Gently by the Shore

by Alan Hunter

  Gently tapped his refractory pipe in the ashtray and drew on it tentatively.

  ‘It’s true!’ she spat, ‘why do you pick on me – who’s been lying about me?’

  ‘Who might lie about you?’ inquired Gently absently.

  ‘How should I know? – anyone! A girl’s got enemies. And I’ve got a right to know, haven’t I? If someone’s been making accusations—!’

  ‘Nobody has accused anybody … yet.’

  ‘Then what’s it all about?’

  Gently shrugged and forked about in his pipe again. ‘If you’re so far in the clear you shouldn’t be afraid to tell me what you were doing on Tuesday night …’

  ‘It’s got nothing to do with it – I can’t tell you plainer than that, can I?’

  ‘Of course, if it’s something you’d rather not officially acknowledge …’

  Again the scarlet nails flexed and a flicker went over the brown eyes. But once more Frenchy controlled herself.

  ‘I haven’t got to tell you, flattie … you’ve got nothing on me!’

  Gently nodded and turned out the fragments from his pipe. ‘Between nine, say … and midnight …’

  ‘All right, you bleeding copper!’ Frenchy jumped to her feet and raised her voice to a scream. ‘So he wants to know … he wants to know what I was doing on Tuesday night when someone was doing-in the bloke they found on the beach … I’m a naughty girl, and of course he picks on me!’

  ‘That’s right!’ bawled the sporty-looking individual, sliding off his stool, ‘you tell him, Frenchy, you tell him where to get off!’

  ‘He doesn’t know anything … he’s just picking on me … maybe he’s after something else too, the dirty so-and-so!’

  ‘He wouldn’t be the first, either!’

  ‘And now he’s looking for a chance to run me in … that’s what it is …’

  ‘Shame!’ welled up from all over the bar.

  ‘He comes from tarn just to pinch our Frenchy!’ yapped the sporty-looking individual.

  ‘They’re a dirty lot … there isn’t a man I’d call one amongst them … they’re sent down here to find a murderer and all they can do is make trouble for girls like me.’

  ‘It’s all they’re good for, chasing-up women!’

  Gently looked up mildly from the refilling of his pipe. ‘We don’t seem to be getting very far with what you were doing on Tuesday night …’ he murmured.

  Frenchy rocked on her heels, fuming at him. ‘I’ll tell you!’ she screamed. ‘I’ll tell everybody, and they can bear me out. I was right here, that’s where I was. I didn’t shift an inch from this bar, and God help me!’

  ‘It’s the truth!’ barked the sporty-looking individual, coming up, ‘we saw her here, didn’t we, boys?’

  There was a unanimous chorus of assent.

  ‘And after half past ten?’ proceeded Gently.

  ‘I was outside playing with the machines.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘Christ, can’t a girl have any private life these days?’

  ‘What was his name?’ asked Gently amid laughter and jeering.

  ‘Jeff!’ shouted Frenchy, ‘come and shake hands with a chief inspector.’

  Gently glanced sharply at Frenchy’s nook, where one of the two shadowy figures was getting reluctantly to his feet. He was a tall, well-made youth of sixteen or seventeen, not unhandsome of feature but with a weak, wide, thin-lipped mouth. He wore a Teddy boy ensemble of all one colour – plum red. It began with his bow tie and collar, descended through a straight-cut narrow-sleeved jacket and reached the ground via drain-pipe trousers and spats – a red of the ripest and fruitiest.

  Gently eyed this vision curiously. It hovered uncertainly at some little distance.

  ‘It was him?’ inquired Gently, a shade of incredulity in his tone.

  ‘Of course it was bloody well him … they all have to make a start, don’t they?’

  Gently beckoned to Jeff. ‘Don’t be frightened,’ he said, ‘it wasn’t indictable …’

  The Teddy boy came forward, flushing.

  ‘Can you confirm what this woman says about Tuesday night?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘Would you care to describe it … I mean, the relevant parts?’

  ‘There isn’t anything to describe!’ scowled Frenchy, ‘he met me in the bar, that’s all.’

  Gently glanced at Jeff interrogatively.

  ‘That’s right … in the bar,’ he said.

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then we went to her … place.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘It’s a flat in Dulford Street.’

  ‘And you spent the night?’

  ‘I … actually … you see …’

  ‘Of course he didn’t!’ Frenchy broke in, ‘did you think I wanted his old man on my barrow? I turned him out at half past twelve … he’d done enough by then, anyway!’

  There was a roar of laughter.

  ‘And who is his old man?’ inquired Gently smoothly.

  ‘He’s Wylie of Wylie-Marine.’

  ‘You mean that big factory on the quays near the station …?’

  ‘That’s right, copper,’ Frenchy sneered, ‘you’re good, aren’t you?’

  Gently drew a few slow puffs from his newly-filled pipe. Most of the occupants of the bar seemed to have drawn closer to a centre of such absorbing interest. But the second figure in Frenchy’s nook wasn’t joining in the general enthusiasm. On the contrary, he had shrunk back almost out of sight.

  ‘And Bonce?’ inquired Gently, inclining his head towards the nook.

  ‘Bonce?’ queried the Teddy boy. He had stuck his hands in his jacket pockets and seemed to be screwing himself up to an air of toughness.

  ‘If you’re Jeff, I take it that your shy friend is Bonce. What was he doing while you were getting off with Frenchy here?’

  ‘Bonce!’ shouted Frenchy, ‘stop hiding yourself … the big noise is on to you too.’

  All eyes turned towards the nook, where there was an uneasy stirring. Then there ventured forth a second version of the plum ensemble, shorter, clumsier and even more youthful looking than its predecessor. Bonce was no beauty. He had carroty hair, round cheeks, a snub nose and an inherent awkwardness. But he was sartorially correct. His outfit matched Jeff’s down to the tie of the shoes.

  ‘And what’s your name when you’re at home?’ queried Gently.

  Bonce licked his lips and stared agonizedly. ‘B-Baines, sir,’ he brought out, ‘Robert B-Baines.’ He spoke with a Starmouth accent.

  ‘And where do you live?’

  ‘S-seventeen Kittle Witches Grid, sir.’

  ‘Well, Baines, you’ve heard the account of Tuesday night your friend has given … I take it that you can endorse it?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir!’

  ‘You came here with him, in fact?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘And you were with him until he departed with this woman here?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘All the time?’

  ‘Yes, sir!’

  ‘Even when he was ingratiating himself with her?’

  Bonce stared at him round-eyed.

  ‘When he was getting off, I mean?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir! … I mean … no, sir …’

  ‘Well … which is it to be?’

  ‘I … I …!’ stuttered Bonce, completely floored.

  ‘And when they had gone,’ pursued Gently affably, ‘what did you do then … when you were left on your own?’

  ‘Don’t you tell him!’ screamed Frenchy before Bonce could flounder into a reply, ‘it’s all a have – you don’t need to tell him nothing.’

  ‘No, we haven’t done anything,’ blurted Jeff, trying to swagger, ‘you keep quiet, Bonce.’

  ‘He just comes in here trying to stir something up, trying to get people to say something he can pinch them for … that’s how they work, the bleedin’ Yard! I—!’

  ‘CLOSING T
IME!!!’ roared a stentorian voice, a voice which drowned Frenchy, drowned the jazz and rattled empty glasses on some of the tables.

  Every head spun round as though jerked by a string. It was as though a bomb had exploded over by the counter.

  ‘FINISH YOUR DRINKS!!!’ continued the voice, ‘IT’S HALF PAST TEN!!!’

  Gently peered round Frenchy’s shapely form, which was hiding the owner of the voice from his view.

  ‘DRINK UP, LADIES AND GENTS. YOU WOULDN’T WANT ME TO LOSE MY LICENCE!!!’

  He was an enormous man, not so much in height, though he topped six feet, but enormous in sheer, Herculean bulk. His head was bald and seemed to rise to a point. His features were coarse and heavy, but powerful. There was a fleck in the pupil of one of his grey eyes and he had, clearly visible because of the sag of his lip, a gold tooth of proportions to match the rest of his person.

  ‘BREAK IT UP NOW, LADIES AND GENTS. YOU CAN STILL AMUSE YOURSELVES WITH THE MACHINES!!!’

  About fifty, thought Gently, and still in good fighting trim.

  The owner of the voice moved ponderously across to Gently’s table. He glowered at Frenchy and nodded towards the door.

  ‘Get out!’ he rumbled, ‘you know I don’t encourage your sort.’

  Frenchy glared back defiantly for a moment, but she waggled off all the same; her parting shot was at Gently, not the gold-toothed one. It was unprintable.

  ‘GET OUT!!!’ detonated the big man, and Frenchy got.

  His next target was Bonce.

  ‘How old do you say you are?’

  ‘Eight-eighteen!’ burbled Bonce.

  ‘When was that – next Easter? Don’t let me find you in this bar again.’

  ‘B-But Louey, you never said anything before!’

  ‘GET OUT!!!’

  Bonce faded like a cock-crowed ghost.

  Louey sighed draughtily. He picked up Gently’s empty orange-squash glass and gave it his sad attention. Gently looked also. The hands that held the glass were like two hairy grappling-irons. On one of his crooked fingers Louey wore an out-size solitaire, on another a plain gold ring engraved with a bisected circle.

  ‘’Night, Louey,’ leered the sporty-looking individual, passing by on his way to the door, ‘watch your company – it ain’t so healthy as it might be!’

  Louey rumbled ominously and set down the glass again. ‘Can’t help it,’ he said, turning apologetically to Gently, ‘this time of the year you’re bound to get some riff-raff … the best you can do is to keep kicking it out.’

  Gently nodded sympathetically. He found Louey’s gold tooth fascinating.

  ‘There’s girls like Frenchy … we know some of them, but there’s fresh ones come up every summer. If they don’t solicit you can’t make too much of a fuss.’

  Louey permitted himself a searching glance at Gently.

  ‘And those kids … I suppose it’s asking for trouble to have an arcade next to a bar.’

  Gently rose to his feet and felt in his pocket for a coin.

  ‘Here,’ he said, ‘I haven’t paid for my drink.’

  ‘Oh, never mind that!’ Louey laughed comfortably, easily, as though he felt Gently to be an equal. ‘Only too pleased to see you in here, Inspector … sorry if anything happened that shouldn’t have done …’

  ‘You needn’t worry about that – it was nothing to do with you.’ Gently paused and looked into Louey’s deep-set eyes. They wore a deferential smile, but because of the fleck breaking into one of them the smile had a strangely hard quality, almost a sinisterness.

  ‘There’s only one thing bothers me,’ mused Gently, picking up his shilling and re-pocketing it.

  ‘And what is that, Inspector?’

  ‘The way everyone around here knows me on sight … you, Mr Hooker, amongst the others.’

  There was a rowdiness now along the promenade. There were drunks and near-drunks, quarrelsome and loutish roisterers. Alcohol had been added to the heady mixture of humanity about its annual purgation … the beer had begun to sing, and the whisky to argue. And they were largely youngsters, Gently noticed, it was the teenagers who did the shouting and singing. Banded together in threes and fours they swaggered about the Front, stupid with Dutch courage: lords of a pint, princelings of Red Biddy. Did nobody spank their children these days?

  A burly figure shouldered across the carriage-way and joined him on the pavement.

  ‘Have any luck, Dutt?’ inquired Gently with interest.

  ‘Yes, sir, I did, as a matter of fact.’

  ‘Well, go on … don’t spoil a good story.’

  ‘I stood where you told me, sir, and kept an eye on the bookie’s joint at the back. There wasn’t no lights on there, but about quarter of an hour after you went in again the door opens and out hops a bloke in a dark suit.’

  ‘Oh, he did, did he? I suppose he wasn’t a freakish-looking cove with a parroty face?’

  ‘No, sir, not this one. I got a good look at him under a street-lamp. He was about middling-size, dark hair, sort of slanty-eyed, and he’d got a long, straight conk. And there was a scar of some sort on his right cheek – knife or razor, I should say, sir.’

  ‘Hmm,’ mused Gently, ‘interesting. And did you tail him?’

  ‘Yes, sir – at least, I stuck to him all along the prom going south. But then he goes into the funfair and there was such a ruddy crowd there I didn’t stand a chance. So after a bit I gives it up.’

  ‘Ah well … we do our best,’ sighed Gently.

  ‘Do you think there’s a hook-up there, sir – have we got something definite?’

  Gently shook his head sombrely. ‘I don’t know, Dutt, and that’s the truth. There’s some racket goes on there, I’m pretty sure, but whether it connects with ours is beyond me for the moment. Anyway, I threw a scare into them … I’ll tip off Copping to keep an eye lifting.’

  ‘The bloke I was tailing looked a right sort,’ said Dutt sagely.

  ‘There’s a lot of right sorts in there, Dutt,’ agreed his senior, ‘they’d keep the average policeman happy for weeks.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GENTLY WAS DREAMING what seemed to be a circular dream. It began at the stab wounds in the man who wouldn’t wake up, took in all the principal characters at ‘The Feathers’ and wound up again with that stabbed torso. And it continued like that for round after round. Or was it all going on simultaneously? His dream-self found time to wonder this. There seemed to be two of him in the dream: he was both actor and producer. First (if there was a first), came the chest of the corpse, caught in a sort of golden glow, and he noticed with surprise that, although the stab-wounds were present, the pathologist’s carvings were not. Next, his dream-camera lifted to take in Jeff, or rather the top part of Jeff: the rest of him dissolved into the haze which surrounded the corpse. He was shrugging his shoulders and saying something. Gently didn’t know what it was he was saying, but he was acutely aware of the implication. Jeff wasn’t responsible. He might have done it, of course, that was beside the point. But he wasn’t responsible. You couldn’t possibly blame him.

  As though to make it more emphatic the camera shifted to Bonce, who was blubbing and stuttering his innocence in the background. They couldn’t help it. Gently fully agreed. They had done it at the behest of some irrevocable Fate, which was curious but in no way blameable. It was just how things were … And then Bonce shrank and his blubbing mouth disappeared. He had become Nits, and Nits had become nothing but two protruding green eyes, painfully straining. Gently knew what he was saying. The halfwit’s words piped clearly in his brain. ‘I’ve been a good boy,’ they echoed, ‘I’ve been a good boy,’ and Gently tried to ruffle his hair good-naturedly, but the head sank away under his hand …

  Then it was Frenchy’s rather knobbly knees trying hard to make themselves look attractive: the camera wouldn’t lift to her face, it just kept focussed on those unfortunate knees. We aren’t bad, they seemed to be pleading (and Gently heard a twang of Frenchy’s croon, tho
ugh there weren’t any words): you’ll see a lot worse than us on the beach. Of course, you’ve got to make allowances, but it’s the same with everyone … honestly now, we aren’t bad at all … you must admit it. And Gently admitted it. What was the use of struggling? He’d been round before and knew the rules of the game …

  So the camera faded across to the parrot-faced man and Artie. They’d got a lot of empty bottles, squash-bottles, and Gently only had to see the bottles to know that he was the one who had emptied them. Not that they were being nasty about it, those two. On the contrary, they seemed to be almost sympathetic, in a sad sort of way. Gently had blotted his copy-book. He’d drunk through all those bottles of squash without paying for them. They knew he couldn’t help it, but all the same … a man of his reputation … Gently felt in his pocket for some money. They shook their heads. It wasn’t just paying for it that counted. It was the fact that he’d done it at all …

  And now Louey’s gold tooth filled all the screen, a huge, glowing tooth with (and it seemed so natural that Gently realized he was expecting it) a glittering solitaire diamond set in the top and a bisected circle engraved underneath it. It doesn’t matter, the tooth was saying, the inspector can do what he likes, he’s always welcome. It’s not the same with the inspector, he’s an old friend of mine. Yes, he can do what he likes … he can do what he likes … it’s not the same with the inspector … And then the glowing tooth became the glowing chest of the corpse again, and the dream was off anew. Or was it, after all? Wasn’t it really simultaneous, flashing on and off like the arrow outside the arcade …?

  Either way, the dreaming Gently perceived at last a change coming o’er the spirit of his dream. There was a word that kept getting interjected into the mechanism, and for some reason or none he didn’t want to hear that word, he kept struggling not to hear it. But he did hear it. It persisted. It paid no attention either to himself or his characters, who were showing similar disapproval.

  ‘Raouls! Otraouls!’

  It was making Frenchy’s knees jiffle and the empty bottles fall off the counter.

  ‘Raouls! Raouls!’