Part 10 (1/2)
”Anderson!” cried Hamish, appalled. He shook Jenny awake. ”Jenny! Get up. It's that detective, Jimmy Anderson. He mustn't find you here.”
”Macbeth!”
The police station had not been locked and Anderson had walked in.
Jenny was struggling into her clothes at the same time as Hamish. He jerked open the bedroom window. ”Leave this way, Jenny,” he said urgently.
He picked her up and lifted her through the window. ”I'll look after Towser for you while you're way,” whispered Jenny. ”Bring him over tomorrow.”
”Right.”
”And give me a kiss.”
Hamish leaned through the window and kissed her.
”I've got the papers, Macbeth,” Anderson called. Jenny swung around in confusion. Not having found Hamish in the house, Anderson had decided to search the garden.
Jenny scampered off, not looking at the detective.
”She chust called around to say hallo,” said Hamish. ”Go round to the police station.”
”Some hallo.” Anderson grinned. ”Better fasten up your collar and cover that love bite.”
Hamish slammed the window shut.
When he got through to the police station, it was to find Anderson already seated at the desk with a sheaf of papers.
Hamish forgot his embarra.s.sment, poured Anderson a drink, and then began to read the statements.
”Far be it from me to tell you how to do your job,” he murmured, ”but you don't seem to have been able to pin anyone down. Everyone in Cnothan seems to have been at The Clachan that Sat.u.r.day night, but they can't remember when they arrived, who was there, or when they left.”
”Obstructive lot,” said Anderson.
”Oh, I'm with you there. But Blair usually gets you to bludgeon people so much they end up telling you something-anything concrete to get you off their backs.”
”Grand whisky, this,” said Anderson.
Hamish looked at him sharply. ”In other words, you've all decided it would be better not to find the murderer.”
”I didnae say that,” said Anderson, holding his gla.s.s up to the light and squinting at it.
Hamish turned over the statements. ”Here! What was Mrs. Struthers doing in The Clachan?”
”Oh, her. Collecting for famine relief in the Third World. Evidently she turns up with her tambourine on a Sat.u.r.day night because she knows the drunks will hand over their money easily.”
Hamish moved on to Jenny's statement. He wondered that Blair had accepted it without comment. She had gone for a walk on Sat.u.r.day morning with Mainwaring up to Clachan Mohr. They often went up there and took a flask of coffee. He had insulted her work. He had been laughing and smoking his pipe in between insulting her. She had smacked his face and knocked the pipe from his mouth. Then she had run away.
”I'm surprised Blair has such sensitivity towards the artistic soul,” said Hamish drily.
”Meaning what?” asked Anderson lazily.
”Meaning Jenny Lovelace and Mainwaring.”
”Och, all that stuff about artistic integrity and wounding her very soul? In Blair's opinion, she's a hot little baggage who was being screwed by Mainwaring and the affair turned sour.”
”Watch your mouth!” said Hamish furiously.
”Keep calm, friend. I'm not saying it. I'm only saying how Blair said it.” Anderson wondered whether to add that Blair had said that anyone who got into the sack with a daftie like Hamish Macbeth would open her legs for anyone, but decided against it.
Hamish fought down his anger. He was dismayed to realize he was furious because Blair's nasty comments held the ring of truth. Mainwaring had been nearly sixty and hardly an Adonis. But he had been a well-built man, and that marriage-of-true-minds bit might have been very seductive to a woman like Jenny.
The door of the police station opened and Diarmuid Sinclair walked in. Anderson gulped down the whisky in his gla.s.s and, picking up the bottle, walked off with it.
”You're really coming out of your sh.e.l.l,” said Hamish as the crofter sat down. ”Gadding about like a two-year-old. I'm off to Inverness in the morning, so if you want me to save you a trip, I'll buy that present for you. I've got to go to the Glen Abb Hotel to check Ross's alibi.”
”No,” said Diarmuid. ”I ha' a mind to go masel'. While you're there, book me a room at the Glen Abb, and see it has the telly and a private bathroom.”
”And dancing girls? You're living it up. What are you going to get young Scan?”
”A train set,” said Diarmuid dreamily, ”wi' wee houses and fields and tracks and all.”
”Set you back a bit,” said Hamish. ”Not to mention the price o' a room at the Glen Abb.”
”I've a good bittie put by,” said Diarmuid. ”You jist book me the room for Friday night.”
After the crofter had left, Hamish drove over to Mrs. Mainwaring's and asked for a photograph of her husband. He had a vague notion of sending it down to London to Rory Grant on the Daily Recorder Daily Recorder. The riots in Paris were over and the journalist might be able to find something out about Mainwaring from the newspaper files. He stayed as short a time as possible. The house and Mrs. Mainwaring depressed him. Ashtrays were overflowing and dust had settled on everything, and Mrs. Mainwaring had been well and truly drunk.
When he returned to the police station, he could see the lights s.h.i.+ning from Jenny's cottage. He wanted her again. A cynical voice in his head told him he could if he wanted.
His conscience fought it down. Hamish did not believe in love without responsibility. One more night in her arms and then he really would have to propose to her.
He settled down to read the Xeroxed papers thoroughly. Along with the statements, there were reports on Mainwaring's background from the police in the south. Mainwaring's brother, a lawyer, had said that Mainwaring had borrowed large sums of money from him over the years and had never paid them back. He had ended up refusing to see him or communicate with him. Mainwaring's two sisters said pretty much the same thing. Mainwaring's parents were dead. He had inherited a tidy sum from them when he was still a comparatively young man. He had bought an hotel in Devon, but had seemed to run it like a sort of 'Fawlty Towers,' insulting the regular customers. Three years later, he had declared himself bankrupt.
Then came the surprise. Mainwaring had been married twice before. One wife, the daughter of a garage owner, had divorced him, and the other, an elderly lady, had died of a heart attack. A police comment said that Mainwaring had a reputation for having great success with the ladies.
Hamish fished out the photograph of William Mainwaring and looked at it. The small prissy features set in the large round head looked out at him. Amazing, thought Hamish. No accounting for taste.
As the small train chugged out of Cnothan next morning, Hamish settled back in his seat and felt himself begin to relax. Cnothan and all its dark hates and enmities and Bible-bas.h.i.+ng religion was losing its grip on him and he was journeying towards the light. That's just what it was like, he thought. It was as if Cnothan were some science-fiction black mist that twisted and turned the minds of all who lived in it.
The train crawled its way round the hillsides, stopping and starting, finally picking up speed until at last it clattered over the points into Lairg station, the first civilized outpost in Hamish's mind. The sky was turning light and the birds were chirping in the trees. He leaned out of the window and watched the man in charge of Lairg station bustling about. Hamish knew him of old. He was like a station-master in a children's book, rosy-cheeked, white hair, kindly eyes twinkling behind spectacles, unfailingly helpful, unfailingly good-humored.
Now Lairg, as Hamish remembered, was very like Cnothan in size and design. It, too, was the centre of a crofting community. But it was a bustling, cheerful, welcoming place.
The days were getting rapidly lighter. One long ray of sun struck the top of the station roof. There was a tinge of warmth in the air. That was the way of winter in the Highlands. It seduced you into thinking it had lost its grip and then came roaring back. The train moved off in a series of jerks, through Ardgay, Tain, Fearn, Invergordon, Dingwall, Muir of Ord, and on to Inverness.
The restless sea-gulls of Inverness were screaming overhead when he got off at Inverness station. The Tannoy was belting out a Scottish country-dance tune. Hamish was tempted to spend a day going around the shops, tempted to forget about the investigation. What on earth could he find out at this late date that the Inverness police could not? He was not wearing his uniform, correctly guessing that Blair had not warned the Inverness Police Department of this intrusion into their territory.