Death of a Valentine Read Online Free PDF

Fleming must be about the most beautiful girl in
the Highlands.’
    ‘Oh, really?’ said Josie. ‘Didn’t look anything special to me.’
    Josie thought hopefully that by enjoying the fun of the fair, Hamish meant they should go on some of the rides together, but he ordered her to police the left-hand side
of the fair while he took the right.
    It was a long hot day. Josie had set her hair early in the morning but it was crushed under her hat, and trickles of sweat were running down her face. By evening, when Hamish briefly joined her,
she asked plaintively when they could pack up.
    ‘Not until the fair closes down,’ said Hamish. ‘There’s sometimes a rough element in the evening.’ And he strolled off, leaving Josie glaring after him.
    By the time the fair began to close down at eleven in the evening, Josie was tired and all her romantic ideas about Hamish Macbeth had been sweated out of her system. He was an inconsiderate
bully. He would never amount to anything. He was weird in the way that he shied away from making arrests.
    She sat beside him in mutinous silence on the way back to Lochdubh, planning a trip to Strathbane on the Monday morning, turning over in her mind the best way to get a transfer back again.
    ‘You may as well take the day off tomorrow,’ were Hamish’s last words that evening to her.
    Hamish was outside the police station on the following Sunday morning, sawing wood, when he heard the shrill sound of the telephone ringing in the police office. He ran in and
picked up the receiver. Jimmy Anderson was on the line. ‘You’d better get over to Braikie, Hamish. We’ll join you as soon as we can.’
    ‘What’s up?’
    ‘Sir Andrew Etherington collected thon tiara from the town hall first thing this morning. He was on the way back to his home when there was a blast up ahead and a tree fell across the
road. Four fellows he didn’t know appeared and said they’d move the tree if he’d sit tight. Now Sir Andrew gets out of the car to go and help. He gets back in his car and waves
goodbye to those helpful men. He’s nearly at his home when he realizes that the box wi’ the tiara is no longer on the seat beside him.’
    Hamish scrambled into his uniform and then phoned Josie and said he’d be picking her up in a few moments. Josie complained that she was just out of the bath.
    ‘Then take your car and follow me over,’ said Hamish. ‘The tiara’s been stolen. Get on the road towards Craskie. Take the north road out of Braikie and you’ll see
my Land Rover. Some men got a tree to fall over the road, blocking Sir Andrews’s way, and when he got out to help them someone nicked the tiara.’
    Hamish was cursing as he took the Braikie road. Every year the safety of that tiara was his responsibility.
    As he drove through Braikie and out on the north road, he slowed down until he saw a rowan tree lying by the side of the road. He stopped and got out.
    He remembered that tree, for trees were scarce in Sutherland apart from the forestry plantations, and such as survived were miserable stunted little things bent over by the Sutherland gales. The
rowan tree, however, had been a sturdy old one sheltered from the winds in the lee of a hill that overshadowed the road. The bottom of the trunk had been shattered by a blast. He went across to
where the tree had once grown and studied the blackened ground. He guessed a charge of dynamite had been put at the base of the tree.
    He straightened up as Josie’s car came speeding along the road. He flagged her down and said, ‘You wait here for the forensic boys. I’ll go on to the shooting box.’
    The shooting box was a handsome Georgian building, square-built with a double staircase leading up to the front door.
    Hamish knew that the front door was never used so he went round to one at the side of the building and knocked. A grisled old man, Tom Calley, who worked as a butler during the shooting season,
answered the door. ‘It’s yourself,