He let himself into the police station. He wished he could confide in someone, share the burden. But even if Priscilla should suddenly arrive back from London, he knew he could not even tell her.

He began to pack his one and only good suit and his few respectable shirts. He also packed several paperbacks. There might be long periods of waiting. He wondered about Olivia. Was she married? She must be tough and competent to have reached the rank of detective inspector.

The police station was so comfortable, so familiar, so safe. It was tempting to manufacture some illness and beg off the job. With a sigh, he finished his packing, carried the suitcase out to the police Land Rover. He would drive it to headquarters, leave it there and walk along to his new address.

He drove to the doctor's and told Angela he was going to visit his parents in Rogart and stay with them for a bit. To his embarrassment, Angela made him wait while she took a cake out of the oven, let it cool and then boxed it up. "Its lemon sponge," said Angela. "A present for your mother. Let me know how she likes it."

Feeling guilty, Hamish took the cake and said his farewells.

Some time later, Olivia opened the door to him. Their "new home" was a bungalow furnished in dreadful taste: fake log fire, velvet three-piece suite, noisy wallpaper, horrible oil paintings of hills and glens, glass coffee table and a giant television set.

"Who usually lives here?" asked Hamish, putting down his suitcase and placing the cake box on the coffee table.

"Some friend of Superintendent Peter Daviot who's letting us have the use of it. You brought cake?"

"Aye, one of my friends thought I was going to see my mother and gave me a cake for her."

"We may as well have some. I'll make some tea. Your bedroom's second on the right down the corridor. Put your things away."

She was wearing a shirt blouse tied at the waist and jeans. They should have put a man on the job, thought Hamish. It didn't matter how liberated the decade, women aroused protective feelings which could get in the way.

When he had put his things away, he returned to the living room. The sponge was on a plate with the tea things on the table.

"Your friend's sponge seems to have fallen in the middle," said Olivia.

"Oh, well, that's Angela," said Hamish. "Heart of gold and the worst baking in the Highlands."

"Maybe if we eat the outside and leave the soggy bit in the middle, it'll be all right."

But it tasted as bad as it looked. Angela had used so much lemon and so little sugar that the sponge actually tasted sour.

"Don't let's bother with it," said Olivia. "Let's get down to business. You are a headman for Jimmy White's syndicate in Glasgow. You want to do business in the Highlands."

"And what do the Highland lot think of that?"

"We'll find out. According to DC Sanders, who will be joining us shortly, they are a small outfit suddenly getting larger. Somehow, they are getting shipments of drugs into the country, undetected. Our job is to somehow find out where on the coast the supplies are coming in. Glasgow CID recently seized two shiploads so it's feasible that someone from Glasgow would come up here to purchase drugs."

"Fifty thousand pounds is not going to impress them."

"They're still not that large an outfit." The doorbell rang. "That'll be Sanders," she said, going to answer it.

DC Sanders came in, looking more like a picture on a cornflakes packet than ever.

"Sit down, Sanders," said Olivia. "Tea?"

"Yes, milk and two sugars, please."

"Help yourself," said Olivia curtly, as if to say it was not a senior officer's job to pour tea just because that senior officer happened to be a woman.

"Tell Hamish what you know about the drug situation in Strathbane," she commanded. "I am getting in the way of calling him Hamish because we need to pose as man and wife."

"It's like this," said Sanders. "We raided houses and arrested pushers. The pushers are usually small fry who are on drugs themselves. Through them we sometimes get one of the middlemen but never anyone at the top. Lachie's has been raided several times. We found some of the young people with ecstasy tablets but that was all."

"What about Lachie's? Who owns it?"

"John Lachie. Up from Glasgow. Opened the disco a year ago," said Sanders.

"Any record?"

"Early record. Robbery with violence. Did a stretch in Barlinnie Prison. That was ten years ago. Nothing since then."

"What sort of man is he?" asked Hamish.

"Middle-aged, likes the high life, flashy car, flashy clothes. His disco's very popular. Young people come from all over the Highlands. There's not much else for them. If Lachie's the kingpin, then it's Lachie you'll meet tomorrow night. Could be someone else we don't know about."

"What if Lachie gets onto Jimmy White?" asked Hamish uneasily. "What if Jimmy White says he's neffer heard of me?"

"That's something we will deal with when the time comes," said Olivia briskly. "You will be issued with a gadget with an alarm button. You just press it and the place will immediately be flooded with police."

"Meaning they will be on standby in the streets round about?"

"Yes," said Sanders.

"I don't like it," said Hamish.

"Why?" demanded Olivia.

"If they are dealing in hard drugs, they will be alert to any sign of police surveillance."

"The men will be in plain clothes," said Olivia testily.

"I can tell a Strathbane copper a mile off," said Hamish, "and I'm sure they can, too."

Olivia looked at him impatiently. "Then what do you suggest?"

"I suggest we take our chances. Headquarters isn't far from Lachie's. Why can't they wait there?"

"I'll see what I can do," said Olivia uneasily, thinking of Superintendent Daviot's enthusiasm and of the maps he had pinned up on his office wall, of the fun he had had briefing the "troops" personally. "Wait here."

She went off into her bedroom and then they could hear her voice as she spoke into her mobile phone.

"Grand cake," said Sanders, eating busily.

"Have all you like," said Hamish, thinking the man must have a cast-iron stomach.

"Quite a looker," said Sanders.

"Olivia? She makes me uneasy," said Hamish. "They should have put a man on this job."

"She's not a token woman appointment," said Sanders. "She's got a reputation of being clever and tough."

"Is herself married?"

"No, and don't get any ideas. Some detective came on to her in Glasgow and she poured boiling coffee on him where it would hurt the most."

"She is safe from me," said Hamish. "I tell you this, it is the long time since I've fancied any woman."

"Wait to you see some of the nymphets at Lachie's."

"I am not the baby-snatcher either."

"Hamish Macbeth, I think you're a puritan."

"How is he a puritan?" asked Olivia, coming into the room.

"He doesn't fancy the lassies."

"Are you gay?" asked Olivia.

"No, I am not," said Hamish. "I am chust that wee bit disenchanted with women. What did headquarters say?"

"They're thinking about it. You know what the trouble is? There's just too many cop shows on television and Strathbane at the moment seems to be a case of life determined to imitate art. They swear no one will be able to detect their men."

"Oh, aye," remarked Hamish cynically. "I'll bet they haff the street sweeper in sort of clean-dirty clothes out on the streets when every other street sweeper has packed it in for the day. Then there will be the ice cream van that doesn't sell ice cream. Oh, and what about the window cleaner cleaning windows in the dark? And the courting couple."

"They're looking into it," said Olivia curtly. "We're going ahead with this because you got us into it in the first place. I hope you are not to go on showing a lack of enthusiasm."