by Alan Hunter
‘Monsieur, Empton has already gone out.’
Doubtless to try his luck with Hénault.
‘Did he speak to you?’
‘No, monsieur. But he has most speaking looks.’ Frénaye looked solemn. ‘Monsieur, it remains essential that we are first to locate these terrorists. I fear that man. He is more determined than ever to have blood.’
‘Any information will come to us first.’
‘Monsieur, he is clever as well as barbaric. I fear that some aspect will occur to him that may not so readily occur to us.’
Gently frowned at the porridge just set before him. That indeed was the fear he couldn’t dispel. Empton was good, he was on his own ground, if there was an angle he would spot it at once. Yet what? All night Gently had worried at it as he tossed on his sleepless bed. There was no angle: for him, for Empton, the problem was the same. And yet . . .
‘Eat up, and let’s get over there.’
‘Has monsieur a plan?’
‘Just eat.’
Guthrie was closeted with Tate and another officer, an Inspector Black; after a few words he dismissed the latter and turned eagerly to Gently.
‘I tried to ring you. That bastard Empton is across there with Hénault. He’s doing his oily big brother act. Did you get anything from Hénault?’
‘Only that McGash once mentioned Sutherland.’
‘Sutherland,’ Guthrie said. ‘He’s welcome to that. But nothing we can use?’
‘If I had we’d be using it.’
‘I suppose so,’ Guthrie said. ‘I just wondered. Myself, I’ve been having a chat with Petrie, but I’m pretty certain he knows nothing. As near as matters he let on that McGash was planning to sit it out at Loch Ruthven. So still we wait and hope. That sonofabitch must surface somewhere.’
‘Sutherland was the name he dropped,’ Gently said.
Guthrie shook his head. ‘It doesn’t make sense. Sutherland is a grand place to get lost in, but he’d never have dodged the blocks.’
‘I think he might have done,’ Gently said. ‘If that was his aim. He beat the A9 block at Daviot. Then, after swopping vehicles, he could have filtered into town and perhaps outflanked the blocks.’
Still Guthrie shook his head. ‘Too risky,’ he said. ‘He’d be asking for trouble if he came through here.’
‘But if he took the risk,’ Gently said, ‘he’d be away, with open roads west and north.’
Guthrie pursed his lips. ‘I think you’re catching at straws, man, unless your information is better than you’re saying. What was it McGash said about Sutherland?’
Gently hunched. ‘Practically nothing.’
Tate said: ‘I reckon he went east sir, and was down the A96 before we blocked it.’
‘That’s more likely,’ Guthrie said. ‘Heading for an exit, say Aberdeen. And if he does, we’ll have him.’
Stalemate again: and time ticking on. Soon it would be twelve hours since the incident. And still she was out there, he was here, and all and nothing was done. Twelve hours: how had they been spent? What crises had been silently, obscuredly passing?
Guthrie rose. ‘Sorry man, but I’ve got to get back to this job at Aviemore. Listen, as far as Tate is concerned you’re in charge in my absence. Just give him the orders.’
Gently nodded.
‘And I’ll be praying for a break,’ Guthrie said. ‘But what you do is OK by me. If you take a chance I’ll back it.’
He stuck out his hand, then left. Tate sought permission to return to his chores. After a spell, Gently sat down at the desk, lifted the phone and dialled.
‘Gently. Give me Pagram.’
Down there at the Yard Pagram had probably only just come in. Gently’s immediate senior in office, he had an agreeable distaste for red tape. He came to the phone.
‘Hullo, hullo – is that the prodigal himself?’
‘Never mind the comedy,’ Gently said. ‘Is the file on McGash still in the office?’
‘If it isn’t I can heist it,’ Pagram said. ‘But what’s been going on up there, old lad? We’ve had acrimonious dispatches from you-know-who asking for your hanging, drawing and quartering. What have you done to him?’
‘Minor disagreements. Would you mind getting hold of that file?’
‘It sounded more like war,’ Pagram said. ‘But not to worry, we still love you. What information is it you want?’
‘Any connection between McGash and Sutherland.’
‘Give me your number,’ Pagram said. ‘I’ll check and ring back.’
Gently rested the phone. He lit his pipe. He encountered Frénaye’s eye.
‘Monsieur,’ Frénaye said. ‘This Sutherland, is it some place remote and wild?’
‘That about describes it,’ Gently puffed. ‘Much of the interior is uninhabited.’
‘It is, perhaps, somewhat like Corsica.’
‘Perhaps somewhat,’ Gently said. ‘Add a few extra inches of rain and knock off several degrees centigrade.’
‘Monsieur, I have visited Corsica,’ Frénaye said. ‘It is country very favourable to bandits and fugitives. If this McGash has reached such country it may not be easy to pick up his trail.’
Gently puffed and said nothing.
‘Monsieur,’ Frénaye said. ‘Forgive my remarks.’
Gently smoked his pipe out: then the phone.
‘Roger,’ Pagram said. ‘Here it is. On the record is an orienteering course that McGash took part in while he was at college. At Tongue.’
‘At Tongue,’ Gently said.
‘No more and no less,’ Pagram said. ‘Is that the sound of a trained brain working like lightning?’
‘Just harmonics,’ Gently said. ‘But thanks.’
He hung up, kept his hand on the phone. But wasn’t this in truth clutching at straws? A dropped name, a cross-reference that, in his college days, McGash had visited the north coast! The one might well have given rise to the other, the memory of the visit supplying the remark. To make it credible one needed a third fix, something that tied it in beyond doubt. He raised the phone again.
‘Connect me with Dornoch.’
After a delay he got a Superintendent Sinclair.
‘Gently here. Can you give me a run down of incidents in your manor last night?’
‘But – my stars! – is it yourself then?’ Followed greetings, compliments, welcomes; then finally: ‘Ach yes – there was one serious incident. I have an officer in dock following an attack.’
‘A shooting?’
‘Nothing of that sort, but a nasty business none the less. He must have caught some villains trying to steal petrol at a filling station by Bonar-Bridge. A truck driver spotted him lying there. He’d been struck on the head with something heavy.’
‘Can he describe them?’
‘Man, he’s unconscious. They have him in intensive care.’
‘When did it happen?’
‘Three a.m. was when the truckie rang us.’
‘Which side of Bonar?’
‘The south. Man, do you think it’s connected with your business?’
‘Just a minute.’
Gently went to the wall map. Bonar-Bridge was sixty miles on from Inverness. There the road divided east and north . . . and a fine ribbon through nowhere pointed up to Tongue. Had he enough? The time fitted if McGash had gone north after switching cars. Petrol he’d need, and a lonely filling station in the small hours was a likely resource. He went back to the phone.
‘I’ll be in your manor. There’s a chance that McGash has headed your way.’
‘Man, you can rely on me for support. Shall I see you at Dornoch?’
‘Perhaps later,’ Gently said.
He checked with Tate. Nothing fresh had come in; Empton was still in session with Hénault. Briefly he explained his decision to Tate, who listened with a cautious expression.
‘Not much to go on, sir.’
It wasn’t, but Gently didn’t want to hear that.
‘See that Guthrie is
informed.’
‘Yes sir. Will you be in touch?’
‘When I can.’
Then, when they went to the car, it was Frénaye’s turn to be doubting Thomas:
‘Monsieur, I cannot help thinking that such attacks as you describe are unfortunately of common occurrence.’
‘Get in,’ Gently grunted. ‘It’s all we have.’
‘But monsieur, the local police, knowing the ground . . .’
‘Are you with me or not?’
Looking slightly affronted Frénaye took his seat in the car.
He was right, because he had to be right: he had found a star and it wouldn’t let him down. As soon as his wheels began turning north he could feel that sensation of the night before. He was driving towards her. Though now in the Marina, the signal was coming through clear. Ahead there, she was ahead: by yard and yard he was closing the gap. His facts might be few and his reasoning flimsy, but they were enough: he’d found the way.
Impatiently, he sat with traffic as they unravelled the Beauly Firth. Today, he noticed for the first time, was dry, though the sky was layered in grey. But the weather mattered nothing: just the direction. To be going north towards the grey hills. When the road left the Firth and offered straight stretches he began to overtake ambitiously.
‘Monsieur,’ Frénaye protested. ‘Is our hurry so great?’
‘Monsieur, we have many miles to cover.’
‘At the same time, monsieur,’ Frénaye observed acidly, ‘it is better to arrive with teeth than without.’
By eleven they had cleared Dingwall and then the traffic began to thin. Some moments of fragile sunlight were shimmering the low-shored Cromarty Firth. Ignoring the long loop of the A9, Gently struck inland on the A836, keeping the Marina booming across empty moor, under frowning rocks. This was the way they had come, he was convinced of it, during the black watches of the night: heading as straight north as they could get to Bonar and Sutherland beyond. But now how far ahead? In what obscure fastness of track and glen . . .?
Frénaye had been eyeing him uneasily.
‘Monsieur, if these hopes should chance to be unfounded . . .’
‘Monsieur, recall that in the area of search the single success was an empty car.’
‘That, nevertheless, is a negative factor, pointing not one way or the other. For myself, I am enjoying the fine scenery, but without expectation of a miracle.’
‘Monsieur, if miracles are needed, then miracles will be forthcoming.’
Frénaye shut up. They emerged at a summit to find Dornoch’s angled firth at their feet. Mighty and luminous, it encircled far heights, a tiny train twinkling along the shore deep below. The road weaved its way down in coils. They picked up again with the A9. Bonar was signed: and a few minutes later the hoardings of a filling station appeared on the left.
Gently turned in. The filling station was an old one: pumps, kiosk islanded in a stretch of rugged tarmac. Behind it squatted some low, neglected premises in concrete, containing however a toilet. Gently parked. A man came from the kiosk. He was short, middle-aged, dressed in dungarees.
‘Police,’ Gently said. ‘Is this the filling station where an officer was attacked last night?’
‘Aye,’ the man said. ‘This is it. So what’s to do about it now?’
‘Where were you?’ Gently said.
‘At home. The place is closed up at seven.’
‘Had the pumps, the kiosk been interfered with?’
‘No, just nothing at all,’ the man said.
‘Have you a self-service pump?’
‘Yon at the end.’
‘Was it used last night?’
‘Aye, a few gallons.’
‘Any English notes in the money put into it?’
‘Aye,’ the man said. ‘But we see them often.’
Gently got out, walked to the pump, stood eyeing the spot where a car would have stood. On either side of the pump, oil stains, a few discarded wrappers, canister tabs. And something else. He picked it up. It was a scrap of paper with a torn edge. On the paper there was printing. What the printing said was: ‘Lundi Decembre 25 – Noël’.
For a while he remained staring at the paper, then returned to the car and handed it to Frénaye. He leaned against the car. Frénaye examined the paper. The attendant stood by with curious eyes.
‘Monsieur,’ Frénaye said at last. ‘I am lost for words. From this moment, monsieur, I hold your logic supreme. Where Maurice Frénaye contends for miracles, monsieur supplies them it seems at will.’
‘They were here.’
‘Past all doubt.’
‘It was no comedy at the pumps that alerted that policeman.’
‘Clearly, monsieur, she attracted his attention.’
‘And, because of those houses, they couldn’t risk a shot.’ Gently clenched and unclenched his fists. He turned to the attendant. ‘I’ll use your phone.’
‘Ach, but there’s a pay phone—’ the attendant began, but Gently brushed him aside and entered the kiosk.
‘Get me Sinclair.’
Sinclair came on.
‘I’m at the Bonar-Bridge filling station,’ Gently said. ‘McGash was certainly here last night and it was he or his colleague who attacked your officer.’
‘Jings, you don’t say so!’ Sinclair exclaimed.
‘On my information he probably headed north. He is familiar with the Tongue district, may be seeking a hideout there.’
‘Is that so,’ Sinclair said. ‘Then we’ll have him. I’ll put men in Tongue, Melness, Coldbackie. Aye, and I’ll seal the coast road – and – and just whatever else you have in mind.’
‘I’m going to follow up by the A836,’ Gently said.
‘Man, I’ll give you a couple of cars.’
‘You won’t,’ Gently said. ‘These are dangerous men and they’re holding a woman hostage. Leave the A836 to me. Keep your men at Tongue in low profile. If they spot McGash, no action, just observation until I get there.’
‘Well, if you say so,’ Sinclair said. ‘But I’m thinking—’
‘Play it as I say and stay clear. And advise Inverness for me.’ Gently hesitated. ‘Inspector Tate.’
‘Aye, I ken Tate,’ Sinclair said. ‘But—’
‘Make sure you speak to Tate in person.’
He hung up, placed a note on the counter, got back into the Marina. As he wheeled them once more on to the A9 the attendant came running, holding out change.
* * *
Across the bridge they entered Sutherland and rejoined the A836. A map open on his knees, Frénaye was checking the terrain ahead.
‘Has monsieur a plan to communicate?’
‘No plan,’ Gently shrugged.
‘We are coming to strange country, monsieur. To search such country would need many men.’
‘With a car they can’t stray far from the road.’
‘But their car is not known to us,’ Frénaye said.
‘So,’ Gently said. ‘Any stationary car may be their car, will receive attention.’
He was still finding it difficult to suppress the emotion aroused by that little scrap of paper. So suddenly, lying in his hand, it had underwritten his reasoning, his belief. Till that moment he’d been nursing a long shot, driving himself by an act of faith: but now the long shot had become a certainty, made so by her intelligence, her opportunism. And must it not have been in her mind when she dropped that token that he it would be following, to catch at such trifles?
But Frénaye’s common sense was right: the trail remained a tenuous trail. Though by extrapolation it pointed to Tongue a great blank existed in between. Also there were nagging alternatives. From Altnaharra a road departed along Strathnaver; and from this end the A837 diverged to Laxton Bridge and the north west. With twelve hours grace the odds were high that McGash had reached his destination, and then indeed it might take many men to flush him out.
They reached Lairg, an untidy settlement afflicted by hydroelectric workings. Here th
e double-track road ended and the A836 became a narrow lane. For a mile or two it skirted Loch Shin before turning again towards the north; then an RAC box appeared and by it the junction of the A837. Gently halted at the box.
‘We’ll search the verges.’
Frénaye took one direction, he the other. For a hundred yards they combed verges of fading heather, rock, mud. But this time there was nothing: perhaps in the darkness she hadn’t noticed the junction, didn’t realize its significance or wasn’t able to make the drop.
‘What now, monsieur?’
‘We keep going.’
So far, his luck hadn’t let him down.
For a while they were driving across a plateau of sodden moor and plantations of pine, rimmed by dark hills and isolated peaks, some brightened by sun. Once or twice they passed hardstandings mauled by the tyres of forestry vehicles, but from these no tracks led and eventually they and the plantations ceased. It was like driving across the moon. Such vehicles as they met could be spotted from afar. Mostly it would be a truck or Land Rover; once a caravette with Australian markings. Meanwhile the hills, the peaks crept closer, showed sun-touched features through swirling mist; showers fell, sharp and sudden; sun spilled for a moment then was gone.
‘Monsieur, a house . . .’
Feature improbable. In fact it was the Crask Hotel. Possibly the loneliest habitation in Scotland, it marked a path to mournful Ben Klibreck. Gently pulled over, but the stop was a frost: McGash hadn’t patronized the Crask Hotel. At the bar they bought canned beer and sandwiches before returning to the road.
‘Monsieur,’ Frénaye murmured. ‘I speak it with regret, but I have fears that this task may be beyond us. Though the scenery continues superb, I find it fills me with misgiving.’
‘Eat your sandwiches,’ Gently grunted. ‘If they came this way, they stuck to the road.’
Rain began falling steadily as the road climbed from the plateau to enter the hills. With hissing tyres and plugging wipers they drove the long, deserted stretches. A dismal road: the hills had a forlornness, a ruefulness of isolation; it was a place where few came and none stopped, a twilight land. Miles and time ticked up; since the Crask they had met not a single car. Finally came into sight a rain-dulled loch and the few sad houses of Altnaharra.
