Death of a Kingfisher Read Online Free Page B

a bottle of whisky to comfort the man when he arrived back at the police station.
    At first, things looked very bad for Dick. Up against him were four other contestants: a professor from Strathbane University, a schoolteacher, a retired doctor, and a lawyer. How such respectable middle-class people could volunteer to appear on a television quiz show, and all to gain a dishwasher, was beyond Hamish. The one with the fewest correct answers was eliminated at each round.
    To Hamish’s amazement, Dick steadily answered question after question, until only he and the professor were left. They were running neck and neck until the quizmaster asked, ‘What kind of medieval weapon was a destrier?’
    There was a long silence, and then the professor said, ‘A siege catapult.’
    ‘That is the wrong answer. Dick?’
    Dick screwed up his face. Hamish found he was sitting on the edge of his chair.
    Then Dick’s face cleared and he said, ‘A warhorse.’
    ‘Correct. Mr Dick Fraser, you are our new winner and the prize is a state-of-the-art Furnham’s dishwasher.’ The voice went on praising the dishwasher while Hamish sat, stunned. How could a man such as Dick, with this fund of general knowledge, have remained a mere copper?
    He got his answer two hours later when a triumphant Dick arrived back at the police station.
    ‘It’s like this,’ said Dick, cradling a glass of whisky on his round stomach. ‘I’ve got what they aye call a photographic memory. I’ve only to read the thing once and Iremember it forever. I watch lots and lots of game shows. They’re coming next week to fit the thing up.’
    ‘Where will it go?’ asked Hamish.
    ‘We’ll need to take out that bottom cupboard. It’s full o’ junk anyway. They said they’d do all the fixing and plumbing.’
    ‘Man, how come you stayed a mere copper?’
    Dick gave him a crafty look. ‘You ken Strathbane well?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Well, I wanted a quiet life. I didnae want to go to crack houses and brothels and what have you. So I just acted stupid. Okay, I’m lazy. But being real lazy is a talent. Sometimes,’ said Dick seriously, ‘it takes an awful lot of work.’
     
    And it takes an awful lot of work to get you to move in the mornings, thought Hamish, having to shake Dick awake as usual.
    But Hamish, in his way, could be as lazy as Dick, so after a hearty breakfast they both sat in deck chairs in the garden under the profusion of red rambling roses tumbling over the front door. Villagers began to stop by the hedge, all praising Dick on his success. Hamish noticed that a couple of widowed ladies seemed to be looking at Dick with new eyes. Maybe they thought a winner of a dishwasher might make a good husband number two.
    The sun shone down. They could hear the sound of Archie Maclean’s fishing boat setting out with another party of tourists. Because of the cut in the fishing quotas, Archie had turned his fishing boat into a ‘trips round the loch’ vessel for tourists in the summertime.
    Hamish hoped he would do well but often wished so many visitors had not discovered the normally quiet backwater of Lochdubh.
    He was wondering what to make for lunch when the office phone rang. He went into the station to answer it.But because the front door of the police station was jammed shut with damp and never used, he had to make his way round to the kitchen door and in that way. By the time he reached the office, the call had switched over to the answering machine and to his dismay, he heard Mary’s near-hysterical voice. ‘Oh, it’s awful. The bridge collapsed. Come quickly.’ He cut into the message. ‘It’s me, Hamish. What’s happened?’
    ‘Oh, Hamish, a party of old-age pensioners from Inverness were on the rustic bridge when it collapsed.’
    ‘Anyone dead?’
    ‘No, but shock and some injuries. My husband and brothers were there and got everyone out of the water and phoned for ambulances.’
    ‘Have you phoned Strathbane?’
    ‘No, not after last