Alan Hunter: Gently to the Summit

‘I think you know that, don’t you?’

Kincaid rocked his head again. ‘Please don’t look on me as an idiot.’

‘Right. Then perhaps I can have your decision?’

‘I don’t have to make one. I am Kincaid.’

Gently hesitated. ‘You can take advice…’

‘I certainly shall. But it won’t alter the fact.’

‘It isn’t a fact until it’s proved.’

‘Oh yes it is. And I’ll swear to it in court. I’d sooner swing as Reginald Kincaid than be let off as some impostor.’

His face took on a contemptuous twist: he seemed almost to be enjoying himself. For the first time it occurred to Gently that Kincaid might never get to court…

‘So in that case you’ll be ready to help us to establish your identity?’

‘Quite ready. And I’ll go further — I’ll instruct my lawyer to help you too.’

‘Then I’d like to return to the question about your wife.’

‘And I repeat: I don’t have to answer your questions.’

Was he mildly sane even? Gently stared at the large, burning eyes. They never changed expression, he noticed, though the thin features had plenty of eloquence. Two glittering dark orbs, they seemed to live independently; they weren’t wholly connected to the intelligence behind them.

‘Perhaps you’d like to make a statement, then?’

‘Oh yes. I’m used to that. I’ve done nothing else since I came back from India.’

‘About your wife.’

‘About anything. My opinions are sought after.’

‘I’d like her maiden name and some details of origin.’

‘Take a note.’

Kincaid crossed one bony leg with the other; then he folded his arms and gazed vacantly at the wall.

‘Maiden name, Paula Blackman. Place of birth, not known. Was living with mother in Fulham when married to R. Kincaid. Height, five feet seven. Age, forty-three years. Colouring…’ He faltered. ‘I don’t precisely remember that.’

‘Was she brunette?’

‘I don’t remember!’ He frowned reprovingly at Gently, adding scoldingly: ‘And it’s no use your trying to make me. Now I can remember the dress… we went to Wales for our honeymoon… her shoes… her handbag… but some things I can’t see. It’s only natural, isn’t it? It’s over twenty years ago.’

‘How would you recognize her if you saw her?’

‘Stop asking me questions! I shall either tell you or I shan’t, but I won’t answer questions. And as for how I should recognize her, that’s a foolish question anyway: one has a faculty for it. You talk like a bachelor.’

Gently sighed. ‘All right! Carry on with your statement.’

Kincaid regarded the wall again. ‘Take a note,’ he said.

His memory was really surprising in both its commissions and its omissions. It could recall a minute detail and then lapse over something important. Yet there seemed no deliberate pattern, no intention of cunning, and one would almost be prepared to swear that the fluctuations were genuine. And, as one grew used to his eccentricities, Kincaid appeared less abnormal. A personality emerged from behind them, unusual perhaps, but firmly intact.

‘I’d like to have a statement about your search for your wife.’

‘Take a note. I went to our house in Putney…’

Only of course it wasn’t there, nor the houses of their neighbours, nor anything the way he’d seen it or known it. A bombed site here, a block of flats there, new people, new names, not a soul who remembered Kincaid.

‘I saw an announcement and I went to that Everest Club meeting. I don’t care about those people, they’re nothing to me at all…’

But surely some of them must know what had happened to Mrs Kincaid, and it was to question them that he had gone to the Asterbury that night. And there again he was frustrated. He couldn’t convince them of his identity. All he’d got from it was a slander suit and a waggon-load of publicity.

‘Still, I thought that when my name was published… and it was then I began advertising.’

But never a word reached him from Paula Kincaid.

‘Can I have a statement on your reactions?’

‘Take a note. I’m sure she’s alive. I’ve known that all along, really… up there in Shigatse, and Lhasa. The Tibetans have discovered a system and they can tell about people. I knew a priest in Shigatse, and he gave me lessons.’

‘A statement about Wales.’

‘Continue note. I got the feeling that she was there… can you understand that? Like a Tibetan smells his village when he’s lost in strange country. We spent our honeymoon there… I taught her to love the mountains. We returned several times, Llanberis, Capel, Caernarvon. So I went. I went to those places. I tried to find where we’d stayed. I even went to the Devil’s Kitchen, which was her favourite climb. And all the time I felt she was there, her presence was strong among the mountains… but I could find her nowhere, and there was nobody to tell me. Then the feeling went dead and I came back to London.’

Kincaid’s voice trembled slightly as he made this recital and his blazing eyes looked brighter, more glittering still. He spoke with a compulsive note of conviction, setting even Evans’s mouth agape, while the cynical station inspector gazed pop-eyed at the speaker. Yet Gently had heard that same ring in the stories of accomplished liars. And Kincaid had told stories that would have shamed Baron Munchausen…

‘A statement about the club members who knew your wife.’

‘Take a note. Dick Overton, Ray Heslington, and Arthur Fleece.’

‘Fleece? Fleece knew your wife?’

Kincaid sneered. ‘I don’t answer questions.’

‘A statement about Fleece.’

‘No, thank you. See my lawyer.’

It was infuriating, and there was nothing that Gently could do about it. If only he’d had Kincaid for just one hour before he was charged! The concatenation of those three names dangled seductively in front of his nose, but there was no way for him immediately to sink his teeth into them. Overton — Heslington — and Arthur Fleece. They had all known Paula Kincaid, and one of them had died…

‘Heslington believed you were Kincaid. Give me a statement on that.’

‘Take a note.’ Kincaid’s sneer had deepened during Gently’s silence. ‘Heslington’s an idiot, but he’s a well-meaning idiot. I never had a scar. That’s a wrinkle on my forehead.’

‘Continue the statement.’

‘About Heslington and my wife? He only met her twice, and he could tell me nothing about her. He lives in Wimbledon, you know, though the line passes Putney. Don’t ask me what I mean, because I won’t be able to tell you.’

‘Continue the statement.’

‘Of course. There’s Dick Overton. Now he knew her rather better; in fact, he was quite a friend. But he didn’t believe I was Kincaid — Dick’s intelligence isn’t his strong point — so of course he told me nothing.’ Kincaid paused. ‘But you could try him.’

‘Continue the statement.’

‘End of note. I’ve no more to tell you about my wife.’

‘Hmn.’

Gently studied him, trying to reach some conclusion. In his wide experience of human enigmas, Kincaid bid fair to take the cake. For if he were not Kincaid, what second process could have evolved him? From what strange school of life had such a character graduated?

‘Give me a statement about your career.’

‘Take a note.’

Kincaid grinned horribly. He too had been doing a little studying, his head tilted back, his expression superior.

‘Well?’

‘I didn’t have a career. It was over by the time I was twenty-five. I lived at Salisbury with my guardian and was educated there at the local grammar school. Afterwards I took a post in the town, and then came up here, to Metropolitan Electric. I married Paula in thirty-five as part of the Jubilee celebrations. And I climbed Everest in thirty-seven. After that, see the Sunday Echo.’