Death of a Valentine - M. C. Beaton [6]
Work turned out to be a case of shoplifting over in Cnothan. Rain was drumming down and the midges, those Scottish mosquitoes, were out in clouds, undeterred by the downpour.
The job was very easy. The shopkeeper had a video security camera and had identified the thief. “I’ll go right now and arrest him,” said Josie eagerly.
“Now, I wouldn’t be doing that, lassie,” said the shopkeeper. “It’s just some poor auld drunk who took a bottle o’ cider. I won’t be pressing charges.”
“So why did you drag the police all the way here?” demanded Josie angrily.
“I didnae know it was him until I looked at the video fillum.”
The rain had stopped when Josie left the shop. She pulled out her phone to call Hamish and then decided against it. If she called at the police station to deliver her report, surely he would have to ask her in.
Sure enough, Hamish did invite her into the kitchen, but there was a woman there, sitting at the kitchen table. She was a cool blonde in expensive clothes. Hamish introduced her as Priscilla Halburton-Smythe. Josie knew from headquarters gossip that this was the woman Hamish had once been engaged to.
She delivered her report, saying angrily that she should have been allowed to make an arrest.
“Oh, we don’t arrest anyone up here if we can possibly avoid it,” said Hamish. “Take the rest of the day off.”
Josie stood there, hopefully. There was a pot of tea on the table and cakes.
“Run along,” said Hamish.
“You could have given her some tea,” said Priscilla.
“I’m keeping her right out,” said Hamish. “If she gets a foot in the door, before you know it she’ll be rearranging the furniture.”
“Where’s she staying?”
“Up at the manse.”
“How gloomy! She must be feeling very lonely.”
“Priscilla, she’s a grown-up policewoman! She’ll need to make friends here just like anyone else. How long are you staying?”
“Just a couple more days.”
“Dinner tonight?”
“All right. The Italian’s?”
“Yes, I’ll meet you there at eight.”
Unfortunately for Hamish, Josie decided to have dinner out that night. She stood hesitating in the door of the restaurant. To Hamish’s annoyance, Priscilla called her over and said, “Do join us.”
Hamish behaved badly during the meal, sitting in scowling silence as Priscilla politely asked Josie about her work and her home in Perth. She seemed completely unaware of Hamish’s bad mood. Josie translated Hamish’s discourtesy into a sort of Heathcliff brooding silence. Such were her fantasies about him that at one point, Josie thought perhaps he wanted to be alone with her and wished Priscilla would leave.
The awkward meal finally finished. Priscilla insisted on paying. Hamish thanked her curtly outside the restaurant and then strode off in the direction of the police station without a backward look.
Back in her room at the manse, common sense finally entered Josie’s brain and she had reluctantly to admit to herself that it was not Priscilla that Hamish had wanted to leave but herself. She dismally remembered Priscilla’s glowing beauty.
She decided to give the job just two more months and then request a transfer back to Strathbane.
The third of the Scottish Quarter Days, Lammas, the first of August, marks the start of autumn and the harvest season. Lammas perhaps had begun as a celebration of the Celtic goddess Lugh, and was absorbed into the church calendar as Loaf Mass Day. Lammas takes its name from the Old English half, meaning “loaf.” The first cut of the harvest was made on Lammas Day in the south, but in Braikie in Sutherland—a county hardly famous for its corn—it was an annual fair day to celebrate the third quarter.
For the first time, Josie was to work with Hamish, policing the fair. “There’s never any trouble,” he said as he drove Josie there in the police Land Rover. “The Gypsies have to be watched. Make sure the coconuts are not glued down and that the rifle sights at the shooting range aren’t bent. It’s a grand day for it.”
There was not a cloud in