Gently in Trees (17 page)

‘Have you – come for me, too?’

Gently smiled and shook his head. ‘Just to tell you not to worry about Lawrence.’

‘But you’ve got him, haven’t you?’

‘No. It’s as you were told. He borrowed Mr Keynes’s car and drove to London.’

She caught at a strand of blonde hair. ‘But you’d lie to me anyway. That’s the way you get people to talk.’

Gently shrugged. ‘Then your mother is lying too, and Mr Keynes. We must all be in it.’

She stood regarding him suspiciously for a few moments, but then timidly advanced to the brick step. Her hair looked ragged and unbrushed, and there were stains of tears on her thin cheeks.

‘If you haven’t got him, then where is he?’

‘By his own account he was going to London.’

‘But Lawrence doesn’t know anybody in London! And why would he go without telling me?’

‘Would he have told you?’

‘Yes – of course! I might have wanted to go with him. In fact, I probably would have gone with him.’

‘Perhaps that’s why he didn’t tell you.’

She chewed her lip. ‘It’s your fault, anyway. You
know
that Lawrence didn’t do it. You’ve just been laying into Lawrence and hoping that someone else will confess.’

‘Who else, Miss Britton?’

She eyed him sullenly. ‘It wouldn’t be Edwin, of course, would it? He’s much too clever! If
he
killed Adrian you may as well give up now. And Mother, it wouldn’t be her, because Mother knows how to get round you. Mother is an
actress
, or haven’t you noticed? She’s never been known to fluff a line.’ She leaned against the doorpost, squinting up at him. ‘Why haven’t you been questioning
me?
’ she said. ‘Oh, not just taking a silly statement, but really grilling me – like Lawrence?’ She thrust her face forward. ‘
Why
haven’t you? That’s what I’m finding so very strange.’

Gently sighed. ‘Have you the keys to the Imp?’

‘No – but I could have borrowed Lawrence’s.’

‘Or used the Rapier?’

‘No – yes, because I cleaned it jolly soon afterwards.’

‘Then you would have cleaned the Imp, if you’d used that.’

‘Well, that could have been to divert suspicion. To make you think it was really Edwin, who is quite capable of looking after himself.’

‘So you want me to suppose that you are the culprit?’

She breathed deeply. ‘Yes. And you keep ignoring me.’

Gently shook his head slowly. ‘Not ignoring you, Miss Britton. When you seem so certain that your friend is guilty.’

She went suddenly white, as though he had slapped her. ‘But that – that’s ridiculous!’ she stammered.

‘Not at all, Miss Britton. Lawrence Turner loves you. You find it quite credible that he would do this thing.’

‘But I
know
he didn’t!’

Gently hunched. ‘On the contrary. I’m beginning to think you may know he
did
. Because before suspicion ever turned towards Turner, you were trying to draw it towards yourself.’

She gave a little gasp, and for a moment gazed round-eyed, her small mouth open, showing teeth. But then, in the distant quietness of the hall, the telephone began to ring.

‘Lawrence!’

She sprang back into the house, her fair hair flying. Gently followed. She snatched up the phone, a triumphant smile on her pale face.

‘Yes – it’s me!’

But the smile vanished, lapsed into a sullen, baffled expression.

‘Oh . . . yes. Hold on.’ She held out the phone to Gently. ‘Yours.’

Gently took it. The caller was Metfield.

‘I wondered if I’d catch you, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve just had a couple of visitors who I thought you’d like to see.’

Gently grunted. ‘What visitors?’

‘Two from London, sir,’ Metfield said. ‘There’s the actress, Miss Walling, and a TV writer, Ivan Webster.’

‘What do they want?’

‘I don’t quite know, sir. Shall I tell them you’re on your way?’

Gently nodded to the gloom of the hall. ‘Yes. You can certainly tell them that.’

Outside the police station stood Webster’s Volvo, bronze and black, with London grime on it. No hint of redness in its dust-film, or revealing stain on its fat Michelins. Gently brooded round it for a while, studying the small scars, the cluttered interior. He tried a door; it had been left unlocked – and dumped in the back was a Leica camera. He slammed the door and went into the station, where the desk-sergeant nodded towards Metfield’s office.

Webster sat sprawled on a chair by the window, smoking a cigarette in an amber holder. He was dressed in tight-waisted bell-bottom trousers and a sheepskin coat, with no shirt under it. On a chair by the filing-cabinets sat Nina Walling, in a gown that fell straight from shoulder to heel. Its deep V-neck reached almost to her navel and revealed the nakedness of small breasts. She too was smoking: she had a long jet holder. Neither took any notice of Gently’s entrance.

Metfield rose from the desk, where he’d been toying with paper-work, to leave the seat of honour to Gently. Gently took it. Webster reached languidly to the window and flicked ash into the MsT yard. He turned with slow, lazy arrogance.

‘How’s life in the country, fuzz?’ he drawled. ‘Like it’s so peaceful here, in the depths. Even the fuzz-scene is relaxed.’

‘You have some business?’ Gently said.

‘Yah, yah,’ Webster drawled. ‘Though mostly it’s just a social call. But you can say we have business too.’

‘Well?’

Webster gestured to Nina Walling.

‘We want to know where my father stands,’ she said chillily. ‘All this time he is being hounded by you people, if not for one thing then for another. So we want this business cleared up, at least, before he becomes a nervous wreck. And every time we inquire of Inspector Lyons he refers us to you.’

Webster nodded his bush of hair. ‘That’s the curve, fuzz. Why we hit the rural scene.’

‘By now,’ Nina Walling said, ‘you’ve surely made some progress. So we can expect a positive statement.’

Her green eyes probed at Gently: small eyes in a small face. But set regally, on a long neck; a little snake-like. And cold.

‘Did your father send you?’ Gently asked.

‘My father is occupied with assisting the police. They have taken over his business premises and they might just as well have taken over the flat. My father is ruined. I am trying to prevent him from becoming a mental wreck as well.’

‘But did he send you?’

‘No, he didn’t.’

‘Like he’s too hung up, fuzz,’ Webster said. ‘You should be up there giving it the action. He’d tell you anything you wanted to hear.’

‘He is in a highly disturbed state,’ Nina Walling said. ‘And it’s time he was shown some mercy.’

She inhaled smoke and nostrilled it, letting her eyes slide past Gently’s. Webster’s eyes were narrowed, peering from behind eaves of hair.

‘Your father’s position is still being investigated,’ Gently said. ‘We have reasons for continuing our interest.’

‘But not for hounding him,’ Nina Walling said. ‘Which is what you are doing to him now.’

Gently shrugged. ‘We have to ask him to help us. His account of his movements has not been verified. He was plainly under some threat from Mr Stoll. We have learned nothing yet that excludes your father.’

Webster guffawed. ‘That’s levelling, fuzz!’

‘Only it’s nonsense!’ Nina Walling snapped sharply. ‘You know, we all know where Daddy went – he had been visiting that creature in Brighton for years. Daddy kept him, did you know that? Just like another man might keep a woman. And he pretended to have a sister there, to deceive Nigel – just as another man might deceive his wife! Isn’t that true, Ivan?’

‘The truest,’ Webster said. ‘Oscar’s been cheating on Nigel for ever. And like everyone knows but Nigel. Isn’t that a sweet situation for a deadpan script?’

Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t help,’ he said. ‘It would have been better if Vivian Chance had been a stranger. If he is being kept, then his witness is suspect. And we have found nothing to support it.’

‘Oh, how ridiculous!’ Nina Walling exclaimed.

‘We could say he was at home, fuzz,’ Webster drawled. ‘Just, like, to get you off the hook with Oscar, who sure as satan didn’t kill Adrian. I was at the flat till after midnight.’

Gently flicked a look at him. ‘How long after?’

‘Yah – about,’ Webster drawled. ‘Could have been half-past, or getting for one.’ He let his eyes hood. ‘I’ll add it up, fuzz. I got to the Capri at eleven. That was before the curtain came down, like maybe five or ten minutes to go. Then Nina cleans up and dresses, and there’s drinks and chatter, you know, and there’s twenty minutes to Campden Hill, and ten minutes’ chat when we get there.’ He opened his eyes wide again. ‘Call it one a.m. – like I could make it stand up in court, fuzz. Then just as I’m leaving, in comes Oscar, who has changed his mind about staying at Brighton – and man, he’s tired with all that driving, he goes straight in to hit the sack.’ He looked mockingly at Gently. ‘Any help to you, fuzz?’

Gently stared. ‘What happened next?’

Webster’s grey eyes gleamed. ‘You’re being unkind, fuzz. Like I’m only trying to straighten you out.’

‘So tell me what happened.’

‘I love him,’ Webster said. ‘I went home to my sack too. Across the river in old Battersea, a seagull’s poop from Father Thames. Any comeback?’

Gently said nothing.

‘I love all fuzz,’ Webster said. ‘They bring out the mother in me. Getting bust by fuzz is like sexual.’

Nina Walling snatched her head impatiently. ‘But all this is so much nonsense! Daddy was in Brighton, that’s flat, and obviously you believe it too. Because if you don’t, why are you here, and leaving Daddy to a subordinate? It’s because you expect an arrest at this end, and from all I know, you’re absolutely right.’

‘Then you no longer believe that Mr Stoll committed suicide?’

‘That was my theory, fuzz,’ Webster said. ‘It could be either way, but if it’s a killing, then you have to agree with Nina. Somebody out here stood to lose a lot, and that somebody knew where to find Adrian. Like it sticks out past Christmas. You aren’t even trying to hang it on Oscar.’

‘In that case, Mr Walling has nothing to worry about.’

Yah,’ Webster said. ‘But he has. Oscar is too hung up to be thinking sense. He has to know for sure that you’ve crossed him off.’

Gently slowly shook his head. ‘I can’t give Mr Walling clearance. Not even if he did happen to be in Brighton.’

‘Even if we could prove it to you?’ Nina Walling snapped.

‘That fact alone doesn’t clear him.’

They gazed at Gently: Nina Walling furiously, Webster with alert, probing eyes.

‘Yah?’ he said. ‘How’s that?’

Gently shrugged, and swivelled his chair to face away from them.

‘Your father is a man of wide connections, Miss Walling. In the spectrum of finance they come in all colours. At certain levels a man’s life is a commodity, and it was one that your father could easily afford.’

‘But that – that’s just
crazy!
’
Nina Walling burst out
.

‘Not at all, Miss Walling. We think it very likely.’

‘But you can’t – it’s ludicrous!’

‘The pattern is familiar. And your father was a desperate man.’

‘Oh boy!’ Webster said. ‘Oh boy!’

‘Listen,’ Nina Walling said. ‘It’s just utterly fantastic! Daddy doesn’t mix with that sort of people. All right, he knows plenty who have been on the fiddle, but not thugs and murderers. Daddy isn’t like that. He’s
a refined
person; he has a horror of violence and violent people. You just don’t know him, that’s all, and it’s so ridiculous that I could weep.’

‘You are convinced that your father has no criminal connections?’

‘Oh lord – yes, yes!’

Gently swung back to her. ‘So that would leave us with amateur confederates. Which the style of the crime seems to suggest.’

Her green eyes popped at him; her mouth set tight. Two points of pallor appeared over her cheekbones.

Webster gave a sardonic chuckle. ‘Nicely taken, fuzz!’ he said softly.

‘You follow my point?’ Gently said.

‘Yah, yah, she follows it,’ Webster said. ‘Like Oscar had friends who might have helped out. No need to take a sledge-hammer, fuzz.’

Gently’s eyes stayed fixed on Nina Walling’s. ‘Friends or acquaintances,’ he said. ‘Among them some who were no friends of Mr Stoll’s, perhaps some who believed he had done them an injury. And among those people one more callous, more vindictive than the rest: one with a deep and permanent resentment, perhaps freshly inflamed by recent developments. Does that suggest anyone to you, Miss Walling? Among your father’s acquaintances – and yours?’

Webster laughed harshly. ‘Say the odd two dozen, or like anyone who Adrian had been working with lately.’

Nina Walling was staring with eyes in which the pupils had gone small.

‘One special person,’ Gently persisted. ‘Because probably it was only the one person – who may have suggested the measure to your father; may have counted on your father taking the blame?’

‘Oh, he’s so lovely,’ Webster said. ‘What a shame it’s only a dream, fuzz.’

‘Wouldn’t you know him?’ Gently said. ‘Would it be possible for you
not
to know him?’

Nina Walling opened her mouth and closed it again. Her long fingers twitched at her loose gown. Her eyes winced and tried to drag clear, but Gently held them in a steady stare.

‘I . . . it’s so
senseless
!’ She faltered, at last.

‘Tell me the name of that person, Miss Walling.’

‘No . . . there is no person! Daddy wouldn’t . . . it’s unthinkable.’

‘But someone you suspect – though your father is innocent?’

‘No!’ She began mechanically shaking her head.

‘Someone you know, with a different motive?’

‘No – nobody! It’s all nonsense.’

‘Oh these fuzz, these fuzz,’ Webster jeered. ‘Like how they try to pitch a curve. Jacking the words into your mouth for you. Pulling a deal out of nowhere. Why not ask me the questions, fuzz?’

Gently swivelled quickly. ‘Right. I’m asking.’

‘And like I’m going to give you a tip, fuzz. Just keep up the pressure on Lawrence Turner.’