Death of a Village by MC Beaton Page A

night.’
    ‘Exciting stuff.’
    ‘Read by some woman with a reedy voice. What’s tippenny?’
    ‘Oh, the stuff that makes you fear no evil. Twopenny ale.’
    ‘And usquebae?’
    ‘Whisky The water of life. Don’t tell me you didn’t know?’
    ‘Never could get my tongue around the Gaelic. That bomb was probably some nasty bit of anti-Englishness. Blair suggested as much to the major and then had to back-pedal, as the good major
was threatening to take the whole village to the Race Relations Board.’
    ‘You know, there probably was never a people like the Scots to know so little about their own history. Do you know where the Scots came from, Jimmy?’
    ‘I thought they were always here.’
    ‘They came from Northern Ireland and proceeded to wipe out the Celts and the Picts in one of the biggest acts o’ genocide in history. The trouble’s always caused by the
Low-landers, not us. They live in a Gaelic twilight with tartan fringes. Anyway, to get back to Stoyre, what’s the mood like? Are the folks scared?’
    ‘No. There’s an odd atmosphere there. A sort of suppressed excitement, like kids before Christmas.’
    ‘That’s verra interesting. I can’t wait to get there now. But I’ll keep clear until the authorities have gone.’
    ‘Shouldn’t be long now. If it had been a big professional bomb, they’d have been there for a long time. But everything now points to the locals.’
    The garden gate creaked and Elspeth walked in. She was wearing a near-transparent Indian blouse covered in what looked like little bits of mirror. Her shorts were very short, showing strong
tanned legs ending in her usual clumpy boots.
    ‘What about having that dinner this evening?’ she asked Hamish.
    ‘All right. I’ll see you at the Italian’s at eight.’
    Elspeth smiled at Jimmy. ‘See you there, Hamish,’ she said.
    ‘Man,’ breathed Jimmy when she had left. ‘You are one lucky man. What a smasher!’
    ‘Elspeth? She’s just the local reporter.’
    ‘I know. I’ve met her before, remember? I didn’t know she was keen on you.’
    ‘We are chust friends,’ said Hamish stiffly.
    ‘Wish I had a friend like that,’ leered Jimmy.
    ‘She does wear weird clothes.’
    ‘Move with the times. You’re getting old-fashioned, Hamish.’
    Hamish found Elspeth waiting for him when he arrived at the restaurant that evening. She was wearing a brightly coloured jacket made of diamond-cut pieces of coloured velvet
over a faded black T-shirt and a long black chiffon skirt. And the boots.
    He had a sudden picture of Priscilla sitting there, impeccably dressed and without a hair out of place, and felt a dark sadness. Elspeth’s hair was no longer aubergine but it stood out all
over her head as if she had stuck her finger in an electric socket. He noticed as he sat down that her fingernails were painted black.
    Hamish had made a promise to himself never to refer to any part of Elspeth’s appearance again – after all, how she looked or what she wore was none of his business – but he
found himself saying sharply, ‘What have you done wi’ your nails? They make your hands look as if you’d shut them in a car door.’
    ‘Sit down, shut up, and choose something to eat,’ said Elspeth amiably. ‘I’m starving.’
    Willie Lamont, the waiter, who had been a policeman until he married a relative of the restaurant owner, came up to take their order. ‘What’ll it be, Hamish?’ he asked.
    ‘Why don’t you ask the lady first what she wants?’ chided Hamish.
    ‘Right. Michty me, lassie, your nails are black.’
    ‘And michty me, the service in here is rotten. Do you usually make personal remarks to your customers?’
    ‘Sorry,’ mumbled Willie. ‘What’s it to be?’
    ‘Caesar salad first and then lasagne.’
    ‘I’ll have a mixed salad and then the penne wi’ the basil sauce. And bring us a bottle of the house wine,’ said Hamish.
    Willie wrote down their order and then lingered, moving from foot to