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touch on the changing postwar world, but mostly the readers wanted reassurance, wanted to know that the schools were educating their children, the hospitals tending their sick, that the auction marts were busy, that the roads were being mended, and that the Church, of whatever denomination, still ruled their community.
    Rob sensed the presence of Beech in the doorway. He looked up and grinned at the tall angular figure. “Hiya.”
    â€œGood morning, young man. Picking up the lingo from our American cousins?”
    â€œAnd the music. You must come and hear our band next time we play.”
    Beech had heard the new American music that was sweeping Great Britain and found a startling resemblance to the chanting and singing of the tribes of Abyssinia and the Sudan.
    â€œI’m not sure I would appreciate it.” Beech remained standingin the doorway. “No, I’m here on a much less pleasant matter, I’m afraid.”
    There was a sudden lull in the chatter of typewriters. “I have information about Mrs. Smart’s funeral.”
    â€œWhen is it?” Joanne asked.
    â€œToday,” Beech replied.
    â€œToday? Where? When?” McAllister, Joanne, and Rob and Hector were speaking all at once.
    â€œIt was held this morning.” He saw the looks of astonishment. “I’ve only just found out myself.” Beech apologized. “My sister went next door to ask about the arrangements. Sergeant Major Smart said the body was released late yesterday afternoon and taken directly to Assynt, where Mrs. Smart is being interred in the family plot.”
    McAllister was the first to ask the obvious. “So why is the man still here in town when his wife is being buried on the other side of the country?”
    â€œAh. Yes. My sister asked the same. The sergeant major told her it was a private funeral. That he was unable to go all that way . . . ” Sergeant Major Smart had also said that it was none of anyone’s business and had shut the door in Rosemary Sokolov’s face. Beech told this to McAllister later, in private.
    â€œDoes she have family over there?” Joanne asked.
    â€œNo one still living—as far as I know. Her mother died when Joyce Mackenzie was a child, her father died some fifteen or so years ago.”
    No one knew what to say, except Hector.
    â€œThat’s no’ right,” he said, voicing everyone’s thoughts. “No one should go to their grave alone.”
    â€œWhy would her husband do this?” Joanne was shocked; funerals were big affairs in the Highlands, the size of the send-off giving comfort to the living and respect to the deceased.
    Beech too was keenly aware of the breach of etiquette. He was aware of a second wave of bereavement, hurting Joyce Smart’s colleagues and friends.
    â€œWhen the time is right . . . ” Everyone looked up at Beech, his voice and stance those of an elder statesman. “We’ll find her grave. We all will go there, and hold our own commemoration.”
    â€œYes, we will.” As McAllister spoke, murmurs of agreement filled the room, and he knew the time would be right when the Highland Gazette had published the name of Mrs. Smart’s killer across the front page.

C HAPTER 3

    T he lack of progress in the police investigation infuriated McAllister, and the reading of the will obsessed him; the death of Mrs. Smart came about because of her life, not some random act committed by a madman, of that he was certain.
    I owe it to her, he told himself when he started delving to better understand why she was killed. But really it had been that terrible night when he couldn’t remember her Christian name that had stabbed his conscience. And McAllister had a deep conscience—when it mattered to him.
    â€œI’m off to see your father,” McAllister told Rob.
    â€œWhat about?” Rob asked knowing that his father, a respected local solicitor,