THE MYSTERY OF THE LOCHDUB
_________CHAPTER ONE_________________
Police Constable Hamish Macbeth, heading home to his police station in the village of Lochdub in Sutherland,heaved a sigh of relief.He stopped for a moment by the side of the road and rolled down the car window.he was driving a battered old rover,manufactured before the days of power steering and electronic windows.
Hamish breathed in all the familiar scents of the Scottish Highlands:peat smoke,wild thyme,pine and salt air blown in on the Atlantic gales from the coast.
Urged by his friend Angela Brodie to go abroad on holiday for once in his life,Hamish had opted for a cheap off season package trip to the south of Spain.
His hopes of a holiday romance had been dashed as soon as he arrived. The hotel ambitiously named The Royal Brittania,catered to British old-age pensioners who wanted to escape the winter back home and the heating bills that came with it.He was in great demand at tea dances,as the other guests were mostly sprightly ladies in their sixties and seventies.When he tried to escape from the hotel food,which was designed for the British palate-chips with everything-and went to some little Spanish restaurant,he would find that several of the ladies had followed him only to become amorous over jugs of sangria.Cursed with innate highland courtesy,he could not find it in him to be rude enough to get rid of them.
But now he was heading home.He had bought the old banger of a car to leave at Cleverness Airport when he started his journey,not wanting to use the police Land Rover and so incur the wrath of his bosses.
Hamish started off again as the car coughed and spluttered,threatening to collapse at each steep hill like a weary horse.
At last he drove over the humpbacked bridge and into the village of Lochdub.
He uncoiled his long length from the little car and stood up and stretched.fingers of rain were blowing down the sea loch,but there was a patch of blue over to the west heralding better weather to come.Although it was November,the proximity of the Gulf stream meant there were often mild days.
Then for some reason he could not explain,he began to feel uneasy.it seemed that the very air was full of some vague threat.
He shook himself impatiently,unlocked the police station door,and went in.
There was a note from Angela lying on the kitchen table.
It read:''Hamish,this is very the last time I look after your pets for you.Come and collect them as soon as you can.Angela''
Hamish owned a mongrel called Lugs and a domesticated wild cat called Sonsie.Angela Brodie was the doctor's wife.
He went out again and walked to Angela's cottage.The cat and dog looked at him sullenly as if he were not to be forgiven for having left them.
''About time,too'',said Angela crossly.
''They weren't too much trouble,surely?'' said Hamish.
''They kept escaping and going to look for you and I had the gamekeeper, Renatus and several of the others up on the braes to hunt them down and bring them back.''Oh,well,sit down and have a coffee and tell me about you trip.Lots of sunshine,pretty girls?''
''I'm glad to be home,and I don't want to talk about it,''said Hamish.
The wild cat put a large paw on Hamish's leg and gave a low hiss.Lugs, a shaggy dog with floppy ears and odd blue eyes,stared up at Hamish accusingly.
Hamish sat down at the cluttered kitchen table where Angela's cat roamed among the unwashed breakfast dishes.
looking at Angela,with her wispy hair and gentle face,Hamish wondered,not for the first time,how a doctor's wife could be so unhygienic.
