Gently in Trees

by Alan Hunter

Keynes shook his head. ‘I don’t know their names. But your smell is as good as mine.’

  Now they had reached the full glare of sunlight where a complete section was naked of trees. Instead it was sown with short meadow grass with soft, downy flower-heads, as purple as heather. Trenching was visible, however, stretching faint furrows across the expanse, and in the shelter of the furrows, almost hidden by herbage, were tiny saplings, only inches tall. Here were wildflowers in plenty. The section was fringed with viper’s bugloss, and rashes of its chalky blue flowers and crimson buds showed distantly in the purple grass. Campions, white and red, scabious, knapweed and wild mignonette, milfoil, vetchling and yellow trefoil flowered riotously beside the track. Here too was a diversity of butterflies, Walls, Ringlets, Meadow Browns, Orange Tips, Common Blues, Tortoiseshells, Heaths and Skippers. But most surprising was the colour of the grass and the soft uniformity of its sweep, as though the section had been painted over with a full, unhesitating brush.

  Keynes gave Gently one of his little quick glances as they turned right again, between trees and meadow.

  ‘Here’s the true sanity,’ he said. ‘Here Samsara is Nirvana.’

  ‘A pity Stoll can no longer appreciate it,’ Gently said dryly. ‘Yes, a pity,’ Keynes said. ‘Though Adrian was a child of the dualities. He would have wanted to take a photograph.’

  ‘And that’s how you remember him?’

  Keynes shook his head. ‘I wish he were here, under this sun. Taking photographs, if he wanted to, and laying down the law to everyone. But since he’s dead – well, he’s dead, as you and I will be at last, and the pity is he’s left a problem and bad karma for someone. Because crime punishes itself, you know, irrespective of you fellows.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Gently said. ‘But we still have a use, if it’s only to stop the criminals from punishing themselves. Or would that be contrary to the Tao?’

  Keynes grinned, and tossed his stalk at Gently.

  ‘In a way,’ he said, ‘Adrian died well – doing what he wanted, at the height of his powers. He was prevented from making himself some bad karma, and perhaps from artistic decline. He enjoyed himself, and slept. Life should be so kind to all of us.’

  ‘In a way,’ Gently said. ‘But we’re left with a killer.’

  ‘And the killer is left with himself,’ Keynes said.

  ‘You would leave it like that?’

  Keynes shook his head. ‘Because the killer, too, is Buddha.’

  ‘So we catch him,’ Gently said. ‘And that’s his way back – perhaps knocking a kalpa out of the reckoning. And meanwhile preserving him from fresh bad karma, like being the happy release of further Stolls.’

  Keynes chuckled. ‘I hear what you say.’

  ‘Then perhaps now you’ll give me a name,’ Gently said.

  ‘If I could, I would,’ Keynes said. ‘And your wisdom now is to believe me.’ He looked steadily at Gently. ‘Or to try to,’ he said. ‘Keeping your suspicion in a separate compartment.’

  Gently stared back. ‘We shall catch him,’ he said.

  ‘To believe which,’ Keynes said, ‘is my wisdom.’

  They passed the meadow, which was succeeded by a section of feathery, droop-skirted larches, at the foot of which young beeches spread level leaves to the filtered sun. Still on the right were the cool chambers of the Corsicans, a benevolent recession of pinkish-grey shafts, below which a few deciduous seedlings peered wistfully at the little sky. All was silent, except for the far-off broken clamour of a cuckoo.

  Ahead, a figure turned out of a cross-ride.

  ‘Look – there’s Maryon!’ Keynes said.

  Maryon Britton waved uncertainly, then made up her mind and hurried towards them. Keynes hastened ahead. They met smilingly, standing for a moment before each other. She was dressed in a simple, sleeveless print frock, which became her better than the suit of yesterday.

  ‘I thought I would find you round here!’ She turned to Gently, her smile dying. ‘And you.’ But the smile half-returned. ‘He said you’d be human if he took you into the forest.’

  ‘Oh, he’s human anyway,’ Keynes grinned. ‘It doesn’t need a lot of bringing out.’

  ‘Well, it didn’t show much yesterday,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘And certainly not in the way he treated poor Lawrence.’

  She fell into step between them, lengthening her stride to keep time with theirs. She walked with an easy, graceful step: the natural gait of a countrywoman.

  ‘Tell me the truth,’ she said to Gently. ‘You haven’t secretly arrested Lawrence, have you?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘An arrest is public,’ he said. ‘No, we haven’t arrested Turner.’

  ‘Well, Jenny thinks you have,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘He went off this morning without seeing her. So she suspects that you came after him and that I’m trying to keep it from her.’

  ‘Dear Jenny,’ Keynes smiled. ‘But she won’t be a teenager much longer.’

  ‘It can’t be over too soon,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘Being mothers and daughters is a wearing business.’

  ‘But would he normally have seen her?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Most mornings,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘At least he could have rung. He should know by now what a little goose my daughter is.’

  Keynes sent Gently a glance over Maryon Britton’s head. ‘Lawrence was still a bit dopey this morning,’ he said. ‘Which isn’t surprising. Being put through the ropes yesterday must have given him the shock of his young life. But he was recovering. I dare say a whirl in the big city will complete the cure. There’s a gallery in the Bush I told him about – I know he was keen to follow it up.’

  ‘What time did he leave?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Straight after breakfast – around nine.’ Keynes hesitated. ‘He had to pick up petrol, so no doubt he would call at the garage.’

  ‘Really, he’s as idiotic as Jenny,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘The kids today have no stability. What that girl needs is a father-figure.’ She flashed a smile at Keynes. ‘But not you, Edwin.’

  They turned down the ride from which Maryon Britton had emerged, and which at length led them back to the church. The white shape of the Lotus waited poised and fish-like, its enamel still glowing with Central Office polish. Gently unlocked it.

  ‘Can I offer you a lift?’

  Maryon Britton shook her head. ‘Not if you’ve finished with us. I intend to seduce Edwin away from his typewriter. That is, if he had any intention of returning to it.’

  Keynes shrugged a negative. ‘I’m a weakling,’ he said. ‘My reviews can wait till rainy weather.’

  ‘So thanks,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘It’s an awfully nice car. But we’ll continue our stroll to the river.’

  Gently got in and slammed the door. They stood by watching while he started the engine. He turned the Lotus in a tight circle on the plot before the church: his mirror showed them still watching as he drove away.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE TOOK THE main road into the village, which lay deserted and drowsing in the brilliant sunlight. It had a graceless, lop-sided street which cranked at a right angle by a patch of green. Also there was a square, bounded on three sides by old-fashioned shops and an inn; rather happy-go-lucky. People lived there and the picturesque came in by accident.

  Gently pulled in at the garage, where there was just room to park beside delivery lines that swung out on arms. A man appeared, massive and greasy in oil-plated dungarees. He looked at the Lotus, then at Gently.

  ‘Only four star, old partner,’ he said.

  ‘That’ll do,’ Gently said. ‘Fill her up.’

  ‘Right you are,’ the man said, reaching for a line.

  Gently climbed out and lounged by the car. ‘Which way is Deerview Cottage?’ he asked.

  The man glanced up briefly from his gushing nozzle. ‘Turn right up here by the green,’ he said. He slid Gently another look. ‘That’s Ted Keynes’s place,’ he said. ‘But I reckon you won’t find him in. I saw him come p
ast here a time back.’

  ‘It’s his friend I’m looking for,’ Gently said.

  ‘Ah,’ the man said. ‘Young Lawrence. But he’s out too. He was in here earlier, driving the car. I gave him a fill-up.’

  ‘Which way was he heading?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Why, going town-way,’ the man said. ‘But where he was heading I never asked him. I just know he had a tank of juice.’

  Gently paid and idled away, but neglected to turn right by the green. Instead he continued along the street to where the houses became larger and more affluent-looking. At the church he hesitated briefly, then turned down towards the forest. He glided the Lotus through the Lodge gates and let it roll to a stop by the side-door.

  The side-door was open, as it had been yesterday, but this time Gently had to ring. He heard the sound of footfalls on the stairs before Jennifer Britton appeared in the passage. She was dressed in jeans and a sleeveless shirt. There was redness and puffiness about her eyes. She came forward reluctantly, her eyes wary, and stopped a pace inside the door.

  ‘Have you – come for me, too?’

  Gently smiled and shook his head. ‘Just to tell you not to worry about Lawrence.’

  ‘But you’ve got him, haven’t you?’

  ‘No. It’s as you were told. He borrowed Mr Keynes’s car and drove to London.’

  She caught at a strand of blonde hair. ‘But you’d lie to me anyway. That’s the way you get people to talk.’

  Gently shrugged. ‘Then your mother is lying too, and Mr Keynes. We must all be in it.’

  She stood regarding him suspiciously for a few moments, but then timidly advanced to the brick step. Her hair looked ragged and unbrushed, and there were stains of tears on her thin cheeks.

  ‘If you haven’t got him, then where is he?’

  ‘By his own account he was going to London.’

  ‘But Lawrence doesn’t know anybody in London! And why would he go without telling me?’

  ‘Would he have told you?’

  ‘Yes – of course! I might have wanted to go with him. In fact, I probably would have gone with him.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why he didn’t tell you.’

  She chewed her lip. ‘It’s your fault, anyway. You know that Lawrence didn’t do it. You’ve just been laying into Lawrence and hoping that someone else will confess.’

  ‘Who else, Miss Britton?’

  She eyed him sullenly. ‘It wouldn’t be Edwin, of course, would it? He’s much too clever! If he killed Adrian you may as well give up now. And Mother, it wouldn’t be her, because Mother knows how to get round you. Mother is an actress, or haven’t you noticed? She’s never been known to fluff a line.’ She leaned against the doorpost, squinting up at him. ‘Why haven’t you been questioning me?’ she said. ‘Oh, not just taking a silly statement, but really grilling me – like Lawrence?’ She thrust her face forward. ‘Why haven’t you? That’s what I’m finding so very strange.’

  Gently sighed. ‘Have you the keys to the Imp?’

  ‘No – but I could have borrowed Lawrence’s.’

  ‘Or used the Rapier?’

  ‘No – yes, because I cleaned it jolly soon afterwards.’

  ‘Then you would have cleaned the Imp, if you’d used that.’

  ‘Well, that could have been to divert suspicion. To make you think it was really Edwin, who is quite capable of looking after himself.’

  ‘So you want me to suppose that you are the culprit?’

  She breathed deeply. ‘Yes. And you keep ignoring me.’

  Gently shook his head slowly. ‘Not ignoring you, Miss Britton. When you seem so certain that your friend is guilty.’

  She went suddenly white, as though he had slapped her. ‘But that – that’s ridiculous!’ she stammered.

  ‘Not at all, Miss Britton. Lawrence Turner loves you. You find it quite credible that he would do this thing.’

  ‘But I know he didn’t!’

  Gently hunched. ‘On the contrary. I’m beginning to think you may know he did. Because before suspicion ever turned towards Turner, you were trying to draw it towards yourself.’

  She gave a little gasp, and for a moment gazed round-eyed, her small mouth open, showing teeth. But then, in the distant quietness of the hall, the telephone began to ring.

  ‘Lawrence!’

  She sprang back into the house, her fair hair flying. Gently followed. She snatched up the phone, a triumphant smile on her pale face.

  ‘Yes – it’s me!’

  But the smile vanished, lapsed into a sullen, baffled expression.

  ‘Oh . . . yes. Hold on.’ She held out the phone to Gently. ‘Yours.’

  Gently took it. The caller was Metfield.

  ‘I wondered if I’d catch you, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve just had a couple of visitors who I thought you’d like to see.’

  Gently grunted. ‘What visitors?’

  ‘Two from London, sir,’ Metfield said. ‘There’s the actress, Miss Walling, and a TV writer, Ivan Webster.’

  ‘What do they want?’

  ‘I don’t quite know, sir. Shall I tell them you’re on your way?’

  Gently nodded to the gloom of the hall. ‘Yes. You can certainly tell them that.’

  Outside the police station stood Webster’s Volvo, bronze and black, with London grime on it. No hint of redness in its dust-film, or revealing stain on its fat Michelins. Gently brooded round it for a while, studying the small scars, the cluttered interior. He tried a door; it had been left unlocked – and dumped in the back was a Leica camera. He slammed the door and went into the station, where the desk-sergeant nodded towards Metfield’s office.

  Webster sat sprawled on a chair by the window, smoking a cigarette in an amber holder. He was dressed in tight-waisted bell-bottom trousers and a sheepskin coat, with no shirt under it. On a chair by the filing-cabinets sat Nina Walling, in a gown that fell straight from shoulder to heel. Its deep V-neck reached almost to her navel and revealed the nakedness of small breasts. She too was smoking: she had a long jet holder. Neither took any notice of Gently’s entrance.

  Metfield rose from the desk, where he’d been toying with paper-work, to leave the seat of honour to Gently. Gently took it. Webster reached languidly to the window and flicked ash into the MsT yard. He turned with slow, lazy arrogance.

  ‘How’s life in the country, fuzz?’ he drawled. ‘Like it’s so peaceful here, in the depths. Even the fuzz-scene is relaxed.’

  ‘You have some business?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yah, yah,’ Webster drawled. ‘Though mostly it’s just a social call. But you can say we have business too.’

  ‘Well?’

  Webster gestured to Nina Walling.

  ‘We want to know where my father stands,’ she said chillily. ‘All this time he is being hounded by you people, if not for one thing then for another. So we want this business cleared up, at least, before he becomes a nervous wreck. And every time we inquire of Inspector Lyons he refers us to you.’

  Webster nodded his bush of hair. ‘That’s the curve, fuzz. Why we hit the rural scene.’

  ‘By now,’ Nina Walling said, ‘you’ve surely made some progress. So we can expect a positive statement.’

  Her green eyes probed at Gently: small eyes in a small face. But set regally, on a long neck; a little snake-like. And cold.

  ‘Did your father send you?’ Gently asked.

  ‘My father is occupied with assisting the police. They have taken over his business premises and they might just as well have taken over the flat. My father is ruined. I am trying to prevent him from becoming a mental wreck as well.’

  ‘But did he send you?’

  ‘No, he didn’t.’

  ‘Like he’s too hung up, fuzz,’ Webster said. ‘You should be up there giving it the action. He’d tell you anything you wanted to hear.’

  ‘He is in a highly disturbed state,’ Nina Walling said. ‘And it’s time he was shown some mercy.’

  She i
nhaled smoke and nostrilled it, letting her eyes slide past Gently’s. Webster’s eyes were narrowed, peering from behind eaves of hair.

  ‘Your father’s position is still being investigated,’ Gently said. ‘We have reasons for continuing our interest.’

  ‘But not for hounding him,’ Nina Walling said. ‘Which is what you are doing to him now.’

  Gently shrugged. ‘We have to ask him to help us. His account of his movements has not been verified. He was plainly under some threat from Mr Stoll. We have learned nothing yet that excludes your father.’

  Webster guffawed. ‘That’s levelling, fuzz!’

  ‘Only it’s nonsense!’ Nina Walling snapped sharply. ‘You know, we all know where Daddy went – he had been visiting that creature in Brighton for years. Daddy kept him, did you know that? Just like another man might keep a woman. And he pretended to have a sister there, to deceive Nigel – just as another man might deceive his wife! Isn’t that true, Ivan?’

  ‘The truest,’ Webster said. ‘Oscar’s been cheating on Nigel for ever. And like everyone knows but Nigel. Isn’t that a sweet situation for a deadpan script?’

  Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t help,’ he said. ‘It would have been better if Vivian Chance had been a stranger. If he is being kept, then his witness is suspect. And we have found nothing to support it.’

  ‘Oh, how ridiculous!’ Nina Walling exclaimed.

  ‘We could say he was at home, fuzz,’ Webster drawled. ‘Just, like, to get you off the hook with Oscar, who sure as satan didn’t kill Adrian. I was at the flat till after midnight.’

  Gently flicked a look at him. ‘How long after?’

  ‘Yah – about,’ Webster drawled. ‘Could have been half-past, or getting for one.’ He let his eyes hood. ‘I’ll add it up, fuzz. I got to the Capri at eleven. That was before the curtain came down, like maybe five or ten minutes to go. Then Nina cleans up and dresses, and there’s drinks and chatter, you know, and there’s twenty minutes to Campden Hill, and ten minutes’ chat when we get there.’ He opened his eyes wide again. ‘Call it one a.m. – like I could make it stand up in court, fuzz. Then just as I’m leaving, in comes Oscar, who has changed his mind about staying at Brighton – and man, he’s tired with all that driving, he goes straight in to hit the sack.’ He looked mockingly at Gently. ‘Any help to you, fuzz?’