Death of a Witch by M. C. Beaton Page A

“and I’ll make you some tea afterwards. You shouldnae be alone like this.”
    Hamish retreated into the kitchen and phoned Mrs. Wellington. After he had made Angus tea and persuaded him to take some aspirin, Hamish heard approaching voices and went to the front door.
    There was nothing in the world, he thought, more indomitable than the ladies of Lochdubh. Fighting their way up the hill came Mrs. Wellington, the Currie sisters, and Angela. Angela was pulling a laden sledge.
    Soon the little cottage was a hive of activity. Angus was persuaded to move through to his living room wrapped in blankets and sit by the fire until the sheets on his bed were changed.
    “You’re a kind man, Hamish,” croaked Angus.
    Hamish looked quickly around and then bent over Angus. “Know anything about a brothel near Lochdubh?”
    “You wouldnae be punishing a wee body for doing a few men a favour,” he wheezed.
    “Not me. But where?”
    Mrs. Wellington came in. “I hope you are not bothering our patient, Hamish. We need more peat for the fire. And get out the back and knock the snow off his satellite dish so he can watch the telly.”
    “I didn’t know you had satellite television, Angus,” said Hamish.
    “Stop bothering the man,” boomed Mrs. Wellington, “and get to it!”
    Hamish collected more peat from a shed at the back. Then he got a ladder and climbed up to the satellite dish—which was on a pole—and cleared the snow from it. He felt the wind on his cheek and realised it had moved round to the west. The snow had stopped falling, and there was a little patch of blue sky appearing above his head.
    When he went into the bedroom, the television had flickered into life. The Currie sisters were sitting on either side of the fire, drying their feet.
    “The Misses Currie are going to stay with Angus for a bit. I’ll call up this evening,” said Mrs. Wellington. “Oh, the thought of that walk back.”
    “I’m taking the sledge back,” said Angela. “We could sledge down the hill along the track we made coming up.”
    “You’ll never get me on a sledge,” protested the minister’s wife, but once outside, she quailed at the thought of struggling all the way down.
    “Hamish,” said Angus. “Come near.”
    Hamish bent over him.
    “Cnothan. Mobile home. Up on the north brae.”
    “Come along, Hamish,” ordered Mrs. Wellington.
    Outside, Angela and a reluctant Mrs. Wellington sat on the sledge. Hamish pushed from the back and jumped on board and they all went hurtling down, ending in a heap against a garden fence at the bottom.
    “That actually was fun,” said Mrs. Wellington, standing up and brushing snow from her clothes.
    The thaw came quickly the following day, only to be followed by a sharp frost turning the roads treacherous. He got a call from gamekeeper Willie. “There’s a couple o’ fellows skidded off the road up north of the hotel.”
    “I’ll see to it,” said Hamish.
    A gritting lorry was making its way along the waterfront, spraying sand and salt. Hamish followed it out of the village and up the hill past the hotel to where two men were standing on the road, talking to Willie. Their Land Rover was lying on its side in the ditch.
    Hamish got down and approached them. He stared. The older man had a beard and was accompanied by a younger man. He nodded to them and said to Willie, who was standing with his gun broken, “Get your shotgun on them.” To the two men he said, “Don’t dare move.”
    He took two sets of handcuffs out of his own vehicle and handcuffed both men, who were protesting violently. He then went to their Land Rover and peered inside. A deer carcase was lying in the back. So Timmy wasn’t lying after all, he thought.
    By the time he had taken them down to the police station, locked them in the one cell, phoned Strathbane, and filed a report, the ice on the roads had melted and a squad arrived from Strathbane to impound the poachers’ vehicle and take them to Strathbane. From