Hamish drove to Lochdubh as fast as he could. It was one of those rare balmy days when a mild west wind blew in from the Gulf Stream. The mountains soared up to a pale-blue sky. He longed for the case to be over.
Fiona was waiting outside the police station. There was no sign of Charlie.
“Where’s Charlie?” asked Hamish.
“I have sent him to Kinlochbervie. I asked him to man this station but when I checked, he was out walking those ridiculous pets of yours. He might be able to find out something the other policemen have missed.”
They walked into the police station where Hamish gave her a rapid report of his conversation with Willie.
“I think,” he concluded by saying, “that Willie was just the sort of lowlife to maybe blackmail his clients. So, say he knew something about someone that might lead us to the identity of the murderer. He was prepared to do that rather than give up the name of whoever asked him to spy on you.”
“Have you any idea who might have employed Willie to spy on me?” she asked.
Hamish hesitated only a moment before he said, “I cannae think o’ anyone, ma’am.”
He knew that if he said he suspected Blair, there would be a full enquiry. He would be asked to present all his suspicions and findings in triplicate and nothing would come of it.
Fiona took out her phone. “I’d better get headquarters to find out the identity of all phone calls to that hunting box last night.”
When she had finished, she said, “What on earth are you doing, Macbeth?”
“I’m lighting the stove, ma’am.”
“There’s no time for that. You get off and join Constable Carter. And don’t take your weird animals with you.”
He saw Fiona out and waited until she had been driven off, then made his way to his friend Angela Brodie’s house.
Angela was the doctor’s wife and an author. Hamish often wondered why she bothered to write anything at all because she seemed to hate the process so much. She was seated at a cluttered kitchen table where three cats prowled among the breakfast debris. One had its head in the milk jug.
She smiled at Hamish. “I’m glad to see you. Coffee?”
“No thanks,” said Hamish, reflecting that Angela was amazingly unsanitary for a doctor’s wife. “One of your cats has its head in the jug and another is licking the butter.”
“Shoo!” said Angela, waving her hands. “What do you want, Hamish?”
“I’ve left Sonsie and Lugs back at the station. I know they frighten your cats so I didn’t bring them. But if you could pop in from time to time and see they’ve got water and food.”
“All right. But they’ll probably go along to the restaurant kitchen and mooch something. How’s the case?”
“Dead, slow, and stop. What do you think of immigrants, Angela?”
“Apart from thinking occasionally that if you took all the Eastern Europeans out of Scotland, the hotels would be self-service, and if you took the Indians and Pakistanis out of the National Health Service, it would collapse?”
“Right. But a lot o’ folk complain so much about them that I’m inclined to lean too far the other way,” said Hamish. “Now, Juris and Inga Janson are called Latvians. But they are British citizens. In reaction to xenophobia, I haven’t been studying them that closely.”
Angela had been typing on a laptop at the table. With a sigh of relief, she closed it down and pushed a wisp of hair away from her gentle face.
“You have to ask yourself what the motive is,” she said. “Surely, money is the motive.”
“In that case, the one that had the most to lose,” said Hamish, “would be the son, Andrew, but he’s got a cast-iron alibi.”
“You always used to say that the ones with cast-iron alibis were suspicious. Oh, do get off, Flopsy.” Angela gently removed a fat cat from her computer and put it on the floor.
“Let me think,” said Hamish. “Andrew and his wife claim to have been guests of friends in Somerset the weekend of the murder. Maybe they got the friends to lie for them. I’ll check it out.”
As Hamish had expected, he found Charlie at the café. “It’s no use, Hamish. Everyone’s been interviewed over and over again and they’ve got nothing to add. Does anyone know what poisoned her?”
“Too early,” said Hamish, sitting down to join him. “Why are you banished from Fiona’s side?”
Charlie gave a massive shrug. “Don’t know. I think that detective scared her.”
“Did you hear about him being killed?”
“Yes, herself briefed me afore sending me off.”
“I wish I could get down to England and check out Andrew’s alibi.”
“I’ve got my computer in my car,” said Charlie. “We can find out their names and make a call. Say something like doubts have been cast on their alibi and the dire consequences of perverting the course of justice.”