Gently in the Sun

by Alan Hunter

  So the super had gone away feeling dissatisfied with Gently; the fellow was holding out on him, it was plainer than a pikestaff. Dyson, too, had seemed resentful, though he was still reproachfully co-operative. During lunch he had twice phoned in to provide the latest progress reports.

  ‘It’s a woman, we’re sure of that, though we don’t know how she died. The bones seem to be intact and there aren’t any injuries to the skull. I’ve got a man taking samples of sand to see what we can recover … she’s been dead above twenty-five years: Simpson won’t go any closer than that.’

  ‘Has he any idea of her age?’

  ‘Between twenty-five and thirty-five. She was five seven and a half and her hair was darkish and worn short. She’d had some dental treatment, but we’ll be lucky to do anything with that … for the rest, we’re checking back on the H.Q. files of missing persons.’

  The second call gave the result of this. It was altogether negative. On a check that went back to nineteen-twenty they had discovered nobody who fitted the facts.

  ‘We’re getting on to Norchester, Starmouth, and Lynton. If they can’t help us we’ll try Lewiston and Southshire.’

  ‘Have you been in touch with Records?’

  ‘Yes, we’re sending them the dental data. I suppose you’ve got nothing to add which might shed a little light?’

  Gently’s mood ever since the discovery had been one of curious suspension. It seemed to have paralysed his interest in everything that had gone before. The change defied his present analysis. It presented itself in the form of an analogy. It was as though, until now, he had been walking in a certain landscape; and that suddenly the light had altered, and everything had altered with it. Altered, but was still the same! There lay the enigma that baulked his comprehension. The objects composing the landscape were each still in their place, but now, in this new light, they had secretly varied their significance.

  And as suddenly he felt cut off by this novel shift of vision. He had moved into a different world from the one inhabited by Dyson and the lest. They were speaking a different tongue, there was a frontier drawn between them: he had strayed across into the picture and was as foreign as the rest of the components.

  After the super had gone he phoned the Central Office, having to wait some minutes to get hold of Pagram. His associate sounded bored and he was drinking something while he talked.

  ‘Take advice from me, old man … the horse died years ago at this end. We’ve been flogging him like mad and he hasn’t twitched a muscle. I think you can take it for granted that Campion was outside Mixer’s rackets.’

  ‘Have you got on to any of her ex’s?’

  ‘Yes, we’ve managed to contact two. One of them is an architect by the name of Lacey. The other keeps a junk shop at the right end of Fulham Road. Podmore, he’s called, but no connection with the late chummy. Both of them clean and neither were near Hiverton. We’ve got another name, Coulson, but him we’re still chasing.’

  ‘What did they know about Campion?’

  ‘Nothing, except that she buried her grandmother. Her husband was a Charlie Campion, a foreman carpenter who hailed from Stepney. We dug that up at Somerset House, but there’s no sign of any of their children having married. You can think what you like.’

  ‘And the local records?’

  ‘Gone up in smoke. But we’re still asking questions.’

  Gently inquired about the warehouse affair. Here everything was progress with arrests hourly expected. Mixer’s associates had been identified as old friends of the police; there were men out searching for them in all their favoured localities.

  ‘If only it wasn’t so flaming hot! You’ve no idea what Whitehall’s like.’

  ‘Have you been frying any more eggs?’

  ‘We tried some steak, but it just dries up.’

  He lit his pipe and went into the bar. The news of the fresh discovery had quickly made its way to the guest house. At one or two of the tables they sat discussing it, but their voices sank as they saw him enter. Without looking round he knew that every head was turned.

  ‘A shandy with plenty of ice.’

  Maurice looked as though he wanted to speak to Gently. After making the drink he stood hesitating by the counter, put off by the silence and general focus of attention. But at last he leaned over and whispered in Gently’s ear:

  ‘Is it right what they’re saying?’

  Gently tilted his glass, shrugging. If that was all Maurice wanted, then he could wait for the evening paper. It wasn’t all, however. The bartender remained with his elbows on the counter. His appearance was less confident than it had been in the morning and he watched the progress of the shandy with symptoms of anxiety.

  ‘You remember what I was telling you?’

  ‘Hmn.’ Gently put down the glass.

  ‘Well, I don’t want you to think … I mean, I gave it to you straight! As near as I remember Rosie was in with me till one. If she says any different … we didn’t watch the clock, did we? I gave it to you straight, you needn’t worry about that.’

  Watching him, Gently grunted again. Maurice was noticeably more nervous, less inclined to be matey. It went without saying that he had compared notes with Rosie – had her memory been bad, and the truth leaked out by accident?

  ‘What part of the world do you come from?’

  ‘Me? I belong to Starmouth.’

  ‘Your family lives there?’

  ‘Well no – not exactly. But I’ve been settled up here for a few years now.’

  ‘Where does your family live?’

  ‘In Lambeth, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘In Lambeth! When was the last time you were there?’

  ‘To tell the truth, I haven’t been home since after the war.’

  The nervousness was alarm now– Maurice didn’t like this at all. In spite of the ears cocked in their direction he was letting his voice rise from its confidential whisper.

  ‘Look, I had some trouble, see? But it’s all over and done with! I may as well admit it – it had to do with a woman. She swore I made her do it – you know how it is – tore her clothes and got some bruises! And all the time, if she’d told the truth.’

  ‘How far is Lambeth from Camden Town?’

  ‘I don’t know! What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘And how long did you say you’d known Miss Campion?’

  ‘I told you – since last week. And the same goes with her boyfriend.’

  ‘You’d better let me have your family’s address.’

  He left Maurice staring after him very unhappily. The bartender had the air of being completely taken down. He began polishing glasses which were sparkling bright already, and when he served a customer, kept his eyes strictly lowered.

  ‘Pagram? It’s me again. I’ve got another assignment for you.’

  As he talked Gently could imagine the airless heat trap of the Lambeth streets.

  * * *

  Some of the youngsters had formed a skiffle group which practised in the reading room, and Gently, on his way out, caught a snatch from it in the hall. They weren’t entirely beginners, you could tell it by their panache: just then they were improvising a rather neat calypso.

  ‘Rachel, she was a lady –

  At least, some people thought so!

  Rachel, she was a lady –

  At least, some people thought so!

  Rachel came to the Bel-Air,

  Rachel had long coal-black hair –

  Rachel, she was all the rage,

  Isn’t it a pity she was in a cage!

  Oh, we all liked Rachel so,

  But not that other so-and-so!’

  The performance ended in laughter and shrieks of applause. It was sung, Gently thought, by a certain fair-haired youth who played a good game of tennis. It depended on your age how you reacted to shock.

  Did he have a premonition that he would find Esau waiting for him? He couldn’t precisely have said, but at least the event didn’t su
rprise him. The fisherman must have known that Gently would want to see him – no policeman was going to be satisfied by the events of that morning! At the same time, Esau didn’t need to put himself forward; and that was what he was doing, sitting there on his hedge bank.

  Or was he? Gently had to admit a second of doubt about it. The fisherman looked so unconcerned, his darkened clay resting between his teeth. He was, of course, ignoring Gently. The Sea-King paid his respects to no man. But surely he could be there for one purpose only, he wouldn’t have chosen that seat by accident?

  He was there, in any case, in his odd, inscrutable fashion. Gently advanced towards him deliberately, trying to frame his opening gambit. Then – instinctively – he wavered. What was the use in asking questions? Hadn’t it already got beyond words with them, this majestic man and himself?

  Instead, he sat down silently beside him. It seemed suddenly the only thing to be done. If there was to be any communication, then the initiative lay with Esau: Gently’s role was to wait alertly for what the other might care to impart. They had got into a peculiar relationship and one could only give it its head.

  And so it began, a bizarre half-hour, unequalled by anything in Gently’s experience. Looking back on it from a distance he was still unable to make sense of it. Not a word was spoken by either, nor did they once exchange a look. If they had been a couple of statues they could hardly have sat stiller or quieter. Bizarre – and yet something did pass between them however inexplicable it was to remain. Gently became conscious of a growing clarity, a slow development of his earlier mood. Was the Sea-King a telepathist – could that be the explanation? Was he secretly shaping Gently’s thoughts as the smoke rose from the guttering clay?

  Perhaps it was simply the other’s serenity which was being communicated to him. He sat so still, so effortlessly still, his eyes scarcely blinking or shifting direction. His face was as a mask from which all emotion had drained away: its lines contained a history, but of itself it had no expression. And sitting there beside him one had to echo that brooding serenity. It was like a sensible ether that he extended round about him. This it was, at the least, which was prompting Gently’s awareness, soothing him, persuading him that he was seeing things more clearly.

  Because, in sum, what was it that this clarity embraced? It was an indefinable conviction that now he knew all there was to be known. There was nothing material to support it, no new fact to square the circle. As intangible as the pipe smoke the conviction had stolen upon his mind. Now … he knew it all! – Esau’s silence was to tell him that. The facts were all before him, he needed only a moment of vision. Esau had done what he could for him. He had given him the hint that mattered. For the rest it was up to Gently to recognize the picture on the canvas.

  Only here, unfortunately, his vision wouldn’t carry. The very sharpness of the detail was perplexing his interpretation. The facts might well be there and he seeing them vividly, but as yet they wouldn’t assemble into a revealing viewpoint.

  Was he reading too much into his fascination with Esau – was he missing something simple but crucially important?

  Twice their odd communion was broken by the passage of other people, and each time the interruption bore an interesting character. The first was when Maurice appeared on an errand into the village. On seeing them he drew back and seemed to debate whether he would continue. Eventually he did, though with some discomposure; he kept his eye on Gently as though he expected him to interfere.

  The second intruder was Hawks, who was with them rather longer. It was apparent from a glance that they were his object in coming there. He came unsteadily up the road and stopped about twenty yards short of them; he remained for four or five minutes, staring hatred at one and the other.

  A Hawks who had been drinking … But he contented himself with his stare. At the end of the session he lurched away again, probably to buy a last pint at The Longshoreman.

  At this juncture Gently did risk a glance at Esau, but the Sea-King remained as unmoved as before. It was when Gently shrugged and felt for his pipe that the fisherman made his solitary gesture. Slowly, he picked up his pouch and offered it to the detective. The action was so unexpected that it seemed to carry a special point. Nothing else went with it, no nod, no inclination: just the extending of the pouch in the steady, gnarled hand.

  Was it purely an accident that it happened when it did? Gently could never be certain, either then or afterwards. His reaching for his pipe had given Esau the opening – if he hadn’t chanced to do so, what device would have been used?

  The audience was ended peremptorily by the Sea-King getting to his feet. Gently, still in a state of bemusement, let him depart without demur. He was feeling again that uneasy reaction, that suspicion that perhaps the fisherman had fooled him. Oughtn’t he to have cracked down hard on Esau – to have really put some pressure on him?

  He grunted and tapped his pipe on his heel – twist had never been a favourite smoke with him. From the direction of the village he could see Maurice returning and with Maurice, at all events, he had no doubts about technique.

  ‘Where have you just been?’

  ‘Me? Down to the shop!’

  ‘After what?’

  ‘Well, if you’re not going to be allowed to …’

  Gently clicked his tongue in caustic admonishment.

  ‘Come, come! Don’t send me bothering the exchange. You’ve just been phoning Lambeth to let them know what’s coming – and you thought it would be safer to do it in the village!’

  The fact that he was right gave him a childish pleasure; it compensated his ego for the inroads made by Esau.

  In the guest house trouble waited for him, wearing the face of Inspector Dyson. The County man had been talking to Stock and confirming his belief in Gently’s duplicity. Gently fixed him with a drink and led him out on to the lawn. Dyson’s face had reached the peeling stage: he was treating his arms as though they were made of glass.

  ‘I’m afraid we still don’t understand.’

  He found it difficult to come to the point.

  ‘The super thinks … since you were on the other case. Mightn’t there be a connection which perhaps, as yet …?’

  That infernal connection! What in fact did it consist of? Contiguity was the one sure thing they had to go on. The sandhills body was much too old. It predated Simmonds and probably Rachel. Mixer had been a boy … Maurice a child … Hawks and Esau were the ones if they wanted to show connection. Esau, who had shown it to him, and Hawks, who kept getting drunk.

  ‘Nothing further with missing persons?’

  Dyson gloomily shook his head.

  ‘I’ve been trying round the village – the postman, vicar – people like that. In a place as small as this you’d expect someone to remember. Everyone knows everybody. They couldn’t disappear for a day. My own idea is that it was a visitor, but where do you start looking then?’

  ‘A lot of visitors come from Norchester.’

  ‘Yes, but there’s nobody on their records. Then I had half a notion that it was someone from up here, but the super says you checked, and that as far as you know …’

  It was true, Gently had seen the manager before lunch. The Bel-Air, like Hiverton, had a clean sheet of missing persons. They had phoned the manager’s predecessor, who lived in retirement: the clean sheet extended to the Bel-Air’s foundation.

  ‘So we’re left with a day tripper who didn’t come from Norchester – raped and strangled, no doubt, though she might have been poisoned. And as the super points out …’

  The parallel was rather striking: only one thing made a difference – that little matter of thirty years!

  ‘Do you think it’s just possible that we’re after the same man?’

  Gently could hardly keep a smile from straying over his face. Dyson was watching him like a cat, trying to surprise his guilty knowledge. For the Central Office man it was a unique experience.

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

 
; ‘In that case, perhaps …?’

  ‘I’m simply agreeing in principle. I don’t say I know who did it.’

  Yet didn’t he, to be honest; wasn’t he as certain as he could be? Hadn’t Esau drawn up the case for him as plainly as in a written statement? It had all happened before, that was the heart of the matter. Rachel’s murder had been the echo of a crime in the sleeping past. Hawks had been a young man then, he’d been tall, athletic, handsome. The bitter sourness of his face was something still to be contracted.

  An Adonis, keen on women! And unlike Maurice, with taking qualities. In the wreck of the man one could see what he had been, one could glimpse the bright flame that tragedy had dimmed. And Esau, he knew what had wrought that change. They had been mates together … brothers … fishermen. He had known of the passionate crime which took place in the marrams, but it was a fisherman’s crime and his mouth was closed.

  And the years had passed over it, but they hadn’t washed it clean. The secret had raised a barrier between the two men. It tied them together but also it held them apart: they were married, one to the other, in a fearsome, life-long alliance. And it had set its stamp on them according to their natures. Hawks it had made savage, Esau a solitary. Unacknowledged, unshriven, it had worked its deadly ends; one of them had sunk beneath it and the other found a lonely eminence.

  Then Rachel had come with her devastating beauty: Rachel, stirring passions which had slept for thirty years. Had Esau seen it happening, seen the madness begin to gather? Had he tried to watch over her and to prevent the second outbreak?

  Yes, at the bottom of him Gently knew it: this was the case which Esau had sketched for him. The fisherman had eased his conscience of the burden which lay on it and done it without providing one atom of proof! How could one broach such a matter to the sharp-eyed, rational Dyson?

  ‘If you say so, of course, then we’re bound to take your word. But it seemed a bit peculiar, you just finding it like that.’

  ‘I noticed the shape of that clump. You can put down the rest to a suspicious nature.’

  ‘And there’s positively no link-up?’