Gently to the Summit (9 page)

‘But taken as a hypothesis it could be useful to Kincaid’s Counsel. Suppose it were true: suppose it could be shown that Fleece had begun divorce proceedings: given that Fleece is a rich man, where would that line of reasoning finish?’

‘There are no grounds for such a hypothesis!’

‘But there were grounds for Fleece’s divorce. It was filed on 16th September. On the day when Mrs Fleece booked a room in the Suffolk.’

‘Oh … God!’

It was still theatrical. He slumped forward heavily over the table, a thrown-out arm scattering papers which floated gently to the stone floor. Evans collected and returned them, but Heslington held his pose unmoved. It was photogenic; it might have served for some dramatic historical painting.

‘Have you any comment to make on that?’

He turned his outstretched hand palm upwards.

‘Do you dispute it?’

‘
Humanum est errare
. The truth should be beyond dispute.’

‘Then you see where it leads us?’

‘I see. And I tremble.’

‘Yet you haven’t any comment.’

‘Ought I to have, without my lawyer?’

He drew back slowly from the table, allowing his hand to drag across it; letting it stay there, the arm stiff, while he extended his other hand in a gesture.

‘Listen to me. I admit it all, I won’t abase myself by denying it. I had a presentiment of why you were here, though I did my best to deceive myself. But your hypothesis is false: as false as a late Italian bust. I’ve told the truth about what happened on Snowdon, and in the name of justice you’ve got to believe me. Kincaid was there. I’m sorry for him, but he was there. And he had his reasons.’

Now it was impressive; he had suddenly transcended the air of theatre that surrounded him, producing a hard note of conviction from the soft paste of histrionics. Though he remained with hand
outstretched
like an amateur Mark Antony, it didn’t detract from the overall impression of his sincerity. Was it genuine, or was he treating them to a superior level of art? Gently studied him with interest, his professional palate tickled. Now Heslington dropped the hand, crisply, letting it hang beside him: signalling almost for the supporting dialogue which had waited on his pause. Gently accepted the cue.

‘We’ll set the hypothesis aside for the moment. When did you meet Mrs Fleece, and how long has it been going on?’

Heslington’s hand stirred feebly. ‘Do we have to go into that? I’ve admitted the fact, and it’s not flattering. Surely the details are unimportant.’

‘Didn’t you know her before she married him?’

‘No, I didn’t. Or it wouldn’t have happened. I met her first two years ago, through some mutual friends. The Rogers, of Surbiton.’

‘Didn’t you know her when she lived in Putney?’

‘Putney? I never knew she’d lived there.’

‘But you used to visit Kincaid in Putney.’

‘Suppose I did. That was before the war.’

‘And you didn’t meet there the present Mrs Fleece?’

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t. She was never around. You seem to have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. Sarah’s home used to be in Kensington.’

‘Could you describe Mrs Kincaid to me?’

Heslington’s shoulders moved faintly under the toga. If he saw any danger in these questions he was masking his awareness of it immaculately.

‘I can’t say I remember her very well. She was about Sarah’s build, perhaps a little thinner. She’d got red hair, though it could hardly have been natural, and a pale complexion, and a rather nice voice. Have you found her yet, by the way?’

‘We have an idea of where to look. But haven’t you seen her since those days at Putney?’

‘Me? I’ve never set eyes on her since.’

Gently nodded: he accepted it. The trailing hand had barely flourished. It was conceivable that
Heslington
was ignorant of Mrs Fleece’s antecedents. ‘Let’s return to Mrs Fleece, whom you met two years ago. Give me those unimportant details which you seem to find unflattering.’

The story was scarcely original, for it had been acted since the beginnings of time. The two had met and had been attracted and had found casual ways of meeting again. She’d used a particular restaurant in town and had visited her friends on a certain day; then one day a friend was discreet, and the casual element had vanished. And they had found it more than an affaire, more than a clandestine excitement. It had brought into each of their lives a springlike fragrance of a youth forgotten. They were lovers; they had been
predestined
, they had found and recognized each other; neither of them had experienced love before those thrilling, electric moments.

‘She married Fleece on the rebound from a girlish
crush of some sort. He was wrong for her, completely wrong. He was cold and emotionless and a bit sadistic. She didn’t love him: that was impossible, and all he wanted was a presentable wife. She was there to keep house for him, to give him a background, and to bring up a couple of children.’

She’d been starved for companionship and a little warm affection, a woman who’d married in haste to find that life had misdealt to her. She’d accepted her lot and had been a good wife and mother, but the one half of her was suspended; Fleece had frozen it from the start. Heslington, on the other hand, had seemed a dedicated bachelor. His enthusiasms had excluded him from matrimonial inclinations. During the war he had been in the Navy, where he had experienced some light-hearted affaires, but none of these had left a mark on him or suggested that he should change his state. And these two had come together and the spark had fallen. The girl had wakened in the woman and the boy in the man. A new life had spread before them, a new conception of themselves, a new world, a new age: they had fallen in love.

‘To begin with we made all sorts of good resolutions. There were her children to be considered, she was terribly concerned about them. But soon we found that we just couldn’t do without each other. It grew worse as time went on. We knew a break would have to come.’

‘And Fleece? When did he fmd out?’

‘Fleece knew about it almost from the beginning. One of Sarah’s so-called friends must have told him,
because he wasn’t deceived for long. We knew he knew from the way he treated her. He was full of innuendos and cutting allusions. He gave me to understand that Sarah would never have the children and he practically defied me to get her away without them. He was a sadist, as I told you. He was really enjoying the situation.’

‘And that went on for two years.’

‘Yes, and he was right, damnably right. Sarah loved me, it was tearing her in two, but she couldn’t abandon her children to Fleece. He didn’t care, he wasn’t fond of them. There was no affection in his nature. They were hers and they looked to her, and she couldn’t bear to let them down. It became hellish. We were trapped and there was no way out for us. To give it up was unthinkable, yet her children bound her to this man. And it was no use appealing to him, any more than to a block of stone: less in fact. The block of stone wouldn’t have played cat and mouse with us.’

‘So that was the impasse his death solved.’

Heslington’s look was intensely bitter. ‘Yes, it did. And I’m not a hypocrite; I shan’t pretend to any regrets. But it wasn’t me who did the solving, in spite of all your hypotheses. I’m a beneficiary, that’s all. And God have mercy on Kincaid.’

‘The benefits are certainly plain enough.’ Gently’s incredulous sarcasm was cuttable.

‘Suppose they are. Does that make me a criminal?’ Heslington stared at him, sitting magnificently straight.

‘I don’t know yet what Fleece was worth, but we can estimate a fair-ish sum. And that of course would
have gone down the drain if Fleece had lived to complete his divorce.’

‘And you think I cared about that?’

‘Why not? It was enough to finance a murder.’

‘I’ve money of my own. I earn as much as Fleece did.’

‘Isn’t it a coincidence that Fleece should die a fortnight after filing his divorce?’

At last there were signs of a breakthrough: a little sweat had formed on Heslington’s forehead. That was honest at all events; one didn’t control the activities of sweat glands. He got to his feet.

‘Now listen to this! If it’s coincidences you’re after, tell me why, just give me one reason, why Fleece should file that divorce at all?’

Gently quizzed him through narrowed lids. ‘I wouldn’t know. You’d better tell me.’

‘I wouldn’t know either, but this I know: Fleece would have sat tight till kingdom come. But he didn’t, and that’s the coincidence. He changed his mind very abruptly. He changed his mind directly after Kincaid turned up at the Asterbury.’

Gently shrugged. ‘What makes you think there’s a connection?’

‘Coincidence. Timing. It’s all too pat. That divorce was the biggest shock on earth; it was the last thing that either of us expected. And there has to be a reason for a thing like that. It would need to be something out of the everyday run. Something like a man coming back from the dead, and a lot of publicity: and a lot of questions! It fits too well, there must be a connection. Kincaid returns, and Fleece files his divorce suit.’

‘
Post hoc, propter hoc
, as you’d no doubt tell me.’

‘It’s nothing of the sort. It goes further than that. In some way you don’t know about they were mixed up together, and until you find out what it is you’ll never understand this case.’

‘And you haven’t found it out either?’

‘No. Also, I’m not blind.’

‘Hasn’t Mrs Fleece told you?’

‘She knows nothing about her husband’s secrets.’

‘Or you about hers?’

‘What are you getting at now?’

‘I’m trying to get at what you know about Mrs Paula Kincaid Fleece.’

He didn’t take it in immediately, but when he did it was a visible shock. He sank back on the stool with a heavy, clumsy motion. ‘That can’t – that can’t be true. I’ve known them both. They’re different people.’

‘About Sarah’s build, you said. And both addicted to dyeing their hair.’

‘But no … I couldn’t have met Sarah before!’

‘The reason for Fleece’s sudden divorce.’

‘I know it fits, but it isn’t true.’

‘The factor that mixed them up together.’

‘No!’Heslington shook his head with vigour. ‘You’ve got it wrong. I know you have. Sarah has told me all about her life. Why should she have lied to me about that?’

‘She may have her reasons.’

‘You don’t understand! We’re … well, we
have
no secrets from each other. And you can check it easily; you don’t have to guess. She was married to Fleece at Penwood, near Dorking.’

Gently’s nod was ponderous. ‘Or we can ask the lady herself. In fact, I think we might as well do that. And perhaps you would like to come along with us.’

‘Willingly.’ Heslington rose again quickly, and then he paused. ‘But unfortunately, it can’t be today.’

‘Why not?’

‘She’s in Horsham. She’s gone to visit her daughter. You upset her a bit yesterday and she felt she needed cheering up.’

Gently kept on nodding. He felt in his pocket for his pipe.  

G
ENTLY HAD FINISHED
. Evans showed an
inclination
to linger with Heslington, but when the Yard man made a move he followed obediently out to the car. They both stood still in the rain for a moment, looking back at that remarkable house, which even more now they were outside it seemed to resemble a mislaid stage set. Then they got back into the car.  

Gently mused: ‘That was one for the record! Was he like that when you saw him before, when you were questioning him in Wales?’  

‘Well, he wasn’t wearing a toga. They aren’t a lot of use on Snowdon.’ Evans answered the question seriously, as though its technical side was of interest. ‘He was much the same apart from that: a little peculiar in his ways.’

‘The stage has lost something there.’

‘You think it was all put on, man?’

‘Not all of it. But there wasn’t much he didn’t underline with greasepaint.’

‘So what shall we do about him?’

‘Nothing … he’s given me a touch of Kincaiditis. I want to think about him carefully in case he tempts me to do something rash. But either way we’ve lost Kincaid, unless something damning turns up. We couldn’t prosecute with a principal witness who might have done the job himself.’

‘No, man. I’d worked that out. It’s either Heslington or nothing. And to my way of thinking we might as well turn Kincaid loose.’

‘So you’re still backing Heslington.’

‘I am, I’m telling you.’ Evans eyed him mournfully. His Welsh face was long and sad. ‘Don’t forget there were only two up there, even if Heslington is telling the truth; and I see it plainly now that we can never swear to the other one. So that leaves us with Heslington, telling a lie with a circumstance, and enough motive in his pockets to sink a Cunard liner. It’s a case, man; it’s the only case. We’ll get nothing else out of it. It rests with those two; and we’ve practically eliminated Kincaid.’

‘I wonder.’ Gently brooded over the traffic on the Hill. ‘Nothing’s impossible with Kincaid. He takes whole Everests in his stride. And the case against Heslington is motive and opportunity to nothing: not a winning combination, from a prosecutor’s viewpoint.’

‘Do you think we wouldn’t get a conviction?’

‘I’m sure we wouldn’t. It’s too doubtful. There’s no attacking Heslington’s story of his movements on Snowdon. And he’ll make a sympathetic figure, his defence will see to that, and Fleece the reverse. No jury would give us a conviction.’

‘Then did we ought to drop the case, and save the public some money?’

Gently grinned. ‘Not just yet. Not with the results still coming in. And as for turning Kincaid loose, he’s much too useful where he is. While the charge is still against him, there’s a chance of other people being careless.’

Evans lit a cigarette and jetted smoke at the car’s roof.

‘There’s the Mrs Kincaid angle,’ he said. ‘That might tie the case a bit tighter. If she’s Mrs Fleece, and Heslington knew, and he lured Kincaid to Wales to implicate him, that would show a prior plan and give the jury something to chew at.’

‘Mmn.’ Gently was tepid. ‘It’s time we sorted that out, in any case. We’d better apply to Somerset House and stop waiting for Dorking. Only documents can lie. It’s easy to give false particulars. What we need are some witnesses who remember Mrs Fleece as Sarah Amies.’

‘But there won’t be any if she wasn’t.’

‘That’s the hard fact of the matter. And from what Dorking has told us so far, it doesn’t seem so wide of the mark.’

He dropped Evans, who seemed keen on the
assignment
, at Somerset House and returned to his office to make an abortive call to Dorking. The inspector in charge there was deferentially apologetic, but was apparently no nearer to finding the answers to Gently’s inquiries.

‘It’s all sixes and sevens at Penwood. This is only one of the balls-ups. They’ve just opened a new registry office and the older records are in a mess. As for the Vicar, the old Penwood man, he’s staying with his children in America. We sent him a cable this morning and we’re expecting to hear from him.’

‘What about the Baxters or Blackstables in their house near the church?’

‘Well, actually, they’re all new houses there now. We’ve made inquiries at the post office and they remember some people called Ballinger, but they moved during the war and their forwarding address has been destroyed. They were elderly then.’

‘Nobody remembers any Amieses?’

‘Not so far. Only Amyas, Armes, and Amble …’

Kincaid! He hung up and then rang for a cup of coffee. He sat drinking it and smoking while he peered out of the window. Across the courtyard and over the Embankment the yellowish Thames rolled obscurely, and the sculptured cliffs of County Hall winked their multitudinous lights. How many records did it hold, that neighbouring monster over the river? How many were here, in the innumerable filing systems of Scotland Yard? And throughout London and all the country there existed such collections: in such a wilderness of papers, what hope was there of tracing one?

Yet somewhere in some of those files must lie the answer to his riddles. They could settle the issue of Mrs Kincaid, of Fleece’s money, and of Stanley’s interest. It was a tantalizing thought. Somewhere these facts were in black and white. If he could have magically
assembled the documents a map of the affair would be lying in front of him …

There would go Kincaid, the younger Kincaid, a callow young man fresh up from the country; taking his very junior appointment in the firm where Fleece was already an executive. How did they meet, this unlikely pair? At work, at play; at a social evening? Sharing a rope on the kindly Tryfan, or exchanging partners at the annual works hop? For meet they did, and became acquainted, if not exactly on visiting terms: the pushing young manager of a small
department
and the lowly pay-clerk at his furthest desk …

Then there was the third, the comptometer
operator
, making her awkward journey on the Tube each morning: Sloane Square, changing at Charing Cross, Edgware-Morden to Hendon Central. Young;
good-looking
; not a little ambitious; very probably spoiled by her widowed mother; titivating herself with daring hairdos, and spending the best part of her money on clothes. Naturally, she’d work in or close to the pay department. What was it that attracted her: his strangeness? His provincial oddity? Had the
sought-after
Paula felt sorry for Kincaid, a mothering fondness for the motherless young fellow …?

A Rolls-Royce slicked into the courtyard,
momentarily
displacing his train of thought; not the
Commissioner’s
sombre state-waggon, but a gorgeous beast in electric blue. He watched it cynically over his pipe. Another film star who’d lost her pearls? An ash-blonde stepped from it with a swirl of mink, but she was too far away for him to recognize her.

He dismissed her with a grunt and went back to his musings: Kincaid, Paula, and her unexpected choice. Passing over Arthur Fleece – surely he’d met her at that time? – and all the more obvious and probable candidates. Did she know what she was taking on, in that vanished church in pre-war London? Had she intended to buckle-to as the wife of a wage-earning nobody? She’d perhaps continue with her job at Metropolitan Electric, since that house in Putney must have swallowed a lot of cash; and the gilt would wear off, the hectic romance fall flat, the feeling grow that she’d been a fool and thrown away her chances …

And Fleece was there to remind her of one of the chances she’d thrown away; seeing her now in a new light, as the jewel another man had snatched up. A beauty undeservedly annexed, and a discontented beauty; ready to think again and this time to grasp with a better reach. And Fleece could see fortune. He’d discovered the ways and means. He’d got a tourniquet in his hand and was ready to try his luck with a squeeze. For a man like him, wasn’t she the woman: fair, sophisticated, a social asset; good enough and
ambitious
enough, but not expensive: the very thing?

Gently paused to backtrack on that. Was he quite sure it was sound? Wasn’t there something slightly amiss with that part of the picture? An ambitious man might have looked higher, above the level of Kincaid’s wife; a climber himself, he would want a mate who was already to some extent in possession. That was the flaw in the fabric; a blind passion was out of the question; he was too much in Fleece’s skin to believe that love
had been the moving force. It might have piqued his pride to obtain her and he might have considered her had she been single, but as it was had the prize been worth the effort, including Everest and attempted murder? Obviously not, to a man like Fleece, a chilly egoist and a weigher of chances. It was an insufficient motive, the motive was much more likely to have been money. And he had returned, having disposed of Kincaid, to collect what must have been a substantial sum, paid by someone, it had to follow, to whom Kincaid had spelled danger. Yet who could Kincaid have threatened, that obscure little pay-clerk? What terrible secret had he learned and perhaps still carried in his head?

It seemed improbable; but if it were true, till now Gently had been pursuing a chimera, and the
disappearance
of Mrs Kincaid took on a darker, more sinister aspect …

His phone buzzed; he grabbed it impatiently. It was the sergeant on the desk.

‘There’s a lady here wants to see you, sir. Gives the name of Mrs Askham.’

‘Tell her I’m busy.’

‘It’s about your case, sir. She wants you and nobody else.’

‘What about my case?’

‘She won’t say, sir. A bit upstage, the lady is.’

Gently hesitated. ‘She isn’t that blonde, is she? The one who drove up in a Rolls?’

‘… wearing mink, sir. That’s the one.’

Gently fingered his tie. ‘Very well. Send her up.’

He shrugged largely, shaking his head: out of the blue it was coming, this one! The name of Askham rang no bells, nothing in society or on the stage or screen. He was belatedly reaching for his copy of
Who’s Who
when his door was tapped and the lady walked in.

‘I read in the papers that you were anxious to trace Kincaid’s wife, Superintendent. Since I was in London I thought I would call on you. Paula Kincaid used to be my secretary.’

She was superb. She was in the manner of women who have always had the bank behind them. She sat with legs meticulously crossed and her chin held at a patrician angle. Beneath her mink she wore a lilac suit, and it matched exactly the tint of her eyes; the legs, whole worlds from being mere limbs, were barely sheened with nylon mist. Perhaps the last thing one noticed about her, if one succeeded in noticing it at all, was that her age was ‘twenty-nine’, it might be almost approaching thirty. She spoke with a ringingly modulated voice which was also distinct from the purely functional.

‘You are still interested in the woman, are you?’

‘Oh yes!’ Gently assembled his truant wits.

‘Because if you aren’t I won’t continue to waste my time and yours. As it is, my information is probably of doubtful value. But I had an hour between
engagements
and I thought that this might fill it in.’

‘You are very kind, Mrs Askham.’

She flicked him a look from between well-brushed lashes. Some delicate shadowing, a touch of crimson,
they were eyes a camera would have doted on, and at the distance of a desk the effect was quite
breathtaking
. Her angelic hair was swept up in a high wave and caught in a web of lilac organdie.

‘First, you’d like to have my particulars. I am Mrs Harry Askham. My town address is in Mount Street; I left my card down at the desk. My late husband, as no doubt you know, was what is called an industrial magnate. He was a cousin of Lord Cliffley’s and related to the Blount family.’

She paused, as though intending to let these particulars sink in. Then she said:

‘I think it likely that Mrs Kincaid is still in Wales. My country place is at Beaumaris, and we were living there when I discharged her. She was fond of Wales, as she often told me, and I heard later that she was living at Caernarvon.’

Gently rocked a little in his chair. This was too much, coming all in one mouthful! After so much painful and laboured digging, now to have it handed to him on a platter …! How many people were there around like this, waiting for an hour between their engagements, or just not bothering at all, not giving a damn for the oafish police?

He became aware of Mrs Askham watching him suspiciously.

‘I wouldn’t be boring you, would I?’ she asked.

‘No. Far from it.’

‘I only ask because I don’t want you to think me a pest. You must get a number of frivolous callers who imagine they have important information, and I should
hate to be classed as one of them. This is my first visit to the police.’

‘I assure you I’m very interested.’

‘Then would you like to ask me some questions?’

‘I would. I would indeed.’

Mrs Askham complacently smoothed her skirt.

‘When did you engage Paula Kincaid, Mrs Askham?’

‘When? Oh, in the summer of nineteen-
thirty-seven
. She was a widow, you know, or thought she was. Rather teary and mournful. Though she soon got over it.’

‘Did you engage her through an agency?’

‘Oh no. My husband suggested her.’

‘Your husband?’

‘Harry Askham. He knew I was looking for a secretary. When you’re running three establishments and that sort of thing, then a secretary becomes essential. Otherwise you’d go mad.’

‘But how did your husband come to know of her?’

‘He employed her, of course; she worked at the firm. He thought it would be doing the girl a good turn, or so he said at the time.’

‘And his firm?’ Gently gaped.

Her lilac eyes opened reprovingly.

‘Metropolitan Electric. Harry
was
Met. L.’

Did she know she was a bombshell, sitting there so expensively, with a hint of the air of a duchess extracting amusement from a clown? If she did, she didn’t show it. She’d learned not to wrinkle her precious skin. And her eyes, cool and bold, merely stared at him interestedly.