Gently Instrumental

by Alan Hunter

Leyston brooded, but shook his head. ‘I’m pinning my faith on chummie, sir. We’ve got him properly cornered now, and I reckon another session will do his business.’

  Gently sighed. ‘I daresay you’re right! So I’ll leave you to carry on the good work.’

  ‘Me, sir?’ Leyston said.

  Gently reached for his hat. ‘I want to see a man.’

  CHAPTER TEN

  SUN FLASHED FROM the river like splinters of steel and bubbled tar from the seams of the old hulks. A heavy smell, between sweet and pungent, hung about the yacht sitting on the cradle. Beneath her stood a tin labelled Protim and two brushes, dunked in a jar. Through her gaping side one could see the hog soaked with a dark, dull stain.

  Nothing was stirring on the river. The moored boats were spreadeagled by slack water. Behind them the marshes were on a tremble and to their left the shingle dunes vanished into haze.

  ‘So you’ve come back again, have you . . . ?’

  Friday stood in the gape of the big shed. He was wearing the same boiler-suit bottom to supplement the tan of his well-muscled torso. His wide-jawed face was scowling and smeared with the dark stain. It was on his fingers, too: he kept working them, trying to get rid of it.

  ‘You won’t be told, will you?’

  Gently hunched faintly. ‘What won’t we be told?’

  Friday didn’t reply. He stood gently rocking and scowling at the river and the boats. He motioned with his hand.

  ‘You took my tip then – you’re putting Foxy through the hoop.’

  ‘Mr Meares is assisting us.’

  ‘Yes – I’ll bet! Where’ve I heard that song before?’ He spat on the slipway. ‘It won’t do you any good, though. Foxy didn’t get his name for nothing.’

  ‘That wasn’t what you were hinting yesterday.’

  ‘Never mind about that! It’s what I’m telling you today.’

  Gently looked around; he hitched up an oil drum from a batch that stood by the slipway. He dusted it off and sat. Friday watched him with wary eyes.

  ‘Let me guess why you’ve changed your tune! You’ve been having a talk with the doctor.’

  ‘You go to hell,’ Friday said. ‘I’m not playing your game, mate.’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you to lay off Meares?’

  ‘Go to hell – it’s none of your business!’

  ‘I think that would be the message,’ Gently said. ‘Meares has got in too deep, and now he needs a lifeline.’

  ‘I’m not playing, mate.’

  ‘Because Meares didn’t do it.’

  Friday glared down at him, his hands working. His eyes seemed closer together than ever, hooked in by the deepening scowl.

  ‘Oh, Meares was there,’ Gently said. ‘We’ve just had proof of that from the lab. Meares was there and saw what happened – but Meares didn’t strike the blow, did he?’

  Friday’s hands were fists. ‘Nor it wasn’t me, neither!’

  ‘Because you were drinking with the doctor at the time?’

  ‘Too bloody true. And there’s a dozen witnesses, so you can put that in your pipe and smoke it.’

  ‘But we don’t know what the time was – do we?’

  ‘Don’t know—?’ Friday’s eyes widened.

  ‘The post-mortem report leaves it open. We’re left with the time attributed by Meares.’

  Friday’s hands slowly uncurled. ‘But . . . why would Foxy lie about a thing like that?’

  ‘I can think of one very good reason.’

  Friday’s scowl had sagged: he was looking stunned.

  ‘Let’s just put it together,’ Gently mused. ‘You and the doctor were drinking in the bar. At ten minutes to ten you left . . . and who can vouch for your movements after that?’

  ‘My daughter can vouch for me!’

  Gently shook his head. ‘I’m sure your daughter is a good girl. But I have the doctor’s own word for it that she would lie for either him or you.’

  ‘But she didn’t have to lie.’

  ‘Only in your case. She couldn’t give the doctor an alibi, anyway.’

  ‘Look, I don’t know about the doctor—!’

  ‘And neither do we know about you.’

  Friday breathed faster. He grabbed another oil drum, pulled it across and dropped himself on it. He sat slanted away from Gently, his mahogany shoulders freckling with sweat.

  ‘So – what do you want to know?’

  ‘You can tell me who killed Virtue.’

  ‘It wasn’t me!’

  ‘But you know who. And you know it wasn’t Meares.’

  He squeezed his knees. ‘And you’ll keep slugging at me till I let something slip.’

  ‘Till I know too,’ Gently said.

  Friday groaned. ‘This is how I said it would be!’

  At the top of the shed someone switched on a saw: Friday jerked his head round to bellow. When the saw stopped all one heard was the chirping of sparrows in the roof. Behind them, its frames jutting, loomed the hull of a part-finished cruiser: one could smell the raw timber and the fume of thinned varnish. Friday struck his knee.

  ‘Look . . . for heaven’s sake! Virtue wasn’t worth all this trouble. So he bought it, and you’ve made the motions. Why not let it stop at that?’

  ‘And let Meares take the consequences?’

  ‘To hell with Meares.’

  ‘We’ve got enough to put him away.’

  Friday’s eyes were mean. ‘You know he didn’t do it.’

  ‘But I’m not the jury. They’ll think he did.’

  ‘Not if you drop it.’

  Gently’s head shook. ‘We can’t switch it on and off like that saw! There’s a case to answer. Unless we hear otherwise, Meares is going into the dock.’

  ‘And that’s all you care.’

  Gently grunted. ‘Perhaps Meares did do it, after all!’

  Friday sat punishing his knees again, with the sweat draining faster down his back. Someone was working with a plane behind the cruiser, hissing strokes that began with a thud.

  ‘Suppose it was me, then.’

  ‘I’m listening.’

  ‘I’m the sort who doesn’t know his own strength. I could have done it and not known it, with a puff of wind like Virtue.’

  ‘Using what weapon?’

  ‘No weapon! He’d hit his head on that flint, wouldn’t he? If he’d come at me with that I’d have smacked him down hard, and then it could have happened.’

  Gently hunched. ‘The jaw wasn’t bruised.’

  ‘Who said I thumped him on the jaw?’

  ‘Who told you about the flint?’

  ‘What—?’ Friday jerked round.

  ‘And who told you there was injury to the head?’

  The plane thudded and hissed; it was probably a large one, being swept two-handed through its strokes. It paused, added one for good measure, then was set aside with a thump. Friday sprang up.

  ‘I’ve had enough!’

  ‘I still want an answer to my question.’

  ‘You may want, mate!’ Turning, he ran across the slipway to the piled staithe.

  Gently followed him. A scarred work-dinghy lay blistering in the sun by the staithe: it dipped but didn’t rock as Friday stepped into it and unhitched the painter. Oars slammed into rowlocks. Gently didn’t interfere. Friday took long strokes into midstream; the ebb had begun to run and was helping him downstream – towards the sea, if he wanted to go there.

  The blue Rover 2000 stood under the beeches but Lapel’s Volvo Estate was missing. The big red-brick house had a deserted air, though the front door was stopped wide open. From it a wide hall, tiled black and white, stretched through to a leaded window with coloured glass panes. On the right was the staircase, wide and shallow-stepped. It rose to a landing with baroque iron rails.

  Gently rang. Nobody answered. In the silence one could hear a clock ticking down the hall. A tortoiseshell cat, large and old, peered at him from the landing and vanished again. Gently rang and kept his finger on the button.
This time there was a sound of movement overhead. A window squeaked: Gently stepped back. A blonde woman with a slightly-tousled head was looking down at him.

  ‘I’m sorry – Dr Henry’s out!’

  ‘Mrs Capel . . . ?’

  ‘Just a minute!’

  Her head disappeared. After a short interval, she came smilingly down the stairs.

  ‘Sorry . . . but I wasn’t quite respectable! You’ll be the man from the Yard, will you?’

  She inspected him with interested, hyacinth-blue eyes completely free from any trace of embarrassment. She was younger than Capel and had bold, golden-skinned features and shoulder-length hair the colour of ripe wheat. She was wearing a belted towelling wrap that hid nothing of her Junoesque figure. Her feet were bare. She had large hands with tapering fingers naked of rings.

  ‘I’m Tanya. I’m afraid you’ve missed Henry. He’s away at a BMA meeting at Eastwich. You could probably contact him at the Eastwich and County, but otherwise he won’t be in till this evening.’

  ‘This came up . . . suddenly?’

  ‘Yes, it did. Normally, it wouldn’t be his turn yet. I expect someone dropped out – holidays, or something. You can’t call your soul your own in this business.’

  ‘Perhaps I could talk to Miss Friday, then.’

  ‘Sorry again – she went with him.’

  ‘Is that usual?’

  ‘Oh yes. Marion takes care of his paperwork.’

  Her eyes switched past him for a moment to a car passing down Saxton Road; then they returned to his probingly. She flipped the belt of her wrap.

  ‘Poor old Leonard. Is it true that he’s really in a jam?’

  ‘I’m afraid he is.’

  ‘But he’s such a lamb. Nobody in Shinglebourne will believe it of him.’

  ‘Who would they believe it of, Mrs Capel?’

  She gave a throbbing little laugh. ‘Don’t ask me to put ideas in your head. You can probably get enough of those from Henry.’

  ‘I believe you knew the deceased.’

  ‘Yes.’ The twinkle went from her eye. ‘Here we tend to look at things clinically, of course. Terry was an – interesting case.’

  ‘Bisexual, I think Dr Capel said.’

  She made a mouth. ‘Quite certainly that. He never actually made a pass at me, but I could sense the X-ray in his eyes. Then there was the business with Marion.’

  ‘With Miss Friday?’

  ‘I think she may have slapped his face. Her own was pretty red, anyway. But I didn’t see what actually happened.’ She laughed again. ‘Does all this mean something?’

  Gently stared back woodenly. ‘Do you think it does?’

  ‘I’m not certain,’ she said. ‘Not being a policeman. But I don’t see how it affects old Leonard.’

  ‘Who was present when Miss Friday slapped his face?’

  ‘Well, it happened out in the garden. The rest of us were in the lounge. It was during a break in a rehearsal.’

  ‘Her father was present.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ Tanya Capel rolled her eyes. ‘Oh dear! And you are looking for a man with a motive, aren’t you?’

  Gently stared but said nothing.

  Tanya Capel fingered her belt. ‘Well – those are all my confessions,’ she said. ‘Not very illuminating. I doubt if Tom even noticed his daughter’s red face. Marion blushes at nothing, you know.’ She gave the belt a firm tug. ‘Henry should be in by seven, if you’d care to call back then.’

  ‘I’ll call back,’ Gently said. ‘Thank you for talking to me, Mrs Capel.’

  She gazed at him uncertainly, the hyacinth eyes questioning. Then she threw him a smile that was half a grimace and went back up the stairs.

  The doors of the garage at Gorse Cottage stood open but the Rolls’ louvred muzzle showed within, and from a window sounded stabbing piano notes, intermittent, almost angry. Walt Hozeley was at home. Through the window one glimpsed him sitting hunched over the keyboard, now hammering upon it, now pencilling impatiently on sheets spread before him. A cigarette trailed smoke from a corner of his mouth and a pince-nez rode his butte-like nose. He didn’t hear the Marina crunch over his gravel or, if he did, paid it no attention.

  The housekeeper answered Gently’s ring. He pushed in past her protestations. He went through the oak door into the lounge and closed the door behind him. Hozeley looked up over his pince-nez. Gently advanced to the piano. The French doors stood ajar: at the bottom of the garden, David Crag was picking beans into a trug. Slowly Hozeley removed the pince-nez and took the cigarette from his mouth.

  ‘You are intruding, Superintendent.’

  ‘Sometimes I need to in my profession.’

  ‘But you have no occasion to intrude here.’

  ‘Not if what’s happening to Meares doesn’t worry you.’

  Hozeley’s face offered little expression: Gently had yet to catch it when it did. Brooding beneath the plumed brows, it resembled a piece of sculpture come partly alive. The eyes, large and remote, seemed to inhabit distant worlds.

  ‘You are still harrying Leonard?’

  ‘Why not? We found Virtue’s blood on one of his sandals.’

  Even that didn’t register a hit beyond a slight compression of the lips.

  ‘I don’t wish to discuss that person.’

  ‘You seem to have dismissed him pretty thoroughly.’

  ‘I have dismissed him entirely. He is no longer a factor. What happened there happened between two other people.’

  ‘And no tears shed.’

  Hozeley puffed the cigarette and retired his eyes to wherever they’d come from.

  ‘But that doesn’t help Meares,’ Gently said. ‘Unfortunately Meares can’t just turn his back. He can only lie his way to a jury who won’t believe him either. In other words you’ve lost your Cello – unless Capel has a cellist up his sleeve, too.’

  ‘You will not arrest Leonard.’

  ‘We’ve already done so.’

  ‘Then I suggest that you release him.’ Hozeley drifted smoke through his great nose. ‘We have a rehearsal this evening and two tomorrow.’

  ‘I don’t think you understand.’

  ‘Leonard isn’t responsible. By some mischance he discovered the body, and that is his sole connection with the affair. So I suggest that you release him at once to allow him time to collect himself for this evening.’

  ‘Not without a signed confession from someone.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd.’ Hozeley stubbed his cigarette.

  Gently drew a long breath. Out in the garden David Crag had turned his attention to the raspberries: he was collecting them in a chip basket, and pausing now and then to sample one. Perhaps at last showing deference to the sun, he was dressed today in an ex-Service bush-shirt. The sleeves were worn down: he had to shoot a cuff to examine his watch. It flashed yellow in the sun.

  ‘What else do you have Dr Henry’s word for?’

  Hozeley had re-affixed the pince-nez. Almost as though Gently had been switched off, the composer was back with his crotchets and quavers.

  ‘I am sure the doctor has been most helpful.’

  ‘Oh yes – he practically drew a diagram!’

  ‘He is a man of great intelligence. You will do well to accept what he tells you.’

  ‘What he told me was that Virtue fancied his wife.’

  ‘Tanya?’ Hozeley condescended a glance. ‘Not very probable. But if the doctor says so there must certainly be something in it.’

  ‘But that wouldn’t have bothered you?’

  ‘What? Why should it?’

  ‘You didn’t care about Virtue going after women.’

  Hozeley’s eyes were severe. ‘I have told you already that I don’t wish to discuss that person. The episode is over. I am not now concerned. Tidying-up the affair is your business. I require Leonard, of course, and I expect his release; and that, I insist, is the end of the discussion.’

  ‘You refuse to help me any further.’

  ‘
I have nothing to add.’

  ‘How much a week do you pay young David?’

  ‘I – what?’ Hozeley’s stare was sharp.

  ‘Never mind,’ Gently said. ‘I’ll ask him myself.’

  The rows of raspberry canes were trained to wires in a corner sheltered by an old brick wall. The spot was a suntrap and the fawn canes were drooping under the weight of much fruit. David Crag was sweating through his bush-shirt as he stooped among the rows. He straightened up gaping and hot-faced. The still air was laced with the odour of the raspberries.

  ‘Good weather for these?’ Gently asked amiably.

  David Crag said nothing. His coltish features were smothered in sweat and his fair hair daubed to his forehead. He had a clumsy, strong-boned frame and hands calloused by labour. Along with the bush-shirt he wore faded jeans supported by a fancy belt of stamped leather.

  ‘Now . . . about that man you met on Monday.’

  In his helpless stare there was something clownish. His mouth had continued to gape: involuntarily, he licked his lips.

  ‘I got to get this stuff in for Mrs Butley . . .’

  ‘She won’t mind waiting a few minutes.’

  ‘No, you don’t know her. She’ll mob me.’

  ‘Let’s go outside. Through the door in the wall.’

  Firmly he took possession of the chip basket and set it down in the shade of the canes. He nodded to the door; David Crag moved unwillingly to open it. The door gave directly on to the heath, which here was clothed with gorse thickets. A short path led through the gorse to a wider path departing in the direction of the town.

  ‘This is your way to and from work?’

  He licked his lips again. ‘That’s right.’

  From the junction the path was visible for some hundreds of yards, running straight through the alleys of gorse.

  ‘Show me where you met him.’

  ‘Well, it was here, like . . .’

  ‘Point me out the exact spot.’

  David Crag stared about stupidly, then pointed to the path.

  ‘Describe this man.’

  He wiped away sweat. ‘Well, he was tall, like . . . about like you. And he spoke different, didn’t he? Like he came from London, I reckon.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  ‘He’d got a sort of blue shirt on, and some dark-like trousers.’