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see if I can see anything.” Hamish got down on his knees and, starting at the point where she said she had found the ash, began to crawl off through the heather. To his relief, the wind suddenly dropped in that erratic way it has in Sutherland. He crawled past the markers she had laid out to map the track of the fuse and carried on after the markers had run out. The clouds were still racing across the sky. A fitful gleam of sunshine sparkled on something ahead of him in the heather. He crawled forwards and gently parted the heather. He found himself looking at two metal clothes pegs and a squashed glue stick. “Come ower here and look at this,” he called.
    She joined him. “I didn’t look far enough back. But I’ve an idea how the fuse could have been made.”
    “How?”
    “The recipe is one tablespoon of potassium nitrate, two to three spoonfuls of sugar, one glue stick, scissors, paper, and a plastic zip-lock bag. You mix the sugar and the potassium nitrate in the bag, fold a long length of paper into a V, smear the valley of the V with the glue, clip the corner of the bag, and pour the contents into the V. Pinch together and twist and fasten either end with a clip until it all sticks.”
    “So we’re not looking for an amateur?”
    “We still could be,” said Lesley.
    “So where would an amateur buy potassium nitrate?”
    “Off the Internet.”
    “That’s hopeful.” Hamish brightened. “Anyone ordering the stuff would need to give a credit card number. They’d need to have a computer as well.”
    “I shouldn’t think a place like Lochdubh has many computers,” said Lesley.
    “Oh, a whiles back, there were these writing classes and a lot of folks got one. Mind you, I think most of them will be gathering dust, but it’s a start.”
    Lesley gathered up the new evidence and put it in bags. “It would be wonderful if I could get a print off any of this,” she said. “I would also like the suggestion of a fuse leaked to the press.”
    “Why?”
    “Because a lot of your superstitious villagers think that either the fire was God’s retribution or the devil had come to claim his own.”
    “Why should we leak it to the press?”
    “Because, if I am not mistaken, Blair will try to sit on this evidence. He still wants you as prime suspect.”
    Hamish grinned. “I know just the person. Would you be free for dinner tonight?”
    “No, of course not. I’ve got to get this stuff back to the lab.”
    “Oh, well . . .”
    “But I’m free on Saturday.”
    “Grand. Do you want to come here or Strathbane?”
    “Just somewhere away from my gossipy colleagues.”
    “There’s the Glen Lodge Hotel, just north of Braikie. I could meet you there at eight.”
    “Fine,” said Lesley. “Now go and leak.”
    Hamish felt guiltily that he should really give the story to the local reporter, Matthew Campbell. But there was his other reporter friend, Elspeth Grant, who worked for a newspaper in Glasgow. Hamish had often thought of marrying Elspeth but something had always stopped him from proposing. He would not admit to himself that the something was the real love of his life, Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, daughter of the owner of the Tommel Castle Hotel, now working in London.
    As he returned to the police station and phoned the newspaper in Glasgow, he half expected to be told that Elspeth was already on her way to Lochdubh, but the news desk told him she was off sick.
    He phoned her home number and a croaky voice he barely recognised as Elspeth’s answered the phone. She said she had a fearsome cold and had missed out on the assignment to Lochdubh. Hamish wished her well and said he would phone again. He decided to ease his conscience and give the story to Matthew instead.
    “And who do I say this came from?” asked Matthew when Hamish had finished telling him about the fuse.
    “Chust say a source,” said Hamish, the sudden sibilance of his accent showing that he was feeling guilty.
    “Right! This is great