Gently North-West (9 page)

‘It happens to be the truth,’ Gently said.

‘Oh ay. Ye canna move on this road for tourists. They’re aye slippin’ their cars in that hole and pullin’ out glasses to watch the house. But dinna waste yer lees on me, man – we kent fine ye were comin’. The laird is fresh back frae London wi’ a note o’ yer capers in his pooch. So what have ye to say to me now?’

Gently shook his head. ‘You’ve beat me,’ he said. ‘I’ll just repeat that I want a tow – and that you’re handling that gun in a dangerous manner.’

‘Ay – he admits it!’ the lad said triumphantly. ‘I catchit him in the act – an’ he admits it. So he’ll jist about turn, himsel’ an’ the leddy, an’ shankit down to the house.’

‘Have you any vehicles down there?’ Gently asked.

‘Nane o’ yer business whit we have.’

‘Well – a telephone?’

‘No’ that neither. Most like you’ll be leavin’ in a Black Maria.’

‘A charming youth,’ Brenda said. ‘This is Scotch hospitality at its best and brightest. Do you think he’d shoot us?’

Gently shrugged. ‘Perhaps by accident. But we need a tow, and that house is nearest.’

‘All the same,’ Brenda said, ‘I don’t fancy walking down there with Robbie Roy’s gun stuck in my back. Perhaps his Highland courtesy will permit him to shoulder it – or whatever is the polite thing with a rifle.’

‘I’ll no’ pu’ up ma gun,’ the lad said, flushing. ‘Ye’ll be for jumpin’ me if I do.’

‘Oh, we’ll walk ahead of you,’ Brenda said. ‘Then you’ll have plenty of time to murder us.’

‘I’ll no’ put it up!’

‘Then I’ll no’ walk. And you did so want us to act like prisoners.’

‘Better do as the lady says,’ Gently grinned. ‘It’s usually quickest in the end.’

The lad chewed his lip and stared at them, but Brenda clearly intended no compromise. So at last he growled sulkily: ‘Och, weel – you canna rin very far. If you gi’e me your word – ye’re to walk weel aheid – I’ll pu’ on the catch an’ shoulder the gun.’

‘So I should think,’ Brenda said. ‘Hospitality isn’t all you’re short of up the glen.’

She fetched her bag from the car, Gently locked up, and they set off down. The lad marched after them rather shamefacedly, but with the rifle slung on his shoulder. The track bore left round rocky shoulders, bringing the house below more directly in view, and as they drew closer the firing ceased and the men stood watching the three of them come down.

‘It’s nice being important like this,’ Brenda murmured. ‘But I can’t help feeling we’ve strayed out of our century – or into someone else’s newsreel. Do you think they waylay all their visitors?’

‘You heard what our friend said,’ Gently said. ‘He apparently takes us for someone else.’

‘Perhaps you look like Bonnie Prince Charlie,’ Brenda said. ‘Myself, I’m the spitting image of Flora MacD.’

They passed through a field-gate, then over a bridge, then right through double gates and a stand of tall oak-trees. The house, with several outbuildings and a paved yard, stood immediately beyond. It was an old building, roughly constructed from unshaped stone, but fairly large and with some pretension in its massive porch and big sash windows. The men had come round from their exercise ground and now stood in a group in the yard, facing them. They were mostly young men. They were dressed like the lad, with the same slouch bonnets and Nationalist badges. Stationed apart was an older man with chevrons on his sleeve and a feather in his bonnet; into his presence Gently and Brenda were marshalled by their captor, who straight-away launched into fluent Gaelic.

The older man listened, put questions, his eyes flitting about the two ‘prisoners’. He had hollow features in the Blayne cast, but narrower, with a pocked and weathered skin.

‘So,’ he said, when the lad had finished, ‘you’ve been watchin’ our sports, Dugald tells me.’

‘Ay, they had glasses too, faither,’ Dugald asserted. ‘But they left them in the car, the cunnin’ English.’

‘Watchin’ with glasses,’ the man said. ‘And where ye thought there’d be nane to see you – that’s no’ an over-friendly thing to be at – an’ you two strangers in the glen.’

‘Who am I speaking to?’ Gently asked.

‘Ane in authority,’ the man said roughly. ‘Ye ken ye’re in Knockie – that’s enough – ye’ll ken more when it befits ye.’

‘Can I take it you’re the laird?’

‘Ye cannot.’

‘I should like to speak to him,’ Gently said.

‘So ye shall, ma mannie,’ the man said. ‘For yell ne’er stir from here till the laird returns.’

‘Because – you’re intending to detain us?’

‘Ay – for a pair o’ slinkin’ English craturs – the same, no doubt, the laird was warned of when he was down-away in London.’

‘Ha, ha,’ Brenda said. ‘I love this quaint Scotch humour.’

The man stared at her furiously and made a fierce sound in his throat.

‘Look,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s get this cleared up. You seem to be expecting people here who are not popular. If we have acted like two of them it was purely by accident – your laird could not have been expecting us.’

‘Gould he not then,’ the man snapped. ‘And who preceesely do you say you are?’

‘I’m a policeman from Scotland Yard,’ Gently said. ‘And this is a friend, Miss Merryn.’

‘A polisman, is it!’

There was no question that Gently’s announcement had produced an effect. The ‘ane in authority’s’ eyes opened wide and there was a shuffling and murmur among the ranks. Dugald’s mouth fell open to show strong but crooked teeth, and Gently was aware of several furtive and uneasy looks.

‘Let’s see your warrant-card, Mr Polisman.’

Gently took it out and showed it.

‘Guidness me – Chief Supereentendent.’

‘That’s my rank,’ Gently said.

‘Ay,’ the man with the feather said, his tone hardening. ‘A bonnie rank – a bonnie station. But what’s to stop you – for a’ we ken – from forging sich a card as yon?’

‘Oh, Heavens above!’ Brenda exclaimed. ‘Tell them to ring up Whitehall, George.’

‘Och, ye ken fine that’s just what we canna do,’ the man said, turning on her. ‘The nearest telephone is at Brig o’ Shotts. Na, na – we’ve had them before – a surveyor from the Forestry was the last ane – we’ll no be put off with printed paper an’ a bit stamp an’ a signature.’

‘Then what do you want,’ Brenda said. ‘A royal commission in Gaelic?’

‘For a start, no cheek from a bit English lassie.’

‘Oh, romantic Scotland,’ Brenda said.

Gently put away his warrant-card. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘You don’t believe us. Let’s try to get at it another way – what people do you suppose us to be?’

The ‘ane in authority’ looked at him scornfully. ‘I’m thinkin’ you need small tellin’,’ he said.

‘Still – I’m asking you.’

‘Spies, man, spies.’

‘But spies for whom?’

‘For the southron rustlers.’

Brenda began to laugh weakly. ‘George, this is just too much!’ she gurgled. ‘We’d strayed into a Vietnam news-reel before, but now it’s changed to a ‘B’ Western. In a minute Cary Grant will ride round the corner – or Randolph Scott with a full posse – and we’re the baddies, George, the wicked rustlers. I’ll lunch out for weeks on it, back in Kensington!’

‘So it’s a laughing matter, is it, ma lassie!’ barked the ‘ane in authority’, his long face paling with anger. ‘It’s just for fun when your London gangsters come slaughterin’ deer in Knockie Forest?’

‘Deer!’ Gently said.

‘Ay. Deer! With Bren-guns an’ automatic rifles – an’ trucks to haul the carcases away – and bluidy heids for those would stop them.’

‘And this’ – Gently waved a hand at the men – ‘this is a counter-measure to the rustling?’

‘What else would it be, Mr so-called-Polisman – what else have you come here to get a sight of?’

‘Just that and no more – with those badges?’

The ‘ane in authority’s’ eyes popped at him. ‘Spies!’ he spat. ‘An’ worse than spies. Dugald, throw thae English craturs into the game-store.’

‘Wait,’ Gently said. ‘Illegal imprisonment is a very serious offence.’

‘Listen to him, will you,’ the man ranted. ‘Daurin’ the McGuigans on their ain sod. Away with them, Dugald.’

‘And if we won’t go?’

‘Then there’s those here will make ye.’

‘At the point of a gun?’

‘Ay – if need be – if ye canna be managed by main force.’

‘Then we know where we stand,’ Gently said. ‘And what the charge will be when you’re arrested. We won’t resist. There’s no point. But what we do now we do under threat.’

‘What are ye waitin’ for?’ stormed the ‘ane in authority’. ‘Take them to the clink an’ shoot the bolt on them. They can cool their heels till the laird gets in – he’ll ken what to do with the likes o’ them.’

Dugald – willingly – and three others – more doubtfully – closed about Gently and Brenda. They were marched across the yard to the rear of the outbuildings and up to a small bolted and padlocked door. Dugald had the key. The door was pushed open to reveal an ill-lighted interior. Gently stepped in, Brenda followed. The door slammed shut, and they were left in darkness.

They heard the bolt shot and the padlock clicked home, and the receding tramp of the men; then, except for their breathing, there was silence in the grubby-smelling gloom of their prison.

‘The Land of Adventure,’ Brenda said in her smallest voice. ‘Why go to Tibet or Patagonia? Come to Scotland for a Gothic weekend – no exchange or passport problems.’

‘I’m sorry about this,’ Gently apologized.

‘Oh, it had to happen,’ Brenda said. ‘Somebody was bound to lock me up some day – I’m a
femme
who’s so obviously
fatale.
And it was me who got his Highland goat.’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘It was my crack about badges.’

‘Dear heart,’ Brenda said. ‘Let me have the credit. I made him go grey with my Western giggle. Shall we be in this niffy hole for long?’

‘Maybe only till MacAdolf simmers down,’ Gently said. ‘He was rather too quick to discredit my credentials. I don’t think his men are happy about it.’

‘Oh George,’ Brenda wailed, pressing against him. ‘I don’t really enjoy being locked-up, you know.’

‘It isn’t amusing, is it,’ Gently said.

‘Not amusing at all. Not the weeniest little.’

She snuffled in his shoulder for a while, and he stroked her soft, swingy hair. Now that his eyes were beginning to adjust he could see their place of confinement wasn’t wholly unlit. At the farther end was a small window or grating, apparently protected with perforated zinc, and from this enough daylight soaked in to reveal whitewashed walls and a stone-flagged floor. The door had a drain down its centre and the walls were furnished with rows of hooks; there were also two rails suspended from the roof, each with its bunch of double-ended meat hooks. A game store: at all events, the Knockie deer were no myth.

‘It’s rather a puzzle,’ Gently mused.

Brenda tossed her head and sniffed. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m not really a heroine, just an indoor girl with outdoor manners. What’s the puzzle?’

‘What’s going on here. That yarn about rustling could well be genuine. It could be that poaching gangs send spies up here and that these people have had a tip-off. On the other hand the yarn would be a perfect cover for an Operation Gorseprick – and ghillies don’t usually go around in battledress, sporting military insignia.’

‘Or wearing silver dirks,’ Brenda said. ‘You got MacAdolf frothing with that one. No, George, it doesn’t add up. Deer isn’t all they have on their minds.’

‘The yarn could still be genuine,’ Gently said. ‘It wouldn’t be a less effective cover. In fact, it would be ideal to have an explanation that would stand up to official scrutiny.’

‘But you know, I know,’ Brenda said. ‘And worst of all, MacAdolf knows we know – that what we saw wasn’t entirely to do with deer-protection, and wouldn’t stand up to official scrutiny. So what’s he going to do about that?’

Gently chuckled. ‘He’s probably wondering.’

‘Yes, and I’m wondering too – and the more I wonder the less I like it.’

‘So,’ Gently said. ‘Perhaps it would be wise to help the man with a solution.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘We’d best get out of here – through that window, if we can unlock it.’

He went to the window, struck a match and examined the zinc and the wood framing. Then he took out a pocket knife and began prising up the zinc with the blade.

‘But that’s no use,’ Brenda said. ‘Look – bars.’

‘Patience,’ Gently said. ‘One step at a time. I’ve an idea those bars are to keep people out – which is rather different from keeping them in.’

He worked away till he had about a third of the zinc loosened at the top of the frame, then he grasped it with both hands and ripped it down and off. Behind the zinc were two vertical bars which had been improvised from gas-piping. The flattened ends of the bars were concealed by the light frame which had carried the zinc. Gently tackled the frame. It was secured with panel pins and the pins were driven into solid deal, and although he could insert the knife-blade under the pieces he was unable to lever them clear.

‘How about a meat hook?’ Brenda suggested.

Gently grunted and reached one down. It wasn’t an ideal tool for the job, but eventually it did what the knife-blade wouldn’t. Then the ends of the bars were revealed. They had simply been drilled and screwed to the main frame. The screw-heads were rusted, but whoever had inserted the screws had touched them with grease for easy driving, and now they yielded with equal ease to the screw-driver stub on Gently’s knife. The bars lifted out; the window was clear. Beyond it was a hazel-copse, then tall trees.

‘Now we’ll just reconnoitre . . .’ Gently said, thrusting his head and shoulders through the window. ‘Right . . . ladies first. There’s a six foot drop: hold my hands, and I’ll ease you down.’

He helped Brenda into the window, lowered her, then himself. They crept through the copse. All was silent. They reached the cover of the trees.

The trees extended from the rear of the house to the lower slopes of the braes, and stretched southward along the glen in a broad, dense belt. The going through them was far from smooth. At the strath level there was bog and underbrush; higher up, crag and outcrop, and rills which sometimes swelled to torrents. When they were clear of the house Gently called a halt. They had reached a ridge where the trees were thinning; below, to the left, they could see the roof of the house, to the right a section of the road down the glen.