Gently North-West

by Alan Hunter

  ‘It’s true!’ Mary Dunglass cried. ‘I met him at the Apron soon after ten.’

  ‘And you came up the path?’ Gently said, turning to her.

  ‘Ay, the path – what other way?’

  ‘Then why didn’t we see you?’

  ‘Because I saw you first – and I stepped into the trees – and I let you pass!’

  ‘By Heaven,’ McGuigan rumbled, ‘we’re telling you the truth, man – you needn’t be setting your springs and traps. Just put a straight question and take a straight answer – the de’il we have to hide from you now.’

  Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘I’m glad to hear it, because Inspector Blayne will use springs and traps. And if you’re to be alibis for one another, it would help if I could place you together by my own witness. Where did we pass you, Mrs Dunglass?’

  ‘It was on the traverse – what we call the Sheepwalk.’

  ‘Do you remember us doing, saying, anything?’

  ‘Ay – the lady slipped – you caught her and kissed her.’

  ‘There’s for you, man!’ McGuigan chuckled. ‘And will you have me say what I keeked at from the Stane?’

  ‘Mr McGuigan,’ Brenda said. ‘That was quite uncalled for and unbecoming a Highland gentleman. But what Mrs Dunglass says is true – I remember a slip coming down.’

  ‘He caught you – he kissed you,’ Mary Dunglass said. ‘I can’t quite recall the words that passed.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Brenda said, bowing.

  ‘Ahem!’ Gently coughed. ‘That seems to answer the question. So we have the two of you placed at the foot of the crag at a little after ten o’clock. Perhaps you’ll tell me how long you were there, and if you remember anything unusual happening.’

  Mary Dunglass swung away again, and McGuigan’s beard set up a few degrees.

  ‘We were there till gey near midnight,’ he said shortly. ‘And we didna stir from that spot.’

  ‘You heard nothing.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Dunglass was there.’

  ‘Ay. But spies are quiet bodies.’

  ‘His killer was there.’

  ‘He wouldna be noisy.’

  ‘Dunglass was stabbed.’

  ‘We heard nothing.’

  ‘I – I heard something,’ Mary Dunglass faltered. ‘I can’t say just what or when. It was up the Stane – I thought it might be sheep – I was not minded to regard it just then.’

  ‘You did not tell me!’ McGuigan said.

  ‘No, Jamie – I’m sayin’ – it was when I was no’ minded.’

  ‘There’s for you, Mr McGuigan,’ Brenda said sweetly. ‘You mustn’t be pressing when a lady is no’ minded.’

  ‘Can you describe the sound?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Och no, it was nearly nothing,’ Mary Dunglass answered. ‘Like a sheep frisking – it could have been that – when they come down thump with their hooves, you ken.’ She trembled. ‘It wasn’t – you don’t think—’

  ‘Could you have a shot at placing the time?’

  ‘No – no.’ She closed her eyes. ‘Oh God – perhaps they’re right – about eleven.’

  ‘About eleven.’

  She rocked herself, one hand shielding her face from them.

  ‘Dear God, it’s terrible,’ she said. ‘Dear God! At such a time – in that place!’

  ‘Well, we’re getting the pattern of it,’ Gently said, speaking quickly. ‘The murderer was someone who knew about you two. Someone who knew enough to use you as a bait to lure Dunglass up to the Stane. Who knew the braes – that’s essential – and knew how to kill a man soundlessly. An active person, almost certainly local, who had a murderous hatred for Dunglass. Doesn’t that suggest anyone?’

  McGuigan shook his shaggy head. ‘I’m at a loss, man, it just baffles me. I can’t think who could know about us, let alone who would want Dunglass away.’

  ‘Doesn’t this bring us back to something else,’ Gently said. ‘And what Mrs Dunglass was suggesting to Blayne?’

  ‘Oh, that was just a blind!’ cried Mary Dunglass. ‘I had to tell the man something – I had to steer him off Jamie!’

  ‘Yet it’s a fact,’ Gently said, ‘that your husband quarrelled with the Action Group, and that he was over-deep in their secrets.’

  ‘It was a blind. I knew nothing. It was only to perplex him, give us time!’

  McGuigan came striding off the hearth and planted himself in front of Gently.

  ‘Man,’ he said, ‘ye’re plain daft – ye’re as glaikit as a lent leveret! What d’ye ken of the Action Group but what yon Blayne body has been feedin’ you – and what the lady put him up to, when she would have put him up to anything? D’ye think we’re a murderin’, assassinatin’ lot – a manner o’ Scots I.R.A. – who go planting bombs and slaughterin’ innocents – raisin’ hell and high water?’

  ‘I think you’re handy with guns,’ Gently said.

  ‘And what else would ye look for in a Highland deerrun – where the polismen are rare as herrings, an’ the English come with trucks and gangs? Man, it’s deer we live on here – ye canna raise crops among the heather – an’ if I teach the ghillies a wee warfare, who’s to cry me blame for that? Keep your English thieves at hame – let honest men rule honest men – and you’ll no’ hear a gun click in your lug when you come pleasurin’ up the glen.’

  ‘Or find a body on the braes?’

  ‘It’s none of our work – that’s flat! Dunglass could stay or tarry for all the Movement cared or kenned.’

  ‘But still he died.’

  ‘Still he died – with a length o’ dirk in his back. And that’s an auld Highland custom between men who can’t thole one another. Look for a man who hated Dunglass. Look for the tartan Dunglass spat on. But dinna go flisking your wits over the affairs of Egypt – leave the Blayne body to that.’

  ‘Is that a threat?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Not a threat – good advice. If I do not point you in the right direction I’m likely to see Barlinnie myself.’

  He gave Gently a long, stern stare, his brows knitted, his beard rampant; but then a twinkle began to grow in the blue deep of his eyes.

  ‘Man, it’s a solemn matter,’ he said. ‘But I canna let you off in this manner, neither – with me fighting away like an auld fishwife, and you sitting there weighing me up by the pound. Lettie!’

  The door opened with surprising briskness and Lettie bobbed into the parlour.

  ‘Lettie – fetch a dram – ye ken the bottle – an’ the guid glasses – an’ get ane for yourself!’

  ‘Oh Superintendent!’ Mary Dunglass cried to Gently. ‘You’ll be for helping us – you really will?’

  ‘He’ll be for it,’ Brenda said, jogging her chair across to Mary’s. ‘Or he’ll be for something else. I have him eating out of my hand.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  She was standing upon one of those high precipitous banks . . . and her tall figure, relieved against the clear blue sky, seemed almost of supernatural stature.

  Guy Mannering, Sir Walter Scott

  MCGUIGAN, IN A surge of mountain hospitality, would now have had them stay for an evening meal, and promised them a taste of venison such as could not be had for love nor money in a London hotel. There was also Knockie trout, a famed variety much esteemed by Highland gourmets, which the lad Dugald could obtain at short notice from a trap constructed near the bridge. Would they not wait and eat with him? Brenda, who had struck up an understanding with Mary Dunglass, was inclined to be persuaded; Gently was not. The Sceptre was fetched. McGuigan reluctantly escorted them to it. They drove away, leaving him staring after them, with Mary Dunglass doll-like at his side.

  ‘Cruel, cruel,’ Brenda commented. ‘When will we get such an offer again? And you’ve hurt Jamie’s feelings, George. He’s terribly sensitive. And damn it, I did want a go at his venison.’

  ‘So you like him,’ Gently grunted. ‘He’s still a suspect.’

  ‘Good grief – I thought you’d establi
shed he wasn’t!’

  Gently shook his head. ‘I’ve established some facts, and watched McGuigan, and listened to him. That’s all you can say about that – till something like confirmation turns up.

  ‘Oh, you brain-surgeons,’ Brenda groaned. ‘Now I know why the police are so hopelessly inadequate. They’re just two babes, Jamie and Mary – what confirmation do you need of that?’

  ‘Something a jury will look at twice.’

  ‘Juries are mugs. You must know.’

  ‘So,’ Gently said. ‘We have to pander to their weakness – with things like evidence, facts.’

  ‘I’m beginning to think,’ Brenda said, ‘that justice is only a balloon for kids. What really matters is the forensic machinery and whether you fed it the right punch-cards.’

  ‘You’re pinching my lines,’ Gently said. ‘That’s what policemen mutter to each other. But if McGuigan and his lady are to buck this one they’ll need more holes in their card than they have now.’

  ‘And where do they get them?’

  Gently rocked his shoulders. ‘We’re beginning to shade in our picture of X.’

  ‘Yes – but what chance have strangers like us of recognizing him?’

  ‘Not much,’ Gently admitted. ‘It’ll be up to Blayne.’

  They drove on silently. Brenda had a pouty expression and sat drooping low in her seat. The sun was slanting down towards the right and the sky paling to its evening blue. At the end of the long, skeiny glen they joined the Bieth road at Brig o’ Shotts, then hustled along, with the sun in their eyes, through Bieth and Ardnadoch to Loch Cray. At Lochcrayhead they had completed a circuit of about one hundred Highland miles, girdling a massif of peaks, streams, Gaelic names and nothing else – except Knockie Lodge.

  It was after seven when they reached the cottage. They found Geoffrey and Bridget preparing to set out for dinner. Along the dresser were strung three or four sketches in Geoffrey’s full and nervous brushwork. Bridget’s knitting had also advanced and sat tidily exhibited on a corner of the table; there was an air of domestic calm about the cottage which contrasted strangely with memories of up-the-glen alarms.

  ‘Oh, good,’ Bridget said as they entered. ‘We were hoping you’d be back in time to join us. Geoff has booked for four at the Bonnie Strathtudlem. Did you have a nice time?’

  Brenda plumped down on the sofa. ‘Interesting,’ she said. ‘You could call it that.’

  ‘Did you go very far?’

  ‘Here and there. Awheel and afoot. We kept it varied.’

  ‘We strolled down to the loch,’ Geoffrey said. ‘And Bridget took off her shoes and paddled. There’s a skiff moored there I’d like to borrow. I did that sketch from the shore of the loch.’

  ‘Nice,’ Brenda said. ‘Nice. George should try his hand at sketching.’

  ‘Oh, it bores other people,’ Geoffrey smiled.

  ‘It wouldn’t bore me,’ Brenda said.

  ‘I was thinking, tomorrow,’ Geoffrey said, ‘we could take a picnic up Glen Skilling – Sunday, you know, we don’t want to go far – Glen Skilling is just the right distance. Where have you been?’

  ‘Visiting,’ Brenda said. ‘We met some old friends in Glen Knockie. They wanted to keep us, were rather pressing. But George insisted we shouldn’t stay.’

  ‘People do know George,’ Bridget said complacently. ‘He can’t get away from it wherever he goes. Why, he’s famous in the village already – somebody left a note for him while we were out.’

  ‘A note?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes – here.’ Bridget moved one of Geoffrey’s sketches and produced an envelope. ‘Somebody pushed it under the door – we don’t aspire to a letter-box, as you may have noticed.’

  Gently took the envelope. It was of cheap butter-paper, such as one buys in village shops, and was addressed to: The English Policeman Staying At Major Macfarlane’s Cottage. Gently slit it carefully with his knife and shook the contents onto the table. A single folded sheet of the same paper fell out. Still using the knife, he unfolded it, then laid the knife on it to hold it flat. It bore a rough drawing of a dirk and the words: The dirk is never sheathed.

  ‘Good heavens!’ Bridget exclaimed. ‘What can that mean?’

  ‘Very simple,’ Brenda said. ‘This afternoon they couldn’t shoot George, so this evening they propose to stab him.’

  They went to dinner. Gently left Brenda to relate their adventures to Geoffrey and Bridget while he used the Bonnie Strathtudlem’s phone to get in touch with Inspector Blayne. Blayne was elusive. Gently reached him at last at The Wild Highlandman in Balmagussie, and then found him very reluctant to agree to a meeting before the morning.

  ‘I’ve had a long, hard day of it, ye ken,’ he grumbled. ‘There’s maybe not just that urgency about the matter. If it’s a case of arrest I’ll be right there with ye, but a wee detail or two you can leave with Purdy.’

  ‘It’s more than details,’ Gently said. ‘And you may think it warrants an arrest.’

  ‘Can you give me no hint, man?’

  ‘No,’ Gently said. ‘There are too many cousins about the place.’

  He heard Blayne chuckle. ‘Right – right! Perspicacity is one o’ the ten virtues – and the brew at the Strathtudlem is no’ a bad one – och well, I’ll spare the petrol. You’ll be at dinner, or I’m mistaken?’

  ‘I’m at dinner,’ Gently said.

  ‘Never spoil your digestion, man, for me. I’ll be lookin’ in about when you’re at coffee.’

  The Bonnie Strathtudlem’s Saturday night dinner involved a haggis of some grease and pungency, served skinning hot with mounds of turnip, cabbage and potatoes mashed with butter. It was preceded by grilled trout, which may or may not have been to Knockie standard, and succeeded by bowls of thick cream laced with stewed cloud-berries and their syrup. The serving was done by two smiling girls and overlooked by the hostess, Mattie Robertson. She was a dark, sturdy woman with a lively eye and emphatic curves. Her lively eye was mostly on Gently and she stationed herself near their table, but Gently had dropped a quiet caution and Mattie heard nothing of cousinly topics. At last she took herself off to a small counter and busied herself brewing coffee.

  ‘She’s a beauty,’ Brenda said cattily. ‘I wouldn’t trust her with half a man.’

  ‘I imagine McGuigan has talked to her again,’ Gently said. ‘She wasn’t far away when I was on the phone.’

  ‘Your good looks,’ Geoffrey said. ‘The lady is a widow, I understand.’

  ‘Men,’ Brenda said. ‘Why don’t they learn?’

  ‘But she can cook,’ Geoffrey said.

  Brenda made a face.

  The coffee was excellent, like the dinner; Mattie Robertson served it herself. She lingered longest pouring for Gently, and somehow managed to spill some in Brenda’s saucer.

  When Blayne arrived, driving a red Imp loaded with badges and spare lamps, he seemed unwilling to exchange the comforts of the Bonnie Strathtudlem for the cottage. His great nose had a coppery glow, which suggested he hadn’t wasted his time at The Wild Highlandman, and the eye he rolled on Mattie Robertson was quite as lively as her own.

  ‘We’ll have a dram, man,’ he said to Gently. ‘You must let the West Perthshire buy you a drink. Ay, we’re on business, I ken that, but it’ll go better with a wet whistle.’

  The dram became two drams when the resident accordionist threw off a strathspey, and Blayne’s large feet thumped the floor and his glass waved and slopped aloft. Then he led a chorus of ‘Down In The Glen’ in a strong and unctuous tenor, and whooped and spun himself round with the others after the final clashing chord. At last Gently edged him through the door, and with Brenda, led him gangling down the street.

  ‘Och, it does no harm, man,’ he vociferated. ‘You canna always be in the saddle – a polisman should mix wi’ people, you ken that – an’ that Mrs Robertson is a braw woman.’

  ‘I hope you’re single, Inspector,’ Brenda said archly.

  ‘Oh, ay, I’m m
uch o’ that category, Miss Merryn. An’ though I’m a member of such a sober calling – she’s a braw woman, and I’ve often thought so.’

  But when he was sat down in the cool of the cottage, Blayne seemed to cast his vapours from him. He listened solemnly to their account of what happened in Glen Knockie, and showed real concern when he saw Gently’s letter.

  ‘The wuddie idiots!’ he exclaimed. ‘Have they no respect for a man o’ your standin’? Lockin’ you away in gamecupboards – shootin’ at you – and sendin’ you threatenin’ letters too! A fine account of us you’ll be takin’ back to the great men in Whitehall – leave alone the publicity here. You’ll be for pressin’ charges, of course?’

  Gently shook his head. ‘McGuigan offered us satisfaction, and we accepted it. I think his men made a genuine mistake. Apparently they need to be vigilant up Glen Knockie.’

  ‘That may be – but shootin’ at you! And now this ugly sort of missive.’

  ‘The letter,’ Gently said, ‘belongs to a different department. It couldn’t have originated in Glen Knockie.’

  ‘You’re sure o’ that, man?’

  ‘Pretty sure. It was delivered about the time we were talking to McGuigan. The nearest phone is at Brigg o’ Shotts, and the distance and times would make it impossible. Also, the writer of the letter didn’t seem to know my name, which the Knockie people certainly did. No: the letter originated right here – with someone who didn’t like me talking to you.’

  ‘Wi’ the murderer, you’re sayin’,’ Blayne said.

  ‘With the murderer or murderers,’ Gently said. ‘With someone who saw me on the braes last night – and saw me visit you this morning. On the face of it this letter exonerates McGuigan by the simple fact that he couldn’t have sent it, but if there are those who are watching his interest then that line of reasoning doesn’t apply.’

  Blayne sucked in his cheeks. ‘Is that what you’re thinkin’?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Gently said, ‘what I’m thinking. I’m inclined to believe McGuigan’s story, and the letter helps, though it isn’t proof.’

  ‘He might have arranged for it earlier,’ Blayne suggested. ‘When he was in touch with Mattie Robertson, God help us!’