The Sun Goes Down

by James Lear

  “Admit defeat and go home.”

  “There’s nothing for me there.”

  “Then go to France, Italy. Smarten yourself up and find a nice rich widow.” He laughed, which was an improvement. “Or a sugar daddy, if you can stretch to that. They tend to be wealthier. The Riviera is full of them, I believe.”

  “That would certainly be one solution. Thanks, Mitch. You’re a tonic.”

  “Well why not? If Tilly can have her fun, why shouldn’t you have yours? What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. You’re in the most beautiful place in the world, you might as well be happy.”

  “If we were exposed, we’d be ruined.”

  “Really? I can think of several people, myself included, who wouldn’t give a damn. In fact, we’d be more likely to come back. As for those that disapprove,” I said, thinking of the Jessops or whoever had complained about the noises from my room, “you’d be better off without them. Come on, Martin. You’re a good-looking guy. You should make the most of it.”

  Martin slapped his thighs. “You know what, Mitch? I will. I bloody well will. Thank you.” He shook my hand. “The worm has turned. Two can play at her game, can’t they? Ah, she’ll see. Two can play at her game.”

  And he headed back to the hotel, still weaving a little, but with purpose in his step.

  I went to my room, but I couldn’t sleep. There was too much racing through my mind, too many questions unanswered. I tried reading, but that only made things worse: every word set me off on a new train of thought. I needed a man, but there was none to be had. I took a couple of aspirin, and finally dozed off in a chair.

  When I woke it was getting light outside, the thin mauve light showing the island in so different a character from the harsher, hotter light of day. I stepped onto the balcony; the air was beautifully cool, the sea still as glass, the promenade deserted but for a couple of cats sniffing at fish heads by the boats. The silence was almost complete—and then I detected a distant rumbling, the whine of a motor, the crunch of tires getting closer. There was a police car pulling to a halt at the end of the Victoria Road. A uniformed officer got out and opened the rear door, extended a helping hand, and out came Captain Hathaway. Disheveled, stooped and sick with exhaustion—but alive and, apparently, free.

  The car bore the policemen back to Victoria, leaving the Captain on the promenade. He seemed disorientated. He was an old man, and judging by his florid complexion and excess weight I suspected a weak heart. I dressed quickly and ran down the steps from the hotel.

  “Captain Hathaway?”

  His eyes were unfocused. “Dear boy…ah, dear boy…”

  “It’s me. Mitch Mitchell. Are you all right?”

  “Just a little weary. I must be getting home. Out all night.”

  “I saw.”

  “Ah. Ah yes.” He rubbed his forehead. “I suppose everyone on the island knows by now.”

  “Let me help you.” I took his arm, and he leaned heavily on me. Somehow, I got him up the steps behind Vella’s bar to the front of his house.

  “I do hope they haven’t made too much of a mess,” he said, producing a door key from under a terracotta pot. “They seemed quite determined to find something, although I told them they were wasting their time. Won’t you come in? I’m sure I could rustle up a cup of coffee.”

  “You sit down, Captain.” I steered him to an easy chair in the front room that overlooked the bay. It was a pleasant room, redolent of gentlemen’s clubs back in England: quantities of leather-bound books, a worn Turkish rug on the floor, a couple of the Captain’s competent landscapes of Gozo on the wall, a walnut bureau in the corner. Everything was tidy enough; there was no sign of a police search.

  The Captain put his feet on a stool and let out a sigh. “Oh, really, that was a most unpleasant experience. I understand of course that one has to assist the police in any way one can, and I have the utmost respect for the law, but really, some of the questions they ask, I can’t see what they could possibly have to do with…” He waved a hand in the general direction of the harbor, the cliffs.

  “They think you know something about Joseph Vella’s death.”

  The Captain glanced furtively at me. “But as I told them, how could I possibly know anything about that unfortunate young man? Of course one knew him to say hello to—we were almost neighbors after a fashion, and I often take a snifter in his father’s little bar, but beyond that, what could we have in common?”

  I could think of a couple of things, but the direct approach was not going to work. The Captain, exhausted and vulnerable as he was, was a sly old fox, practiced in deceit. “I suppose they’re exploring all the avenues.”

  “But surely it was suicide?”

  “What makes you say that, Captain?”

  He shifted in his chair. “I don’t know the details, of course. But the cliffs. It’s happened before.”

  “Why would Joseph Vella commit suicide?”

  “As I say, I know nothing about him.”

  “But you automatically assume that he was suicidal. That’s a pretty big leap of the imagination.”

  “One heard things.”

  “What sort of things?”

  The Captain got slowly to his feet. “If you will excuse me, Dr. Mitchell, I need to have a look around the studio. There are several valuable works in there, and I very much fear that the police have trampled all over them.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “There’s no need.”

  I stood in the doorway. “Are you asking me to leave, Captain?”

  “You’ve been most kind.”

  “What are you frightened of?”

  “Frightened? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m an officer of the Royal Navy.”

  “I saw you when the police took you away.”

  His shoulders sagged.

  “You looked terrified.”

  He turned away.

  “But they let you go. What did you tell them?”

  “All right, Mr. Mitchell.”

  “Dr. Mitchell, if we’re going to insist on rank.”

  “Dr. Mitchell, then. I told them everything I know about Joseph Vella. Some of it fact, some of it little more than hearsay.”

  “Let’s try the facts.”

  “He modeled for me once or twice.”

  “I see.”

  “There’s no need to sound quite so knowing, Dr. Mitchell. It was perfectly above board.”

  “Is that what you told the police?”

  “Of course. Why would you think—”

  “Because when I met Joseph Vella, he took me to a hut just up there, along the cliff, and I fucked his brains out.”

  The Captain’s pale, red-rimmed eyes widened a little. “That’s as may be,” he blustered, obviously wanting to know more, “but nothing of the sort happened between him and me.”

  “Right, right. He modeled for you and it was completely chaste.”

  “Of course, sometimes a model will become…aroused. But that is not one’s fault.”

  “Doesn’t stop you from looking, though, does it? Or did you have your trusty camera with you? Is that what the police were looking for? Did Joseph pose for photographs?”

  “I may have taken a couple of reference studies, I really don’t recall.”

  “Funny, because Joseph’s not the sort of man you easily forget. I thought he was extremely beautiful. That’s why I’m sorry that he’s dead. I wonder if anyone else is?”

  “I’m dreadfully sorry,” said the Captain, sitting down suddenly. “I feel a little sick.”

  “That’s it. Now, take a few deep breaths and tell me the truth.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” For the first time, he sounded as if he was speaking honestly.

  “You don’t. But I’ve got as much to lose as you have.”

  “Rubbish. I live here. This is my home. It’s all I’ve got. You’re a tourist.”

  “I understand your circumspection. But if I were you, Captain,
I wouldn’t sit back and watch a young man being hounded to his death—or worse—without doing something about it.”

  “What do you mean, or worse? What’s worse than that?”

  “Murder.”

  “Oh come now, Dr. Mitchell. You don’t seriously expect me to believe that someone is killing these boys?”

  “Which boys, Captain?”

  “I mean, Joseph Vella.”

  “And who else?”

  “I don’t know. You confused me. I’m terribly tired.”

  “You see the connection, don’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re—”

  “The police saw it as well. That’s why they pulled you in. They think you’ve got something to do with both deaths. Have you?”

  Even though the Captain had his back to me, I could hear his labored breathing. I waited.

  “I suppose you’re talking about that poor soldier.”

  “Ned Porter.”

  He winced at the sound of the name. “Ned. Yes. Poor Ned.”

  “You knew him, then?”

  “Hardly. I mean, one saw him on the island and so on.”

  “You’re not talking to the police now.”

  “Very well then. Yes, I knew him. A delightful chap. Saw me painting the harbor one day, much as you did. We got chatting, he seemed to know a little about art which is always a surprise, and he was more than happy to come and pose for studies.”

  “Did you pay him?”

  “I may have given him a few shillings for his time.”

  “And did Ned strike you as the suicidal type?”

  “On the contrary, he was a happy-go-lucky sort of fellow. Not a care in the world.” He sighed again.

  “Much like Joseph Vella, in fact.”

  “Ah, well Joseph… One knew a little more about Joseph.”

  “Such as?”

  “One understood that he was involved in one or two unsavory rackets.”

  “Blackmail?”

  The Captain waved a hand. “I couldn’t say. He never asked me for a penny.”

  “Really? He asked me, in no uncertain terms. Threatened me, in fact, when I’d only just come up his ass.”

  “Oh, really, Mitch.” No more Dr. Mitchell now, I noticed. “Must we be quite so blunt?”

  “I told him to fuck off.”

  He turned around in his chair and glared at me, his face red.

  “Don’t tell me you didn’t hear that kind of language when you were in the Navy, Captain.”

  “Very well.” He got to his feet. “If it’s plain speaking you want, plain speaking you will have. Yes, Joseph Vella asked me for money once or twice. He was a dishonest young man and had absolutely no moral sense whatsoever. I told him that I would never concede to any such demands and that I would have no hesitation in going to the police.”

  “And what did he say?”

  “He laughed. But at least he didn’t ask me for money again. Occasionally I may have given him a little gift, but usually he just came up to the house, posed for me, had a drink and that was that.”

  “How many times did he visit you?”

  “I don’t record such things in a diary.”

  “Once or twice.”

  “More, if you must know. Over the last year or so he’s been up here quite regularly.”

  “As a model.”

  “He helped around the house a bit. I’m not getting any younger.”

  “And in return, you helped him out.”

  He looked me straight in the eyes for the first time. “I never did anything he didn’t ask me to do. Begged me to do, in fact. So yes, if you must have all the details, I sometimes lent him a hand.”

  “That all?”

  “Yes. I am past the age of doing anything more vigorous.”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. And then he asked you for money.”

  “I paid him for his time and services, but never for his silence.”

  “Thank you, Captain.”

  “I imagine that he had similar arrangements with other people on the island. Women as well as men. He never seemed to be short of a bob or two.”

  “A gigolo, in short.”

  “Oh, nothing as respectable as that.” The Captain allowed himself a short laugh. “You wouldn’t have seen him in the hotel bars or anything. Perhaps sneaking out of the bedrooms in the wee small hours. He was strictly rough trade.” He coughed, realizing he’d given himself away by his knowledge of such terms. “Anyway,” he said, serious once again, “as I told the police, I’m very sorry he’s dead, I feel deeply for his poor father but I have no idea who is responsible, if not Joseph himself.”

  “Did they suggest foul play?”

  “They were waiting for me to say I bumped him off. But as I kept repeating, relations between Joseph Vella and I were entirely cordial.”

  “And relations between you and Lance Corporal Edward Porter?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “Poor Ned.”

  “Well, really. I have already told you quite enough.”

  “You see, Captain, I’m beginning to understand the way the police are thinking. Two young men have died on this island— young men with something to hide. And the connection between them, apart from the obvious fact of their sexual preferences? You, Captain Hathaway. You, who lured them up to your studio—”

  “I have never lured anyone in my life. I resent that.”

  “Got them into compromising positions, of which you were careful to gather evidence in the form of photographs.”

  “I have never heard such bloody nonsense in my life. I would never, ever blackmail another human being. I told you, I gave them the odd financial gift. Money never, ever went the other way.”

  “I only have your word for that, Captain. And I don’t think you’re being entirely truthful.”

  “Think what you like. I’m past caring. And now, with your permission, Doctor, I am going to have a large whiskey and go to bed. Unless, of course, you have any further questions?”

  This was intended to be sarcastic, of course, but I chose to take him literally. “I do, as a matter of fact. If you’re not behind the blackmail on this island, then who is?”

  “That’s no concern of mine.”

  “It is, Captain, because I must assume that if you’re not the perpetrator, you are a victim.”

  “How dare you!”

  “Well?”

  “If there was anything like that, I’d—”

  “What? Go to the police? I doubt it.”

  “I have asked you to leave.”

  “What have they got on you? Letters? Photographs?”

  “Dr. Mitchell, please. I am an old man. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “You may not want it, but you’ve got it. Come on. I might be able to help.”

  “If you must know, there was a burglary here a few months ago. Several things were taken. Nothing particularly incriminating, but if they were to fall into the wrong hands, they might be open to…misinterpretation.”

  “Photographs?”

  “Artistic studies.”

  “Understood. So someone knew what they were looking for, and they’ve been threatening you ever since.”

  “That’s about the size of it.”

  “Any idea who?”

  “That’s just the trouble. I honestly haven’t a clue.”

  “You’re not the only victim,” I said, thinking of what Martin Dear had told me. “If you could just help me, we could stamp this vile business out once and for all.”

  From outside, I heard a soft thud and the sound of receding footsteps.

  The Captain froze, hands clenched in fear.

  I ran to the door, but all I could see in the half-light was a figure running along the cliff—a young man, by the look of it. I gave chase for a couple of hundred yards, but he was too fast for me.

  When I returned, the Captain was standing in the hall looking utterly dismayed, a piece of paper in his hand.

  “What is i
t?”

  “Another one.”

  He passed the letter to me. Carefully printed in capitals.

  YOU GOT AWAY WITH IT THIS TIME OLD MAN. NEXT TIME IT WILL COST YOU £200 OR I TELL THE POLICE EVERYTHING.

  “How many of these have there been.”

  “One or two.”

  “The truth, Captain.”

  “Fine, if you insist. They started shortly after the burglary last year. At first it was ten pounds here, ten pounds there.”

  “Or what?”

  “They would give my photographs to the police.”

  “Are the photos that dangerous? I thought they were just art studies.”

  “Some of them may have been a little more than that.”

  “At last we’re getting somewhere.”

  “I don’t have two hundred pounds, Mitch. To raise that kind of sum I’d have to sell the house.”

  The thought flashed across my mind that with Aunt Dinah’s money, I could afford to buy the Captain out lock, stock and barrel and make a very pleasant new life for myself in the best house on the island. This was unworthy.

  “Who’s doing it?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Very well. Let me know when the house is on the market, I might be interested.”

  “I’m telling the truth. Oh God.” He sank into a chair, face in hands. “What am I to do? I’ve been a fool. Such a fool.”

  “Then let me help you.”

  “I never meant things to go this far. I really did start taking photographs to use in my paintings, as reference. And then I realized that these young men who were willing to model for art were keen to model for other things as well. I never asked them to, it just happened—and then one’s finger was on the button and click! The first time I pulled the film out of the camera as soon as the model had gone and destroyed it. But the next time, I thought, well, why not? Let’s develop it and see how it came out. I have a little darkroom at the back of the studio; I get the chemicals and paper sent over from Malta. It’s rather fun.”

  “And they turned out well?”

  “Very well, if I do say so myself. Just a beautiful young man in the sunlight, taking pleasure in himself. What could be more natural?”

  “That’s not what the police think. Or the church.”

  “Once I’d begun, I found it hard to stop. I felt a duty to record such beauty before it slips away. Youth is such a precious thing, Mitch. You don’t realize it, but it passes so quickly. And suddenly, without knowing how it happened, you’re old and lonely like me. Living in exile. No friends, no family. But I was young once too, as young as you. And beautiful, in my way. Hard to believe.”