"So you are psychic, you have the second sight, just like the seer said. Has it happened before?"

"Twice. But it always makes me feel sick and frightened. I don't want to talk about it."

"I'm right grateful to you, Elspeth. I'm sorry I've been a bit...well...cold at times, but I don't want another involvement. I don't want anyone getting close."

"Who's getting close?" demanded Elspeth crossly. "I mean, I would like if we could be friends."

"Okay. Now can I get back to sleep?"

THIRTEEN.

Ok, thievish Night, Why shouldst thou, but for some felonious end, In thy dark lantern thus close up the stars, That nature hung in heaven, and filled their lamps With everlasting oil, to give due light To the misled and lonely traveller?

-John Milton Any impetus there had been in solving the murder of Felicity Pearson had ebbed away. Hamish covered his local beat, attended to his crofting chores, and occasionally went over and over his notes, looking to see if there was anything he might have missed.

On his day off, two weeks after the funeral, on impulse he phoned Grace Witherington and asked if he could have another chat with her. She told him to come over for coffee at three in the afternoon.

He took Lugs with him, telling the dog to be on his best behaviour. The mobile van had gone from outside the flats. What the police in Strathbane were doing about solving the murder, Hamish did not know. Jimmy had been avoiding his phone calls and Carson had not made another visit to the police station in Lochdubh.

"Come in," said Grace, opening the door of the flats to him. "I'm upstairs."

"Is it all right if I bring my dog?"

"Certainly. I like dogs. I don't have one myself anymore," she said, mounting the stairs. "My old dog, Queenie, died ten years ago and I couldn't bear to get another. They need such a lot of love and attention and I wasn't free to travel. Of course, I could have put Queenie in kennels like everyone else who goes abroad, but then, I knew I wouldn't enjoy my holiday. I'd always have been worrying about how she was getting on. Here we are."

She led the way through a small hall and into a book-lined living room. "Make yourself comfortable and I'll get the coffee."

Lugs stretched out in front of the fire. Hamish suddenly found he was fumbling in his pocket for a cigarette packet. How odd that after all this time, he should still automatically go through the motions of looking for a cigarette.

Grace came in carrying a laden tray, which she set down on a low table in front of him. "Help yourself to sugar and milk and tell me why you have come. I'm intrigued."

"It's Felicity Pearson," said Hamish. "I get a picture of a vain, weak, not likeable woman, and yet you were a friend of hers. I'm trying to get a better picture of her."

"Now you're making me feel guilty," said Grace. "I wasn't ever a friend of hers, I told you that. The fact is that the television programme she produced brought me in some welcome money. I wanted to keep her on my side. I am afraid she was in fact all the things you said about her. But I began to think even the television programme wasn't worth the hours I spent listening to her talk about herself. Have you heard the actor's joke? That's enough about me. Let's talk about my performance."

"So there was no one she was really close to?"

"Have you tried Rory MacBain?"

"I think that one didn't care what she was like and what she looked like. All he was after was a quickie on the office floor when it suited him."

"Dear me. I should feel sorry for her but I can't. I had really begun to dislike her so much, you see. I read in the papers this morning that she has been found guilty of the murder of Crystal French."

"So they've released that bit of news at last. How did you feel when you read it?" asked Hamish.

"Do you know, I wasn't surprised, and yet I should be. I mean, when she was here talking to me, I didn't think, oh, here's a murderer. But if that murder's solved, why do you want to know about her?"

"Because her own murder isn't solved."

"She was killed down at the old docks. No one saw or heard anything?"

"I don't know what headquarters have got, but I don't think they've found any witnesses."

"Wait a minute. Drink your coffee. It's getting cold. There's something. We were doing a discussion programme on drugs and the menace of crack and heroin in Strathbane. Professor Tully said something like the old docks should be pulled down to make way for waterfront housing because they were only a marketplace for drug dealing. I mean, it's a long shot. But someone might have been there that night who didn't want to have anything to do with the police."

"You might have something there," said Hamish slowly. "I'd better have a word with Professor Tully first. He might just have thrown that in to pretend to an inside knowledge he doesn't have."

"How cynical of you and how well you know him!"

"I don't know him, but he's a Highlander."

"And it takes one to know one?"

"Exactly."

Hamish drove over to Bonar Bridge. The light was already fading fast and cold little stars twinkled above in the Sutherland sky.

Professor Tully lived in an old Georgian house, just outside the town. It was Scottish Georgian, eighteenth century, square and without ornament. The garden was a wilderness of weeds.

To Hamish's relief, the professor was at home. He invited Hamish in but insisted Lugs be left outside. "I have cats," he explained.

"Lugs is very kind to cats," said Hamish.

"No dog is kind to cats," replied the professor, so Hamish had to take Lugs back and shut him in the Land Rover.

Hamish went back into the house. The professor ushered him through to a dark and grimy kitchen where not much seemed to have been changed since the eighteenth century. There were two old stone sinks and enormous wooden dressers, their once-white paint yellow with age. Light came from a dingy forty-watt bulb high up in the ceiling.

"So how can I help you?" asked Professor Tully.

"On one of your discussion programmes, you said that the old docks at Strathbane should be pulled down because they had become a market for drug dealing."

The professor leaned back in his chair and stared at the ceiling. "I can remember those docks when they were thriving. I can even remember Strathbane when it wasn't a sink of iniquity, a monstrous carbuncle on the face of the Highlands."

"But about the drugs?"

"I wouldn't want to be getting anyone in trouble."

"I'm only interested in finding out a possible witness to the murder of Felicity Pearson."

The professor lowered his gaze to the battered kitchen table, which still held the remains of his lunch.

"You see," he said at last, "there's this lad lives in Bonar Bridge. He's clean now. But I got talking to him one day when I was shopping in town. He said he used to buy his stuff down at the docks, said it was a sort of marketplace at night. He said it was safer than the clubs because the police hardly ever went around the docks at night."

"What's his name?"

"I don't think..."

"If he's clean, then he won't be getting to trouble and any information he gives me, well, I'll protect the source."

"It's Barry Williams, a young English fellow. Family moved up here some years ago."

"And where does he live?"

"Somewhere up at the council houses."

Hamish thanked him and left. He did not want to ask the local police for the address and maybe scare the boy into silence. He asked for the address at the shops and finally found that Barry lived near Mrs. Gordon.

A woman answered the door to him and looked shocked when he asked to speak to Barry. "My son's a good boy," she said defiantly.

"I'm sure he is," said Hamish patiently. "I just want a wee word with him."

She turned and called, "Barry!"

A thin youth came down the stairs behind her, dressed in torn jeans and a bomber jacket. "I was just going out," he said sulkily.

"Come on, then," said Hamish. "We'll just walk along the road a bit."

"I haven't been doing anything," said Barry, hunching his thin shoulders against the cold.

"I know. Look, Barry, you once told Professor Tully that they dealt drugs down at the docks. I know it's all behind you now, but I want a name of your supplier."

"I can't be doing that!"

"Barry, I have to know. A murder was committed at the docks and I'm looking for witnesses. No one will know it was you that told me. But if you don't tell me, I'll need to get all official and take you into Strathbane for questioning."

Barry moodily kicked a Coke can. "You're sure?"

"You have my word."

"It was the Big Drip."

"Come on. A name?"

"I'm telling you. That's what he was called."

Hamish sighed. "What did he look like?"

"Sort of tall, as tall as you, and with bleached hair in spikes and a nose ring. Dealt heroin."

"And you only know his nickname?"

"Yes. That's all anybody knew."

Back at the police station, Hamish phoned Carson. Not so long ago, he would have phoned Jimmy, but he knew now that Jimmy would pretend that the information was his own.

Carson listened carefully and then said, "I'll look into it. Stay by the phone."

Hamish cooked dinner for himself and Lugs. He wondered what Elspeth was doing. She had not called at the police station for a good few days now.

He was just getting ready for bed when the phone rang. It was Carson. "Got him," he said cheerfully. "Hughie Fraser, otherwise known as the Big Drip because he's six feet tall."

"Any chance of finding him?"

"Every chance. He's just started doing time in Strathbane prison for pushing. We'll see him in the morning."

"We, sir?"

"Yes, you can come as well. I'll meet you outside the prison at nine-thirty in the morning."

Carson was waiting outside the prison when Hamish drove up. "What's this?" snapped Carson, looking at his watch. "Highland time?"

Hamish glanced at his own watch. It was nine-thirty-one. "I am sorry I am a minute late, sir," he said. "The traffic was awful."

Carson knew that as the prison lay on the outskirts of the town, there had probably been no traffic except an occasional sheep, so he knew Hamish was mocking him. He also knew he deserved it. But he was beginning to want to put a distance between himself and this odd constable. He knew he was not following procedure by inviting Hamish along. He should have had a detective with him, not a local bobby.

The prison was a Victorian one, made of shiny red brick. Inside, the walls were painted institutional green. They were led along bleak corridors and up an iron staircase. A warder opened a door to a dark room furnished only with a table and three chairs. "I'll go and get him, sir," he said.

Carson and Hamish waited in silence, side by side at one end of the table, looking at the empty chair opposite. Prison noises filtered in through the thick door from outside; clanging of gates, raucous shouts, curses.

Then the door opened. A tall man in prison overalls came in with the warder. He had a long white face and a very red mouth and weak, watery eyes. The warder took up a position at the door.

"Sit down, Hughie," ordered Carson.

Hughie sat down and looked at them. His eyes had that peculiar faraway stare of someone who had served time before.

"Got any cigarettes?" he asked.

Hamish took out a packet and a box of matches but kept them on his side of the table. "In a minute," said Hamish. "Let's see if you can help us first."

Carson leaned forwards. "We believe you were in the habit of peddling drugs down at the docks. Did you ever go to Dock Number Two at night?"

Hughie eyed the cigarettes hungrily but said nothing.

To Carson's surprise, Hamish shouted angrily, "We know you did, man, so give us a bit of help."

He inched the packet of cigarettes nearer Hughie.

"What if I did?" asked Hughie.

"We're interested in the night Felicity Pearson was killed," said Carson.

"I'd nothing to do with that. Give me a cigarette."