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at the side.”
    â€œI am Police Sergeant Hamish Macbeth, and you are…?”
    â€œMrs. Malwhinney. I clean for the doctor.”
    â€œDid you know Liz Bentley?”
    â€œOf course. It’s a wee village.”
    â€œWhat did you make of her?”
    â€œPoor wee soul.”
    â€œYou didn’t dislike her because o’ her lies?”
    â€œI don’t think the woman could help it. I got a sister like that ower in Lairg. If she says the sun is shining, I look out o’ the window to make sure. Come in. You’ll freeze out there.”
    Hamish removed his cap and followed her into a kitchen that looked as if it had not been changed much since the 1950s. It was stone-flagged with a very high ceiling from which hung a wooden pulley with men’s underwear hung up to dry. Shelves with various unmatched plates covered one wall. There was a Belfast sink by the window beside an old green enamelled gas cooker.
    â€œI’ll get back to my cleaning,” said Mrs. Malwhinney.
    Dick, with his sleeves rolled up and wearing a flowered pinafore, was mixing something in a bowl. He looked up when Hamish entered. “I think she’s been lying to me,” he said.
    â€œWho?”
    â€œThon Anka. I cannae get my baps to turn out like hers.”
    â€œDick, we’ve got a murder to solve, or had you forgotten?”
    â€œI thocht I’d wait until you came,” said Dick sulkily.
    â€œWell, get your pinny off. We’ve got work to do. But first, get me a coffee and I’ll tell you what happened last night.”
    â€œIt’s instant,” said Dick.
    â€œDoesn’t matter.”
    â€œRight.”
    While Dick made two mugs of coffee, Hamish told him about the arrest of the drug dealers and how Wayne had admitted that Cameron had told him to “make his bones” by killing Hamish.
    â€œI think Cameron samples too much of his own product, which includes crystal meth. He had a laboratory in that flat of his. We’ll need to begin at the beginning,” said Hamish. “Now, in Liz’s documents, there was a will. Her brother, the minister, gets the lot. But he’s got an alibi. What are the usual reasons for murder? Money, obsession, revenge, blackmail. She was tortured. So that means she had something or knew something that her killer wanted.”
    â€œChristine Dalray is still up at the house,” said Dick.
    â€œWe’d better get up there,” said Hamish. “Let’s go.”
    He and Dick found a policeman wrapping up the police tape. “I’ve been ordered back to Strathbane,” he said.
    They went on into the house. Christine was sitting in the kitchen, gazing into space. She turned her head when they entered. “I keep hoping I’ll just find something,” she said, “but I can’t find anything at all. If it weren’t for all these crime documentaries on TV, telling villains how to avoid forensic detection, I would say this was a professional hit. Anyway, I’ve got to get back on to the Leigh murder.”
    â€œI’m surprised you didn’t give that one priority,” said Hamish.
    â€œI’m a woman, right? And the chauvinist pigs down there don’t want me getting any glory. I complained to Daviot so I’m about to pack up here and get back to the Leighs’ case.”
    â€œI’ve been thinking,” said Hamish, “that if she was tortured, she must have had something the killer wanted. Where would she hide something in this wee cottage?”
    â€œCan’t think of anywhere. We looked in the ice trays in the freezer, even in the cereal packets and the sugar. Nothing. Well, I’m off. Good luck. When you’re next in Strathbane, give me a ring.”
    She’s very attractive, thought Hamish, watching her leave. But I must see Anka again. There was a niggling question in the back of his brain as to what a beauty like Anka was really doing in this