A muffled voice from the other side of the door reached her ears. “Go round to the side door.”
Back out and round the side of the police station went Josie. Hamish Macbeth was standing by the open kitchen door looking down at her quizzically.
“I’m Josie McSween,” said Josie. “I’ll just get my things.”
“You can’t move in here,” said Hamish. “The villagers won’t have it. You’re to stay with Mrs. Wellington, the minister’s wife.”
“But-”
“There are no buts about it. The ladies of the village won’t thole a lassie living with me at the police station. I’ll get my coat and walk ye up there. When you see where it is, you can come back for your car. Wait there, McSween, I’ll get my coat.”
McSween! In all her dreams he had called her Josie. Hamish emerged shortly and began to walk off with long strides in the direction of the manse while Josie scurried behind him.
“Don’t I get a choice of where I want to live?” she panted.
“You’re a policewoman,” said Hamish over his shoulder. “You just go where you’re put.”
The manse was situated behind the church. It was a Georgian building. Georgian architecture usually conjures a vision of elegance, but Scottish Georgian can be pretty functional and bleak. It was a square three-story sandstone building, unornamented, and with several windows bricked up dating from the days of the window tax.
Hamish led the way round to the kitchen door where Mrs. Wellington was already waiting, the highland bush telegraph having noticed and relayed every moment of Josie’s arrival.
Josie’s heart sank even lower. Mrs. Wellington was a vast tweedy woman with a booming voice.
“Where are your things?” she asked.
“I left them in my car at the police station,” said Josie.
“Shouldn’t you be in uniform?”
“It’s my day off.”
“Off you go, Mr. Macbeth,” said Mrs. Wellington. “I’ll just show Miss McSween her room and give her the rules of the house and then she can bring her luggage.”
Josie followed Mrs. Wellington into the manse kitchen. It was vast, dating from the days when ministers had servants and large families. It was stone-flagged, and the double sinks by the window were deep and made of stone with old-fashioned brass taps. A long dresser lining one wall contained blue and white plates. The newest item was a scarlet fuel-burning Raeburn stove. High up in the ceiling by a wooden pulley burned a dim single lightbulb. On the pulley hung a row of Mrs. Wellington’s knickers: large, cotton, and fastened at the knee with elastic. Where on earth did one get knickers like that these days, wondered Josie. People didn’t often talk about knickers any more, preferring the American panties. But panties suggested something naughty and feminine. In one corner stood a large fridge and, wonder of wonders in this antique place, a dishwasher.
“Come along,” ordered Mrs. Wellington. “The washing machine is in the laundry room over there to your left. Washing is on Thursdays.”
Josie followed her out of the kitchen, which led into a dark hall where a few dim, badly painted portraits of previous ministers stared down at her. There was a hallstand of the kind that looked like an altar and a Benares brass bowl full of dusty pampas grass.
The staircase was of stone, the steps worn smooth and polished by the long years of feet pounding up and down. At the first landing, Mrs. Wellington led the way along a corridor painted acid green on the top half, the bottom half being made of strips of brown-painted wood.
The wind had risen, and it moaned about the old manse like a banshee. Mrs. Wellington pushed open a door at the end. “This is where you’ll stay. The arrangement is for bed and breakfast. Any other meals you want you will cook yourself, but not between five and six which is when I prepare tea for Mr. Wellington.”
To Josie’s relief the room was light and cheerful. The window looked out over the roofs of the waterfront houses to the loch. There was a large double bed with a splendid patchwork quilt covering it. A peat fire was burning in the hearth.
“We are fortunate to have a large supply of the peat so you can burn as much as you like,” said Mrs. Wellington. “Now, once you are settled in, you will have your tea with us, seeing as it is your first day, and in the evening I will take you to a meeting of the Mothers’ Union in the church hall to introduce you to the other ladies of Lochdubh.”
“But Hamish-” began Josie weakly.
“I have told him of the arrangements and he has agreed. You are to report to the police station tomorrow morning at nine o’clock. When you drive up, you can leave your car outside the front door for easy access, but after that, use the kitchen door. Here are the keys. The only one you need to use is the kitchen door key.”
The key was a large one, no doubt dating from when the manse had been built.
Josie thanked her and scurried off down the stairs. The mercurial weather had changed and a squall of sleet struck her in the face. She had been to the hairdresser only that morning. On her road back to the police station, the malicious wind whipped her hair this way and that, and gusts of icy sleet punched her in the face.
She knocked at the police station door but there was no answer. Josie got into her car and drove up to the manse.
She struggled up the stairs with two large suitcases. The manse was silent except for the moan of the wind.
In her room, there was a huge Victorian wardrobe straight out of Narnia. She hung away her clothes. Josie wanted a long hot bath. She walked along the corridor, nervously pushing open door after door until she found a large bathroom at the end. There was a claw-footed bath with a gas heater over it. The heater looked ancient but the metre down on the floor looked new. She crouched down and read the instructions. “Place a one-pound coin in the metre and turn the dial to the left and then to the right. Light the geyser and stand back.” On a shelf beside the bath was a box of long matches.
Josie returned to her room and changed into her dressing gown, found a pound coin, and went back to the bathroom. She put the coin in the metre and twisted the dial, then turned on the water. There was a hiss of gas. She fumbled anxiously with the box of matches, lit one, and poked it into the metre. There was a terrifying bang as the gas lit but the stream of water became hot.
The bath was old and deep and took about half an hour to fill. At last, she sank into it and wondered what she was going to do about Hamish Macbeth. Perhaps the village women at the church hall could fill her in with some details.
Hamish Macbeth crowed over the phone to Jimmy Anderson. “I’m telling you, I give that lassie two days at the most. By the time Mrs. Wellington’s finished with her, she’ll be crying for a transfer back to Strathbane.”
Josie decided that evening to dress in her uniform to give herself a bit of gravitas. She still felt hungry. She was used to dinner in the evening, not the high tea served in homes in Lochdubh. She had eaten a small piece of fish with a portion of canned peas and one boiled potato followed by two very hard tea cakes.
To her relief, there were cakes, sandwiches, and tea on offer at the village hall. Mrs. Wellington introduced her all round. Josie wondered if she would ever remember all the names. One woman with a gentle face and wispy hair stood out-Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife-and two fussy old twins called Nessie and Jessie Currie.
Over the teacups, Nessie and Jessie warned her that Hamish Macbeth was a philanderer and to stick to her job, but Angela rescued her and said, mildly, that usually the trouble started because of women pursuing Hamish, not the other way around.
Josie tossed her newly washed hair. She had carried her cap under her arm so as not to spoil the hairstyle. She was angry with Hamish for billeting her at the manse and spoiling her dreams. “I can’t see what anyone would see in the man,” said Josie. “He’s just a long drip with that funny-looking red hair.”