Free Death of a Sweep by MC Beaton

be describing her to me again.’
    Hamish was in plainclothes and was driving an old car borrowed from the garage in Lochdubh, not wanting to alert Inverness police that he was poaching on their patch.
    Rose was quite old for the job. Her face was wrinkled, and her sagging mouth showed that she had lost all her teeth some time ago. ‘Let’s see,’ she said. ‘She was a bit on the fat side, dressed in a suede jacket and trousers. Her hair was hidden under one of those tweed fishing hats.’
    ‘Face?’
    ‘Roundish. Maybe she’d been to the dentist because she had a wee bittie difficulty speaking, as if her mouth was still frozen.’
    ‘What kind of accent?’
    ‘Posh. Lowlands. She came up to the bar for her first drink afore she joined that dead woman and I heard her telling the barman she was from Edinburgh.’
    Hamish brightened. He now had one fact that the police had missed.
    ‘And she didn’t pay by credit card?’
    ‘No, cash. We were busy at the time so I didn’t take much notice.’
    ‘Did the Inverness police examine the tape from the security cameras?’
    ‘They tried. But the boss is a bit mean ower small things and there wasn’t any tape in there.’
    ‘She surely wasn’t wearing gloves. There must have been some fingerprints.’
    ‘By the time they got around to asking, her glass had been washed and the table she sat at wiped clean.’
    Hamish asked a few more questions and then returned to his hired car, deep in thought. Would a ruthless murderer want a woman around who could identify him? Maybe blackmail him?
    The wives of his four suspects were all in Guildford at the time of Philomena’s abduction and murder with plenty of witnesses. He frowned as he remembered the police reports.
    The four men had pretty much alibied one another. But it would take only one of them to be the murderer with his mates covering up for him.
    He drove back to Lochdubh as fast as the old banger of a car he had rented would let him.
    Sonsie and Lugs were waiting outside the police station for him. He had forgotten to feed them before he left but he was pretty sure the pair of them would have gone along to the kitchen door of the Italian restaurant, where the staff spoiled them. They could come and go by a large cat flap in the kitchen door of the police station.
    ‘They’ve been fed,’ said a voice behind him.
    He swung round. Angela Brodie, the doctor’s wife, stood there, her soft wispy hair blowing around her thin face. ‘They were eating like pigs outside the Italian restaurant. Lugs is particularly fond of osso buco.’
    ‘I’ll make us some coffee,’ said Hamish.
    ‘How’s the case going?’ asked Angela when they were seated at the kitchen table.
    ‘Not well.’
    ‘Been to see Elspeth? She’ll soon be past the infectious stage.’
    ‘I’ll head up there later. What should I take her?’
    ‘I think she would like something easy to read.’
    ‘I’ll look for something. I’d better check that those four bastards have left the area.’
    ‘Do you suspect one of them?’
    ‘Yes, I do.’
    ‘But why? I gather Davenport owed them all money, but they all seem to be pretty well off.’
    ‘I think I’m dealing with a psychopath with an overweening vanity.’
     
    When Angela had left, Hamish went through to the police office and called Jimmy Anderson.
    ‘Jimmy, this is one hell of a long shot. It’s about that woman who helped our murderer abduct Philomena.’
    ‘What about her?’
    ‘I think she was in disguise.’
    ‘Stands to reason.’
    ‘I mean I think she had stuffed her face and body to make herself look fatter. The waitress said she spoke as if she’d just been to the dentist. And she said she was from Edinburgh.’
    ‘What are you getting at?’
    ‘Could you do me a favour? Could you get on to Edinburgh police and give them, say, the day after Philomena’s murder, or the day after that, and ask if there were any suspicious deaths in Edinburgh?’
    ‘The damn city’s probably