Gently at a Gallop (4 page)

‘That’s how it looks, sir.’

‘That’s just how it looks.’

For a moment, Docking’s expression was blank. Then his eyes widened.

‘My God . . . she may still have been around!’ he said.

Gently shrugged, looking about him, at the bracken banks, the thread of track. The valley continued sloping downwards, broadening, was closed at last by a distant ridge.

Suddenly, Gently went still.

‘Look.’

On the far ridge, a horseman sat watching them.

He was visible for perhaps two seconds; then he vanished on the other side of the ridge.

‘
T
HE CHEEKY BASTARD
!’

Docking, flushing up, took a couple of instinctive steps down the valley. But pursuit was pointless: he came to a stand, hands clenched, eyes glowering at the empty ridge.

Gently chuckled. ‘No good,’ he said. ‘This is country where horsemen hold the cards.’

‘But the nerve of it, sir!’ Docking exclaimed. ‘He wasn’t giving a damn if we did see him.’

‘Could you recognize him?’

‘Well – no, sir. But we might have had some glasses.’

‘And he might just be some innocent horse-rider, coming this way out of curiosity.’

Docking snorted. ‘He cleared off pretty sharply. He knew we weren’t just a couple of bird-watchers.’ He turned eagerly. ‘And another thing, sir. He was riding a dark-coloured horse.’

Gently nodded. ‘And he was wearing dark clothes . . . and he struck me as sitting tall in the saddle.’

‘Rising’s a tall man, sir.’

‘It proves nothing.’

‘But sir, if we sent a Panda car round . . .’

Gently grinned at the local man. ‘All right!’ he said. ‘Go back to the car and lay on a Panda. But observation only, understand? I don’t want Rising put on his guard before I talk to him.’

Docking cantered away gratefully, his feet thumping on the hard ground. Gently shrugged and continued his inspection of the spot.

It was very quiet after Docking had gone. No bird or insect stirred in the valley. Up by the pedestal there had been a draught from the sea, but nothing of it reached down here. Airless, silent . . . much as it must have been on the afternoon of Tuesday, when Berney had come down the overgrown track to wait here, in the hot shade.

And the woman . . . she’d come up the valley? Gently shaded his eyes and stared down towards the ridge. Where had she come from, across the baking heath, two or three miles, to be approaching that way? Had she also been mounted? The conclusion seemed irresistible. Footing it, she’d have arrived there fagged out and in a mess. A horse-woman . . . like Mrs Rising. Living in that direction . . . like Mrs Rising. Who else could Berney have seen come over the ridge, ride up the valley?

So they’d met, and she’d tethered the horse – a stout hawthorn limb was handy – and they’d dallied in the shade, in the skimpy little bower with its sick grass. Had they seen the second rider coming, giving her time to mount and make her escape – or had he approached more circumspectly, appearing, say, on the ridge-top opposite?

Flicking sweat from his forehead, Gently began to scramble up the rough bracken-slope. Up there, anyway, would have been the horseman who’d thrown a scare into Cator. The slope was steep and the bracken tangled, but it was perhaps no obstacle to a well-managed horse: there were tumps and stony ridges to give support to probing hooves. He struggled over the top. Now, directly below him, lay the shaded nook and trampled heather. For a spy, mounted or unmounted, this was the perfect situation. But it told him nothing. All around him was iron ground and heather-bush, where a man or a horse could go and leave no trace of passage behind. This way, that way, the ridging heath stretched emptily to its skylines.

He stared grumpily for a while, then set off back to the car. Docking came to meet him.

‘It’s all set, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a man watching Rising’s place.’

‘Fine,’ Gently said. ‘Tell me something – where did you find Berney’s car?’

‘Berney’s car, sir? It was down below, near where we came in.’

‘Why wasn’t it up here?’

Docking stared blankly. ‘Don’t quite know, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s good cover down there. He may have thought it was the safest place.’

‘There’s cover up here,’ Gently said. ‘And it’s a lot nearer to where he was heading.’

‘He needn’t have come this way at all, sir,’ Docking said. ‘He could have cut across to the valley.’

‘But still – it’s farther?’

Docking nodded reluctantly.

‘And it was a hot day,’ Gently shrugged. ‘Maybe Berney needed the exercise. After the hours he’d spent sitting around.’

They got in the car. Gently backed and turned it, set it bumping slowly down the track.

‘It’s still bothering me,’ he said. ‘I can’t quite picture what happened out there.’

‘Perhaps Rising can help us, sir,’ Docking said meaningfully. ‘By the time we get to Clayfield he should be back.’

‘Only,’ Gently said, ‘we’re not going to Clayfield. I want to talk to the widow.’

Docking said nothing.

High Hale was a dullish, huddling village that crowded too close to the crooked coast road. It ignored the sea: the land sloped up between, and nesting trees made a further barrier. What the houses of brick or flint pebbles looked out on was the stark reef of the lofted heath. Across the fields, above foot-slope trees, it spread darkly along the sky.

Berney’s house, the Lodge, stood behind and above the village. A discreet Victorian residence, in greyed yellow brick, it was reached by a drive flanked with rhododendrons. A green Vitesse was parked at the door. Gently coasted the Lotus in behind it. As he and Docking got out, the door above opened and a girl dressed in slacks came down the steps.

‘The police – again?’

She paused on the last step, her grey eyes taking them in boldly. She was twenty-one or -two, tallish, slender, with golden-blonde hair sweeping her shoulders. Her fine features were strikingly regular but they were pale and blurred under the eyes. She wore a loose open-necked shirt with the slacks. Her stomach was swollen and fruit-like.

‘Mrs Berney,’ Docking murmured.

Mrs Berney flicked her long hair. ‘So what is this?’ she said. ‘Have you made an arrest – or am I in for another session of insinuation?’

‘This is Chief Superintendent Gently,’ Docking said hastily.

‘Which means nothing to me,’ Mrs Berney said.

‘He’s from London, ma’am. He’s taking charge of the case.’

Mrs Berney eyed Gently. ‘Wonderful,’ she said.

Gently smiled and came forward. Mrs Berney kept eyeing him. Her expression was insolent, but her glance was keen. She gave another toss to her swirling hair, making the motion into an insult.

‘Of course, I have heard of you,’ she said.

‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘And I’d heard of your brother.’

‘Lachlan.’ Her eyes held Gently’s defiantly. ‘He’s great. A great poet. Truly great.’

‘I’m hoping to meet him,’ Gently said.

‘He’s the greatest poet writing today.’

‘I don’t know of a greater,’ Gently said truthfully. ‘I trust this business hasn’t affected his work.’

She gave a small, bitter laugh. ‘What do you want?’

‘I have to talk to you. That’s routine.’

She nodded. ‘Of course. However inconvenient.’

‘Is it inconvenient?’

‘Oh, come in,’ she said.

She led them into the house.

They passed through a broad staircase hall, carpeted and hung with framed maps, into a well-proportioned lounge lit by attractive bow windows. The effect was expensive. The floor was covered with an Indian carpet in pale, washed colours. The furniture, every piece matched, was meticulous Hepplewhite reproduction. The book-shelves were filled with polished bindings, a Tompion-style bracket clock stood on the mantelshelf, and the principal picture, in a heavily carved frame, was a lush landscape by Edward Seago.

‘Sit if you want to.’

Mrs Berney rang a bell, then settled herself lightly on the sofa. Lithe, easy-moving in spite of her condition, she was much too young for that room.

‘This will be your husband’s taste . . .?’

She tipped her head. ‘He probably furnished for his number one. Charlie was only a brewer, remember – draggy rooms made him feel comfortable.’

‘You didn’t mind?’

‘It was Charlie’s way. If I didn’t like it I needn’t have married him.’

‘You loved him enough so it didn’t matter.’

She swished her hair. ‘Please. Stick to routine.’

A puffy-faced countrywoman answered the bell. Mrs Berney ordered iced beers. The woman glanced frowningly at the two policemen and gave a slight shrug as she went out. Docking, who’d stared at her, echoed the shrug, then wandered away to gaze through a window.

Gently seated himself in a Hepplewhite chair.

‘Tell me about your husband,’ he said.

Mrs Berney gave him a long, cool look. ‘My husband loved me,’ she said. ‘That’s the truth.’

‘How did you meet him?’

She gestured. ‘Charlie was a friend of the family,’ she said. ‘I think my father knew his father. He was always dropping in, over at the Manor. When I was a child he was Uncle Charlie, he used to play with Lachlan and me. Then I grew up.’ She smoothed her long thigh. ‘Marrying Charlie seemed the natural thing to do.’

‘But it wasn’t quite a . . . passionate affair?’

‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ She glanced down at her stomach. ‘This took a little more than three months to happen, so presumably there was passion around somewhere.’

‘He was twice your age.’

‘Perhaps that’s how I like it.’

‘You’d know his reputation.’

‘That’s always a challenge.’ She kept stroking her thigh. ‘Anyway, he was passionate all right. It was me he wanted. I spoiled him for the others.’

Gently looked at her steadily. ‘And you really believe that?’

She stared back at him. ‘I know it’s true. But don’t let me upset your marvellous theories – my poor little pride will probably survive.’

The domestic returned with the beers, served in tall, stemmed glasses; Mrs Berney sipped hers sparingly, her eyes gazing past Gently. She wore no make-up, no jewellery, not even a ring on her finger. Her hair, simply long, flowed like fine spun-gold.

‘So it was a happy marriage.’

‘Entirely happy.’

‘Losing your husband has been a great shock.’

She inclined her head. ‘I’m a Stogumber,’ she said. ‘We don’t get knocked off our base so easily.’

‘But you loved him. And he loved you.’

‘Perhaps you’d like me to break down,’ she said. ‘I’m twenty-one, I was married three months. It never had time to seem real in the first place.’

Gently shrugged and swallowed some beer.

‘Let’s talk about your husband’s friends,’ he said. ‘On Monday he gave a party here. Who were the people he invited?’

She laughed. ‘That’s not very subtle. They were mostly friends of mine we invited – young couples, people I knew. Charlie arranged the party for me.’

‘Are the Risings young people?’

‘Jerry and Jill. They’re old friends. Jill taught me to ride. We were over at Clayfield riding on Sunday, and naturally I asked them to come along.’

‘But they were old friends of your husband’s too?’

‘Yes.’ She gave a sling to her hair. ‘Only don’t waste your time digging scandal there – Charlie scarcely spoke to Jill all the evening.’

‘Who did he speak to?’

‘Leo, mostly. That’s Leo Redmayne, father’s cousin. And Lachlan. And Tommy Brightwell. But mostly he was just acting host.’

‘Did you dance, play games?’

‘We danced.’

‘Your husband danced?’

‘He danced with me.’

‘That was discreet of him,’ Gently said.

Mrs Berney gave him a hard stare. ‘As a matter of fact, he danced once with me, then he fell out and played the records for us. He certainly wasn’t hanging round Jill Rising – or anyone else, if it comes to that.’

Gently nodded. ‘So you noticed nothing.’

‘Because there was nothing to notice,’ she said.

‘Not, of course, until after the guests had gone.’

Mrs Berney sat very straight, her eyes angry.

‘So – you’ve been getting at Haynes,’ she said. ‘Oh, don’t deny it! You see, I asked her. And I don’t blame her for saying what she did – what else could she do, being hounded by you people? And it was true. She saw me grab something from Charlie. A sheet of paper – she said it was a letter. And that fitted your wonderful theory, didn’t it? Of course, it was a letter Charlie’d had from a woman!’ She breathed quickly. ‘But you’re wrong,’ she said. ‘Because, you see, it didn’t happen to be a letter. And it belonged to me, not to Charlie. You’re wrong all along the line.’

Gently shrugged. ‘So what was it, Mrs Berney?’

‘Why should I tell you what it was?’

‘You don’t have to,’ Gently said. ‘But if it is something innocent, you’ve no reason not to.’

‘Something innocent!’ She glared at him. ‘All right, then, I will tell you. It was a poem Lachlan had brought to show me. Now admit you were wrong.’

‘A poem . . . ?’

‘Yes – a poem. Lachlan gave it to me as he was leaving. And I didn’t want Charlie making fun of it, that’s why I wouldn’t let him have it.’