Sheila felt the palms of her hands damp with excitement What a gem! The script was witty and funny. The village women were natural actresses, and there were miles of tape where the bad camera angles and occasional fluffed lines could be cut.

At last Sheila said, "Have you shown this to anyone else?"

"I've shown it to the village women, of course."

"But to no one else on the television company?"

"No."

Sheila took a deep breath. "I'll tell you what I'll do. Leave this with me to cut and edit. I will then try to sell it to a television company if you let me put my name on it as producer and we share the profits-thirty percent to me, and the rest to you."

Eileen's voice trembled. "Do you mean you like it?"

"It's marvellous. Very clever. I haven't seen anything so innocently funny since Whisky Galore Whisky Galore. But you must keep very quiet about it."

"Oh, I will. I won't even tell my husband."

"Okay, let's just go through it again."

Hamish Macbeth gloomily finished his solitary meal in the Napoli. She could have got tied up with something, but the place over there was crawling with mobile phones. She could at least have phoned. He had been rejected all round, off the case, and stood up by Sheila.

But there was still something he could do for Patricia in his spare time. Somehow, somewhere, he would find someone who had seen her on the day of the murder.

Eileen Jessop left Drim Castle after midnight, her eyes shining and her face flushed. That drive to Inverness with Ailsa had changed her life. She longed to tell Ailsa about what Sheila had said of the film, but she had promised Sheila not to breathe a word. She remembered all Sheila's advice and comments. She would get all the women together and try again, making it glossier and sharper. Sheila had said that was not necessary, but it would give them all something to do while she waited to see if Sheila could sell the film.

As she approached the grim bulk of the manse, her heart sank. And then for the first time she wondered why she stayed married to Colin. She could just get in the car and drive away into the sunshine as she had driven down to Inverness with Ailsa, with the wind in her hair and the tape deck blasting.

The next day Hamish put on his uniform and went out on his rounds. He had a feeling that Lovelace might call at the police station to make sure he was not slacking off. He drove over to Cnothan and started again to ask questions. The trouble was that Patricia's cottage was outside the village and she did not need to drive through Cnothan to get anywhere.

He started at one end of the village and began knocking on doors, patiently questioning without success.

Cnothan stood on the edge of an artificial loch caused by an ugly hydroelectric dam. It consisted of one bleak main street which led down to the loch. The council houses were segregated on the other side of the loch from the main village, but the privately owned houses in the village were so drab and grey that they looked like the council ones. The people of Cnothan seemed to have been soured by their surroundings. All he got were curt, rude answers. The villagers had a capacity for making work. They were always rushing about doing nothing. "I'm too busy to speak to you," seemed to be the standard reply.

In his zeal to find out where Patricia had been, he had quite forgotten he was poaching on Sergeant MacGregor's territory until, on leaving one house at the top of the main street, he found the sergeant standing by the garden gate, glaring at him.

"Whit are you doing here?" demanded the sergeant.

"Can we go somewhere and talk?"

"Aye, come up to the house until we sort this thing out."

Hamish thought Sergeant MacGregor's house reflected everything that was worst about Cnothan. Even on this summer's day, it felt cold.

The living room was still the same as the last time he had seen it, with its dreadful ornaments and overstuffed salmon-coloured threepiece suite.

"Now what's this all about?" demanded Sergeant MacGregor.

"It's like this," said Hamish. "I have a quiet day today and I thought I might find out if anyone had seen Patricia Martyn-Broyd on the day of the murder. I should have called you first, but I did not think you would be wanting to waste your time with this sort of inquiry. In fact, I have to beg you not to report my visit here."

"Why?"

"Blair has been suspended and Lovelace is in charge of the case, and he told me to b.u.t.t out."

"Lovelace!" MacGregor's face darkened. "Thon b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"You know him?"

"Know him? I was off duty in Inverness five years ago and I nipped into a pub for a drink before I got home. I didn't know Lovelace, so I didn't recognise him. I got talking to a crony, had a few more. When I left the pub and got in the car, Lovelace and two coppers were waiting to Breathalyze me. He insisted on putting in a report, and I nearly lost my job. If that's all you're doing in Cnothan, you can go ahead. He won't be hearing anything from me."

"That's good of you," said Hamish with relief. Lovelace could certainly have handled that affair better. He could have strolled over to MacGregor in the bar and introduced himself, and MacGregor would have been out of there like a shot. Of course, it could be argued that MacGregor should not have been taking one nip over the limit, but still, it seemed an unnecessarily harsh way of doing things.

"Have you any idea where I might find out something about where our writer went that day, the day Penelope Gates was murdered?" asked Hamish.

"Haven't a clue. Wait a minute. There might be the one person."

"Who?"

"Scan Fitz is back on the road."

Scan Fitzpatrick, known all over the Highlands as simply Scan Fitz, was an itinerant tramp, calling at doors to do small jobs in return for a cup of tea and a bite of food.

No one had seen him for the past two years.

"Where has he been?" asked Hamish.

"Don't know. Maybe down south. But he's your man."

Hamish thanked him and set out to try to find Scan. Scan Fitz noticed everything and everybody on the road.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

They flee from me, that sometime did me seek. -Sir Thomas Wyatt -Sir Thomas Wyatt Two days later, a good number of the village women who had acted in Eileen's film were gathered in the manse.

For the first time, Eileen became aware that there was a sour atmosphere. Nonetheless she was determined that nothing was going to take the glow out of her achievement, even though she could not talk about it.

She stood up before them and cleared her throat. "There are a few mistakes in act one that need to be fixed. I thought we could film it again."

There was an impatient, restless shuffling. Then Nancy Macleod stood up. "We cannae really be wasting any more time on your fillum, Mrs. Jessop. We've got other things to do."

Eileen looked at her in surprise.

"You see," said Holly Andrews, Ailsa's friend, whose nose had been put out of joint because of the friendship which had grown up between Ailsa and the minister's wife, "we all feel we're wasting our time with an amateur film when we're in the real thing."

"But you are only in several of the crowd scenes in The Case of the Rising Tides The Case of the Rising Tides," protested Eileen.

"But Edie Aubrey got a speaking part," said Nancy. "There's a chance for us all tae be discovered."

"Where is Edie?" asked Eileen. "And shouldn't Alice be here as well?"

A hostile silence greeted her.

"So we'd best all be going," said Nancy.

Eileen watched them all, with the exception of Ailsa, depart in silence.

As soon as she was alone with Ailsa, she asked, "What has gone wrong? Up till now they've all enjoyed acting for me. They said they'd never had so much fun."

"They've been discontented for some time," said Ailsa.

"I didn't know that!"

"It's because you're the minister's wife. It's like that in Highland villages with the minister's wife. They're usually respectful."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"You were enjoying yourself. No need to involve you in squabbles. But Edie Aubrey got a chance to say one line and so someone threw a brick through her front window."

"Who did it? What did the police say?"

"Edie never reported it. We police ourselves here."

"They cannot possibly think they are going to be film stars!"

"That's exactly what the silly biddies do think. Cheer up. You've got ma.s.ses of film already."

"But I could still have done better," wailed Eileen.

"Never mind. You've lost weight."

"I've been on a diet," said Eileen in an abstracted way. "I should do something about this. Why should some jealous woman get away with terrorising poor Edie?"

"It'll all blow over, you'll see," said Ailsa. "Now I'd better get back and take over from Jock and mind the store. He's got a shinty game over in Crask this afternoon."

After she had gone, Eileen paced up and down. Then she came to a decision, got in her car and drove over to Lochdubh and parked outside the police station.

Hamish was feeling tired. In between his other duties, he had driven all over the place, searching for Scan Fitz. If only the morning of the murder hadn't been thick with mist.

He opened the door to Eileen and looked at her in polite inquiry, not recognising the minister's wife in the slimmer, dark-haired woman who stood blinking myopically up at him.

"We met before," she said, holding out her hand. "I am Eileen Jessop, the minister's wife...at Drim, that is. You called on myself and my husband shortly after we moved up here."

"So I did. Come in. Tea? Coffee?"

"Coffee would be nice," said Eileen.

"Then pull up a chair."

Eileen sat down at the kitchen table. Then she said, "Perhaps I should be telling you this in the police office. It's a police matter."

"You can tell me just the same over a cup of coffee." He plugged in the kettle and took down two mugs and a bowl of sugar and took a jug of milk out of the fridge. Eileen waited until he had handed her a mug of coffee and sat down.

"Now," said Hamish, "what is this all about?"

He was really a very attractive man, thought Eileen, and her next thought was that it was a long time since she had really looked at any man to find him attractive or otherwise.

"It's this TV film. It's causing bad feeling among the village women. Now it's turned criminal. Edie Aubrey got a line to say instead of just being in the crowd scene like the others and so someone threw a brick through her window."

"Well, that's Drim for you."

"But they were not like this before!"

"They have been," said Hamish, remembering that murder case a few years before. "If it is any comfort to you, tempers flare among them, but if you try to interfere, they close ranks against you."

"But you must do something!"

Hamish was about to say if Edie had not reported it, there was little he could do; but suddenly he saw a great way of being officially back in Drim.

"Wait until you've finished your coffee and then I'll follow you over and see if I can do something to frighten them into good behaviour. So how are you getting on? I heard something about you making a film."

"Oh, it's just a silly little thing," said Eileen, who had become increasingly depressed about her play on the road over. She had even begun to worry that Sheila had just been humouring her. "But it was fun while it lasted."

"What's it about, your film?"

"I wrote a Scottish play when I was a student. It's comedy with a dark side. It's about an eccentric woman who arrives to live in a small Highland village and gets d.a.m.ned as being a witch. I changed the t.i.tle to The Witch of Drim The Witch of Drim. I would have liked to do some more work on it, but the village women have decided they do not want to be involved in amateur dramatics anymore."

"I suppose they think that Spielberg or someone will see their unlovely faces on the Strathclyde Television thing and say, "That's the woman for me!""

"That is just what they are thinking."

"Don't worry. I'll do something. Is Drim still full of the press?"

"They've mostly gone. I believe some of the nationals have left a few reporters up here, but they are down in Strathbane. There's some scandal about poor Miss Martyn-Broyd being driven into a nervous breakdown."

"Is that young la.s.sie Sheila Burford around? She was supposed to meet me for dinner on Monday and she didn't turn up or even bother to phone."

Monday, thought Eileen. Monday was when she had seen Sheila. And Sheila had forgotten her date with this attractive policeman to look at her, Eileen's, film. Her heart soared and she gave Hamish a radiant smile. Then she said, "I asked for her at the castle before I came here. She said she had to go down to Glasgow for a funeral."

Hamish hoped against hope that bad news had made her forget their date. He did not like to think he had not been worth even a phone call.

Eileen finished her coffee, thanked Hamish and left. Hamish washed out the cups, put the milk back in the fridge, locked up the police station and got into the police Land Rover and took the winding road to Drim.

There was no filming that day, and Drim lay peacefully in the sunshine, as if murder had never taken place.