Gently to the Summit (10 page)

‘You mean … before the merger?’ Gently grasped for the phrase blindly.

‘Oh yes. And afterwards too. It was we who took over Intrics, you know. Harry continued as managing director up to his death nine years ago; then Clarence Stanley was appointed, chiefly at my instigation. I was never actually on the Board, though of course I own the controlling interest.’

‘Then Mr Stanley is … well known to you?’

‘Naturally. I wanted a man I could trust.’

‘He would follow your instructions?’

‘He would consult me on matters of policy.’

Her eyes twinkled and she added: ‘He hadn’t consulted me about yesterday. But he knew the girl had been my secretary, and he was doing his loyal best to protect me. Clarence has always been a dear.’

‘Hmn.’ Gently didn’t sound so certain of it. ‘And that’s the reason for your visit today? Because Mr Stanley was unsuccessful?’

She regarded him archly. ‘That’s not a kind way to put it, but it’s close to the truth, so I’ll forgive you. Also I thought if I saw you myself I might persuade you to spare me publicity. I dread an appearance in the popular press. I prefer the greater sympathy of the
Illustrated
.’

Gently shrugged. ‘I can give you no promises.’

‘You’ll do your best. I feel confident of that.’

‘If I can lay hands on Paula Kincaid I won’t be ungrateful. That’s the most I can offer.’

She nodded. She picked up her sharkskin bag, which she’d laid on the desk with her pair of lilac gloves. She
produced a slender silver case and a butane lighter, both flowingly monogrammed and engraved with a crest.

‘May I offer you a cigarette?’

Gently accepted from curiosity. But they were honest-to-goodness Player’s and not the gold-tipped confection he’d expected. She held out the lighter with a long-fingered hand, the nails of which were polished only. She held it steadily. Her only ring was a circle of gold on the third finger.

‘Now that we’ve examined my motives, shall we continue with Paula Kincaid?’

‘If we may.’ The unaccustomed cigarette smoke was making Gently squint.

‘I engaged her after Ascot, it must have been the end of June, and in July she accompanied us to Trecastles, at Beaumaris. Trecastles is Harry’s family place. We were both very fond of it; it looks across the Straits to Llanfairfechan, with the Great Orme in the distance. Paula wasn’t a secretary, of course, she’d worked an adding machine or something, but she was an adaptable sort of girl and soon picked up the job. She was rather flighty, I’m afraid to say. She was always doing things with her hair.’ Mrs Askham inhaled delicately and allowed herself the luxury of a frown.

‘She found a boyfriend, did she?’

The frown lingered. ‘I’m coming to that. I may be doing her less than justice, but I made up my mind I would confide in you. That was the summer I was having Henry, who is our only child, so I couldn’t keep an eye on things as much as I’d have liked. Harry kept a yacht down there, and I didn’t always feel like
sailing. Then there were excursions I was sometimes out of. Having a baby is no joke. Am I making myself plain?’

‘Reasonably plain, Mrs Askham.’

‘I’m glad, because I shall never know the truth of it myself. Harry was a man and inclined that way, he would have been unhealthy if he wasn’t; but there are limits, you’ll agree. I drew a line at the servants.’

‘Did you tackle him about it?’

‘No. Not beyond hinting. There was never
sufficient
to go on, not till the day I sacked her.’

‘When was that?’

‘It was during the war, it would be in
nineteen-forty
-one. I caught him kissing her in the shelter during an alert. And out she went.’

‘What was your husband’s reaction to that?’

‘What could it be? He simply saw nothing. Harry was a husband of the greatest tact. It was a quality I always appreciated in him.’

‘Do you know if he saw her again after she left?’

‘He may have done, since she certainly remained in the district. My housekeeper at Trecastles ran across her in Caernarvon perhaps a year after that. But she no longer concerned me.’

‘And that was positively the last you’ve heard of her?’

‘Yes, positively. When Davies saw her.’

‘Did she tell your housekeeper what she was doing?’

‘No. Davies received the impression that she wasn’t in employment.’

Gently drew at the cigarette, which his clumsy
fingers were making squashy. Surely
l’affaire
Kincaid couldn’t be reduced to these proportions? The passing whim of a millionaire for the wife of one of his obscure employees, involving murder by proxy and the disbursement of two large sums? It was top-heavy; it was taking a steam-hammer to crack the shell of a nut. Askham’s purpose could have been served at a far lesser rate. It looked more as though he’d accepted an opportunity already made, adding to his household a likely recruit whom he could seduce at his leisure. Unless … unless his motive was something other than it seemed: such as the deliberate seclusion of Mrs Kincaid and the severing of her ties with her past. But why? What did she know? From whom was her information to be kept? From the returning members of the expedition; from the designing Fleece; could that have been it? He ground the cigarette into his tray.

‘Where did Paula Kincaid spend most of her time?’

Mrs Askham’s eyes looked wondering. ‘With us, of course. Wherever we were.’

‘In Wales for the most part?’

‘For the most part in Wales. We always looked on Trecastles as being our home. And that first year, having Henry, I didn’t bother about the season.’

‘So she was in Wales during all her first year with you?’

‘Except at Christmas, when we went to a party at Cannes. Then the next summer we went to Scotland: Harry wanted to cruise the Western Isles; and after the shooting we returned to Wales, and after that on to
Cannes. Then I suppose it was Wales again. It was dull in town; too many war scares.’

‘But you’d go to town to do your shopping. To see your dressmaker and the like?’

Mrs Askham said very coldly: ‘I buy my clothes from Balmain.’

‘So in fact Paula Kincaid was rarely in London?’

‘I suppose she wasn’t. But she didn’t complain.’

‘Did she ever go there to visit her mother?’

‘Her mother was dead, I seem to remember.’

‘Where did she spend her holidays?’

Mrs Askham was vague. ‘I let her off when we were abroad, she usually preferred it that way. Then after the war started we spent most of the time at Trecastles, and she never seemed to want a holiday. But perhaps that was Harry’s doing.’

‘How do you mean?’ Gently asked sharply.

Her eyes wondered at him again. ‘I should have thought that was obvious. He was always keen to keep her near him.’

It fitted perfectly. He had spirited her away from all her pre-expedition contacts, had carried her off to his castle in Wales and had held her there incommunicado. By contrivance or a hefty bribe, he had secured her consent to this: and it was only an ill-timed kiss in a shelter that had brought the arrangement to an end. How had it been managed after that? Davies, the housekeeper, suggested the answer. He had set up house for Paula in Caernarvon and had perhaps endowed her with an annuity. And now, eighteen years later, Fleece had shown cognizance of this
development. His mysterious trips into Wales now throbbed with a blatant significance. But why had Fleece waited to use his knowledge until the
reappearance
of Kincaid? What subtle condition had been fulfilled, and who had it driven to take drastic action? Not Askham, he was dead; blackmail couldn’t reach him any longer. But there was Stanley, the father-figure, who might have inherited the Met. L secrets …

‘You said you had little to do with your husband’s business affairs, Mrs Askham.’

‘That’s perfectly true, if it helps you. Though I’m not entirely a fool in business.’

‘You place great faith in Mr Stanley?’

‘Mr Stanley is my best friend. He and Harry were at Oxford together and they were more like brothers than most brothers I know.’

Gently’s tone was deferential. ‘This may seem irrelevant, but it could have a bearing on the subject of my inquiries. Did your husband have any business anxieties?’

‘It certainly does seem irrelevant.’ Mrs Askham let it hang for a moment, her eyes half interrogative, half scornful. ‘However, I suppose you have a reason for asking, and I came here to be helpful, so I’ll answer the question. Yes, he did appear anxious about something.’

‘To do with the business?’

‘I presumed so. I wasn’t entirely in Harry’s
confidence
. But in latter years he seemed rather harassed, and that I believe had an effect on his health. But whatever it was could not have been serious, since the
firm has suffered no setbacks. I checked particularly about it with Clarence. He could think of nothing that should have worried Harry.’

‘Your husband knew Arthur Fleece, I’m told.’

‘Did he? He knew all sorts of people.’

‘Can you remember any visits Fleece made him?’

‘No. I’m sorry. I have a bad memory for faces.’

Gently opened a drawer and took from it the photograph he’d obtained from Mrs Fleece. He pushed it across the desk, watching Mrs Askham intently.

‘Did this man ever visit your husband?’

Her eyes flickered. ‘No. I’m sure of it.’

‘It isn’t a face that’s easily forgotten.’

‘I warned you. My memory for faces is bad.’

‘Then why are you sure he didn’t visit your husband?’

‘I … oh well, perhaps I was being too positive. But I don’t remember him, I can assure you of that. And you’re right about the face. It really gives one the shivers.’

She smiled dismissingly and rose to her feet, retrieving the sharkskin bag and the gloves; the duchess who’d more than done her duty and who now intended to seek other diversions.

‘I’m afraid I shall have to be getting along. I have an appointment to keep at André’s. I’m reposing in you the strictest confidence, Superintendent: not a whisper of our little chat to the Press.’

He nodded vaguely. ‘Thank you for coming, Mrs Askham.’ He rose and accompanied her to the door.

‘I’ve enjoyed it thoroughly and you’ve been very
kind. I shall tell Clarence he’s quite mistaken in his views about our police force.’

When she’d gone, when the door was closed, Gently stood for a few moments thinking; then he chuckled and went to the window to watch the blue Rolls drive away in the rain.

I
T WAS HALF
an hour later when Evans returned, and Gently was sprawled at his desk again, nursing another cup of coffee. The Welshman began sniffing as soon as he stepped into the room, and after a sharp look round he glanced suspiciously at Gently.

‘That’s not Gold Block, man, I do know,’ he said.

‘Chanel.’ Gently pretended to leer. ‘There’s still some glamour left in being in homicide.’

‘You’re telling me, man. And I only let you out of my sight for five minutes. Tell me, what would be my chances of getting a transfer to the Central Office?’

Gently waved an airy hand. ‘It needs personality,’ he replied. ‘But I’ll give you the scandal in a minute. Tell me the news from Somerset House.’

Evans dropped down on the chair which had lately been occupied by Mrs Askham.

‘There isn’t any, man,’ he said. ‘News disgusts them over at that place.’

‘It’ll require a day or two, will it?’

‘You take the words out of their mouth. Nearly
laughed at me they did when I told them I’d be waiting. I see now why you went to Dorking. The long way round is down the Strand. We’ll be lucky to hear from them by next year’s Eisteddfod,’

‘They handle a deal of business, of course.’ Gently sipped at his coffee. ‘But as it happens it doesn’t matter. I’ve a feeling that trail can be written off.’

‘You’re on a new scent. I can smell that.’

‘It’s just a whiff that came in from the bank. But it brought some other smells along with it and I’m still trying to sort them out.’

He outlined his interview with Mrs Askham, and Evans listened to him in silence; but it wasn’t difficult to read the expression that slowly developed on the inspector’s face. Here was ground for fresh hope. Kincaid had not eluded them yet. The excitement grew in Evans’s eyes, and at the end he exclaimed:

‘Then we’re back, man. We’re back where we started. It’s just the way I had in mind. Kincaid did see his wife in Caernarvon – and as a result of it, he murdered Fleece!’

‘On the facts it’s possible.’ Gently sounded discouraging.

‘But goodness, you can’t miss it, it fits them like an old shoe. Fleece had been at her, he was going to marry her; that was the reason for his divorce. Then away comes Kincaid and learns about it, and the rest just follows on natural.’

‘But why should Fleece want to marry Paula Kincaid?’

‘Because she knows something. That’s what it will be. She knows something that didn’t matter as long as
Kincaid was dead, but when he came back Fleece had to marry her to be safe from her evidence.’ It was a good point; Gently considered it.

‘But what could it be that she knew?’

‘Something to do with what happened on Everest.’ Evans gave him a sapient nod. ‘You think a moment. There’s no harm in supposing that Paula Kincaid was once his mistress. We keep looking at it from Fleece’s angle and there’s no call for that at all. It may have been her who wanted Kincaid away. It may have been her who persuaded Fleece to do it. Then, when it was done, she pulls up her stakes and disappears; to avoid answering awkward questions and perhaps giving herself away. Wouldn’t that be a good reason for her taking a job with Mrs Askham? And for staying in Wales too, after Mrs Askham sacked her?’

‘Then why was she worrying Fleece?’

‘Do you ask, man, with Kincaid back? He was spreading an awfully suspicious story, and scouring the country for his wife. Perhaps Fleece wasn’t worried at first, not till he’d talked to Paula Kincaid; and perhaps it was her who was doing the worrying; perhaps it was she who suggested the divorce. It would be unnatural if Kincaid had not suspected his wife, but once she’d married Fleece, well then they’d be fireproof.’

‘It fits,’ Gently conceded.

It does. It must do.’ Evans’s red face split in a triumphant grin. ‘By the beard of Cadwalader, I’ll be a superintendent yet, and boss my own show back there in Caernarvon. Now we’ve only to find Paula Kincaid.’

‘In Caernarvon or out of it.’

Evans’ face sank. ‘Do you think she’ll have hopped it?’ he asked.

‘Do you ask, man?’ Gently mimicked. ‘She’d be out of there like a scalded cat. You might look for her at John o’ Groats, but you’ll scarcely find her in Caernarvon.’

‘That’s true enough.’ Evans was dour again. ‘There had to be a catch in it somewhere. And we must lay our hands on her if we’re to make it stick to Kincaid. But you must admit, man, we’re seeing our way, we’ve got the drift of it now. It’s only a question of time and routine before we sew up the case.’

‘Have you forgotten our friend, Heslington?’

‘Oh, to hell with that fellow.’

‘And a few other matters, like two large sums of money?’

Evans made a rude noise. ‘So what is that to us now? A couple of years in Somerset House and you’ll perhaps find where Fleece got his money. And as for the other – well, what about it? So there were philanthropists before the war. If we studied every little coincidence we’d never have a case at all, man.’

As though in comment on this bold line Gently’s telephone buzzed, and after an intervention from the board he found himself connected to Overton.

‘I looked up that address you wanted, the solicitors who signed the banker’s order. They’re Sedley and Haines in Lincoln’s Inn … Yes, I’ve got their number here.’

Gently jotted it down, thanked Overton and gave
the number to the board. Evans, his thumbs under his lapels, awaited the issue with elaborate insouciance.

‘Sedley and Haines? This is Superintendent Gently of Scotland Yard … I’d like to speak to one of the partners. It’s about a commission you had before the war.’

To Evans it seemed to take an hour before the suspicious lawyers would come to business. Twice Gently repeated himself and he gave numerous though vague assurances. At last the receiver was returned to its rest. Evans rocked gently back in his chair.

‘Who was it then? Nuffield or William Lever?’

Gently’s hazel eyes twinkled. ‘It was your
coincidence
,’ he said.

‘But does it make so much difference when all’s said and done?’

Evans was still arguing the point though his mouth was full of buttered crumpet. Sitting at a table in the canteen, a buttery knife in his hand, he ate steadily and drank many cups as he tried to win Gently to his way of thinking.

‘Look at it straight, now. Who would you have expected to donate that money? Why, Askham; weren’t two of his employees in the expedition? And Fleece, he was one of the management, Askham may have spoken to him about it, and you remember how Overton told us that Fleece had suddenly changed his attitude. What could be more natural, then? Why does it need to be sinister? Askham was interested, he admired their spirit, so he came across with the necessary.’

Gently deftly severed a crumpet; he was looking his woodenest and most obstinate.

‘He came across with ten thousand pounds?’

‘But that was chicken feed to the fellow!’

‘And anonymously.’

‘Why not? Some rich men are like that.’

‘With Met. L to advertise?’

‘He was modest, that’s all.’

‘He went yachting and shooting, but I didn’t hear he was a climbing enthusiast.’

‘Oh St David listen to him!’ Evans bolted a savage crumpet. He seized his cup and irrigated the morsel with a number of full-throated gulps. ‘Then what do we do? Where do we go? What’s the next step from here? Either we chase up Paula Kincaid or we stick the case in the files!’

Gently sipped more abstemiously. ‘Things aren’t quite so desperate,’ he returned.

‘We’ve got Kincaid in a vice if we can only turn up his missus!’

‘She mightn’t talk if we did. Also, we don’t know where to look for her. And in the meantime it was Askham who footed the bill for the expedition.’

Evans snatched up another crumpet and began unconsciously to chew it. He felt a pang of pity for the Assistant Commissioner, who had to deal with Gently day by day. ‘Very well, man,’ he said. ‘I wash my hands of it from now on. I’ve said my say, and I stand by it. And now I should like to hear your views.’

Gently’s hand gestured indefinitely. ‘Mine are still unsettled, I’m afraid. I’m still groping in the dark for
what happened in nineteen-thirty-seven. There’s a reason behind that ten thousand pounds, but for the moment I can’t see the shape of it … Kincaid knew something, but what did he know? Was it he who was trying to blackmail Askham?’

‘You’ll scarcely find that out now,’ retorted Evans with satisfaction. ‘And if it’s blackmail you have in mind I’ll stick to Fleece for a client.’

‘It would have to be something ruinous. Perhaps affecting Met. L. And his wife would have to know something too, because in an involuntary way, she was also dangerous; and Askham was keeping her under wraps, that’s fairly certain from the evidence. But from whom, with Kincaid dead and Fleece apparently in the secret? If a member of the expedition were aimed at, how could his curiosity be threatening? If it wasn’t his wife behind Kincaid’s disappearance, she could be left in ignorance to play the widow, but if she was privy to it, as you suppose, then why is Askham so deeply in the plot? We’re left with the unlikely supposition that Askham and she had separate motives, that they were equally responsible, and together contrived her own
disappearance
. And that’ – Gently gave Evans an amiable smile – ‘sounds like a lot of moonshine to me. It meets the facts in a sort of way, but it collides head-on with common sense.’

‘So?’ Evans was far from placated.

‘So the facts are wrong. Or we’ve missed their significance.’

‘If you’ll just let that money be a coincidence …’

‘It’s a coincidence too often, which means that it isn’t one.’

Gently drank. His eye drifted away from Evans, seemed to vanish through the murals on the wall behind him; it was uncanny, it made Evans feel uncomfortable, it was as though the Yard man had disembodied himself. Evans made a clatter with his knife and plate to interrupt the phenomenon.

‘In reality it will be much simpler …’ Gently returned from his distant oracle. ‘There’ll be a pattern that a child can understand; it isn’t the way of murder to be complex. We’re making heavy weather of something. I can’t put a finger on it yet. But it’s got its roots in what happened before the war, and when we make a breakthrough there …’

‘But how do you propose doing that, man?’ Evans refused to lose sight of the practical. ‘We’ve covered all the leads we’ve got, and it’s unlikely we’ll turn up anything fresh.’

‘I think Mrs Askham did remember Fleece.’

‘She’d never let on. She’d be a fool if she did.’

‘There’s also Stanley. If we could put pressure on him …’

‘Isn’t it more likely that he’ll put pressure on us, man?’

‘And there’s Paula Kincaid.’

‘Now you’re talking, man.’ Evans brightened
visibly
; this was where he’d come in. ‘We can go to Caernarvon and try to pick up her trail. I’ll phone Williams at once. I’m sure we’ll get on to her.’

‘She may have married or changed her name.’

‘It won’t make so much difference—’ Evans broke off to scowl at a police cadet who had approached their
table. The youngster came to attention, giving his heels a click.

‘Superintendent Gently, sir. A message from the desk.’

‘What is it?’

‘There’s a lady wants to speak to you, sir.’

Evans gazed at the lad. ‘Not another one. Why, there’s no holding the fellow!’

Gently asked: ‘What’s her name?’

‘Sir. A Miss Paula Kincaid.’

‘Paula Kincaid I am, and I live up in Kilburn. I’m an artist’s model, and I’ll thank you to remember it.’

If Gently’s disappointment was keen, he was at pains to keep it hidden; he sat unmoved behind his desk, eyeing his new conquest with mild gravity.

‘Haven’t I seen you before?’

‘Well, p’raps you have and p’raps you haven’t. This is my first time down this way, but I’ve had the treatment back in Kilburn.’

‘Under the name of Paula Kincaid?’

‘Don’t be daft! That’s me proper name. I’m Phyllis Waters on the charge sheet. It makes a change from Smif and Brown.’

She was barely twenty, but she carried herself with a hard self-possession. She was a little above the average in height, a peroxide blonde with brown, unashamed eyes. She had on a bushy-skirted gown of green and over it a short coat of fabricated fur, her stockings were black and her shoes had stub-heels and apart from her mouth she wasn’t heavily made up.

‘Have you brought your birth certificate with you?’

‘Go on. I haven’t got one of them things. Got lost, that would’ve done, years ago. And I don’t know where I was born, so I can’t get another one.’

‘What’s your age?’

‘Eighteen I am. I had me birthday last month.’

‘So why have you come to see me, Paula?’

‘About me ma, of course. Reg Kincaid’s missus.’

Self-possession; she had that, but it was the stock-
in-trade
of a street-girl. Unless you had it you didn’t take to the business in the first place. You had to tell a lie with a lot of clamour and always have an act ready for the police; you were tough: brazen they used to call it: you put on a burlesque all the time. She sat confidently with her feet apart, her shoes turned over, the stub-heels outwards. She’d be capable of staring down the devil if Gently by chance should adopt the role.

‘Why did you decide to do that? Because you usually assist the police?’

‘Naow – don’t talk silly!’ Her beaming smile wasn’t entirely false. ‘But it won’t do me no harm, that’s the way I looks at it, and it could do me a bit of good. So here I am.’

‘You won’t get any money.’

‘Didn’t ask for none, did I? But you could pass the word I come to see you; had been of assistance, you could say that.’

‘And that was your whole motive in coming?’

‘Ain’t it good enough for you? Coo, I reckon it’s a bit of jam, me coming in here like this.’

He couldn’t help it, he returned the smile. She had
a streak of Cockney charm about her. A graceless, graceful, perky sparrowness, the quick gaiety of the London pavements.