by Alan Hunter
‘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.’
‘Who signed the banker’s order?’
‘Oh, a
firm of solicitors in the city. We tried to pump them of course. But they wouldn’t breathe a word.’
‘What were their names?’
‘I don’t remember, though I could probably find out. Is it important?’
Gently shrugged. ‘Yes … I feel we ought to know it.’
‘I’ll go through my files at home. I’m pretty certain to have a note of it.’
Gently lit his pipe, thinking, still feeding Overton with questions. Could it fail to be of significance, this second mysterious provision of money? Someone had financed the expedition. Someone had set up Fleece in business. Were the odds very long against them having been the same person? And if this were so, what had been their object, and who could afford such Croesusian tactics? One thought immediately of Mr Stanley and of the industrial empire lying behind him. Was he the mover? Gently considered. He’d checked on Stanley the previous evening. He was a widower; he’d married the daughter of a well-known sporting brewer. She had died in nineteen-fifty and there could be no ambiguity in her case, but supposing the plot had lain elsewhere, in some latent threat to the giant firm? And Fleece, on two occasions, had tapped that potential, exploiting a dangerous secret he’d learned; and with the return of Kincaid had tried again, but this time had lost his life in the attempt. Could that be the pattern of it – the Nemesis which waited for Fleece on Snowdon?
‘Fleece led the expedition, didn’t he?’
‘Yes, he was the eldest member of the party. He’d been to the Alps for several years and he was a sound man on ice.’
‘Was it he who suggested the expedition?’
‘Not a bit of it. At first he was one of the sceptics. But then, when things were hanging in the balance, he seemed to change his mind and grow enthusiastic. That was a turning point, I don’t mind telling you. It occurred just before we received the money. Fleece had a flair for organization, and his coming in like that gave us all fresh heart.’
‘Did you know him well at that time?’
‘I suppose I did, in a sort of way. We both belonged to the Fell and Rock Climbers Club. Most of the expedition were members of that.’
‘What was your personal impression of Fleece?’
Overton lit a fresh cigarette before replying. ‘Personally, I didn’t take to him much.’ He inhaled once or twice. ‘But he had lots of good qualities. He made an excellent leader, and we couldn’t have done without him.’
‘What were some of his bad qualities?’
‘Oh, nothing really bad. He was a little chilly, that’s all, and inclined to be calculating. Rather liked his own way and didn’t care how he got it. But remember that’s speaking personally, so don’t hold it against him.’
‘Was he friendly with Kincaid? They both worked for the same firm.’
‘He was neither friendly or unfriendly, as far as I can recall it.’
‘Did he visit Kincaid’s house?’
‘I don’t know. I shouldn’t think so. He was the lone wolf type and didn’t much go in for visiting. But I was pally with Kincaid myself, he was such a peculiar and uncommon bird. And the oddest thing he ever did was getting hitched to Paula Blackman.’
‘Why do you say that?’
‘Why?’ Overton closed one eye and nodded. ‘She was a prize packet, was Paula. One of the marry-go-round brigade.’
‘A good-looker, I’ve heard.’
‘She had beauty, and more. She was a girl with ambitions, quite the wrong sort for Kincaid. I suppose he talked her into marrying him because he had the gift of the gab. But I’ll never believe it could have lasted, not if it had been put to the test.’
‘She had a roving eye, had she?’
‘No; not especially that. I never did see anything that struck me as suspicious. But it was her type, you know, she was the edible social-climber. And Kincaid was no summit for ambitions of that sort.’
‘Who broke to her the news of Kincaid’s death?’
‘Heaven knows. I tried to see her, but she’d vanished when I got back.’
‘Would you know her again if you met her?’
‘Well … I might and I might not. I can’t honestly visualize her features, but something about her might jog my memory.’
Silently Gently produced the photograph he had borrowed from Mrs Fleece. He handed it to Overton, who accepted it with interest. He took his time over examining it, holding the photograph at different distances, but one could tell from his expression that no penny had dropped.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t seem to recognize this lady.’
Gently retrieved it. ‘How many of the others had met Paula Kincaid?’ he asked.
Overton considered a moment. ‘One has to bear in mind that Kincaid wasn’t terribly popular. There was probably only myself and Fleece – oh yes, and Ray Heslington.’
At that name Evans perked up, but Gently was only nodding his head indifferently.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now I’d like to run through again what happened on Monday …’
Gently had lit his pipe and both the others were smoking incessantly, filling the studio, in spite of its spaciousness, with a heavy miasma of smoke. Below them in Bedford Place the traffic droned a restless litany, and the weak noonday sun cast its shadows towards Russell Square. London: the rampired heart of it, protected by miles of sunned, sooty walls; a world away from the swept helm of Everest and the choughs that echoed their cries by Snowdon …
‘Fleece was wearing a red windcheater, so we had no difficulty in picking him out. It was sunny, with a cool southerly breeze, and the visibility was a hundred per cent. We started off around ten-ish, intending to take the ascent easily, most of us choosing the lower route down by the llyns and the old copper mine. Heslington and Fleece preferred the Pyg Track and Heslington set out a little in advance. There are two or three paths which begin that route. Fleece chose a different one to Ray’s.’
Before him Gently had a large-scale map of the Snowdon theatre, a fierce brown-tinted piece of cartography full of swirling lines and fretted teeth. Overton pointed to the chopped lines which indicated the tracks which had been taken: desperate thoroughfares they looked, fit for goats and sheep only.
‘The Snowdon group is a rough horseshoe stretching from the Lliwedd round to Crib Goch, a pretty useful lot of rocks taking one with another. It encloses Llyd Llydaw there, which is crossed by a causeway, and in a lap higher up is the Glaslyn, which drains into Llydaw. Now the Pyg Track runs here, along the footslopes of Crib Goch, and as you can see it’s a good deal shorter than the llyns route. In fact I was just pulling up to the Glaslyn when I caught sight of Heslington; and by then he was on this ridge joining Crib-y-ddysgl to the Wyddfa.’
‘Are you positive that it was Heslington?’ Gently interrupted.
Overton hesitated, his eyes distancing. ‘I thought it was Heslington at the time. True, he was wearing nothing distinctive, just the usual rambler’s trim, but my automatic reaction was “There’s Ray up ahead.” Then, after I reached the Glaslyn, I saw Fleece’s windcheater on the Zigzags, which are the series of traverses here stretching from the Glaslyn to the top of the ridge. I waited for the others to come up with me before I started on the Zigzags, and by that time Fleece had gained the ridge and gone up along it towards the summit. I saw the windcheater show once or twice where there were gaps among the rock-rims.
‘Now try to picture this if you can. You’re at the foot of the ridge inside the horseshoe. It lifts up above you about twelve hundred feet, all fairly steep going over loose rock and outcrops. Closing you in on the right is Crib-y-ddysgl and Crib Goch, and on the left stand the Wyddfa and the Lliwedd rocks. The Wyddfa falls away in a cliff almost sheer down to the Glaslyn, about fifteen hundred feet without footing enough for a fly. The summit cairn is out of sight. It stands a few yards back from the edge.
‘Hold that picture. When the others arrived I continued my way up the Zigzags, which are a straightforward section, though they tend to be exhausting; and I reckoned I was better than halfway u
p, about on a level with Crib Goch, when I heard that frightful cry and saw Fleece come plunging down the cliff.’
Overton broke off; a peculiar expression was on his rounded, olive face. His brown eyes glittered. They seemed to stare through the map at which they were directed.
‘It’s something I’ll never forget, my God. It’s difficult to give any real impression of it. He seemed to be falling so very slowly, as though he’d got no weight at all … And he didn’t kick or lash with his arms; he just fell, and kept on falling. And those cliffs have a terrible echo. I can’t get his cry out of my ears.
‘I heard him strike, but I had turned my head: I couldn’t watch it, it was something obscene. Once, twice, and then he began rolling. He came to rest a few hundred yards from the llyn. But here’s something I didn’t give you in my statement, I was too confused at the time I made it. I remember hearing something before the cry, as though Fleece had first called or shouted at someone.’
Gently looked up from the map, his mind slowly refocusing: out of the riven Welsh sky, away from the rocky cockpit of Snowdon.
‘Did you hear what he shouted?’
‘Yes … I think I did. It was “No—!” – like that, as though he’d seen his danger. I may be rationalizing, of course, so I wouldn’t like to be too certain, but I did hear the sound. It made me start to raise my head.’
‘Where was he when you first saw him?’
‘He was just below the summit. Falling outwards and flattening, as though he’d gone over backwards.’
‘Did you see anyone else up there?’
‘No. I wouldn’t have forgotten that. But then I wasn’t looking for them … my eyes were fixed on something else.’
‘Carry on with your statement.’
Overton lit another cigarette. He drew on it heavily before continuing, driving the smoke through his nostrils.
‘After it happened … it knocked the steam out of me, I came over weak as a child. At the first shock I couldn’t believe it, it was as though I had watched it in a dream. But something had to be done, he might even still have been alive. People have taken tumbles like that and lived to dine out on it afterwards. So I bawled down to the others: I don’t remember what I said: then I kept on going up like a madman to get at the telephone in the café.’