Gently in Trees (12 page)

‘We could, indeed, assume that,’ Gently said gravely.

Jennifer Britton glanced at him with narrowed eyes. ‘So why don’t you?’ she said.

‘I’ll consider it, Miss Britton. But first, I’d like you to continue your statement.’

Jennifer Britton gave a snatch with her head. ‘The rest of it isn’t worth having,’ she said. ‘All goody-goody. I went around with mother and was seen in exactly the same places as she was. Then after lunch I went to tennis, where we had a tournament with Latchford “A”. About sixty witnesses, or thereabouts. And so home to tea and the box.’

‘Did you drive to tennis?’

‘Actually, no. The sports field is two hundred yards down the road.’

‘Did you win the tournament?’

Jennifer Britton checked; then cuttingly rolled her eyes to the ceiling again.

‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘Now we’ll deal with the evening.’ He turned to Keynes, who sat beaming at him. ‘You first. I want a statement in detail, from the time you left your cottage until you returned there.’

Keynes eased back a peg on the sofa, his beam fading to an appealing smile.

‘In detail,’ he said. ‘That’s asking a bit much. But I’ll do the best I can for you.’ He wrinkled his brow. ‘Lawrence came in at five – and to answer your question, they’d won the tournament. So then we had tea, which was a mixed grill, and tidied up, and came round here. Time, I should think, around seven; but I had no particular reason to notice.’

‘When was the visit arranged?’

‘Well – it wasn’t, really. We spend most of our evenings together. And that evening we were anticipating Adrian, so our coming here was taken as read.’

‘Any further phone calls?’

‘None.’

‘Did you walk or drive?’

‘We drove.’

‘So like that there were two cars here at the Grange.’

Keynes looked at him, and slowly nodded.

‘Go on,’ Gently said.

‘Well, I parked in the yard, then we joined the ladies in here. We talked for a bit about the Adrian business and whether he really meant to chuck Maryon out. Honestly, I thought he would have cooled off it, because the strength of his affair with Nina was obvious. She was playing him along, and he must have known that, with all his shrewdness and experience of starlets. And meanwhile, Maryon was an excellent housekeeper. She could always be relied on to entertain his guests. So why chuck her out? I still think he wouldn’t have done it, even though he meant to change his will.’

‘Thank you, Edwin,’ Maryon Britton said. ‘I’m sure you were wrong – but thanks, anyway.’

‘And you three and Lawrence Turner were all present,’ Gently said.

‘Oh yes, but not for long,’ Jennifer Britton said. ‘Lawrence was bored by it, and so was I. We went for a stroll – in the forest, of course.’

‘When?’

‘Oh . . . pretty soon.’

‘At about half-past seven,’ Keynes said.

‘When did you return?’

‘Who knows?’ she shrugged.

‘Getting dusk,’ Keynes said. ‘Around ten.’

Gently nodded. ‘Then you and Mrs Britton were alone here from roughly half-past seven till ten. You had been discussing what Stoll intended. What else happened during that time?’

‘Nothing,’ Maryon Britton said bitterly. ‘We were waiting for him – don’t you understand? Waiting for Adrian. Just like characters in some beastly play by Becket.’

‘That’s about it,’ Keynes agreed. ‘When you’re waiting, nothing ever happens but waiting. You talk and pour a drink and perhaps watch the box, but all you’re really doing is waiting.’

‘You never left this room?’

‘Maryon made some coffee. I went through to the kitchen with her. We talked of holiday plans for a while, but the conversation always came back to Adrian.’

‘You had no visitors?’

‘None.’

‘Phone calls?’

‘None again.’

‘And you made none – say, when it got late, when you might have started wondering what had happened to Mr Stoll?’

Keynes shook his head. ‘We didn’t do much wondering, because we didn’t know for sure if Adrian was coming. He’d left us to sweat, and we were doing it. He might easily have put off coming till the next weekend.’

‘Webster told you he might be working late. It would have been a natural thing to put through a call to TV Centre.’

‘We just weren’t in the mood,’ Keynes said. ‘We didn’t want to know – he would either come or he wouldn’t.’

‘And what’s more,’ Maryon Britton said, ‘I wouldn’t have wanted to give him the satisfaction of us inquiring after him.’

Gently shrugged massively. ‘So you didn’t inquire,’ he said. ‘You just passed the time talking and making coffee. But at some point you must have decided that Mr Stoll wasn’t coming, and that his cousin could safely spend the night here. When was that?’

‘Well . . . when it got later,’ Maryon Britton said edgily.

‘But how late?’

‘I don’t know! Naturally, when it got later, we stopped expecting him.’

‘For example, you had never known him to arrive here late when his work had detained him in town?’

‘Well – yes,’ she said. ‘It happened once or twice. But it wasn’t something he made a habit of.’

‘So why were you so certain on this occasion?’

‘I wasn’t certain! We took a chance.’

‘It was me who was certain,’ Jennifer Britton said tonelessly. ‘
I
told them that Adrian wasn’t coming.’

‘Oh, be quiet, be quiet!’ Mrs Britton wailed.

‘Why?’ Jennifer Britton said. ‘We want the truth, don’t we?’ She gave a hysterical little laugh. ‘You’d better ask me,’ she said to Gently.

Gently considered her for a moment. She still sat relaxedly, her leg swinging. But there was a flush on her thin cheek, and her eyes were large and febrile. She was avoiding his gaze, looking beyond him; she was quivering slightly under his scrutiny.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Tell me the truth, Miss Britton. How did
you
spend that evening?’

‘Oh, of course, you’ll be questioning Lawrence,’ she said. ‘So I couldn’t tell you a fib, could I?’

‘All your accounts will be checked.’

‘Yes, and Lawrence is such a ninny. Though it would be his word against mine, wouldn’t it? You would have to make your choice about that.’ She smiled strangely. ‘He wants to marry me,’ she said. ‘But that’s neither here nor there. We went up through Taylor’s Spinney, as far as the river, and sat on the grass by the bridge.’

‘Which bridge is that?’

‘Oh, just a bridge. But there’s a telephone box right beside it. Not that I rang Adrian, or anything like that . . . but I could have done, couldn’t I?’

‘Did you?’

‘You can ask Lawrence.’

‘Of course she didn’t!’ Mrs Britton snapped. ‘She’s a stupid little girl, trying to make a mystery, and no idea how serious it is.’

‘But I
could
have phoned Adrian . . . or anyone else.’

‘Oh, I could shake you!’ Mrs Britton cried. ‘Superintendent, you had better ask Lawrence the truth of it. At least
he
has some common sense.’

Jennifer Britton smiled at nothing. ‘I didn’t ring him,’ she said. I’d no need to. Because I knew – I’d known all day – that Adrian was never coming back to us.’

‘How
could
you have known?’ her mother stormed.

‘I just sometimes know things,’ Jennifer Britton said. ‘And I knew this. A sort of echoey sadness. I told you about it when I came in.’ She glanced at Keynes. ‘
You
remember.’

Keynes chuckled. ‘Yes, I do. But I don’t think it impressed us very much, Jenny. It was after you went to bed that we decided he wasn’t coming.’

‘But you do remember?’

He nodded.

‘It was real, quite real,’ Jennifer Britton said. ‘All day, whenever I looked at something of Adrian’s, I felt this queer sadness, so that I wanted to cry. And then, in the evening, I understood it – he wasn’t coming back, then or ever.’

‘Oh, what nonsense!’ her mother cried.

‘So I didn’t ring anyone,’ Jennifer Britton said. ‘It was all going to happen, and
I knew it was
. Though I didn’t actually know how or where.’

‘Are you going to believe this?’ demanded Maryon Britton of Gently.

Gently shrugged. ‘Miss Britton seems very definite. But perhaps we should pass second sight for the moment, and return to the bare facts of her statement.’

Jennifer Britton flushed deeply. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Lawrence was horrid. He didn’t understand me at all that evening. I shan’t marry him, and that’s that.’

‘How long were you beside the bridge?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Did you see anyone there?’

‘A stupid angler. But he was down the bank, among the rushes, and getting eaten alive by swarms of midges.’

‘Did you meet anyone at all who would have known you?’

‘No. Because we were keeping away from people. We came back by Grimshoe Loke and the forest, and we didn’t meet anybody at all.’

‘By the forest . . . ?’

Jennifer Britton made a face, and returned to her meditation of the ceiling.

Gently nodded his mandarin nod. ‘So now we’ve followed it through to ten-thirty. No telephone calls, no visitors, and only some premonitions about Mr Stoll. Miss Britton has returned with her friend. There is a car in the yard, and one in the garage. By now, all this waiting would appear to be over, and dispositions for the night about to begin.’ He looked at Keynes.

‘Just so,’ Keynes smiled. ‘About then we had given Adrian up. And the circumstance seemed to confirm my theory that my cousin was having second thoughts.’

‘So the party began to break up.’

‘Yes, sort of. Jenny was having a little fight with Lawrence. Maryon was taking them both to task. So Lawrence decided to shove off.’

‘Taking your car?’

Keynes shook his head. ‘The cottage is less than a mile away. So the cars remained where they were – though one was enough, for your theory.’

Gently grunted. ‘And then?’

‘I went to bed, too,’ Jennifer Britton intoned. ‘In my own little room. Close to the backstairs. At the other end of the house from Mamma’s.’

‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘And then?’

‘We sat a while longer,’ Keynes said. ‘Till half-past eleven, I suspect – just giving Adrian a last chance. I suppose we were both thinking he might come very late, intending to catch us
in flagrante delicto;
but as it got towards midnight that possibility seemed to recede. So we decided I would stay. I went outside to lock my car – it was still there – then I locked up the house for Maryon, and we retired. End of statement.’

‘You wish it to end there?’

Keynes hesitated, his eyes quizzing Gently’s. ‘I’m afraid it will have to. I’m not taking it any further than the bedroom door.’

‘I want a complete statement,’ Gently said, ‘going through till you returned to your cottage the next day. With special reference to the hours between midnight and three a.m.’

They stared at each other. There was still a smile latent on Keynes’s lips, but his eyes were flat and steady, meeting Gently’s without yielding. But the confrontation, if such it was, was ended by a sudden exclamation from Metfield, who jumped hastily to his feet and charged across to the french windows.

‘This way, sir!’

He dived through them, landing in a skid on the gravel outside. When Gently arrived at the french windows, Metfield was sliding to a stop at the far end of the sweep.

‘The other way, sir – cut him off!’

Gently turned to race along the front of the house. He cut round the corner, scattering gravel, and sprinted on towards the yard. A figure came flying out of the yard, saw Gently, halted, seemed about to come on; then Metfield flailed into view and hurled himself on the figure in a crunching tackle.

‘Not this time, sonny!’

The man, a youngster, lay white-faced and gasping on the gravel. He was tallish and sported a full beard, and was wearing a green shirt with a tear in the sleeve.

‘G
ET UP,’ GENTLY
said.

For some moments the young man made no effort to obey him. Metfield, clearly a rugby type, had put all his beef into that tackle. Now his victim lay hugging his stomach and snatching air in gulped breaths. At last he climbed shakily to his feet.

‘Are you Lawrence Turner?’

‘That’s me.’

‘What were you running away from just now?’

‘I – I wasn’t running away. I just didn’t want to – want to intrude.’

Metfield laughed scornfully. ‘That’s a good one! I spotted him listening outside the french windows.’

‘No – I wasn’t listening!’

‘I’ll bet he’s been here all the time,’ Metfield scoffed.

The young man kept panting and massaging his stomach. But then Jennifer Britton appeared at the door. She came forward quickly, her eyes flashing, and stood glaring at the policemen like an aroused Alsatian.

‘What
on earth
have you been doing to Lawrence!’

‘Just rounding him up, miss,’ Metfield said.

‘You haven’t! You’ve been knocking him about. This is another sickening example of police brutality.’

‘He was being elusive, miss. We had to collar him.’

‘Look – you’ve done him some serious injury!’

‘He’s just winded, miss, that’s all!’ exclaimed Metfield, goadedly.

‘Oh! You’re worse than the thugs you’re supposed to protect us from.’

She moved protectively towards Turner, who was beginning to regain control of his breathing. She laid her hand on his arm and stared up into his still-glazed eves.

‘Are you all right, Lawrence? What did they do to you?’

‘It’s nothing – nothing,’ he said huskily.

‘If they knocked you about we can sue them, you know.’

Turner swallowed and shook his head.

Now Maryon Britton and Keynes came out of the house. Maryon Britton was looking grim. Keynes sauntered easily towards the group; he slid Turner a quick, compassionate grin.

‘Time to be bold, Lawrence,’ he said.

‘Did he come here with you this afternoon?’ Gently asked.

Keynes shrugged and gestured with his hand. ‘Not much point in denying it, is there?’ he said.

‘So why didn’t he come in with you?’

Keynes faded-in a smile. ‘Every man has his reasons. I’m sure that Lawrence’s are quite innocent, though they may not therefore be wise. Shall we go inside?’