“I know,” Hamish shouted back. “Let me past.” Priscilla swung her car to the side of the one-track road and Hamish roared off past her.
♦
Elspeth stared down at the pair of housework-reddened hands and said, “I see violence and murder in your hands, Mrs. Framont.”
Three guests came into the lounge. Tilly snatched her hands away. “You’re nothing but a fraud,” she said. She got up and began to march away. Elspeth followed her. She desperately wanted Tilly to do or say something to betray herself. Tilly went out of the hotel and walked towards her car.
“Well, good night,” said Elspeth, and she turned to walk back into the hotel.
A police siren sounded. Driving into the hotel, Hamish Macbeth thought he would never forget the sight that met his eyes.
As Elspeth turned away, Tilly took a pair of scissors out of her pocket, ran forward, and stabbed Elspeth viciously in the back.
Elspeth fell face-forward in the snow.
Hamish jumped down from the Land Rover and grabbed Tilly and threw her to the ground. She screamed and clawed at him. He finally got handcuffs on her. Mr. Johnson came running out. Priscilla drove up and got out of her car. She and Hamish ran to Elspeth.
“Help me up,” said Elspeth.
“Let’s get you to the hospital fast,” said Hamish.
“It’s all right,” said Elspeth. “She didn’t get me. I’m wearing one of the colonel’s old flak jackets.”
Hamish rounded on Mr. Johnson. “Why was Elspeth left alone with this woman?”
“I told them to,” said Elspeth. “I thought I would be safe.”
Perry came running out. “What’s happened?”
“Oh, Perry,” said Elspeth and burst into tears. He wrapped his arms around her.
“Hamish, the phones are back on,” said Mr. Johnson.
“Right. Help me get her into the office and I’ll get Jimmy ower from Strathbane.”
♦
In the office with ex-policeman Clarry taking notes, Hamish switched on the small tape recorder he always carried with him and charged Tilly with attempted culpable homicide. She had subsided into a mutinous silence.
Hamish tried question after question but she just stared at him defiantly.
At last Hamish picked up the phone and, consulting his notebook, dialled Colin Framont’s number. “Colin, I have arrested your wife,” he said. “Come up to the hotel.”
“No,” said Tilly. “You have no right to bring him here.”
“I have every right.”
“Filth. You’re all filth,” said Tilly.
“What, men?”
“Aye, the lot of you, and you will roast in hell for your bestial lusts.”
“Confession is good for the soul,” said Hamish. “Why don’t we begin at the beginning? Let’s start with Catriona Beldame.”
“He went to her. My Colin. He’d never even disobeyed me before. He had to be stopped. Oh, she looked that startled when herself saw me, lying naked in her sinful bed. But I shut her up for good.”
“You could have been caught lighting that fuse,” said Hamish.
“Not me. The Lord was with me that day.”
“But Ina? Why Ina?”
A tear ran down one of her cheeks and she brushed it angrily away. “She was my best friend. We were always agreed on everything. Keep the men in their place and if they won’t stay there, give them a good whack. I thought she’d be pleased but she said it was on her conscience and she felt she ought to tell the police. The Lord was watching over me again and he sent down a fog to cover me when I darted into Patel’s and killed her.”
“And Ellie Macpherson?”
“I couldn’t take a chance. She had to be silenced. The Lord told me she had to be silenced.”
“And Fiona McNulty?”
“That hoor. I made Colin tell me about her. He said Fergus had been seeing her. My Ina’s husband betraying her by going to a hoor?”
Jimmy Anderson came in flanked by Harry MacNab and a policewoman.
“I have her confessions on tape,” said Hamish wearily. “You’ll find Clarry has excellent shorthand notes as well. Take her away and interview her yourself, Jimmy.”
Hamish found Colin Framont in the hall. He turned his head away as Tilly was taken past him.
“You as well,” said Jimmy, taking Colin’s arm. “Hamish, file a full report.”
Colin was led out protesting that he knew nothing about it.
Hamish went back to where Priscilla was looking blankly at the stairs. “Where’s Elspeth?”
“She and Perry have gone to file a story. Want a drink?”
“Just the one. I never asked where Blair was.”
They went into the bar. Hamish was miserable because the murderer had turned out to be one of the villagers. Priscilla was miserable because Perry and Elspeth seemed to be close.
They ordered whiskies and sat in silence for a while. Then Priscilla said, “You should have gone with them. You solved the case.”
“The old, old reason, Priscilla. Too much focus on me means a promotion and promotion means moving to Strathbane.”
“I can hardly believe it,” said Priscilla. “I worked with Tilly from time to time on visits up here when there was a crofters’ fair or something like that.”
“She beat her husband.” Hamish took a swallow of his whisky. “Fergus’s wife beat him, too, and I’m supposed to know everything that goes on in the village. I wonder what other bit of misery is going on behind closed doors that I don’t know about. You seem pretty low. Get a fright?”
“Yes, something like that.”
♦
When Hamish got back to the police station, he typed out a report and sent it over to Strathbane. Then he took the dog and cat out for a walk through the snow on the waterfront. The loch was glassy black. The air was still and crisp and cold. Bright stars shone down overhead. A television set in one of the cottages was playing a comedy, and the sound of canned laughter made Hamish feel as if the old gods were laughing at him for being such a blind fool.
What was it Archie had said? “We don’t do sex in Lochdubh.”
Poor buggers, thought Hamish. He had a bright picture of Priscilla staring desolately at the stairs when Elspeth and Perry had just gone up to write their story.
“Poor me,” he said out loud.
∨ Death of a Witch ∧
11
The weaker sex, to piety more prone.
– Sir William Alexander, Earl of Stirling
Jimmy called the following morning. “She’s gone completely round the twist, Hamish.”
“Are you sure she’s not just pretending to be mad to get out of a trial?”
“Blair finished her off, in a way. He insisted on doing the questioning while I sat there like a tumshie. Tilly decided he was the devil’s messenger and she quoted the Bible at him nonstop. If you hadn’t got that confession out o’ her, he might have had a job proving her guilty. And would you get this? They dug up the garden and found a computer and a supply o’ chemicals. More than that, our Tilly studied chemistry for a year at Strathbane University before dropping out. Blair’s trying to take the credit but Daviot read your statement. I think he’s going to promote you this time. Give you a policeman to help you.”
“Oh, no!”
“Relax. He’s just putting you up to sergeant. He says this police station, as he remembers it, has two bedrooms.”
“Chust the one.”
“Come on, Hamish. You look shifty. Show it to me.”
“Oh, all right.” Hamish led him into the living room. He pulled back a curtain next to the bookcase, revealing a door. He opened it.
Jimmy looked in. “What on earth…?”