Death of a Scriptwriter

∨ Death of a Scriptwriter ∧

9

Did ye not hear it? – No;’t was but the wind, Or the car rattling o’er the stony street.

—Lord Byron

“This is verra good of you, Officer,” said Scan, eating biscuits and drinking tea.

He was an old bearded man with young-looking, light grey eyes in a tanned and wrinkled face. His clothes smelled of peat smoke and heather, but nothing more sinister. Scan was a clean tramp.

“As a matter of fact, I’ve been looking for you,” said Hamish.

“It wisnae me that took Mrs. Hegarty’s knickers off the washing line, whateffer she might say,” said the tramp, looking frightened.

“Relax, Scan,” said Hamish, “Nothing criminal. Now, have you heard about the murders?”

“Over at Drim. Aye.”

“There’s one thing I want to know. There’s a writer called Patricia Martyn-Broyd. You probably don’t know her…”

“I know everyone,” said the tramp. His eyes ranged round the kitchen. “I’m still a wee bit hungry.”

Hamish went to the freezer and took out a plastic bag of stew. “I’ll heat this up for you.”

“Verra kind, I’m sure.”

“Now, Scan, while the stew’s heating up, tell me how you know Patricia, the writer woman.”

“I called at her cottage…oh, maybe a few months back.”

“I didnae know you had been up here that long. Where were you before that?”

“Down south, but it iss not the same as the Highlands.”

“So tell me what happened when you called at the cottage.”

“I asked her for a cup of tea and a bite and said I could do some odd jobs for her in return. Herself looked down her nose and said, “Be off with you or I’ll call the police.””

“So you know what she looks like,” said Hamish eagerly. “This is what I want to know. On the day of the murder of that actress, Patricia said she was in a state and chust driving about. She has a white Metro. Did you see her anywhere?”

“White Metro, no. That stew smells rare, Hamish.”

“Bide your time, Scan. It won’t even be thawed out yet. What do you mean, ‘white Metro, no’?”

“Chust that. I couldnae be sure, mind. I wass between here and Drim and…Here, you’re not trying to pin the murder on me!”

“No, no, Scan,” said Hamish soothingly. “What did you see?”

“It wass misty, all swirling about, coming and going. The car wass going that slowly, I had to step out o’ the road. Herself had the dark glasses on and I ‘member thinking, how could she see on a misty day in those things, and she had a headscarf on, dark blue.”

“So how could you tell it was her?”

“I thought when I first saw her she looked like a witch. It wass herself all right.”

“But the car. She wasn’t driving a white Metro?”

“I’m no good at cars, Hamish. It wass small and black.”

“But you are really sure it was her?”

“Aye.”

“And it was between here and Drim. What time of day?”

“I’d been sleeping in the heather and had not long got up. It must haff been about six in the morning.”

Hamish stared at him for a long moment. “Wait here, Scan,” he said. “I’ve got something to do.”

He went through to the bedroom and picked up the spilled pages of manuscript and began searching through them feverishly until he had found what he wanted. Then he went through to the police office and phoned Jimmy Anderson.

“I think I might be on to something, Jimmy,” he said.

“Hurry up, man. Thon Martyn-Broyd woman’s got her memory back and is about to be discharged and we’re all going up there with Lovelace to grovel and apologise.”

“Is there a car firm in Strathbane where you can rent a car, a place that would be open all night?”

“In Strathbane? Man, everything closes down as tight as a drum at six o’clock in the evening.”

“Thanks.”

“What’s it about?”

“Phone me later and I’ll let you know.”

Hamish had to fret and wait until he had fed the tramp and given him a few pounds. Then he took a statement from him and told him there would be more food and money for him if he reported to the police station the following day.

Then he set out for Cnothan.

♦

Sheila Burford’s mobile phone rang. The actors stopped acting, the camera stopped rolling and Harry Frame shouted, “I told everyone to switch their phones off.”

“I’m sorry,” said Sheila, taking the ringing mobile phone out of her bag. “I’m expecting an important call.”

“You’re fired,” shouted Harry, but Sheila was already walking away, the phone to her ear.

Fiona King, watching Sheila, saw the sudden look of radiant joy on the girl’s face as she tucked the phone back into her bag.

Sheila hurried away from the filming and towards the manse.

The minister answered the door and reluctantly let her in, damning her as another of those friends who had so altered his hitherto submissive wife’s personality for the worst.

“What is it, Sheila?” asked Eileen, who was rolling pastry in the kitchen.

The minister went into his study and slammed the door. “Come outside a moment,” whispered Sheila. “Great news.”

Eileen went out to the garden with her.

Sheila swung round to face her. “We’re a success! Scottish Television want us both in Glasgow as soon as possible. They’re buying your film!”

“Oh, my,” said Eileen, dazed. “Do I have to tell Colin? He’ll start ranting and raging again. I thought I had something on him, I thought he was having an affair with a woman down in Inverness, but he says he was comforting a poor widow, and it’s all in my dirty mind, and he’s suddenly stopped going away on trips.”

“Is he out today?”

“Yes, he’s got to go to Lochdubh to see Mr. Wellington, the minister over there, about something.”

“What time?”

“About two o’clock.”

“I’ve got to pack up, and so have you. I’ll call round for you. You can leave him a note.”

“I’ll do it,” said Eileen. “I was going to leave him anyway.”

Ailsa Kennedy came up the garden towards them. “Not a word,” hissed Sheila. “I don’t want anyone to know until the contract’s signed.”

Sheila ran off. “What was all that about?” asked Ailsa.

“Oh, nothing much,” said Eileen, feeling disloyal, but desperately improvising. “She just wanted to know if I would be in a crowd scene.”

“And what did you say?”

“I said Colin wouldn’t approve.”

Ailsa snorted. “He can’t say anything about anything after the way he’s been going on.”

“That’s just the trouble. He says nothing has been going on and I have no proof.”

“That’s daft. Ignore him. Come and join us. We’re all on in a few moments.”

“No…I’ll stay here.” Eileen held up her floury hands. “I’m baking.”

“Your husband’s got you in a right state. I’ve a good mind to go in there and give him a piece of my mind, minister or no minister.”

“I’ll see you later, Ailsa. I promise. I’ve got to get on.”

Eileen served her husband lunch and then waited impatiently until at last he got in the car and drove off. She hurried to her bedroom – she and Colin had had separate bedrooms for some years now – and began to feverishly pack up her belongings.

When she heard a car drive up, she nearly fainted with fright, but soon she heard Sheila’s voice calling her.

She lugged two heavy suitcases down the stairs. The manse door had been open, and Sheila was standing in the hall.

“I’d better leave a note for him,” said Eileen. She left the cases and went into Colin’s clinically neat study.

She seized a piece of paper and wrote, “I’m fed up with you. I want a divorce. I’ve left you. Eileen.”

Then she slammed the study door behind her and went out to where Sheila was loading her suitcases into the boot of the car.

“Off we go,” said Sheila as the minister’s wife climbed in beside her. “Goodbye, Drim!”

“Goodbye,” echoed Eileen with a happy smile. She thought briefly of her husband and then shrugged. She felt she had finally become unchained from a maniac.

♦

“I hate this place. God, how I hate this place,” muttered Hamish Macbeth as he started his investigations again in and around Cnothan.

The standard and cold reply to his questions was, “We aye mind our own business around here, Macbeth” – from a village, reflected Hamish, as notorious as Salem during the witch-hunts for minding everyone else’s business but their own.

By the time he stopped in at the Tudor Restaurant – fake beams, fake horse brasses, dried flowers, and what was a restaurant called Tudor doing in the Highlands? – he was feeling as sour as the residents. As the waitress slammed down a plate of ‘Henry the Eighth Chicken Salad – throw the bones over your shoulder to the dogs!’ – in front of him, he had more or less decided to give the whole thing up.

He ate his cold dry chicken flanked by limp lettuce and wished he were Henry VIII and could have whoever in the back prepared this muck put in the stocks. He finished his dreadful meal with a cup of coffee of a brand publicised by a well-known British transvestite, and the coffee was as much coffee as the publicist was a woman. He fished in his pocket for his wallet to pull out note, and as he did so a piece of paper fluttered to the floor. He picked it up. Priscilla Halburton-Smythe’s London number.

He paid for his meal and went to the nearest phone box. The graffiti inside reflected the bitterness of the inhabitants.

As he dialled Priscilla’s number, he saw that someone had scrawled across the board holding the phone instructions ‘She doesn’t love you. Go fuck yourself.’ Malice, thought Hamish, inserting a phone card and dialling the number, gives the graffiti writer a certain vicious insight into what might hurt most.

He had become so used to rejection that day that he was almost amazed when Priscilla answered the phone after the first ring.

After the preliminary pleasantries, Hamish explained why he was in Cnothan.

“Doesn’t this woman have any friends?” asked Priscilla.

“Not a one.”

“Does she go to church?”

“Yes.”

“Then if she wanted to ask a favour like borrowing a car, she might go to the manse. Have you asked there?”

“No, I didnae even think of it.”

“You’re slipping,” said Priscilla cheerfully.

“This damn place is enough to make anyone’s brain slip a few cogs. Are you coming up here soon?”

“In about two weeks’ time.”

Hamish said goodbye and rang off. Two weeks! She would be home again in only two weeks. He felt so excited that he had to calm down by forcibly reminding himself that he did not love her anymore.

At the manse he was greeted by the minister’s wife, Mrs. Struthers. “What is it, Officer?” she demanded sharply. “I am busy.”

He masked his irritation and said, “Did Miss Martyn-Broyd at any time ask you for the loan of a car?”

“We don’t lend anyone our car,” she said sharply. “Our insurance doesn’t cover anyone else driving it.”

He thanked her and touched his cap and was turning away when he swung back. “But did she ask you?”

“Well, yes, and so late at night, too. I told her she could not have it.”

“Did you suggest anyone who might lend her one?”

“I said she could try old Mr. Ludlow.”

“And where does Mr. Ludlow live?”

“He is not very well, and I would not like to think of him being troubled.”

“I am a police officer, and you are obstructing me in my enquiries. Ludlow’s address, please!”

“Mr. Ludlow to you, Officer. Oh, very well. He lives at Five, The Glebe, down at the loch.”

Hamish walked down to where the grey waters of the loch lay sullen under a low grey sky. The great ugly dam soared above the loch. He stopped and stared at it, imagining it cracking, then bursting, then the deluge crashing through to drown the whole of Cnothan and everyone in it.

He found Mr. Ludlow’s cottage. There was a garage next to the cottage.

He knocked at the door and waited.

There was a shuffling sound inside, like that of some hibernating animal turning in its sleep. The shuffling noises grew nearer, and the door was opened a crack and a rheumy eye stared at Hamish.

“Mr Ludlow?”

“I havenae done anything. Go away.”

“Nobody said you had,” said Hamish patiently. “I just want a wee word with you.”

The door opened wider. Mr. Ludlow was an old man on whose face a lifetime of bitterness and discontent was mapped out in the deep, dismal wrinkles on a face as grey as elephant’s skin.

“Did you lend your car at any time to Patricia Martyn-Broyd?”

There was a long silence. An omen of crows suddenly tumbled overhead, cawing and cackling, and then they were gone.

“Aye, and if I did?”

“May I see your car?”

The old man grumbled out in a pair of battered carpet slippers. He led the way to the garage, took out a key and opened the padlock which secured the door. Inside was an old black Ford.

“When did she ask you for a loan of it?”

“It wass the night afore that tarty bit was murdered, her what bares her body. Miss Martyn-Broyd, I knew her from the church, she says her car had broken down. She had got me out o’ bed to answer the door. I didn’t want to let her have it.”

“But she took out a handful of notes, so you let her have it,” guessed Hamish.

“Aye, well, I’m a pensioner, and money’s tight.”

“Chust about as tight as that hole in your arse that you talk through,” said Hamish.

There was a stunned silence, neither of them able to believe what they had just heard.

“What did you say?” demanded Mr. Ludlow at last.

“I said, chust about as tight as that hole in the road over at Crask,” said Hamish, improvising wildly. “I’ll be on my way, Mr. Ludlow.”

“I didnae do anything wrong?” he asked.

“No, nothing,” said Hamish, and added maliciously, “provided your insurance covers another driver.”

He had the satisfaction of seeing from the sudden fright in Mr. Ludlow’s eyes that it probably did not.

As he walked back to his police Land Rover, he had a new respect for Sergeant MacGregor. If I lived here, thought Hamish, I would end up stark, staring mad.

He opened the Land Rover door. Then he stopped, one foot raised, his mouth a little open. Those two threads of blue tweed he had found on the mountain, the day Jamie died. Could they have been from something Patricia had been wearing?

He got in and drove to her cottage. She had been released from hospital but was obviously not home yet.

He stared at the cottage in frustration. Then he felt in the guttering above the door where locals usually hid a door key, but there was nothing there. Perhaps Patricia had not even bothered to lock up. He tried the door handle, and to his relief the door opened.

He went in and searched for the bedroom, finding it off the kitchen at the back.

There was a wardrobe over on the far wall. He swung open the door. There were a few tailored suits and dresses and, on a shelf above, an assortment of hats.

He slowly lifted out a blue tweed suit and laid it on the bed and began to go over it inch by inch. And then down at the hem of the skirt, he found where two threads had been tugged out.

He sat down suddenly on the bed. He could hardly go back to Lochdubh and find these threads and present them as evidence, for he would be charged with suppressing evidence.

He was sure now she had murdered both Jamie and Penelope.

And then he heard cars driving up outside. He went to the window. In the first black official car was Patricia with Superintendent Peter Daviot; in the second were Lovelace, Mac-nab and Anderson.

He went to the outside door and opened it. Peter Daviot was helping Patricia from the car. Lovelace and the two detectives had gathered around.

“We must assure you again, Miss Martyn-Broyd, of our deepest apologies,” Mr. Daviot was saying, when Lovelace suddenly saw Hamish standing there.

“What are you doing?” he shouted.

They all turned to stare at him.

“I think we had better all go inside,” said Hamish.

“You’d better have a damned good reason to explain what you are doing in Miss Martyn-Broyd’s cottage,” said Lovelace.

But Patricia, with an odd little smile on her face, had already walked forward. Hamish stood aside, and they all trooped into the parlour.

Hamish was suddenly terrified. All Patricia had to do was deny his accusations. He had no real proof. She could admit to borrowing Ludlow’s car but say that she’d had to get away, that in her distress she had forgotten to explain she was not in her own car. But he had gone this far, so he had to take it to the end.

“Perhaps if we all sit down,” said Hamish, “I’ll explain what I am doing here.”

“Tea?” said Patricia, smiling all around.

“Not now,” said Hamish. “I haff a story for you, Miss Martyn-Broyd, that is stranger than any fiction. Josh Gates did not kill Jamie Gallagher. You did. I think you waited until you saw them all leave. You had not thought of murder then. You noticed that Jamie had not come down. You were probably hidden somewhere beside the path. You went on up. You saw Jamie sitting there, and the impulse took you. You picked up a rock and brained him with it, and then just went away. You felt that the man who had sneered at your work, who had debased it, was finally dead and gone.

“But then there was Penelope Gates. She, too, sneered at you and told you how you had been tricked. You had killed once, and you could kill again. Somehow you knew from the script that she would be up on the mountain. In your book The Case of the Rising Tides, the murderer borrows a car so that his own car will not be recognised, so you borrowed a black Ford from Mr. Ludlow in Cnothan, calling on him late at night and paying him a lot to lend you that car.

“At around six in the morning on the day of the murder you were spotted by the tramp Scan Fitz, heading for Drim. I think you found by accident that other path up the mountain. You would want to avoid the main path, too many people coming and going.

“Sound carries verra clearly up there. You heard the instruction to Penelope to stand on that outcrop of rock. You were hidden underneath. When you knew she was in position, you stood up and grasped her ankle and jerked her over your head, and she went flying down the mountain. You escaped in the thick mist, got in the car, drove around and finally went to the Sutherland Arms Hotel for lunch. Then you returned the car to Ludlow.”

Lovelace opened his mouth to say something, but Daviot held up a warning finger. All looked at Patricia.

“What a load of rubbish,” she fluted. “Yes, I did borrow a car, but I was so dazed and unhappy, I did not know what I was doing that day. Yes, I may have gone near Drim, but I did not go up on that mountain.” She spread her hands in an appealing gesture and looked at Lovelace. “Have I not endured enough?”

She might get away with it, thought Hamish, and even if it cost him his job, she would not get away with it. He would need to confess about those two threads of cloth.

He said instead, “You were seen going up the mountain on the day Jamie Gallagher was murdered. I chust found that out today. A crofter saw you and didn’t think anything of it at the time, thinking you were part of the TV crew.”

“You’re lying,” said Patricia flatly.

Too right, thought Hamish dismally. But he looked straight at her and said evenly, “I am only glad you will not profit from your crimes because after you are charged with these murders, the sales of your books will be immense, and all over the world, too. You will be a truly famous writer, and that is a distinction you do not deserve.”

Patricia stared at him.

Lovelace stood up. “This is enough,” he said. “1 have heard about you, Macbeth, and your behaviour has been disgraceful. Breaking into this poor woman’s cottage – ”

“I did it,” said Patricia.

Everyone froze except Hamish, who felt himself go almost limp with relief.

She gave a shrug and said in an almost merry voice, “It was justice, don’t you see? They were killing Lady Harriet, so they both had to go. I do not regret it. You are right. I did not mean to kill that Gallagher man. But I did not lurk around waiting until they all had left. I was late. I thought they were all still up there and that perhaps I could get them to change their minds. But there was no one there. I wandered about. And then I saw Jamie, sitting on the edge of the heather in front of the scree. After that I do not know what happened until he was dead at my feet and I was standing with a bloody rock in my hand. I hurled it away as hard as I could. I do not regret it.

“Penelope Gates was everything I hated, crude and vulgar and vicious. She had to go. I do not regret her death, either.”

“But two murders!” exclaimed Daviot.

“But they were guilty of infanticide,” said Patricia with a sort of dreadful patience. “They killed my child. They were killing Lady Harriet.”

Lovelace charged her with the murders. She kept looking at Hamish. When Lovelace had finished, she said, “Hamish, will I be really famous?”

“Yes,” he said sadly. “Very famous indeed.”

“Then that’s all right,” she said briskly, getting to her feet. “Shall we go?”

“Wait a minute,” said Hamish as she was being led out. “Patricia, why did you ask for my help to clear your name?”

“Oh, I thought you were the only person I had to fear,” said Patricia with a little smile. “These other gentlemen are so stupid. It worked for a bit, didn’t it?”

“Yes, it worked,” said Hamish. “And did you really lose your memory?”

“No, I did not. I simply became weary of the act and decided to find it again. I wrote about an amnesia case in one of my books and had read a great deal on the subject, enough to trick the psychiatrist. How did you guess it was me?”

One more lie wouldn’t matter, thought Hamish. He hoped they would forget about that crofter he said had seen Patricia on the mountain.

“It was Detective Jimmy Anderson who suggested that you might have used another car.”

“How odd,” said Patricia. “I would have thought him as stupid as the rest.”

She was led out.

Daviot remained behind with Hamish. “Good work,” he said. “This lets Blair off the hook, and I’m glad of it. He’s a good man and probably thought she had done it all along.”

Hamish groaned inwardly, but better Blair than Lovelace.

“I shall be glad to return Lovelace to Inverness,” went on Daviot. “He ruffled too many feathers at Strathbane, ordering policewomen to do his shopping for him. Not on, in these liberated days.”

“I had best go and get an official statement from that man who lent her the car,” said Hamish.

“Yes,” said Daviot absently. “This is all going to make us look a bunch of fools with the press.”

“In what way, sir?”

“Well, saying Josh Gates murdered Jamie Gallagher. Bad press, that.”

“But the murders are solved, and you’ve got them off your back.”

“True. You should consider a move to Strathbane, Hamish.” Hamish, not Macbeth. He was definitely in favour.

“No, sir. I am quite happy where I am. It was Jimmy Anderson who put me on to it.”

“Then why did he not do it himself?”

“He might be frightened he would get into trouble with Lovelace. If you will forgive me for speaking freely, sir, that man does not like initiative.”

“It will be good to have Blair back.”

A man who disliked initiative just as much as Lovelace, thought Hamish.

“We should not be sitting here,” said Daviot. “I’d best get the forensic team over here.”

“Why don’t you go ahead, sir,” said Hamish. “The door was open, but I see there’s a key on the counter there. I’ll lock up and wait outside for the forensic team.”

“Very well.”

Hamish followed him out and stood waiting until Daviot’s car had roared off into the distance. Then he went into the bedroom and carefully took the tweed suit off the bed and hung it back in the wardrobe.

Then he sat down to wait for the forensic team. He had plenty of time to reflect on his own stupidity. Patricia had initially got away with both murders through sheer luck. Different car or not, Ludlow could have come forward and told the police. But Hamish had not suspected her, something in Patricia’s loneliness of spirit striking a chord in his own. And he had been flattered when she had asked him to help her. She must have been very confident that, owing to the mist and the different car, no one would recognise her. But thanks to her rudeness to one tramp, which had made him remember her vividly, she had been recognised.

He stretched and yawned. Sergeant MacGregor was welcome to Cnothan. What a dump!

The forensic team arrived, and Hamish thankfully left. He went in to Cnothan and took a statement from Mr. Ludlow and then made his escape. As he drove down into Lochdubh, a shaft of sunlight was breaking through the grey clouds. Priscilla was coming home. The world was righting itself.

At the police station, he typed up his reports, took off his uniform and put on casual clothes and went out for a stroll.

Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife, bore down on him like a tweedy galleon under full sail. “Shocking news,” she boomed.

“Yes, I wouldnae have believed a lady like Miss Martyn-Broyd could have committed two murders,” said Hamish.

She looked at him in amazement. “What are you talking about?”

“Miss Martyn-Broyd has confessed to the murders of Jamie Gallagher and Penelope Gates.”

“Impossible!”

“I am afraid it’s true. What are you talking about?”

“Oh, that.” The minister’s wife pulled herself together with an effort. “We have just heard from poor Mr. Jessop over at Drim. He’s in such a taking. His wife has left him! He phoned to say she had left while he was actually over here visiting us.”

“Neffer!”

“Yes, just gone and taken all her stuff. They were such a devoted couple.”

“I got the impression he bullied that poor woman.”

“Nonsense. I tell you what he thinks happened. It’s this television business. It’s driven all the women in Drim mad. They all think they were meant to be film stars. Mr. Jessop sees nothing but ruin for his poor wife. He says she’ll end on the streets.”

“Oh, I shouldn’t think so. She wouldn’t make any money.”

“And that’s just the sort of nasty callous thing I would expect from you. You haven’t been to church in ages. That’s what’s up with you, Hamish Macbeth.”

“Maybe next Sunday,” said Hamish, sliding around her bulk.

He thought of treating himself to dinner at the Napoli, then remembered that he had a date there with Sheila for the following evening. He bought himself some cold ham from Patel’s and went back to his garden and pulled and cleaned a lettuce to make a salad to go with it.

He had an interrupted meal. The news of Patricia’s arrest had spread like wildfire, and locals kept coming to the kitchen door to ask for details. At last he settled down in front of the television. There was a good play on BBC I, so when he heard someone rapping at the kitchen door again, he debated whether to pretend he wasn’t at home. But the knocking grew more insistent. With a sigh he got up and opened the door.

Jimmy Anderson stood there. “Gimme a whisky, for God’s sake, man. She isnae fit tae stand trial.”

“Patricia? She’s acting again.” Hamish led him in and took the bottle of whisky out of the kitchen cupboard.

“If she’s acting, it’s too good for anyone to break.”

They went into the living room. Hamish lit the fire. “The nights are drawing in at last,” he said.

“I came anyway to thank you for giving me the credit,” said Jimmy. “What put you on to her?”

“She did,” said Hamish. “Would you believe it? She wanted me to clear her name and so I spent my spare time trying to find out where she was when Penelope was being murdered. And she was so confident I wouldn’t find out. I’m just glad it’s over. Blair’ll be happy.”

“Aye, he’s poncing about saying as how he was victimised by a madwoman and that he knew she did it all along. He seems to forget he was the one who insisted Josh Gates murdered Jamie Gallagher.”

“He aye had a convenient memory.”

“Daviot said he thought you’d cracked Patricia by suggesting she would be world famous.”

“It was a gamble, but it paid off. I’d nearly forgotten about her monumental vanity.”

“So we settle back down to a peaceful life, you with your sheep and hens and me with the muggings and stabbings in Strathbane.” He raised his glass. “Here’s tae murder.”

“No, no, man, here’s to peace and quiet.”

“Peace and quiet,” said Jimmy solemnly.

They both drank in silence, and then Hamish asked, “Do you think they’ll go ahead with filming the series after all this? There’s the relatives of the dead to remember.”

“I think after a certain time has elapsed, they’ll run it. They’ve surely sunk too much money in it already to abandon the whole thing.”

“I suppose so.”

“My lady friend wants to be a writer,” said Jimmy. “I told her to forget it. They’re all mad, that’s what I said. Got a girl, Hamish?”

“Maybe,” said Hamish, thinking of Sheila. “Maybe I have.”

♦

Down in her flat in Glasgow, Sheila and Eileen stared in amazement at the late night news on television. “It was that writer after all,” said Sheila.

“Hamish must be glad it’s all over,” said Eileen.

“Oh, the policeman? I think I was supposed to phone him or something, but with all this success about your film, I forget what it was. Oh, there’s something I forgot to tell you. Scottish Television wants to find out when they plan to screen the first episode of The Case of the Rising Tides and run your play against it, same evening, same time.”

“But will that work?” asked Eileen. “I mean, there’ll be such a lot of interest in Harry’s thing, with the murders. No one will watch my play.”

“They thought of that. They’re going to screen it in advance and get all the publicity they hope it will get and then run it again on the Sunday. We’re going to be big, Eileen. Right to the top!”

♦

On Wednesday evening, Hamish Macbeth sat in the Napoli and waited for Sheila – and waited. At first he had this really splendid dream, that Priscilla Halburton-Smythe would return to Lochdubh to find him with a brand-new, pretty girlfriend, but as the evening dragged past and she did not come, the dream faded and died.