Sonny recognised her as a reporter he had seen on the press benches in the high court and tried to close the door.
Elspeth put her foot in the door and held up a fifty-pound note. “I’m writing an article on car theft. I know you’re clean but I want a bit of advice.”
He nipped the note from her fingers and then opened the door wide.
“Come in, petal,” he said. “You’ve come tae the right man.”
♦
Elspeth knew that Perry lived in a cul-de-sac off Great Western Road. She drove there at four in the morning. Perry’s BMW was parked on the road outside.
She crouched down by the car and assembled her kit – a wooden door wedge, a metal wire coat hanger, and a hammer.
Following Sonny’s instructions, she broke into the car. The alarm shrilled. With a beating heart she dived into the car and, as per instructions, locked the door, unlocked it, opened the door from the inside, and hit the kill switch on the underside of the dashboard.
The alarm fell silent. She peered up at the windows. Not a single light showed. People were used to faulty car alarms. She opened the glove compartment and seized Perry’s small tape recorder. Then to make it look like a real burglary, she took his radio and CD player as well.
She let herself out of the car, stuffed the stolen goods and her equipment back into a travel bag, and scurried off to where she had parked her own car.
Back in her own apartment, she switched on the tape recorder and ran it back to the Lochdubh interviews. It was as Hamish had expected. The Currie sisters were asked whether the women of the village liked to dress up as fantasy figures, nurses or little girls, to excite their husbands.
Mrs. Wellington had been asked if she ever wore leather in bed or had used a vibrator.
“The sexual practises you are talking about are filth,” Mrs. Wellington had said.
But her reply as published in the article had appeared as, “All sex is filth.”
The other interviews were on the same tricky lines. Various villagers had been asked about Hamish’s love life and the replies had been mostly the same – that he did not have a girlfriend at the moment. Nothing about him being celibate.
Elspeth felt the fury rise in her. Poor innocent Lochdubh, held up to ridicule.
Wearing the thin gloves she had donned for the burglary, she typed out a note to the news desk at Scottish Television and packed up the tape recorder and the original article.
She addressed the package and then drove to Scottish Television wearing an old motorcycle helmet and leathers from the days when she had used a motorbike. She studied herself in the mirror. Nobody could tell in her disguise whether she was a man or a woman.
♦
Elspeth was sent to cover the high court the next day. A case of drug pushing dragged on and then was finally adjourned to the following day.
By the time she got back to the office, it was buzzing with the news of Perry’s sacking. Scottish Television had played the tape on the lunchtime news.
A troubleshooter had been sent to Lochdubh to pacify the maligned villagers with money.
Perry had tried to blame Elspeth and was told roundly to forget it. He had made enough trouble already. Elspeth heaved a sigh of relief. She still had the stolen radio and CD player in her flat.
The newspaper published a full apology. The villagers were compensated. Hamish found himself the pleased beneficiary of one thousand pounds. As soon as it had arisen, the public demonstration of affection disappeared and Lochdubh settled into its old ways.
∨ Death of a Witch ∧
12
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.
– Robert Louis Stevenson
Lochdubh settled down into its usual placid ways. Hamish hoped the poachers were long gone.
He opened the door one misty morning to find his mother standing on the step. He stooped down and gave her a hug. “What brings you?”
“I’ve a rare treat for you, Hamish,” said Mrs. Macbeth, sitting at the table and opening up a capacious leather handbag. “Have you heard o’ Pedro’s Olive Oil?”
Hamish shook his red head. “And what did you win this time?” he asked. His mother was addicted to entering competitions.
“This!” She pulled out a folder. “It’s a four-day trip to Barcelona, first class on Eurostar to Paris, then Grande Classe on a train called the Joan Miro and a few nights in a hotel. You’d need to leave in two weeks’ time.”
“Can’t you give it to anyone else, Mum? I mean, I’ve been to Spain.”
“It’s a great big country. You’ve got to get out a bit.”
“How did you win?”
“I wrote a slogan, “Pedro’s health-giving olive oil can give you long life.” See! Simple. Better to keep it simple. They’ve got a photo o’ a fellow who looks like a Spanish Father Christmas to put on the bottles.”
“And that’s it? What if someone uses the stuff aged thirty and drops dead?”
“I don’t have to bother about that. Anyway, it’s all in the words. I said ‘can,’ not ‘will.’” A note of steel entered her voice. “What you need is a holiday. I’m leaving this folder here and in a fortnight’s time, I want to hear you’re on your way.”
In vain did Hamish protest. His mother slapped the folder down on the table and left.
Two days later, feeling he had done his duty by driving the many miles over his beat, he decided to take himself up into the hills. A little part of him was still worried that the poachers were out to get him.
It was a grand day as he headed up into the mountains. The peaks of the Two Sisters were still covered in snow. The days were getting longer already, which was cheering. There was so very little daylight in the north in winter.
A curlew piped its mournful note and up above, a golden eagle flashed its wings in the sun. He turned and looked back at the village. He could see a figure that looked like Archie Maclean painting something on a board outside his cottage. He took out a small pair of powerful binoculars and focussed on the notice. It said, TRIPS ROUND THE BAY IN A GENUINE SCOTTISH FISHING BOAT.
Hamish remembered that Archie had decided to try his hand in a bit of tourism when the summer came along.
The fish stocks were dwindling, and he had been searching around for a way to make some extra money.
Right down the hill something glinted in the heather.
Hamish took to his heels and ran. He looked briefly back over his shoulder. Two men with guns had risen out of the heather where they had been hiding.
Hamish was a champion hill runner. He ran like the wind heading up and up to a particular plateau he knew. The round tarns, those ponds like miniature Scottish lochs left behind by the Ice Age, shone like so many giants’ blue eyes in the sun.
On and on ran Hamish until he gained the plateau, which was covered by a peat bog.
Experienced in the treacheries of the bog, he leapt from tussock to tussock, gained the far side, and crouched down behind a large boulder.
He was unarmed. He took out his mobile phone and found that the battery was dead.
His wits against two rifles! He could only hope it would work.
What were their names again? Ah, he had it. The older one was Walter Wills and the younger, Granger Home.
He cautiously looked round the rock in time to see the two men on the far side of the bog.
“There’s the bastard!” shouted Wally. He raised his rifle. Hamish withdrew his head as a bullet pinged off the rock.
Sound carried in the clear air. He heard Wally saying, “He cannae be armed or he’d ha’ shot back. Come on. Let’s get him.”
♦
Down below at his cottage window, Angus the seer put down his powerful telescope and hurtled out of his cottage and down the brae to the village, crying for help.