Death of an Outsider Read Online Free

They often took to drink. But there was no sign of the drinker about Mainwaring. Hamish wondered whether, as a retired army man in Chelmsford or somewhere like that in the south of England, he might have been considered very small beer. Mainwaring liked throwing his weight around and had probably, instead of selling his aunt’s house and croft, chosen to stay in this small pond to perform as a big fish.
    ‘I will call on you tomorrow,’ said Hamish, ‘and tell you how I got on. Address?’
    ‘Balmain. It’s about two miles outside the town on the Lochdubh road.’
    Hamish wrote it down.
    ‘Goodbye, Constable,’ said Mainwaring. ‘But you will find the hostility is directed against my wife. She puts people’s backs up.’
    ‘I have found,’ said Hamish slowly, ‘that married people often don’t think much of each other. I mean, if the couple is popular, each one takes the credit. If unpopular, each assumes the other is to blame.’
    Mainwaring turned in the doorway, his eyes bulging. ‘Are you aware of what you have just said?’ he shouted. ‘You are a cheeky blighter, and if I don’t get results from you by tomorrow, then I’ll have you out of Cnothan so fast, your feet won’t touch the ground!’
    ‘I wass thinking aloud,’ said Hamish sadly. ‘A bad, bad fault. Now don’t fash yourself, sir. Arresting the witches is part of my job.’
    The crash of the door as Mainwaring slammed out was his only answer.
    ‘I shouldnae ha’ said that,’ mourned Hamish, fishing a packet of biscuits out of one of the shopping bags, opening it, and giving one to his dog. ‘But of a’ the conceited men!’
    He helped himself to a biscuit and stared into space. There was something about Mainwaring that didn’t ring true. That ‘cheeky blighter’ was the sort of thing an ex-army man would say in a bad play.
    He decided to go out and collect as much gossip about Mainwaring as he could before seeing the minister’s wife again.
    He made himself dinner, walked Towser, and then set off down the main street, reflecting that there was no point in trying out MacGregor’s car until he had farther afield to go.
    He went to the churchyard with his torch and poked about. Great Celtic crosses reared up against the night sky. Frost was already glittering on the gravel paths. They were raked smooth and there was not a sign of even one footstep. Deciding to have a word with Mrs Mainwaring the following day and persuade her to come with him and show him exactly where the witches had appeared, Hamish went back to the churchyard gate and let himself out.
    Down on the waterfront was a bar called The Clachan. Hamish pushed open the door and went in. It was a dreary smoke-filled room with a juke-box blaring melancholy country-and-western songs from a corner. It was a Monday night and so few of the regulars were in, having spent all their money on the Saturday. Hamish ordered a bottle of beer and took it over to a table by the window and sat down.
    The cowboy on the juke-box, who had been complaining that his son called another man Daddy, wailed off into silence.
    The door opened and a tall, slim man walked in. Hamish observed him curiously. He had carefully waved hair, horn-rimmed glasses, a sallow skin, and buck-teeth. He was wearing a city suit of charcoal-grey worsted with a checked shirt, and tight waistcoat under a camel-hair coat.
    He ordered a gin and tonic and then turned and faced the room. His eyes fell on Hamish. He hesitated and then walked over. Incomer, thought Hamish. No local would approach a strange policeman. The minister’s wife, who felt such gestures to be her duty, did not count.
    ‘You’re Macbeth,’ he said. ‘I’m Harry Mackay.’
    ‘You don’t look as if you belong here,’ said Hamish.
    ‘Oh, I was brought up here, but I spent a good part of my life in Edinburgh,’ said Mackay.
    ‘And what brought you back?’
    ‘I’m an estate agent. I work for Queen and Earl.’
    ‘I didn’t pass your office