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real Ayesha wired over, and she’s fair but small. Get into Braikie, Macbeth. I’ll send some other men as well. We’ve got to find thae maids.”
    Hamish drove into Braikie. He stopped at a fish-and-chip shop and bought a fish for Sonsie and a meat pie for Lugs, watched while they ate, and then drove off to the council estate. He remembered that Bessie, who used to do the cleaning at the Tommel Castle Hotel, had moved to Braikie. What was her married name? Hunter, that was it. He took out his laptop and brought up the Highlands and Islands telephone directory. There were only two Hunters on the estate, a J. Hunter and an A. Hunter. He could not remember the first name of Bessie’s husband, so he tried the address of
    A. Hunter. Bessie herself answered the door. “Why, Hamish!” she said, looking alarmed. “What’s up?” “Nothing to do with your family,” said Hamish. “Can I come in?”
    She stood back and he walked into Bessie’s cheerful living room. “Where’s your man?” he asked.
    “Andy’s doing late shift at the paper works in Strathbane.”
    Hamish removed his cap. “Sit down, Bessie. This is about
    Mrs. Gentle. She’s been found murdered.” “Oh, my God! How? Where?”
    “Someone strangled her and threw her over the cliff. Now, were you working for her?”
    “Aye, me and Annie Chisholm.”
    “When did you finish?”
    “We finished about three in the afternoon. She’d been hustling us along because she was paying by the hour. We started at nine in the morning.”
    “And she was there when you left?”
    “No. The phone rang. She looked quite cheerful but said she had to go out for a breath of fresh air.”
    “What time would this be?”
    “It would be just about after you left. I saw you drive off. That would be around eleven o’clock. She asked us how long it would take and as she wanted the bedrooms and the like cleaned as well, we told her it would be around three in the afternoon. She’d been complaining about the price since the minute we arrived but she paid up the money without a murmur. I asked her if she wouldn’t be back before we finished, and she said, ‘Maybe not. Here’s the spare key. Lock the door behind you and put the key through the letter box.’”
    “And how did she seem?”
    “Quite happy, not excited. Poor woman. Who would kill her? Is your lassie still missing, Hamish?”
    “Yes.”
    Bessie’s round country face creased in sympathy. “It’s a right shame.”
    “Where does Annie Chisholm live?”
    “Round the corner. Broom Close, number ten.”
    “If you can remember any little thing, let me know.”
    Annie Chisholm was a short, burly woman. When she heard Hamish explain the reason for his visit, she exclaimed, “I didnae like the woman. But this is awfy. She started off being a slave driver. The only break we got was when you arrived and then she was back, following us around. When she got that phone call, she changed. She was just too happy to pay us the money and get out.”
    “No member of her family around?”
    “Not a soul. She was on her own when we were there. I tried at one point to speak to her, saying it was a shame you’d been stood up on your wedding day, and she said that it couldnae have happened to a nicer fellow, sneering, like. I could hardly believe my ears because everyone in Braikie thought she was some kind of a saint what with paying for the wedding and all.”
    “She didn’t say anything about the missing girl?”
    “Not a word. She still missing?”
    “Aye.”
    “She get on well wi’ Mrs. Gentle?”
    “As far as I know,” said Hamish abruptly.
    When he left, he realised that Ayesha, or whoever she was, might turn out to be the prime suspect.
    He drove back to the police station, where he filed a long report of the finding of the body and of his interviews with the two cleaners. When he finally got to bed with his cat at his side and his dog at his feet, he somehow became more and more convinced that his fiancée