Alan Hunter: Gently to the Summit

Did it hinge on what Kincaid knew about the incident on Everest, and Harry Askham’s part in that? Could the answer be so simple?

On the long, dull descent to Llanberis, only a moorland track below Clogwen Bridge, Evans wrestled unceasingly with the problem, giving it all the benefit of his needle-bright logic. He wanted so badly to get there himself, to reach the answer before Gently came out with it; and it had to be staring him in the face somewhere, since he knew the facts as well as the Yard man. Yet the more he grappled with them the more stubborn they became. Without further investigation there seemed no prospect of squaring them. Behind any blackmail must lie a secret, and that secret was buried deep; known perhaps by the Askhams, mother and son, but only certainly by the Kincaids. And not knowing that how could one be so smug and so oracularly self-satisfied as Gently? Or, what was worse, so infuriatingly right? The facts stretched like a wall against any such certainties.

And he was still butting his head against it when they straggled down to the town, past the outlying houses and bungalows and on to the welcoming metalled road. Had he begun to suspect its significance, to plot its position in the Gentlian process; to sense that it was here Gently had turned his back when that wall insisted on barring his way

…? He was staring at Gently very hard. But he was much too proud to ask a question.

‘Where’s the best place to eat in Llanberis?’

Gently was dragging his boots with fatigue. Evans observed it with a consoled satisfaction: here was something Wales had taught the maestro!

‘The Snowdon Cafe is as good as anywhere.’

‘Right. We’ll go there straight away.’

‘What about…?’ Evans motioned to Askham.

‘He’ll come along too. Do you think he climbs on air?’ Evans had a savage glance for the young man but he said no more. It was Gently’s party!

After climbing on sandwiches, one ate like a tiger. That was the immediate lesson that Wales had taught Gently. His body craved food, its furthest extremities cried out for it, and for forty-five minutes he did nothing but empty plates. Then he sighed and felt for his pipe. There was something to be said for climbing mountains! He took a few luxurious puffs before running an eye round his company.

‘I’d like to thank those present for giving me their assistance.’

Was it spoken as a dismissal? Nobody seemed eager to take it up. A subtle bond was linking them together, the unspoken friendship of the hills. It had grown there unawares and had suddenly surprised them with a unity, setting the disparate aside, making evens of the odds. Heslington was the first to speak.

‘Then I can take it you’ve finished with me?’

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘If you don’t mind, I should like to have it a little more definite. At one stage you came near to accusing me, not without grounds, I’m ready to admit. And I want to make sure that you’re satisfied now.’

‘Quite satisfied, Mr Heslington.’

‘And Sarah. I can tell her?’

Gently nodded, blowing smoke. ‘We shan’t be troubling Mrs Fleece.’

‘In that case…’ Heslington stood up. He felt in his hip pocket for his wallet. ‘I’ll be getting on the road. I want to be back in town tonight.’

He went, with a nod to Overton, his red head jerking when he strode past the window; in the final analysis unexpectedly impressive and with a dignity seen to be sincere. Had he been a red herring? No: not quite. He had held a key piece in that intricate jigsaw. A few moments later they saw him pass in the sports car, but his eyes were fixed on the long road ahead.

‘I suppose that goes for me too.’

Overton’s smile was lazy, and after stretching and flexing his arms he let them drop with a grunt. But he wasn’t tired; you could tell that. His sallow skin gave the wrong impression. The mountain that had squashed Gently flat was only a loosener to Overton.

‘Of course, I’d like to tag along and get to the bottom of this lark, but I only came for the ride, so I’d better follow Ray’s example. Only my car is up the pass.’

‘Sergeant Williams will find you transport.’

‘Well, I can’t say I’m not baffled. But I’ve enjoyed the trip all the same.’

He rose, Williams with him; but Gently detained them with a gesture.

‘Just one more question. This one comes from my superior at the Yard. Why do you people want to climb Everest?’

‘Why?’ Overton’s brown eyes danced at him. ‘But I should be here all night if I even started to answer that.’

‘In a couple of words, though?’

‘You’d think me a fool if I told you.’

‘I won’t show it.’

‘All right, then! It’s to get at the soul of the beast.’

And he ducked away from an explanation, towing Williams along after him.

Then they were three; Evans, Gently, Askham sitting in sulky thought, his head bowed over his coffee, his hands clasped under the table. The culprit, if there was a culprit, and Evans very much wanted to think so. But more likely the tormented inheritor of a harrowing patrimony.

He made a last half-hearted effort.

‘My car is here… can’t I go too?’

Gently sternly shook his head. ‘You’re coming back to Caernarvon with us.’

‘You can’t make me. I haven’t been charged.’

‘I’ll soon do that if you’d prefer it. Otherwise you’ll come with us. We haven’t quite finished yet.’

His head drooped over the cup again.

‘You’re going to talk to my mother, aren’t you?’ he mumbled.

It was the same in Wales as in London or in any other police station on earth; the same tidy untidy room with its desk and chairs and filing cabinets. The same smell of floor polish and paper and tobacco smoke that was never dispersed, the identical dingy painted walls, brown linoleum, and tin waste box. All that was different in Evans’s office was the calendar pinned behind the door, which was issued by a Welsh firm with an unpronounceable name and which carried a picture of a Welsh girl in national costume. But the atmosphere was correct. It touched its chord of condemnation.

‘I must admit I was surprised, Superintendent.’

She had swept in finely with her surge of hauteur; driving the atmosphere back with her presence and filling the office with her own. Then she had seen her son, and stopped, making her stand-out skirt rustle. She had fixed her eyes accusingly on his hunched and shamefast shoulders.

‘Oh I see. It’s about Henry, is it. I wondered why you had fetched me out here. And what has my son been up to this time: another car-smash, is it?’

‘Please sit down, Mrs Askham.’

‘I’m hoping it won’t be necessary, Superintendent. If it’s a question of bail we can settle that immediately, and since I have guests to dinner, I should prefer not to be detained.’

‘It isn’t a question of bail.’

‘Not bail. Is it something troublesome?’

‘I’d sooner you sat down, Mrs Askham. It has to do with Reginald Kincaid.’

‘That man. So that’s it.’

She gave her son a harder look. But he was determinedly turned away from her, his face towards one of the filing cabinets.

‘Very well, then. I’ll sit down. I didn’t know we were still on that business. But you will do me a favour, Superintendent, by being as brief as you possibly can.’

She was indeed dressed for dinner and she arranged her billowing skirt with care. She was wearing a gown of pale straw and pearls gleamed dully above its neckline. About her shoulders was a quilted wrap in her especial tint of lilac, and she wore long matching gloves and lilac shoes with incredible heels. Her hair was sculptured rather than brushed and she wore in it a golden, pearl-studded comb.