae really bother.”

“Dreadful pillock, that man, Blair. I remember when he was a copper down here. Yes, you’re right, he did put backs up. You know how it goes. We don’t like being bossed around by another force, and a Highland one at that.”

“So is there any way I could get a look at the rogues’ gallery?”

“Looking like you do, no one would recognize you. I can just march you into the station. But what rogues’ gallery do you want to look into? Murderers, muggers, rapists? What?”

“If it were a revenge killing,” said Hamish slowly, “then there would be money involved, possibly a lot of money.”

“So you’re looking for a big-time robbery?”

“Something like that.”

“I’ve got a date tonight,” said Bill and then blushed.

“I neffer thought of you as a ladies’ man.”

“I’m not. This is someone special. You’re in for a late night. Off with you now and meet me at headquarters at one in the morning. It’ll be real quiet men. People are always looking through photos. I’ll meet you outside and take you in.”

“Thanks, Bill. I’ll never forget this.”

“I’ve a feeling I won’t either. Now remember, if you’re caught, I didn’t know who you were. You tricked me.”

“I promise.”

“Okay. See you later.”

Hamish went out into the evening. He did not want to go back out to Bearsden. He phoned Josie from a call-box and told her not to expect him back that night. He then went to a cinema. He was never quite sure afterwards what the film was that he saw. The enormity of what he had done was seizing up his brain. Why on earth had he not believed Beck? Why had he not gone to Strathbane with his doubts? Why had he assumed they would take Beck’s word for it without checking thoroughly?

Away from his native Highlands and here in this vast, bustling city full of uncaring people, he felt like the Highland idiot people often thought he was. He could not seem to think clearly any more.

He had a dismal meal in an all-night cafe, and then went back to the car-park and sat and waited for one in the morning. He nearly fell asleep but jerked himself fully awake and glanced at the clock on the dashboard. Ten to one.

He hurried out of the car-park and raced round to police headquarters. Bill was standing outside, waiting impatiently. “Come on,” he snapped. “I’m beginning to regret this.”

He led the way upstairs after signing Hamish in as Mr. Sinclair. He put Hamish in a bleak cubby-hole of a room and said sternly, “Wait here.” So Hamish waited, listening to the night-time sounds of the city, trying to clear his brain, which was becoming even more fogged with anxiety. After some time, Bill came back carrying heavy books of photographs. “You can start with these,” he said curtly. All his previous friendliness had gone. Bill was obviously regretting his decision to help Hamish.

Hamish took off the glasses and blinked for a moment myopically to get his own very good eyesight back into focus. He began studying the faces in the books while a white-faced clock on the wall ticked away the minutes and then the hours. What would Randy have changed about his features? Nose? Chin? Hairline? He wouldn’t have had plastic surgery for beauty, that was for sure, but simply to hide his identity. At six in the morning. Bill came in and thumped a cup of coffee in front of Hamish. “Going to be much longer?” he asked curtly.

Hamish sighed and ran his thin fingers through his short dyed hair. His brain suddenly seemed to clear up. He tapped the books. “Which of these villains has been involved in major robbery? Or, look, let me put it another way. Let’s go for the big time. What was the biggest robbery of cash in Glasgow in recent years?”

Bill sat down, suddenly curious. “I suppose you mean unsolved robbery. Well, let me see, there was the break-in at the Celtic Bank. No, wait a bit, we got someone for that I know, nineteen eighty-nine. Another bank.”

“The Scottish and General?” asked Hamish, suddenly remembering John Glover.

“No, it was the Clyde and South-Western Bank. The head office in Hope Street.”

“What happened?”

“They hijacked the manager from his home. One man stayed behind with a gun held at his wife and children. Manager did what they said. Opened up the bank. Opened up the safe. Got away with over two millions pounds.”

Hamish fingered the books eagerly. “Who was suspected?”

“There’s a villain we’ve only heard about from our underworld contacts. Known as Gentleman Jim. Supposed to have been the brains behind it. We pulled in several of the usual low life who might have done this but couldn’t crack any of them. This Gentleman Jim seems to run a reign of terror. But unlike the Kray brothers, no one on the force knows who he is. Villains get drunk, villains brag, but no one will give us a murmur about him.”

“So who did you pull in to question on this robbery?”

Bill pulled forward the books and began to skim through them. “Usual lot. All of them with alibis. Where are they?”

“Holding a gun on a woman and kids,” mused Hamish. “Who have you got that would be nasty enough for that?”

“I’ll scribble you a list of names and leave you to it. But one hour more, Hamish, and that’s your lot.”

Hamish stared at the list of names and then the books. Forget about what Randy had looked like when he knew him. Think of really bad villains. His brain now very sharp and clear, he opened the books again. The door opened. Bill came in and put a photo of Randy on the desk. “You might need that,” he said.

Hamish looked at the photograph. It was not one made up from the cleaned-up corpse of Randy. It had been taken by someone of a group standing in the Lochdubh bar. It was a good clear shot of Randy. He couldn’t have known the photograph was being taken, for he was not looking at the camera but talking to a group of locals, including Andy MacTavish and Archie Maclean. For once he wasn’t wearing his ridiculous slatted glasses and his hat was tilted back on his head.

Keeping the photograph beside him, Hamish studied the list of names again and began to find photographs in the books to match them.

His eyes kept returning to one photograph. It was of a thin-faced man with short straight hair. His very shoulders were thin. He had had previous convictions for armed robbery and inflicting grievous bodily harm. His name was Charlie Stoddart. But there was something about that face, about the arrogant, malicious gleam in the eyes that the camera had caught.

He looked from the photo in the file to the one of Randy beside him on the desk. What if Randy had gone in for bodybuilding as well as plastic surgery? What if he had become a big heavy-set, powerful man?

He became aware that Bill was standing in the doorway, watching him curiously. “Got anything?”

“Come and have a look at this,” said Hamish.

Bin walked forward and peered over his shoulder. “That’s never Duggan!”

“There’s something about it,” said Hamish. “Same way of looking. Think, man. He could have gone in for body-building or taken steroids. Then the plastic surgery. Is he currently under arrest?”

“No, I remember we pulled him in for questioning over that bank robbery, but he had an alibi and we had to let him go.”

“Can you get me his last known address?”

“Sure.”

Bill left and Hamish waited impatiently. When Bill returned, Hamish seized the address.

“I should keep clear of you,” said Bill, “but I’m off duty and I’ll go with you. But if anyone recognizes you, I’ll swear I didn’t know it was you.”

“All right,” said Hamish with a grin. “Let’s see if we can find Charlie Stoddart.”

♦

The rain continued to fall in the Highlands, dampening the souls of the inhabitants of Lochdubh, causing general depression, which meant that the staff of the Tommel Castle Hotel kept falling ‘sick,’ with the usual Highland-excuse ailments of bad backs and viruses.

John Glover and Betty John would be leaving the following morning. Priscilla, who was manning the reception desk, had said she would have their bill ready for them before they left. John had issued no more invitations to lunch or dinner and Priscilla was glad of that. She had taken a hearty dislike to the couple. She gave a little start when she realized both were standing before her. “I see your Hamish has his photo in the newspapers this morning,” said John. “It says he’s gone missing. Know where he is?”

“Not a clue,” said Priscilla.

“Do you believe someone really shot at him at the Cnothan games?” asked Betty.

Priscilla gave her a long cool look. “Yes, I do. Hamish is never mistaken in things like that.”

“Someone in the village said he had been told to take a week off because they thought he was suffering from stress,” said John.

“He suspected that Randy Duggan had not been killed by Beck,” remarked Priscilla, “so I think Strathbane wanted him out of the road.”

“Well, let’s hope he’s all right,” said Betty, taking John’s arm in her own. “The bar’s open. Let’s have a drink.” Priscilla watched them as they walked away. She had thought her dislike of them was because of Betty’s fling with Hamish, but now she decided she did not like either of them I just because of the way they were. There was a cockiness I about them, an insolence, and she began to wonder if John had briefly courted her as some sort of joke.

♦

Willie Lamont ran home from the restaurant and waved a newspaper in front of Lucia. “Do you see this? Hamish has I gone missing.”

“Let’s hope he stays missing,” she said coldly. “He was causing a lot of trouble with his stupid suspicions.”

“But he could be dead!” wailed Willie. “He could have driven over a cliff.”

Lucia gave a little curved smile. “Good,” she said, and tossed the paper away.

♦

Annie Ferguson was serving tea to Geordie Mackenzie. Annie had made one of her rare visits to the Lochdubh bar the night before. It had been nearly empty, as the fishing boats were out and the forestry workers were all at Andy MacTavish’s birthday party. But Geordie had been there and she had issued the invitation to tea.

“I cannot understand this business about our Hamish going missing,” said Geordie primly. “It bothers me. Look at it this way. Hamish goes around saying Duggan was not killed by Beck, Hamish gets shot at, and then no one can find him.”

“Och, our Hamish is a bit o’ a drama queen,” said Annie. “He says he was shot at but we’ve only his word for it. Take it from me, Geordie, that man is sulking because he won’t admit he was wrong about Randy’s murder. Forget about him. Hamish Macbeth has a slate missing, if you ask me. Have another scone.”