by Alan Hunter
Askham was almost touching Gently, so near was he trudging along beside him: that was the point that kept striking Evans on the slog up the ridge. At the bottom Askham had been rebellious, he’d been furiously angry with Gently, but now he slunk at the Yard man’s side, a chastened, almost a filial figure. What had happened between them coming up? Evans wished he’d kept a more attentive eye on them. All he’d noticed was that Askham was panicky and had obviously a shocking head for heights. But that didn’t explain this turnabout from angry antagonism to servile deference, nor the little glances that Askham kept throwing at Gently’s unregistering, rock-like face …
Evans muttered at last to Overton: ‘What did they talk about man, him and Askham?’
Overton raised and let fall his hands. ‘Nothing. Though the young man was blowing off steam.’
‘It was only that? It was nothing more?’
‘Nothing that I heard in any case. There wasn’t a lot of conversation after we’d started on the Zigzags.’
So the mystery continued a mystery and Evans frowned as he strode along.
Now the café appeared ahead, hopefully crowning the last long slope, an ugly, utilitarian building on the lines of a mess-hut from a temporary camp. They saw Heslington work his way towards it, pass across the front and disappear; providing a positive demonstration of the tenability of his story. Thus the scene was set as on Monday, with the time at precisely five minutes past one. The sun, as then, stood over the summit and was full in their eyes as they approached. Gently halted when they drew near the café.
‘One of you – Williams – remain here, will you? I want you to keep your eye fixed on the top there, above the café. Is that understood?’
‘Yes, sir.’ Williams stiffened himself involuntarily. ‘But what do you want me to watch for, sir?’
‘For whatever you can see. And remember, it’s important. So don’t let your attention wander for a second.’
Leaving Williams looking puzzled, they proceeded to the café, which lay niched into the rock on the right, its roof on a level with the track. Above it to the left stood the round cairn, a drum-shaped platform of rocks, a matter of thirty feet in diameter and ten or twelve in height. The track passed round it, still screwing upwards, to end in a sloped plane of rock which was the summit. From the base of the cairn to the brink of this platform would be a distance of perhaps fifteen yards.
Gently brought them to a stand again on the far side of the cairn, not sufficiently advanced round it to have re-entered Williams’ field of vision. For several moments he stood studying the disposition of the spot, the cairn, the narrowing slope and the violent emptiness it descended into. Then he felt in his pocket and – for the first time – turned to Askham.
‘Take this.’
It was the cigarette-case bearing the monogram ‘RTK’. Askham drew his breath sharply. He visibly shrank away from Gently.
‘I … no! Why should I – why are you giving that to me?’
‘Take it!’
The case was shoved into his reluctant hand.
‘Now …!’ Gently’s voice sounded softer, his lids sank a little. ‘I shall need some help from you in your capacity of Kincaid. He was evidently up here ahead of Fleece, and perhaps ahead of Heslington too. But he wasn’t concealed behind the café, because Heslington went there to eat his lunch. Yet Fleece didn’t see Kincaid when he was coming up the track, so he must have been somewhere not immediately visible. I’d like you to suggest where that somewhere could have been, where Kincaid could see Fleece, but Fleece missed seeing Kincaid.’
It was too simple. There was only one place. Askham pointed to it tremblingly.
‘Yes … you’re probably right. It was up there on the cairn. So will you take your place there?’
‘I …’ Askham’s look of appeal was pitiful.
‘Just climb up the cairn, please. Stand at the back, where it’s highest.’
Still he lingered, as though in hope of a reprieve from Gently’s fiat; but there was no more prospect of that than of the Wyddfa beginning to melt. He clambered unsteadily on to the cairn.
‘Kincaid was sitting down, wasn’t he …?’
Askham sat, he nearly fell. He crouched with head sunk forward on his chest.
‘Right … now we’re getting somewhere. We’d better hear what Williams can tell us.’
Evans stepped back round the cairn and whistled through his fingers for the sergeant. Williams appeared, rather out of breath, apparently having read urgency into the signal. But Gently didn’t seem in a hurry.
‘What did you see from back there?’
‘I saw Askham on the cairn, sir. At least, I did when he was standing up.’
‘But when he was sitting?’
‘Well then I might perhaps have seen his head, sir. But with the sun in my eyes, I wouldn’t like to be certain.’
‘It was a sunny day on Monday.’
Gently’s eyes never left Askham. If he’d ignored him before he was paying the debt now with interest.
‘The rest of you wait here, will you?’
He turned his back on the cairn. He began to walk down the slope towards the edge of the abyss. Slowly, but with steps that didn’t hesitate, giving no indication of his purpose, he continued down to the last treacherous footing of loose rock. And there he remained, for several seconds, while Evans could feel his blood run chill: a hunched-up figure, hands in pockets, framed in the void that extended beyond Snowdon. At the end of that interval he turned again. But he moved not a step away from the edge.
‘Stand up, Askham. Take out the case I gave you.’
Askham had been watching too. Now he could scarcely get to his feet. He fumbled impotently for the case, which after all was in a different pocket. He held it out quiveringly, as though expecting Gently to take it.
‘Now light a cigarette.’
Wasn’t it asking too much? Even picking one from the case seemed an act beyond his power. The matches scattered through his fingers, he struck a couple that blew out. He got a fag lit at last, but looked unable to keep it going.
And then there was chaos.
Gently screamed; his feet thrashed wildly for a foothold. His arms flew up in a desperate windmill and the loose rock scattered from his frenzied boots. It was all so sudden, there was nothing one could do. Everything else was in slow motion … before they could reach him the inevitable happened; he lost his balance and pitched down headlong on the rocky slope of the Wyddfa summit.
The effect was appalling, no less on the others as on Askham. In a concerted rush they had sprung down the slope and now were laying panic-stricken hands on Gently. But he was up directly, thrusting them aside, striding back and up on to the cairn, to the sobbing young man with his spilled cigarette-case and the fallen cigarette, lighted ten seconds earlier.
‘And what happened then?’
Askham’s state was deplorable, he couldn’t get out as much as a croak. He stood swaying, blubbing, shaking like an aspen; pushing out a feeble hand towards Gently. On all of Snowdon they stood, the two of them, looking down on two countries: the implacable man who would have the truth and the defenceless youth who couldn’t speak it.
‘I d-d-d-didn’t …!’
His teeth were chattering, his lip kept getting in the way.
‘I d-d-didn’t push him … I w-wouldn’t have dared … I’d never have gone down where he was …!’
‘Then why did he fall?’
‘He h-heard me … saw me. He was st-standing like you were, looking down at the view. And then I got up and he turned round and saw me … he must have thought … and then he l-l-lost his balance …’
‘What was it he thought?’
Askham gave a great shudder. ‘He knew I wanted him … w-wanted him dead …’
‘And what was the reason for wanting him dead?’
The stammer sank to a whisper. ‘Blackmail … dirty blackmail …!’
The last two words were barely audible, but they seeme
d to go echoing down the Wyddfa cliffs.
CHAPTER TWELVE
BLACKMAIL: DIRTY BLACKMAIL. Dispelling Kincaid like a mist, banishing him precipitately from the Wyddfa and back to the probable truth of his statement. It was a bitter moment for Evans as he stood staring at the two on the cairn, a moment of personal revelation which he was too honest to avoid. Out of some different level of understanding Gently had produced this confounding trump card.
‘Then he’s the one who Heslington saw!’
It had perforce to be more of a statement than a query. Once you had grasped the basic fact, the details went tumbling into place. Askham’s height came near to Kincaid’s. His build, his carriage were much the same. Glimpsed from the back at a suitable distance, he would easily pass muster for the man himself. Another point that Evans had missed.
‘Right. We may as well have our meal.’
Gently was climbing down from the cairn with a bland inconsequence of expression. But surely he hadn’t done questioning Askham, when there was so much still to be explained! All the background to that mysterious blackmail, with its deep-set roots and weary entanglements? And at the very least:
‘Won’t you charge him, man?’
‘With what?’ Gently stared at him blankly.
‘Why … I’d say …’ Evans floundered uncomfortably, feeling more and more left out of the picture.
It was a curious meal, the one they ate there, with the Olympian view rolled out beneath them. Except for Heslington, who had missed that scene, nobody had much to say for themselves. And Heslington too soon gave up trying. He could sense that something climactic had occurred. He put out feelers to Overton to find if he, Heslington, were affected, then decided that he wasn’t and got on with his sandwiches. All along there had been a growing air of confidence about Heslington.
More remarkable to Evans was the tie between Gently and Askham, which continued unaffected by the passage of the thunder. The young man had sat down by him still trembling from his ordeal, but he was soon showing more composure, and with it a sort of tremulous regard. Evans felt a twinge of jealousy; he was being ignored by Gently! He was at a loss to find a reason for the irritating phenomenon. In his experience there was little love lost between a chummie and his apprehender, especially when the chummie had been given a dose of treatment like this one.
‘I didn’t know … it was Kincaid …’
Askham had started to mutter something. He swooped on a thermos to pour some coffee for Gently.
‘Down in Llanberis I asked them … so I thought he’d come here. I had to see him of course … and that was the reason …’
And Gently grunted as though it made sense, reaching his hand for the coffee. What had happened? At what point had Evans gone off the road?
After the meal it became increasingly plain that Gently had finished for the present; as of then, the whole excursion might have been a pleasure trip. With Askham slinking in his wake and Overton providing information, he made an appreciative circuit of the top, asking nothing but tourist questions. Then he was ready to go down; he had exhausted the Wyddfa. That single blaze of illumination was apparently all he asked from it. He had somehow been able to foretell it and now he’d got it he was satisfied. It clicked home. Evans knew instinctively that Gently had the whole story.
Did it hinge on what Kincaid knew about the incident on Everest, and Harry Askham’s part in that? Could the answer be so simple?
On the long, dull descent to Llanberis, only a moorland track below Clogwen Bridge, Evans wrestled unceasingly with the problem, giving it all the benefit of his needle-bright logic. He wanted so badly to get there himself, to reach the answer before Gently came out with it; and it had to be staring him in the face somewhere, since he knew the facts as well as the Yard man. Yet the more he grappled with them the more stubborn they became. Without further investigation there seemed no prospect of squaring them. Behind any blackmail must lie a secret, and that secret was buried deep; known perhaps by the Askhams, mother and son, but only certainly by the Kincaids. And not knowing that how could one be so smug and so oracularly self-satisfied as Gently? Or, what was worse, so infuriatingly right? The facts stretched like a wall against any such certainties.
And he was still butting his head against it when they straggled down to the town, past the outlying houses and bungalows and on to the welcoming metalled road. Had he begun to suspect its significance, to plot its position in the Gentlian process; to sense that it was here Gently had turned his back when that wall insisted on barring his way …? He was staring at Gently very hard. But he was much too proud to ask a question.
‘Where’s the best place to eat in Llanberis?’
Gently was dragging his boots with fatigue. Evans observed it with a consoled satisfaction: here was something Wales had taught the maestro!
‘The Snowdon Café is as good as anywhere.’
‘Right. We’ll go there straight away.’
‘What about …?’ Evans motioned to Askham.
‘He’ll come along too. Do you think he climbs on air?’ Evans had a savage glance for the young man but he said no more. It was Gently’s party!
After climbing on sandwiches, one ate like a tiger. That was the immediate lesson that Wales had taught Gently. His body craved food, its furthest extremities cried out for it, and for forty-five minutes he did nothing but empty plates. Then he sighed and felt for his pipe. There was something to be said for climbing mountains! He took a few luxurious puffs before running an eye round his company.
‘I’d like to thank those present for giving me their assistance.’
Was it spoken as a dismissal? Nobody seemed eager to take it up. A subtle bond was linking them together, the unspoken friendship of the hills. It had grown there unawares and had suddenly surprised them with a unity, setting the disparate aside, making evens of the odds. Heslington was the first to speak.
‘Then I can take it you’ve finished with me?’
‘Yes, I think so.’
‘If you don’t mind, I should like to have it a little more definite. At one stage you came near to accusing me, not without grounds, I’m ready to admit. And I want to make sure that you’re satisfied now.’
‘Quite satisfied, Mr Heslington.’
‘And Sarah. I can tell her?’
Gently nodded, blowing smoke. ‘We shan’t be troubling Mrs Fleece.’
‘In that case …’ Heslington stood up. He felt in his hip pocket for his wallet. ‘I’ll be getting on the road. I want to be back in town tonight.’
He went, with a nod to Overton, his red head jerking when he strode past the window; in the final analysis unexpectedly impressive and with a dignity seen to be sincere. Had he been a red herring? No: not quite. He had held a key piece in that intricate jigsaw. A few moments later they saw him pass in the sports car, but his eyes were fixed on the long road ahead.
‘I suppose that goes for me too.’
Overton’s smile was lazy, and after stretching and flexing his arms he let them drop with a grunt. But he wasn’t tired; you could tell that. His sallow skin gave the wrong impression. The mountain that had squashed Gently flat was only a loosener to Overton.
‘Of course, I’d like to tag along and get to the bottom of this lark, but I only came for the ride, so I’d better follow Ray’s example. Only my car is up the pass.’
‘Sergeant Williams will find you transport.’
‘Well, I can’t say I’m not baffled. But I’ve enjoyed the trip all the same.’
He rose, Williams with him; but Gently detained them with a gesture.
‘Just one more question. This one comes from my superior at the Yard. Why do you people want to climb Everest?’
‘Why?’ Overton’s brown eyes danced at him. ‘But I should be here all night if I even started to answer that.’
‘In a couple of words, though?’
‘You’d think me a fool if I told you.’
‘I won’t show it.’
&nb
sp; ‘All right, then! It’s to get at the soul of the beast.’
And he ducked away from an explanation, towing Williams along after him.
Then they were three; Evans, Gently, Askham sitting in sulky thought, his head bowed over his coffee, his hands clasped under the table. The culprit, if there was a culprit, and Evans very much wanted to think so. But more likely the tormented inheritor of a harrowing patrimony.
He made a last half-hearted effort.
‘My car is here … can’t I go too?’
Gently sternly shook his head. ‘You’re coming back to Caernarvon with us.’
‘You can’t make me. I haven’t been charged.’
‘I’ll soon do that if you’d prefer it. Otherwise you’ll come with us. We haven’t quite finished yet.’
His head drooped over the cup again.
‘You’re going to talk to my mother, aren’t you?’ he mumbled.
It was the same in Wales as in London or in any other police station on earth; the same tidy untidy room with its desk and chairs and filing cabinets. The same smell of floor polish and paper and tobacco smoke that was never dispersed, the identical dingy painted walls, brown linoleum, and tin waste box. All that was different in Evans’s office was the calendar pinned behind the door, which was issued by a Welsh firm with an unpronounceable name and which carried a picture of a Welsh girl in national costume. But the atmosphere was correct. It touched its chord of condemnation.
‘I must admit I was surprised, Superintendent.’
She had swept in finely with her surge of hauteur; driving the atmosphere back with her presence and filling the office with her own. Then she had seen her son, and stopped, making her stand-out skirt rustle. She had fixed her eyes accusingly on his hunched and shamefast shoulders.