Death of a Witch

∨ Death of a Witch ∧

3

Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.

– Oscar Wilde

Hamish stood outside the cottage waiting for the police from Strathbane to arrive. A group of villagers had gathered down the brae and stood looking at him in silence. It was unnerving. No one approached him or called out to him asking what was wrong.

As he heard the sirens in the distance, there was a sudden gasp from the crowd. He heard behind him a sinister crackling sound and swung round in alarm. The red glare of flames could be seen at the bedroom window where the dead body lay.

Hamish ran into the cottage. At least the body must be saved for the autopsy. But when he opened the bedroom door, he reeled back before a crackling wall of flame. He ran out again and round the back of the cottage. There was no sign of anyone. He called the fire brigade in Braikie and then ran down to the crowd, crying to them to fetch water. Deaf to his pleas, they turned as one person and began to walk away.

By the time the first police car arrived carrying Blair and Jimmy Anderson, the cottage was a roaring inferno.

“Whit the hell’s going on here?” yelled Blair.

“It’s Catriona Beldame,” said Hamish. “Someone murdered her and then the cottage was set on fire.”

Hamish realised, in that moment, that the murderer had probably been lurking in the cottage and set fire to the place as soon as he had walked outside. What had happened to his usual highland sixth sense? He could have sworn he was alone in the place.

“So,” said Blair, “how do ye know she was murdered?”

“There was a report from the milkman that she hadn’t been taking in her milk. I went in through the back and found her in bed. Her throat had been slashed and there were stab wounds on her body. I went outside and phoned headquarters and waited. Then the cottage began to burn. I tried to at least get the body out of the bedroom for forensic analysis but the fire was too much for me.”

“You stupid loon,” raged Blair. “The murderer must have still been in the house.”

“I saw and heard nobody,” said Hamish, wondering if he looked as stupid as he felt.

“Just you wait, laddie, until the boss hears about this.” Blair chuckled evilly. “You’ll be the first one who’ll be suspected.”

♦

To Hamish’s horror, as the day wore on, a case seemed to be building up against him. There had been a tourist in the bar when Archie had talked about Hamish going to kill the witch, and he had told the police what he had overheard.

But despite Blair’s pleas to Superintendent Daviot to arrest Hamish, he was blocked by the fact that Daviot descended on Lochdubh himself and began to interview the villagers. The milkman swore that he had called at the police station to report that Catriona’s milk was lying outside his door and that he had followed Hamish a little way and was soon joined by other villagers. Hamish had emerged from the cottage after a few minutes and they had seen him phoning. Then the fire had started. Hamish had rushed into the cottage but then had run out calling to the crowd to fetch water.

“Did anyone fetch water?” Daviot asked.

Hughie, the milkman, hung his head and mumbled that they thought it a fitting end for the ‘witch.’

So Daviot told Blair testily that Hamish had nothing to do with it and it seemed to him as if a bunch of superstitious villagers had ganged together to murder Catriona Beldame.

If the atmosphere in the village had been bad before, now it was worse with everyone feeling they were under suspicion.

Hamish worried and worried over the fact that he had not searched the cottage for anyone – had not even sensed the presence of anyone.

He phoned Jimmy. “I’ve got nothing that can help you at the moment,” said Jimmy. “Forensics have been working all day on what’s left o’ the place. There’s one ray of sunshine.”

“What’s that?”

“There’s a new wee lassie on the forensic team. Keen as mustard. She’s having an uphill battle wi’ her beer-swilling, rugby-fanatical colleagues. But if there’s anything to find, she’ll find it.”

“Can you give me her name and home address?”

“Och, Hamish. Can’t you just wait? It’s just not the thing to call on a body at her home.”

“I cannae wait,” said Hamish. “I feel like such an idiot.”

“I don’t want to give her address. Try up at the witch’s cottage. She might be still there.”

♦

Hamish set out for the cottage. A great wind was tossing grey clouds over the sky. Buzzards wheeled above and a heron, its strong wings able to cope with the gale, sailed down and settled on a rock by the water.

Two television vans were already down on the waterfront, and he could see Blair’s posse of policemen going door-to-door.

One policeman was on guard outside the cottage, hunched against the wind.

“Is there anyone from forensics still inside?” asked Hamish.

“Aye, there’s a wee lassie from forensic.”

“I’ll just be having a word with her.”

The policeman barred his way. “Chief Detective Inspector Blair said nobody was to go in.”

“Aye, but he meant the press or the villagers,” said Hamish. He sidestepped round the policeman and went in, realising suddenly that as he was visiting the scene of a crime, he should have been wearing his blue coveralls. He retreated to just inside the doorway and called out, “Anybody here?”

A female voice called, “I’m out the back.”

Hamish went out and walked around to the back of the cottage. He had a sudden vision of the type of female forensic investigator he had seen on American TV programmes – slim and tall with long hair and high cheekbones. So it came as something of a disappointment to see a small dumpy figure, covered in a white suit, white hood, and white boots. She was searching diligently in the heather.

“Find anything?” asked Hamish. She stood up and pushed her hood back a little, revealing springy gold and red curls. Her cheeks were plump and rosy and she had large very blue eyes.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“Hamish Macbeth. I’m the local bobby. And you are…?”

“Lesley Seaton, forensics.”

“I came up here,” said Hamish, “in the hope you might have found some reason for the cottage going up in flames. I found the body and then stood outside waiting for them from Strathbane to arrive. Then the cottage started to burn. What puzzles me is that I didnae sense anyone in the cottage.”

“I think I’ve found the reason for that,” said Lesley. “I’ve found faint ash traces in the heather going a bit back. Some of the roots are scorched. It’s my belief that someone lit a fuse.”

“Thank goodness for that,” said Hamish. “I thought I was slipping. Wait a bit. I didnae smell petrol or anything like that.”

“I think – mind you, this is only a preliminary investigation – that the fuse ran into a plastic bucket of wastepaper placed under the wooden kitchen cupboards. I think the kitchen wall was soaked in some sort of cooking oil. I’ve only traces of things, mind you. Oil had been poured under the bed. The flames must have shot through the kitchen wall into the bedroom. There was a paraffin heater in the kitchen. That would add to the blaze, and then there was one in the bedroom as well.”

“Any idea when she was killed?”

“I’ll need to wait for a report from the procurator fiscal,” said Lesley. “It’ll be hard to tell with the body being so badly burnt. But evidently there were two days’ uncollected milk on the step, so maybe she was killed two days ago.”

“What I cannae understand,” said Hamish, “is why then did the murderer wait so long to torch the place?”

“Maybe the murderer is some amateur who, once having murdered the woman, panicked. People see so many forensic programmes these days that they think someone will hold up a bit of hair a day later and say, “Aha, that’s the DNA of Jock McHaggis,” or whatever.” She sighed. “Little do they know.”

“Where are the rest of your team?”

Her face hardened. “They’re playing Braikie at rugby tonight so they’ve all gone off to get ready. I’ve got most of my samples so I think I’ll pack it in for tonight.” Her blue eyes twinkled. “Am I wrong in thinking that Mr. Blair is going to hate me when I produce evidence for this fuse? He’s chortling and rubbing his hands and telling everyone who’ll listen how Hamish Macbeth let a murderer get away from under his nose.”

“No, you’re not wrong. I hope it was a long fuse.”

“Not very long. With this springy heather, it’s hard to tell where it started but fortunately the back here is sheltered a bit from the wind. But farther away, the wind’s whipped off any traces and I can’t find anymore scorched heather roots.”

“Let me go back and see if I can see anything.” Hamish got down on his knees and, starting at the point where she said she had found the ash, began to crawl off through the heather. To his relief, the wind suddenly dropped in that erratic way it has in Sutherland. He crawled past the markers she had laid out to map the track of the fuse and carried on after the markers had run out. The clouds were still racing across the sky. A fitful gleam of sunshine sparkled on something ahead of him in the heather. He crawled forwards and gently parted the heather. He found himself looking at two metal clothes pegs and a squashed glue stick. “Come ower here and look at this,” he called.

She joined him. “I didn’t look far enough back. But I’ve an idea how the fuse could have been made.”

“How?”

“The recipe is one tablespoon of potassium nitrate, two to three spoonfuls of sugar, one glue stick, scissors, paper, and a plastic zip-lock bag. You mix the sugar and the potassium nitrate in the bag, fold a long length of paper into a V, smear the valley of the V with the glue, clip the corner of the bag, and pour the contents into the V. Pinch together and twist and fasten either end with a clip until it all sticks.”

“So we’re not looking for an amateur?”

“We still could be,” said Lesley.

“So where would an amateur buy potassium nitrate?”

“Off the Internet.”

“That’s hopeful.” Hamish brightened. “Anyone ordering the stuff would need to give a credit card number. They’d need to have a computer as well.”

“I shouldn’t think a place like Lochdubh has many computers,” said Lesley.

“Oh, a whiles back, there were these writing classes and a lot of folks got one. Mind you, I think most of them will be gathering dust, but it’s a start.”

Lesley gathered up the new evidence and put it in bags. “It would be wonderful if I could get a print off any of this,” she said. “I would also like the suggestion of a fuse leaked to the press.”

“Why?”

“Because a lot of your superstitious villagers think that either the fire was God’s retribution or the devil had come to claim his own.”

“Why should we leak it to the press?”

“Because, if I am not mistaken, Blair will try to sit on this evidence. He still wants you as prime suspect.”

Hamish grinned. “I know just the person. Would you be free for dinner tonight?”

“No, of course not. I’ve got to get this stuff back to the lab.”

“Oh, well…”

“But I’m free on Saturday.”

“Grand. Do you want to come here or Strathbane?”

“Just somewhere away from my gossipy colleagues.”

“There’s the Glen Lodge Hotel, just north of Braikie. I could meet you there at eight.”

“Fine,” said Lesley. “Now go and leak.”

♦

Hamish felt guiltily that he should really give the story to the local reporter, Matthew Campbell. But there was his other reporter friend, Elspeth Grant, who worked for a newspaper in Glasgow. Hamish had often thought of marrying Elspeth but something had always stopped him from proposing. He would not admit to himself that the something was the real love of his life, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of the owner of the Tommel Castle Hotel, now working in London.

As he returned to the police station and phoned the newspaper in Glasgow, he half expected to be told that Elspeth was already on her way to Lochdubh, but the news desk told him she was off sick.

He phoned her home number and a croaky voice he barely recognised as Elspeth’s answered the phone. She said she had a fearsome cold and had missed out on the assignment to Lochdubh. Hamish wished her well and said he would phone again. He decided to ease his conscience and give the story to Matthew instead.

“And who do I say this came from?” asked Matthew when Hamish had finished telling him about the fuse.

“Chust say a source,” said Hamish, the sudden sibi-lance of his accent showing that he was feeling guilty.

“Right! This is great stuff,” said Matthew. “I’ll get it out to the nationals and TV.”

♦

Blair hated Hamish Macbeth with a passion. He had previously enlisted the help of a prostitute to kidnap Hamish, hoping that in the policeman’s unexplained absence he could persuade his bosses to put the Lochdubh police station up for sale. But Hamish had not only ruined his plot but also managed to get the prostitute into blackmailing him, Chief Detective Inspector Blair, to marry her. Not that any of his colleagues ever even guessed at his wife’s rough background. After a few false starts, Mary Blair had modelled herself on Peter Daviot’s wife, and there was no longer any trace of the prostitute in her manner or dress. Daviot was fond of telling Blair what a lucky man he was to have found such an excellent wife.

Before he switched on the television that evening, Blair was feeling quite kindly towards his wife. A glass of whisky had been waiting for him when he got home from work, his flat was clean and shining, and she had cooked him an excellent supper.

He switched on the television news, hoping to see film of himself because he had held an impromptu press conference on the waterfront. But when the news item about the murder of the witch came up on the screen, he saw it was not a picture of himself, but of Daviot, speaking to the press outside police headquarters.

He turned up the sound and Daviot’s genteel accents filled the room. “Yes,” he was saying, “I have just received a report from the laboratory that the fire was set off by a fuse, which explains why the constable who found the body did not find anyone in the house.”

Mary looked over her knitting and saw her husband’s face turn a nasty purplish colour with rage.

“Blood pressure!” she cautioned.

♦

Jimmy Anderson called to see Hamish later that evening. “Were you behind that leak to the papers?” he demanded.

“Would I dae a thing like that?” asked Hamish. “Want a drink?”

“Aye. Blair is furious. But that local reporter insists he was up by the cottage and heard you talking to the forensic lassie.”

“So why blame me?” asked Hamish, all injured innocence.

“Just a hunch.”

“So what are the villagers saying?”

“Damn all. Except for a few of the more religious ones who think God sent down the fire to cleanse the place of her evil deeds. I asked Dr. Brodie if any of his patients had come to him suffering from Spanish fly and he told me he couldn’t discuss his patients. And not a man in the village will confess to having been to see her. Know anyone?”

“Not yet,” lied Hamish.

Jimmy’s blue eyes had a shrewd look. “I know you’re a close-knit, loyal, superstitious community up here, Hamish, but a villager impeding the police in their enquiries is not nearly as serious as a copper doing the same thing.”

“Och, drink your whisky,” snapped Hamish. “I’ll see what I can find out. But what about her background? If she supplied iffy potions here, then it’s ten to one she supplied them somewhere else. Was she ever married?”

“We’re trying to find out.”

“Catriona Beldame won’t have been her real name. Had she an account at the bank?”

“The bank manager says no, and any personal papers she had went up in the fire.”

“What if she changed her name by deed poll?”

“Still looking into mat. But she bought the cottage! She paid cash.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five thousand. Willie Ross, Sandy’s brother, advertised the cottage in the paper. He says he was right glad to get the money because the place was beginning to fall to bits and no one wants a cottage with an iron roof and an outside toilet these days. All done privately.”

“What about stamp duty?”

“None required if it’s under sixty thousand pounds. Look, Willie Ross badly needed the money. Along comes this Beldame female waving a fistful of notes at him, saying they didn’t need to bother with lawyers. What was her accent?”

“Slight highland accent. Mind you, it’s one of the easiest to mimic. I wish Elspeth were here.”

“Your ex-girlfriend? Why?”

“She’s got a Gypsy background. I’m beginning to wonder whether Catriona was a Gypsy.”

“Fortunately Mr. Patel at the grocery took a photo of her. He fancies himself as a cameraman. It’s a good shot, full face. It’ll be in all the newspapers tomorrow. Let’s hope someone recognises her.”

“I hope it turns out she’s got some really nasty, ordinary criminal background,” said Hamish. “That would stop this lot in the village thinking she was a witch.”

♦

The picture of Catriona Beldame was featured on the front pages of nearly every newspaper in Britain. She had been photographed on the waterfront by Patel. It was a good clear shot of her standing in the sunlight.

Hamish, avoiding the press, set off to question people in the village. He started with Willie Lamont, who was cleaning the restaurant preparatory to the lunchtime opening.

Willie loved cleaning. His Italian wife, Lucia, often complained that Willie’s passion for new and better cleaning products took up too much space in their cottage.

He turned and saw Hamish and grinned. “Wi’ all these press folk, it’s going to be busy,” he said.

Hamish removed his peaked cap and sat down at a table. “Join me a moment,” he said. “I want to ask you some questions about Catriona Beldame.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said Willie defensively. “I should never have gone to her, but Lucia hasn’t been much interested in martial rights since the baby.”

Hamish wondered whether to correct Willie’s mala-propism but decided to let it go.

“I have to use a condominium,” said Willie, “and that’s no fun. Like having a bath with your socks on.”

“Isn’t Lucia on the pill?” asked Hamish, momentarily diverted.

“She’s a good Catholic.”

“So what happened when you saw Catriona?”

“She gave me some herbal tea and said to make sure Lucia took it, but Lucia wouldn’t, so I went back to the witch and she said she could make my sexual progress – ”

“Prowess,” corrected Hamish.

“Whatever. She said I would be irresistible but all I got was the itch. She caused a lot of misery on the village. Then men who went to her said there was no point getting all fired up if the missus wouldn’t play. It’s the older fellows in the village who were the most disappointed.”

“Like who?”

“I shouldnae say.”

“Come on, Willie, I’ll find out anyway.”

“Well, there’s Fergus Braid, him that works over at the paper mill, Archie, the fisherman, Colin Framont, the builder, and Timmy Teviot, the forestry worker. That’s all I know about and don’t you go saying you got it from me. Now I’ve got to get back to my cleaning.”

Hamish left in a haze of lavender-scented cleaner.

He decided to start with Archie. Archie was a friend. But he doubted whether the fisherman could tell him anything more than he had already. He went back to the police station first to let his dog and cat out for a walk up the fields at the back. He knew if he appeared with them on the waterfront, there would be tales about the eccentric policeman with a wild cat as a pet and Sonsie might be taken away from him.

The air had turned considerably colder. The loch was like black glass, the trees in the pine forest opposite reflected in the still water. The two mountains soaring above the village had snow on their peaks.

And in the midst of all this beauty, scurrying around or talking in little groups, were the press. Hamish longed for a quick solution to the murder so that he could get the village back again to its usual quiet ways.

Archie was sitting on the harbour wall in front of his cottage. Steam was billowing out of the open door of the cottage. His wife was a ferocious boiler of clothes, which perhaps explained why everything poor Archie wore always seemed too tight.

“Any news?” asked Archie.

“Nothing yet. I want you to tell me why you went to the witch in the first place and what exactly happened.”

“I went because o’ my indigestion. Chronic, it is. Herself seemed right pleasant. She gave me some herb tea and it worked like a charm. She flirted with me, Hamish. Me! I knew herself had to be joking because she was a fine-looking woman and I’m no oil painting but it made me feel good – like a man again.

I went back to get some more and herself started to talk about sex. Man, you know we don’t talk about such things in Lochdubh. But with her pretty ways, she got me really fired up and she said she could sell me something that would make the wifie think I was great.”

“How much did she charge?”

Archie hung his head. “Fifty pounds.”

Hamish was shocked. “That’s an awful lot o’ money for you, Archie,” he said, “what with the fishing being so bad.”

“I’ve never gone mad,” said Archie, “but when I look back on it, it seems as if she drove me mad wi’” – his voice sank to a hoarse whisper – “lust. Once I was a bit away from her, it all faded except for a wee bit o’ my brain that longed to go back. Now I feel dirty. It’s as if she scrambled up our minds, us men. It’s like that wi’ a lot o’ the ither men. Women are a right funny breed. You see women on the telly just panting for a wee bit o’ nookie, and the magazines telling them how to get the man in their lives excited. Och, well, the hard fact is we don’t do sex in Lochdubh.”

“How do the other men cope?” asked Hamish.

“Just give up, like me, or they go to that br…Never mind.”

Hamish’s hazel eyes sharpened and he pushed his peaked cap back on his fiery red hair. “What were you about to say?”

“I wass about to say, or they go their own way.”

“I think you were about to say brothel. Where? Inverness? Strathbane?”

“I promised not to tell,” said Archie miserably. “I gave my word and I’ll not break it.”

Hamish gave up. He knew there were several brothels in Strathbane. What worried him was that one might have sprung up on his patch. It wasn’t like the old days. Now women from Eastern European countries were being forced into prostitution.

His mobile phone rang. He glanced down at the screen and recognised Blair’s home number. He was going to let it ring when he saw Blair standing outside the mobile police unit further down the waterfront. He realised it must be Blair’s wife who was calling him.

“Hamish?” Mary Blair’s voice came on the line. “I need to talk to you but I don’t want my old man to know about it. Can you come over?”

“I’ll do my best, Mary, but I don’t want your neighbours to see me and tell your husband. Meet me at Betty’s café in the main street. None of the police go there. Say in about an hour.”

“Grand. It’s important, Hamish.”

As it was Saturday, Hamish had hopes of finding the builder, Colin Framont, at home. He had torn down the old fishing cottage he had bought and replaced it with a bungalow with a fake Georgian portico made of wood at the front. Hamish thought it was lucky that Colin’s monstrosity of a house was up at the back of the village instead of spoiling the front.

Colin answered the door. He was a heavy, thickset man with grizzled hair, a beer paunch, and watery brown eyes.

“Whit?” he demanded curtly.

“It’s about Catriona Beldame,” said Hamish.

Colin’s faded-looking wife, Tilly, joined him on the doorstep. “Oh, Mr. Macbeth,” she said. “Would you like some tea?”

“No, he wouldnae like tea,” snarled Colin. “Get back in the kitchen.”

When his wife had scurried off, Colin said defiantly, “I only went tae her the once for indigestion pills.”

“There seems to be a fair amount of indigestion in Lochdubh,” said Hamish cynically. “Can you tell me what she said?”

“She gave me some tea and I went off.”

And with that, Colin slammed the door in Hamish’s face.

Hamish rang the bell again. No reply.

He banged on the door, which was swung open by a furious Colin.

“I’ve got naethin’ mair to say to ye!” he howled.

“Look, we can either do things here or at the station,” said Hamish. “Take your pick.”

To his surprise, me builder said, “The station’ll be fine.”

As they walked towards the police station, Colin said, “I know what you want to ask but you cannae be asking things like that in front of the wife.”

In the station Hamish served him tea in the kitchen and got down to business. “So what really happened?”

“It was around the men in the village that the witch could gie ye something tae make ye mair sexy to the wife, but the itch got so bad I went tae Dr. Brodie and he told me it was dangerous stuff. I went up there to have it out with her but there was no reply.”

“When exactly did you go up to her cottage?”

“The day before she was found. I swear tae God that’s the truth. You won’t be saying anything to the missus?”

“No, on my word. Have you heard any talk about a brothel?”

“No, but if you hear of one, let me know!”

♦

When Hamish entered the café in Strathbane, it was to find Mary Blair already waiting for him.

“So what’s the news?” asked Hamish.

“You know that woman that was murdered,” said Mary. “I think I met her.”

“Where? When?”

“I can’t remember exactly but it was about two years ago. There was this woman – I’m not giving you her name – and she was on the game. Would you believe it? She was a married woman and did it for a lark. Said her man was tight with money. She wasn’t on the streets like me. She had a wee flat that her husband didn’t know about. All high class. Advertised herself on the Internet. She liked to talk to us prossies – seemed to get a kick out of it. Well, one day she stops by me. She’d been crying and looked like a real mess. She said she was pregnant and since she hadn’t had sex with her husband in ages, he’d kill her if he found out.

So I said why didn’t she just go to the hospital and get an operation. Turns out her husband is a doctor and a member of the Rotary Club and the Freemasons and she said they all gossip and if she went for an abortion, it would get back to her husband. She said she’d heard of this woman who did abortions and she was going to her and she was right scared.

I was sorry for her and said I would go with her. Mind you, I tried to talk her out of it. Back-street abortions were dangerous, I said. Anyway, we went out to a wee house on the Drumlie Road. She wasn’t calling herself Catriona Beldame then. She was plain Mrs. McBride. The place was clean and nice and I hoped it would be all right. She took my lady off to the bedroom. When they came out, this Mrs. McBride said she would get her period like normal and abort and there would be no pain. I don’t know what that woman did to her but she was found on the street, dead, a week later. She’d bled to death.”

“You should have gone to the police, Mary.”

“Me, a prostitute, going to the police and saying a respectable doctor’s wife was on the game!”

“You could have written an anonymous letter.”

“And have forensics trace it back to me!”

“I doubt it,” said Hamish cynically.

“Anyway, I went back to that Mrs. McBride to tell her she was a murderer, but the place was closed up and she’d gone.”

“Still, you’ve given me a starting point,” said Hamish, “and you’ve also given me a motive for murder. What was the number of the house on Drumlie Road?”

“I can’t remember, but it was about halfway along and had a yellow privet hedge in front of it.”

After promising Mary that he would not reveal where he had got his latest information from, Hamish left and phoned Jimmy Anderson.

When he had finished speaking, Jimmy said, “I’ll meet you in the car park at police headquarters and we’ll go out to the Drumlie Road and see what we can find out.”

♦

They found the house with the yellow privet hedge in front. The door was answered by a small, neat-looking middle-aged man. He volunteered that he was a Mr. Southey and, yes, he had bought the house from Drummond’s, the estate agent. The previous owner had been a Mr. Tarrant.

“Not a Mrs. McBride?” asked Hamish.

“No,” said Mr. Southey. But he gathered that the house had been rented before he bought it.

Hamish and Jimmy got the address of Mr. Tarrant from the estate agent. Mr. Tarrant, said his wife who answered the door, was a solicitor and at his office. She gave them directions. Scottish advocates and solicitors are often, surprisingly, clever and charming, but Mr. James Tarrant was like a lawyer out of Central Casting. He was plump and pompous with slightly protruding brown eyes and a pursed little mouth. His voice was high-pitched and querulous.

“Yes, I rented the house to Mrs. McBride. Charming lady.”

“Do you still have the paperwork, her credentials and all that?” asked Jimmy.

He looked suddenly uncomfortable. “I got rid of it all when we arranged the house sale.”

Hamish’s eyes bored into him. “You didn’t ask, did you? She charmed you and paid cash.”

“She paid six months’ cash in advance and I was glad to rent it.”

“When did she tell you she was leaving?” asked Jimmy.

“Well…er…she didn’t. After the six months and there was no more rent, I called and found the place closed up.”

“Another dead end,” mourned Jimmy. “You get back to Lochdubh and question the folks there and I’ll go back to Drumlie Road and see if the neighbours know anything.”