∨ Death of a Nag ∧
7
I fled, and cried out, Death;
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sigh’d
From all her caves, and back resounded, Death.
—John Milton
Lochdubh, again. Shafts of sun slanting down from the stormy heavens on the black waters of the loch. Fishing boats swinging at anchor. Clothes flapping and flying on clothes-lines like the loose sails of a distressed square-rigger.
Maggie, climbing out of the car at the police station, bent against the force of the warm Atlantic gale and followed Hamish into the kitchen. She had to sit and wait while Hamish lit the stove and checked on his livestock. He popped his head around the kitchen door and said, “Why don’t you run along to the manse and find out if you can get a bed in case we have to stay overnight?”
She hesitated. She was supposed to listen in to whoever it was he meant to phone. As if reading her thoughts, Hamish said amiably, “I’ve got my chores to do. I won’t be settling down to police work for about an hour.”
Maggie went off. Hamish grinned and went through to the police office. He took the list of names and addresses Maggie had given him. He phoned up his cousin, Rory Grant, a newspaper reporter in London, and after the pleasantries were over, he said, “I’m in another murder case, Rory. The one in Skag. Heard about it?”
“Where the man got biffed on the head and pushed into the sea?”
“That one. Not the sea, though, the river. Anyway, if I give you the names and addresses of the suspects, can you see if there’s anything on the files about them?”
“It’s a dreary, parochial murder, Hamish. I mean, what’s in it for me?”
“First crack at it if I find the murderer.”
“Not interested.”
“I was thinking of going down to Glasgow as part o’ my research. Might call on your mother and tell her how you’re getting on.”
“You wouldn’t!” Rory knew Hamish was referring to his dissipated life of night-clubbing and womanizing.
“She’ll be that anxious for news of you.”
“All right, you blackmailing pillock. Let’s have them.”
Hamish read out the list of names and addresses. Having finished with Rory, he stared at the phone and at the addresses, phoned the police station in Cheltenham and asked them for the name of an expensive boys’ school on the outskirts where the fees were high and the academic qualifications of its pupils low. They came up with the name and phone number of St Charles.
He telephoned the school and asked to speak to the headmaster, a Mr Partridge, who said testily he had already been interviewed by the police and had nothing more to add. Miss Gunnery had worked for them for several years as a quiet and efficient teacher. Her decision to take early retirement had certainly come as a surprise. Yes, she had lived in the school and had now, he believed, a flat in Montpelier Street.
That unsatisfactory call being over, Hamish then phoned a fourth cousin who worked at a garden centre in the Cotswolds and despatched him into Evesham to find out what he could about the Harrises. Hamish could have phoned the Evesham police, but Deacon would already have done that, and he knew his Highland relatives were better at digging up useful gossip than any policeman. The Bretts, or rather June and Dermott, lived in Hammersmith. With any luck, Rory might find something out about them. His pen hovered over the name of Dermott’s real wife, Alice.
He sat back, his brow furrowed in thought. Now there was an unknown quantity. Would it be too far-fetched to assume that Harris had actually written to the wife, that she knew about her husband’s double life before the murder? Had she come up before the murder, found Harris and knocked him on the head in a fit of rage? Married people could well turn savagely against the bearer of bad news. There was an address in Grays, Essex.
Rory had once introduced him to a newspaper stringer from Chelmsford in Essex. He fished in his desk and took out a large notebook. Hamish logged every name and address and phone number of anyone who might be useful that he met on his travels. Here it was. Harry Dixon. He phoned up and having got Dixon on the phone, outlined the case and asked if it would be possible to find out anything about the recent movements of Alice Brett. Dixon at first protested that he was getting old and didn’t like working for nothing, and the inside story of a murder in the north of Scotland would hardly earn him anything. But Hamish said that he would see Rory’s newspaper sent some work his way and so Dixon said he would do it.
Andrew Biggar had an address in Worcester. Hamish got out a road atlas and traced the road from Evesham to Worcester. Sixteen miles. Not far. Could Andrew and Doris possibly have met before? How irritating to be so far away. He telephoned the editor of a newspaper in Worcester and asked him to check up on the files and see if Andrew’s name came up. Tracey and Cheryl, he would leave to the police. Their criminal young lives were well-documented on police files and probation reports.
♦
Maggie did not go to the manse. She decided she would rather pay for bed and breakfast than be beholden to the rather terrifying minister’s wife. She saw a white board advertising bed and breakfast outside a cottage near the harbour and went and knocked at the door. It was opened by Mrs Maclean, Archie the fisherman’s wife.
“Have you a room for a night?” asked Maggie. “I’m – ”
“I know fine who you are,” said Mrs Maclean. “You’re thon policewoman. I’m right glad to see Hamish is showing some sign o’ decency at last. Come in. I’ll show it to you.”
Maggie walked in through a kitchen filled with steam which came from a large copper pan full of boiling sheets on a stove in the corner. The air was full of the smell of bleach and washing soda. She was led upstairs and Mrs Maclean pushed open a low bedroom door. Maggie was small for a policewoman, but she instinctively ducked her head as she entered the room. It contained a narrow bed with glittering white sheets and a fluffy white coverlet. There was a wash-hand basin and a basket chair and a narrow wardrobe.
“How much?” asked Maggie.
“Ten pounds.”
“Very well. I’ll take it. Of course, we may finish our work today.”
Mrs Maclean folded her red arms across her pinafore. “It must be a firm arrangement,” she said.
Maggie wanted to say she would look elsewhere, but had a feeling that in this close-knit village, word of her refusal to stay at Mrs Maclean’s would spread like lightning and no one would want to put her up. And she was billing the police for her accommodation anyway.
“Very well,” she said, “I’ll go and get my overnight bag.”
“If ye have anything ye need washed, jist give it tae me. I aye wash the folks’ clothes that stay here.”
The few clothes in Maggie’s bag were clean but she was impressed by this offer of village laundry. It would be nice to have everything thoroughly cleaned and pressed. She had put in one pretty dress in the hope that she and Hamish could go out for dinner somewhere. She was not particularly attracted to Hamish Macbeth, but he was a man and the only way she knew how to deal with the opposite sex was to try to get them sexually interested in her.
She got her bag from the car and returned to Mrs Maclean’s with it and then returned to the police station. There was no sign of Hamish. She walked up the back of the police station and saw Hamish silhouetted against the windy sky. He was standing looking down on Towser’s grave.
Maggie retreated back to the police station, feeling as if she had been conned. This was a useless journey. Deacon had overestimated Hamish’s abilities. He was just one mad copper who had dragged her all the way here so that he could stand by his dog’s graveside and mourn. She looked in the kitchen cupboards and the fridge. No food.
Then she remembered seeing an Italian restaurant as she had driven along the waterfront. She made her way there. It was quite full but a slim man with neat features showed her to a corner table and then spent an inordinate time washing and scrubbing the checked plastic tablecloth before handing her a menu. She ordered lasagna and a green salad and a glass of wine. To her surprise, the waiter stared down at her accusingly. “You’ll just be having the one glass of wine, I hope.”
“I’ll drink a whole bottle if I feel like it,” retorted Maggie.
“My name is Willie Lament.”
“So?” Another inbred local, thought Maggie.
“I was in the force myself afore I entered the restaurant trade,” said Willie severely, “and there is one thing I cannae stand and that’s a policeman who drinks, and a policewoman is even worse.”
Maggie bridled. “One glass of wine is hardly over the limit. Now can you forget you ever were a policeman? Because I am hungry. Hop to it.”
Willie gave a last polish to the table and left. When Maggie’s meal arrived, it was served not by Willie but a stunning-looking woman who could have doubled for Gina Lollobrigida in her hey-day. “My husband has been telling me that you are with the force,” she said.
“Yes,” said Maggie curtly. Lucia, Willie’s Italian wife, leaned a curved hip against the table. “I am pregnant,” she said.
Maggie blinked. “Congratulations.”
“I know it will be a boy,” said Lucia dreamily, “and we will name it Hamish.”
“After Macbeth, I suppose?”
“Yes, it is a nice name…Hamish. So sad about his poor dog.”
“Very sad,” agreed Maggie, longing to be left in peace to eat. She raised the glass of wine to her lips and lowered it when Lucia said severely, “Willie tells me you drink a lot.”
Maggie put the glass down with a firm little click. “Look here, I ordered one glass of wine. One! I am also very hungry. Do you mind leaving me alone to enjoy my meal?”
Lucia looked at her sadly. “Poor Hamish,” she said. “He never finds the right one. Me, I do not think that Priscilla was right for him, but she is kind, and you are not.” Lucia had a soft voice, but none the less it carried around the restaurant. The locals listened avidly. Lucia swayed off and Maggie bent her flaming face over her food. She ate and drank very quickly, calculated the price of the meal, left the money on the table and walked out, glad to escape from the hard stares of the other diners.
When she returned to the police station, she could hear the murmur of Hamish’s voice from the office. She tried the handle of the door and found it was locked. Baffled, she retreated to the kitchen.
After some time Hamish emerged from the office. “I thought I was to help you with this case,” said Maggie. “Did you lock the door of your office so that I would not hear what you were doing?”
“Och, no,” said Hamish easily. “I do it in case some of the locals chust walk in, which they have a habit of doing.”
“Have you found out anything?” asked Maggie.
“I’ve put in a few calls,” said Hamish. “Now all I have to do is wait for the replies. There is one thing I did not ask Dermott.”
“Which is?”
“He told me that he did not know the boarding-house was under new management. There’s something verra wrong there. I spoke to the surviving Miss Blane, one of the two that used to own the place. Now she told me that Dermott was well aware they were selling the place. That Dermott had had such an unpleasant experience with Harris the year before, and the Misses Blane had given him a lecture on ‘living in sin’ with June. So why come back at all? Unless it was because he knew the boarding-house was under new management and it was cheap and that he did not expect to see Harris again. But what if he knew Harris was going to be there? I wonder if Dermott and Harris met at any time in the intervening year. They’re both commercial travellers. There’s another thing I’ve been wondering about. Tell me about Fred Allsopp.”
“The barman?”
“Aye, him. Harris was in the pub the day he was killed and getting drunk. Did he meet anyone, quarrel with anyone?”
Maggie shook her head. “Fred said Harris was drinking whisky, quite a lot of whisky. He tried to get into conversation with some of the locals but they avoided him.”
Hamish shrugged impatiently. “I have a feeling so many of the suspects are lying and probably for no reason at all. I haff found when the police are around that folks will lie almost automatically. Then there’s something else. I wonder if Heather really saw Doris where she said she did, or if someone put her up to it, but that someone would be her mother or father, and why should they want to protect Doris?”
“Unless Dermott did it and didn’t want Doris to be blamed,” said Maggie.
“The day I meet a kind and thoughtful murderer, I’ll eat my hat,” said Hamish. “Have you eaten?”
“I went to that Italian restaurant and got served by a cheeky sod called Willie Lament who lectured me on the evils of drink.”
“Aye, that’s Willie. He gets bossier and bossier and the portions are getting a bit small, but there’s nowhere else to eat for miles unless it’s the Tommel Castle Hotel, and that’s pricey.”
“Does Willie own the place?”
“No, it’s owned by a relative of Lucia’s. He’s been away in Italy. He’ll be back soon, which means the food will be back to normal. I might be here until tomorrow. You’d best find a place to stay. Mrs Wellington would put you up.”
“I’m staying at a Mrs Maclean’s.”
Hamish’s eyes glinted with amusement. “It’s hygienic, I’ll say that for it.”
The phone shrilled from the office and he went to answer it. It was from his relative in the Cotswolds. He said that he had checked on the Harrises in Evesham and had found pretty much what Hamish had expected – Doris was well liked and respected by the neighbours and Bob Harris had been detested by all. “But,” added the soft Highland voice on the end of the line, “a Mrs Innes who lives next door and who is friendly wi’ Doris, well, herself said that Doris did not want to go back to Skag, she hadn’t enjoyed it; but she said as how her man was up tae something.”
“Meaning Harris was up to something?” asked Hamish.
“Aye, chust so. This Doris had tried tae make a stand and say as how she wouldnae go back and Harris shouted at her and said he had his reasons.”
“Oho! Anything else?”
“That iss it so far. I’ll keep in touch.”
Hamish thanked him and rang off.
As soon as he returned to the kitchen, Maggie asked him sharply who had been on the phone. Hamish felt a stab of irritation. This was a Watson he did not want.
Still, what was the harm in her knowing, apart from the fact that he did not like her very much.
“That was a contact in Evesham,” he said. He told her what he had found out.
“This is interesting,” said Maggie. “It looks as if Harris might have found out the Bretts were going and meant to be there to torment them.”
“If this was a detective story,” said Hamish gloomily, “the least likely person would be the murderer, either Miss Gunnery or Andrew Biggar. But in real life it’s always the obvious, and the obvious is either Doris or Dermott. Doris must have hated her husband, years of abuse building up in her, and Dermott admits he was terrified of his wife finding out. Ah, well, I’ll need to wait in for any more calls. Why don’t you take a walk around the village?”
“I am here on duty,” said Maggie, “and I have seen all of this village that I want to see.”
“Suit yourself,” said Hamish. He went back into the office and firmly closed the door.
Maggie stifled a yawn of boredom.
The phone in the office rang again. She half got to her feet and then sat down angrily again. It was Hamish’s job to tell her what he had found out.
Hamish picked up the phone and heard the cheery voice of Mr Johnson, the manager of the Tommel Castle Hotel. “I heard you were back,” said Mr Johnson. “How’s things?”
“I’m working on this murder over at Skag,” said Hamish, “but I’m here so that I can use my own phone. Heard from Priscilla?”
“Not for some time. She’s still down south. At first she phoned almost every day, but, och, Hamish, there’s nothing for her to worry about. Between you and me, it’s easier to run the place without herself around. She worries so damn much. Coming up for a visit?”
“I can’t. I’m waiting for people to return calls and I’ve got a WPC wi’ me, checking on everything I do.”
“Bring her up for dinner tonight. I’ll give you both a meal on the house. The colonel and missis are away, so I’ve got the run o’ the place to myself. All the Halburton-Smythes are a pain in the neck, if you ask me.”
“Priscilla’s all right,” said Hamish defensively.
“Oh, aye, but I sometimes think that lassie makes work. See you the night?”
“I’ll bring my minder with me,” said Hamish. “Can’t verra well leave her behind.”
“Is she pretty?”
“So-so.”
“Give you a bit o’ light relief.”
“Not this one. She’s staying at Archie’s.”
“My, my. She’ll be scrubbed to death. Come around eight if you’re free.”
Hamish was reluctant to return to Maggie. He had letters to write to various far-flung relatives and so he settled down to the task.
The day wore on. The phone stayed silent. Then, about four in the afternoon, it shrilled into life again. It was the stranger, Harry Dixon, from Essex.
“Alice Brett works as a legal secretary. I had to follow her up to Lincoln’s Inn Fields. I’m billing you for the petrol. Before I went, I talked to the neighbours. Listen to this. A week before the murder, she got a letter and she told her friend and neighbour, Mrs Dibb, that she was going to Scotland because her husband had been cheating on her. I saw her in her office. She said Mrs Dibb was talking rubbish and that she received no letter and knew nothing about it until she saw Dermott’s name in the papers. Went back to Mrs Dibb, who must have had a phone call from our Alice in the intervening time, for she shrieked at me that she had said nothing about any letter and slammed the door in my face.”
“Good work,” said Hamish. “I’ll get the police on to her.”
“I thought you were the police.”
“I am, I meant the southern police,” said Hamish, feeling caught out because he sometimes thought of the police as them, as if he himself were on the other side of the law.
Having a shrewd idea that if he told Maggie she might phone Deacon and claim the result as her own, he phoned Deacon himself and related what he had found out.
“I should be pleased wi’ you,” said Deacon sourly, “but all this means is yet another suspect. Anyway, you’re doing fine. We’ll get after Alice Brett.”
“This should work both ways,” said Hamish, “Phone me with anything you’ve got on Alice Brett. And I’ll be getting a petrol bill from my contact in Essex. I’ll pass it on to you.”
“Right. Can I hae a word wi’ Maggie?”
Hamish fetched her. In retaliation to Hamish’s behaviour, Maggie shut the door of the office on him.
She was annoyed to find out that there was nothing new she could tell Deacon, Hamish having told him more than she knew. “Can’t see much point in me being in this dead-alive place,” said Maggie.
“You just help Macbeth,” said Deacon sharply. “That’s what you’re there for.”
The phone rang almost as soon as she had put it down. She picked it up quickly. “Hamish?” demanded a voice. Maggie was just beginning to say, “This is WPC Donald. I will take any messages for PC Macbeth – ”, when Hamish strode in and snatched the phone from her. “Hello, Rory,” she heard him say. Maggie sat down in a chair in the office, determined to hear this call. What Rory was actually reporting was that he had found nothing on the files about any of the suspects, but all Maggie could hear from her end was Hamish’s grunts of disappointment. Hamish replaced the receiver and said to Maggie, “What about a cup of coffee?”
“You’re as bad as the rest of them,” said Maggie, slamming out.
The phone rang again. It was the editor of the newspaper in Worcester. He said he had found a few cuttings on Andrew Biggar; he had judged a dog show last year, ridden in one of the local point-to-points, lived with his mother in a large house outside Worcester on the Wyre Piddle road; nothing else.
Hamish thanked him, rang off and stared in frustration at the phone.
He went back into the kitchen. Maggie was looking depressed. “Forget the coffee,” he said abruptly. “We’ll go and call on Angela, the doctor’s wife, instead. Get you out a bit. And I’m taking you for dinner to the Tommel Castle Hotel tonight.”
Her face lit up. “Oh, Hamish, how kind! That will cost you a lot.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said grandly, having no intention of telling her that the meal was to be free.
Feeling suddenly pleased with him, Maggie followed him out and they walked towards the doctor’s house, leaning against the screaming wind. Waves curled and smashed down on the pebbles of the beach. A plastic dustbin rolled crazily past them. Children ran before the wind on the beach, screaming like seagulls. Hamish and Maggie walked round the side of the doctor’s house and Hamish knocked at the kitchen door.
Angela answered it and invited them in. Maggie looked curiously around the kitchen. Books everywhere: on the kitchen table, on the chairs and on the floor. Two cats promenaded lazily across the books on the table and two dogs snored under it.
“Clear a space for yourselves, Hamish,” said Angela. “You know the drill in this house.”
While she prepared a jug of coffee, Angela said over one thin shoulder, “So how’s the case going, Hamish, and why here and not in Skag?”
“I wanted the use of my own office,” said Hamish. “How’s life in the village?”
“Much the same. No dramas. Jessie Currie has gone back to being an ordinary lady. Whatever Angus told her seemed to do the trick, although she looked quite sad for a few days. There’s a cake sale up at the church hall tomorrow and I tried my best, but my cakes never rise. We’ve had various visitors looking at the Lochdubh Hotel.” She turned round and said to Maggie, “It’s been up for sale for some time. But they always go away again. There was even a consortium of Japanese business men, but the minute they saw the hills and mountains and found there was no way of attaching a golf course to it, they left again. Oh, yes, there was a drama last week. Didn’t you hear about it at the manse?” Hamish shook his head. “There were plans to make it into a sort of approved school for young offenders. I think everyone in the village wrote to their MP to protest.”
“It is a fine building and right on the harbour,” said Hamish. “You would think someone would want it.”
“If the Tommel Castle Hotel had not come into being, then someone might have bought it, but no one wants to start up in an area where there’s such a powerful rival.”
“Any sign of the colonel turning it back into his family home?” asked Hamish. “He must be as rich as anything now.”
“He got such a fright when he went broke last time,” said Angela, setting a jug of coffee on top of a pile of books on the table. “He won’t contemplate it. Johnson’s a good manager.” She poured two mugs of coffee. “Heard from Priscilla?” asked Angela.
“No,” said Hamish curtly, his face set.
“Oh, well,” said Angela quickly, “tell me about this case.”
Maggie listened carefully as Hamish succinctly outlined the facts of the murder case and described the suspects.
Angela sat down with them as Hamish talked. “Well,” she said when he had finished, “you’ll probably find it’s this Dermott Brett.”
Hamish thought of Dermott and June and the children. “I don’t want it to be,” he commented. “What about Dermott’s wife, Alice?”
Angela frowned and pushed a wisp of hair out of her eyes. “I’d like to know a bit more about her,” she said. “I mean, a legal secretary doesn’t actually sound like the hysterical type, but this Dermott obviously loves his June and yet was frightened to ask for a divorce in case his wife topped herself.”
“I wish I could be in about five places at once,” said Hamish. “This business of Andrew Biggar and Doris bothers me. Evesham and Worcester are not that far apart. Do you believe in love at first sight, Maggie?”
Maggie, having never been in love, shook her head.
“And yet I sometimes think there was something between them afore they met up. Andrew Biggar lives in a big house outside Worcester, he apparently leads the life of a gentleman, and yet he comes to a low-class boarding-house in an inferior Scottish resort for a holiday. Damn. I’d like to get down there and question people.”
“Or it could be Miss Gunnery,” said Angela. Hamish looked at her in surprise. “Why?”
“By saying she had slept with you, she gave herself a cast-iron alibi and she does not sound like a stupid woman.”
“But there’s nothing about her to suggest the murderess,” said Hamish, exasperated. “A blameless schoolteacher who appears to have led a blameless life.”
Angela sighed. “None of us has led a blameless life, Hamish. We all have some sort of skeleton in the closet. But then you might find out it’s this Cheryl and Tracey; have you thought of that?”
“I haven’t really considered them. Their nasty young lives are so well documented, what with prison records and probation records.”
“But,” said Angela eagerly, “that’s just it. You’ve been concentrating on a lot of respectable people trying to find a murderer. But here you have two young girls with criminal records and one of them has been found guilty of violence. You say they were overheard saying they would like to kill someone for kicks. It might be as simple as that. You are looking for someone with the sort of character that would kill. Cheryl and Tracey fit the bill.”
“They’re awfy young,” said Hamish.
“But very young children commit dreadful murders these days,” put in Maggie, who was beginning to feel she had been forgotten.
“I’ll check up on them myself,” said Hamish. “I hae a lot o’ contacts in Glasgow.”
“The way I see it,” said Angela dreamily, “is that it was a murder of savage impulse, no poisoning or shooting or stabbing, just a sudden blow to the head. Whoever it was may not even have contemplated murder. Just bashed the horrible Harris on the head in a fit of rage. Harris tips over into the river and the assailant rushes off without waiting to see the result of the blow. It was death by drowning, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Hamish slowly.
“So we get back to the respectable section of the boarding-house party,” said Angela eagerly. “Instead of looking for a murderer, look for someone who might just be capable of a fit of rage. Oh, and there’s something else.”
Maggie looked at the doctor’s wife in irritation. It should have been she, Maggie, who should have been enthralling Hamish Macbeth with her speculations.
“What else?” asked Hamish.
“Harris seemed to like having things on people, like tormenting Dermott. And what if Harris knew about the bad food from the old folks’ home? What of that? This Rogers. Now there’s a criminal for you.”
“Aye, you’ve given me a lot to think about,” said Hamish. “That business about Rogers now, I think Deacon should get on to it.”
Maggie got to her feet. “Don’t worry. I’ll phone him, Hamish.”
“Oh, there’s no need to go back to the police station,” said Angela to Maggie’s fury. “Use the phone over there, Hamish.”
So Maggie had to sit, feeling useless, as Hamish outlined his suspicions about Rogers to Deacon. The fact that she herself had not really had one good insight into the case did not occur to her. She felt she was being left out as usual.
When Hamish returned, he looked shrewdly at Maggie’s sulky face and said, “Why don’t you run along and get changed for dinner and make your own way up to the hotel. I’ve a few calls to make.”
Maggie did not want to go, but on the other hand could think of no reason for staying, but as she walked along to Mrs Maclean’s she was cheered by the fact that Hamish Macbeth thought enough of her to buy her an expensive dinner.
She sat in her room and read, occasionally glancing with pleasure at her newly laundered clothes, which had been laid out on the bed. The cotton dress she planned to wear was white, with great splashes of red roses. She knew it flattered her figure. Finally she went to the Macleans’ minuscule bathroom and had a bath in one of those modern plastic baths which had about as much space as a coffin.
It was when she started to put her clean clothes on that she realized the sheer folly of having agreed to Mrs Maclean’s laundering her clothes. Mrs Maclean must have boiled everything. The dress was cotton, the bra and panties of a cotton-and-acrylic mixture, as were the petticoat and tights. Everything had shrunk. The dress was up above her knees and strained painfully across her bosom. Her bra and panties felt tight and uncomfortable. She glanced at the clock. It would have to do. But she would give Mrs Maclean a piece of her mind on her way out.
But when she went into the kitchen, Mrs Maclean turned round from the steaming copper. Her face was flushed and red and her eyes very hard. Maggie’s courage ran out. She simply walked past her and out of the door.
There had been no mirror in either Maggie’s room or in the bathroom – how the husband shaved, she didn’t know – and she had made up her face using the hand mirror in her compact.
As soon as she walked into the reception area of the hotel, she was faced by a reflection of herself in a long mirror on the opposite wall. She wanted to turn and run. Her large breasts, cut by the brassiere underneath and constrained by the shrunken dress, bulged over the low neckline like those of an eighteenth-century tart.
And then Hamish approached her, Hamish in a dinner jacket, looking very smooth and relaxed. “I see you let Mrs Maclean wash your clothes,” he said sympathetically. “Mistake. You can’t eat in that dress. The food’ll stick in your neck. Go and sit in the bar and I’ll see what I can do.”
Maggie went and took a seat in the corner of the bar. As she walked across it, a group of men with gin-and-sauna-flushed faces watched her with amusement. One said with disastrous clarity, “Must be the local tart.”
She sat there feeling naked and very alone. Hamish reappeared with Mr Johnson in tow. “My, my,” said Mr Johnson, staring at Maggie in admiration. “When Mrs Maclean washes, she really washes.”
“Come with me, Maggie,” said Hamish. “I’ve got something for ye.”
He led her upstairs and along a corridor and took a key out of his pocket and opened the door. “This is Mrs Halburton-Smythe’s quarters. We’ll find you something here, but don’t spill anything on what you wear, or we’ll all be in trouble. Here, what about this thing?”
He took out a caftan, a purple silk one embroidered with gold.
“Oh, that’ll do,” said Maggie, looking at the gown’s generous folds.
“The bathroom’s through there,” said Hamish, “I’ll wait for you.”
Maggie, in the bathroom, removed the hellishly tight dress and underwear and slipped the loose caftan over her naked body. She left her discarded clothes in the bathroom so that she could change back into them when the evening was over.
When she came out, she asked, “Is there a stole or a wrap or anything to put over this?”
“Bound to be,” said Hamish, searching through female garments. “Oh, here’s the very thing,” He handed her a black cashmere shawl, which Maggie gratefully put around her shoulders.
As they walked downstairs together to the dining room, Maggie stole sharp little glances at her companion. He seemed transformed by the dinner jacket. He looked as if he had been dining in expensive restaurants all his life. Maggie did not know that Hamish was blessed with the Highlander’s vanity of feeling that he belonged anywhere he happened to be and so always fitted in.
Although Maggie enjoyed her dinner, she could not find any ideas to top those of the doctor’s wife. Hamish did not exactly discuss the case with her, he seemed to be thinking aloud, almost forgetting she was there. In fact, thought Maggie, he did not seem to be aware she was a woman at all. Fortunately for Hamish, her self-consciousness stopped her from noticing that the waiter did not present him with any bill at the end of the meal.
When she had finally changed back into those dreadfully tight clothes, she felt quite demoralized. She knew she would not even have the courage to give Mrs Maclean a lecture. The rest of her small stock of clothes was probably just as tight. She would need to wash what she had taken off that day in the hand basin in her room and dry everything in front of the room’s two-bar electric heater.
They were just leaving the hotel when Mr Johnson came running after them.
“Call for you, Hamish,” he shouted. “The police at Skag.”
Maggie waited in her car. Hamish seemed to be away a long time. As he came out, she wound down her window. “Trouble?” she asked.
“Aye. You’d best get down to Mrs Maclean’s and pack up your things. We’re off to Skag.”
“What’s happened?”
“Another murder.”
“What! Who?”
“Thon Jamie MacPherson, the boatman.”