Gently at a Gallop (18 page)

‘Perhaps he wanted more proof, sir.’

‘Proof of what?’

‘Well – like seeing it with his own eyes. Maybe he had a divorce in mind. Or maybe he aimed to give the bloke a hiding.’

Gently brooded over his pipe. ‘There’s another alternative. Whatever was in the letter seems to have been a great shock. He was acting almost as though he couldn’t believe it, as though the knowledge had overwhelmed him. Yet he knew that his wife had a lover, and he must have suspected the same people we suspect. The name on the letter only confirmed a suspicion . . . so what was it knocked him into a heap?’

‘We only have Rising’s word for it, sir,’ Docking said.

‘Why should Rising mislead us about that?’

‘It sort of puts him in the clear, sir, if he’s the man. He’s telling us Berney was upset about someone else.’

‘But if he isn’t the man?’

‘Then Redmayne is, sir. And I reckon that’d be enough to knock Berney cold. And Rising did say Redmayne left just ahead of him, which was likely when the letter was passed.’

Gently nodded. ‘Only Redmayne is fireproof.’

‘That’s as far as we know, sir,’ Docking urged. ‘If we can once prove otherwise we’ll have him.’

Gently hunched his shoulders, puffing.

The telephone rang. Docking took it. He listened for a moment, then covered the mouthpiece.

‘It’s for you sir . . . Mrs Berney.’

Gently stared, took the instrument, held it aslant.

‘Is that you, Superintendent?’ said Mrs Berney’s voice. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking since your visit, Superintendent. I’ve come to the conclusion that you’re so hopelessly at sea that it’s time I gave you a little assistance. Are you listening?’

‘I’m listening,’ Gently said.

‘I was sure you would be,’ Mrs Berney said. ‘Between ourselves you are stumped, aren’t you? And really I’m the only person who can help you.’

‘You and one other,’ Gently said.

Mrs Berney’s laughter came cuttingly. ‘So I’m being rather generous, don’t you think – coming to the aid of a benighted policeman?’

‘What have you to tell me, Mrs Berney.’

‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘But I’ve something to show you. Something you want to see very much, and which you’ll never see unless I do show you. Would you like me to show you?’

Gently said nothing.

‘Oh, but of course you would,’ Mrs Berney said. ‘And I’m going to show only you, Superintendent, because the local peasants wouldn’t understand. So you must meet me in half an hour at the survey point on the heath. Is that clear? In half an hour. Be kind enough not to keep me waiting.’

‘I can come to your house,’ Gently said.

‘You can, but you won’t,’ she said. ‘I shall wait for you fifteen minutes at the survey point. After that, the deal is off.’

G
ENTLY HUNG UP
. His eyes met Docking’s. The local man was wonderingly shaking his head.

‘That bitch is a case,’ he said. ‘A proper case. A mental home is where she’ll end up.’

‘How long since Rising left here?’ Gently said.

Docking’s eyes flickered. ‘You think there’s a connection?’

‘I think he had time to get to a call-box – and I don’t want to miss a trick at this stage.’

Docking’s hand reached for the phone, but Gently pushed the hand aside.

‘Hold it! If Mr Rising is playing games, this isn’t the time to interfere.’

‘But this could be a trap, sir.’

‘It could,’ Gently said. ‘And we won’t find out by putting stickers on Rising. So we’ll just let him go about his business, while I keep my assignation with the lady.’

‘But sir – if it’s something crazy!’

Gently pulled a face. ‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘More probably they’ve cooked up some little trick which they hope will mystify our small intelligence.’ He tapped out his pipe in Docking’s ashtray. ‘But you can post a couple of cars,’ he said. He blew through his pipe. ‘And yourself, with glasses. That should take care of the comic element.’

‘But . . . nobody goes with you, sir?’

‘Nobody. The lady asked to see me alone.’

Docking stared at him with unhappy eyes. He was a man of forty: he looked older.

The rain had ceased, but a smoking mist had followed it in from the sea – thin, straying stuff with more wetness than apparent substance. It poured about in coombes and declivities but didn’t obscure the plane of the heath, which lifted steamily towards a slate sky, its dimmed acres smudgy and purplish.

As he passed the great cleft that split the cliff of the plateau, Gently glanced automatically to his right. Mist was hanging over the apron of sea and clinging about the trees of the village. The tractor which had clicked about the fields yesterday now stood sheeted and still in a corner. Nothing was moving down there either – rained off! The storm had closed play.

He bumped round a bend in the track; the survey point came into view. A flaming figure in a red raincoat, Mrs Berney was leaning nonchalantly against her parked Vitesse. She wore no hat, and her blonde hair lifted lightly in a faint breeze. She stood coolly watching the approach of the Lotus, a cigarette between her fingers.

Gently trundled his car up to the Vitesse, parked and got out. Mrs Berney flashed him a scathing look and tossed her cigarette into the bushes.

‘You’re late,’ she said. She glanced at her wristwatch, a tiny movement on a jewelled bracelet. ‘You’ve kept me waiting five minutes. Were you scared of me or something?’

‘Should I be scared?’

She flicked her hair. ‘I could be carrying a gun or a knife, couldn’t I? And you must be feeling that you have become a little over-intimate with my affairs. But perhaps you’re armed.’

Gently shook his head.

‘Then you’ll be a grand master of unarmed combat.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘Also, I have colleagues who know where I am and who I’m with.’

‘Colleagues,’ she sniffed. ‘You’ve none within a mile – I know that, because I’ve been watching. You’re alone here with me, and nobody in sight, so if I had a gun you’d be a dead man.’

‘Well,’ Gently said. ‘Do you have a gun?’

She stared at him tauntingly, her head drawn back. ‘You don’t know, do you?’ she said. ‘And we’ll keep it that way. Because one thing is certain – you can’t search me.’

‘Show me your handbag.’

Mrs Berney laughed, reached into the Vitesse and threw him a handbag. It was a small, expensive, lizard-skin bag, and it contained only money, driving-licence and keys. He handed it back. She dropped it in the car. Her movements moulded the lightweight raincoat to her figure. If she was carrying a weapon it wasn’t apparent: the raincoat wrapped her body smoothly.

‘Now . . . if you’ll get in my car we can talk.’

‘Talk!’ Her hair swept across her shoulders. ‘We’ve nothing to talk about. I made it abundantly clear that the purpose of this meeting was to show you something.’

‘Then you can show it to me.’

‘But not in the car.’

‘Why not in the car, Mrs Berney?’

‘Because,’ she said, ‘it wouldn’t go in the car. It’s out over there – where they found Charlie.’

Gently hesitated. ‘It’s something on the heath?’

‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘That’s why we’re here.’

‘But the heath has been searched. We used men with dogs.’

‘But this you didn’t find,’ she said. ‘Not this.’

Gently was silent. Mrs Berney was gazing at him with a gleam in her handsome eyes. She was lounging against the car casually, yet there was a hint of alertness in her easy stance. Gently’s eyes strayed to the mist-laden heath. Nothing stirred, there was no sound. A long way off, almost blanked out by mist, was the thicket where Docking would now be stationed with his glasses. Mrs Berney laughed softly.

‘We’re quite alone,’ she said. ‘That’s the essence of the contract. But of course, if you’re scared you can get back in your car, and never know the secret I nearly showed you. Do you want to do that?’

‘You could tell me,’ Gently said.

‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘But I won’t. And in any case you’d have to verify what I told you, so that wouldn’t be much gain, would it? Well . . . are you coming?’

Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘Perhaps you’d like to lead,’ he said.

She laughed, swinging forward off the Vitesse.

‘Of course. I’m the one who knows where we’re going.’

She set off on a line along the rim of the plateau, not heading directly for the place of the tragedy. She walked springily, showing that same curious detachment from the burden of her belly. It wasn’t part of her; she didn’t acknowledge it. It was an alien thing which she took in her stride. Beneath the drape of the raincoat it scarcely noticed, except when a vigorous movement briefly shaped it. She turned to watch Gently plodding after her.

‘Don’t let me go too fast, will you?’ she said. ‘I’m not used to keeping pace with cockney policemen, and I should hate to get you puffed.’

‘Should you be so active?’ Gently said.

‘Oh yes. My doctor recommends it. And you have to remember that I’m a special case – I’m carrying a foetus for a demon lover.’

‘That, of course, must make a difference.’

Mrs Berney laughed harshly. ‘All the difference. Witches don’t expect pain or inconvenience when they’re brooding a cub for the Prince of Darkness. It doesn’t affect me.

‘In fact . . . it’s almost unreal.’

‘Unreal.’ She checked her stride to stare at him. She laughed again. ‘That’s a marvellous theory! You must be really baffled, to come up with that. Would you like me to strip?’

‘Unreal to you . . . you’re pregnant, but you haven’t become a mother.’

‘You’re sure you don’t think my lump is a fake.’

‘I think you don’t think of yourself in that way.’

Mrs Berney paused, her eyes fierce. ‘I like it the other way best,’ she said. ‘It’s more dramatic. A strapped-on lump. And me really a les, with a female lover. Wouldn’t Jill Rising fit?’

‘Jill Rising?’ Gently said.

‘Yes. Jill Rising can handle a horse.’

‘Both the Risings can handle horses,’ Gently said.

‘But Jill Rising is best. And Jill does fancy me.’

Gently shook his head. ‘Your pregnancy is a fact. Only . . . somehow . . . it means something different to you.’

Mrs Berney’s eyes stabbed at him. ‘You’re dangerous,’ she said. ‘Yes, you’re dangerous.’

She stalked on. The direction she’d taken had put them out of sight of Docking’s glasses. Below them, seaward, were now and then glimpses of the coast road leading from Clayfield. An occasional car crept along the road, which at this point made a curve towards the heath. Leftwards the sodden heath was featureless except for its smoking vales and shallows.

‘Don’t think I underrate you,’ Mrs Berney snapped. ‘On the contrary, I had you sized up from the beginning. I knew we wouldn’t bamboozle you about Charlie, and I didn’t really try. It was too obvious. When Charlie had a woman he could scarcely be bothered to cover his tracks. Ergo, he was playing the fool for some other reason, and that was staring you in the face.’

‘It didn’t need me to spot it,’ Gently said.

‘Oh, I think it did,’ Mrs Berney sneered. ‘The locals were too besotted with Charlie’s record. It called for your eager, penetrating eye. And now you have it, and you’ve begun to think about it, which Inspector Docking would hardly do. No, I didn’t under-rate you. Your fumbling fingers are digging down there.’

‘You couldn’t marry him,’ Gently said.

Her burning eyes looked into his. ‘You’re probing, guessing,’ she said. ‘You’re not there yet. And you’ll get small help out of me.’

‘You couldn’t marry him, so you married Berney.’

‘Berney was any woman’s fool.’

‘But you needed Berney. There was a reason.’

‘And here it is – my stomach.’ She gave a wild laugh. ‘You’re forgetting,’ she said. ‘The Stogumber family pride is in my keeping. Fathering a bastard is no great matter when the pride of the Stogumbers is at stake.’

‘And was it at stake?’

‘Oh, very much so.’ She sent her long hair twirling.

‘How much?’ Gently said.

‘Too much. Poor Charlie really never had a chance.’

She came to a halt at a small, round hillock, grown about at the foot with stunted gorse; she mounted it, standing in the precise centre, an arresting figure in her bright raincoat.

‘Here’s a witch’s circle,’ she said. ‘Would you like me to raise Beelzebub? He prefers to come at midnight, but I have some spells which he daren’t disobey.’

Gently shrugged. ‘Is this what we’ve come for?’

‘No.’ She glanced fleetingly at the heath. ‘What we’ve come for is in the valley. But we have to approach it from the right direction.’

‘So shall we do that.’

‘When I’m ready.’

She remained for several moments standing on the hillock; then slowly she raised and lowered her arms, as though in an act of supplication. She came down.

‘I’m ready now. I felt it was right to propitiate the spirits.’

‘Would one of the spirits be Old Shanks?’

She stared at him stonily and led into the heath.

The line now departed from the rim and took them on a course diagonal to it. As far as Gently could judge it was aiming at the valley, but the featureless heath offered no landmark. They were crossing a sweep of trackless heather-bush. Distantly ahead were low, mist-laden ridges. They were working back a little on the way they’d come, but the cars and the survey point were well out of sight. Soon, he was aware, his sense of direction would be at fault, and he would be depending entirely on Mrs Berney’s guidance.

‘Naturally . . . you’ve known this heath all your life.’

She gave her soft laugh. ‘Are you worried I shall lose you?’

‘Your family too. They all grew up here.’

‘Every Stogumber,’ she said. ‘For centuries.’

‘Your father and brother.’

Mrs Berney said nothing.

‘And your father’s cousin.’

She tossed her head.

‘But your husband,’ Gently said. ‘He was an odd man out.’

Her laugh was harder. ‘Charlie didn’t love the heath.’

‘An odd man out,’ Gently said. ‘He didn’t belong to the Stogumber clan. When the chips were down, Charlie was expendable. And you spent him to give your bastard a name. Or . . . was that the reason?’