Gently in Trees (7 page)

‘You wished to talk to me about Adrian?’ Her voice resembled Walling’s, but had a chilling precision.

Gently nodded woodenly. ‘But I’d prefer to talk to you on your own.’

‘Oh – this is Ivan. You will want him too. He was working with Adrian last week. Evidence of state of mind, you know. From what I’ve read it could have been suicide.’

Gently glanced at her companion. ‘Ivan Webster?’

‘Right on the button, fuzz,’ the Struwwelpeter replied. He had bold, humourless grey eyes, and a beak-like nose: avine features.

‘So what was his state of mind?’ Gently asked.

‘Bloody,’ Webster said. ‘Extra bloody.’ He nodded towards the script on the sofa. ‘He hung enough rewrite on me to keep me sweating for a week.’

‘Would that be unusual?’

Webster eyed him. ‘No. He was always a sod to work with. Only last week he was busting all records. Like there was something special eating him.’

‘Do you know what it was?’

Webster paused. ‘Is it a secret?’

‘I’m asking you,’ Gently said.

‘Oh, it isn’t a secret,’ Nina Walling said impatiently. ‘Not to me and not to Ivan.’

‘Because we relate, you know,’ Webster leered. ‘The liberation thing. You catch it, fuzz?’

Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘So now you can tell me.’

‘It was his deal with Daddy,’ Nina Walling said promptly. ‘Daddy is having some trouble with his package tour business, and Adrian got uptight and wanted to pull out. Adrian was always in a twist about money. He couldn’t freewheel with it like Daddy.’

‘Stoll told you about it?’

‘Of course not! Daddy told me about it, on Friday. But it would have worked out all right. Adrian knew he could trust Daddy, really.’

‘When did you last see Stoll?’

‘Midweek sometime. I think it was Wednesday.’

‘Not since then?’

‘No. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets.’

‘Not the liberation thing?’

Webster chuckled sardonically, but Nina Walling seemed not at all put out.

‘We related,’ she said. ‘The father-daughter thing. It was a liberation that Adrian needed.’

‘And helpful to you?’

‘Of course. What’s wrong with people helping one another?’

‘In this case it seems to have affected some other people.’

‘Whom Adrian had been helping for a long time anyway.’ She hesitated, her eyes firmly on Gently’s. ‘I didn’t want to cause them trouble,’ she said. ‘I wasn’t bugging Adrian to unrelate with them. That was his decision entirely.’

‘So he told you of his intentions?’

‘Yes. He was going to make a clean break. I think it was largely that he’d grown away from Maryon. Which is something that happens all the time.’

‘Did he mention any provision for her?’

Nina Walling shook her head. ‘But she had been living off him for years.’

‘His will?’

She shook her head again. ‘But I’m certain he would have seen her all right,’ she said.

‘He wasn’t a bad bastard,’ Webster murmured. ‘Like just a bastard, period, period.’

Gently considered Webster expressionlessly. ‘What was your relation with Stoll, precisely?’ he said.

Webster laughed. ‘I’m a scriptwriter,’ he said. ‘One of those people Adrian ate before breakfast. But I lived with it, fuzz. First and last, I worked with Adrian for four years. In a hateful way we kind of related. Like I read his mind better than most.’

‘How long have you known Miss Walling?’

Webster double-took. ‘Now you’re getting naughty thoughts, fuzz. I didn’t gas Adrian, though sometimes I might have done. Like someone else got in first.’

‘You think it’s a joke?’ Gently said.

‘
I
think it was suicide,’ Webster said. ‘Him getting in a twist thiswise, thatwise, and finding it kept adding up to zero. It’s a soft way to go, sniffing gas, like going to sleep without setting the alarm. And Adrian was a loner, an upshut guy. As a character, I can see him wanting to bust out.’

‘Have you ever been to Brayling?’

‘Yah.’

‘You know the forest?’

‘I know bits.’

‘Then let’s hear what you were doing last weekend.’

Webster rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Fuzz,’ he said, ‘you are lovely. You are a very nice person. Give me time, and I could relate. But all last weekend I was in town.’

‘Doing what in town?’

‘Like first I was eating in the Centre canteen. That was after Adrian had blown, remember? Then I went home to work on the script.’

‘Went where?’

‘My flat in Battersea, just off Albert Bridge Road. After which I collected Nina from the Capri, and we had a drink, and I drove her home. Want me to go on?’

Gently said nothing.

‘All of which I confirm,’ Nina Walling said frostily.

‘Oh, but he’s so lovely,’ Webster chanted. ‘Get that Squaresville jaw. I’ll have to use him, somewhere.’

‘And now,’ Nina said, ‘perhaps we can go – if you’ve finished with the corny questions. Have you finished?’

Gently shrugged. The two of them went out, Webster to wait in the car.

Lyons was staring uncertainly at Gently. ‘Were you serious about that fellow, sir?’ he asked.

Gently made a face. ‘I don’t know. Just that he seemed to be asking for a try-on.’

‘I can’t see any motive for him,’ Lyons said doubtfully. ‘Stoll would be worth more to him alive than dead.’

‘Still,’ Gently said, ‘you may as well check him.’

Lyons sighed to himself, very softly.

L
ATCHFORD HAD CHANGED
in a number of ways since Gently was there a decade earlier. The main road now sliced through the north of the town, which put him at fault when he drove in. The industrial sector and the raw overspill estates had further encroached on the silent brecks: a more extensive urbation, though still wholly alien, still seeming at the frontiers of a hostile land. But the change was most subtle in the old town, which apparently hadn’t changed at all; where the same narrow, crooked, rather seedy streets spidered round the small market-place and the Regency town hall. Now it had a bruised, fading look, as though over-punished by traffic and people – still hanging on to its rigid identity, but growing ghostly, like the brecks. Latchford, the new technological community, was shaping this spectre in its midst: and raising along with it a strange question – who, in truth, was haunting who?

But there was nothing ghostly about Metfield, who seemed a different man on his own patch. He came down the steps of the police station to welcome Gently with a confident hand. A press photographer recorded the event, while his colleague tried for a statement: Gently murmured generalities about a routine exchange and hastened into the station. Metfield bustled after him, full of buck. He ushered Gently into his office.

‘No go at the other end, sir?’

Gently sighed and took a seat. ‘I wouldn’t exactly say that. Lyons is continuing his investigation.’

‘But this Walling chap – you’ve cleared him?’

‘Walling has given us an account of his movements. Lyons is checking it out now. It may be difficult to prove much against Walling.’

‘That was my opinion all along, sir.’ Metfield dropped happily behind his desk. ‘It has to be someone who knows the forest. Nobody else is worth considering.’

‘A local man.’

‘No question, sir. Or someone who’s lived round here for a while. And that’s the cousin, Edwin Keynes. He’s the only one who could have set it up.’

‘With or without collaboration.’

‘Yes, sir.’ Metfield nodded vigorously. ‘They’re all in it, that’s my belief – Keynes, her, the daughter, and the painter who’s living with him. All we need now is a bit of luck, so that we can show they knew what Stoll had in mind for them.’

Gently crossed his legs cautiously. ‘We can probably show that.’

‘We can, sir?’ Metfield’s eyes sparkled excitedly.

‘Walling coughed. He was a guest at Brayling Lodge the previous weekend. A row started when Stoll caught his cousin and Maryon Britton kissing. They revealed that they were aware of Stoll’s relations with Miss Walling, and Stoll gave the Brittons notice to quit, and spoke of making a fresh will.’

‘Then we’ve got them, sir!’

Gently grinned at the local man. ‘Perhaps not quite.’

‘But why not, sir? This Walling can’t go back on his cough.’

‘He might,’ Gently said. ‘But we can put pressure on him, so I don’t think he will. But that still gives us only motive and propinquity, neither of which are hard evidence. Unless you can add something?’

Metfield did his swallowing trick, and shook his head.

‘So it isn’t enough,’ Gently said. ‘Grounds for strong suspicion, but that’s all. We’ll have to get after them a bit harder, turn up some evidence that will stick.’ He paused. ‘Did you process the pamphlet?’

‘Yes, sir.’ Metfield sounded glum. ‘There’s a fair latent on it, a stranger, along with Stoll’s and some of ours. We sent a copy to C.R.O., but chummie isn’t on record.’

‘Let me see it.’

Metfield opened a drawer, and passed a slim leaflet to Gently. In fact, it consisted of a single buff sheet, twice folded, like a map. On the cover was a woodcut of a red squirrel, sitting alertly on a pine branch, along with the titling:
LATCHFORD FOREST/JUBILEE FOREST TRAIL
/Forestry Commission/2½p. Gently opened it. It commenced with a preamble about the forest, then continued with notes on features of the trail, numerically keyed to a plan at the back. ‘Stop No. 4’ was the critical entry. A woodcut of badger spoor was annexed to it. After some remarks on natural regeneration the text continued thus:

The belt of Scots Pine on your left is known locally as Mogi’s Belt, after a dog called Mogi which was accidentally killed here during a pheasant shoot. Mogi’s Belt, which is W.D. property, is strictly private, and notices warn you of unexploded bombs.

The fence at this point is designed to exclude harmful herbivores, but one animal, the BADGER, is a good friend to the forester, since his diet includes insects which cause harm to the trees. He is a creature of strict habits, especially in routes to and from his sett, so that once he has a path established he will use it in spite of obstacles placed across it. Thus, to avoid the continued expense of fence repairs, it was found necessary to install the gate you see here, which provides two-way access for badgers while discouraging rabbits and hares.

These two paragraphs had been marked with a red ballpen; and the plan had been similarly marked, where it showed the trail passing Mogi’s Belt. Also drawn in was a small circle, presumably indicating the badger sett.

Gently laid the pamphlet on the desk. ‘Where do you buy these?’ he asked.

Metfield shrugged. ‘You can buy them at the Forest Centre, or from self-service units at some of the car parks. But they have them here in town, too. One of the newsagents stocks them. I put a man on trying to trace this one, but he was beat before he started.’

‘Let me see Stoll’s personal effects.’

Metfield fetched a plastic bag from a locker. Among the bits and pieces was a Parker ballpen. Gently scribbled with it. Red.

Metfield stared at the red scribble. ‘It doesn’t prove anything,’ he said. ‘Stoll may have marked it up himself, but somebody must have told him where to put the circle.’

‘He might have guessed where it went from the text.’

‘That circle is near enough spot-on.’

‘So,’ Gently shrugged. ‘Someone told him. Gave him the pamphlet. Set it up.’

He checked through the rest of the effects, an expensive but oddly anonymous collection, as though Stoll had lately gone out with a thick bank roll and kitted himself out from scratch. Nothing personalized by wear, and a minimum of documents. A notebook, charmingly bound in crimson lambskin, contained only a handful of scribbled memos – ‘Shoot Ps. Wed.’ ‘Rs. Fri.’ etc. It confirmed what Gently had seen at the flat, which was similarly expensive and impersonal – the
pied à terre
of a highly paid worker, with the tools of his trade, and little else. For example, no personal letters, but a batch of truly stupendous phone bills. While matters domestic and secretarial had been taken care of by agencies. Stoll had been a loner: outside his vocation, very little of him had overflowed.

Metfield produced the will. It was dated October, 1965, the year of Stoll’s divorce and the purchase of Brayling. It left no doubt that at the time it was drawn, Maryon Britton stood high in Stoll’s regard. Probably more than one-half of his estate was being willed to her, and away from his own child, while the bequests to her daughter and to Edwin Keynes cut a fat slice from the remainder. Stoll’s ex-wife, Rosalind Rix, was conspicuously absent from the carve-up.

‘Enough motive there, sir,’ Metfield murmured, reading the will over Gently’s shoulder.

‘If they knew the size of it,’ Gently grunted. ‘And we’ve no reason yet to suppose they did.’

‘He’d have told her at the time, sir. He was barmy about her.’

‘He doesn’t strike me as having been that sort of man.’

‘At least he would have told her she was getting the house.’

But would he? They were dealing with Adrian Stoll.

Metfield’s prize exhibit, the blue Volkswagen Dormobile, was locked away in an M/T garage. Its engine started first bang, and Metfield backed it into the yard. Predictably it was newish, immaculate and impersonal: another tool of Stoll’s trade. It differed from standard in only one particular, being fitted with a second, heavy-duty battery, with an exterior take-off. This was apparently to power the floodlight, which was still packed in the vehicle, along with a camera-stand, portable flash and several cans of unused film. For the rest, one more Dormobile, smelling of soft fabric and curtaining, with a single sleeping-bag and pillow, and the makings of a mug of powdered coffee.

Metfield unbuttoned the roof and raised it until spring pegs locked the supports. Then he opened one of two, large, orange-perspex ventilators, showing how they gapped downwards when the roof was erected. Next he made up the bed, by drawing out hinged seat-cushions and sliding them laterally over the fitted cool-box; and finally fetched the gas bottle, with the hose attached, and fed the hose into the open ventilator. It dangled within eighteen inches of the head of the bed.