Gently in the Sun

by Alan Hunter

  He tramped down to the foreshore where the children were paddling and building castles. A number of them had banded together and were digging quite a sizeable hole. A boy of seven or eight was trying to float his model yacht; it must have been ballasted wrongly because it persisted in turning turtle.

  The sea … hadn’t that to do with it, in some incomprehensible way? The sea which Dawes kept watching, as though it held an unutterable secret?

  He turned his head to look for the man. Yes, he still stood there. As upright as one of the posts, for all his sixty summers, he remained planted by the hut in his tireless, oblivious vigil.

  But what was he looking for in those acres of changeful water? Perhaps he couldn’t have told you himself, though you caught him in the mood. They were a ‘rum lot’, fishermen, they didn’t work like other people. Even here, in their native village, they were a race apart from the others. A fisherman’s wife was a fisherman’s widow. They were a right ‘rum lot’, and nobody understood them.

  Except one of themselves … you could be certain of that! Within the clan they would understand each other, better than did the people outside it. Together in work, together in danger, together in that inexpressible communion of the sea … they were more like a band of brothers, a religious order almost: they were the receptacle of secrets past common understanding. And to share them you must belong, to partake of the revelation; after which … wasn’t it possible? … you could murder and get away with it!

  Gently shifted his feet in the baking shingle. It was true: one could probably get away with murder. Dawes wouldn’t split on Hawks though he caught him red-handed – it was a fisherman’s murder, so let who would swing for it. The sea washed away all the sins of its children.

  Again he looked back at the figure on the sandhill. Was it just an illusion, or was Dawes now watching him? The tilt of the cap seemed a few degrees lower, the head was turned a little from its original eyes-front. Impulsively, Gently began to walk towards the net store. There was no harm in trying even though Esau wouldn’t answer him. Sometimes silence was expressive, sometimes more so than loquacity: it wouldn’t be the first time that Gently had drawn blood from a stone.

  But then, half way up the beach, he came to a puzzled halt. Dawes was no longer posted there like a storm-beaten figurehead. The net store was deserted. There was nobody within yards of it. The fisherman had vanished as though the sandhill had swallowed him up.

  The disappearance of Dawes had something less than canny about it, because Gently had been watching the man all the way from the foreshore. Only once had he glanced away – when his toe stubbed a pebble – and it was in that fraction of an instant that the phenomenon had taken place. He hurried eagerly up to the store, into which Dawes might have slipped. Had the door been unlocked he would have had bare time to do it. But no, it was bolted and the padlock in position: there was nowhere at all where a man could have hidden himself.

  Then a movement caught his eye in the direction of Simmonds’s campsite. As mysteriously as he had vanished, Dawes had quietly reappeared! Half-concealed by one of the tops, he stood with face averted from Gently; in his demeanour there was no sign that anything out of the way had occurred.

  Yet he must have moved like a goat … how else could he have covered so much ground? The distance was upwards of a hundred yards and, to keep out of sight, he must have run doubled …

  Cautiously, Gently began to approach him, but immediately Esau sank down out of sight. By the time Gently himself arrived at the campsite his quarry was once more a hundred yards away. What was the man’s object? Was he having a game? There hadn’t seemed very much gamesome about Esau. As Gently paused, so too did the fisherman: he became again the sea-staring statue.

  Gently compressed his lips and plodded steadily forwards. There was only one way to see what this was all about. If Esau wanted to play games, well, he was going to have his chance. When it came to this sort of game, Gently wasn’t entirely an amateur!

  Soon there wasn’t any doubt about Esau’s intentions; he was deliberately leading the detective up the marrams. When Gently hurried, he hurried. When Gently stopped, he stopped. And always, without looking round, he kept at the same approximate distance. Before long Gently found himself grudgingly admiring the fellow. He began to perceive what it was that impressed the other fishermen. Esau was tough and he was clever, but he was something else besides. There was more than the look of a Viking about that active, bearded figure.

  And what a chase he was giving Gently under the biting, sucking sun! On the beach, over the tops and through the spiteful, heartbreaking marrams. There was no settled line of country. Esau went just where his fancy took him. Now they were up, now they were down, now they were battling through furze and scrub. One thing, however, was clear. They were drawing further and further away from the village. The last scatter of visitors was quickly left behind them; for the rest, they were alone with the sea and the marrams.

  At one point Esau stopped and seemed to stamp with the heel of his sea boot. The pause was only momentary and he was away before Gently could get there. The spot was a shallow depression, like many others, in the top of a sandhill; the mark of the sea boot showed quite plainly, but there were also some other marks.

  So Esau knew about that too – he knew the spot where the painting had been done. Gently had only to glance at the place to know why his attention had been drawn to it. Undisturbed, for there had been no wind, was the impression of a reclining body; at a distance of six feet from it were impressed the marks of easel and stool. Rachel, apparently, had been a little bored. She had played with the sand and burrowed her feet in it. Near Simmonds’s easel there were dark-coloured stains – where, one imagined, he had emptied his dipper.

  And Esau knew … because he had watched them? Gently’s glance switched curiously after the evasive fisherman. He was waiting there at his customary distance, his face, inevitably, towards the sea. And at the first suspicion of movement from Gently, he was off again on his singular travels.

  The man from the Central Office scrambled after him cursing. If Esau wanted to tell him something, why these roundabout methods? They must have put in miles on those everlasting marrams, and a cheap pair of sandals weren’t the equal of good sea boots. But Esau was the boss, and there was nothing to be done about it. If Gently wanted to maintain contact then he was obliged to tag along. His lonely consolation was that Esau had a method – they were on their way towards something, though what it was he couldn’t guess.

  In the end, did Esau take a little pity on him? Their advance, at last, became more direct; he was straying less off the path as they approached the sandhill that marked the Ness. It loomed before them, a veritable giant, a miniature mountain among sandhills. Lying athwart the line of the others, it reduced the best of them to insignificance. Its sides were as steep as house roofs, it bettered a hundred feet at least. Gently, dashing the sweat from his eyes, was praying that Esau didn’t mean to climb over it.

  But Esau did, that was soon apparent. Gently could tell it from the way he marched up to the obstacle. The sea boots, never pausing, thrashed on up the pitiless slope, dislodging puffs of dusty sand as the toes stabbed out their holds. Really, that hill was a little too much! One ought to be content to go round by the beach. Arriving at the bottom just as Esau got to the top, Gently planted his feet like an obstinate horse. His whole attitude was eloquent of his intention to stay there.

  And Esau? For once he’d got his eyes off the sea, he was sitting down calmly and lighting his pipe. He, too, had expression written large in every line of him: We’re here, it said, now what do you make of it?

  Exactly!

  Gently shook his head and seated himself, likewise. He could think of one reason only why Esau should bring him here. It was because, being here, he couldn’t be also in the village, though why Esau should want that was a deep-sea mystery. Anyway, he’d got it … and where did they go from there?

  They didn’t go anywh
ere was what Esau seemed to say. From the fact that he’d lit his pipe you could assume that this was the spot. And he wasn’t looking at the sea, if that was any help. He was sitting there smoking and looking … straight below him.

  The significance of this didn’t strike Gently for a moment, then, because it was continued, he followed the line of the fisherman’s gaze. It was fixed on a certain hollow lying close to the foot of the sandhill, a hollow in which was growing a clump of the omnipresent marram grass.

  Gently rose to his feet again and wandered over to the hollow. It was about thirty feet in diameter and as symmetrical as a basin. The sides and floor were of smooth sand and bore little vegetation; at one point the edges were broken as though there somebody had been in the habit of descending. The clump of marram grass was growing exactly in the centre. It was a handsome, clean-growing colony and occupied a small mound. The effect of the whole was that of a rather neat bomb crater – which, very likely, was just what it was.

  But why did Esau want to draw his attention to a bomb crater? He looked up at the brooding figure in the hope of receiving a sign from him. But there was nothing to be had there: Esau sat silent and monumental: his solitary gesture was his meditation on the hollow.

  Gently moved a little closer and began a more careful scrutiny. From the surface of the sand he could tell that nothing recent had occurred there. Everywhere it had a hard crust and bore the marks of pelted rain – rain which, he remembered, had happened three weeks ago; it was the storm which had precursed the onset of the dry spell. Apart from that there seemed little to see, except the antics of a pair of lizards. The crater was empty of everything but heat.

  After all was it a joke that the fisherman was playing on him? Gently frowned through his sweat as he stumbled round the circumference. Nothing had happened here, at least while Rachel was in Hiverton, and the indications were slender of anything having happened before that. Then what was he looking for – what was the point of it? Didn’t it rather bear the stamp of Esau’s unusual sense of humour?

  Just about to give it up, he came to a sudden, alerted halt. That grass! Surely there was something out of the ordinary about that? It didn’t have the rough look of the tangles round about; it was tall and clean and straight – one would almost have said it was cultivated.

  And more … it had shape. Gently shifted the better to see it. Once you tumbled to the idea, it was easy enough to trace a design. The clump of grass was shaped like a cross: it was crude, but it was definite. One of its arms was longer than the others … it was, in fact, the cross of the Church!

  Certain now that he’d grasped the meaning, Gently glanced up for confirmation, but the fisherman was no longer staring down at the hollow. He was still perched above, but his head was turned seaward. His vacant blue eyes were once more on the horizon.

  And Gently found himself shivering in the midst of the pounding heat: shivering as though cold water had been trickled down his spine. For a moment he stood uncertain, his eyes fascinated by the cross of grass; then he turned his back with an effort and began to hurry towards the village.

  Mears was sitting in his shirtsleeves when Gently re-entered the Police House. He got up immediately and did his best to look official.

  ‘Where’s your record of missing persons?’

  ‘Missing persons? We haven’t got any.’

  ‘Don’t you lose a fisherman sometimes?’

  ‘W’yes, they get drowned now and then.’

  Mears departed into his office and returned carrying a manilla folder. Gently, drumming his fingers with impatience, could hardly wait to have it undone.

  ‘Two years ago … that was the last one. The Rose Marie got run down by a drifter. Then there was the Girl Sue in the March of 1954. She struck a mine off Hamby. I heard the bang myself.’

  ‘But individual fishermen?’

  ‘Gone missing, do you mean, sir? There’s only one, Sid Gorbold – and that wasn’t any mystery. He was paying a maintenance order and skipped a drifter at Peterhead.’

  ‘And there’s nobody else missing?’

  Mears was positive that there wasn’t. He’d been constable at Hiverton since August 1935, and could remember no authentic case of a person going missing. Gently listened to him moodily: he’d been toying with a theory. But there was no reason to doubt the information of Mears.

  ‘Have you got a couple of spades?’

  Mears fetched a pair from his tool shed. He was doing his best to conceal a natural curiosity.

  ‘I’d like another man, and I don’t want to go through the village. Is there a way round the back here which will take us on to the marrams?’

  Nockolds was impressed for the party – he didn’t like to refuse them – and Mears led the way over some meadows and rough pasture. Gently plodded along silently, without offering an explanation. At the back of his mind there was still a feeling that the fisherman might have been fooling.

  When they came to the giant sandhill Esau was sitting there no longer. The hollow, undisturbed, lay shadowless under a vertical sun. A noonday peace entranced the place and it had an air of enormous distance. The only sound was the maundering of the sea which wafted softly across the dunes.

  Gently turned to the gaping Nockolds:

  ‘You’re no stranger in these parts! Take a look at that clump of grass there – how long have you noticed it growing like that?’

  But Nockolds had never noticed it, and he didn’t notice it now. To him it was just another clump, like a hundred million others.

  ‘Right – start digging underneath it.’

  They shed their jackets with little enthusiasm. The heat coming out of that hollow had to be experienced to be believed. Gently, hands in pockets, stood over them in a slave-driving attitude. He could see, what he might have guessed, that digging out a marram clump was hell.

  ‘How far do you want to go down, sir?’

  They were grunting at every spadeful and Nockolds, in a thick twill shirt, was already showing signs of distress. Mears was being braver about it: he had a sense of duty to support him. In putting the question to Gently he strove to keep a neutral tone.

  ‘Just keep going until I tell you.’

  They fell to again with savage purpose. The marram clump was churned and scattered, its fibrous roots thrown up to the sun. Beneath it the sand was moist and darker, it clung to the spade and made neater digging; but it was firm and it was settled, it hadn’t been disturbed for years. Gently’s face grew steadily longer as he watched each successive spadeful.

  ‘Someone’s been here before, sir.’

  Mears was the first to notice the signs: he leaned on his spade, the sweat pouring down him miserably.

  ‘There aren’t any layers, sir, like there is where it’s natural. The sand’s all mixed together … there’s been a hole here before.’

  ‘Before – but how long?’

  Mears scratched his head expressively.

  ‘Ten years or fifty, you can’t say more than that.’ But now they worked with more intentness – it wasn’t a mare’s nest, after all. Someone had been that way ahead of them, however far ahead it had been. With a certain obstinate eagerness they delved on under the caning sun.

  ‘What’s that you’ve got your foot on?’

  At a depth of five feet they found it. By then the heaps of sand had risen higher than their heads. The sand had started to come out grey, it had been grey for the last five minutes. Nockolds, stepping back for a stretch, had set his boot on something that crunched …

  ‘Bones!’

  He shifted his footing in a hurry. Mears, too, shuffled aside with alacrity. Gently came skidding down the wall of the hollow, his sandals burying in chill, soft sand.

  ‘You come out – leave Mears to finish it.’

  ‘Blast, but I’d never have thought …’

  ‘Come on out! You’ve done your job.’

  Shaking a little, the poacher climbed out of the excavation. During the rest of the proceedings
he sat, looking sick, on one of the heaps. Gently, getting down on his knees, directed Mears’s operations. In the end they were both of them scooping away in the hole.

  ‘A bit small for a man is it?’

  The skeleton lay strictly oriented. The hands, with the fingers entwined, had been placed correctly across the breast. A yellowish staining had occurred due to contact with the sand. There remained some traces of shoes, but the clothes had rotted away.

  ‘More like a woman … a boy, at least.’

  In life, the skeleton’s owner had probably measured around five feet seven.

  CHAPTER TEN

  IF IT WAS any consolation to Gently, he had lost the reporters’ attention. To a man they had attached themselves to Dyson and his colleagues. Here was bigger and better news – a second body found at Hiverton: already one could see the headlines staring brashly from the morning editions. One could guess, too, the speculations. If two bodies, then why not three? Had they come to the end of it yet, or were there grim finds still to be made? THE VILLAGE OF DEATH – A REIGN OF TERROR! – it was working up to that. A little benevolence by the god of scribblers, and a whole clutch of bodies might invigorate the ‘story’.

  Probably a dozen newshawks now swarmed in the little village. Dyson had brought in extra men to try to cope with the situation. Superintendent Stock had driven over in his highly polished Humber; he had conferred with Gently over lunch, but in effect there had been only one question:

  ‘Do you think there’s some connection?’

  If only there’d been a convincing answer! And to his second query, ‘How did you find it?’, Gently had had nothing to say that wasn’t evasive. Esau he wanted entirely on his own – there was nothing to be gained from throwing him to the county police. The Sea-King would know nothing, say nothing, admit nothing. His assistance had been shadowy and he would certainly disclaim it.