Gently to the Summit (6 page)

‘I answered an advert in our trade journal. I was with London Insulated at the time and finding promotion
rather slow. So I took a chance with a new firm, and I’ve never regretted it. We’ve been expanding all the time and we’ve acquired a site for a new premises.’

‘Was the firm organized when you joined it?’

‘No. It was just in the process. But Mr Fleece had formed a nucleus of technical staff and designers.’

‘Were there share issues at that stage?’

‘No, that came a little later.’

‘Where did the initial capital come from?’

Bemmells looked blank. ‘From Mr Fleece, I suppose.’

‘Did he mention how it was acquired?’

‘Not to me he didn’t. But then it wasn’t my business. There’s no question about it, is there?’

‘Nothing of any importance.’ Gently’s tone was reassuring. ‘But since you’re second-in-command here I thought that Fleece might have dropped you a hint. You were fairly intimate with him, were you?’

‘Our relations were always excellent.’

‘You met his wife and family of course?’

‘I did on occasion. I’ve been invited to his home.’

‘Did you go to his wedding in thirty-nine?’

‘No … it occurred out of town, I believe.’

‘Did you know his wife before he married her?’

‘I’m afraid I didn’t. I moved in rather different circles.’

Gently made a break. Bemmells’ expression had become increasingly wary, as though by degrees it was dawning on him that all was not entirely innocent. He flickered looks from Gently to the desk and again to Evans; but he didn’t, as Gently hoped, come out with something unsolicited.

‘Mrs Fleece told us that her husband was often away from home on business. That’s something you’d know about. Where did his business use to take him?’

‘Wherever there was a chance of a contract. Mr Fleece was all business. He’s been as far as Pakistan – South Africa – the West Indies.’

‘Had he been abroad lately?’

‘He went to Holland in the spring. And just lately he’d made one or two trips into Wales.’

‘Into Wales? What was that for?’

‘He didn’t tell me, I’m afraid. He simply mentioned that he had business there which needed following up.’

‘Could you give a shrewd guess?’

Bemmells frowned. ‘There’s the Conway project. Or the installation at Corwen. We might contract for either of those.’

‘Wouldn’t he have told you about that?Wouldn’t he have taken a technical adviser with him?’

‘It would have been more usual, I admit. But it was entirely up to him.’

Gently could hear Evans’s feet stirring: this was interesting information! A coincidence it might be, but it had a tendentious ring to it. Had Fleece’s trips been on business his manager would surely have been in his confidence, and had they been personal … what personal reason would have taken Fleece to Wales?

‘Exactly when did these trips take place?’

‘I didn’t make a note of them, naturally. But the first one was in August during the week following our works’ fortnight. There were two or three in
September and another last week: four or five
altogether
. Then, of course, there was last weekend.’

‘On what days of last week?’

Bemmells considered. ‘The Tuesday and Wednesday.’

‘Was that the usual length of the visits?’

‘Oh yes. A couple of days.’

‘Would he have driven down by car?’

‘Yes. He rarely used the trains.’

‘At what address were you supposed to contact him?’

‘I never did, because he didn’t leave one.’

‘And your works’ fortnight – when was that?’

‘At the usual time. The first two weeks in August.’

In effect, Fleece’s trips had begun a few days after Kincaid’s appearance: and had continued at frequent intervals until a fatal one supervened.

‘Have you anything to add to this, Mr Bemmells? It could have some bearing on Fleece’s death.’

‘No … I assure you. That’s all I know about it.’ Bemmells had paled as this aspect was put to him.

‘There’s one other matter, touching Mr Fleece’s personal life. It’s important, you understand, or I wouldn’t be asking about it. Would you say he was happily married?’

A mottled flush replaced Bemmells’ pallor. ‘I – I’m not quite certain if I should answer that question. There was a coolness between them, I believe, from certain things Mr Fleece said … and I did have the impression … but it’s nothing I want to repeat.’

‘I’m not idly curious, Mr Bemmells. Was your impression that she had a lover?’

‘I … well!’ Bemmells was rocked. He looked
heartily uncomfortable. ‘Yes, I certainly had the impression of – er – something of that sort. Mr Fleece said cynical things … not always seriously, I may add.’

‘Did he cynically mention a name?’

‘No. No name was mentioned. Believe me, I never knew anything for a fact.’

‘Was a divorce talked about?’

‘Well … very loosely, he did refer to it …’

‘In that case I’d like the name and address of his solicitors.’

Bemmells found it for him, quite flustered, spilling papers over his desk. The solicitors were Agnew, Sharp, and Adams and the address in the Temple. Bemmells followed them out to the car, fluttering around them like a broody hen, and at last he screwed up his courage to ask:

‘It won’t affect the poor lady’s rights, will it …?’

When they drove away towards the city Evans was doubled up with laughter. He appeared to have found something unbearably comic about the manager of Electroproducts.

‘Suppose – just suppose for the moment – suppose he’s the co-respondent himself, man!’

The idea was too much for him. He almost sobbed with mirth.

Gently wasn’t so much amused and he filled and lit his pipe sombrely. Something had clicked in his mind when he’d heard of those visits to Wales. It was as though then, for the first time, he’d made a genuine connection with the case; as though at that moment, from all the heaped uncertainty, something certain had
fallen into his hand. There was no logical reason for this. There never was in these matters. At the best it was a dark motion in a carefully prepared unconscious. But he knew the signal when it reached him and it had reached him now: he was positive that those visits were part of the pattern he was seeking. Evans too, when he’d controlled his chortling, found something
disturbing
in the information.

‘Are you thinking, man, that Fleece stirred up something in Wales?’

Gently hunched. ‘I haven’t got round to being definitive,’ he replied.

‘That was a peculiar little timetable which the Bemmells lad gave us. I had a sensation we were on to something which didn’t overplease me.’

‘It has to do with Kincaid somehow, if it affects the case at all. Kincaid’s appearance triggered those visits. They follow each other much too neatly.’

‘Goodness gracious, you give me ideas. Couldn’t Kincaid also have made trips to Wales? Couldn’t that be the reason for Fleece’s going there, to keep an eye on the foolish fellow?’

‘In what connection?’ Gently exhaled smoke.

‘Why, I don’t know. But I’ll do some imagining. Suppose Mrs Fleece isn’t Paula Kincaid, and suppose they both went to Wales in search of her? Kincaid, he’s got a notion she’ll be there, and Fleece, he’s got a notion that Kincaid’s got a notion. So he follows Kincaid about in the hope that he’ll lead him to Mrs Kincaid, and in the end Kincaid gets tired of it and gives Fleece a shove over Snowdon.’

Gently chuckled among his smoke-wreaths. ‘And why should Fleece want to meet her so badly?’

‘Well, man, I reckon I’ve done my bit – you’ll have to imagine the rest for yourself!’

They both laughed, but then they grew thoughtful again: Evans’s fancy wasn’t as bizarre as he had made it sound. Fleece’s visits to Wales had begun and ended with Kincaid; was it stretching matters much to suppose a correspondence in between?

‘Anyway, we netted one small tiddler,’ Gently mused. ‘We’ve confirmed the divorce angle, and soon we’ll know who the beau is.’

Evans nodded. ‘Though I’m looking on the bright side,’ he said. ‘He could be someone quite harmless, notwithstanding that trunk-call.’

They came in down the Mile End Road, through Whitechapel and past the Bank, with Evans craning his neck to view the sooty antiquity of St Paul’s; and then off Fleet Street into the quieter waters of the Temple, where the sun, still holding its own, brightened the quadrangles and sad trees. Agnew, Sharp, and Adams had chambers overlooking the Garden. There Gently’s inquiry, after a legal interval, gained them the audience of the second partner.

‘Yes, I handled Fleece’s affairs. Also those of Electroproducts.’ Mr Sharp belied his name; he resembled an affable country squire. ‘I’d like to put in a claim for privilege but it would scarcely wash, would it? Death is the great
nolle prosequi
, and takes advice from no lawyer. What do you gentlemen want to know?’

‘We’ve got four questions,’ Gently replied.

‘Four only? Then you’re more economical than most policemen of my acquaintance. What’s number one?’

‘Can you tell us where Fleece got the capital to start in business?’

‘Not I, sir. But he had some. He was never short of cash.’

‘Number two. Had he started a divorce suit?’

‘Answer. Yes, he had.’

‘Number three. When did he start it?’

‘Answer. Let me get his file.’

From a row of venerable and dusty box files Sharp pulled out one with a new label: the last of a considerable sequence which had been pasted on it during past decades. He opened it and took out some papers.

‘Fleece first consulted me on the nineteenth of August. I gave him some advice which doesn’t matter, then he returned on the sixteenth of September. I filed his suit on the same day. Does that answer the question?’

Gently briefly inclined his head.

‘I know what number four will be, but I’d better let you ask it.’

‘Who was the co-respondent in the case?’

‘Yes, that’s the jackpot question. He was Raymond John Heslington of Hadrian’s Villa, Wimbledon
Common
.’

Sharp glanced surprisedly at Evans. He had said something very powerful in Welsh … 

‘
W
OULD YOU REALLY
credit it, man? Could any case be such a bastard?’

They had gone to the Cheshire for their elevenses; Gently, Evans, and the driver. About them, dallying over coffee, sat the regular clientele: City men, law men and pressmen, the last with a speculative eye for Gently. It was a relaxed and somnolent atmosphere of refreshment and conversation, and Gently was
relaxing
: Evans had forgotten how it was done. The lawyer’s revelation had stunned him. He seemed unequal to exchanging ideas. He could only, between blank reveries, express his feelings in exclamations. The driver was exercising his professional phlegm and drank his coffee in strict anonymity.

‘I mean we’re never sure of anything. It’s up and down the whole time. A step forward and a step back, that’s the way of it, in a nutshell …’

Gently nodded, not really listening though taking it in at the same time. A step forward and a step back …? It was more like the treading of an intricate
dance measure. And what did it signify, that figure which the movements sought to describe: was it the guiltiness of an adulterer, of an unhinged husband, or of something quite different? For look at it how you would, a perplexing dichotomy was showing. The facts divided themselves into groups though the groups were closely linked to each other. On the one hand were Fleece and Kincaid, dancing their diabolical duo, as though between them lay a malignant secret which drew them on to violent ends; and on the other was the dance of the antlers, no less sinister in its setting, separate and several from the first yet counterpointing it all the way. Kincaid had appeared: Fleece had gone to Wales. Fleece may have married Paula Kincaid; Kincaid may have discovered it. Heslington loved Mrs Fleece, may have loved her husband’s property. Fleece attempts to get a divorce, Fleece is pushed over Snowdon. Kincaid is inexplicably on the spot,
Heslington
is there quite explicably. And from Llanberis, from someone, comes the news to Mrs Fleece Kincaid’s hideout; over and above which strange background shufflings from the father-figure of
Metropolitan
Electric. Two themes, yet interacting in a unified spectacle: one climax, but separately danced to by two diversely motivated principals …

Gently paused before this picture: a slender
consequence
had suddenly struck him. For hadn’t they conferred on one occasion, those two apparently isolated dancers? They had; it was public knowledge. It had happened during the original notoriety.
Heslington
had paid Kincaid a visit and had afterwards
been loud in the Kincaid cause. Was it credible for them to have conspired together, one to act and one to take the blame? Heslington to clear himself by bearing witness, Kincaid to take the risk of a weak persecution? But no, their motives could not be reconciled, supposing Mrs Fleece to be Paula Kincaid; and if she were not then they were back with Everest for Kincaid’s motive to do the deed. And was that enough? Gently had his doubts. Kincaid had never shown signs of grudge-bearing. On the contrary, he’d seemed unconscious that any injury had been done to him …

But Kincaid had appeared and both he and Fleece had gone to Wales: that was the point to which one kept returning. Their visits might still have to be connected to be shown more than a coincidence, but on the acute balance of Gently’s instinct they levelled one with the other. And what else had been reported from Wales, apart from the circumstances of the tragedy? One thing only, a shy pirouette on the very edge of the ensemble. The witness who had first reported having seen Kincaid had left a false name and address, and one suggesting that he was resident in or familiar with the district. Could this obscure individual have been the reason for the visits? It seemed unlikely; but it was all there was, and Gently didn’t like to pass it over.

He drank the last of his coffee.

‘I’d like you to give Caernarvon a ring. I want to know if they’ve traced Fleece’s movements and if they’ve found that witness.’

‘Do you think he was Kincaid’s missus in
disguise
, man?’

Gently chuckled. ‘I’d like to think it was possible. Also, in view of Fleece’s visits, we’d better increase the scope of the inquiries. All the district about
Caernarvon
: give your man what we got from Bemmells.’

Evans nodded. ‘Then do we pick up Heslington?’

‘No … I’m not quite ready for him yet. I want a little more background material. I think we’ll go for our chat with Overton.’

They collected their car and drove to the convenient Bow Street, but Evans drew a blank in his talk with Caernarvon. Fleece had stayed with the club party during their weekend in Wales, and no information had come in yet relating to ‘Basil Gwynne-Davies’. Inquiries had been made at Bangor, at the University College, but if any students had been adrift on Monday it was unknown to the authorities. Evans gave the new instructions and rang off with a shrug. He was resigned, the gesture said. Out of Wales could come no comfort.

Richard Overton was an architect and he lived in Bayswater, but he had an office in Bedford Place only a short distance from Bow Street. It was contained in a terrace house, a gracious segment of Bloomsbury, its brickwork seedily metropolitan but its paintwork professionally gay. Overton’s studio was on the first floor. It was a large room lined with shelves and racks. It contained a vast table, some bentwood chairs and a pair of mechanized-looking drawing boards, and it smelled of paper and rubbers and indian ink and cigarette smoke. When they were announced Overton was busy at an elevation on one of the boards. He
extended a warning finger towards them while he drew a line with a metal ruler. Then, after a moment of appraisal, he turned to them with a smile.

‘A block of flats for the L.C.C., or so I hope in my innocence. School of Gibberd, I fear me. But I know better than to be original.’

He shook hands with a warm grasp and pulled out chairs for them to sit on; a dark-haired, dark-eyed man of medium height, his build powerful, his complexion sallow. He had a boldly retroussé nose, a rounded chin, and a wide mouth. His voice was pleasant and his manner ingratiating. He had given his age as forty-six.

‘It’s too much to hope that you’ve come here with a commission?’

‘Not today, I’m afraid.’ Gently returned his smile.

‘That’s a pity. I’ve some pet ideas about a
contemporary
police station. A courtyard model with glass doors and a measure of liberty for detainees. Do you think it would catch on?’

‘You could circularize the Watch committees.’

‘No, thank you. That’s a polite way of telling me to go to hell. But it will come, one fine day. After they’ve done it in Stockholm. That’s the only official channel for getting architecture into England.’

He offered them cigarettes from a packet, then tapped and lit one himself. He didn’t seem overly curious about the object of their visit. He had a completely social attitude as though content with their bare company, and it was easy to see how he would gravitate naturally to the post of a club official.

Gently said: ‘You’ll have had time to think about this
Kincaid question now. Can you give me a straight answer – is the fellow genuine or not?’

Overton laughed. ‘You don’t catch me. But I can give you a straight contingency. And nothing will ever make me go further than that.’

‘What’s your contingency.?’

‘It’s this.’ Overton’s lids sank, narrowing his eyes. ‘I’m half convinced – three-quarters convinced – that Kincaid is who he claims to be. But I’ve yet to be convinced that a man can descend Everest unaided, and any identification I make is contingent on that being proved possible. If I’m asked in court I shall answer just that.’

Gently nodded acknowledgement. ‘You’ve
considered
his story about the Tibetans?’

‘I certainly have. And furthermore, I’ve done some research on it. It’s quite true that there’s a tribe who make the Yeti a totem, they’re called the Yashmaks and they live in the foothills of the eastern Himalayas. They’re secretive and superstitious, they live in valleys at a high altitude, and they are believed by their neighbours to hold communication with the Yeti. Which is all very encouraging and supports Kincaid’s story wonderfully: except that he, like myself, could have read about it in London; and except for the fact that on his oxygen supply he could scarcely have reached the South Summit, let alone any point where he might have met the Yashmaks. They couldn’t have got on the South Col without the assistance of oxygen.’

‘That can be ruled out as impossible?’

‘Pretty well, I should say. Though some amazing feats have been performed on Everest without oxygen. But nobody has climbed the South Col except from the Western Cwm, so it’s barely possible for an easy route to it to exist to the east. Then the Yashmaks might have got up there. But not as far as the South Summit.’

‘Suppose Kincaid had got a little lower and the Yashmaks a little higher …?’

Overton shook his head, laughing. ‘Now you’re entering the realm of miracles. I’m allowing Kincaid to be superhuman to descend as far as the South Summit, but after that, with no oxygen, he couldn’t have lasted for very long. It wasn’t a scramble in Wales, you know. The conditions were at the limit of human endurance.’

‘Yes … I see.’ Gently pondered. ‘But suppose I let you into a secret. Suppose I told you that Kincaid’s story checks back to India – to Kathmandu?’

Overton stared. ‘Is that a fact?’

‘Yes. We’ve vetted it back to there.’

Overton whistled very softly. ‘Then it’s a bit of a poser,’ he said.

He got up. He took one or two steps about the room, his hands in his pockets, his head slanted forward. He stopped in front of a wall map and appeared to study it for a moment. Then he said, not turning:

‘I told you I was three-quarters convinced.’

‘He’d be changed, of course.’

‘He has. He’s changed enormously. More than one would have thought possible, though you have to
allow for what he’s been through. And then his eyes haven’t changed … his voice … his head: even back there at the Asterbury he gave me an uncomfortable feeling. And he knew a lot about Tibet, more than any of us did. Though there were gaps in his knowledge when it came to the expedition. But that’s
explainable
too: he’d have no reason to remember it much; while we, on the other hand, have never let the subject rest …’

‘But you still think it impossible for him to have got down off Everest?’

Overton made a gliding step, then turned in their direction again.

‘You’re making it difficult,’ he said. ‘You’re making it damnably difficult. I’ve given you my reasons for thinking so and they’re one hundred per cent sound, sitting here, in Bloomsbury, half the world away from Everest. But I’m shaken, I have to admit it. Kincaid was always a curiosity. If a miracle had to happen to someone, he’d be the man I’d put my money on.’

‘Are you sure that a miracle was necessary?’

‘Confound it, yes. Let me save my face! It would have needed all of a miracle, and from that position I won’t be shifted.’

‘So you agree that Kincaid is Kincaid?’

‘You’ve got me practically taking an oath on it.’

Gently smiled on him benevolently. ‘Later,’ he said. ‘We’ll dispense with that now.’

To the visible impatience of Evans, who had ceased to think in terms of Kincaid, Gently now switched from the identity angle to the beginnings of that
tiresome expedition. He went leisurely about it, sparing no pains, drawing out detail after detail; leading Overton to talk freely, circumstantially, revealingly. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten about Heslington.

‘Who first suggested the expedition?’

Overton was seated again now. Both he and Gently had reversed their chairs and were conversing across the backs of them.

‘I couldn’t tell you. It was one of those things. You know how it is when you’re young and foolish? A lot of you with similar tastes get together, then out of the blue an idea is born. It doesn’t signify how impossible it is, in fact that’s the essence of the phenomenon: you dream up something wildly improbable, and then it grows, and then you find yourself doing it. Well, that was the way of our expedition. Some cotton-headed youngsters dreamed up a stunt. And at the drop of a hat it had stopped being a stunt, and suddenly we were committed to it in deadly earnest.’

‘But didn’t you need money for a thing like that?’

‘How right you are. An astronomical sum of money. And I was the innocent they picked on to raise it, so I can give you the details of our sordid transactions. First I went to the Royal Geographical Society, who are usual Maecenases of Everest Expeditions. I dated their secretary and I talked to him for an hour. It makes me blush when I look back on that.’

‘Did it do any good?’

‘No. It didn’t raise a ha’penny. They said we were too inexperienced, and they were absolutely right. But
it was no good telling us, it only roused our determination, and being an unscrupulous little cad I gave the story to the
Echo
. Then we did get some offers. I had whole sackfuls of correspondence. People wanted us to test everything from army battledress to malted milk tablets. In the end we got the best part of our stores and equipment for nothing, but so far no money. And that was the thing we needed most.’

‘But you got that too, eventually.’

Overton gave his little laugh. ‘Yes, we did. And when you learn how you’ll think I should be the last person to sneer at miracles. It simply came through the post – a banker’s order for ten thousand pounds; there was no warning, no fanfares, no conditions, and no name. It had a note enclosed with it to say what it was for and praising our spirit of adventure, but expressing a wish to remain anonymous. We don’t know to this day who patronized our expedition. We could only thank him through the Press, and carry a flag to represent him.’

‘That was a very large sum to be made over so lightly.’

‘Yes, wasn’t it? The man would need to be a Docker or somebody.’