Alan Hunter - Gently to the Summit

Gently quizzed him through narrowed lids. ‘I wouldn’t know. You’d better tell me.’

‘I wouldn’t know either, but this I know: Fleece would have sat tight till kingdom come. But he didn’t, and that’s the coincidence. He changed his mind very abruptly. He changed his mind directly after Kincaid turned up at the Asterbury.’

Gently shrugged. ‘What makes you think there’s a connection?’

‘Coincidence. Timing. It’s all too pat. That divorce was the biggest shock on earth; it was the last thing that either of us expected. And there has to be a reason for a thing like that. It would need to be something out of the everyday run. Something like a man coming back from the dead, and a lot of publicity: and a lot of questions! It fits too well, there must be a connection. Kincaid returns, and Fleece files his divorce suit.’

‘ Post hoc, propter hoc, as you’d no doubt tell me.’

‘It’s nothing of the sort. It goes further than that. In some way you don’t know about they were mixed up together, and until you find out what it is you’ll never understand this case.’

‘And you haven’t found it out either?’

‘No. Also, I’m not blind.’

‘Hasn’t Mrs Fleece told you?’

‘She knows nothing about her husband’s secrets.’

‘Or you about hers?’

‘What are you getting at now?’

‘I’m trying to get at what you know about Mrs Paula Kincaid Fleece.’

He didn’t take it in immediately, but when he did it was a visible shock. He sank back on the stool with a heavy, clumsy motion. ‘That can’t — that can’t be true. I’ve known them both. They’re different people.’

‘About Sarah’s build, you said. And both addicted to dyeing their hair.’

‘But no… I couldn’t have met Sarah before!’

‘The reason for Fleece’s sudden divorce.’

‘I know it fits, but it isn’t true.’

‘The factor that mixed them up together.’

‘No!’Heslington shook his head with vigour. ‘You’ve got it wrong. I know you have. Sarah has told me all about her life. Why should she have lied to me about that?’

‘She may have her reasons.’

‘You don’t understand! We’re… well, we have no secrets from each other. And you can check it easily; you don’t have to guess. She was married to Fleece at Penwood, near Dorking.’

Gently’s nod was ponderous. ‘Or we can ask the lady herself. In fact, I think we might as well do that. And perhaps you would like to come along with us.’

‘Willingly.’ Heslington rose again quickly, and then he paused. ‘But unfortunately, it can’t be today.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s in Horsham. She’s gone to visit her daughter. You upset her a bit yesterday and she felt she needed cheering up.’

Gently kept on nodding. He felt in his pocket for his pipe.

Gently had finished. Evans showed an inclination to linger with Heslington, but when the Yard man made a move he followed obediently out to the car. They both stood still in the rain for a moment, looking back at that remarkable house, which even more now they were outside it seemed to resemble a mislaid stage set. Then they got back into the car.

Gently mused: ‘That was one for the record! Was he like that when you saw him before, when you were questioning him in Wales?’

‘Well, he wasn’t wearing a toga. They aren’t a lot of use on Snowdon.’ Evans answered the question seriously, as though its technical side was of interest. ‘He was much the same apart from that: a little peculiar in his ways.’

‘The stage has lost something there.’

‘You think it was all put on, man?’

‘Not all of it. But there wasn’t much he didn’t underline with greasepaint.’

‘So what shall we do about him?’

‘Nothing… he’s given me a touch of Kincaiditis. I want to think about him carefully in case he tempts me to do something rash. But either way we’ve lost Kincaid, unless something damning turns up. We couldn’t prosecute with a principal witness who might have done the job himself.’

‘No, man. I’d worked that out. It’s either Heslington or nothing. And to my way of thinking we might as well turn Kincaid loose.’

‘So you’re still backing Heslington.’

‘I am, I’m telling you.’ Evans eyed him mournfully. His Welsh face was long and sad. ‘Don’t forget there were only two up there, even if Heslington is telling the truth; and I see it plainly now that we can never swear to the other one. So that leaves us with Heslington, telling a lie with a circumstance, and enough motive in his pockets to sink a Cunard liner. It’s a case, man; it’s the only case. We’ll get nothing else out of it. It rests with those two; and we’ve practically eliminated Kincaid.’

‘I wonder.’ Gently brooded over the traffic on the Hill. ‘Nothing’s impossible with Kincaid. He takes whole Everests in his stride. And the case against Heslington is motive and opportunity to nothing: not a winning combination, from a prosecutor’s viewpoint.’

‘Do you think we wouldn’t get a conviction?’

‘I’m sure we wouldn’t. It’s too doubtful. There’s no attacking Heslington’s story of his movements on Snowdon. And he’ll make a sympathetic figure, his defence will see to that, and Fleece the reverse. No jury would give us a conviction.’

‘Then did we ought to drop the case, and save the public some money?’

Gently grinned. ‘Not just yet. Not with the results still coming in. And as for turning Kincaid loose, he’s much too useful where he is. While the charge is still against him, there’s a chance of other people being careless.’

Evans lit a cigarette and jetted smoke at the car’s roof.

‘There’s the Mrs Kincaid angle,’ he said. ‘That might tie the case a bit tighter. If she’s Mrs Fleece, and Heslington knew, and he lured Kincaid to Wales to implicate him, that would show a prior plan and give the jury something to chew at.’

‘Mmn.’ Gently was tepid. ‘It’s time we sorted that out, in any case. We’d better apply to Somerset House and stop waiting for Dorking. Only documents can lie. It’s easy to give false particulars. What we need are some witnesses who remember Mrs Fleece as Sarah Amies.’

‘But there won’t be any if she wasn’t.’

‘That’s the hard fact of the matter. And from what Dorking has told us so far, it doesn’t seem so wide of the mark.’

He dropped Evans, who seemed keen on the assignment, at Somerset House and returned to his office to make an abortive call to Dorking. The inspector in charge there was deferentially apologetic, but was apparently no nearer to finding the answers to Gently’s inquiries.

‘It’s all sixes and sevens at Penwood. This is only one of the balls-ups. They’ve just opened a new registry office and the older records are in a mess. As for the Vicar, the old Penwood man, he’s staying with his children in America. We sent him a cable this morning and we’re expecting to hear from him.’

‘What about the Baxters or Blackstables in their house near the church?’

‘Well, actually, they’re all new houses there now. We’ve made inquiries at the post office and they remember some people called Ballinger, but they moved during the war and their forwarding address has been destroyed. They were elderly then.’

‘Nobody remembers any Amieses?’

‘Not so far. Only Amyas, Armes, and Amble…’

Kincaid! He hung up and then rang for a cup of coffee. He sat drinking it and smoking while he peered out of the window. Across the courtyard and over the Embankment the yellowish Thames rolled obscurely, and the sculptured cliffs of County Hall winked their multitudinous lights. How many records did it hold, that neighbouring monster over the river? How many were here, in the innumerable filing systems of Scotland Yard? And throughout London and all the country there existed such collections: in such a wilderness of papers, what hope was there of tracing one?