Death of a Sweep - M. C. Beaton [78]
There came a low snake-like hiss. Sonsie and Lugs were standing there. Sonsie’s eyes were blazing yellow.
‘Get the cat away,’ shouted Ian. ‘It’s the devil!’
‘Are you going to be good?’ asked Hamish.
‘Oh, aye, aye, richt enough,’ said Ian.
‘Chust our wee joke,’ said his brother. ‘We didnae see anything.’
They hurried off. Hamish looked down at his pets. ‘How did you get out?’
‘I let them out.’ Elspeth appeared from the other side of Hamish’s Land Rover. ‘They were making a noise, Sonsie howling and Lugs barking like mad. I let myself into the police station. You’d nailed the cat flap shut. They told me you were at the games so I brought them. Now, what were those villains talking about?’
‘It’s a long story.’
‘And it’s dinnertime,’ said Elspeth. ‘You can buy me dinner and tell me about it.’
Stefan Loncar sat in a dismal cold room in Sofia in Bulgaria. He had been afraid that Prosser might have been waiting for him at the airport and so he had travelled overland, choosing Sofia as a good place to hide out. He had finally found some old British newspapers and learned of the death of Prosser and the arrest of the others. He was working as a dishwasher in a restaurant during the evenings. His pay was meagre and he could not afford any drugs apart from an occasional bit of cannabis. He sometimes wondered if he would not have been more comfortable in a British prison.
At dinner at the Italian restaurant, Hamish told her the whole story, knowing he could trust Elspeth.
When he had finished, Elspeth asked, with an odd look on her face, ‘Doesn’t that cat of yours ever frighten you?’
‘Sonsie? No. Gentle as anything.’
‘Do you believe people come back as animals?’
‘That’s highland superstition!’
‘I’ll tell you one thing, you nearly got married twice and I bet that damn animal from hell knew nothing was going to come of it. If you ever do fall in love, watch out, Hamish Macbeth!’
‘You’re talking havers.’
‘I know a jealous woman when I see one.’
‘For heffen’s sakes, lassie. It’s a cat!’
‘We’ll see,’ said Elspeth. ‘We’ll see.’
By the Same Author
The Hamish Macbeth series
Death of a Gossip
Death of a Cad
Death of an Outsider
Death of a Perfect Wife
Death of a Hussy
Death of a Snob
Death of a Prankster
Death of a Glutton
Death of a Travelling Man
Death of a Charming Man
Death of a Nag
Death of a Macho Man
Death of a Dentist
Death of a Scriptwriter
Death of an Addict
A Highland Christmas
Death of a Dustman
Death of a Celebrity
Death of a Village
Death of a Poison Pen
Death of a Bore
Death of a Dreamer
Death of a Maid
Death of a Gentle Lady
Death of a Witch
Death of a Valentine
Death of a Sweep
Copyright
Constable & Robinson Ltd
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First published in the US by Grand Central Publishing, a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2011
First published in the UK by Constable, an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2011
Copyright © M. C. Beaton 2011
The right of M. C. Beaton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN : 978–1–84901–852–4