Gently in Trees (21 page)

‘I don’t think I can help you in your affair.’

‘Oh yes, you must – please, you must!’

‘I’m afraid it’s in the hands of a different department.’

Absurdly, Walling tumbled down off the chair and came shuffling across to the desk on his knees. He clutched the edge of it with shaking fingers and tilted his woebegone face to goggle at Gently.

‘You must. You must!’

‘Please return to your chair.’

‘Yes – yes! It’s my last hope.’

‘Until you return to your chair we can’t discuss it.’

‘But you can’t – you don’t know what it means!’

He hauled himself to his feet, however, and shambled back blubbering to the chair. Sitting there, with his legs dangling, he looked like some wretched, gnomish Daruma doll. Gently signalled to Metfield.

‘Let’s have some tea in.’

Metfield departed on the errand. Gently took some pulls on a cold pipe, then folded his arms and leaned them on the desk.

‘Now! What’s it all about?’

Walling gave a sighing moan. ‘I’m ruined – did you know that? Ruined!’

‘Well,’ Gently shrugged. ‘That can’t be such a shock. You were always running close to the wind with Torotours.’

‘But it need never have happened!’ Walling sobbed. ‘I could have worked it out if they’d given me time. They don’t understand. It’s a matter of figures – all they know about is cash in the bank!’ He howled like a child. ‘It’s so unfair! At least they could ask someone who knows the business. If you ran things the way they say you should, we’d all be bankrupt by tomorrow morning!’

‘There are certain rules,’ Gently said.

‘Yes, but not like that,’ Walling sobbed. ‘You can’t run finance like a sweet-shop. It’s a matter of figures – and – and – confidence!’ He howled afresh. ‘And they don’t understand! They think striking a balance is the only answer. So they say I’m bankrupt, that I’m a rogue – that I’ll go inside for twenty years!’

Gently shook his head. ‘Not for twenty years.’

‘Yes – twenty years!’ Walling sobbed. ‘And I’m
not
a rogue, I’m a financier, a man who can make figures work for people. If that’s dishonest, why is it allowed? Why isn’t everyone in prison? It’s what finance is about, not cash in the bank, so why – why do they pick on me?’

Gently hunched. ‘You know you’re in a tangle.’

‘But that’s just what I wasn’t!’ Walling sobbed.

‘It began when
Chairoplanes
failed to click. When Stoll’s fifty thousand went down the drain.’

‘Yes, but please! That’s exactly the point. I could have covered all that in three months.’

‘With the take from Torotours?’

‘Yes – yes!’

‘What made you think you would ever collect it?’

Walling gaped as though he had been prodded, but just then Metfield entered with the tea. He handed a mug to Walling, whose fingers closed round it perilously, and winked as he placed another mug before Gently. Walling, still snivelling, took gulps from his mug. Tea dribbled from a corner of his tremulous mouth.

Gently drank some tea. ‘You’ll get time,’ he said. ‘Though it won’t be a sentence like twenty years. But we know the facts about Torotours, and you must expect to be punished for that.’

‘I can
explain
Torotours! It’s all a mistake. Everyone has trouble with the Spanish.’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘We have the evidence. Torotours was a plain swindle.’

‘But you could talk to them for me!’

Gently shook his head. ‘I couldn’t. And why would I?’

‘Because I don’t trust them – and I trust you.’

Gently silently sipped tea.

Walling snivelled. ‘Then there’s no hope,’ he wailed. ‘I’ll be locked up in that dreadful place. For years and years, until I’m old, and all my friends have forgotten me.’ He sobbed. ‘And when I come out, destitution and the gutter. And Nina perhaps on the streets, her career ruined by my disgrace.’

Gently grimaced. ‘Cheer up! It can’t be quite so black as you’re painting it.’

‘Yes,’ Walling sobbed. ‘There’ll be nothing left for me. It would be best if I died now.’

‘You’ll get remission and a soft job. They’ll probably stick you in the library.’

Walling wagged his head inconsolably and wept tears into his tea.

Gently sighed and reached for the phone. ‘I’ll give the Yard a ring,’ he said. ‘They’ll be wondering where you’ve vanished to, and perhaps want you back with an escort.’

‘Oh please – no!’

‘But I must,’ Gently said. ‘You don’t seem to understand your position.’

‘No – it’s not important! That’s why I’ve come to you. The fraud doesn’t matter any longer.’

Gently rested his hand on the phone. ‘Go on,’ he said.

Walling’s mouth was trembling uncontrollably. ‘I – I – didn’t tell you the t-truth,’ he stammered. ‘About last weekend. I w-wasn’t in Brighton!’

Gently sat very still, and the silence was echoing. ‘Where did you go then?’ he said at last.

‘To a l-little hotel, out Epping way. It was me who d-did it, who killed Adrian!’

Then another silence – but broken this time by the sudden, furious scuffle of Metfield’s pencil. Walling, having delivered his bombshell, sat holding his breath, his pale eyes staring horrifiedly at Gently. In front of his mouth he held the mug, as though to hide that organ of betrayal. His eyebrows were arched so high that they were partly lost under his wayward hair.

Gently drank, and drank again.

‘Do you want to tell me about it?’ he said.

Walling gulped epileptically behind the mug. ‘Yes . . . yes! I’ll tell you everything.’

‘Take your time,’ Gently said.

‘I did it,’ Walling said. ‘I followed him out there. I waited on a layby on the All, then picked him up as he came by.’

‘You knew where he was going?’

‘Yes – yes! He’d talked about it the previous weekend. And I knew the place, Mogi’s Belt, because we’d been there before, on a picnic.’

‘But still, you tailed him there?’

‘Yes! I had to make sure he would go as planned. And then, of course, I waited till he had turned in and gone to sleep. Then I did it.’

‘Where did you wait?’

‘Oh, in the forest.’

‘I would like to know whereabouts in the forest.’

‘Yes, it was a layby, a picnic spot. Somewhere just off the road.’

‘Which road is that?’

‘Well – you know, the road! It goes through the forest to West Brayling. Well, there. It’s a sort of car park, a place to pull off. That’s where I waited.’

‘Next to Mogi’s Belt?’

‘Yes, next to it. So I wouldn’t have far to carry the bottle.’

‘You could show me the spot?’

‘Well – yes. But it was dark. I couldn’t be certain.’

‘How long did you wait there?’

Walling jiffled the mug. ‘It must have been an hour or two. Or longer. I had to give him time to do his filming, then pack up and go to bed. I couldn’t see him, of course, from the car, and he might have spotted me if I’d gone closer. Perhaps it was three hours. Or nearer four. I know I gave him plenty of time.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, I did it.’

‘Perhaps you’ll expand on that, Mr Walling.’

‘Yes – yes.’ Walling licked his lips, then took a quick swig from the mug. ‘I had the bottle and the hose in the boot. So I carried them through the trees to the caravette. Then I connected the hose to the bottle, led it through a window, and turned on the tap.’

‘You led it through a window?’

‘Yes, well, a window.’

‘Was the roof of the caravette up or down?’

Walling’s free hand strayed to his hair. ‘It was dark, you see, I don’t think I noticed. Probably up, that would be usual. Though he may have slept with it down. But then, I was nervous. I just pushed the hose in, turned on the tap, and ran off.’

‘What colour was the hose?’

‘The – the hose?’

‘Yes. We have the hose and the bottle on the premises.’

Walling dragged at his hair. ‘It was just a cheap hose – I bought it with the bottle, at a branch of Halfords.’

‘But the colour?’

‘Well, they’re all one colour – black, green, even red. I bought two yards – three, it may be. I know I paid fifty pence.’

‘You were perhaps too nervous to notice the colour?’

‘Yes. Yes. Too nervous.’

‘Or the colour of the bottle?’

‘No . . . wait! The bottle was either blue or green.’

‘But not white?’ Gently said.

Walling’s fingers tightened. ‘Perhaps . . . yes, you could call it white. Or white with some other colour. I really was very nervous.’

Gently drank more tea. Walling, agitatedly, did likewise. Metfield’s pencil, which had begun so merrily, had ceased to rustle some time earlier. Now he sat staring blankly at Gently, who sat staring meditatively into his mug. After some moments, Gently set down the mug and reached again for the phone.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘So I’ll just ring to find out if they want you with an escort.’

‘B-but,’ Walling stammered. ‘It’s you who want me! I’ve just m-made a full confession.’

‘Sorry,’ Gently said. ‘It was a brave try.’

‘But it’s true. I did kill Adrian!’

‘You went to Brighton.’

‘N-no! I was here.’

‘Sorry again,’ Gently said.

He began dialling. Walling jumped off his chair and darted furiously to the desk.

‘Stop it!’ he cried. ‘It’s all a m-mistake. You’ll be sorry for this in a minute!’

‘Sit down,’ Gently said.

‘I w-won’t! What I’ve said is a death-bed confession. Listen – I, Oscar Walling, killed Adrian Stoll. Those are my very last words!’

A podgy hand dived into his hip pocket and came out clutching a small automatic. He jammed it against his head. It clicked feebly. Walling fell down in a faint.

At least, he gave the impression of a faint but it lasted only till Metfield knelt over him and began slapping his cheeks. Then he wailed and struggled to sit up, his mouth drooling and his eyes aghast. Metfield propped him untenderly against the desk, where he sat gaping and moaning. Gently meanwhile had picked up the gun. It was a .22 Browning; it was loaded.

‘Do you have a licence for this?’

‘I – I . . . no!’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Ugh – ugh – a friend . . .’

‘Right. I’m arresting you on an offensive weapons charge.’ Gently toyed with the gun. ‘Or is that what you wanted?’

Walling swallowed wretchedly. ‘I – I killed Adrian! That was a death-bed confession.’

‘Oh no it wasn’t.’

‘I was going to kill myself!’

‘Then why did you leave the safety-catch on?’

‘I – I forgot . . .’

Gently clicked his tongue. ‘You wouldn’t have forgotten if you’d meant it. People who really mean to commit suicide don’t have elementary lapses of memory. Did Webster give you this gun?’

‘No!’

‘We shall find out anyway. You may as well tell us.’

‘No. Oh please, no!’ Walling sank his face in his hands and sobbed.

Gently sat on the chair which Walling lately had occupied and studied the wretched financier. Walling, in his grief, was a comic figure, and not the less so because the grief was genuine. That was his tragedy. If Walling had been a woman, who would have found his tears comic?

‘Listen,’ Gently said. ‘I think you could help me. I’m certain you know who killed Stoll. What you’ve just done was rather foolish, but I can understand you doing it.’

Walling wailed desolately. ‘It was m-me!’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘It wasn’t you. But you thought that since you were ruined anyway, and going to prison, you might as well confess to this too. Well, that’s understandable, but it didn’t work, and your attempting it raises a question – who were you trying to shield? Who is important enough to you for that?’

‘Oh no, no!’ Walling wailed. ‘It’s all a mistake, and I did it!’

‘It has to be your daughter.’

‘Please, please, no!’

‘Then who else?’

‘I! I did it!’

And he howled like a great boy, with tears leaking through his pudgy fingers.

The phone rang: Metfield picked it up. ‘It’s Keynes, sir,’ he said.

Gently rose and went to the desk and took the phone from Metfield. ‘Yes?’

‘I think you’d better come over,’ Keynes said. ‘Something a little disturbing has happened here. It’s about Lawrence. We’ve had a telegram. I think he may not be coming back tonight.’

‘He said that?’

‘More or less. But I think you had better see it for yourself.’

‘Where are you?’

‘At the Lodge.’

‘Right,’ Gently said. ‘I’ll be over.’

He hung up, and stood a moment staring down at the blubbering Walling. Then he nodded to Metfield.

‘Get him up,’ he said. ‘I think he may as well come too.’

T
HEY TOOK THE
Wolseley. Metfield drove; Walling lolled by himself in the back. He had stopped crying now and was just looking stupefied, his pale eyes staring wide at nothing. He had made no objection to being taken to Brayling, had let them move him around like a zombie: you pushed him, and he went. Impossible to guess what he was thinking.

‘Do you reckon we’re back with Turner, sir?’ Metfield murmured, as they left the town limits and sped towards Brayling.

Gently grunted. ‘We’re back with nothing! It’s more a question of how many.’

Metfield nodded to the rear seat. ‘He could have been one. And now his conscience is biting him.’

Gently grunted again, but said nothing. Metfield shrugged and gunned the Wolseley.

They reached the Lodge. Keynes was waiting for them; he came across as they parked. His eye fell on the dazed Walling, who showed no sign of recognition.

‘Hullo! What’s he doing here?’

Gently gave him a look. ‘Does his presence bother you?’

Keynes shook his head doubtfully. ‘Not really. Though he looks as though he needs a brandy. I suppose you don’t have any news of Lawrence?’

‘That’s what I’ve come to get from you.’

‘Just asking,’ Keynes said quietly. ‘Your facilities for news-gathering are better than mine.’

He led them inside – Gently first, then the shambling Walling, urged by Metfield. In the drawing-room they found Maryon Britton and her daughter, who was lying on the sofa. Maryon Britton was seated beside her, but she rose quickly as they entered. She stared blankly at Walling for a moment, then moved to confront Gently.