Free Gently to the Summit by Alan Hunter

from Llanberis didn’t come from the police – unless your Welsh police happen to be psychic. They had no reason to contact a Mrs Sterling staying at the Suffolk Hotel in Knightsbridge.’
    ‘Glory be, that never struck me! Of course, it has to be one of the members.’
    ‘And if you’re thinking the way I’m thinking …’
    Evans looked sick. ‘Raymond Heslington,’ he said.
    ‘He was the one with the opportunity. He may not be the one with the car.’
    Gently opened a drawer of his desk and fetched out the file on Kincaid. Inside it, prominent amongst the statements, was that of Heslington, containing his particulars. Gently rang Information:
    ‘Note this name and address. I want a description of his car; just the make and colouring will do.’
    While they waited Evans’s face seemed to grow sadder and sadder and not even the advent of coffee and sandwiches served to relieve his dolour. He munched largely but unfeelingly, a steady mechanical champ, and took big mouthfuls of coffee without looking at his cup. He was either up or down. There were no half-measures with Evans.
    ‘I can see it all now. I’m the biggest arse going. He lied to me, that fellow, and I swallowed it down to the tail. Never thought, never doubted; just trusted my own stupid judgement. I could see a wonderful case, man, and I couldn’t see anything else.’
    ‘He might still have been telling the truth,’ Gently mumbled over a sandwich.
    ‘No he mightn’t, man. I can sense it. We can forget about Kincaid. He was just a red herring, he happened along very convenient.’
    ‘Heslington’s description fitted him, didn’t it?’
    ‘What sort of a description was that? A brown jacket and grey slacks – and he might have seen him somewhere, anyway. No, no, you’ll never convince me now that Kincaid was up there. I have an instinct, I tell you. My promotion is down the drain.’
    At that moment the phone went. Gently limbered it to his ear. Evans watched his face fearfully, trying to read there his own perdition. Better men than Evans, however, had failed to read Gently’s poker face, and the call turned out to be a longer one than the description of a car would require. Gently reached fora pad and pencil and scribbled down some unintelligible notes. Finally, he adjured his telespondent to try again in the morning. He hung up and sighed humorously.
    ‘It’s been and done it on us again.’
    ‘Who was that, man?’ Evans asked.
    ‘Dorking, reporting on Sarah Amies. They’ve never heard of her in Penwood. They’ve never heard of Baxter or Blackstable. The village church has been converted to a hall and they can’t for the moment lay hands on the register. Penwood is one of the new overspill areas. Most of the original inhabitants have hopped it.’
    Evans gestured with shoulders and hand. ‘Does it matter now, the way things are?’
    ‘It matters to me, if nobody else. I’ve been told off to identify Kincaid.’
    ‘But if Heslington is Mrs Fleece’s boyfriend—’
    The phone buzzed again to interrupt him. This time, while Gently listened, an expression did flit over his face. He replaced the phone. He dusted his hands.
    ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That’s that for the evening. Heslington’s car is a new Ford Anglia. It’s Cambridge blue, and its been garaged all day.’
     
    Evans was staying in a wretched hotel in the vicinity of Euston Station, and Gently, still feeling responsible for him, invited him home to his Finchley rooms. Elphinstone Road was a gem of its kind. It had come into being during the eighteen sixties; a sedate thoroughfare, little disturbed by traffic, with public gardens on one side and ice-cake villas on the other. Itsatmosphere had always held a charm for Gently. It was hansom cab, parasol, hard hat, and bustle skirt. The teardrop street lamps had never been ravished and war had spared the cast-iron railings, while of twenty complacent villas, twenty still lined Elphinstone Road.
    Evans, who came