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they estimate his wife was being murdered.”
    “How long until the pathology report?” asked Hamish.
    “Dr. Forsythe’s working on it. I don’t know. These things take time.”
    “If she was stabbed and went on walking,” said Hamish, “then it probably happened in the lane down from her house to the waterfront, but, och, surely she would have turned round and screamed or something. Not just gone ahead to the shop.”
    “Patel says he dozed off. Someone may have nipped into the shop and stabbed her.”
    “I hate that idea,” said Hamish moodily. “That might mean it was someone from the village that people were so used to seeing, it didn’t really register. Then with this damn fog, it could have been anyone.”
    “Blair’s got coppers going from door to door. But you know these people. What sort of a person was Ina Braid?”
    “Quiet sort of woman. Just one of the village women I occasionally spoke to. I barely knew her because there was never any trouble either with her or Fergus. No children.”
    “Who’s the biggest gossip in the village?”
    “Gossips,” corrected Hamish. “The Currie twins. I’ve already spoken to them. Nothing there. Wait a bit. I’ve had an idea. There’s a back way into the shop!”
    “I’ll get along there and tell forensics. That lassie you’ve been romancing, Lesley Seaton, is working there.”
    Hamish blushed. “I have not been romancing Lesley Seaton!”
    “Well, you were seen having dinner with her up at the Glen Lodge Hotel.”
    “Isn’t that chust typical?” said Hamish furiously. “No one sees a damn thing when a wee woman is being murdered under their noses but I take a colleague out for dinner in an empty dining room miles outside the village and immediately everyone knows about it.”
    “You’re Lochdubh’s famous bachelor, Hamish. Anytime you’re seen with a woman, it’s a first-class piece o’ gossip.”
    Hamish suddenly remembered Timmy Teviot. He wondered what the forestry worker had wanted to tell him that was so secret he had to meet him outside the village.
    “I’ve got someone to see,” said Hamish. “Look, Jimmy, do me a favour. The minute you get anything from Dr. Forsythe, let me know.”
    “I’ll do that if I can with Blair breathing down my neck.” Behind him, the mobile unit dipped and swayed. “Here he comes. You’d better be off.”
    Hamish hurried back along the waterfront. Timmy, he knew, shared lodgings with several other forestry workers in caravans on the other side of the loch. He got into his Land Rover and drove off.
    He located Timmy’s caravan by dint of knocking on other caravan doors and asking where Timmy lived.
    Timmy answered the door, and his face fell when he saw Hamish.
    “I’m right sorry I brought ye all the way here on such a cold night,” said Timmy.
    “Yes, it is cold, so ask me in?”
    “I’ve got company,” said Timmy, looking nervously behind him.
    “And who would that be?”
    “It’s just a lassie who minds the bar in Braikie.”
    “All right. Step outside and talk to me.”
    Timmy reluctantly came down the caravan steps. “I feel a fool, Hamish. It’s really nothing now I think of it. I saw a couple of deer poachers up on the hill.”
    “So what was so private about that?”
    “Thae deer poachers can be vicious. I didn’t want any of them to see me going to the station. They saw me watching them.”
    Hamish took out his notebook. “Where?”
    “Up on Brechie moor. Two big fellows, one with a beard, a short grey beard. Must ha’ been middle-aged. The other was young. Could ha’ been his son. Tall thin laddie wearing a wool cap like the older one. They had dark green shooting jackets and both were carrying deer rifles.”
    Hamish studied Timmy’s face in the light shining from the caravan window. “And did one of them have a scar on his face?” he asked.
    “Now you come to mention it . . .”
    “Timmy, you’re telling me a bunch o’ lies. What was it you really wanted to