Gently North-West by Alan Hunter Page B

fetch you in some refreshment. Lettie!’
    A dour, mannish-faced woman appeared at the door to listen with downcast eyes to the laird’s instructions. She made a tart little bob to Gently and Brenda and stood aside to usher them out.
    ‘What about my car?’ Gently asked.
    ‘Give the keys to Hamish. He knows what to do.’
    Gently handed them over; then they followed the dour woman to a room on the other side of the house.
    ‘Offer me a cigarette,’ Brenda said, when the door closed. ‘George, this is upsetting. They really love one another.’
    ‘I’m afraid they do,’ Gently shrugged, offering his case. ‘And not even a Scots jury is going to miss it.’
    ‘McGuigan’s a devil. He doesn’t deserve her. And she’s a daft bitch – she doesn’t deserve him.’
    ‘As you say, they’re made for each other.’
    ‘And now they’re right up the creek.’
    She accepted a light, began stalking the room and puffing out short jets of smoke. It was a dull room. It contained Victorian furniture that simply looked seedy and outmoded. High on the wall hung a large, grimy case from which peered a family of moulting wild cats; near the window stood a vast fretwork cabinet exhibiting dusty trays of geological specimens.
    ‘My God, it needs a woman around,’ Brenda nagged.
    ‘Sit down,’ Gently said. ‘We may be here for a while.’
    ‘But George, why didn’t she marry the great oaf in the first place, instead of wasting her sweetness on Donnie Dunglass?’
    ‘Perhaps she loved Dunglass.’
    ‘Never in your life. She didn’t love anyone before she loved Jamie. He’s the guiding light of her frabjous existence, and if you don’t know that you don’t know anything.’
    ‘It did strike me that way,’ Gently admitted. ‘But I was waiting to get an expert opinion.’
    ‘Now you’ve got one.’
    ‘Perhaps you can tell me something else. Do you like McGuigan – or don’t you?’
    ‘Hah,’ Brenda said, straddling before him. ‘The trained brain. I shall have to be careful. When you put a question to me like that I’m supposed to effervesce with mindless truth. I hate McGuigan. I hate his beard. I hate his size. I hate his vanity. I hate McGuigan with a fierce hate. And I like him very much. Will that do?’
    ‘It seems adequate,’ Gently grinned. ‘Let me switch you to the lady.’
    ‘Oh, she’s just a fribbling, gipsyish thing,’ Brenda said. ‘I’d share my flat with her tomorrow, and pinch her stockings like nobody’s business.’
    ‘Neither, you’d say, is cut out for murder.’
    ‘Jamie might frighten someone to death.’
    ‘But not go after them with a dirk.’
    Brenda shook her head decidedly. ‘He’d sooner grapple them by the thrapple.’
    ‘Of course, we could be wrong,’ Gently mused. ‘I’ve dealt with some really likeable murderers. And it would be so convenient for Inspector Blayne to have such a clear-cut, uncomplicated solution. I daresay nobody will pull many strings on behalf of a pocket laird and his light-o’-love – not like they would for a Nationalist group, with its fingers in everyone’s pie.’
    ‘You’re so beautifully cold-blooded about it,’ Brenda said. ‘Your noble professionalism slays me.’
    ‘I’m just reviewing the situation as it stands,’ Gently said. ‘Blayne is human – and it may be his superiors are sympathizers with the S.N.A.G. If that were so, then his play with them this morning may have been a bluff for our benefit – a pretence that if they were really involved he would still do his duty without fear or favour. No policeman in his senses could overlook the other angle, and Blayne was appearing to do just that. Eventually, when he charges this pair, we will be expected to be satisfied that he gave equal attention to S.N.A.G.’
    ‘But that would be a deliberate frame!’ Brenda exclaimed.
    ‘Not if McGuigan and Mrs Dunglass really killed her husband. It would just be a diplomatic deception to support the characters of Blayne and