Gently Heartbroken

by Alan Hunter

  In his office Guthrie sat alone. ‘The Great Man has cleared off to Fort Augustus,’ he said.

  ‘To Fort Augustus . . .?’

  ‘He was in here earlier having another go at Petrie.’ Guthrie made a face. ‘You can’t help admiring him, he’s a right clever bastard. This morning he was a different man. He was talking to Petrie like a brother.’

  ‘Did it pay off?’

  ‘Enough. Petrie wasn’t putting his finger on the map. But Empton trapped him into a couple of admissions, that McGash was out west and that he hadn’t gone far.’

  Gently hunched.

  ‘You think Petrie was codding him?’

  ‘I think Petrie’s more scared of McGash than of Empton.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Guthrie said. ‘But I was sitting in, and I must say Petrie convinced me. Still, it’s nice to think of the Great Man being strung along, it warms one to Petrie. I’ll send him in some fags.’ Guthrie grinned. ‘But what about yourself, man?’

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Gently said.

  ‘Have you spoken to the lady?’

  ‘Frénaye spoke to her. The last message was two days ago.’

  ‘Two days.’ Guthrie blew out his cheeks. ‘That’s worrisome, man, worrisome. Hénault was playing a queer game, and he’s dead for sure if they’ve rumbled him.’

  ‘It may be he can’t get his hands on a phone.’

  ‘Maybe,’ Guthrie said, with small conviction. ‘But what will you do, man, if you’ve lost your contact?’

  Gently humped his shoulders and stared at the rain.

  ‘What area is Empton searching?’

  ‘Ach,’ Guthrie said, ‘you ken Empton. He’s going through every glen from Morvern to Shiel, and double checking around Glengarry.’

  ‘Including Invergarry.’

  Guthrie’s grey eyes were shrewd. ‘You’re bothered he might happen on the lady?’

  ‘I’m bothered.’

  ‘Aye,’ Guthrie said. ‘Then in that case perhaps you should warn her.’

  Gently stared a little longer at the rain.

  ‘If I may I’ll use your phone.’

  He rang Frénaye but there was nothing fresh. Gently went to collect his car.

  He drove without any plan, merely an urgency to be somewhere on the spot. After a sleepless night he’d realized that Frénaye was right and that it might be disastrous to force a meeting. He was still that man who must forgive her but whose forgiveness she couldn’t accept: because she couldn’t yet forgive herself. Only when that happened would the shadow pass away.

  So he must wait, the first move must be hers. He couldn’t tell her that none of it mattered: that where they stood contrition, forgiveness were so many words without meaning. Only they themselves had meaning, he, she, caught in an endless moment. But he couldn’t tell her: she must find her way back to it; to speak it there were no words.

  He drove, scarcely noticing, by the rain-washed pallor of Ness, the wheel continually kicking as swashes of water rose from his tyres. The hills opposite were black, the sky ahead solid darkness: rain bowed the pink spires of foxglove and battered the waving stands of ragwort. Today few cars hugged the shelterless laybys or disputed rights at passing places. Today no hikers filed along the road, though rain-lashed tents stood deserted in a meadow. In a way, the weather suited his mood: to be driving in dark and rain towards . . .

  Fort Augustus appeared below. In minutes he was down there, passing the police station. A couple of patrol cars stood before it into one of which a crew was just scrambling. Was it possible that Empton was on to him? He watched in his mirror; the car was following. It came up close. Still in the mirror, he could see the crew discussing together. At the delimit sign he speeded up only slightly and still the patrol car ambled behind him; but then, as they entered a straight, it flashed and swept by. A coincidence? He trod on the gas, kept the patrol car in his sights. It was boring along at sixty in the heart of a mist of spray. All the way to Invergarry he pursued it, saw it cross the bridge and proceed southwards; then, hand on flasher, he checked his mirror – to find a second patrol car behind him! Cursing, he drove on past the ruined castle and out into country. At the first straight he slowed, when the second car at once overtook . . .

  He let it disappear in the distance before looking for a gap in which to turn. But this was ridiculous! He was behaving like a wanted man on the run. At the same time he was starkly aware of being there without a destination or settled purpose. For if Empton’s enquiries reached the hotel, what practical intervention could he make?

  He drove back slowly into the village, alert for further signs of police presence. Having made his turn he kept straight on, past the hotel, past the shop. Nothing: nobody: rain had swept the place clean. He turned once more, using the verge. Now the hotel was directly in front of him, pale walls, dark roof, lights showing in some windows. Was there a watcher? He held his face averted as the building drew closer, then swung off into the layby and the shadow of the trees. The layby was probably part of an old road: it was almost, not quite, opposite the hotel. He drifted in under the trees as far as he could get and switched off wipers and engine.

  So he was there: as near as he dared go!

  But now the situation seemed even more preposterous. A few rainy yards across grass, road, gravel and he could be with her, sweeping her into his arms. So why wait? The absurdity galled him. He reached out for the door-handle. Impossible that, if they met face to face . . . her eyes imprisoned by his own . . . But then, as though a switch flicked, he was seeing that other image of Gabrielle, the eyes staring with horror and loathing, the violence of hands, of voice . . . He shuddered and let go the handle: there could be no short cut to obliterating that! It had happened and had nearly destroyed her; it must be lived out, left to wither in its course . . .

  Doggedly he lit his pipe and set himself to wait and watch. On balance it was probably unlikely that Empton would waste much time on Glengarry. The glen had been the focus of attention yesterday after the discovery of the body, patrols had been up to Kinloch Hourn, there was doubtless still a presence at the cottage. But the affair was no mystery and called for no investigation in depth; while the least likely place for a second safe house would be up the glen or in the village. Empton, no fool, might put in a patrol as cover against the unexpected, but himself and his major resources would be directed elsewhere. That was the logic of it; so why did he, Gently, feel an unease about the situation – a need to stake out here, as though a crisis threatened that he could only sense in his bones? Because sense it he did: he had no other reason to sit there in the rain. He had been, he had checked, the coast was clear, and to remain there so close to her now was a torment . . .

  Meanwhile the hotel continued isolated in rain. No one came, no one left. He could see the roofs of cars above the wall that screened the yard, but not so well that he could pick out the little Citroën. Now and then he caught a movement behind a rain-smeared window; at one he could dimly see a chef at his work. Cars passed, one trailing a big caravan, but none stopped or even slowed. It was approaching the lunch hour and he, like a fool, hadn’t brought as much as a packet of crisps. He knocked out his pipe, refilled it; knocked it out, refilled it again . . .

  Then a car did stop and, at once alert, he recognized the two men in it as reporters; no doubt they had been to the cottage to drum up copy, take photographs. The driver glanced towards him: he turned his head. The car continued into the hotel yard. A lunch stop of course – yet, being reporters, could they refrain from firing a few questions? he scowled over his pipe. If they had recognized him they might put two and two together: then, appraising the other diners, begin to take notice of the solitary French girl . . . In effect his being there was a liability and might catch the attention not only of reporters. He chewed hard at his pipe. But he would stay! His intuition had hardened into obstinacy.

  Another car appeared, pulled into the layby and parked provokingly just behind him. In his mirror he saw a middle-aged l
ady wearing a head scarf get out and run to fetch a basket from the boot. He sank even deeper into his seat. He watched them unwrap sandwiches, pour tea from a thermos. They sent curious looks at the car ahead of them and the slumped figure of its driver, chatted, laughed. So what did they take him for, brooding there in the rain? Probably anything but a policeman! The man, a short pudgy-featured fellow, looked like a tax man or a solicitor’s clerk.

  Irrationally irritated, Gently got out and made an act of stretching; then, keeping his back to the hotel, strolled a few steps under the dripping trees. Fifty feet below purled the Garry river, in spate from so much rain; behind him, he judged, if he turned, he might just get a glimpse of the cars in the yard. He turned. His heart thumped! He was staring at Gabrielle! Also wearing a head scarf, she was stooping to unlock her car. Hardly knowing what he did, he jumped, stumbled down the bank under the trees, froze listening, heard the car door plunk, the starter skirl, the Citroën’s twin begin chattering. Closer it sounded, paused, accelerated and departed towards the junction; starting up through the trees he was in time to see the car flashing the turn to Fort Augustus. He raced to the Marina. The picnic couple were staring at him wide-eyed. He jumped into his car, spun the engine and shot away with squealing tyres.

  It had been too sudden.

  His movements mechanical, he drove for some distance in complete stupor. His brain was refusing to catch up, was still back in the layby, dulled with waiting. Yet he must have seen her: it must have happened: he must now be chasing her towards Fort Augustus . . . in the flesh, Gabrielle! No longer a memory, but a woman stooping to unlock her car.

  Almost it had been too real, that vision of the slightly-stocky figure; of the softly-stern profile, the proud set of head and shoulders. French: it belonged to France; how could it appear here so inconsequentially? He felt a lightness, a weakness; a sense of the present being a dream.

  But a sight of her car brought him back to himself: he’d surely been driving like a madman! He eased his pedal to give the bobbing Citroën a good two hundred yards grace. Nevertheless he could see her scarfed head, could imagine her hands on the wide, ribbed wheel, her neat foot pressing the organ-pedal . . . as, once before, in time lost . . . He drove the image from his mind. Now, somehow, he must take a grip on the present . . .

  For where was she going?

  Brow creased in a frown, he set himself to marshal the possibilities. An innocent visit to Fort Augustus was by far the most likely. She couldn’t stay for ever minding the phone, and Fort Augustus was the nearest town; if she had needs that the village store couldn’t supply, then Fort Augustus provided the answer. But if not Fort Augustus? Beyond that town all roads led to Inverness; at Inverness there was Frénaye: at Inverness there might also be himself!

  He felt his cheeks flush at the thought, but immediately he dismissed it. If her destination was Inverness she would be going to see Frénaye, with whom she had doubtless made a rendezvous. Yet why? Why wouldn’t the phone do? And why risk leaving her post for so long? Had she received a message that involved her so deeply that simply to relay it wasn’t enough?

  He checked his speed again: he’d let it race with his thoughts till the gap between the cars had almost halved. Now they were running into the town and she was slowing at the limit signs. The police station passed, its forecourt empty; ahead, the road turned left into town; there also was the junction of the Dores road, obscure, apparently leading only to the abbey and the school. The Citroën slowed almost to a stop and he could see her head turn, seeking a sign; then the car moved forward tentatively, flashed, and wheeled into the Dores road. Not a shopping trip! But then where? The main road to Inverness ran through the town. Unless she had been studying a map, could she guess that the minor road also led there?

  He flashed and followed. The Citroën was crawling, still confused by the beckoning abbey. But at last it latched on to the A862 and began to pick up speed again. Houses faded, they passed the top end of Ness, commenced the long haul away from the strath; and still the Citroën chugged on sturdily, an intent little car quite certain where it was going. Not to Fort Augustus, not to Inverness: and from this road stretched the tangle of the back country: the minor hill roads that connected scattered settlements between Loch Ness and the untamed Monadhliaths. Was that her objective? Or the distant A9 . . . a few miles from where the whole affair had started?

  Here the country was open, the traffic slight, and he was obliged to stay at long distance. It fretted him that whenever she was out of sight she might be disappearing down some side-track. She wasn’t in a hurry. After the grind from the strath she’d settled down to between thirty and forty, the small car bouncing amiably over the rugged surfaces and heeling visibly on the bends. Was she conscious of being followed? He was glad when occasional cars overtook them; but overtaking wasn’t easy, and when he let a car by it often stuck behind her for over a mile. Once she must have slowed, since he turned a bend to find himself almost brushing the Citroën’s tall stern: he braked at once, ducking his head. But she gave no sign that she’d noticed him.

  They passed the junction to Foyers: still she clung to the A862. In distant convoy they skirted Loch Mohr, grey with rain, its hills untidy. Then Errogie; then a critical junction with a road that led to the A9; then Torness, and a smaller loch overlooked by grey crags. Was it to be Inverness after all? In a few miles more they’d be dropping down to Dores. Already they’d driven most of the length of Ness, hidden behind the streaming hills. Yet on she puttered, slow, certain, the scarfed head facing always before. Always the Citroën disappeared round a bend to reappear, steaming steadily ahead.

  And then, quite suddenly, it didn’t! The road stretched ahead with no car visible! In an instant he jammed on brakes, jumped out, began hastily staring about him. He’d just turned a bend: the road was dropping down to another big loch with a farmhouse close to it. But the farmhouse she couldn’t have reached, and the road for half a mile beyond was quite empty. It was baffling. For a moment it seemed that the landscape had swallowed her up.

  Then his eye caught a movement deep down on his right, where trees clothed the foot of a craggy hill. He stared incredulously – yes, it was the Citroën, still bobbing along where no road seemed to be. But a road there was. What appeared to be a farm track slanted recklessly down from a point above him: it was unsigned, and he had missed it in his surprise at losing sight of the Citroën.

  He dived back into the car, reversed hard and wound round into the unpromising track. It plunged down past sheep hurdling, through mud and dung, humped over a stone bridge, then entered the trees. Not a farm track: though narrow and tortuous, it had a regular tarmac surface. What he desperately needed was a glimpse of the map, but he dared not delay for such enlightenment. By now she must be half a mile ahead, and possibly arriving at her destination . . .

  He drove furiously, but the tiny road seemed designed to check all haste. It wound up, down and around, with wrong-way cambers and deformed surfaces. He cleared the trees. Across moorland ahead rose the folding, rounded heights of the Monadhliaths, with before them yet one more loch, its far shore steep and crag-fast. Then left, and quite close, a set of flattish hairpins, up which the Citroën was making its inexorable way: apparently the approach to an isolated farmhouse that stood against the sky, beside it a tree. Here . . .? He eased off again. But the road, the Citroën carried on past the farmhouse. Reaching it, one saw the road ribboning away, for a while straight, in line with the loch shore.

  And still no hurry! But the map she must have studied to have picked up that junction at the first time of asking. Without doubt her destination was pinpointed; and what source could have pinpointed it for her, but one? Had she rung Frénaye? Did she mean to ring him . . .? Gently felt himself growing more and more uneasy. Careless now whether she spotted him or not, he drew up to within fifty yards of the Citroën.

  The loch ended; the road bore right. At the bend stood a house at a higher level. Of modern construction, it was
most likely a fishing lodge for anglers visiting the loch; a short, steep drive led to it from a hardstanding at the roadside. The house came towards them. The Citroën didn’t falter, but Gently saw the scarfed head turn. In a flash he had turned too, was taking a mental photograph of the white-painted house. Blank windows, closed door, a veranda on which no fishing rods stood: but also the chocolate-brown muzzle of a Volvo poking round the side of the house. No people: no movement; he stared at the place again in his mirror. It loomed high, niched into moorland: it had ranging visibility in every direction. Gabrielle drove on. He drove on. In the distance two houses: one appeared to be a shop.

  The shop and house stood on an elevated apron around which the road made an eccentric loop; between them lay a parking area, and on this Gabrielle turned the Citroën. Face averted, Gently continued till the house hid his car from view; then he pulled into the verge, grabbed glasses, got out and scrambled up the bank by the house. He could see the parking area through shrubs. Gabrielle was standing by her car. She also had glasses; the glasses were trained on the fishing lodge back down the road. Absorbed, ignoring the mizzle, she gazed at the distant house, then lowered the glasses and gazed again; raised them, and continued her survey. A figure at once independent and vulnerable . . . he yearned to hasten to her, catch her in his arms! It seemed intolerable to cling there watching her, somehow shameful: an act of betrayal.

  But at last she was satisfied and put away the glasses. By the corner of the shop was a phone box; she went into the box, took coins from a purse, began dialling a number she didn’t have to look up. The call was short; she returned to the Citroën. She drove through the parking and rejoined the road. Crouching by his fence, Gently could see the little car drive up to a T-junction, flash and turn right. He didn’t attempt to follow. He guessed now where he was; the road she had taken was heading back to Fort Augustus. She had been, she had seen, and wasn’t making the mistake of passing by that house again . . .