Death of a Witch Read Online Free PDF Page A

life.”
    “I think you’ll find the complaining women all had children and were past the menopause. They’d rather read a romance or fantasise about a film star than have their old man fumbling again.”
    “Miserable old biddies. They should let the old man get his leg over occasionally.”
    “I hate it all,” said Hamish. “I’m telling you, Jimmy, the two biggest motives for murder are sex and money.”
    “Maybe she was supplying one and getting the other for services rendered,” suggested Jimmy.
    “There’s not that much money in Lochdubh.”
    “Come on, man! I bet there’s money hidden under some of the mattresses here. They’re a canny lot. Probably have been saving for years.”
    “I chust wish she would go away,” mourned Hamish. “The men know she made a fool of them.”
    The following two days were quiet. No sign of the witch, and yet Hamish swore he could almost see a miasma of evil hanging over his beloved village.
    Then on the third morning, he received a visit from the milkman, Hughie Cromart. “The milk outside the Beldame woman’s cottage hasn’t been taken in,” he said. “You should get up there and see if anything has happened to her.”
    Hamish felt a spasm of black dread. The fear that one of the men in the village would do something to the “witch” that had been lurking around his subconscious now came roaring up into his brain.
    “I’ll get up there right away,” he said.
    It was a crisp cold morning. There had been a thick frost during the night. The loch lay as still as a sheet of metal under a grey sky. The tops of the two mountains soaring above Lochdubh were covered in snow.
    Two buzzards sailed lazily above the cottage as Hamish approached.
    He knocked at the door and waited.
    No reply.
    He tried the handle but the door was locked. He then tried to peer into the two windows at the front of the cottage, but the curtains were drawn.
    Hamish wondered what to do. If he broke in and she was all right, she would add the charge of breaking and entering to the one of police harassment. He walked round to the back.
    There was one door and one window at the back, but the door was locked and the curtains were tightly drawn across the window.
    He studied the lock. It was a simple Yale one. He took out a thin strip of metal and forced the lock.
    Hamish switched on the light. He found himself in the room where she kept all her potions, the room he had been in before. He went across the tiny hall and opened the door to the room opposite.
    It had been fitted up as a bedroom. He could see that in the dim light filtering through the curtains. There was a figure on the bed. He switched on the light and let out a gasp of dismay.
    Catriona was lying naked on the bed. Her throat had been slashed and there were stab wounds on her chest. Blood seemed to have spurted everywhere. He backed out slowly and made his way outside the way he came in.
    Hamish phoned police headquarters and stood there, looking down the brae to the village, wondering who the murderer was and praying it wasn’t one of the villagers.

Chapter Three
    Wickedness is a myth invented by good people to account for the curious attraction of others.
    —Oscar Wilde
    Hamish stood outside the cottage waiting for the police from Strathbane to arrive. A group of villagers had gathered down the brae and stood looking at him in silence. It was unnerving. No one approached him or called out to him asking what was wrong.
    As he heard the sirens in the distance, there was a sudden gasp from the crowd. He heard behind him a sinister crackling sound and swung round in alarm. The red glare of flames could be seen at the bedroom window where the dead body lay.
    Hamish ran into the cottage. At least the body must be saved for the autopsy. But when he opened the bedroom door, he reeled back before a crackling wall of flame. He ran out again and round the back of the cottage. There was no sign of anyone. He called the fire brigade in Braikie