He eased his way down the back slope to the station. It was in darkness. He tried the door and then grinned. It was unlocked. He threw it open, rifle at the ready.

Silence.

He fumbled for the light and switched it on. He rapidly searched the small station. No Hamish. No animals.

He sat down at the kitchen table, facing the door, rifle at the ready. He saw the glass of whisky in front of him. Just the thing. He usually never drank until the job was over, but one wouldn’t hurt. He drank it down, wrinkling his nose at the taste and wondering whether it was moonshine from one of the illegal stills he believed to be up in the hills.

Then Roger began to feel so very sleepy. The hallucinatory effect of the drug began to take over. He felt he was back in his own flat in East Glasgow. He stumbled through to the bedroom, stripped off his clothes, crawled into Hamish’s bed, and fell asleep.

At two in the morning, Josie quietly made her way back to the police station. She frowned when she found the door unlocked. She should have remembered to lock it. She let herself in and switched on the light. The first thing she saw was the empty whisky glass on the table. Josie picked it up and scowled down at the remnants of white powder at the bottom of the glass. If Hamish saw that, he’d get it analysed. She rinsed it out, dried it, and put it up on the shelf with the others.

Now for action!

She went quietly into the bedroom. Her foot struck something on the floor. She looked down and found herself staring at a rifle. She switched on the bedroom light. Josie did not recognise Roger although after the murder of Barry his photograph had been in all the papers and he was lying with his face half buried in the pillow. She only knew it was not Hamish and let out a gasp of dismay.

Josie ran from the police station as if the hounds of hell were after her.

In the morning, Angela stopped outside the police station and said to Sonsie and Lugs, “Off you go.”

She watched until they had both disappeared through the large cat flap and then turned and walked away along the waterfront.

A sharp bark awoke Roger. He groggily struggled awake. The there was a menacing hiss. His startled eyes saw that damn cat staring at him, fur raised.

With a cry of terror, he leapt for the bed and straight for the kitchen door. The cat leapt on his back, digging her claws in. He howled and shook her off and, with blood running down his naked back, he fled along the waterfront to the alarm and amazement of the villagers out doing their morning shopping.

Nessie Currie was just about to get into her old Ford when a naked Roger dragged her from the car and dumped her on the road. Then he drove off, leaving her screaming.

Hamish was enjoying a leisurely breakfast at the hotel when he heard the news. He jumped in the Land Rover and set off in pursuit. He called Strathbane for backup. Roadblocks were hurriedly set up. All day long the search went on but Roger appeared to have disappeared into thin air.

How on earth could a bloody naked man just vanish?

It was only by evening when Nessie was coherent enough to be interviewed and the sedative Dr. Brodie had given her had worn off that she revealed she had been about to take a bundle of secondhand clothes from the village to a charity shop in Strathbane. When the report then came in from a man outside Inverness that a large woman had stolen his van, they realised that Roger had stopped to put on women’s clothes and a big felt hat, formerly the property of Mrs. Wellington. The van had a full tank of petrol and two spare tanks in the back. Nessie’s car was found dumped in a back street in Inverness.

The story was in all the newspapers the next morning. The comic side of it was fully exposed.

Here was a dreaded hit man who had gone to sleep in a police station, been attacked by a cat, run through the village naked, and escaped dressed as a woman.

Only Josie knew what had happened. She thanked her stars she had been wearing gloves when she had left the whisky.

Roger sat in his dingy flat and cursed his luck. Everything had been left behind: his false papers, false credit cards, mobile phone, and prized deer rifle, not to mention his car.

Two days later, he looked out of his window and saw a low black Mercedes stopping outside his flat. His heart sank as he saw crime boss Big Shug climbing out of the car.

Roger shoved a pistol in the waistband of his trousers and went to open the door.

Big Shug looked like a prosperous Glasgow businessman from his well-tailored coat to his shining shoes.

“Been reading about me, have ye?” asked Roger. “Come in.”

“I don’t go much by what the papers say,” said Big Shug. “But I’ve got a difficult job and I want you to off someone for me.”

Roger said cautiously, “Are you sure the person you want to off isnae me?”

“Come on, laddie. When have I ever let you down? This is a delicate one. It’s a woman. Anything against that?”

“Not a thing.”

“Why did you kill Barry?”

“He would have talked and the drugs would have been traced right back to you.”

“Aye, well, let’s get going.”

“Now?”

“No time like the present.”

“Who is she?”

“Tell you when we get there.”

Big Shug sat in the front with his driver and Roger sat in the back with one of his henchmen. No introductions were made. The Mercedes slid smoothly off.

“Where are we going?” asked Roger as the car began to drive along the Dumbarton dual carriageway.

“Relax, laddie. A wee bit before Helensburgh.”

A thin mist was hovering over the Gairloch as the Mercedes slid into a deserted building site. “Where is she?” asked Roger as he got out of the car.

“Along presently.”

Big Shug whipped a gun out and shot Roger in the stomach. “That’s one for Barry,” he said. “He was a pal o’ mine and he never would ha’ talked.”

He marched up to where Roger lay writhing on the ground and put two bullets into his head.

“Right, lads,” he said. “Get to work. This site’s held up forever waiting planning permission. Nobody’ll be along here for ages.”

His two henchmen dug a grave in the soft ground, dropped the body in, filled in the hole, and patted it flat with the backs of their spades.

They all got into the Mercedes and drove off.

Two little boys crouched behind a rickety wall of planks, having seen the whole thing. Rory Mackenzie was eight years old and his brother, Diarmuid, ten. “Do you think yon was real?” whispered Rory. “Maybe they was filming Taggart.” He was referring to a popular Scottish television crime series.

“I think we’d better tell the police anyway.” Diarmuid took out his much-prized mobile phone and dialled 999.

Chapter Eight

Love is like a dizziness,

It winna let a poor body

Gang about his bizziness.

– James Hogg

The murders of Mark Lussie and Annie Fleming had disappeared from the newspapers and from any of Strathbane’s investigations. Hamish greeted the news of Roger Burton’s murder with relief. It was Strathclyde’s case, and, as he alone was still determined to solve the local murders, he was happy to let them get on with it.

Strathbane was a violent town, and the police were used to having unsolved murders on their books.

Josie begged leave to visit her mother, and Hamish let her go. Flora McSween welcomed her daughter and asked how her “romance” with Hamish was getting on.

Josie said that Hamish had taken her to a local dance, and Flora eagerly begged for details. Not wanting to disappoint her mother, Josie gave a highly embroidered account full of “speaking glances” and “warm clasped hands,” which, to a less woolly-minded romantic than her mother, would have sounded like something out of the pages of a Victorian novel.