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ground. Yet all the time he searched, he racked his brains for an excuse to see Anka again, and as soon as possible. The trouble with heather, he thought, was that it did not break even when a vehicle went over it. He turned and looked back at the cottage to see Christine taking plaster casts of the footprints in the garden. She waved to him and went on with her work.
    I might have fancied her if I hadn’t met Anka, thought Hamish. At the top of the braes, he found a discarded cigarette packet and, beside it, the stub of a cigarette. He took out a forensic bag and put both items into it.
    Whoever it was, he thought, would stay well clear of the village. He wouldn’t want folk to hear the sound of the engine. On the other hand, he could switch off the lights and the engine and cruise down the brae to the back of the garden. Hamish continued on, bent double, searching the ground. If the driver came in a four-by-four, he would circle around over the moorland in a wide arc and join the road well away from the village. He finally hit a boggy patch and saw tyre tracks and hurried back to Christine to tell her to make a cast of them.
    â€œShow me where,” said Christine. “I don’t hold out much hope. If it were one of those American CSI programmes, I would say, aha, this belongs to a long-wheel-base Discovery Land Rover, or something. But it’s not like that, particularly with the team I’ve got.”
    â€œAren’t any of them coming to join you?” asked Hamish.
    â€œNot them. They had a rugby match last night against the Strathbane Diamonds and lost. I phoned up and most of them seemed to have gone off sick, which means monumental hangovers all round.”
    â€œAnd the pathologist is a useless drunk, I think,” said Hamish bitterly. He waited while Christine took the cast, and then they walked back up to the top of the brae.
    â€œYou can get a good look at the village from here,” said Christine.
    â€œAye,” said Hamish, his eyes sharpening as he saw Dick leaving Anka’s cottage. “Now, what has that interfering little sod been up to?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œNever mind. I wonder where Jimmy has got to. He’s supposed to be here.”
    â€œAnd that’s another drunk.”
    â€œHe’s a good detective,” protested Hamish, who did not like to hear Jimmy criticised. “I’ll leave you now and go talk to a few people.”
    â€œShouldn’t take you long,” said Christine. “It’s more of a hamlet than a village, although there seem to be a good few cars outside the shop.”
    â€œThat’s an example of the great bap hunt,” said Hamish. “There’s a Polish girl does the baking and they come from all over. Now, there’s a thing. They all say that no strangers have been seen in the village. But what about that lot? I’d better get down there.”
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    Jimmy was just arriving when Hamish reached the shop. He had two policemen with him.
    Hamish rapidly told him about the fame of the shop’s bakery and how it attracted people from all over. “Easy for someone to mingle with the crowd and suss out the place,” he said.
    But diligent questioning by Jimmy, Hamish, and the police officers only elicited the fact that there had been strangers to the village, but no strangers to the Highlands. They were told that people from Lochinver and villages north and south of Cromish had all been recognised, which was what Hamish had previously feared.
    â€œHow is the investigation into the Leighs’ murders going?” Hamish asked Jimmy.
    â€œThat’s at a dead end,” said Jimmy. “Daviot is fretting. He’s thinking of sending Blair up here while you go back down there. He says it’s your village and you’ve got a better chance of digging something up than Blair.”
    â€œBad idea,” said Hamish quickly. He did not want to leave Cromish and maybe not