Gently North-West (12 page)

‘Ay, we can.’

‘They’re two of my own folk,’ Mary Dunglass said. ‘Molly came with me from Cuitybraggan, and Mattie’s her cousin from Glencoram.’

‘Then who do you think gave you away?’

‘Neither of those two,’ Mary Dunglass said.

‘Then who?’

She shook her head. ‘It was the person who rang him, I’m sure of that. He gave me an auld, auld look when he came to tell me he was away – he kent then – no’ before – I should have taken warning from it.’

‘And neither of you can guess who that person was?’

‘We were always gey careful,’ McGuigan said.

‘Somebody who might want Dunglass dead?’

They both stared at Gently, but said nothing.

‘Well,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s get to what happened. You had this assignation fixed up for last night. You, Mr McGuigan, were waiting at the Stane. Tell me what you saw from up there.’

‘I saw you and Miss Merryn,’ McGuigan scowled. ‘And you picked our very spot, man, for sitting down. And I was cursing you grandly through my beard, I tell you that to your face,’

‘Where was your car?’ Gently smiled.

‘I have a wee hidin’-place in the timber. I was up at the Stane round nine o’clock time – nothing was stirring there then.’

‘Did you see Dunglass drive towards Balmagussie?’

‘I ken he went off before I got up there.’

‘Donnie left at half past eight,’ Mary Dunglass said. ‘Jamie couldn’t have seen him from where he was.’

‘So where exactly were you at half past eight?’ Gently asked.

McGuigan paused. ‘I’d just be setting out from the car,’ he said. ‘Mary wasn’t expecting me till late. I had my supper in Balma’. Then I drove to the place where I leave the car and sat there a while, perhaps half an hour.’

‘Could anyone have seen you there, seen you go there?’

‘They’d need to know where to look,’ McGuigan said. ‘I come into the back road out of Glen Skilling, and passed nothing and nobody on the way.’

‘That’s the opposite end to Halfstarvit?’

‘Ay. Dunglass could never have spotted my car.’

‘But apparently someone did spot your car – and phoned Mr Dunglass while you were still sitting in it.’

McGuigan stood frowning at the faded carpet. ‘I cannot just figure that out,’ he said. ‘There’s never a telephone till you come to Skilling – that’s more than four miles away. If the car was seen where I hide it they must have been on the phone in minutes – they’d need a car – and there wasn’t a car – I had the road in sight all the time.’

‘Was there in fact a phone call?’ Gently asked Mary Dunglass.

‘Indeed there was,’ Mary Dunglass said. ‘I heard it ringing, and Donnie picked it up, and straight after that he came to say he was going out.’

‘Did you hear what he said?’

‘No, I couldn’t hear that – he was in the hall, I was in the sitting-room – but at first he sounded angry, then he spoke soft, then he hung up with a good bang. Inspector Blayne was busy tracing the call – maybe he can tell you where it was made from.’

‘Hm,’ Gently said. ‘We’ll pass that. Mr McGuigan leaves his car to go up to the Stane. It apparently takes him about half an hour, and presumably he has a private way up there.’

‘Och, there’s a dozen ways,’ McGuigan said. ‘If you ken the braes like a mountain man. I took a line up through the trees then worked along to the Stane.’

‘Seeing nobody.’

‘Just so. And nobody seeing me, you ken. It was a soft, quiet manner of evening, with the doves crooing down below.’

‘And at the Stane, nobody.’

‘Till yourselves – and I watched ye coming from far away.’

‘But Dunglass was up there. He took the path before us. We noticed his tracks on our way up.’

‘You did, did you,’ McGuigan said, shooting Gently a sharp glance. ‘And what time do they say the man died, if I would not be asking a wrong question?’

‘Around eleven o’clock, or a little later.’

‘Oh my God!’ Mary Dunglass exclaimed. She swung away from them, her hands to her face, and gave a little keening moan.

‘Then he was well alive,’ McGuigan said fiercely, ‘when I came down from the Stane last night – and you can give me the time of that yourselves, for you were leaving below when I was leaving above.’

‘We saw you at the Stane,’ Gently said. ‘But when you came down we don’t know.’

‘I came down then.’

‘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.’

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

M
CGUIGAN, 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 established 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?’