‘Grand. How soon?’
‘Gie me a week. Right. Now to the money.’
Hamish blinked at the price but was in no mood for haggling. ‘You’ll get your money when I get the altered visa. I’ll be back next week.’
Outside, Hamish phoned Ayesha, who had given him her mobile phone number. He told her he might have something for her in a week’s time but cautioned her not to breathe a word to anyone. ‘Hasn’t your father been trying to track you down?’ he asked.
‘I phoned him two years ago and told him I wasn’t coming back. He said I was no daughter of his and he did not want to see me ever again.’
‘That’s sad, but it makes things less complicated.’
Hamish felt like Santa Claus a week later when he handed Ayesha her altered passport. ‘This is wonderful,’ she said. ‘At least I have three more years.’
Then Hamish had a really mad idea. ‘There is something else we could do,’ he said.
‘What is that, my dear friend?’
‘We could get married.’
‘What?’
‘That way you would become a British citizen, have a British passport, and get work in a school or a university. Then we get a divorce.’
A cynical, wary look entered her blue eyes. ‘And what would you get?’
‘The fact that I was a married man would make them at headquarters leave me alone for a bit. I happen to know that there are no quarters for married men in Strathbane. I get my police station and you get your passport.’
‘What about sex?’
‘You know, I’ve been thinking about that,’ said Hamish with almost childish candour. ‘You are gorgeous and yet I don’t fancy you. No vibes.’
‘You will be shocked.’
‘I’m a policeman. I’m past being shocked.’
‘I am a lesbian.’
‘What a waste! I mean, everyone to their own bag. But since we’d be getting married just for appearances, it doesn’t matter.’
A week later, Elspeth Grant was sitting at the reporters’ desk at the Daily Bugle newspaper office in Glasgow dreaming of the Highlands. She thought it was high time she went back for a holiday. She wondered how Hamish was getting on and if he ever thought of her.
A colleague came up to her and said, ‘I’ve got the job of trawling through the local Scottish papers for stories to follow up. Didn’t you know that policeman in Lochdubh, Hamish Macbeth?’
‘What’s happened to him?’ asked Elspeth anxiously.
‘He’s getting married, that’s what, and to some girl with a foreign name.’
‘Let me see.’
There it was in black and white in the Highland Times, an announcement that the marriage of Hamish Macbeth to Ayesha Tahir would take place in the registry office in Inverness on Wednesday, in two weeks’ time.
Elspeth felt miserable. Hamish hadn’t married her, but the consolation was always that he hadn’t married anyone else.
Colonel Halburton-Smythe phoned his daughter Priscilla, who was working in London. ‘Hamish Macbeth is getting married in a couple of weeks, and to some foreigner.’
Priscilla held the receiver so tightly that her knuckles stood out white. ‘Who is this female?’
‘Some Turk who was working as a maid for one of the locals. Stunning-looking girl.’
He went on to talk about the running of the hotel while Priscilla barely listened. Hamish! To be married!
Death of a Maid Page 21