Death of a Gentle Lady

become amorous over jugs of sangria. Cursed with innate highland courtesy, he could not find it in him to be rude enough to get rid of them.
    But now he was heading home. He had bought the old banger of a car to leave at Inverness airport when he started his journey, not wanting to use the police Land Rover and so incur the wrath of his bosses.
    Hamish started off again as the car coughed and spluttered, threatening to collapse at each steep hill like a weary horse.
    At last he drove over the humpbacked bridge and into the village of Lochdubh.
    He uncoiled his long length from the little car and stood up and stretched. Fingers of rain were blowing down the sea loch, but there was a patch of blue over to the west heralding better weather to come. Although it was November, the proximity of the Gulf Stream meant there were often mild days.
    Then for some reason he could not explain, he began to fell uneasy. It seemed that the very air was full of some vague threat.
    He shook himself impatiently, unlocked the police station door, and went in.
    There was a note from Angela lying on the kitchen table. It read: ‘Hamish, this is the very last time I look after your pets for you. Come and collect them as soon as you can, Angela.’
    Hamish owned a mongrel called Lugs and a domesticated wild cat called Sonsie. Angela Brodie was the doctor’s wife. He went out again and walked to Angela’s cottage. The cat and dog looked at him sullenly as if he were not to be forgiven for having left them.
    ‘About time, too,’ said Angela crossly.
    ‘They weren’t too much trouble, surely?’ said Hamish.
    ‘They kept escaping and going to look for you and I had the gamekeeper, Willie, and several of the others up on the braes to hunt them down and bring them back. Oh, well, sit down and have a coffee and tell me about your trip. Lots of sunshine, pretty girls?’
    ‘I’m glad to be home, and I don’t want to talk about it,’ said Hamish.
    The wild cat put a large paw on Hamish’s leg and gave a low hiss. Lugs, a shaggy dog with floppy ears and odd blue eyes, stared up at Hamish accusingly.
    Hamish sat down at the cluttered kitchen table where Angela’s cats roamed among the unwashed breakfast dishes. Looking at Angela, with her wispy hair and gentle face, Hamish wondered, not for the first time, how a doctor’s wife could be so unhygienic.
    ‘I had an offer for your cat while you were away,’ said Angela, putting a mug of coffee down in front of him. ‘Most insistent, she was. Last offer was a hundred pounds.’
    ‘Who are you talking about?’
    ‘Of course, you don’t know. We’ve got a newcomer. She bought Sandy Ross’s cottage.’
    ‘Must have got it for a song,’ said Hamish. ‘That place has only a corrugated iron roof and an outside toilet. Who is she?’
    ‘Catriona Beldame.’
    ‘What sort of a name is that? Is she foreign?’
    ‘No, she has a bit of a highland accent.’
    ‘And where’s she from?’
    ‘Nobody knows. She just arrived. She’s …well, odd.’
    ‘How odd?’
    ‘She gives me the shivers. She’s very tall, as tall as you, and she has a queer sort of medieval face, very white, and yellowish brown eyes with heavy white lids. She has a long thin nose and a small mouth. She saw your cat and decided she must have it. There’s something else.’
    ‘What else?’
    ‘Some of the local men have been seen visiting her late at night.’
    ‘Dinnae tell me Lochdubh’s got its own brothel at last!’
    ‘That’s not it. I think she supplies herbal medicines.’
    ‘So why men, why late at night? Why no women?’
    ‘That’s the odd thing. No one talks about it. The Currie sisters said something to me about the men visiting her and then they clammed up.’
    ‘Not like that precious pair,’ commented Hamish. The Currie sisters were spinster twins and usually a great fund of gossip, some of it at Hamish’s expense. ‘I’d better go and visit this newcomer.’
    ‘If you can find the time. Detective Chief Inspector Blair has been demanding to know when you’re getting back. He said that you’re to report to police headquarters in Strathbane as soon as you arrive.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘It might be because some gang has been robbing all the little local post offices in the north. Lochinver was attacked last week and then Altnabuie. You know how it is. They think we’re easy pickings this far north and with only one policeman to cover hundreds and hundreds of square miles.’
    * * *
    Hamish