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the
door.
    To his relief, Sean Comyn himself answered it. He was unshaven and red-eyed.
    ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked. ‘Bella?’
    ‘A word with you. Let me in.’
    Sean led him into a front room. It was dark and sparsely furnished with a few shabby chairs and a sofa.
    ‘Before we start,’ said Hamish, taking out his mobile phone, ‘I’ll phone police headquarters and say you’ve been found.’
    Sean tried to say something but Hamish held up a hand for silence. ‘In a minute,’ he said. He reported to Jimmy Anderson that Sean had been found. ‘If she’s been beating
him,’ said Jimmy, ‘will he press charges?’
    ‘I’ll see what I can do.’
    Hamish rang off and turned to Sean. ‘Before I begin, I want you to take this phone and call your bank manager and freeze your account or, if I’m not mistaken, she’ll clean you
out.’
    Sean took the phone from him. He did not ask questions or protest, simply phoned the bank and did what Hamish had suggested. Then he handed the phone back and sat with his hands between his
legs, slumped forward.
    ‘Now,’ said Hamish gently, ‘she’d been beating you, hadn’t she?’
    There was a long silence and then Sean said wearily, ‘How was I to know? She seemed so pretty, so fragile, like a wee bird. It started soon after we were married. She’d get this
blank look in the eyes and then start hitting me with anything that was handy. The other day, I said I wasn’t taking any more, I was leaving her. She laughed in my face. And then still
looking at me, she punched herself in the eye – hard. “I’ll say you did that,” she said.’
    ‘You’ll need to file charges.’
    ‘I cannae do that, Hamish. I’d be the laughing stock o’ the Highlands.’
    ‘She killed one of your collies.’ Hamish told him about the grave.
    He turned a muddy colour but said, ‘I can’t let folks know she was beating me.’
    ‘They’ll know soon enough. Police and forensic have been crawling over your croft house looking for your dead body.’
    ‘But if it goes to court, it’ll be in all the papers. I cannae do it.’
    Hamish sighed and looked around. ‘Who owns this place?’
    ‘Some couple. They rent it out to summer visitors. They havenae been able to rent it for a while.’
    ‘Do you have a phone?’
    ‘Over there. It’s a coin box phone. Everything’s got a coin box – the gas and the electric.’
    ‘You can’t go on living here. Think of your beasts. It’s hot weather and Bella’s more likely to take a hammer to them than give them water.’
    He shuddered. ‘Give me a bit o’ peace, Hamish, till I get my courage back. But I’m not pressing charges.’
    Hamish took a note of his phone number. ‘I’ll be back,’ he said.
    Once outside, Hamish walked back to the Land Rover and phoned Jimmy again. ‘So far, he won’t press charges.’
    ‘Well, the RSPCA will,’ said Jimmy, meaning the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. ‘We found a bloodied hammer. Haven’t got a report back yet on
where the blood came from, but it’s got her fingerprints on it, and if Sean’s alive, then it stands to reason it’s the dog’s blood. And Sean will pay her fine and be stuck
in Stoyre until his croft rots.’
    ‘Where is she now?’ asked Hamish.
    ‘Johnny Peters is driving her home.’
    ‘Good luck to him. I’ll go and see her.’
    Once more to Lochdubh to file another report and out to Sean’s croft. As he approached the door, he knew instinctively that there was no one at home. He tried the door.
Locked. Maybe she wasn’t back yet. And yet he had taken his time over the report.
    He got back in the Land Rover and drove down into Lochdubh and stopped outside Patel’s grocery store. A daily bus would have left for Inverness half an hour ago. He went into the shop and
asked Mr Patel, ‘Did anyone see if Bella Comyn left on the bus?’
    Nessie Currie appeared behind him, her eyes gleaming behind thick glasses. ‘The poor wee