Alan Hunter - Gently to the Summit

‘Nothing. Only what she told me.’

‘I’m beginning to think there’s more to it than that. Like her having gone the same way as Fleece.’

‘But that’s crazy… you’ve got it wrong!’

‘You’re very insistent about her death.’

‘She’s dead, yes… but not like that…’

‘Then suppose you tell me which way she died.’

‘I can’t. I only had it from Phyllis-’

‘Think how tempting it would have been. To dispose of that dangerous woman for ever and to end her constant threat to someone… Then you could say she was killed in the blitz. You could produce a witness who we’d have to believe. Doesn’t that sound like a clever way out, a safe way of guarding an ugly secret?’

‘But it isn’t true. You can’t believe it-!’

‘You’d be surprised what I have to believe.’

‘I don’t know anything about her death!’

‘Then prove it to me. Where is Paula Kincaid?’

And so it went on, with never a break, chiselling and nagging at Askham’s resistance; going round in circles, dragging in hypotheses, pounding away at any variation he introduced into his answers. Who could stand it for long without truth in his corner, or even so seconded? There came a time when it didn’t matter…

Dutt, who’d heard it all and seen it all, retired to a seat in the corner, and there sought a sombre diversion in a file of Police Gazettes. Evans, new to the virtuosities of a full-dress Gently interrogation, continued to stare and digest in unconcealed admiration. It was going ill with the local wrongdoers when Evans returned to Caernarvon…

‘Your mother knew Fleece, didn’t she? She’s apt to give herself away.’

‘She didn’t know him. She-’

‘He paid her a visit when he went to see Paula Kincaid.’

‘No — never!’

‘I think he did. I think they had things to discuss together.’

‘I tell you he’s never set foot in Trecastles!’

‘Where did they meet, then? In a hotel somewhere?’

‘They didn’t meet. We’ve never met him. What was a man like him to us? We didn’t even know he existed… not till we read about him in the papers.’

‘What did you read about him in the papers?’

‘That he’d been… accidentally killed. And before that there was something else. He’d had a suit against Kincaid.’

‘And, of course, you looked for items like that.’

‘Yes, we did. My mother was upset.’

‘Very natural that she should be. As the principal shareholder in Met. L.’

‘But that has nothing-’

‘Was it she who rang Fleece, or was it the other way about?’

‘She’d never have rung Fleece!’

‘Why not?’

‘Because she… I’ve told you! She didn’t know him.’

‘So he must have rung her, and that started the acquaintance. He dashed across to Wales and they held a consultation. Paula Kincaid had to be dealt with; her husband was certain to catch up with her, and once he did then the fat would be properly in the fire. How did they plan to make her safe?’

‘They didn’t plan anything of the sort-’

‘To move her was it? Send her abroad?’

‘No… nothing. There weren’t any plans…’

‘To marry her maybe? Marry her to Fleece?’

‘Oh, God!’

‘Or perhaps to get rid of her entirely. Fleece was a man of resource in these matters: how much did he want to get rid of Paula Kincaid?’

He should have thought of it before: there was a certain relief from his torments. He could sit silent, letting the questions buzz harmlessly about his ears. It was a defeat, it vanquished the last shreds of the character he’d come in with, but it gave him pause from the destructive bombardment that was beating him to his knees. He summoned a defiant look for Gently: then he tightly closed his mouth.

‘So that was the way of it, was it. Is that what you don’t want to tell me?’

Gently noticed the change of reaction but seemed in no way concerned by it.

‘Fleece was filing his divorce. That was a stage in plan one. But there was a later plan, plan two, devised to settle with Paula for good. She’d got the wind up about Kincaid. She couldn’t be trusted to play her part. I can understand that you don’t want to tell me, but you could put a finger on Paula’s grave…’

‘It’s not true!’ His silence was shattered by this intolerable insinuation; but he remembered himself directly and snapped his lips shut again.

‘Why shouldn’t it be true? It fits perfectly if you believe that Kincaid murdered Fleece. He was close on your trail over in Wales and might have got wind of what you were up to. That would make some sense of it, wouldn’t it? Why he pushed Fleece over the Wyddfa?’

‘Good gracious, man!’ It was Evans who gave the reaction to that one. He began to rub his large hands, producing a dry, rasping sound. But Askham had retired into his shell.

His teeth as well as his lips were clamped. He stared hotly at Gently, an exhibition of determined silence.

‘Then there’s Heslington to consider.’ Gently pressed on almost amiably. ‘He was the man who Fleece was citing, and he’d be sure to prefer Fleece dead. He’d be susceptibile to suggestion; you’d scarcely need to offer him a bribe. You’d show him your cards, you’d tip him the wink, and he wouldn’t see too much on the Wyddfa. But what he did see would be carefully concerted to give support to a likely story.’

‘He saw Kincaid and you know it!’ Out, out it had to come. In spite of all the grinding of teeth, he had to respond when the chord was plucked.

‘Yes, exactly; he saw Kincaid. And Kincaid has been the root of the trouble. A man who should never have returned from the dead and who it was desirable to reinter. Why shouldn’t Heslington have seen him, if he saw anything at all up there?’

‘But Kincaid…!’

‘Has all sorts of motives. I know. They proliferate round the man. The more you look for them the more you find; you’d almost say he had too many. Because the murderer needed only one motive, one clear, sharp reason for giving that push. And he would need to be confident of his power to deliver it: one would have looked for somebody less frail than Kincaid.’

‘But if he wasn’t expecting it-’

‘We think he was. We think he was face to face with his killer.’

‘You don’t know that!’

‘We know a lot of things. And we’d like to know the whereabouts of Mrs Kincaid.’

It nearly did it. Askham was teetering, twice he was on the point of blurting it out. He tried to begin it a couple of times, his lips trembling and his eyes wild. Then he seemed to rock away from it again; his face grew sullen and passionately hostile.

‘She isn’t anywhere. She’s dead and buried. And not because anyone murdered her, either!’

Gently rose. He went over to the window. He stood staring out at the dark world of the Thames.

The break was for coffee and sandwiches; it had no other significance. Gently hadn’t done with Askham; he’d hardly started on the fellow. Dutt had excused himself and gone, it wasn’t his business anyway, and Evans, bursting for a discussion, was restrained by the presence of Askham. Consequently, he said nothing much, and Gently was far from being talkative. He sat broodily chewing his canteen sandwiches while apparently eyeing the marks on his blotter…

Yes, he’d only started with Askham; yet didn’t he already have a part of the truth? Hadn’t it begun to peer through the tangle during that first corrosive session?

Askham had conceded little in words but he had yielded much in the sum of his reactions. Time after time his temperature had risen when particular questions had been repeated. And the shape emerging from it was new — new and suddenly enlightening; it supplied the wanted touch of simplicity that Gently’s instinct had predicted. But questions were unlikely to carry it further. They had done their duty in betraying the truth. A further session might confirm the pattern but he needed other artillery to achieve a breakdown. Questions were small-shot; the present occasion was calling for greater penetration…