Free Death of a Glutton by M.C. Beaton

hasn’t reached Lochdubh yet. Where are you going?’
    ‘Just a drive down to the village.’
    ‘Going to visit anyone?’ asked Priscilla sweetly.
    ‘I don’t know anyone,’ snapped Jenny and walked off.
    Half an hour later, Priscilla decided to run down to the village herself and call on Hamish Macbeth.
    She drove to the police station. The hotel car was parked outside.
    She swung the wheel and drove back to the castle.
    Inside the police station, Jenny was saying earnestly, ‘It must strike you as odd that I should join something like Checkmate.’
    ‘I just thought it was the fashion these days.’ Hamish heard a car driving up, stopping and then turning about and driving away. He was sure that it had been Priscilla and he looked at Jenny Trask with a certain amount of irritation in his eyes.
    ‘I am a policeman, Miss Trask,’ he said, ‘and not used to being disturbed so late in the evening except on police work. I do have a certain amount of chores to do before I go to bed. Did you come to see me about anything important?’
    ‘I felt I had to see someone sane,’ said Jenny, improvising wildly. Things were not turning out as she had expected. She had thought that Hamish might be intrigued by her visit. ‘I wish I had never come up here. It’s all so foreign and wild and weird. It gives me odd ideas.’ She knew she was babbling on but somehow could not stop. ‘The other night, I looked out and there seemed to be this great darkness approaching the castle. It turned out to be a cloud, but it gave me a creepy feeling. I went to the cinema once with a friend and no sooner had we sat down than I said to her, “Let’s move. There’s someone mad behind us.” Well, it was pitch-black, for the film had started, so my friend said it was nonsense. But a few moments later, this old woman behind us started muttering obscenities.’
    Hamish looked at her, a sudden alertness in his eyes. ‘So you think one of the party at the castle is mad?’
    ‘There’s something about it all that makes me uneasy,’ said Jenny a trifle defiantly because this Highland policeman was making her feel like a fool.
    ‘Why do you want to get married?’ asked Hamish.
    Jenny coloured up. ‘Most people do, you know. I’m only a legal secretary. It’s not as if I would be throwing up a great career to be a wife and mother.’
    ‘Why not have a great career?’ Hamish leaned back in his chair and clasped his hands behind his head.
    ‘What?’
    ‘Your family must have money, or Checkmate wouldn’t have accepted you. So you could study for the bar. Take a law degree. My, my.’ He half-closed his eyes. ‘I can see it all: Jenny Trask, QC, defender of the poor and oppressed.’
    ‘I never even thought of it.’ Jenny gave an awkward laugh. ‘Me … standing up in court! I’d be too shy.’
    ‘I don’t think you would be shy at all if you were defending someone, fighting for some-one’s innocence,’ said Hamish.
    She wrapped her legs round the kitchen stool she was sitting on and clasped the cup of coffee he had given her tightly to her bosom. She could see herself in wig and gown. She could see herself on television outside the Law Courts with a successfully acquitted celebrity beaming beside her.
    ‘And now,’ prompted Hamish gently, ‘it’s getting late, and so …’
    Jenny’s mind came into land on reality and she blinked at him.
    ‘Oh, yes, I must go. Thank you for the coffee.’
    Hamish shook his head in amusement when she had gone. He had given her a dream to chew over and he hoped that would keep her happy for the rest of the week.
    He went outside to make sure he had locked up his hens for the night and then he walked down to the garden gate and looked out over the loch.
    A sudden burst of wind came racing down the loch, setting the boats bobbing wildly, tearing among the rambling roses over the police-station door, whipping off the rubbish bin lid, flying down Lochdubh and then disappearing as quickly as it