Death of an Outsider by M.C. Beaton Page A

is a highly respectable lady. I am furthermore quite prepared to put my job on the line if you make any more filthy remarks about her by sinking ma fist right into your mouth.’
    Blair backed before the fury in Hamish’s eyes. ‘Cannae ye take a joke?’ he said. ‘Me and the others are off to stay at the Anstey Hotel doon the road. The bigwigs are comin’ up from Inverness and Edinburgh to see what we can do about keeping thae lobsters quiet. In the meantime, you take those false teeth down to Mrs Mainwaring and let’s hear what she says.’
    Blair walked into the lounge as he talked. Hamish looked around the room in dismay. The ashtrays were overflowing, and there were greasy fish-and-chip papers on the coffee table.
    ‘And what am I supposed to do about this mess?’ asked Hamish.
    ‘Oh, get a wumman in tae clean the place and put the bill through the expenses as something else.’
    Furious as he was at the state of the place, Hamish was only too glad to get rid of Blair and his detectives. It meant he would have the phone to himself again.
    He got into the police Land Rover and drove off before Blair could commandeer it. It would be just like Blair to expect him to walk the miles to Mrs Mainwaring’s.
    And before he even reached Mrs Main-waring, he had to quieten his conscience by looking for Sandy Carmichael. The moors were covered with searching policemen, but there might be something he, Hamish Macbeth, could find that they could not. He could not in his heart believe Sandy responsible for the murder. He called at Sandy’s cottage after scouring the highways and byways, only to retreat quickly as Blair’s furious face appeared at the window.
    On his way to Mrs Mainwaring, Hamish dropped in to see Diarmuid Sinclair. He nearly didn’t recognize him, for Diarmuid had shaved off his long beard. ‘Why the new image?’ asked Hamish. ‘Doing it for your public?’
    ‘Aye, did you see me on the television?’ said Diarmuid. ‘Grand, that was. John took a video o’ it and showed it to me and I thought I looked that old. Forbye, I’m off to Inverness soon to buy wee Sean a present for his birthday.’ Sean was Diarmuid’s grandson. ‘Have ye any idea what I should get?’
    ‘How old is he?’
    ‘Eight.’
    ‘Well,’ said Hamish, ‘I would just buy the bairn something you would like to play with yourself.’
    He then drove on to the Mainwaring bungalow.
    Mrs Mainwaring was packing clothes, boxes and boxes of them. There were no men’s clothes among the piles lying ready for packing, but Hamish recognized the blue-and-white sailor dress. She was obviously getting rid of all the clothes her husband had chosen for her. Mrs Mainwaring believed her husband was dead.
    ‘What can I do for you, officer?’ she asked, as she competently went on with her packing, a cigarette drooping from her lips.
    ‘Can you identify these? Don’t touch them.’ Hamish took out the false teeth, enclosed in a polythene bag. She went very still. She took the cigarette from her mouth and tossed it into the fire.
    ‘They’re William’s,’ she said flatly. ‘He had them specially made, complete with nicotine stains, so they would not look too white and too false.’ She sat down, her baggy tweed skirt rucked up, displaying large areas of muscled thigh.
    ‘I’ll take a statement from ye,’ said Hamish gently. ‘And then maybe you could call by later in the day at the police station and sign it.’
    She nodded. ‘Where did you find them?’
    ‘My dog found them in that patch of scrub at the turn of the road outside Cnothan as you go out toward Cnothan Game.’
    ‘I knew he was dead,’ she said dully. ‘I felt it. He wouldn’t have left me alone this long. He liked tormenting me too much. Poor William.’
    ‘Mrs Mainwaring, if that skeleton is your husband’s, have you any idea what might have happened to him?’
    ‘No. I don’t like to think about it. It can’t be his. I don’t think it’s anything to do with