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could have been more people about. I saw Mrs. Wellington. This is what they get for taking their mobile police unit away so soon. Let me see, there was that Archie Maclean going into the pub. Clarry Graham, the cook, was just standing there looking at the water, but I didn’t really remark anyone in particular.”
    Hamish thanked them and said he would talk to them later. He decided to go up to the Tommel Castle Hotel, where Clarry was a chef. In his brief glory days when Clarry had been Hamish’s policeman, he’d been very inept—but maybe he had noticed something.
    Clarry was just getting out of his battered old car when Hamish arrived at the hotel.
    “What brings you, Hamish?” he hailed him. “Priscilla’s no’ here.”
    “I didn’t come to see Priscilla,” snapped Hamish. “Haven’t you heard about the murder?”
    “Aye, the wicked witch is dead.”
    “No, not her! Just now. Ina Braid.”
    “What’s happened to this place?” said Clarry, his round face creased up like a baby about to cry. “Such a nice wee body. It can’t be that man o’ hers. He’d never hurt a fly.”
    “We’ll see. I’m sure they’ve gone to pick him up. Clarry, you were seen down on the waterfront near Patel’s. Who did you see?”
    “I saw the Currie sisters and then Mrs. Wellington. I wasn’t really paying attention. Then the fog was so bad. I was thinking up a new recipe and I went for a wee walk to think better. I remember now that witch woman came up to the hotel one night for dinner.”
    “Was she on her own?”
    “Yes, she drank a lot and then began to complain about the food. She shut up when Johnson told her to pay her bill and get out or he’d call you.”
    “What are the guests like? Anyone suspicious?”
    “We’ve only got about six guests. It’s quiet there now. But why don’t you ask the boss?”
    Mr. Johnson was in the hotel office. “What’s all this I hear, Hamish?” he said. “Ina Braid murdered!”
    “It looks like that.”
    “How was she killed?”
    “It looks like a stab in the back.”
    “It’s that wretched Beldame woman. Somehow she’s stirred up a lot of decent people.”
    “I just hope it isnae someone in the village,” said Hamish. “What about your guests?”
    “They’re all middle-aged to elderly and very respectable.”
    “Could you print me out a list of their names and addresses?”
    “Help yourself to coffee and I’ll get it ready.”
    Hamish left a few minutes later, studying the names and addresses. He would run them all through the police computer, but he hadn’t much hope of finding a villain amongst the lot of them.
    He drove back to Lochdubh, parked on the waterfront, walked up to the builder’s house, and then slowly began to walk back the way Ina would have taken on her road to the shop.
    The way led down a narrow lane between the cottages, bordered by fences and hedges. He looked to right and left. Someone could easily have stood in the narrow lane, waiting for Ina. Say the weapon
was
thin and sharp. But surely she would have felt something—turned around and seen her assailant. And would she just have gone on walking, determined to do her shopping? The fog was dense in the lane. Maybe she felt the stab, turned around and saw no one, and kept on walking. He began to call at the cottages whose gardens bordered on the lane, but no one had seen or heard anything.
    When he got back to the waterfront, the police mobile unit was back in place. Hamish blessed his wild cat. Had Blair not been so terrified of the cat then he would have commandeered the police station.
    He saw Jimmy Anderson outside the unit and went to speak to him. “They’re bringing Fergus in, Hamish,” said Jimmy.
    “From the paper mill?”
    “No, the man was out fishing. He had the day off. Blair all but charged him with murdering his wife but then fell into a passion when the water bailiff turns up and says he was talking to Fergus and sharing a sandwich with him all around the time