Slim build, good looks, and wearing a mid-grey lounge suit. Dutt, with a flair for the dramatic entrance, had brought his man straight up. And he was an angry young man; his aspect was far from being guilty. He strode threateningly into the room with green eyes seeking whom they could devour. He settled for Gently.
‘I’d like to know the meaning of this — this illegal act of detention. I’m going to make such a stink that there’ll be a public inquiry!’
‘Sit down, Mr… who is it?’
‘I’m not going to sit down. I want an explanation, this instant, of why I’ve been seized and dragged in here!’
He smote the desk with his fist. He was an exceedingly angry young man. His age was one- or two-and-twenty and he had a faint moustache on his lip. His hair was very light brown with a side parting and a droop, his skull was round, his ears small, his nose round-tipped, his lips full. He had a determined cleft chin and his slim build was athletic. Though so angry, his voice retained elements of a public-school drawl.
‘Don’t think you’ll get away with it. You’ve picked on the wrong person for that. I’m not a nobody, I can tell you. I can make people of your sort jump through hoops.’
‘Then would you mind confounding us with your name?’
‘You see? You don’t even know it! You arrest somebody in a public place without even knowing their name. Just let me use that phone for a second.’
‘You’ll be allowed to use it if we detain you.’
‘I’ll use it now. I want my solicitor. And just you try to detain Henry Askham.’
Gently’s brows lifted. ‘Is that your name? Henry Askham?’
‘Henry Askham. Who did you think I was — some Cockney wide-boy of your acquaintance? I tell you now-’
‘Mrs Askham’s son?’
‘Yes. Yes! How many more times?’
‘You will kindly sit down, Mr Askham.’
‘Only after I’ve used this phone!’
He made a grab for it, but Dutt was there first; he quietly pinioned the young man’s arms. Askham struggled viciously and lashed out with his heels, but he was merely a child in the grip of the sergeant.
‘If you don’t take your hands off, I’ll charge you with assault!’
Gently motioned with his head and Dutt forcibly seated his charge. Then after a warning pause he released him and stepped back from the chair. Askham glared whole armouries at Gently, but he didn’t attempt to rise again.
‘Now, Mr Askham. We’ve some questions to ask you.’
‘And I’ve some to ask you. I’ll need your name for a start.’
‘Relating to a certain Phyllis Waters, alias Paula Kincaid.’
‘Mine relate to the statement I’m going to give to the Press!’
He was in no way abashed. His ferocious expression continued; like a slender, enraged terrier, he sat quiveringly on the edge of the chair. It passed through Gently’s mind that Mrs Askham’s life wasn’t all honey, though presumably some of the blame must rest with herself. As a mother, she’d perhaps leave a few things to be desired…
‘What can you tell us about this person?’
‘What do you think?’ He was nearly shouting. ‘She’s a prostitute. She lives in Kilburn. She told you herself. I sent her here.’
‘Why did you send her, Mr Askham?’
‘Oh, my God, must you be so stupid? Because she knew. She knew what happened. She knew that Paula Kincaid was dead.’
‘Why did you want her to tell us that?’
‘Is it possible to be so dense? To stop your beastly rotten prying and upsetting of my mother. She’s being terrorized by your snooping, and I was determined to put a stop to it.’
‘You know she came here this afternoon?’
‘Of course I do. You drove her to it.’
‘She didn’t seem so terrified then.’
‘Did you think she’d let you see it?’
‘But why should she be so anxious, anyway? It was scarcely a crime to employ Paula Kincaid.’
‘She was my father’s mistress. Don’t you understand that? And Mother hides it, but it hurts her as much as ever…’
He flushed curiously. He seemed suddenly embarrassed by what he had said. His eyes kept feverishly boring at Gently, the angrier for the crimson in the cheeks under them.
‘And I didn’t want her to know the rest. I didn’t want her to be mixed up in it. That’s why I made that girl go to you, so you’d know the truth without us being mixed up in it. I had to pay her; she didn’t want to go. I shelled out fifty quid for your benefit…’
‘So we’d know the truth.’
‘Yes, the God’s rotten truth! What happened in the end to Father’s dear Paula. While you thought she was alive you’d have kept on and on at Mother, but I knew she was dead, and I intended to let you know it. And this is all the thanks I get for it. To be treated like a criminal!’
‘ How did you know the woman was dead?’
Gently was leaning back in his chair, his eyes half closed, but never wandering from the pair that thrust at him so persistently. Askham had wavered; but only for a second. Now his reply came strongly:
‘How else do you think? Because I’d met her daughter and heard the same tale she told you.’
‘Where did you meet her?’
‘That doesn’t matter. The important point is that I did. I heard her name mentioned if you want to know, and it naturally struck me as being a coincidence. That was recently, after Kincaid returned, and before he pushed that man over Snowdon. From the first he’d been creating about his wife and trying to find out who she’d gone off with. And when I heard that name, immediately…’
‘Was it Mrs Kincaid you expected to find?’
‘Yes, it was. I was going to bribe her. I was going to get her to go back to Kincaid but to tell him nothing about being with Father. But as it turned out it was her daughter I met — my own half-sister, if you please! — and before I could work anything with her you’d arrested Kincaid for murder.’
‘And you believed the girl’s story, of course?’
‘Good grief, and why shouldn’t I? She doesn’t know my name, so she could have no reason for lying to me.’
‘You knew her real name was Phyllis Waters?’
‘I knew she went under that name. But having two names is nothing: it’s the usual thing with pros.’
‘I notice you’re familiar with their habits.’
Back flooded the embarrassment.
‘All right, then… I’m not so innocent! My father didn’t set a good example. But what does it matter? I heard her talked about… recommended; you can put it that way.’
‘As Phyllis Waters?’
‘No, Paula Kincaid! Why else do you think I went to see her?’
‘On a recommendation.’
‘Because of the name, I tell you.’
‘Or because her youthfulness would fit the story.’
Askham was keeping his eyes blazing, but now he didn’t find it so easy; they would like to have dropped before Gently’s calm gaze. He could also sense Evans watching him, steadily, suspiciously, and Dutt’s silent presence was somewhere behind his chair. He must have felt himself beginning to stare. He made a feint at rising.
‘Look, if you’re calling me a liar…!’
‘Keep seated, Mr Askham.’
‘In the first place, what right have you got; to order me about? You’ve none, and you know it.’
‘We’ve a perfect right to ask you questions.’
‘But not to call me a liar. And I won’t stand for that.’
He was whipping himself up to a fresh pitch of indignation, perhaps even considering the possibility of flinging out of the room. He darted a glance at the door. Dutt absently changed his position. Gently swivelled his chair slightly so as to rest an elbow on the desk.
‘Did you think we were going to believe it, a convenient story like that?’
‘It’s true. I know it’s true. The girl told it me in good faith. I asked her casually about her people…’
‘We can check her background quite easily.’
‘But there’s nothing one can check. And how could she have known about Paula Kincaid?’
‘How indeed?’
‘She couldn’t, could she? I mean, the thing proves itself. Either she is the woman’s daughter or else it’s all completely absurd.’
‘Unless someone primed her, obviously.’
‘But who would do a thing like that?’
‘Someone very interested in Mrs Kincaid. Who wanted to keep her out of the hands of the police.’
‘But that’s ridiculous… I won’t be accused! You can’t be serious about this.’ He was staring now and having to like it: the wind was going out of him fast. ‘I tried to help you. It cost me money. I didn’t care. I thought it was worth it. If you knew how it affected my mother… then, for you to turn on me like this!’
‘Did your mother know about Phyllis Waters?’
‘No — I told you! It would hurt her terribly.’
‘Why are you so interested in Paula Kincaid?’
‘I’m not. She’s nothing… it’s only Mother.’
‘Yet your mother didn’t seem so concerned.’
‘She is. She doesn’t show it, that’s all.’
‘How did you come to meet Arthur Fleece?’
Askham only stared. His lips were trembling.
An hour later it was bearing the marks of an all-night session, marks that Dutt understood well, though Evans still had to learn about them. Gently had sunk his teeth into Askham and time was no longer of any moment to him; he would go on and on now till he’d shaken the truth from the unlucky fellow. He’d made his mind up about Askham. That was the way Dutt read it.
And it was true. Gently could feel the ecstatic thrill of making contact. At last the fates had put in his hand one of the key figures of the enigma! Against the others he had been powerless, Kincaid, Stanley, Mrs Askham; Paula Kincaid was far to seek, Heslington he half believed in. But here, unsuspected and self-betrayed, was the weak link in the chain, and with him Gently could wrestle for the illuminating fact. Time was certainly no longer important. It was outside the reference of the problem. It was merely a symbol of infinity invoked to balance the equation.
‘Where is Paula Kincaid now?’
He leant on the desk, his chin on his hands; his eyes were narrowed, his face a blank, he was questioning, questioning: one question after another.
‘She’s dead. You know she is.’
‘Why don’t you want us to find her?’
‘How can you, when she’s dead?’
‘What did your father tell you about her?’
‘Nothing. I tell you-’
‘What does she know?’
‘She’s dead; you’ve got to believe her daughter-’
‘What does she know about Met. L?’
‘Nothing-’
‘How much does your mother know?’
‘Nothing! Except what she told you today.’
‘It could have been lies. I’m asking you.’
‘And I’m telling you, aren’t I?’
‘When did you last see Fleece?’
Askham’s bearing was very altered now. That last disintegrating hour had ripped his veneer into tatters. From his pose as the heir to the Askham millions with power and influence behind him he had been reduced to a naked unit, clinging fearfully to his straw of innocence. He sat crumpled and flush-faced. His lips were dry, his eyes rolling.
‘I… Fleece, I never met him.’
‘He visited Paula Kincaid in Caernarvon.’
‘He didn’t… I mean, she’s dead.’
‘Why did he visit her?’
‘He… but he didn’t…’
‘It had to do with Kincaid’s return. It was dangerous to let her find him, wasn’t it?’
‘No, he couldn’t, because she’s dead.
‘What makes you so certain. Have you some knowledge of her death?’
‘Phyllis Waters…’
‘She was lying.’
‘No! She told you the truth about it.’
‘She told me what you told her to tell me, and that’s no answer. How much do you know?’
‘Nothing. Only what she told me.’
‘I’m beginning to think there’s more to it than that. Like her having gone the same way as Fleece.’
‘But that’s crazy… you’ve got it wrong!’
‘You’re very insistent about her death.’
‘She’s dead, yes… but not like that…’
‘Then suppose you tell me which way she died.’
‘I can’t. I only had it from Phyllis-’
‘Think how tempting it would have been. To dispose of that dangerous woman for ever and to end her constant threat to someone… Then you could say she was killed in the blitz. You could produce a witness who we’d have to believe. Doesn’t that sound like a clever way out, a safe way of guarding an ugly secret?’
‘But it isn’t true. You can’t believe it-!’
‘You’d be surprised what I have to believe.’
‘I don’t know anything about her death!’
‘Then prove it to me. Where is Paula Kincaid?’
And so it went on, with never a break, chiselling and nagging at Askham’s resistance; going round in circles, dragging in hypotheses, pounding away at any variation he introduced into his answers. Who could stand it for long without truth in his corner, or even so seconded? There came a time when it didn’t matter…
Dutt, who’d heard it all and seen it all, retired to a seat in the corner, and there sought a sombre diversion in a file of Police Gazettes. Evans, new to the virtuosities of a full-dress Gently interrogation, continued to stare and digest in unconcealed admiration. It was going ill with the local wrongdoers when Evans returned to Caernarvon…
‘Your mother knew Fleece, didn’t she? She’s apt to give herself away.’
‘She didn’t know him. She-’
‘He paid her a visit when he went to see Paula Kincaid.’
‘No — never!’
‘I think he did. I think they had things to discuss together.’
‘I tell you he’s never set foot in Trecastles!’
‘Where did they meet, then? In a hotel somewhere?’
‘They didn’t meet. We’ve never met him. What was a man like him to us? We didn’t even know he existed… not till we read about him in the papers.’
‘What did you read about him in the papers?’
‘That he’d been… accidentally killed. And before that there was something else. He’d had a suit against Kincaid.’
‘And, of course, you looked for items like that.’
‘Yes, we did. My mother was upset.’
‘Very natural that she should be. As the principal shareholder in Met. L.’
‘But that has nothing-’
‘Was it she who rang Fleece, or was it the other way about?’
‘She’d never have rung Fleece!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because she… I’ve told you! She didn’t know him.’
‘So he must have rung her, and that started the acquaintance. He dashed across to Wales and they held a consultation. Paula Kincaid had to be dealt with; her husband was certain to catch up with her, and once he did then the fat would be properly in the fire. How did they plan to make her safe?’
‘They didn’t plan anything of the sort-’
‘To move her was it? Send her abroad?’
‘No… nothing. There weren’t any plans…’
‘To marry her maybe? Marry her to Fleece?’
‘Oh, God!’
‘Or perhaps to get rid of her entirely. Fleece was a man of resource in these matters: how much did he want to get rid of Paula Kincaid?’
He should have thought of it before: there was a certain relief from his torments. He could sit silent, letting the questions buzz harmlessly about his ears. It was a defeat, it vanquished the last shreds of the character he’d come in with, but it gave him pause from the destructive bombardment that was beating him to his knees. He summoned a defiant look for Gently: then he tightly closed his mouth.
‘So that was the way of it, was it. Is that what you don’t want to tell me?’
Gently noticed the change of reaction but seemed in no way concerned by it.
‘Fleece was filing his divorce. That was a stage in plan one. But there was a later plan, plan two, devised to settle with Paula for good. She’d got the wind up about Kincaid. She couldn’t be trusted to play her part. I can understand that you don’t want to tell me, but you could put a finger on Paula’s grave…’
‘It’s not true!’ His silence was shattered by this intolerable insinuation; but he remembered himself directly and snapped his lips shut again.
‘Why shouldn’t it be true? It fits perfectly if you believe that Kincaid murdered Fleece. He was close on your trail over in Wales and might have got wind of what you were up to. That would make some sense of it, wouldn’t it? Why he pushed Fleece over the Wyddfa?’
‘Good gracious, man!’ It was Evans who gave the reaction to that one. He began to rub his large hands, producing a dry, rasping sound. But Askham had retired into his shell.
His teeth as well as his lips were clamped. He stared hotly at Gently, an exhibition of determined silence.
‘Then there’s Heslington to consider.’ Gently pressed on almost amiably. ‘He was the man who Fleece was citing, and he’d be sure to prefer Fleece dead. He’d be susceptibile to suggestion; you’d scarcely need to offer him a bribe. You’d show him your cards, you’d tip him the wink, and he wouldn’t see too much on the Wyddfa. But what he did see would be carefully concerted to give support to a likely story.’
‘He saw Kincaid and you know it!’ Out, out it had to come. In spite of all the grinding of teeth, he had to respond when the chord was plucked.
‘Yes, exactly; he saw Kincaid. And Kincaid has been the root of the trouble. A man who should never have returned from the dead and who it was desirable to reinter. Why shouldn’t Heslington have seen him, if he saw anything at all up there?’
‘But Kincaid…!’
‘Has all sorts of motives. I know. They proliferate round the man. The more you look for them the more you find; you’d almost say he had too many. Because the murderer needed only one motive, one clear, sharp reason for giving that push. And he would need to be confident of his power to deliver it: one would have looked for somebody less frail than Kincaid.’
‘But if he wasn’t expecting it-’
‘We think he was. We think he was face to face with his killer.’
‘You don’t know that!’
‘We know a lot of things. And we’d like to know the whereabouts of Mrs Kincaid.’
It nearly did it. Askham was teetering, twice he was on the point of blurting it out. He tried to begin it a couple of times, his lips trembling and his eyes wild. Then he seemed to rock away from it again; his face grew sullen and passionately hostile.
‘She isn’t anywhere. She’s dead and buried. And not because anyone murdered her, either!’
Gently rose. He went over to the window. He stood staring out at the dark world of the Thames.
The break was for coffee and sandwiches; it had no other significance. Gently hadn’t done with Askham; he’d hardly started on the fellow. Dutt had excused himself and gone, it wasn’t his business anyway, and Evans, bursting for a discussion, was restrained by the presence of Askham. Consequently, he said nothing much, and Gently was far from being talkative. He sat broodily chewing his canteen sandwiches while apparently eyeing the marks on his blotter…
Yes, he’d only started with Askham; yet didn’t he already have a part of the truth? Hadn’t it begun to peer through the tangle during that first corrosive session?
Askham had conceded little in words but he had yielded much in the sum of his reactions. Time after time his temperature had risen when particular questions had been repeated. And the shape emerging from it was new — new and suddenly enlightening; it supplied the wanted touch of simplicity that Gently’s instinct had predicted. But questions were unlikely to carry it further. They had done their duty in betraying the truth. A further session might confirm the pattern but he needed other artillery to achieve a breakdown. Questions were small-shot; the present occasion was calling for greater penetration…
He opened the Kincaid file and took out the O.S. map he had added to it. Askham, already reviving from his ordeal, watched it being spread out over the desk. Did he sense that something was decided, that a more searching test was being found for him; burning-cheeked, burning-eyed, the arrogance creeping back into his manner?
‘Show me Trecastles.’ Gently brought him into the act deliberately. Askham leaned forward. He pointed to the place with a finger that didn’t tremble.
‘Not far from Bangor, is it…?’
‘Bangor is just across the bridge.’
‘How far are you from Caernarvon?’
‘Eleven or twelve. I haven’t checked it.’
There it lay in cartographical diagram, palely coloured, the drama’s cockpit; the jaw of Anglesey, the blue serpent of Menai, and the club-footed sector with its ballast of Snowdon. There the flashpoint had occurred, the critical moment of these exchanges. On that spot upon the anvil had fallen the hammer of twenty-two years. And there one must go again, seeking the knowledge of that moment, assembling the actors, producing the play, forcing the drama to re-enact itself: stripping the thousands of possibilities from the one undoubted fact and making it stand there blazing naked: upon the summit waited the truth.
Evans was called to the phone and stood by it eating and chopping out monosyllables. Askham was gazing at Gently fixedly, watching where his eyes strayed on the map. Then, apparently by accident, their eyes came together, meeting and holding in a long caesura, holding till Askham dragged his away and let them sink to the map between them…
‘Wait a minute, man. I’ll jot that down.’
Evans juggled with the pad, the phone and his sandwich.
‘And nowhere else… not in Caernarvon, say? Oh, very good, man… let me know the results.’
He stripped the sheet off the pad.
‘So there’s another thing settled. Fleece stayed each time at the same hotel: it was the St David in Beaumaris.’
‘In Beaumaris?’
‘Under his own name. Here are the dates on this paper.’
‘Show it to Askham.’
Evans flipped the paper to the shrinking young man. Now his fingers trembled all right, he needed two attempts to pick up the sheet.
‘What have you to say about that?’
‘I… nothing! It doesn’t mean…’
‘It means that Fleece paid four visits to Beaumaris.’
‘We didn’t — we’ve never seen the man…’
It was a temptation to jump down his throat and to crush that lie flat, but Gently firmly resisted it. Not here, not yet!
‘Very well, then. That’s all — for this evening, in any case. But don’t go off with the idea that we’re satisfied with you.’
‘I’ve told you everything… the truth!’
‘Now listen carefully to what I’m saying. I want you to report at the police station at Llanberis at nine a.m. on Saturday.’
‘B-but what for?’
‘To assist the police.’
‘I won’t do it. You can’t make me!’
Gently nodded his head steadily. ‘You’ll do it,’ he said. ‘Either I arrest you here and now on a charge of conspiracy, or you report at Llanberis at nine a.m. on Saturday. Which way do you want it?’
Askham didn’t deign to answer. He glowered hate at Gently for a moment, then rose and hurled himself out of the office. They heard his feet patter down the stairs. Evans tipped the door shut behind him.
‘Do you know, man,’ he said pleasantly, ‘I had an idea you’d be coming to Wales…’