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waiting for him in Trixie’s bedroom. ‘Don’t move the body if you can,’ he said when he saw the doctor. ‘I’ll have a look around outside.’
    The doctor spent only a short time in the room. Hamish was coming along the corridor when Dr Brodie emerged outside.
    ‘I’ll just write the death certificate,’ said the doctor. ‘Heart attack. No doubt about it.’
    Hamish’s eyes narrowed and he said quietly, ‘Go back in there and try again. It’s case of poisoning, if ever I saw one.
    ‘It’s murder, doctor. Pure and straightforward murder!’

Chapter Four
    The very pink of perfection.
    – Oliver Goldsmith
    The day after Trixie’s death was perfect. The clouds rolled back and the sun blazed down on a glittering, wet landscape. Bees hummed among the roses tumbling over the police station door as Hamish Macbeth waited for news from the laboratory in Strathbane.
    He had to ask a lot of questions – starting with Dr Brodie. Why had the doctor been so keen to diagnose a heart attack? But there was always the slim hope in Hamish’s mind that somehow it would turn out to be food poisoning.
    He had reported his suspicions to Mr Daviot. That gentleman had finished his holiday and had been packing to leave when Hamish had arrived at the hotel. To Hamish’s surprise, he treated the news of Trixie’s death lightly. Hamish did not know that because of Hamish’s addled behaviour at the Halburton-Smythe dinner party, the superintendent had swung round to Blair’s view of the village constable, which was that Macbeth had a slate missing.
    But Mr Daviot had called at The Laurels, been satisfied that the forensic boys had taken away everything possible from the kitchen for analysis, and then had driven off.
    Hamish still shuddered when he remembered the ordeal of breaking the news to Paul Thomas. The big man had seemed to crumple up and shrivel inside his clothes. Dr Brodie had given him a sedative. Now all Trixie’s fan club were in attendance on the bereaved husband.
    The arrival of Detective Chief Inspector Blair was imminent, but surely there would not be the hordes of press that had attended the last two murders in Lochdubh … if it should prove to be murder. The murder of a housewife in the Highlands would be of interest only to the local press.
    He went out into the front garden carrying a battered old deck chair and stretched out in the sun. Why had Trixie had such a hold over the women of Lochdubh? he wondered. She had, of course, quite a powerful personality. Then the village women themselves were mostly of the old school, that is, they were housewives rather than wage earners. There was no cinema in Lochdubh, no theatre, no discos, or parties. The wonder of television had long worn off. Trixie, Hamish decided, had given them all a purpose. They were still housewives in an age that had been taught to despise housewives. The days of the enormous families had gone. Time, Hamish supposed, must lie heavily on a woman’s hands. It was all right for him to be lazy and stretch out in the sun when he had the chance. Apart from his police work, he had his garden, his sheep, and his hens to look after. The only thing which made a demand on his affections was Towser. He reached down and scratched the dog behind the ears. Even when their husbands died, he mused, the women of Lochdubh did not promptly travel to Inverness or Strathbane looking for work. Most of them had never gone out to work in their lives, having got married as soon as they left school. Of course a lot of them worked very hard, doing most of the gardening and, if the husband had a croft, an equal share of the work load. But there were the long winter months where everything ground to a halt and they were not paid for their labours. Anything they did was part of their wifely duties.
    A lot of the local men, he knew, married not out of love but because their mothers had died or because they wanted a home of their own with someone to cook the meals and iron