Gently in Trees Read online

  Alan Hunter was born in Hoveton, Norfolk in 1922. He left school at the age of fourteen to work on his father’s farm, spending his spare time sailing on the Norfolk Broads and writing nature notes for the Eastern Evening News. He also wrote poetry, some of which was published while he was in the RAF during the Second World War. By 1950, he was running his own bookshop in Norwich. In 1955, the first of what would become a series of forty-six George Gently novels was published. He died in 2005, aged eighty-two.

  The Inspector George Gently series

  Gently Does It

  Gently by the Shore

  Gently Down the Stream

  Landed Gently

  Gently Through the Mill

  Gently in the Sun

  Gently with the Painters

  Gently to the Summit

  Gently Go Man

  Gently Where the Roads Go

  Gently Floating

  Gently Sahib

  Gently with the Ladies

  Gently North-West

  Gently Continental

  Gently at a Gallop

  Gently in Trees

  Gently French

  Gently Where She Lay

  Gently In Trees

  Alan Hunter

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Cassell & Company Ltd., 1974

  This paperback edition published by C&R Crime,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

  Copyright © Alan Hunter 1970

  The right of Alan Hunter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-47210-871-5 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-47210-879-1 (ebook)

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Cover image by David Woodroffe; Cover by JoeRoberts.co.uk

  For Julian and Kathleen Symons

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious, the locale is sketched from life.

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE VOLKSWAGEN DORMOBILE entered Latchford by the London road, turned right into the town centre, and selected the road to Cross. Nobody noticed it, particularly. Caravettes were common enough, at the end of June. It was latish on a Saturday evening, about the time when campers departed from the town and returned to their sites. The Volks was newish, but not otherwise remarkable; Neptune Blue, with a white elevating roof. In the rear, over the engine compartment, was packed some photographic equipment, but this was not obvious from outside. So the Volks puttered through the narrow streets and away without anyone noticing it, to remember.

  It went down by the Castle Hill, which rose grassy and dim against the evening afterglow, then crossed the River Latch by a humpy bridge, near which drizzled the weir of some vanished mill. Then there was a junction of two A roads. The Volkswagen selected its course unhesitatingly. It puttered along self-intently, letting the impatient flash and go by. Not that there were many cars, that evening – Cross, after all, was just another small town; and Latchford itself reached only to the river: the road then passed into empty, heathy country. Northwards lay the wilderness of the Battle Area, with its ghostly shells of villages, and southwards breckland and starving fields, where the poor soil was snowed with chalky flints. Ancient country, still breathing prehistory. Few people had lived there, since the Iceni. And into it, into the twilight, puttered the unremarkable Volkswagen.

  Came to trees. At first, broken lines of them; twisty, indigenous Scots pines. Looking deformed, almost, so low and twisted, with dark, bowed, shaggy crowns. Beggar-trees, old and cunning, who had watched the centuries come and go; old men of the heath. They reached out stealthily, fingering for the Volks as it passed below. But the Volks cared nothing. And ahead, like darkness, spread an arboreal company of a different character: trees tall, and trees straight, shouldering together in massive unity. The road bored towards them, full of aggression, but then lost heart and swung right; leaving a minor road behind for those bold enough to meet such trees. The Volks flicked on its lights, flashed, and turned into the minor road, without pausing. Passing, as it did so, a discreet sign worded: FORESTRY COMMISSION/LATCHFORD CHASE.

  The twilight was heavy here, in the long, deep aisle of the forest. On each side of the road ran a grass verge, overhung with monster oaks and beeches. And behind these, the pines. There they brooded, in solid night. Divided, every so often, by murky rides, each signed with a white, stencilled number. And all silent, with tree silence. Nothing but the burble of the Volks. No sign of bird, or moth, or the roe deer that were said to roam here. Empty, silent, but charged with presence: the forest seemed to hold its breath.

  The lights of the Volks picked up a fresh sign: WARREN RIDE/2 KILOMETRES. The sign was painted on a slab of timber, crosscut from a felled tree. Then came the ride itself, a junction left, with a similar sign, on a grassed island; and here the Volks slowed, giving no signal, and clambered over ruts into the ride. The surface was rough, though there was a surface, distinguishing this ride from its neighbours; a marly, stony surface, with outcrops of chalk, stained reddish with iron. And this ride was wider: had one deep grass verge, say fifty feet to the trees; compartments of fifty-year pine, Scots and Corsican, edged with small beeches, larches and maples. So it was lighter, too, having a strip of sky. Yet the Volks bumbled cautiously along the track. Thick, reddish dust, not yet laid by dew, spurted from its wheels, and left a haze behind it.

  Another kilometre – then the Volks halted, and the driver switched on the light in his cab. He was puzzling over something he held in his hand: too small for a map, more like a pamphlet. Where he had stopped was near the end of the ride, where it opened up into a partly cleared glade: a picnic area, like as not, though the light was too dim to make it out. Anyway, the driver got down and switched a torch along the verges. It settled at last on a short stake, or post, driven into the ground near the junction with a cross-ride. The driver approached it. The top of the stake had been sawn across in a half-wedge, and into this surface had been carved two arrow-heads, one painted yellow, one blue. Both pointed down the cross-ride. The driver switched off his torch, returned to the Volks and climbed in. He restarted the engine, wheeled the van round, and drove very slowly into the cross-ride.

  The going here was rather more suited to Forestry Land Rovers than caravettes – drifts of pine-needles, lumping ribs of chalk, and gulches of red mud. But the Volks handled it firmly, delicately raising and lowering its separately suspended wheels, its boxer engine chaffering happily as the throttle was pressed and eased. The ride was narrow, also winding – unlike the other rides in the forest. To the right it skirted Douglas pines, to the left some truly gigantic Scots. On this side, too, it was fenced with steel mesh, with rabbit-netting at the foot; and behind the fence grew bramble and underbrush, concealing whatever lay beyond. Then, a gate. The Volks halted. Its
driver sat some moments, staring. The gate was of metal, as tall as the fence, and clad with sections of mesh and the rabbit netting. None of it new, except the rabbit-netting. A rusty chain and padlock secured it. Attached to it was a notice: W D PROPERTY/KEEP OUT/UNEXPLODED BOMBS.

  Once more, the driver switched on his cab-light and consulted his map or pamphlet. A little doubtfully, he got down with his torch and searched along the fence beyond the gate. What he found this time was a small contraption, made partly of wood and partly of sheet-metal, let into the fence and the rabbit-netting, just by a gap in the underbrush. It seemed to decide him. He came swiftly back to the gate and gave the rusty padlock a jerk. The padlock opened; he showed no surprise, but pushed back the gate and drove in. Then he closed the gate again, though without replacing the padlock.

  And now the Volks was in virtual bush-country, tramping on bramble, bracken and snowberry, with the rusty boles of the pines lurching massively through its headlights. But its destination was close: grumbling over a bank, it wallowed down into a small clearing, free of the underbrush; a tiny dell, where nothing grew except meagre grass, nettles and tampion. The driver levelled the Volks, and parked. He cut the engine, but not the lights. What they rested on, across the dell, was a beech tree of curious form. From a massive root-base it had sent up four stems, the boughs from which had intergrown, so that there were several complete arches of live timber, and others in the process of forming. But it was not this phenomenon that interested the driver. His attention was focused on the base of the tree. There, among the roots, and partly concealed by nettles, lay the shadowy entrance of an excavated tunnel.

  The man acted quickly but silently. He went round to the side-door of the caravette. From the rear compartment he took apparatus which he set up close to the beech. Returning, he plugged in a cable, switched on the apparatus, switched off his headlights. Now there was a soft, brilliant white light, flooding the ground in front of the tunnel. The man donned headphones. He sat in the doorway, another piece of apparatus resting in his lap.

  Some time later, soft as a cat, he raised this piece of apparatus to his cheek.

  ‘Do you think he’s coming?’ Edwin Keynes said, resting his whisky glass on his knee.

  ‘Oh yes,’ Maryon Britton replied. ‘He’s coming. If he doesn’t arrive tonight, he will tomorrow.’

  ‘Building the suspense,’ Edwin grimaced.

  ‘Well, he is a professional,’ Maryon said. She made a small, actressy mouth. ‘You should know how he loves a production.’

  Edwin nodded, ruefully. ‘My dear cousin.’

  ‘He’ll have us all here in the lounge,’ Maryon said. ‘Then he’ll make a brisk entrance, carrying his briefcase, march straight past us, and turn.’ She sighed. ‘Poor Adrian. Living with him has always been a production. I may have retired from the stage, but I’m always on a set when Adrian’s around.’

  Edwin chuckled. ‘Is that how he makes love?’

  Maryon sniffed. ‘Something like that. Perhaps it’s my fault. But I can’t see it. You don’t have any complaints, do you?’

  ‘You know better,’ Edwin said. He drank. ‘But you must have loved him at one time.’

  Maryon shook her head decidedly. ‘No. I haven’t that excuse, even.’

  ‘Just a little?’

  ‘Not at all. You may as well know the worst about me. I hooked on to Adrian for mercenary reasons. When it became clear I was a dud actress.’

  ‘You’re rationalizing,’ Edwin said. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that at the time. I can remember you, you were full of high spirits – and Adrian strutting round you like a peacock. He wasn’t in love, just vain as Lucifer. But you were thrilled enough, at first.’

  ‘Just over-acting,’ Maryon said.

  ‘Ah-ah,’ Edwin said. ‘A genuine crush.’

  ‘Yes, but it wasn’t love,’ Maryon said. ‘I didn’t give myself to him. It was just selfishly exciting to get hold of Adrian. After all, he does have good looks, and money, and a big reputation as a director. And he was still married to a star, then. It gave me a professional thrill to catch him.’

  ‘You had feeling for him, Maryon.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Now you’re ashamed at having to admit it. You would sooner I thought you were a gold-digger than that you were even taken in by Adrian.’

  ‘Utter bilge.’

  ‘Because you’re not really mercenary.’

  She sent him a quizzical look, then smiled.

  ‘In the world’s eyes, anyway,’ she said. ‘I’m the image of a classic case. The actress who wasn’t going to make it, and who hooked her director instead.’ She looked glum. ‘And how they’ll crow now, all those lovely, beautiful people. The fool, that’s me, didn’t even insure. Because I could have married him, after the divorce.’

  Edwin looked at her steadily. ‘So why didn’t you?’

  ‘Just as I told you. I wasn’t in love.’

  ‘Yet you’ve stayed with him.’

  ‘Why not? It’s the easiest way of earning a living.’

  She got up restlessly, an urgent figure, and poured herself a shot of Dubonnet: stood while she took the first sip, then returned to her seat. She gazed at the glass.

  ‘That’s not true, altogether. Like most motives, mine are mixed. For one thing I’m lazy, I stick in a groove. And for another, I had to educate Jenny. But principally – I don’t know quite how to put this, not without sounding wretchedly smug – I felt vaguely sorry for Adrian. At the bottom, he’s such an unhappy person.’

  ‘Unhappy?’ Edwin echoed doubtfully. ‘Do you think the word has a meaning for Adrian?’

  ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I think it does. He’s busy and successful, but still unhappy. There’s something missing in him, some point of contact. He daren’t let other people touch him. He’s buried away inside himself, out of reach, quite alone.’

  Edwin looked incredulous. ‘And you. You reached him?’

  ‘No. But I did know the problem existed. And he felt I knew, and it was important to him. I was the nearest he could get to a real contact.’

  Edwin still looked unbelieving. ‘Well, it is possible,’ he granted. ‘But all that’s over, now, in any case. He’s seeking his soul in other quarters.’

  ‘He won’t find it there.’

  ‘He won’t find it ever. You were the best chance the idiot had.’

  ‘Thank you for that, Edwin.’ She sipped from the glass; and the glass had a slight tremor.

  Edwin drank too. Outside it was dusk, and the cedar down the lawn stood blackly brooding. The scent of honeysuckle wafted through the french windows, and the scent of stock: the night air was warm. Inside, a single lamp was lit. The lounge was suffused with dulled shadows. Adrian’s expensive furniture and pictures looked slightly oppressive, a well-dressed set. In the thick silence, one could hear the pipping of bats that hawked round the cedar.

  ‘Have I made very much difference?’ Edwin said, slowly.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It was over before.’

  ‘How long?’

  Her shoulders moved. ‘A long time. Before, anyway.’

  ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Not from me,’ she said. ‘But that’s not to say he hasn’t guessed. But it’s all the same. He hasn’t been near me for – oh, since Jenny went to the High School. He’s probably had other women for that. Why not? I never bother him at the flat. He comes and goes. No – it’s the money I lent you that sticks in his throat.

  ‘But that’s paid back now. Thank heaven, I’m solvent.’

  ‘Just the same, it sticks in his throat.’

  Edwin nodded. ‘And you’re convinced he’ll go through with it.’

  ‘Yes, oh yes. It will be this weekend.’

  ‘And then?’

  She made another mouth.

  ‘You must come to me,’ Edwin said. ‘There’s room at the cottage, and room for Jennifer. Lawrence can sleep in his bit of a studio.’

  Maryon didn’t reply; she sa
t deep in the settee, her glass poised near her mouth. Her eyes were empty, distant. Sitting like that, she looked tenderly girlish.

  ‘Maryon, I love you,’ Edwin said suddenly.

  She flashed him a smile. ‘Yes. Tell me that.’

  ‘I love you,’ he said. ‘And to hell with Adrian.’

  She smiled again, strangely, and finished her drink.

  But then there were steps on the gravel outside, and Maryon’s daughter, Jennifer, entered. She was followed by Lawrence Turner, who was all beard and sensitive, large eyes. Jennifer looked moody. She had longer features than her mother and little of her mother’s outgoing nature. Now she stared round the room peevishly, seeking for signs of an alien presence.

  ‘So he hasn’t come, then,’ she said, grumpily.

  ‘Oh, he may come yet,’ her mother smiled.

  ‘No,’ Jennifer said. ‘He won’t come now. We shan’t see His Highness tonight.’

  ‘He could be latish,’ Edwin said. ‘I know he was directing today at Television Centre.’

  ‘No,’ Jennifer said stubbornly. ‘He isn’t coming. Nor tomorrow either. Not at all.’

  ‘You odd girl!’ Maryon said, surprised. ‘How do you know he isn’t coming? Lawrence, what’s got into my daughter? What have you been up to this evening?’

  Lawrence had faded into a distant chair. Now he flushed behind his beard.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said gruffly, nervously. ‘She’s been like it all evening.’

  Jennifer stalked to the bar and poured herself a gin. She drank about half of it in a gulp. Then made a face.

  ‘He wants to marry me,’ she said. ‘To take me away from the squalor I live in.’

  Maryon raised her eyebrows. ‘Is this true, Lawrence?’

  ‘Well, it was mentioned,’ Lawrence faltered. ‘But we’ve been through all that before. I realize it isn’t possible, yet.’

  ‘No, I should think not,’ Maryon said. ‘You’re too young and foolish, both of you. And you haven’t sold a single picture, yet, Lawrence – at least, not to anyone except your friends. What a stupid idea.’