Alan Hunter - Gently to the Summit

‘It fits,’ Gently conceded.

It does. It must do.’ Evans’s red face split in a triumphant grin. ‘By the beard of Cadwalader, I’ll be a superintendent yet, and boss my own show back there in Caernarvon. Now we’ve only to find Paula Kincaid.’

‘In Caernarvon or out of it.’

Evans’ face sank. ‘Do you think she’ll have hopped it?’ he asked.

‘Do you ask, man?’ Gently mimicked. ‘She’d be out of there like a scalded cat. You might look for her at John o’ Groats, but you’ll scarcely find her in Caernarvon.’

‘That’s true enough.’ Evans was dour again. ‘There had to be a catch in it somewhere. And we must lay our hands on her if we’re to make it stick to Kincaid. But you must admit, man, we’re seeing our way, we’ve got the drift of it now. It’s only a question of time and routine before we sew up the case.’

‘Have you forgotten our friend, Heslington?’

‘Oh, to hell with that fellow.’

‘And a few other matters, like two large sums of money?’

Evans made a rude noise. ‘So what is that to us now? A couple of years in Somerset House and you’ll perhaps find where Fleece got his money. And as for the other — well, what about it? So there were philanthropists before the war. If we studied every little coincidence we’d never have a case at all, man.’

As though in comment on this bold line Gently’s telephone buzzed, and after an intervention from the board he found himself connected to Overton.

‘I looked up that address you wanted, the solicitors who signed the banker’s order. They’re Sedley and Haines in Lincoln’s Inn… Yes, I’ve got their number here.’

Gently jotted it down, thanked Overton and gave the number to the board. Evans, his thumbs under his lapels, awaited the issue with elaborate insouciance.

‘Sedley and Haines? This is Superintendent Gently of Scotland Yard

… I’d like to speak to one of the partners. It’s about a commission you had before the war.’

To Evans it seemed to take an hour before the suspicious lawyers would come to business. Twice Gently repeated himself and he gave numerous though vague assurances. At last the receiver was returned to its rest. Evans rocked gently back in his chair.

‘Who was it then? Nuffield or William Lever?’

Gently’s hazel eyes twinkled. ‘It was your coincidence,’ he said.

‘But does it make so much difference when all’s said and done?’

Evans was still arguing the point though his mouth was full of buttered crumpet. Sitting at a table in the canteen, a buttery knife in his hand, he ate steadily and drank many cups as he tried to win Gently to his way of thinking.

‘Look at it straight, now. Who would you have expected to donate that money? Why, Askham; weren’t two of his employees in the expedition? And Fleece, he was one of the management, Askham may have spoken to him about it, and you remember how Overton told us that Fleece had suddenly changed his attitude. What could be more natural, then? Why does it need to be sinister? Askham was interested, he admired their spirit, so he came across with the necessary.’

Gently deftly severed a crumpet; he was looking his woodenest and most obstinate.

‘He came across with ten thousand pounds?’

‘But that was chicken feed to the fellow!’

‘And anonymously.’

‘Why not? Some rich men are like that.’

‘With Met. L to advertise?’

‘He was modest, that’s all.’

‘He went yachting and shooting, but I didn’t hear he was a climbing enthusiast.’

‘Oh St David listen to him!’ Evans bolted a savage crumpet. He seized his cup and irrigated the morsel with a number of full-throated gulps. ‘Then what do we do? Where do we go? What’s the next step from here? Either we chase up Paula Kincaid or we stick the case in the files!’

Gently sipped more abstemiously. ‘Things aren’t quite so desperate,’ he returned.

‘We’ve got Kincaid in a vice if we can only turn up his missus!’

‘She mightn’t talk if we did. Also, we don’t know where to look for her. And in the meantime it was Askham who footed the bill for the expedition.’

Evans snatched up another crumpet and began unconsciously to chew it. He felt a pang of pity for the Assistant Commissioner, who had to deal with Gently day by day. ‘Very well, man,’ he said. ‘I wash my hands of it from now on. I’ve said my say, and I stand by it. And now I should like to hear your views.’

Gently’s hand gestured indefinitely. ‘Mine are still unsettled, I’m afraid. I’m still groping in the dark for what happened in nineteen-thirty-seven. There’s a reason behind that ten thousand pounds, but for the moment I can’t see the shape of it… Kincaid knew something, but what did he know? Was it he who was trying to blackmail Askham?’

‘You’ll scarcely find that out now,’ retorted Evans with satisfaction. ‘And if it’s blackmail you have in mind I’ll stick to Fleece for a client.’

‘It would have to be something ruinous. Perhaps affecting Met. L. And his wife would have to know something too, because in an involuntary way, she was also dangerous; and Askham was keeping her under wraps, that’s fairly certain from the evidence. But from whom, with Kincaid dead and Fleece apparently in the secret? If a member of the expedition were aimed at, how could his curiosity be threatening? If it wasn’t his wife behind Kincaid’s disappearance, she could be left in ignorance to play the widow, but if she was privy to it, as you suppose, then why is Askham so deeply in the plot? We’re left with the unlikely supposition that Askham and she had separate motives, that they were equally responsible, and together contrived her own disappearance. And that’ — Gently gave Evans an amiable smile — ‘sounds like a lot of moonshine to me. It meets the facts in a sort of way, but it collides head-on with common sense.’

‘So?’ Evans was far from placated.

‘So the facts are wrong. Or we’ve missed their significance.’

‘If you’ll just let that money be a coincidence…’

‘It’s a coincidence too often, which means that it isn’t one.’

Gently drank. His eye drifted away from Evans, seemed to vanish through the murals on the wall behind him; it was uncanny, it made Evans feel uncomfortable, it was as though the Yard man had disembodied himself. Evans made a clatter with his knife and plate to interrupt the phenomenon.

‘In reality it will be much simpler…’ Gently returned from his distant oracle. ‘There’ll be a pattern that a child can understand; it isn’t the way of murder to be complex. We’re making heavy weather of something. I can’t put a finger on it yet. But it’s got its roots in what happened before the war, and when we make a breakthrough there…’

‘But how do you propose doing that, man?’ Evans refused to lose sight of the practical. ‘We’ve covered all the leads we’ve got, and it’s unlikely we’ll turn up anything fresh.’

‘I think Mrs Askham did remember Fleece.’

‘She’d never let on. She’d be a fool if she did.’

‘There’s also Stanley. If we could put pressure on him…’

‘Isn’t it more likely that he’ll put pressure on us, man?’

‘And there’s Paula Kincaid.’

‘Now you’re talking, man.’ Evans brightened visibly; this was where he’d come in. ‘We can go to Caernarvon and try to pick up her trail. I’ll phone Williams at once. I’m sure we’ll get on to her.’

‘She may have married or changed her name.’

‘It won’t make so much difference-’ Evans broke off to scowl at a police cadet who had approached their table. The youngster came to attention, giving his heels a click.