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.She was annoyed to find out that there was nothing new she could tell Deacon, Hamish having told him more than she knew.“Can’t see much point in me being in this dead-alive place,” said Maggie.“You just help Macbeth,” said Deacon sharply.“That’s what you’re there for.”The phone rang almost as soon as she had put it down.She picked it up quickly.“Hamish?” demanded a voice.Maggie was just beginning to say, “This is WPC Donald.I will take any messages for PC Macbeth,” when Hamish strode in and snatched the phone from her.“Hullo, Rory,” she heard him say.Maggie sat down in a chair in the office, determined to hear this call.What Rory was actually reporting was that he had found nothing on the files about any of the suspects, but all Maggie could hear from her end was Hamish’s grunts of disappointment.Hamish replaced the receiver and said to Maggie, “What about a cup of coffee?”“You’re as bad as the rest of them,” said Maggie, slamming out.The phone rang again.It was the editor of the newspaper in Worcester.He said he had found a few cuttings on Andrew Biggar; he had judged a dog show last year, ridden in one of the local point-to-points, lived with his mother in a large house outside Worcester on the Wyre Piddle road; nothing else.Hamish thanked him, rang off and stared in frustration at the phone.He went back into the kitchen.Maggie was looking depressed.“Forget the coffee,” he said abruptly.“We’ll go and call on Angela, the doctor’s wife, instead.Get you out a bit.And I’m taking you for dinner to the Tommel Castle Hotel tonight.”Her face lit up.“Oh, Hamish, how kind! That will cost you a lot.”“Don’t worry about it,” he said grandly, having no intention of telling her that the meal was to be free.Feeling suddenly pleased with him, Maggie followed him out and they walked towards the doctor’s house, leaning against the screaming wind.Waves curled and smashed down on the pebbles of the beach.A plastic dustbin rolled crazily past them.Children ran before the wind on the beach, screaming like sea-gulls.Hamish and Maggie walked round the side of the doctor’s house and Hamish knocked at the kitchen door.Angela answered it and invited them in.Maggie looked curiously around the kitchen.Books everywhere: on the kitchen table, on the chairs, and on the floor.Two cats promenaded lazily across the books on the table and two dogs snored under it.“Clear a space for yourselves, Hamish,” said Angela.“You know the drill in this house.”While she prepared a jug of coffee, Angela said over one thin shoulder, “So how’s the case going, Hamish, and why here and not in Skag?”“I wanted the use of my own office,” said Hamish.“How’s life in the village?”“Much the same.No dramas.Jessie Currie has gone back to being an ordinary lady.Whatever Angus told her seemed to do the trick, although she looked quite sad for a few days.There’s a cake sale up at the church hall tomorrow and I tried my best, but my cakes never rise.We’ve had various visitors looking at the Lochdubh Hotel.” She turned round and said to Maggie, “It’s been up for Sale for some time.But they always go away again.There was even a consortium of Japanese business men, but the minute they saw the hills and mountains and found there was no way of attaching a golf course to it, they left again.Oh, yes, there was a drama last week.Didn’t you hear about it at the manse?” Hamish shook his head.“There were plans to make it into a sort of approved school for young offenders.I think everyone in the village wrote to their MP to protest.”“It is a fine building and right on the harbour,” said Hamish.“You would think someone would want it.”“If the Tommel Castle Hotel had not come into being, then someone might have bought it, but no one wants to start up in an area where there’s such a powerful rival.”“Any sign of the colonel turning it back into his family home?” asked Hamish.“He must be as rich as anything now.”“He got such a fright when he went broke last time,” said Angela, setting a jug of coffee on top of a pile of books on the table.“He won’t contemplate it.Johnson’s a good manager.” She poured two mugs of coffee.“Heard from Priscilla?” asked Angela.“No,” said Hamish curtly, his face set.“Oh, well,” said Angela quickly, “tell me about this case.”Maggie listened carefully as Hamish succinctly outlined the facts of the murder case and described the suspects.Angela sat down with them as Hamish talked.“Well,” she said when he had finished, “you’ll probably find it’s this Dermott Brett.”Hamish thought of Dermott and June and the children.“I don’t want it to be,” he commented [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]