by Alan Hunter
‘I’ll have to get special authorization,’ Guthrie said thickly.
‘Use the phone, old man,’ Empton said. ‘And now, if you don’t mind, I’d like my lunch. We’ll spread the net further this afternoon.’
He stubbed his cigarette and rose. Guthrie rose. Tate moved aside. Gently withdrew from a window where he’d been staring at the Ness flowing darkly below. Guthrie looked at Gently.
‘And the Superintendent?’ he said to Empton.
‘Ah yes,’ Empton said. ‘Speaking of angels. I’m afraid all this bores the Superintendent. Perhaps you could amuse him with the loan of a car.’
Guthrie looked at a loss.
‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘If you can spare a car I shall be grateful.’
But of course man, of course,’ Guthrie said.
‘Now,’ Empton said, ‘everybody’s happy.’
They were booked in at a hotel across the river and almost opposite the castle. Along each bank of the Ness stretched a tree-lined promenade beyond which rose buildings in pinkish-red sandstone. Square, generous Victorian dwellings, firmly quoined in the Scottish taste, with a church or two of the same material, notched against green slopes and far, brooding hills. The Ness was wide, swift and shallow. A delicate suspension bridge crossed it for pedestrians. Two anglers, up to their crotches, were patiently whipping the town reach.
Gently ate fresh salmon, salad, a wedge of Black Forest gateau. Across from him Empton had nothing to say. His blue stare was turned continually across the river, as though X-raying the police station and the progress of its inmates. Finally, when the coffee came, he lit a cigarette and stared at Gently.
‘Forty-eight hours, old man,’ he said. ‘Perhaps sooner if I crack the whip and get the natives off their arses.’
Gently said nothing. Empton leached smoke.
‘A pity about you, old man,’ he said. ‘So much talent and moral rectitude. Metropolitan’s loss and nobody’s gain.’
‘I know Barentin,’ Gently said.
‘Please,’ Empton said, ‘no appeal to my sentiments. I haven’t got any. Barentin’s cold meat. They’ll take him with them if they make their point and deliver a body at Algiers. Or shoot him if I make mine. Either way he’s a dead duck.’
‘A conditional deal,’ Gently said. ‘Hold one of theirs to swop at Algiers.’
‘Yes, interesting,’ Empton said. ‘But I didn’t come with tickets to Algiers.’
‘Then a hostage swop.’
‘Not McGash.’
‘Perhaps for me,’ Gently said.
Empton stared at him through smoke, blue eyes puckered curiously.
‘Yes, possible,’ he said. ‘In fact, intriguing. The cop who neutralized his old chum Bruno. McGash might just buy that. But it’d be corpse for corpse, old man.’
‘That’s my risk.’
Empton stared on. ‘What makes you tick, old man?’ he said. ‘I’ve never known. You surprised Cartier. He’s still grieving over that report.’
‘But if I’m willing?’
Slowly Empton shook his head. ‘Read the scenario again, old man. This is a clean job. No loose ends. I’m here to make honest men of terrorists.’
‘There aren’t any clean jobs.’
‘Ha, ha,’ Empton said. ‘Now let’s sing Rule Britannia.’
Guthrie came in. He was sweating slightly.
‘I’ve fetched your car, man,’ he said to Gently. He produced keys. ‘Down in the yard. A Marina was the best I could do.’
‘Brilliant choice,’ Empton said. ‘Brilliant.’
Guthrie ignored him and signalled a waiter. Empton finished his cigarette, rose, clicked his heels, left.
‘I could murder that bastard,’ Guthrie said. ‘Maybe I will do before it’s over. Are there many like him?’
Gently shrugged. ‘He’s probably the best man we’ve got.’
‘He’s twisted,’ Guthrie said. ‘My God, he frightens me. He makes me frightened of myself. If he’s the way things are going then we’re really on the skids.’ He downed a fruit juice. ‘But you, man – where do you come into his game?’
‘I don’t,’ Gently said. He explained. Guthrie listened with intent eyes.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘I can understand that, with you knowing this Barentin too. So you’re supernumerary?’
‘In a word.’
‘My gosh, man, I wish it was you at the helm. Then what will you be doing?’
Gently sucked an empty pipe. One of the anglers had just hooked a trout.
* * *
He rang home. He had alerted Mrs Jarvis to the possible arrival of a message – phone, letter, word of mouth: he couldn’t be certain what it would be. But there was no message. He left his address, hung up, brooded, dialled International Exchange. It took time to get a line to Honfleur, but time was something he had in handfuls. At last:
‘Gendarmerie d’Honfleur?’
It was a voice he recognized: Bocasse.
‘Superintendent Gently.’
‘Ah, monsieur! I am happy to hear your voice.’
‘You have recovered, Monsieur Bocasse.’
‘But yes, I am out of the hospital two, three weeks. They were but flesh wounds, monsieur, scratches. It is kind of monsieur to enquire.’
‘I wish to speak to Inspector Frénaye.’
‘Monsieur, I am desolate, but he is on leave. He will be heartbroken to have missed you, and meanwhile, if I can be of assistance . . .’
‘When will he be back?’
‘Not till Monday, monsieur. But, as I say—’
‘Did he leave a number?’
‘No, monsieur. I regret that I cannot tell how to reach him.’
He’d had a bottle sent up to his room and now he broached it and poured a stiff one. Had he really believed she would come to England, that somehow this nightmare of longing was ending? Perhaps Frénaye could have told him something; Frénaye, he knew, had been to talk to her. On some official business in Rouen he’d made time to visit the shop in the Place Barthel. But then, reporting it, he had been cagey, referring to it merely as a casual visit . . . because he knew the affair was hopeless? In a flash, the scene in the forest flared before Gently’s eyes . . .
He drank, sat crouched over the glass. Now he was forcing himself to see it again: the wrecked cars, bleeding body, gas dispersing through the trees. And her distorted face, her hooked hands as he sought to come between it and her . . . the horror, the loathing in her eyes. And Cartier, with his gun . . .
That was what lay between them: the moment that led to her despair. The moment she had tried to destroy in oblivion in the dark waters of the harbour. And yet . . .
He rose and went over to the window, stared hard at the scene without. Surely it couldn’t be for ever, that initial reaction of despair? She wasn’t to blame. She had been manipulated: nothing she had done could count against her. Even the belief they had tricked her into had been quickly eroded by judgement, by love . . . All was forgivable. Yet, dully, he understood that such a spirit as hers wouldn’t brook forgiveness, not from him, not from herself: from herself least of all. Impasse impossible: if in love there were miracles, no less was needed to untie this knot. Gabrielle . . .! Where was she now – in all the world, where was she?
Restlessly he turned from the window, commenced tramping up and down. That telephone call! From whom had it come, to send her at once to pack her bag? Her father, her mother were dead, and she had no close relatives that he knew of. Hénault? Was there a connection? He paused in his stride, but shook his head. He had heard her speak of him: all that was long over: that she would be involved in his affairs was unthinkable. Then . . . a friend, perhaps a friend in trouble? That was more the style of Gabrielle! And if out of France then most likely in London, where she had spent a year at the time of her divorce . . .
He splashed and gulped more whisky: in London, where she would expect him to be! Perhaps not intending, not wishing to see him, but – in London: in his city. And once t
here, mustn’t that fact work on her, softening her, suggesting possibilities, at last planting in her heart the impossibility of leaving without some motion, some gesture towards him? But he, he was no longer there, no longer waiting to respond to the gesture: though the whole wide city vibrated with her presence he was out on a limb in Inverness . . .
And suddenly the northern sun was cold, the distant hills an oppression. What was he doing here? Barentin, had he known, would at once have urged him to return to town. Which he could not, useless as he was! Getting drunk was the last option open.
Disgusted with himself, he slammed down the glass and went down out of the hotel. Something he must do, if he stayed there, other than brooding in his room. He went to look at the car. It had a full tank and the clock showed less than nine thousand. But after sitting in it for a spell he relocked it and set out on foot to the police station.
And that too was a frost, as he sensed it would be the moment he set foot through the door. Empton, having set the place in a turmoil, had cleared off on a reconnaissance down the loch. Guthrie meanwhile had returned to a routine seriously hampered by Empton’s exactions, and Tate was furiously typing up a check list of information coming in. No room for Gently! Though Tate politely rested on his keys when Gently came in.
‘Anything stirring?’
‘Nothing yet, sir. Just two bottles of liquid methane.’
‘Two what?’
Tate’s eyes were lively. He was a lean, neat man with a clipped moustache.
‘Two of our men found some interesting apparatus in a barn not far from Errogie. It might have been mistaken for a whisky still, but the owner explained that it was for reducing methane gas to a liquid. Our men took a couple of sample bottles, which they intend to examine at Hogmanay.’
‘And that’s it?’
Tate made a face, sighed and went back to rattling the keys.
Trying to get into the act somewhere, Gently stumped over to the big wall map. What he had to do was get her out of his mind, to think, to behave again like a policeman. To remember Barentin, however little he could help him – Barentin, whom Empton had written off as cold meat. At least to check and recheck their thinking: some detail of significance might yet emerge . . .
But the thinking was sound. McGash, unless devious, would almost certainly have taken the direction predicted. He had nothing to gain by risking the town, seeking the lowlands, or heading down the A9. Behind the loch he had quiet, direct roads to the western glens and even Skye . . . onwards, northwards if he chose, or into such backlands as Knoydart, Ardnamurchan. And if he were devious? Then prediction was useless: one could but circulate the details widely. Which Empton was doing. You couldn’t fault him. And the map suggested nothing but what was being done.
‘Some more info, sir . . .’
It was pathetic – Tate doing his best to make Gently feel wanted!
‘Was there a Press release?’
‘The Super gave them a ring, sir, just to let them know you were in town.’
And that was his usefulness expended. To keep face he’d glanced over the sheets of Tate’s check list – in their way, a curious sidelight into the everyday life of the area. But then he’d retreated, tail between legs, the least wanted man in Inverness . . .
After which nothing, a period of blankness, tramping the streets of Inverness, watching the traffic stream over the bridge to divide right for the north or press on to the west: a blank that ended finally when he found himself clutching a phone.
‘Any message for me . . .?’
‘No, Mr Gently . . . just a thing from the RAC.’
‘No phone calls?’
‘A Mr Simpson who wanted to talk about insurance . . .’
It was time to eat, so he ate; this time splendidly alone. Empton doubtless was still cracking his whip, whether up the glen or in Guthrie’s stronghold. At the next table there was a French party, a mother, father, three teenage children: they laughed and jested together, and one of the girls, seen in profile . . .
How long could he take it? Inverness was a limbo growing more unreal as the hours passed. A town he’d dropped into out of the sky, an island of nowhere surrounded by nothing. His body was here but his soul was in London: and this was only the first day. Tomorrow there’d be morning, noon and night . . . and then another day . . . perhaps another . . .
Rather than face the temptation of the bottle he strode out again into the town. Dusk was gathering and lights were strung along each bank of the black river. He walked beside it, past the modern cathedral, past the ultra-modern theatre; crossed the swaying suspension bridge, which bounced underfoot like a trampoline. On every side there were couples, men and women: he, merely a ghost passing among them! While night grew blacker about the sparkling town and hardened the shapes of far-off hills.
‘. . . had a relaxing evening, old man?’
Some trick of time found him back in reception – much later, it must have been, since lights had been turned off in the dining room. Then there was Empton collecting his key, a cigarette trailing from the twist of his mouth.
‘Any progress . . .?’
‘Would you care, old man?’
But he didn’t want to talk to Empton. The bar was still open: he went through, caught the barman in the act of checking his till.
‘A double!’
‘Mr Gently, sir . . .?’
‘Well?’
The barman nodded towards the shadows. A man who’d been sitting there had risen and was coming towards them.
The man was Frénaye.
THREE
‘MONSIEUR!’
‘Monsieur!’
At that moment unreality seemed complete. Inverness had dissolved, become a mirage, a place reserved for the totally improbable. But Frénaye was real. He came forward with his familiar, apologetic smile, the tender, dark eyes, the warm, half-embarrassed handshake. And for some reason Gently glanced back into reception to check whether Empton’s eyes were on them.
‘Monsieur, this is absurdly unexpected!’
‘Monsieur, I am stupidly happy to see you!’
‘But how—?’
‘It is easily explained.’
‘Barman, a double scotch for my friend!’
Frénaye was colouring, shyly delighted at the impression he had created. Dressed informally in blazer and slacks, he looked anything but an Inspector of Police. For an instant they gazed at each other, wordless. Then the barman handed the drinks.
‘Your health!’
‘And yours, monsieur.’
‘But where are you staying?’
‘In this same hotel.’
‘With madame and your family?’
‘Not . . . exactly.’
‘Then?’
Frénaye shrugged awkwardly. ‘It is easily explained.’
But almost he didn’t want an explanation, would have preserved the emotion of the moment: this sudden, it must be significant, contact with a world that was his and hers. Inverness, from being unreal, had exploded into sharp definition, a place vitally important, quite unrecognizable as the desert of ten minutes ago.
‘Let’s go to my room . . . have you eaten?’
‘In fact, I have missed several meals.’
‘Barman, the best they can do!’
‘I have been travelling you understand . . . I set out this morning.’
Still he didn’t want to hear it at once. He hustled Frénaye up to his room – a room that had changed utterly from the chamber of wretchedness he had slammed the door on. And Frénaye, he too seemed reluctant to volunteer details – was suffering no doubt from fatigue, compounded by lack of nourishment. But the latter was soon put right: a tray was quickly delivered to the room. Sitting rather comfortlessly at a bedside table, Frénaye tucked away cold pie and salad and apple tart. Then Gently’s mood became one of impatience, he could scarcely wait for Frénaye to finish. At last the Frenchman drank his coffee and shyly took out his pipe.
‘My first
meal since breakfast, monsieur.’
‘But why? What sent you dashing up here?’
‘I had due to me a few days’ leave . . .’
‘Oh come on! Why to Inverness?’
Frénaye puffed self-consciously. ‘It is simple really . . . your colleagues informed me where I could find you. In fact, I tried to phone you yesterday, but at the time you were out.’
‘So immediately you jump on a plane?’
‘I phoned again this morning. Then they tell me you have come up here, and so, as I say, having leave due . . .’
‘But why?’
Frénaye looked embarrassed; he puffed and avoided Gently’s eye. ‘It is this way, monsieur. I was going to ask you a question about a certain person you have heard of.’
‘Who I have – heard of?’
‘Exactly, monsieur. Whose name came up when you were in France. It has come to my knowledge that this person is in trouble, in short has urgent need of assistance.’
Gently stared. ‘Are we talking of Barentin?’
‘Barentin?’ Frénaye also stared. ‘No, monsieur, not Barentin, though of course I am aware of that terrible business. It need not be said that I was involved in the initial search and inquiry, but the affair was quickly taken over by the DST, and then a security clamp was imposed.’
‘Who then?’
‘I am afraid I may distress you. The man we are speaking of is Henri Hénault.’
‘Hénault!’
‘I would not, in normal circumstances—’
‘But Hénault flew the plane for the kidnappers!’
Now they were staring at each other – Frénaye with mouth slightly agape! After a pause he rose and went to puff his pipe at the window.
‘This is – certain?’
‘Quite certain. The kidnapping is the reason why I am here.’
‘Hénault has been arrested?’
‘Not yet. But there is an intensive search in progress. Hénault flew them out from Deauville–Trouville to a rendezvous here. The plane was burnt. They had twelve hours grace before anyone tumbled to what had happened.’
‘And you are . . . in charge?’
Gently laughed ironically. ‘I’m here on request, because of Starnberg. The man in charge is Chief Superintendent Empton, who you may have seen me speaking to in reception.’
