by Alan Hunter
‘If ever there’s anything to mob about here!’
He grabbed up a dishcloth to restore the situation.
Over at the trestle table they had finished their game of dominoes and one old gentleman was muttering to the others. Dawes’s mate, Jack Spanton, had pulled out a mouth organ. He was playing it with a good deal more brio than feeling.
‘… that girl, I say!’
Now Hawks was having to shout, and his eyes, dark and spiteful, were darting towards Gently.
‘None of you cares a damn – laugh, it’s all you can do! And what are they doing about it … nothing … stand there drinking beer!’
‘What are you doing yourself, Bob?’
‘… stand there, I say!’
There was a storm of nervous laughter during which Pike tugged at Hawks’s sleeve. One or two of them, taking the cue, began singing raggedly with the mouth organ. The publican bawled for clean glasses, ignoring a trayful that stood under his nose.
‘She meant a lot to somebody.’
The note had changed to one of pathos.
‘Don’t you ever think? That girl was someone’s daughter, I tell you! How would you like it … put yourself in his place. And her mother – think of that! Her mother … didn’t she have one too?’
His voice broke absurdly in alcoholic grief. Tears ran down his thin cheeks, the corners of his mouth twitched downwards. Yet somehow he escaped being funny, this old man weeping into his beer. He was like a ham actor whose sham sentiments revealed a real tragedy. The long, bitter face seemed a picture traced by ancient suffering.
‘… little sister … brother perhaps. You aren’t to know who she’s left behind. And what do you care, any of you? Not a dashed thing! All you can think about … isn’t it the truth? She’s dead … lay there strangled … and that’s all you can think about!’
He drew a sleeve across his mouth and then gulped down some more beer. For a moment it looked as though the lachrymose vein would continue. But instead, he took a couple of belligerent steps towards the bar.
‘And I ask you again … what are they going to do about it? Where are these blessed policemen who ought to be on the job? Here’s one … just look at him. Holding up the bar! It isn’t his daughter, so what does he care? Holding up the bar, and listening to every mortal word.’
It was useless singing any longer, Hawks had gone too far for that. Swaying slightly on his feet, he was menacing Gently with his empty tankard. Spanton’s mouth organ clattered to the floor. The dart players ceased to throw their darts. Up and down the crowded bar there was a moment of bated, watchful silence.
And then, from Esau’s corner, came the scrape of a table pushed aside. Sparing a glance from the threatening Hawks, Gently saw the big man get to his feet. There was nothing hurried about it. Esau’s movements were slow and gentle. Taking all the time in the world, he settled a sea cap on his white head.
‘Esau … you let me be!’
Hawks’s tone was suddenly apprehensive. He stumbled back a pace and let the tankard fall to his side.
‘You haven’t got no right. Esau, listen … I’m warning you!’
Esau, deaf as the Ailsa Craig, continued his preparations for leaving. He shut his clasp-knife and put it away. He wrapped up his pigtail in a scrap of oilcloth. Pipe and matches went each into a stowage, and finally he drained what was left of his beer.
‘I tell you, Esau!’
Esau patted his pockets.
‘If you lay a hand on me!’
Esau took him by the arm.
There was no fuss about it and not another word. Hawks, the wind quite out of his sails, was walked out like a child. Somebody grabbed the tankard from him, somebody else gave him his cap. The whole business was so quiet that one could scarcely believe it had happened.
‘Phew!’
The publican made a gesture of wiping his brow.
‘I thought there’d be trouble there, Esau or no Esau. That Hawks … he’s a wicked so-and-so, even when he’s cold sober.’
‘They’ll be all right, will they?’
‘Oh yes! You don’t know Esau. You might say he’s the skipper here – they all pay attention to him. And one time him and Hawks were mates on a drifter together.’
At first they wondered how Gently would take it, but he continued to lean, apparently unmoved, at the bar. Eventually Spanton rescued his mouth organ and the dart players cleaned their board. The publican, in a great bustle, filled a great many empty glasses.
If anything, the incident seemed to have cleared the air a little. The exclusive grouping of the company was beginning to relax. Gently, pipe between his teeth, listened amiably to the publican’s chatter; one would have thought his only interest there lay in a pint in congenial company.
‘Then, of course, you never saw her alive.’
Was it Hawks or was it Dawes whose departure had eased the tension?
‘Not that she ever came in here, mind you.’
Or was it just that they’d weighed him up, deciding that probably he wasn’t a trouble maker?
Spanton had succeeded in collecting a crowd round him. He’d got one of the ancients singing ‘The North Sea Fisherman’. After that it was ‘Stormy Weather, Boys’, of which they all knew the chorus: Aaron Wright sang the verses, and it was the unexpurgated version.
Yes, the tension had relaxed – but wasn’t it now, perhaps, too boisterous? From one extreme it had gone to the other, like a fit of malarial fever. Every moment it was growing noisier, more hectic, more reprehensible.
‘How much is on the slate?’
‘Come on, don’t be awkward!’
‘Just take it out of this, will you?’
‘Well, if you say so.’
Had he missed something important by the skin of his teeth?
Outside the long twilight had commenced under a pale sky. Stars prickled overhead, and the coppery west suffused opalescence. Round a shrub in someone’s garden moths tapped and buzzed eagerly, while bats, scarcely audible, pipped as they flickered high above.
At the turn by the council houses he almost ran into a couple of lovers. They were leaning over a bicycle, heads together, very quiet. Then again, by a field gate, another silent couple. Their eyes followed Gently but they didn’t draw apart.
On such a night as this … two evenings ago. Hadn’t the Bel-Air been nearly empty and Mixer, presumably, in Starmouth?
An alien fragrance reached his nostrils as he approached the gates of the Bel-Air. Dawes, another ghost of the twilight, sat solemnly smoking on a hedge bank.
‘You wanted to see me, did you?’
The white head nodded very slightly. After an instant’s hesitation Gently sat down on the bank beside him. It was a pleasant conference seat: the bank was tall with summer grasses.
‘Bob Hawks … I wouldn’t pay much regard to him.’
The voice was like the man, slow, but full of grave decision.
‘He’s had his trouble, Bob has, and sometimes it makes him hasty. But I’ve had a word or two with him. I can answer that he’ll watch his tongue.’
‘What sort of trouble has he had?’
Dawes didn’t appear to hear him. One had the impression that he was unused to being questioned, that wherever he found himself his word was the law. Having made his pronouncement, he sat a long time silent. The smoke proceeded from his mouth with a clock-like regularity.
‘If that’s all you’ve got to say …’
‘Don’t be in a hurry.’
He hadn’t even looked at Gently, just sat there staring at nothing.
‘You were talking to that boy.’
‘Simmonds, you mean – the one with the tent?’
‘I was wondering how much he told you.’
‘Naturally, that’s confidential.’
Another silence, this time more irritating. At the mention of Simmonds Gently’s interest had been sharply roused. But he could see that it was useless to try hurrying the old autocrat. For years, very
probably, Dawes had ruled the Hiverton roost.
‘Did he tell you he got a thrashing?’
For answer Gently shrugged.
‘So he didn’t – I thought as much. They don’t like to admit it, these youngsters.’
‘Who gave him the thrashing – you?’
Dawes puffed impassively four or five times.
‘Him up there who they say you’ve got an eye on.’
‘Mixer – the man who was with her?’
‘He found them together in the tent.’
Now there was room for a pause – Gently was frankly taken aback. So there had been more to the Simmonds story – apparently, a very great deal more! Simmonds had been leading him up the garden … as a matter of fact, he had almost convinced him.
‘How do you know about this?’
‘Saw it happen. From the net store.’
‘When?’
‘Last Tuesday, just before tea.’
‘Describe it to me.’
‘That’s all there is to it.’
‘How long had they been in the tent – how did Mixer come to find them?’
Esau shifted his long legs as though to express his disapproval. Nobody badgered him like that, the slow movements seemed to say.
‘I’ve seen him once or twice trying to find them up the marrams. Tuesday he hung around near the tent – have you seen that old pillbox? So then they came back and went into the tent together. He ran across there like a madman and hauled the boy out by his ankles.’
‘And the woman – what about her?’
‘She came out of her own accord.’
‘Didn’t she try to intervene?’
‘She might have said something, but that’s all.’
‘And when it was over?’
‘Why, he marched her off with him. They came by the store and went off towards the guest house.’
‘What were they saying as they passed you?’
‘Nothing I heard. But they looked the more for it.’
‘When was the next time you saw her?’
‘Under the sacks by Bob Hawks’s boat.’
‘Who else saw it happen?’
‘There wasn’t only me.’
‘Then why didn’t you report it?’
‘Didn’t think to till I saw you with the boy.’
Esau scratched a leisurely match, his pipe having died on him. The bobbing flame lit his stem features with their viking-like cut. In his ears he wore gold rings, his beard was brushed to a point. His blue eyes seemed permanently fixed on some far-distant horizon.
But they saw plenty, those eyes, there was no doubt about that.
‘And what else do you know?’
‘Nothing – about your business.’
‘I shouldn’t think you’re one to miss much.’
‘Nor one to talk about it, neither.’
‘Perhaps I’d better remind you.’
But Gently could see it was a waste of time. The Sea-King of Hiverton had concluded his audience: there was nothing more to be got from him but steady puffs of smoke.
Still, he hadn’t done so badly for his first day on the case. Gently got to his feet feeling that things had woken up a little. He’d got a handle now, both for Simmonds and for Mixer – especially on the latter he could put a little pressure!
Eager to press home his advantage, he nearly bowled over a hurrying Dutt. The sergeant was coming out of the Bel-Air and seemed in a state of high excitement.
‘I’ve been back half-an-hour, sir!’
‘What’s the matter, Dutt – something popped?’
‘Popped is right, sir – listen to this! It isn’t quite what you might have expected.
‘There’s been a flap on at Starmouth – they’ve had some charlies raiding a warehouse. It took place on the Wednesday morning and there were four of them involved. Now one of them meets the others at a caff on the Castra Road – his description fits our Mixer – and he was driving a green Citroen!
‘That’s all, sir, excepting they’ve got witnesses who can identify him. I told them we’d bring him back, and they’re waiting for us now.’
CHAPTER SIX
IT WASN’T EXACTLY a race into Starmouth, but it developed into something distinctly undignified. Gently, whose driving was usually unexceptional, was led into small but reprehensible excesses.
The lounge of the Bel-Air was where it had started. Mixer had installed himself there with whisky and a sporting paper. As soon as Gently entered he was set on by two reporters; one of them he had seen before, but the other was a fresh arrival.
‘They’ll just be in time to catch the early edition.’
‘My editor’s been in touch with the Yard.’
Like a couple of terriers they yapped round his heels, pushing, keen eyed, determined to get some copy from him. From his basket chair Mixer cast them apprehensive glances. Gently swore under his breath. This would have to happen!
‘Come into the bar, will you?’
He appeared to capitulate, but on the way he had exchanged a couple of quick words with Dutt. Five minutes later he had heard the Wolseley’s horn sound twice: at the first excuse he had terminated his impromptu press conference.
The trouble was that they had been too sharp for him, that pair of reporters. They had smelled a rat, they had shadowed Gently out of the house. Apparently it was their Morris which stood parked on the gravel, and the Wolseley had scarcely reached Hamby before headlights began to pursue it.
So he had stood on the accelerator, foolishly, needlessly. He had practised several little tricks to get rid of those persistent lights. At Castra he’d turned left and gone round the houses, and again at Starmouth he’d done his best to shake them off.
And all to no purpose – they had stuck to him like pitch. Getting a big kick, no doubt, out of chasing a police car. While all the time he’d known that he was being a trifle childish, that at the bottom of it he was upset by this new and perplexing development.
‘This sort of lets him out sir.’
Dutt had quickly put his finger on it. Yet it didn’t let him out, not in a way that closed the file on him. Mixer, if it was he, had met his associates soon after midnight. In other words he could have strangled Rachel and still been in time to keep his rendezvous. But the probability had lessened, it had lessened considerably. With a robbery on his plate Mixer would hardly have chased back to Hiverton. Hadn’t he already eased his feelings by giving Simmonds a pasting?Wouldn’t he have lectured Rachel and perhaps threatened her with some punishment?
For this one night, at all events, he’d have let the matter ride. With three assistants down from town he couldn’t afford to play the jealous lover.
To which one had to add his reactions when he heard the time of her death. One could read them clearly now – he knew he was safe from the capital charge! If the worst came to the worst, then he had a cast-iron alibi! In his own mind he must have been confident that the warehouse job would clear him.
Yet … that little doubt remained. He could have got back to murder Rachel. Even – though criminals were rarely so devious – he could have planned the robbery for insurance. He might have driven back to Hiverton with her murder expressly in his mind.
It was perplexing and unsatisfactory, an untidy bundle of facts. In sum it was getting one nowhere, it simply had the appearance of progress. Mixer had the better alibi – but he also had the better motive.
Gently dragged the Wolseley to a standstill before the steps of Starmouth Borough Police H.Q. Behind him he heard a squeal of tyres followed almost immediately by running feet. A photographer bounded on to the steps, his camera poking at the ready: he got a beautiful shot of Dutt shoving Mixer out on the pavement.
‘That’s Alfred Mixer, isn’t it?’
‘You’ll get a statement later.’
‘Is it an arrest or are you just detaining him?’
‘Later, I said! Do you think we’ve nothing else to do?’
Mixer covered his face
as he was hustled up the steps. He’d said scarcely a word on that journey into Starmouth. In the lobby they were met by Copping, with whom Gently had worked before. The Starmouth inspector shook hands cordially and signed to Dutt to take Mixer into a waiting-room.
‘That’s him, I’m willing to swear to it! We’ve got two independent descriptions. One is the watchman, who they left tied up, and the other the proprietor of the café where they met. Do you think that, now we’ve got him, we can get a line on the others?’
‘If he’s your man then you can rely on Records.’
Copping led him to the super’s office where Symms himself was waiting for them. There was further handshaking and exchanges of compliments. The office, Gently noticed, had been redecorated. The last time he was there it had been a depressing blue.
‘Your man gave you an outline?’
The super was his old spry self, spare, military, his small moustache crisply trimmed.
‘I’d like to have some details – Mixer is suspect in the other business. I don’t think there’s much connection, but a check won’t do any harm. And by the way … if your canteen’s open … I managed to miss my supper.’
Copping dispatched a constable with an order of coffee and sandwiches. Gently reversed himself a chair and stuck his empty pipe in his mouth. From somewhere down the corridor came a murmur of voices – volunteers, he guessed, for the identity parade impending.
‘The robbery took place at one o’clock yesterday morning. It was a fur warehouse – Svandal’s. They’re a Swedish firm with a depot here. Is Mixer the sort of man who’d be interested in furs?’
‘Yes. It checks in with what Records know about him.’
‘Good – that’s another point. We’re in luck, having you around. There were four men concerned and they drove up in two vehicles. One was a fifteen-hundredweight van and the other a saloon car. The watchman, William Hannent, has an office by the main gates. They told him they’d got a crate for him and coshed him when he came out.’
‘How many men can he describe?’
‘Only this man and another fellow. The other two were in ambush – they struck him down from behind.
‘They opened the gates with Hannent’s keys and drove the vehicles into the yard. There was no key to the inner store so they broke it open with fire axes. That’s where the choice stuff’s kept – the rest they didn’t bother about. Hannent they left gagged and fastened to a chair. He was found there by the warehousemen seven hours later.’