Death of a Gentle Lady

part.’
    ‘I need a break,’ said Priscilla, getting to her feet. ‘I’ll get back to it later.’
    ‘If you go on like this,’ said Harold, ‘I’ll need to find someone else for Lady Macbeth.’
    ‘Do that very thing,’ said Priscilla coldly.
    ‘I didn’t mean …’ Harold began to babble, but Priscilla was already walking off with Hamish.
    ‘Can we go somewhere quiet?’ asked Hamish.
    ‘I still have my sitting room. My parents always keep my rooms in the hope I’ll come back.’
    ‘And will you?’
    ‘It’s all right for a bit and then I just want to get to London again.’
    Why? wondered Hamish. Who’s there to pull you back?
    But he said nothing, only following her into her small, pleasant sitting room.
    ‘I suppose you want coffee,’ said Priscilla.
    ‘That would be grand. And maybe a sandwich?’
    She picked up the phone and gave the order. ‘Now,’ she asked, ‘what’s all this about?’
    Priscilla was wearing a blue cashmere sweater over a blue cashmere skirt. Her hair was as smooth and golden as ever. Hamish wondered whether she had started to tint it and hoped she had. He felt he would feel more comfortable with a slightly flawed Priscilla.
    He told her what had happened, only breaking off when the coffee and sandwiches arrived, and then continuing on.
    ‘So what is troubling you?’ asked Priscilla.
    ‘First, the woman in the phone box. Mark is not tall and slim. Second, he may have said all that in the heat of the moment. People do, you know. If his alibi is broken, then they will definitely charge him with murder.’
    ‘What you are trying to say,’ said Priscilla, as Hamish reached out the long arm of the law for another sandwich, ‘is that it doesn’t feel right. You think that if Mark had really committed the murder, then you would feel relief.’
    ‘That’s it,’ said Hamish eagerly. ‘I think that if it’s not him, then we’ll still have a murderer on the loose.’
    ‘If Irena taped that bit of conversation and tried to blackmail Mark, then it looks as if Mark might have killed Irena. There might be two murderers. And why just that little bit of tape? She must have had something on Mrs Gentle to make her pay for the reception and ten thousand pounds as well.’
    ‘There was no wedding car to take her to Inverness, and none ordered,’ said Hamish.
    ‘So,’ said Priscilla, ‘if Irena taped that little bit from Mark, doesn’t it stand to reason she might have had something on Mrs Gentle?’
    ‘Probably. But then, once Mrs Gentle paid up, she would get the evidence back.’
    ‘Maybe not.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It’s not like a blackmailer to let whoever it was she or he was blackmailing off the hook. Hamish, what on earth came over you? It’s not like you to be so taken in.’
    ‘She was beautiful and genuinely seemed to be in distress,’ said Hamish. ‘I thought I was doing a good thing. I thought, here I am still unmarried. She said she was a lesbian.’
    ‘Oh, Hamish!’
    ‘I planned to marry her and then we’d get a divorce later. I suppose she wasn’t even a lesbian. She could have been lying about that. But the real reason was that I knew if I told Daviot I was to be married, he would let me keep my police station. That really was what blinded me to her.’
    ‘Lochdubh is all very well,’ said Priscilla. ‘But it can get very claustrophobic in the winter.’
    ‘Lochdubh has everything a body could want,’ said Hamish defensively.
    ‘Ah, well, that’s the difference between us.’
    ‘I wish …’ began Hamish, and then hurriedly crammed another sandwich in his mouth.
    Priscilla waited until he had finished eating. ‘Wish what?’
    ‘Oh, that? I wish I could figure a way to get back into that nursery for another search.’
    ‘You’ll think of something.’
    ‘Are you going back to rehearse with Harold?’
    ‘I’ll leave it. He’s got a rehearsal in the village hall tonight, and I’ll go to that. It’s quite fun, really.’

    Hamish collected his pets and went back to the police station through the ever-thickening mist.
    He did a few chores around his croft, returned to the police station, and checked for messages. There were none.
    He was just sitting having a cup of tea and wondering how soon he could get back into that nursery when the phone rang. It was Jimmy. He was exultant. ‘We’ve got the bastard!’ he said. ‘His employees cracked and said they’d been paid to say he was there all the time. He was actually away