Gently to the Summit (16 page)

‘The sequel is instructive: it was his sense of guilt and nothing else that did for Fleece. Askham had no intention of attacking him, nor could he have done so if he’d wished. But Fleece’s guilt prevented him from seeing it. I imagine he had only one thought: here was a person who he’d driven to extremes, and who was about to act as he himself would have acted. The shock unnerved him. He gave a shout of dismay. He lost his balance, and with a scream toppled backwards.’

Gently broke off, his nice sense of timing warning him that here he should relight his pipe. His authority was felt, for neither the C.C. nor Evans unsettled the spell with a question. From outside came the patter of rain. It was beating insistently on the pavements below. Only just in time had they gone to the mountain, subpoenaing the sun to be a witness …

‘Askham was petrified, but he knew he’d be a fool if he stopped there to explain matters. Forgetting his cigarette-case, which he’d dropped, he made tracks for Llanberis. At Trecastles he told his mother and they agreed between them to keep it quiet, but later he remembered the cigarette-case and the loss of it preyed on his mind. The case, of course, had been Kincaid’s; it had a history of its own. It had been given him by his wife a short time before the expedition. But on the same day, which was his birthday, he’d learned something suspicious about his wife; there’d been a row, he’d returned the case, and she’d taken to using it as a gesture of defiance. Kincaid was disturbed when
I showed it him. It concealed a memory which he wanted kept concealed.

‘However, the fact that it had been Kincaid’s suggested a piece of embroidery to Askham. He knew by his own experience that people tended to
remember
Kincaid. So the next day he drove into Llanberis and reported to the police about seeing Kincaid, giving them the name of ‘Basil Gwynne-Davies’ and an address he’d noticed in Bangor. The result exceeded his expectations; he had intended only to confuse the inquiry. But on the evidence there was nothing we could do except to arrest Kincaid and charge him. And then immediately a fresh danger arose, since we were bound to investigate the antecedents of Kincaid, and so the threat which should have died with Fleece was revived in a second and more alarming form. The Askhams fled from Wales to London, where they consulted their friend, Mr Stanley. They conspired to obstruct what inquiry they could and, in Askham’s case, to lay the ghost of Paula entirely.

‘Again it was he who went one too many. I could credit Mrs Askham, and Stanley’s obstructions only baffled me. But Henry’s gambit I knew for a fake, it was much too obvious and convenient, and once I grasped how it tied in the case began to fall together. But Henry wasn’t going to split, and showing motive wasn’t enough. I had to know and prove before witnesses exactly what happened up there on Monday. So I put him through the reconstruction, which was the only course open to me. And it worked, I’m pleased to say. The rest was merely a matter of production.’

‘So I noticed.’ The C.C. was gruff after his long bout of silence. He looked away, tweaking his moustache with alternate jerkings of his face muscles. ‘But, dash it all, there was a chance there … you needn’t have sunk the lady’s canoe. Once you were certain that it was an accident you might have given it the soft pedal.’

Gently nodded. ‘I did think about it. Though she rated a reprimand. But then I saw it in a different way as I was coming down Snowdon.’

Evans said roundly: ‘Kincaid, man,’ as though he had suddenly solved a problem.

Gently nodded again. ‘Yes, Kincaid, man. We owed him something. I thought his wife.’

He took the noon train for town after spending a Sunday morning with Evans, admiring Caernarvon, which was easy, and submitting to the Welshman’s long post-mortem. Evans had lost, but he bore no grudge for it; he appeared to have forgotten his dimmed hopes of promotion. His object now was to study that case and to dwell on each aspect of the way Gently had handled it. He wanted to learn and he acknowledged his master. He acknowledged the
insufficiency
of his restless logic. He had seized on the secret that logic was not enough, and he wanted to be logically certain that he was reading it aright. He developed his ideas with a native fervour, and Gently responded to him generously.

At the police station they met the Chief Constable again: another man who had been indulging in
meditations on Kincaid. He succeeded in cornering Gently in the superintendent’s office, where after some introductory compliments he came down to the business near to him.

‘You know, I can’t help thinking that our man was a bit simple. Damn it, he might have waited a day before hanging a charge on Kincaid.’

Poor Evans. Gently was glad that the office door was closed between them. He paused before returning an answer and raised his brows in surprised dissent.

‘Our Assistant Commissioner was convinced we had a case against Kincaid.’

‘Oh, was he?’ The C.C.’s tone sounded deferential but doubting. ‘All the same, it was rather hasty. He showed a lack of judgement, I thought. It doesn’t do our name any good to go throwing capital charges around.’

‘In principle, of course.’ Gently conceded the point ungraciously. ‘But in the circumstances we felt your man acted properly and with intelligence. Kincaid’s apprehension was necessary: he appeared to have had a powerful motive for murder. He was also in funds and he had no ties. He might have disappeared at any moment.’

‘I see your point.’ The C.C. thought about it. He continued to look unenthusiastic. ‘Perhaps I’m being wise after the event, but you must admit I have some grounds for it.’

‘You’re doing less than justice to Evans.’

‘Oh no. I’ve always thought him a good man.’

‘He’s more than that.’ Gently took a plunge. ‘We could use him in Whitehall if you’d agree to his transfer.’

‘If I agree—!’ The C.C. was startled. ‘Good heavens no. I’ll hear of nothing like that.’

‘He’s the sort we need. I can vouch for him personally.’

‘No, Gently. We can’t let you pinch our Evanses.’

But now he looked pleased. He took a turn up the office.

‘It’s like this,’ he said abruptly. ‘Owens here is retiring. It’s been a toss-up whether we promote Evans or move in the superintendent from Bangor. But you’ve seen something of Evans and you seem to think him a deserving customer—’

‘I have to agree with our Assistant Commissioner.’

‘Exactly. And in view of his opinion …’

Gently was still chuckling over that interview when his train pulled away from Menai, leaving Evans, a waving figure, standing alone at the platform’s end. Then he settled to his papers: ‘Kincaid … Dramatic Move … Release’; but by Penmaen-mawr he’d fallen asleep, with the vestige of a smile still lining his face.

For how else could one look at the Kincaid affair? From first to last, it had been a preposterous business.

Brundall, 1959–60

Alan Hunter
was born in Hoveton, Norfolk, in 1922. He left school at the age of fourteen to work on his father’s farm, spending his spare time sailing on the Norfolk Broads and writing nature notes for the
Eastern Evening News
. He also wrote poetry, some of which was published while he was in the RAF during the Second World War. By 1950, he was running his own book shop in Norwich and in 1955, the first of what would become a series of forty-six George Gently novels was published. He died in 2005, aged eighty-two.

 
Gently Does It

Gently by the Shore

Gently Down the Stream

Landed Gently

Gently Through the Mill

Gently in the Sun

Gently with the Painters

Gently to the Summit

Gently Go Man