Gently to the Summit (7 page)

‘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 up, 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.’

‘Did you meet anyone coming down? Down the ridge towards Llanberis?’

‘No, I didn’t. But if they were quick they might
have passed before I arrived there. And he was on the railway, too, wasn’t he? The railway is cut in below the track. The first person I saw was Heslington: he was coming round the café, eating an apple.’

‘What did he say?’

‘He wanted to know what all the panic was about. I was sweating, you can imagine, and just about winded. When I told him it gave him a shaking, I remember him goggling at me over the apple; I think he went up to take a look while I was breaking open a window. I phoned the police down in Llanberis. They rang the people at Pen-y-Gwryd. Mountain Rescue arrived within the hour and the police about half an hour later. Two of our blokes had worked across to Fleece, but … I don’t have to tell you. You’ve seen the report.’

Overton, with Heslington, had waited at the summit where they were joined at intervals by the others. Heslington had seemed rather quiet and had held back from the conversation. During the interval before the police came they had all gone up to inspect the summit, but according to Overton, who’d been one of the first, they’d found nothing there to account for the tragedy. Nobody, he thought, had gone on to the cairn, nor had anybody lingered about the spot. After some questioning, they’d descended to Llanberis and had given their statements at the police station.

‘What was the impression you formed of the business?’

Gently had folded his arms over the back of the chair; his pipe stuck forgotten from the corner of his
mouth and his chin rested squarely on the arms in front of him.

‘You mean at the time?’

‘Yes. Waiting on the summit.’

‘It was confused … an inexplicable accident. When you’ve had such a shock you’re at a loss, you’re not logical. You feel you can’t rely on things making sense.’

‘You knew that Heslington had been up there, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, I did … but I simply didn’t connect it. I know Ray well. I’ve known him for years. I may have thought it would look bad for him, but anything else was too improbable.’

‘Yet you knew he was scarcely a friend of Fleece’s.’

‘Yes, I knew it.’ Overton rocked his shoulders as though to shrug away the imputation. ‘Now it doesn’t matter, so I don’t mind telling you, but they almost came to blows over the Kincaid question. But that didn’t affect the issue. I never doubted Ray for a moment. When he told me he hadn’t seen Fleece it was good enough. I knew he hadn’t.’

‘Though you had heard of the divorce pending?’

‘Divorce? What divorce?’

‘Fleece’s divorce of his wife. Citing Heslington as co-respondent.’

A silence followed. It was difficult to mistake Overton’s look of alarmed incredulity. His cigarette was held stationary, he sat perfectly still on his chair. For several moments he remained dumb, his eyes large and disbelieving, then they tightened and he made a little flicking motion with the cigarette.

‘Now I see where we stand. And I can tell you it makes no difference. I know Ray. If you suspect him, you’re being less intelligent than I thought you.’

‘I understand.’

Gently remembered his pipe; he straightened it out and put a match to it. He gave a side glance to Evans as though inviting him to try a question. The Welshman sat stolidly, however, blowing and drawing at his cheeks, and after a puff or two Gently added:

‘If we can go back to Everest for a moment …’

‘That’s what really counts, isn’t it?’ Overton’s relief was unconcealed. He drew in a grateful lungful of smoke and let it trickle through his lips.

‘I’d like to know if you can remember how that final assault came about. Was it according to your schedule, or was the schedule interrupted?’

Overton nodded. ‘I can guess what you’re driving at there. And the answer is yes. The schedule was definitely interrupted. As we’d planned it, Ray and myself were to have had the first crack at it, with Fleece and Kincaid as the support party if our attempt failed. But the weather looked like breaking up – did, in fact, the next day – and Fleece altered the arrangement so that he and Kincaid went first. He gave his greater experience as the reason. Which was sound enough as far as it went.’