Gently in Trees (16 page)

Gently stared silently for a moment. ‘I don’t think Turner is our man,’ he said.

‘Which makes two of us,’ Keynes said. ‘Lawrence may be an ass, but he’s a harmless ass.’

‘He could also have been a tool.’

‘Now you’ve lost me,’ Keynes said. ‘Though no doubt it redounds to my discredit. But perhaps we should get all that out of the way. At least, it would save you being quite so foxy.’

‘You are offering me a confession?’ Gently said.

‘Not quite a confession,’ Keynes grinned. ‘But just a look at those facts you were mentioning.’ He gestured up the track. ‘Shall we walk?’

They continued along the ride, which by now had reached a level. It had also reached a cross-ride, a junction flooded with hot sunlight. Keynes bore right. Here they were passing between sections of Scots and Corsican. The boles of the Scots were redder, flakier, and there was more of blueness in their shorter needles. Keynes pointed with his stalk to one of the trees, in the crown of which was a raft of dead needles.

‘That’s a squirrel’s drey, in passing. But don’t let it interrupt our conversation.’

He strode on easily for another fifty yards.

‘You know, I’m quite your best bet,’ he said. ‘I know that Lawrence has a lot going for him, but mostly it’s just the foolish way he’s behaved. Now I add up on every count. It’s a fact that I would like to marry Maryon. I have been in love with her for a long time – pretty well as soon as she came here, in fact. So there is a Lloyd’s A1 motive, though it’s arguable that I didn’t have to kill Adrian – still, put it along with the money, and call it demented infatuation, and all that. Lawrence has nothing to match it, has he?’

‘He would if he were marrying Miss Britton,’ Gently grunted.

‘Yes,’ Keynes smiled. ‘But that is still rather hypothetical. Jennifer is chummy with him, true, but I doubt if her intentions are very serious. So you had better admit it – I’m the hot one. A breath of proof, and I’d be inside.’

Gently said nothing.

‘Agreed,’ Keynes said. ‘And now, take a look at my opportunity. Lawrence has left, Jenny has gone to bed, and I’m left alone with Maryon. Well, Maryon is
the
interested party, so it’s a fair bet that she wouldn’t shop me; more likely, you can argue, she played the Lady Macbeth, and nerved my sluggish hand to the deed.’ He glanced quickly at Gently. ‘Do you so argue?’

Gently hunched his shoulders silently.

‘Let’s say it has occurred to you,’ Keynes said. ‘It would have done to me, in your place. However, the premise isn’t wholly necessary, since Maryon may well have gone up before me, or I may have hoodwinked her with some clever excuse for going out again that night. Of course, she would suspect later, though even now she may not be sure. But she would certainly give me an alibi to keep me out of trouble with people like you.’

Gently hesitated. ‘
Did
you go out?’

Keynes grinned broadly. ‘Would it put me inside?’

Gently stared at him; Keynes grinned back. Then he held up the stalk, a sort of token between them.

‘No, I didn’t, except to lock up the car. I was about to retire with Maryon, remember. She would scarcely have gone to bed without me, or have accepted my cleverest excuse for going out. But this has to remain as surmise on your part. The facts are that I had lyrical opportunity. It boils down to myself, or Maryon, or both of us, and a betting man could only take me. That’s your opinion, isn’t it?’

Gently walked a few paces. ‘Are you going to tell me how you knew where to find him?’

Keynes smiled at his stalk. ‘That’s the big problem, of course. How I could manoeuvre him to Mogi’s Belt.’ He gestured with the stalk. ‘I would have to get to him somehow, and in a friendly sort of way – make him forget we’d had a cataclysmic row, and enthuse him with shooting a film of badgers.’ He laughed suddenly. ‘But yes – I see now! That’s what you were hinting at earlier on. I used Lawrence. He didn’t row with Adrian; he was my tool to get Adrian out there.’ He looked admiringly at Gently. ‘Have I hit on the answer?’

‘You seem to think so,’ Gently said.

‘But it fits so neatly,’ Keynes laughed. ‘And frankly, it could have happened just like that. There was a bit of a relation between Lawrence and Adrian. Lawrence is at an age to worship success. It flattered Adrian. He had Lawrence stay in town with him. You couldn’t have hit on a more likely solution.’ He checked himself, his smile thinning. ‘But no, you have to be wrong,’ he said. ‘That row was in the air, it affected Lawrence too. He would scarcely have picked then to tell Adrian such a thing.’

‘Unless he was persuaded to,’ Gently said.

Keynes shook his head and said nothing. The smile had gone out of his eyes. He strode silently for some moments.

‘But . . . when all the kidding is over.’

‘Yes?’ Gently said.

‘When you’ve finished sniffing round us, you’ll do well to take a look at the other end.’

‘Precisely which other end?’

Keynes’s shoulders twitched. ‘I suppose it has to start with Walling. But I wouldn’t entirely exclude his daughter, or the pot-fringe that comes with her. The motive may be obscure, perhaps scarcely credible – like gassing Adrian for kicks. But that’s not impossible. It would be in line with the level of decadence you find there.’ He grinned wryly. ‘You could say they felled too many trees when they built London. Now the place is going slowly mad. Quod erat demonstrandum.’

‘Is that just a general suggestion,’ Gently said, ‘or do I get names?’

Keynes shook his head. ‘I don’t know their names. But your smell is as good as mine.’

Now they had reached the full glare of sunlight where a complete section was naked of trees. Instead it was sown with short meadow grass with soft, downy flower-heads, as purple as heather. Trenching was visible, however, stretching faint furrows across the expanse, and in the shelter of the furrows, almost hidden by herbage, were tiny saplings, only inches tall. Here were wildflowers in plenty. The section was fringed with viper’s bugloss, and rashes of its chalky blue flowers and crimson buds showed distantly in the purple grass. Campions, white and red, scabious, knapweed and wild mignonette, milfoil, vetchling and yellow trefoil flowered riotously beside the track. Here too was a diversity of butterflies, Walls, Ringlets, Meadow Browns, Orange Tips, Common Blues, Tortoiseshells, Heaths and Skippers. But most surprising was the colour of the grass and the soft uniformity of its sweep, as though the section had been painted over with a full, unhesitating brush.

Keynes gave Gently one of his little quick glances as they turned right again, between trees and meadow.

‘Here’s the true sanity,’ he said. ‘Here Samsara is Nirvana.’

‘A pity Stoll can no longer appreciate it,’ Gently said dryly. ‘Yes, a pity,’ Keynes said. ‘Though Adrian was a child of the dualities. He would have wanted to take a photograph.’

‘And that’s how you remember him?’

Keynes shook his head. ‘I wish he were here, under this sun. Taking photographs, if he wanted to, and laying down the law to everyone. But since he’s dead – well, he’s dead, as you and I will be at last, and the pity is he’s left a problem and bad karma for someone. Because crime punishes itself, you know, irrespective of you fellows.’

‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘But we still have a use, if it’s only to stop the criminals from punishing themselves. Or would that be contrary to the Tao?’

Keynes grinned, and tossed his stalk at Gently.

‘In a way,’ he said, ‘Adrian died well – doing what he wanted, at the height of his powers. He was prevented from making himself some bad karma, and perhaps from artistic decline. He enjoyed himself, and slept. Life should be so kind to all of us.’

‘In a way,’ Gently said. ‘But we’re left with a killer.’

‘And the killer is left with himself,’ Keynes said.

‘You would leave it like that?’

Keynes shook his head. ‘Because the killer, too, is Buddha.’

‘So we catch him,’ Gently said. ‘And that’s his way back – perhaps knocking a kalpa out of the reckoning. And meanwhile preserving him from fresh bad karma, like being the happy release of further Stolls.’

Keynes chuckled. ‘I hear what you say.’

‘Then perhaps now you’ll give me a name,’ Gently said.

‘If I could, I would,’ Keynes said. ‘And your wisdom now is to believe me.’ He looked steadily at Gently. ‘Or to try to,’ he said. ‘Keeping your suspicion in a separate compartment.’

Gently stared back. ‘We
shall
catch him,’ he said.

‘To believe which,’ Keynes said, ‘is
my
wisdom.’

They passed the meadow, which was succeeded by a section of feathery, droop-skirted larches, at the foot of which young beeches spread level leaves to the filtered sun. Still on the right were the cool chambers of the Corsicans, a benevolent recession of pinkish-grey shafts, below which a few deciduous seedlings peered wistfully at the little sky. All was silent, except for the far-off broken clamour of a cuckoo.

Ahead, a figure turned out of a cross-ride.

‘Look – there’s Maryon!’ Keynes said.

Maryon Britton waved uncertainly, then made up her mind and hurried towards them. Keynes hastened ahead. They met smilingly, standing for a moment before each other. She was dressed in a simple, sleeveless print frock, which became her better than the suit of yesterday.

‘I thought I would find you round here!’ She turned to Gently, her smile dying. ‘And you.’ But the smile half-returned. ‘He said you’d be human if he took you into the forest.’

‘Oh, he’s human anyway,’ Keynes grinned. ‘It doesn’t need a lot of bringing out.’

‘Well, it didn’t show much yesterday,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘And certainly not in the way he treated poor Lawrence.’

She fell into step between them, lengthening her stride to keep time with theirs. She walked with an easy, graceful step: the natural gait of a countrywoman.

‘Tell me the truth,’ she said to Gently. ‘You haven’t secretly arrested Lawrence, have you?’

Gently shrugged. ‘An arrest is public,’ he said. ‘No, we haven’t arrested Turner.’

‘Well, Jenny thinks you have,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘He went off this morning without seeing her. So she suspects that you came after him and that I’m trying to keep it from her.’

‘Dear Jenny,’ Keynes smiled. ‘But she won’t be a teenager much longer.’

‘It can’t be over too soon,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘Being mothers and daughters is a wearing business.’

‘But would he normally have seen her?’ Gently asked.

‘Most mornings,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘At least he could have rung. He should know by now what a little goose my daughter is.’

Keynes sent Gently a glance over Maryon Britton’s head. ‘Lawrence was still a bit dopey this morning,’ he said. ‘Which isn’t surprising. Being put through the ropes yesterday must have given him the shock of his young life. But he was recovering. I dare say a whirl in the big city will complete the cure. There’s a gallery in the Bush I told him about – I know he was keen to follow it up.’

‘What time did he leave?’ Gently asked.

‘Straight after breakfast – around nine.’ Keynes hesitated. ‘He had to pick up petrol, so no doubt he would call at the garage.’

‘Really, he’s as idiotic as Jenny,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘The kids today have no stability. What that girl needs is a father-figure.’ She flashed a smile at Keynes. ‘But not you, Edwin.’

They turned down the ride from which Maryon Britton had emerged, and which at length led them back to the church. The white shape of the Lotus waited poised and fish-like, its enamel still glowing with Central Office polish. Gently unlocked it.

‘Can I offer you a lift?’

Maryon Britton shook her head. ‘Not if you’ve finished with us. I intend to seduce Edwin away from his typewriter. That is, if he had any intention of returning to it.’

Keynes shrugged a negative. ‘I’m a weakling,’ he said. ‘My reviews can wait till rainy weather.’

‘So thanks,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘It’s an awfully nice car. But we’ll continue our stroll to the river.’

Gently got in and slammed the door. They stood by watching while he started the engine. He turned the Lotus in a tight circle on the plot before the church: his mirror showed them still watching as he drove away.

H
E TOOK THE
main road into the village, which lay deserted and drowsing in the brilliant sunlight. It had a graceless, lop-sided street which cranked at a right angle by a patch of green. Also there was a square, bounded on three sides by old-fashioned shops and an inn; rather happy-go-lucky. People lived there and the picturesque came in by accident.

Gently pulled in at the garage, where there was just room to park beside delivery lines that swung out on arms. A man appeared, massive and greasy in oil-plated dungarees. He looked at the Lotus, then at Gently.

‘Only four star, old partner,’ he said.

‘That’ll do,’ Gently said. ‘Fill her up.’

‘Right you are,’ the man said, reaching for a line.

Gently climbed out and lounged by the car. ‘Which way is Deerview Cottage?’ he asked.

The man glanced up briefly from his gushing nozzle. ‘Turn right up here by the green,’ he said. He slid Gently another look. ‘That’s Ted Keynes’s place,’ he said. ‘But I reckon you won’t find him in. I saw him come past here a time back.’

‘It’s his friend I’m looking for,’ Gently said.

‘Ah,’ the man said. ‘Young Lawrence. But he’s out too. He was in here earlier, driving the car. I gave him a fill-up.’

‘Which way was he heading?’ Gently asked.

‘Why, going town-way,’ the man said. ‘But where he was heading I never asked him. I just know he had a tank of juice.’

Gently paid and idled away, but neglected to turn right by the green. Instead he continued along the street to where the houses became larger and more affluent-looking. At the church he hesitated briefly, then turned down towards the forest. He glided the Lotus through the Lodge gates and let it roll to a stop by the side-door.

The side-door was open, as it had been yesterday, but this time Gently had to ring. He heard the sound of footfalls on the stairs before Jennifer Britton appeared in the passage. She was dressed in jeans and a sleeveless shirt. There was redness and puffiness about her eyes. She came forward reluctantly, her eyes wary, and stopped a pace inside the door.