Death of a Scriptwriter

∨ Death of a Scriptwriter ∧

2

Oh! how many torments lie in the small circle of a wedding-ring!

—Colley Gibber

Penelope Gates stood for a moment at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the flat she shared with her husband. She wondered for the umpteenth time why she had been stupid enough to get married. No one got married these days. Her husband, Josh, was an out-of-work actor and bitter with it. To justify his existence, he had lately taken to acting as a sort of business manager, criticising her scripts and performance. They had first met when both were students at the Royal College of Dramatic Art in Glasgow. It had been a heady three-week romance followed by a wedding.

The first rows had begun when Penelope had acted in a television series as a rape victim. Josh, when he got drunk, which was frequently, accused her of being a slut. Only the fact that he liked the money she earned from subsequent and similar roles had stopped him from outright violence, had stopped him from ‘damaging the goods.’ But the last time, he had extracted a promise from her that she would never take her clothes off on screen again, and, anything for a quiet life, thought Penelope bleakly, she had promised. Maybe she could get away with it this time. She nervously thumbed the script of The Case of the Rising Tides. She was not totally naked in any scene.

Penelope went upstairs and opened the door. “Josh!” she called. “I’ve got a great part.”

His voice sounded from the kitchen, slightly slurred. “What filth are you going to act in now?”

“Not filth,” said Penelope. “Sunday night viewing. Detective series.” She had thrust the script into her briefcase on the road to the kitchen. She took out a battered copy of The Case of the Rising Tides and handed it to him. “It’s based on this.”

He took it and scowled down at it. After this, I’ll have enough money to run away, thought Penelope. What did I ever see in him?

Josh was a heavyset young man with thick black hair and a square, handsome face, but one that was becoming blurred with drink. His mouth seemed set in a permanent sneer.

She made herself a cup of tea and stood by the window, cradling the cup in her hands. A flock of pigeons soared up into the windy sky above Great Western Road. Women’s lib was a farce, she thought. Women were not as strong as men, whatever anyone said. Again she felt trapped, suffocated.

At last she heard Josh’s voice behind her, mollified, almost gentle. “Aye, it looks as if you’ve hit the jackpot this time, lass. It’s a wee bittie old·fashioned. I’ve only read the first few pages. Are you playing this Lady Harriet?”

“Yes, the main part,” said Penelope, turning around.

“It could be like that Miss Marple,” said Josh, his eyes glowing. “It could run forever. Got the script?”

“They’re so frightened of the opposition that they lock the scripts up at Strathclyde Television,” lied Penelope.

“I’m happy for you,” said Josh, “and you should be happy for yourself. I’m telling you, lass, if you’d bared your body on another show, I’d have strangled you.” His eyes gleamed wetly with threat and drink.

Penelope gave a nervous little laugh. “You don’t mean that.”

“Don’t I just. Let’s go out and celebrate. What’s the location?”

“I don’t know yet. They’re up in the Highlands looking for one.”

♦

The Strathclyde Television van cruised slowly through the snowy roads of Sutherland. It was not actually snowing, but a vicious wind was blowing little blizzards across their vision from the snowy fields on either side of the road, where occasionally the humped figures of sheep could be seen.

“Why this far north?” asked Fiona King from the depths of a down-padded jacket. “I still say we could have found somewhere out in the Trossachs, about half an hour’s drive from Glasgow.”

“Loch Lomond’s too crowded, and you’d have too many tourists gawking,” said Jamie Gallagher. He, Fiona and Sheila had been sent out to choose a location. They had zigzagged across Scotland on their way up. Fiona and Sheila had thought they had found various good locations, but Jamie had turned them all down. And as he was the favoured one with BBC Scotland, they both knew they had to let him make the final choice.

Sheila was driving. She was tired and worried about the state of the roads, worried about skidding into a drift. It was such a bleak, white landscape.

And then the wind suddenly dropped. Up ahead of her on the winding road, a shaft of sunlight struck down. She fished out a pair of sunglasses and put them on to protect her eyes against the glare.

“There’s a village down there,” she said. “Let’s stop for something. I could do with a cup of tea.”

“We’ll see,” said Jamie huffily. “But remember your job’s to look for a location.”

“It’s called Lochdubh,” said Sheila, reading the sign. “Oh, this might do.”

She swung the large van over a hump-backed bridge.

Snowy Lochdubh lay spread out before them in the winter sunlight. A line of small cottages faced the waterfront. There was a harbour and a square grey church, and above the village soared two enormous mountains.

“There’s a police station,” said Jamie. “Pull up there, Sheila.”

“Why?”

“Just do as you’re told!”

Sheila pulled up beside the police station. They all got down.

“There’s someone in the kitchen,” said Jamie. He knocked on the door.

A tall, red-haired man answered the door, wiping his hands on a dishcloth. He was wearing an old blue wool sweater over a checked shirt, but his thick trousers were regulation black, as were his large boots.

“Are you the policeman?” asked Jamie.

“Aye, I’m Hamish Macbeth. What brings you?”

“Can we come in?” Jamie asked, shivering. “It’s damn cold.”

“Come ben.” Hamish turned and led the way through to his living room. “Would you like tea or coffee?”

Sheila smiled. “That would be lovely. Coffee, please.”

“Forget it,” snarled Jamie. “We’ve business here.”

“Let’s have it, then,” said Hamish, taking a dislike to him.

“We’re from Strathclyde Television, and we’re up here looking for a location. We’re filming a detective series.”

“That would be Miss Martyn-Broyd’s book,” said Hamish. “What about here? You won’t find a prettier place.”

“Not right. Too bourgeois,” said Jamie.

Hamish raised his eyebrows. “I havenae heard that word in years. How much time have you spent in Lochdubh?”

“We’ve just arrived.”

“Snap judgment?”

“I always make snap judgments,” said Jamie. “I can get the feel and smell o’ a place in one minute flat.”

“We’ve a lot in common,” said Hamish Macbeth. “I can get the smell and feel o’ a person in one minute flat.”

He took out a handkerchief and held it to his nose. Sheila suppressed a grin.

“So why we’re here is to find out if you’ve any suggestions.”

“I can’t think without a cup of coffee,” said Hamish amiably. “I’ll get you one while I’m at it, Miss…?”

“Sheila. Sheila Burford. I’ll come and help you.”

She followed him through to the kitchen. “Look,” said Sheila urgently, “think of something. I’ve been driving and driving.”

“Who is he? The producer?”

“No, the scriptwriter. Fiona’s the producer.”

“So how come he’s calling the shots?”

“BBC Scotland are funding it, and Jamie’s their favourite scriptwriter.”

“I’m surprised somebody loves him,” said Hamish dryly. “Do you think thon Fiona-woman would like a cup?”

“No, she crawls to Jamie,” said Sheila, wondering why she was chatting so openly with a Highland policeman.

He handed her a mug of coffee. “I’ll see what I can do.”

They returned to the living room.

Hamish sat down and smiled sweetly at Jamie. “I believe I haff chust thought of the very place for you.”

Sheila was to learn that the sudden sibilancy of Hamish’s Highland accent meant he was annoyed or upset.

“Where’s that?” asked Jamie.

“It’s a place called Drim, not far from here.”

“And what’s so good about it?”

“It’s an odd place. It’s at the end of a sea loch. The whole place is sinister.”

“We need a castle,” said Jamie. “The main character’s supposed to live in a castle.”

“Five miles on the far side o’ Drim is Drim Castle, owned by Major Neal. He’d rented it to an American who’s just packed up and left. I think all the furniture’s been put back in storage.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Fiona, speaking for the first time. She blew out a cloud of smoke. “We could use it as offices as well as location.”

“Aye, well, there you are. Drim’s your place.”

“Then we’ll go and have a look. Come along, Sheila, and stop slurping coffee and do your job.”

Sheila threw Hamish an apologetic smile.

Hamish followed them out and gave Sheila directions. He waved them goodbye and then went indoors to phone Major Neal. “Make sure you get a good price,” he cautioned after explaining what it was all about.

“I’ll do that,” said the major. “I owe you one, Hamish.”

“Won’t forget it,” Hamish said goodbye. As far as he was concerned, Drim and Jamie deserved each other. He had once solved a murder there, but although Drim was on his beat, he went there as little as possible.

♦

“What about Plockton in Ross?” asked Fiona, finally breaking the silence as they drove towards Drim.

“Plockton!” sneered Jamie. “Thon village has been used in two detective series already.”

“I think that’s it down there,” said Sheila.

Drim was a small huddle of cottages on a flat piece of land surrounded by towering mountains at the end of a thin, narrow sea loch. There was a church and a community hall and a general store, and the road down to the village was a precipitous one-track.

“It’ll be hell getting all the stuff here,” muttered Fiona.

Shafts of late red sunlight shone down, cutting through the crevices in the mountains, flooding Drim with a red light. Sheila thought it looked like a village in hell.

“Bypass the village and let’s see this castle before the light fades,” ordered Jamie.

Sheila would have missed the turn had not the major stationed two of his gamekeepers out on the road to direct them. She drove cautiously up a snow-covered drive, stalling from time to time, wheels spinning on the ice, until at last the castle came into view.

The last of the red light was flooding the front. It was a Gothic building, built during the height of the Victorian vogue for homes in the Highlands. It even had a mock drawbridge and portcullis, but no moat, the first owner having run out of money before one could be dug.

The major met them at the door. He was a small, neat man, dressed in old tweeds. He had a pleasant, lined face and faded blue eyes.

“Macbeth phoned me to say you might be calling,” said the major. “Come in.”

He had lit an enormous fire in the huge fireplace in the hall and had arranged chairs and a low table in front of it, on which he had placed a bottle of whisky and glasses.

They introduced themselves. The bullying side of Jamie would have liked to dismiss the whole of Drim as a possible location and make Sheila drive on, but the sight of that bottle of whisky mellowed him. Sheila did not drink because she was driving. Fiona did not drink alcohol. She thought it a dangerous drug. She smoked pot and was part of an organisation to get the use of cannabis legalised. So Jamie had most of the bottle.

The major, who had read Patricia’s book The Case of the Rising Tides, was becoming more and more amused as Jamie waxed enthusiastic over his planned dramatisation of the book.

At last, exhausted by talking and bragging and drinking, he fell asleep and Fiona took over and got down to the nitty-gritty of price. She ended up agreeing to pay more than she had intended because she was weary of travelling and the castle was suitable for film offices as well as a location and the major seemed so eager to help.

At last, business being finished, and when Sheila had taken photographs of all the rooms, he directed them back to Lochdubh and suggested they stay at the Tommel Castle Hotel for the night.

Jamie was roused from his slumbers. He was in a foul temper all the way back to Lochdubh, and once checked into the hotel, he headed straight for the bar.

Fiona phoned Harry Frame in Glasgow. “It’s Drim,” she said wearily.

“Where the hell’s that?” asked Harry.

“It’s at the ends of the earth,” said Fiona, “but Jamie’s happy and it’s right in every way.” She began to enthuse over the castle, deliberately not mentioning the awkward business of getting there.

♦

Major Neal said to his head gamekeeper, “You’ll find a good haunch of venison in the freezer and a side of smoked salmon. Take them over to Macbeth at Lochdubh tomorrow with my thanks. No, forget it. I haven’t seen Hamish in ages. I’ll take them over myself.”

“That’s very good of you,” beamed Hamish when the major arrived on his doorstep half an hour later, bearing gifts.

“Least I could do, Hamish,” said the major, following him into the kitchen. “But, oh my, what’s Miss Martyn-Broyd going to do when she hears how they’re planning to change her book?”

“What are they going to do with it? A dram?”

“Just the one, Hamish.” They both sat down at the kitchen table. “It’s like this…Have you read The Case of the Rising Tides?”

Hamish shook his head.

“It’s not bad. Complicated plot. But it’s a lady’s book, if you know what I mean. The main character is a Scottish aristocrat called Lady Harriet Vere.”

“So her father was an earl or something like that?”

“The author doesn’t mention any parents at all. Just this Lady Harriet who lives in a castle in the Highlands with devoted servants. In the TV series, she’s going to drop a few years – in the book she’s around forty, with a stern, handsome face and so on – and be played by Penelope Gates, who is a voluptuous blonde whose recent performances on the box have left nothing to the imagination. Unless she dyes her pubic hair as well, she’s a real blonde.”

“You’d make a good detective,” said Hamish dryly.

“Anyway, in the TV series, she’s going to be a hippie aristocrat who runs a commune in her castle, pot and free love.”

“Bit sixties.”

“It’s set in the sixties.”

“I wonder if Miss Martyn-Broyd knows this,” said Hamish.

“Probably does. Her books have been out of print. Bound to go along with anything. I’ll be glad when the light nights come back again, Hamish. These long northern winters get me down. But thanks to you, once they start filming and I get paid, I’ll be able to take a holiday somewhere far away from Scotland.”

“Nonetheless, I wouldn’t tell Miss Martyn-Broyd about what they’re going to do to her book, in case she doesn’t know. Better to upset her later than sooner. How are things in Drim?”

“Same as ever. A living grave with resident ghouls.”

“This TV thing should spice them up. Did you tell them they’d better cosy up to the minister and the village headmen?”

“Yes, that Fiona woman knew how to go about it.”

“I should think those silly village women will all be seeing themselves as film stars the minute they hear about it.”

“You know how they are up here, Hamish. They’ll be split into two camps. There’ll be those who are trying like mad to get their faces on the telly and the sour ones who stand around the location hoping to register their disapproval on camera.” Hamish laughed. “And no filming on the Sabbath.”

“I didn’t tell them, and I’m not telling them until I’ve got the contract.”

♦

Fiona lay on her bed in a room in the Tommel Castle Hotel and listened to the moaning of the wind outside. Thank God a location had been found! This series could make her name at last. If only she hadn’t to deal with Jamie. She felt uneasy about his work. She had read his ‘bible,’ where he had set out plot, storyline, characters and casting.

If only it had been a regular TV detective series like Poirot or Miss Marple. Despite her acid remarks about the British viewing public, she knew the large viewing figures lay with Mr. and Mrs. Average. Ambition coursed through her veins. She would do her damned best to make it work.

♦

A few rooms away, Sheila Burford was also awake. She had suggested to Fiona that they should phone up Patricia and invite her for dinner. Fiona had snorted and said the less they had to do with writers the better. Sheila felt guilty. She was sure there was going to be the most awful scene when Patricia found out what they were doing with her book.

She had not liked what she had seen of Drim. It was a grim place, and she guessed that was why the policeman had sent her there. Fiona had been right in the first place. There were plenty of pretty locations within easy reach of Glasgow. Her own role had moved from that of researcher to personal assistant to Fiona. For the first time in her young career, she began to wonder whether there might be life outside television, some sane sort of job. She had been with the television company for only two years and had never worked on a project as large as this one was going to be. It was amazing, too, that in cosy, overcrowded Britain there should be this vast, unpopulated landscape at the very north with its great acres of nothingness. She shivered despite the central heating.

♦

Over in Drim, Miss Alice MacQueen, the local hairdresser, could not sleep for excitement. A television company was coming to film in Drim! They would have their own hairdresser, of course. Or would they? Business had been slack. The local women came in for a perm about every six months. But they would all be hoping to at least appear in a crowd scene, and they would all be wanting to get their hair done. A good bit of business and she could get a new kitchen unit from the DIY shop in Inverness. She finally drifted off to sleep and into a happy dream where she was no longer hairdressing in the front parlour of her cottage but had a posh salon with a smart staff in pink smocks.

♦

Mrs. Edie Aubrey, her neighbour, was also in a state of excitement. She had once run exercise classes in the community hall, but gradually the women had lost interest and Edie had felt time lying heavy on her hands. She would put up her poster on the notice board at the community hall in the morning. Perhaps she might get a part herself? Better get round to Alice in the morning and get her hair done.

Patricia Martyn-Broyd was awakened with the sound of the telephone ringing. She struggled out of bed. After midnight!

Who could it be?

She picked up the receiver and gave a cautious, “Yes?”

“I’m so sorry to ring so late. This is Mrs. Struthers.” The Cnothan minister’s wife. “What’s the matter?”

“I’ve just heard that they’re going to be filming your book in Drim!”

“Drim. Where’s that?”

“It’s just the other side of Lochdubh. Didn’t you know?”

“No,” said Patricia bleakly. If they had chosen Drim, then it meant they had been up in Sutherland and had not even bothered to call on her.

“They were over at Major Neal’s today. They’re going to use his castle – Castle Drim.”

“Today? Are they still here?”

“Yes, three of them. They’re staying at the Tommel Castle Hotel.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Struthers,” said Patricia. She would need to go over there in the morning, find out why they had not troubled to consult her. It was her book!

♦

But when she called at the hotel at nine o’clock the following morning, it was to find her quarry had checked out. Patricia drove into Lochdubh and then followed the signposts to Drim, a village she had never visited.

She gritted her teeth as her car slid and skidded down the hillside to Drim. The sky was black and a few flakes of snow were beginning to fall.

She saw a large van with the legend ‘Strathclyde Television’ painted on its side parked by the loch and in front of the general store.

She pulled up beside it and went inside. Fiona, Sheila and Jamie were talking to the owner, Jock Kennedy. They were making arrangements to use the store for filming.

Patricia’s voice cut across their conversation. “Ahem,” she said, “I am surprised you did not call on me first to consult me.”

They all swung around, Fiona quickly masking her dismay. “Why, Patricia,” she said with a smile. “We were just going to call on you when we finished here. This is Jamie Gallagher, our scriptwriter. Jamie, Miss Patricia Martyn-Broyd, the author.”

Sheila knew that Jamie had a blinding hangover and that Jamie despised Patricia’s writing, so she was surprised when Jamie beamed at Patricia and said, “It’s an honour to meet you. Perhaps you’d like to come along with us until we fix up our business here and see how it all works, and then we can have a bite of lunch?”

Patricia melted. “That would be very exciting,” she said.

“Fiona, I’ll leave you to finalise the arrangements with Jock here,” said Jamie. “A word with you outside, Sheila.”

He ushered Sheila outside. Then he turned and faced her. “Don’t let that old bat get wind of what’s in the script,” he hissed. “And get your arse over to the major’s and tell him the same thing or he can kiss his castle goodbye.”

“She’s bound to find out sooner or later,” said Sheila.

“Then let it be later. I’ve worked with these authors before, and they’re a pain. They all ponce about as if they’ve written War and Peace instead of a piece of shite. She’ll just have to lump it. There’s nothing in her contract about her having any say in the script.”

But do they have to be so nice to her? thought Sheila as she drove off towards the castle. It’s going to be a terrible blow when she finds Drim Castle is going to be featured as a hippie sixties commune.

The major was in his modest bungalow home. “I moved in here two years ago and rented the castle,” he said after he had served Sheila a cup of coffee. “It’s a hell of a place to heat and get cleaned.”

Sheila told him the reason for her visit.

“Funnily enough, I was talking over just that with Hamish Macbeth, the policeman at Lochdubh, and he said something to the effect that it would be cruel to let the old girl know at this stage. Let her have her dream for a bit longer. She couldn’t stop it if she knew, could she?”

“No, but she could go to the press, although that would not make much difference. They must be used to writers complaining about their work being mangled on television.”

“I’m feeling sorry for her. What kind of woman is she?”

“In her seventies, but very fit. Very vain, but a bit shaky underneath, if that makes sense. I think maybe she’s a more powerful personality than Harry Frame – that’s our executive producer – realises.”

“Whereas you, so young and experienced, do?” The major’s eyes twinkled.

Sheila laughed. “I’m not so hardened as the rest of them, so I notice people as people and not as commodities.”

“There’s a great deal of excitement in Drim over this.” The major suddenly frowned. “I just hope it doesn’t lead to trouble like the last time.”

“You mean Drim’s been used by a television company before?”

“No, it wasn’t that. I was away at the time, but there was a young Englishman came up here to live. Very handsome. Flirted with all the ladies and broke a lot of hearts. He was murdered by the minister’s wife.”

“Gosh, I remember reading about that.”

“Poor Hamish Macbeth got into trouble over that. He shocked a confession out of the minister’s wife by confronting her with a dead body, but it was the wrong body, a rare specimen of Pictish man, and Hamish had every historian and paleontologist in the country down on him like a ton of bricks.”

“Hamish recommended Drim.”

“That’s probably his Highland humour. Drim’s a funny place.”

“How do you mean funny?”

“You’ve seen it. It’s locked away from the world at the end of the loch. Don’t get many outsiders. There was a lot of malice and spite over the Englishman. I hope the women competing for parts in the series don’t get at each other’s throats. Your genuine Highlander is not like the lowland or central Scot. Can have very black and bitter passions when roused. Another coffee?”

“I should be getting back.” Sheila looked wistfully at the blazing coal fire. “Oh, well, yes. They can do without me. I’m pretty much a chauffeur this trip.”

“Snow’s coming. Bad forecast. You’d better find somewhere to stay the night.”

♦

When Sheila returned to Drim it was to find the other two at the manse. There was a new minister since the time of the murder, a taciturn little man, Mr. Jessop, with a mousy wife.

When Sheila arrived, he was patiently explaining that any filming on a Sunday would not go down well with the villagers.

“That will be all right,” said Fiona quickly, noticing Jamie’s suppressed anger. “I’m sure we’ll all be glad of a break. Is there anywhere around here to have lunch?” She felt cross and cold and edgy. The manse had a stone floor, and she was sure the permafrost was creeping up her legs. She longed for a cigarette, but the minister’s wife had said she disapproved of smoking.

“There’s nowhere here,” said the minister, “but my wife and I were just about to have lunch. You are welcome to join us.”

“No, we’ll go back to Lochdubh and get something there,” said Jamie. “Care to join us, Patricia?”

“Thank you…Jamie,” said Patricia, feeling quite elated with all this first-name camaraderie. “So everything has been arranged in Drim?”

“It’s a start,” said Fiona, “that’s all. I’ll be back up with the production manager, accountant, lawyer and so on to get everything properly and legally agreed on.”

♦

As they sat together having lunch in the Napoli in Lochdubh, Sheila, looking out the window, saw white sheets of snow beginning to block out the view.

“I think we’d better get back to the Tommel Castle Hotel and find beds,” she suggested. “We can’t travel in this.”

Jamie finished his wine, wiped his mouth on his napkin and said evenly, “If you don’t mind, we will leave for Glasgow immediately.”

“I really do not think a young lady like Sheila should be driving in this weather, or anyone else, for that matter,” said Patricia. “I, for one, will find accommodation at the hotel.”

Jamie smiled at her. “Send us the bill. No, no, least we can do. Come along, Sheila.”

“She’ll never make it,” said Fiona as she climbed into the van.

“It’s Sheila’s job to drive,” snarled Jamie.

So Sheila drove on up over the hills, peering desperately through the blizzard, swinging the wheel to counteract skids. They were up on the moors when the van gave a final wild skid and ploughed into a snowbank. In vain did Sheila try to reverse.

“You’d better get out and go and find some help,” said Jamie.

“No,” said Fiona flatly. “No one’s going anywhere. We’ll need to sit here and hope to God someone finds us.”

♦

Hamish decided to go to the Napoli that evening. The blizzard was still howling, and the police station felt cold and bleak.

In the heady days when Hamish Macbeth had been promoted to sergeant, Willie Lamont, who served him in the restaurant, had been his constable. But Hamish had been demoted over the mixup of the bodies at Drim, and Willie had married the pretty relative of the restaurant owner and left the police force to join the business.

When Hamish had ordered his food, Willie leaned against the table and said, “We had the fillum people in here.”

“Oh, aye,” said Hamish. “I gather they’re going to use Drim.”

“Just look at that snow!” said Willie, peering out the window. “A wee lassie to have to drive in that.”

“What are you talking about, Willie?”

“I heard that writer woman from Cnothan saying as how they should get beds at the hotel, but the man said that the lassie wi’ the blond hair should get on the road.”

Hamish swore. “Damn it. That’s suicide. Keep my meal warm for me, Willie.”

He hurried back to the police station and called the mountain rescue service, saying finally, “I don’t think they could possibly have got far.”

“We can’t do anything until daylight, but we’ll have the chopper out at dawn.”

“I’d better see if I can find them myself,” said Hamish gloomily, forgetting about his dinner.

He took out a backpack, made a pot of coffee and filled a thermos flask with it. Then he cut some sandwiches and added them to it. He put on a ski suit and goggles, strapped on his snowshoes and set out, cursing under his breath and damning all townees who wittered on about nature, as if nature were some cuddly Walt Disney animal and not a wild, unpredictable force.

He gave up after two hours and headed back to Lochdubh. Like the mountain rescue service, he, too, would have to wait until dawn.

♦

At four in the morning, the van engine rattled and died.

“Get out and open the hood and see what’s up,” shouted Jamie.

But Sheila found they were now buried so deep in snow that she could not open the door. White-faced, Fiona said, “We’ll suffocate.”

Fiona and Sheila were in the front and Jamie behind them.

“I’d better see if I can get something to make holes in the snow,” said Sheila. She scrambled over the seats and into the back of the van. To her delight she found a length of hollow steel tubing. What it was doing there, she had no idea.

“I’ll open the window and push this through so we can get some air.” She handed the pipe to Fiona and then scrambled back. She rolled down the window and began to scrabble with her fingers at the solid wall of snow until she had made a tunnel. Then she took the pipe and thrust it into the tunnel and rammed it upwards. “I’ll need to draw it back in from time to time and make sure it isn’t blocked,” she said.

“We have no heating,” wailed Fiona. “We’re all going to die. How could you have been so stupid, Jamie?”

“It’s not me that’s stupid,” yelled Jamie. “It’s all the fault of that stupid bitch, who doesn’t know how to drive. When does it get light here?”

“About ten in the morning in winter. And we’ll never live that long.”

♦

But the sky was pearly grey at nine o’clock when Hamish Macbeth set out again into the bleak white world. The snow had stopped and everything was uncannily quiet, as if the whole of the Highlands had died and now lay wrapped in a white shroud.

He marched ahead on his snowshoes, out of Lochdubh and up to the moors, keeping to where he guessed the road was but looking always to right and left in case they had skidded off it.

Hamish suddenly thought of Patricia and her holiday in Greece. Somewhere in the world outside this bleak wilderness the sun was shining and people were lying on the beach.

He wanted to get as far away as possible from Sutherland. His mind drew back from the sunshine of faraway places and settled on the thought of the film company. I’d like to get away before it happens, he thought. What happens? screamed his mind, but then his sharp eyes saw a little piece of pipe sticking up above a snowbank.

He tunnelled with his gloved hands into the snowbank, and then he saw the gleam of green metal. Found them, he thought with relief. Now let’s hope they’re alive. He heard the clatter of a helicopter in the distance.

He scraped away at the snow until he had the back window of the van clear. He peered in. Fiona, Sheila and Jamie all seemed to be huddled together for warmth on the backseat. He knocked on the glass, but the still figures did not stir.

He stood back and waved frantically to the approaching helicopter and then crouched down beside the snowbank made by the covered van to protect himself from the flying snow as the helicopter landed.

Sheila struggled awake as she heard the roar of the landing helicopter. “Fiona!” she cried, shaking her companion. “We’re being rescued.”

They both tried to rouse Jamie, but he appeared to be unconscious.

Sheila was never to forget that moment after daylight appeared around the van and the door was wrenched open. She tumbled out into Hamish Macbeth’s arms and burst into tears. “I thought that bastard had killed us,” she sobbed. “I’ll never forgive him.”

“Aye, well, into the helicopter with you,” said Hamish. “They’ll take you all to hospital.”

The head of the mountain rescue team supervised the lifting of Jamie’s unconscious body into the helicopter. “This lot should be made to pay for all this expense,” he grumbled. “What sort of fools drive in the Highlands in this weather?”

Hamish stood with his hands on his hips until the helicopter was only a little dot against the brightening sky.

A light breeze sprang up and caressed his cheek, a breeze coming from the west. Wind’s shifted, he thought. Thaw coming. Hoods and mud. What a country!

He made his way slowly back to Lochdubh. Smoke was rising from cottage chimneys.

The Currie sisters, Nessie and Jessie, middle-aged village spinsters, were outside their cottage, the pale sunlight flashing off their glasses.

“Just the man!” cried Jessie. “Come and shovel this snow.”

“Away wi’ you,” said Hamish. “I’ve been up since dawn.”

He trudged past.

“Call yourself a public servant!” Jessie shouted after him.

“I call myself one verra tired policeman,” Hamish shouted back.

And an uneasy one, he thought. I hope this film company stays away. I’ve got a bad feeling about the whole damn thing.