Death of a Sweep - M. C. Beaton [44]
Then he saw the lights of a car coming up fast behind them. He had a sudden premonition of disaster before the car struck them and sent them crashing over the side of the road and down a steep brae. Angela’s little car hit a rock, somersaulted, and landed on its roof. Cursing, Hamish unfastened his seat belt and managed to get the door open. He heard his attacker roar off into the distance. He rolled out into the heather. He could hardly believe that he hadn’t broken anything. He went round to the passenger side and wrenched open the door. He unfastened Angela’s seat belt and eased her out. ‘What happened?’ she asked.
‘Have you broken anything?’
‘I think I’m all right. I feel so sick.’
‘Chust lie down in the heather away from the car. I don’t think it’s going to burst into flames but you never know.’
He phoned the police emergency number and demanded all the services fast: police, fire, and ambulance.
Then he phoned Jimmy Anderson’s mobile number and told a sleepy Jimmy all about the girl at the book signing and the attack on them. ‘Get the Edinburgh police to check immediately on Scots Entertainment and find that girl, Sonia,’ said Hamish. ‘Someone tried to kill us.’
‘Saw you on the telly at the awards hugging Angela. You sure it wasn’t Dr Brodie?’
‘He’s in bed sick and why would it be him?’
‘There was talk about the book. Seems your pal has written about a highland policeman rogering the doctor’s wife.’
‘Drop it, Jimmy. I swear to God it’s one of those four bastards. Any sign of Stefan Loncar?’
‘Not a one. His permit was about to run out so we think he may have gone into hiding.’
‘I think you should be looking for a body,’ said Hamish.
Hamish rang off when he heard sirens in the distance. First on the scene was the Lairg volunteer fire brigade. Hamish told them to leave the car where it was, as the Scenes Of Crimes Operatives would need to examine the whole place first. He was just about to ask them to take Angela to hospital when two police cars arrived and then a mountain rescue helicopter. Hamish insisted that Angela go to hospital as she was now feeling sick and was plainly in a state of shock. After she had been borne off, he made a full statement to the police and asked to be driven to Lochdubh. The scene was suddenly floodlit as a television team arrived.
Oh, the magic of television, thought Hamish bitterly as some of the police began obviously posing for the camera. He was glad to see the formidable figure of Police Inspector Mary Benson climbing out of the car. She shouted at the television crew to get back up on the road and stop compromising a crime scene or she would have them all arrested.
Hamish had to tell his story all over again. ‘And how come you recognized this girl and how did you know she worked for Scots Entertainment?’
Cautiously, Hamish explained that he had been escorting Angela to her publisher and he decided to pass the time by interviewing the neighbours in a close in the Canongate where Betty Close might have been last seen. The one neighbour in the flat under where a prostitute had been murdered had said he worked for Scots Entertainment so he had gone to have a look at their offices and it was there that he had seen Sonia.
‘I can’t understand all this and what led you to think that the death of a prostitute in an Edinburgh tenement should have anything to do with the murder of Captain Davenport. Give me a full report tomorrow.’
After she had read the news bulletin the next day, Elspeth went to her dressing room. What on earth was Hamish Macbeth doing? Was he having an affair with Angela? They had always been very close. Surely not. The door of her dressing room opened, and her boss walked in. ‘You’d best get up to Lochdubh,’ he said. ‘You know this copper. Great stuff.’
‘It’s hardly a great Hollywood-type scandal,’ protested Elspeth.
‘Come on. Madame Bovary in a wee highland village? Get going.’
Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, sitting at her computer desk in a London office, got a call from her father. ‘Heard the latest about Hamish Macbeth?’ he demanded and, without