"Long may it last. I wouldnae like to see another murder in Lochdubh."

"There may be one shortly."

"Who? What?"

"Nessie and Jessie Currie are joint chairwomen of the Mothers' Union at the church this year."

"Oh, dear." Jessie and Nessie were middle-aged twin sisters, both unmarried.

"The others are complaining it's like being run by the Gestapo."

"Can't they vote them out?"

"Not for another year."

"What are they doing that's so bad?"

"Well, at the cake sale, they criticised the quality of the baking and reduced little Mrs. McWhirter to tears for one. Then they have lately become obsessed with germs and the church hall has to be regularly scrubbed. They have pinned up a cleaning rota and all women must remove their shoes before entering the hall."

"I'll have a word with them."

"Would you, Hamish? I don't know what you can say. Everyone's tried."

"I'll have a go."

Hamish said goodbye to her and strolled off in the direction of the Currie sisters' cottage.

He knocked at the highly polished brass lion's head on the door. Jessie answered, blinking up at him through her thick glasses. "It's you. It's you," said Jessie, who had an irritating way of repeating everything.

"I just dropped by for a wee word," said Hamish easily. "Come ben." Hamish ducked his head and followed Jessie into the living room, where sister Nessie was seated.

Nessie was knitting ferociously, steel pins flashing through magenta wool.

"What brings you?" asked Nessie.

Hamish sat down. "I'll get tea. I'll get tea," said Jessie.

Hamish raised a hand. "Not for me, thank you. This'll only take a minute."

Jessie folded her arms and eyed the tall red-haired policeman nervously. "It must be serious for you to refuse a free cup of tea, free cup of tea."

"It iss the little matter o' the Mothers' Union."

Nessie stopped knitting. What's up wi' the Mothers' Union?"

"The pair of you are what's up with it."

"What d'ye mean, d'ye mean?" demanded Jessie. "We run it wi' an iron hand, iron hand."

"Well, now, ladies, the iron hand seems to be the trouble. Ye cannae go on like the Gestapo."

"Who's complaining?" demanded Nessie wrathfully.

"Chust about everyone," said Hamish Macbeth.

"We've done nothing wrong, nothing wrong," said Jessie. "We've made sure the church hall is clean, and that place was a sewer, a sewer."

"Yes, and it iss the grand job the pair of you are doing at fighting the germs, but is there any need to fight the others?" Hamish reflected it was an odd world when the Mothers' Union was being run by two childless spinsters. Did anyone ever use the word "spinster" anymore? What was politically correct? "Miz" was irritating and pretentious. Single? And why should women who were not married be considered strange in any way? He was not married himself.

"I'm speaking to you, Hamish Macbeth," shouted Nessie, penetrating his thoughts, "and all you can do is sit there like a gormless loon after insulting us."

"Insulting us," chorused Jessie.

"I wass thinking about Margaret Thatcher," lied Hamish.

"What about her?" asked Nessie, a look of reverence in her eyes.

The sisters adored Margaret Thatcher.

"Well, now, Mrs. Thatcher-"

"Baroness Thatcher," corrected the Currie sisters in unison.

"Lady Thatcher, then. Now, herself would run that Mothers' Union with a firm hand. But she would delegate responsibility, draw everyone in. You get more out of people if they like you. Diplomacy is the word, ladies."

"And what do you know about Lady Thatcher?" jeered Nessie.

Hamish half closed his eyes. "It wass the great day," he crooned, his Highland accent becoming more sibilant as he worked himself up to telling one massive lie. "I wass down in Inverness and there she wass, just doing her shopping like you or me."

"When was this, when was this?" cried Jessie.

"Let me see, it would be June last year, a fine day, I 'member."

"What was she buying?" asked Nessie, her eyes shining.

"It was in Marks and Spencer. She wass looking at one of thae tailored blouses she likes to wear. Silk, it was."

"And did you speak to her?"

"I did that," said Hamish.

"What did you say?"

"I asked her to autograph my notebook, which she did. I asked her the secret of success."

Both sisters leaned forward. "And she said?"

"She said the secret was the firm hand."

"Ah!"

"But with kindness, she said. She wass as near to me as you are now. She said she never let herself get bogged down wi' bullying people or bothering about the small stuff. 'If you work hard,' she says to me, 'you do the service for others chust because you want to. The minute you start pushing people and bragging about how hard you are working for them, they turn against you. Nobody wants a martyr.' ".

The sisters looked at each other. "Maybe we have been a bit too strong, bit too strong," said Jessie.

"Aye, maybe we'll go a bit easier," said Nessie. "And then what did she say?"

"Dennis, her husband, came up at that minute and he says, 'You're neffer going to buy that blouse, Maggie. The colour's wrong.' It wass the purple silk."

"I'll bet she told him to take a running jump," said Nessie.

"Not herself. She chust smiled and said, 'Yes, dear, you're probably right.' You see there wass the security men all about her and a lady like that wasn't going to stoop to be petty."

"What a woman, what a woman," breathed Jessie. "We shall neffer see her like again."

Hamish stood up, his red head almost brushing the low ceiling. "I'll be on my way, ladies."

"Can we see that autograph, Hamish?"

"Och, no, I sent it to my cousin Rory in New Hampshire. He has it framed and hung over his fireplace."

Hamish made his way out. In the small hallway was a framed photograph of Margaret Thatcher. He winked at it and let himself out.

He ambled back towards the police station. As he approached Patel's, the general store, he recognised the waiflike figure of Felicity Maundy. In the same moment, she saw him and her face turned a muddy colour. She unlocked the door of an old Metro, threw her groceries onto the passenger seat, climbed in and drove off leaving a belch of exhaust hanging in the air.

"Now, what's she got on her conscience?" murmured Hamish. "Probably went on some demo when she was a wee lassie at school and thinks the police still have a eye on her."

He shrugged and proceeded along to the police station. His rambling roses at the front were still doing well and their blossoms almost hid the blue police lamp.

Hamish began to plan a relaxed evening, maybe put on a casserole and let it simmer and go to the pub for an hour. The new alcopops had turned out to be a menace, those sweet fizzy alcoholic drinks. They had been designed, in his opinion, to seduce the young, but it was the Highlanders, the fishermen in particular, every man of them having a sweet tooth, who had become hooked on them. So Hamish meant to combine pleasure and duty by keeping a sharp eye on the drivers who were drinking over the limit. Then he would return at closing time and start taking away car keys.

He opened the kitchen door and went in. The phone in the police station office began to ring shrilly. He went quickly to answer it. He experienced a blank feeling of dread and tried to shrug it off. It would be nothing more than a minor complaint. Or a hoax call.

He picked up the receiver. "Lochdubh police," he said.

"Hamish, this is Parry. It's yon fellow, Tommy Jarret. He's dead."

"Dead. How? Why?"

"They think it's an overdose. They found a syringe."

"I'll be right over."

Cursing, Hamish rapidly changed into his uniform. How could it all have happened so quickly? he thought. The lad had been all right. What had happened to his, Hamish Macbeth's, famous intuition? He could have sworn Tommy Jarret was not in danger of returning to his drug taking.