Gently North-West (4 page)

They lay silently watching for several minutes, then Brenda turned to Gently with a smile.

‘Big enough for you?’

He took her hand. ‘Yes, big enough. Just.’

‘Of course you’re right about the size.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s what really makes the difference. With men too, as well as mountains. Do you think Bridget likes me?’

‘Bridget likes you.’

‘It’s important.’

‘Everything’s important and unimportant.’

‘Well, this is important.’

‘Bridget likes you.’

‘I could, of course, kick your teeth in.’

Gently kissed her.

‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘if I could make you jealous, George. You’re so damned impregnable, that’s your trouble. Even if you were jealous it wouldn’t show.’

‘So why bother,’ Gently said.

‘Just an urge. All women have it. To make a man seething mad. To make it eat into his guts.’

‘Well, don’t frustrate the urge,’ Gently said.

‘But what’s the use if you don’t react?’

‘I might pretend, to help out.’

‘Jump over that cliff,’ she said.

He kissed her.

Brenda gave a little wriggle in his arms. ‘On the whole you talk too much,’ she said. ‘Not, in the normal way, that you talk a lot, but George, you do talk too much. Now please be quiet.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said.

‘Quieter still.’

Gently was quiet.

‘Even quieter.’

Gently obeyed.

‘There,’ she said. ‘Much better.’

Gently was quiet then for a space of minutes; but now the sun on the tops was plainly waning. Soon even their lavish Highland evening would be stealing into a night. The dagger of the loch had grown harder, whiter in its thrust down the glen, and a haze was settling in the witch’s pot and dulling the clean lines of the braes.

‘Damn these mountains,’ Brenda sighed. ‘They’re damp too, into the bargain.’

‘Up then,’ Gently said. ‘When you notice that, it’s time to go.’

He helped her rise. For a few last moments they dallied to take a farewell look, Brenda resting on Gently’s arm with a hand curled inside his. Behind them the crag, splintered and fissured, lifted in dizzying pitches to the Keekingstane, and on the right the ‘guid path’ departed untamed into a fresh torment of trees. Suddenly Gently felt Brenda go taut.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Ssh. Just look.’

‘Look where?’

‘There. Up the crag. Then get ready to tell me I’m a liar.’

Gently looked. The crag rose perpendicularly for perhaps another two hundred feet, ending in a cloven shaft or tooth of rock which could be no other than the Stane. The Stane leaned outwards from the line of the crag and was silhouetted by the paling sky. In the cleft of the Stane Gently saw a man’s head. The man was staring intently through a pair of glasses.

‘I see,’ Gently breathed. ‘That explains all the boot-prints.’

‘Don’t you see who it is?’ Brenda whispered.

‘No. Nor do you at this distance.’

‘But I do!’ she hissed. ‘I’d know him anywhere. I know the shape of his head.’

‘Whose?’

‘Redbeard’s.’

‘Dear Brenda!’

‘Look,’ she said. ‘He’s lowering the glasses.’

The glasses sank, and very briefly they glimpsed a broad, bearded face; then the man apparently caught sight of them and his head vanished from the cleft.

‘There,’ Brenda said. ‘Now call me a liar!’

Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘It’s him if you say so. Maybe I was wrong about him being a farmer. Maybe he’s a Forestry man instead.’

‘Do Forestry men sit around with glasses?’

‘He could be the laird from the big house. He was training the glasses in that direction.’

‘A laird,’ Brenda said. ‘Yes, that’s more like it.’

She gazed back interestedly up the crag, but the laird, if he was one, failed to oblige. Only the chill evening sky showed emptily through the cleft.

Brenda shivered.

‘Let’s go,’ she said. ‘He’s probably on his way down.’

‘Don’t you want to meet him?’

‘Some other time. Right now I’ll settle for that dram at the local.’

Then the justicing-man wi’ his fule bodies

Cam’ gawkin at Willie like a wheen auld hoodies.

‘Willie loupit o’er a linn’, Lady Coupar

W
HEN GENTLY WOKE
in the morning a grey twilight was pervading his room and a low susurrous buzzing sounded continuously in his ears. He stirred uneasily. Could the Bonnie Strathtudlem’s whisky really be so potent? But no, he’d only had time for a single tot, and apart from the buzzing his head felt clear enough. What, then . . . ?

The hissing wheels of a passing vehicle explained the matter. It was raining out there – Highland rain, which sends down three drops for one of any other sort.

He rolled out of bed and padded to the window. Yes, it was whirring down like a new Flood. The braes were sheeted in smoky wrack and the Hill of the Fairies was lost to view. Just outside the window the gleaming Hawk had spray dancing frolics on its roof, and each fresh car that swished by travelled in a screen-high swathe of water. Highland rain! Why was it inspiriting, when London rain only depressed?

He found Geoffrey in a dressing-gown in the kitchen, drinking tea with Mrs McFie. Mrs McFie was stirring porridge in a black iron saucepan. Both were looking rather solemn, Geoffrey through the window at the rain, Mrs McFie at the porridge, which bubbled fatly as she stirred.

‘Ay, is it you?’ she said when Gently entered. ‘I canna wish ye a very quid mornin’. As I’ve been tellin’ Mr Geoffrey, we talked it up – we talked it up.’

‘Oh I don’t know,’ Gently said, looking round for the tea-pot. ‘It’s much about what I expected. You’re never dry for long in these parts.’

‘It’s no’ the rain, Mr Gently,’ Mrs McFie said tartly. ‘What goes up must come down, there’s no goin’ against that. No, it’s just us talkin’ of the Hill in a fliskish sort o’ way – it doesna do. There’s ay some trouble for idle folk to talk up.’

‘We’ve offended the wee folk,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Seems there’s been an accident, George.’

‘Oh,’ Gently said, pouring tea. ‘Sorry to hear it. I hope nobody was hurt.’

‘That’s very likely,’ Mrs McFie said. ‘Wi’ half the polis from Balmagussie out here – an’ an ambulance, what’s more – an’ the Inspector laddie in plain clothes. No, no, they wouldna be shankin’ around up there for just nothin’. They’re thick as fleas up the paths – they’ll find it more damp than dry, I’m thinkin’.’

‘Up the paths,’ Gently said, staring. ‘What paths are those, Mrs McFie?’

‘Why the Forestry paths, what else? It’s up at the Stane McMorris found him.’

‘Hrrumph! Hrrumph!’ Geoffrey coughed. ‘Judges’ Rules, George, Judges’ Rules. As Mrs McFie is pointing out, the accident happened up the path we were asking about last night. Coincidence, what?’

Gently said nothing.

‘It’s not a coincidence,’ Mrs McFie said. ‘There’s such a thing as talkin’ up trouble, and ye winna persuade me out o’ that.’

Gently poured and stirred tea and took a long, scalding sip. He glanced at Geoffrey; Geoffrey nodded delicately and gave a judicial flick of the eyebrow.

‘Mrs McFie,’ he said. ‘Are you sure it’s this Mr Dunglass who’s met with an accident?’

‘Ay,’ Mrs McFie said. ‘And how should I not be sure, when I had it from my ain cousin?’

‘Your own cousin?’

‘Ay, Johnny Dalgirdy, that’s been gardener at the Lodge since the Major’s time. He lives in the wee bit cottage across the road – my mother’s uncle’s wife was a Maisie Dalgirdy.’

‘And when did the accident happen?’

‘Ye may weel ask that, Mr Kelling. Donald Dunglass went off in his car last night and says he’s away to Balmagussie.’

‘But he was found by the Stane.’

‘Ay. McMorris found him – that’s Andy McMorris, the Forestry man. He was goin’ his round of the fences, ye ken – I daresay that would be early on.’

‘But what would Dunglass be doing up there?’

Mrs McFie wagged her gingery tresses. ‘No doubt the polis are askin’ that question, but Johnny didna ken the answer. Of course, Donald Dunglass owns the braeside – lock and stock, down to Halfstarvit – it’s all lease-work wi’ the Forestry, though ye canna exactly say them nay – but what he’d be doin’ up there after dark is something ye maun ask Donnie.’

‘Have they found his car?’

‘I dinna ken that.’

‘Do you know the make?’

‘Ay – American. One of those over-risen sort of vehicles, like a patty-pan wi’ four wheels.’

Tim,’ Geoffrey said. ‘This Donald Dunglass. I know a Dunglass at my club. He’d be a big, broad-shouldered type, would he – red hair, and a beard?’

‘Nothin’ o’ that sort,’ Mrs McFie said. ‘He’s just a Glesca body, is Donald Dunglass. No but the average run, ye ken, and I doubt if his chin would manage a beard.’

‘I’m perhaps confusing him with someone else,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But I’m certain my man comes from these parts. Does his description suggest anyone to you?’

‘Ay,’ Mrs McFie said. ‘Robert the Bruce.’

Breakfast was a sombre, thoughtful meal, despite Mrs McFie’s real oatmeal porridge. The rain kept tumbling down outside and the wrack drifted steadily over the braes. An occasional figure, clutching its sack or groundsheet, plunged with bended head past their window, and among the few cars that planed by Gently recognized a police Super Snipe. For what were they searching out there, up the hill paths and under the mist? A queer accident it needed to be to make an effort on this scale necessary.

At last Mrs McFie adjusted her defences and departed into the storm, and they were able for the first time to talk freely of the situation.

‘George,’ Bridget said. ‘If you land us in this I’ll never go on holiday with you again. It isn’t necessary, and you’re not to do it – there are plenty of policemen here to handle things.’

‘It’s a nice point,’ Geoffrey said. ‘But I think I’d advise the same thing. To our best information there has been only an accident, and you don’t know that your friend Redbeard was concerned in it. You’ve seen him before, you saw him up there, that’s the extent of your testimony. He could say exactly the same of you. There are no grounds to suppose his being there is particularly significant.’

‘It isn’t an accident,’ Gently said.

‘
Ça va
,’ Geoffrey said. ‘I bow to your judgement. But the argument holds, you know no evil of him. Therefore, volunteer nothing. The local police have tongues in their heads.’

‘That’s just what I say,’ Bridget said. ‘If they want information about this man they’ll jolly soon come asking. And anyway, you don’t know they don’t know about him.’

‘That again,’ Geoffrey said. ‘He may be talking to them at this moment George – about a courting couple up from London.’

Gently looked at Brenda. ‘What do you say?’

Brenda tilted her chin and mouthed cigarette smoke. ‘I say I do know evil of him,’ she said. ‘I put him down for a crook the moment I saw him.’

‘Ah, but that’s just opinion,’ Geoffrey said.

‘I’m good at opinions,’ Brenda said. ‘The first time I was ever one of George’s suspects I formed the opinion I was going to like him. And Redbeard is evil. I could feel it last night. He wasn’t playing peekaboo up there with his glasses. He was up to something nasty – and something nasty has happened. I’ll bet they’ll find out he did it, in the end.’

‘Yes, but that isn’t going to help the police,’ Geoffrey said.

‘The police are stupid. They should always listen to one of my intuitions.’

‘Do you want to go to them, then?’

‘No. I’ve another intuition about that. If George sticks his nose in over there they’ll simply grab him with both hands.’

‘Yes, probably as a suspect,’ Gently grunted. ‘Time, place, opportunity.’

‘Well, you should know,’ Geoffrey chuckled. ‘Your reactions are the same as theirs.’

Gently stared gloomily at the rain, the oozing strath, the rolling vapour.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s the whole trouble. My reactions are the same as theirs. I know how they feel out there, especially if they’re getting nowhere, and me sitting here with perhaps just the lead that’ll make all their pieces fall into place. It’s happened to me too many times, being stuck because someone refused to come forward. I’d like to say Hang you Jack with the rest, but it sticks in my throat; I know what’s involved. Can you guess what they’re looking for up the braes?’

Geoffrey’s thick brows bunched. ‘Could be a weapon.’

‘A weapon – which may or may not be there. And for which they could be searching from now till Christmas.’

‘And you think you can find it for them?’ Bridget asked sourly.

‘I might be able to suggest a better place to start looking.’

‘Which would make you instantly popular with a lot of wet policemen.’

‘Wet policemen are as miserable as wet civilians.’

‘Yes, well,’ Geoffrey frowned. ‘I do see your point, of course, George. The pity of it is we don’t know enough to know if your information is valuable or not. I still suggest you play it canny and wait to see how things develop. There’s no need to put your foot in the bath till you see the colour of the water.’

‘What a horrid metaphor,’ Brenda said. ‘It suggests bog-water soupy with peat.’

‘But you agree with me, Brenda,’ Geoffrey smiled.

‘I did till the metaphor. Now I don’t.’

‘We’re back every time to knowing too little, though I daresay Mrs McFie will soon remedy that. But till she does my advice is caution. We can always respond when we get a cue.’

‘I see,’ Brenda said. ‘Our lawyer’s advice. It only remains now for us to ignore it.’

‘You won’t do that?’

‘If I don’t, George will. Surely you know better than to offer him advice.’

‘Ah,’ Geoffrey said. He looked at Gently.

Slowly Gently nodded his head. ‘Sorry, Geoffrey,’ he said. ‘Sorry, Bridget. But I’ll just be a bear until I’ve talked to them. Brenda can stay out of it.’

‘No fear,’ Brenda said. ‘Where you go, I go.’

‘It shouldn’t take long. And there’s no danger of Scottish police trying to co-opt me on to their case.’

‘That I’ll believe when I hear it,’ Bridget said. ‘And Brenda had far better let you go on your own.’