‘You won’t be the first to have bought stock off Kincaid.’
‘I know, man. I should have gone like a cat on hot bricks. I should have waited till my head cleared before slapping a charge on him, but it’s too late now. I’ve dropped a most almighty clanger.’
‘I wouldn’t swear to that yet…’
‘Oh yes. I can sense it. The Assistant Commissioner was very decent, but he didn’t fool me, man.’
‘But he’s right about one thing — there’s still a case to be answered. So we’d better have a chat with Kincaid and see if we can chase up an angle.’
In the courtyard a squad car was waiting to take them to Bow Street. It was a drizzling October morning and the Strand had a drear and slatternly look. Umbrellas were bobbing along the pavements, newsboys huddled into doorways, a sky of motionless grey wrack pressed low over pencilled buildings. At the first tobacconist’s shop Gently stopped to make a purchase. He returned, to Evans’s surprise, with cigarettes of three different brands.
‘You do smoke cigarettes, don’t you?’
He took charge of Evans’s cigarette-case, adding samples from his three packets to the Players already contained in it. Then he handed back the case.
‘I’ve put the Churchmans on the right… it’s a silly trick, really. But then, we’re on a silly case…’
At Bow Street Police Court a couple of pressmen stood waiting on the steps and they snapped into action when they saw Gently arrive with Evans. A flash-bulb hissed momentarily, a notebook was thrust under Gently’s nose.
‘Is it the Kincaid job, Super…?’
‘Have there been some developments…?’
He pushed past them into the police station, murmuring something about routine.
Inside the station smelt dank, as though the drizzle had seeped into it. Gently explained his errand at the desk and was passed through to the office. The inspector in charge, who knew Gently very well, shrugged and made a face when Kincaid’s name was mentioned.
‘I’ve got a feeling about him, Super… you know the sort of feeling?’ He gave an expressive nod to make his meaning the more emphatic.
Then Kincaid was fetched in. He was thinner even than the pictures showed him, a spindly, emaciated man whose clothes hung slackly about him. He had a long, narrow skull, a high forehead and a straight nose, his cheekbones were over-prominent and his brown eyes large and intense. He had a small, thin-lipped mouth set in a pessimistic droop. His cheeks were sunken, his hair short and grey. He looked ten years older than the forty-seven he should have been and one placed him directly: a fanatic or a humbug. He had the fey, alien quality of one born to be notorious.
Evans introduced the session.
‘This is Superintendent Gently, Kincaid. He has one or two questions he wants to ask you.’
Kincaid fastened his brown eyes on Gently for a moment, then he looked round for a chair and sat down without speaking. Gently perched informally on the office desk.
‘Do you smoke, Kincaid?’
‘Yes, I smoke.’
His voice was pitched high and he spoke with care. Evans, cued in, offered his case to Kincaid; then he glanced towards Gently with a scarcely perceptible nod. After hesitating, Kincaid had chosen a Churchman.
‘Now Kincaid.’ Gently waited for the cigarette to be lit. ‘I’m rather interested in these inquiries you’ve been making about your wife. You’ve had plenty of time to find her, and you’ve had a lot of publicity. If she was still alive, don’t you think she would have come forward?’
The brown eyes stared through the cigarette smoke, but Kincaid made no offer to answer. He sat perfectly still, his disengaged hand resting lightly on his knee.
‘You understand me, Kincaid?’
His head nodded once, slowly. It was set on a scrawny neck which projected stalk-like from his collar.
‘Well… what’s your answer going to be?’
When it came it surprised Gently.
‘I’m not obliged to say anything when you ask me a question.’
‘Now see here, Kincaid-’ Evans jumped wrathfully to his feet, but Gently waved him away, signalled for him to sit again. Kincaid’s mouth had shut tightly and he watched the Welsh inspector with disdain. His bony hand, now tightly clasped, showed points of white along the knuckles.
Gently said smoothly: ‘You’re quite in order not to answer questions, and I don’t intend to ask any about the crime you are charged with. But if you still claim to be Kincaid I’d like some facts about that. If you’ve changed your mind, all right. We won’t go any further.’
‘Why should I have changed my mind?’
It was a difficult question. Either Gently told him the truth or he was paving the way for a judicial reprimand. Since Kincaid was charged he couldn’t be interrogated about the murder, and it was sailing close to the wind to treat his identity as a separate subject. Gently weighed his answer with care.
‘I think you know that, don’t you?’
Kincaid rocked his head again. ‘Please don’t look on me as an idiot.’
‘Right. Then perhaps I can have your decision?’
‘I don’t have to make one. I am Kincaid.’
Gently hesitated. ‘You can take advice…’
‘I certainly shall. But it won’t alter the fact.’
‘It isn’t a fact until it’s proved.’
‘Oh yes it is. And I’ll swear to it in court. I’d sooner swing as Reginald Kincaid than be let off as some impostor.’
His face took on a contemptuous twist: he seemed almost to be enjoying himself. For the first time it occurred to Gently that Kincaid might never get to court…
‘So in that case you’ll be ready to help us to establish your identity?’
‘Quite ready. And I’ll go further — I’ll instruct my lawyer to help you too.’
‘Then I’d like to return to the question about your wife.’
‘And I repeat: I don’t have to answer your questions.’
Was he mildly sane even? Gently stared at the large, burning eyes. They never changed expression, he noticed, though the thin features had plenty of eloquence. Two glittering dark orbs, they seemed to live independently; they weren’t wholly connected to the intelligence behind them.
‘Perhaps you’d like to make a statement, then?’
‘Oh yes. I’m used to that. I’ve done nothing else since I came back from India.’
‘About your wife.’
‘About anything. My opinions are sought after.’
‘I’d like her maiden name and some details of origin.’
‘Take a note.’
Kincaid crossed one bony leg with the other; then he folded his arms and gazed vacantly at the wall.
‘Maiden name, Paula Blackman. Place of birth, not known. Was living with mother in Fulham when married to R. Kincaid. Height, five feet seven. Age, forty-three years. Colouring…’ He faltered. ‘I don’t precisely remember that.’
‘Was she brunette?’
‘I don’t remember!’ He frowned reprovingly at Gently, adding scoldingly: ‘And it’s no use your trying to make me. Now I can remember the dress… we went to Wales for our honeymoon… her shoes… her handbag… but some things I can’t see. It’s only natural, isn’t it? It’s over twenty years ago.’
‘How would you recognize her if you saw her?’
‘Stop asking me questions! I shall either tell you or I shan’t, but I won’t answer questions. And as for how I should recognize her, that’s a foolish question anyway: one has a faculty for it. You talk like a bachelor.’
Gently sighed. ‘All right! Carry on with your statement.’
Kincaid regarded the wall again. ‘Take a note,’ he said.
His memory was really surprising in both its commissions and its omissions. It could recall a minute detail and then lapse over something important. Yet there seemed no deliberate pattern, no intention of cunning, and one
