“Your new copper. Wee Josie McSween.”

Hamish’s hazel eyes looked blank with shock. “Nobody told me it was a woman.”

“I overheard that curse o’ your life, Blair, telling Daviot that the influence of a good woman was just what you need.”

Detective Chief Inspector Blair loathed Hamish and was always looking for ways to upset him.

“Come into the kitchen,” said Hamish. “She cannae be staying here.”

“Why not? Got any whisky?”

“Usual place. Help yourself. No, she’ll need to find lodgings.”

“It’s the twenty-first century, Hamish. Nobody’ll think anything of it.”

Jimmy sat down at the kitchen table and poured himself a drink. He was a smaller man than Hamish, with sandy hair and blue eyes in a foxy face.

“The twenty-first century has not arrived in Lochdubh,” said Hamish. “Chust you sit there and enjoy your drink. I’ve got calls to make.”

Jimmy smiled and lay back in his chair. Although the month was April, a blizzard was blowing outside, “the lambing blizzard” as the crofters bitterly called it, that storm which always seemed to hit the Highlands just after the lambs were born. The woodstove glowed with heat. Hamish’s dog, Lugs, snored in a corner and his wild cat, Sonsie, lay over Jimmy’s feet. He could hear Hamish making urgent phone calls from the police office but could not hear what he was saying.

At last, Hamish came back into the kitchen, looking cheerful. “That’s settled,” he said. “All the women from the minister’s wife down to the Currie sisters are phoning up headquarters to complain. Mrs. Wellington has a spare room at the manse, and that’s where she’s going.”