Gently in the Sun

by Alan Hunter

  ‘But this is the odd thing, and I could never make it out. Esau gained a remarkable ascendancy over Bob. It seemed that the further they drifted apart, the more Bob stood in awe of him; whenever he was by poor Bob became as quiet as a lamb.

  ‘Esau, you can guess, had always been the dominant partner, and Bob wasn’t the only one to feel himself subjected. You must have noticed Esau’s standing. He’s a sort of high priest to the fishermen. He’s got more authority than I have with them, and I’m bound to admit that he uses it wisely.

  ‘But that doesn’t account for his ascendancy over Bob. There you’ve got something quite out of the natural order. I’m certain that Bob hates him – bless me for saying so! – yet he goes in perpetual subjugation to the man.’

  ‘And you’ve nothing to suggest?’

  ‘I haven’t, Inspector. This is Hiverton’s mystery and has been for years. If you’re thinking of solving it, then I give you fair warning. I’ve lived half my life with it and have never had an inkling.’

  He puffed away complacently, his pale hands on his knees. He was obviously enjoying this chat about his parishioners. But it was getting Gently nowhere, except to confirm his guesses. All that the priest had told him so far was only corroborating the Sea-King.

  Gently was party to Hiverton’s mystery, but the proof was still out of his hands!

  ‘You say you couldn’t be sure when it happened?’

  ‘No … if you want me to be exact. It’s the negative sort of thing that one doesn’t at first notice. It might go on for years before your attention gets drawn to it.’

  ‘What drew your attention to it?’

  ‘Some gossip, I dare say. Like every other village, Hiverton is well served in that line.’

  ‘It was before the war, of course?’

  ‘Oh yes, a good while before. If you’re pinning me down I would say the early thirties – but don’t rely on my memory too much.’

  ‘Just after they bought the boats?’

  ‘Yes, it wouldn’t have been so long after. But I’ve long given up the view that money had anything to do with it. They’d have ironed out their money troubles and have forgotten them by now. Bob, you must understand, has never been unprosperous.’

  ‘He never married, did he?’

  ‘No, and that again was peculiar. He used to be fond of the girls, and then he was all the other way.’

  ‘Dating from this trouble between them?’

  ‘More or less, now you come to mention it.’

  ‘Didn’t that ever strike you as significant?’

  ‘Not before … and I can’t see it now.’

  Still it was only corroborative, though the corroboration was growing stronger. Touch it where you would and it gave you solid support for Esau. And surely the proof must come, if one could frame the definitive question – the revealing answer was there, it needed only to be evoked!

  ‘Did he have any trouble with women?’

  ‘I believe so. From time to time.’

  ‘Anything special that you can remember?’

  ‘Yes … there was scandal about one girl. Her name was Platten, I seem to recall … she was engaged to a fellow at Hamby. Her first child was born rather soon after the wedding and rumour had it that her husband thrashed Robert.’

  ‘What happened to her afterwards?’

  ‘She’s still living in Hamby. Her husband keeps the Marquis and her daughter married a Gorbold.’

  ‘And she’s the child in question?’

  ‘No, that was a “he”. They christened him Japheth – he’s in the Merchant Navy.’

  The vicar gave a little chuckle as though something amusing had struck him. He tapped his pipe on his palm and looked at Gently with a quizzical twinkle.

  ‘You haven’t asked about Esau. Doesn’t he impress you as being marriageable?’

  ‘Esau!’

  ‘Yes – I thought you’d stare! But I assure you that he’s a married man.’

  Gently sat very still, his pipe rigid between his teeth. For a second or two he was unable to speak a word. The vicar smiled broadly at the impression he had made – here was something that had astonished the unastonishable chief inspector!

  ‘You’re quite certain, about this?’

  ‘My dear fellow, I married him. It was a particular triumph since he was such a stout chapelite. His lady, I’m afraid, had no convictions either way, but I imagine that she felt the church would give a better tone to the occasion.’

  ‘And his wife – where is she?’

  ‘He kicked her out, years ago. They were an ill-assorted couple, Esau and his Josephine. She was a foreigner, you know – that’s to say, she wasn’t Northshire. I could have told the skipper he was making a mistake, though, of course, he didn’t ask my advice.’

  Gently could only shake his head. The information had struck him like a bludgeon. Almost anything but this he had been preparing himself to hear. It was nudging the whole foundation, the very groundworks of the case – in a moment, he could sense, the structure would crash about his ears.

  ‘Where did she come from?’

  ‘Josephine?’

  ‘From Camden Town, by any chance?’

  ‘She certainly came from London, though I don’t recall what part. Esau met her on a fishing trip – it was when he was on the drifters. I have a hazy impression that they met in Ramsgate or Margate.’

  ‘What was her name?’

  ‘That’s asking too much! But if you want to know we can find it in the register.’

  ‘Can you remember the year she left him?’

  ‘Precisely. It was in the summer of nineteen-thirty.’

  He was aware of the vicar staring at him gravely, a puckered little frown on the ecclesiastical brow. He had laid his pipe aside and placed the tips of his fingers together: now he was rocking them towards Gently in a manner of gentle reproof.

  ‘I’m not an idiot, you know, and I can guess what’s in your mind. Your colleague has already told me about that skeleton in the marrams. But it won’t do, Inspector, it won’t do at all. There’s a couple of hundred witnesses that Mrs Dawes really left her husband.’

  ‘A couple of hundred witnesses!’

  Gently couldn’t help his incredulity.

  ‘A couple of hundred or more, and I was one of them myself. It was a seven-day wonder at Hiverton. The village talked about it for weeks. She went off to the station in Albert Johnson’s hire car, swearing like a trooper and cursing Esau to high heaven. It was a tragedy, I admit, but not the sort that you’re thinking of.’

  ‘But that was the last that was heard of her?’

  ‘You’re wrong again. She wrote to her acquaintances. Our maid at the time had a letter from Josephine – it was a shocking epistle, highly ungrammatical.’

  ‘You saw it, did you?’

  ‘I did, Inspector. It made me congratulate myself on being rid of such a parishioner. After applying every conceivable epithet to her husband she declared her intention of never again leaving London. And she never did, you can be certain. There has never been a whisper of her. She couldn’t have set foot here without the whole village buzzing of it.’

  ‘And that was in the summer of nineteen-thirty?’

  ‘Yes, almost a year from the day on which I married them.’

  ‘Was there a child of the marriage?’

  ‘It was unblessed in every way.’

  ‘If you’ve no objections I should like to use your phone.’

  The phone was in a niche under the stairs in the hall, and to use it one was obliged to adopt a semi-crouched position. As always there was a wait before Pagram came on: for what seemed like half-an-hour he was listening to the exchange’s murmur.

  ‘Pagram? Listen carefully – there’ve been further developments. It’s Campion’s mother that I want you to get a line on. Her name may be Dawes, a Mrs Esau Dawes; and she may have been living with her mother in the summer of nineteen-thirty. The vital thing to know …’

  He he
ard Pagram’s delighted chuckle.

  ‘This time we’ve beaten you to the punch, old horse! I’ve just taken a statement from an ex-neighbour of Mrs Campion’s. It’s all about the scarlet daughter – would you like me to read it over?’

  ‘Tell me when she left.’

  ‘Right … in the November of that year. She had a spat with her mother, if our source is to be relied on.’

  ‘Was she heard of after that?’

  ‘Not by this particular informant. She lived next-door to Mrs Campion until the outbreak of war, after she went to Hayes to the house of her married son.’

  ‘What was the daughter’s name?’

  ‘I tried to get it, but she couldn’t remember.’

  ‘Was the daughter pregnant at the time?’

  ‘Bless you, yes! Don’t you want the details?’

  Gently eased his back away from the encroachments of the staircase. The lemonade had re-started his sweat, he could feel drops of it trickling down his brow. Or was the heat entirely responsible … was some of it due to a different reason? From down the hallway he could hear the vicar in conversation with a tradesman.

  ‘Are you with me? The daughter was married in nineteen-twenty-nine. Her mother disapproved and she wasn’t married from home. My informant never saw the man and Mrs Campion never spoke about him – the impression was that he was of the roving kind, or anyway, unrespectable.

  ‘She came back again a year later, not much to the joy of Mrs Campion. The old lady was a bit old-fashioned and her daughter had the reputation of being a man-eater. But the girlie was having a child, which I dare say made a difference; so she duly stayed on and had it – a girl, of course: our old friend Rachel.

  ‘Then there happened this spat between them and the daughter once more slung her hook. She went off in a towering passion, leaving her baby and junk behind her. Her mother thought she’d be coming back for them, but when she didn’t, wasn’t too surprised. So the baby stayed there and was brought up by its grandmother. It was known from the beginning as Rachel Campion.

  ‘Those are the facts, old man, less the picturesque trimmings. My informant, needless to say, put the least favourable construction on them.’

  It had to be the same woman! Gently clutched at his moist receiver. Every detail fitted pat, there wasn’t a single trace of discrepancy. And she had come back to Hiverton, back to that lonely grave in the marrams. And nobody had missed her at Hiverton. Nobody had missed her at Camden Town.

  ‘Hallo? I want something else done.’

  ‘I could hear you thinking it up.’

  ‘The local police have sent in some dental impressions. I’m pretty well certain that they belong to Rachel’s mother.’

  ‘Oh no – don’t shove that on to us!’

  ‘Will you see what you can do?’

  ‘Why not? The taxpayers expect something for their money. By the way, as you sit there sweating in Northshire …’

  Pagram’s voice grew suddenly fainter and more distant, and in its place Gently could hear a soft and sibilant drumming. For an instant it grew louder and resembled something familiar; then, as though a switch were pulled, it was cut off entirely.

  ‘Recognize that, old man?’

  ‘Would it be the sound of rain?’

  ‘Rain is right – if you make a habit of the British understatement! The stuff is fairly whirring down. We’re in the middle of a freak storm. Over the City way it’s as black as ink, and there’s a lot of lightning without any thunder. And here’s a tip – keep your mac handy: the stuff is heading straight up-country.’

  Gently jammed the receiver on its cradle and hurried back to the vicar’s den.

  ‘That register … I’d like to see it.’

  ‘Come with me then. It’s kept in the vestry.’

  Even a townsman could spot it now, the terrific weather that was breeding. The southern sky was all in a haze, and northward the landscape as fragile as glass. There was a tense, galvanic stillness. The clamour of a blackbird sounded like a threat. On a distant farm, seeming unable to stop itself, a cock was crowing again and again.

  ‘I could smell this coming all day.’

  The vicar was forced to take two strides to Gently’s one.

  ‘There was scarcely any dew – did you happen to notice it? In this weather it’s a sign that we’re going to catch it.’

  ‘I had a feeling, too.’

  ‘Ah! You’re country-bred, aren’t you?’

  ‘Do you keep the church locked?’

  ‘Good gracious no. Whatever for?’

  As he led him up the aisle the vicar gave his chuckle again:

  ‘Talking of that and Bob Hawks puts me in mind of something else. I caught him in here yesterday, and what do you think he was after? The date of his mother’s wedding! If she was wedded would be more like it!’

  ‘You mean?’ Gently caught him by the arm. ‘He was in here – looking at the register?’

  ‘Just so, as large as life. I had to laugh about it afterwards.’

  Gently almost ran into the vestry. The register was lying on a chest of drawers. Quickly he flickered through the pages of life, hope, and mortality. The name stood plump and plain: it was Josephine Rachel Campion. And beside it, like an evil omen, lay a single, tarry thumb mark.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  HE WAS STILL nearly running when he got to the beach, but he had known, at every step of the way, that he was making haste too late. His instinct had been right – he should have fastened himself to the Sea-King! It was useless now to pretend that he didn’t know how Esau worked.

  From the top of the gap, panting, he saw the whole tragic tableau. The rays of the pre-tempest sun drew it in almost psychic luminosity. The sea was as green as grass and the beach shining white. The men on it were as dark brush strokes, the boat, a knifed daub. In the sky, a breathless bowl, there echoed a single, trembling sound: it was the chanting of the motor as the boat put out from shore.

  Straight out to sea it was heading, leaving a rulered wake behind it. The surface was now so oily and placid that one could trace every arrowing ripple. Esau was standing to his helm, his upright figure stiff and implacable: he wore no cap over his silvery locks and they lifted slightly in the gentle air. On the beach they were mostly fishermen, but with a sprinkling of hangers-on. All of them were watching silently and in attitudes of bewildered awe.

  Gently plunged down the shallow slope, his feet dragging heavily in the sand.

  ‘Ahoy there … Esau Dawes!’

  His voice sounded hoarse and futile.

  ‘Ahoy there … Keep Going! Ahoy!’

  The strange acoustics made the sandhills ring with it. But one might as well have hailed the moon as to hail the departing Sea-King. All the reply was the putter of his engine, growing momently, inexorably fainter. On the air was a whiff of exhaust, on the shingle the print of the keel. Esau had beaten him by five short minutes, but they were as final as five long years.

  ‘It’s no good shouting – he won’t hear you.’

  The fishermen were watching the intruder oddly. Did they know, these alien men, what had made the Keep Going put out? Spanton stood there biting his lip. Hawks could hardly get near enough to the sea. Pike, with one or two of the others, was muttering something under his breath.

  ‘But in heaven’s name … why let him do it?’

  They had obviously assisted Esau to launch. The blocks, down which the boat had ridden, still lay in position on the beach.

  ‘He said he’d got some business.’

  ‘What – with this lot coming up?’

  ‘You don’t ask Esau what he’s doing. If he wants to launch, that’s up to him.’

  But they knew, of course they did: they were showing it like so many children. Without the exchanging of a word they had divined the state of affairs. Esau was launching, and that was enough they were fishermen and understood. They huddled together in a defensive knot and threw strange glances at the policeman from London.
r />   ‘Right – then we’ll launch another boat.’

  There was a shrugging and shaking of heads.

  ‘As a police officer I’m ordering you to give me assistance!’

  ‘What’s the use of that, when we couldn’t blessed-well catch him?’

  It was Pike who volunteered the explanation:

  ‘He’s got a Perkins petrol engine aboard her. On a sea like this she’ll do eleven knots … there isn’t one of us others can make eight between us.’

  ‘You – Spanton! How much fuel did he have on board?’

  ‘Full tanks.’ The young mate didn’t bother to look round.

  ‘How far will that take him?’

  ‘To Holland if he wants to go there. But you don’t need to worry – he’ll never get to Holland.’

  ‘Let him go!’ snarled Hawks. ‘It’s his own affair, isn’t it? He knows his own business or nobody can’t tell him.’

  ‘The glass has dropped to nothing.’

  ‘He’s got eyes in his head! Let him go, I say – what’s the sense in bringing him back?’

  A gust of hot air whirled suddenly over the beach: it tossed up scraps of litter and hissed spitefully through the marrams. It was followed by a moaning sound, hollow and frightening. The sun was now trapped in a net of the haze.

  ‘You hear that, Jimmy?’

  Like blood was the sun. A pulsating ruddy eye, it seemed to boil behind the wrack. To the south the horizon was shuttered under mountains of solid darkness, their outriders advancing with malevolent rapidity. The noose of a hunter! On the glassy lake they were closing, on the clockwork toy that clattered naïvely over its surface.

  ‘It’s going to come on a-rummun.’

  ‘When you hear the Old Man groan …’

  How had the air, from being torrid, grown cold so quickly – as though someone had opened the door of a gigantic refrigerator?

  Dutt came plugging over the beach: