Gently by the Shore

by Alan Hunter

  Gently held Frenchy’s knees still with one hand and tried to pick up bottles with the other, but he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere.

  ‘Raouls! Otraouls! Raouls!’

  He made a final effort to shore-up his collapsing world, to ward off that frightful trump of doom. It was no use. Frenchy kicked the bottles from under his arm. There was a crash of glass which he knew to be the descent of every bottle in the bar and he was dragged back out of the dark or red-lit tunnel in the nick of time …

  ‘Raouls! Otraouls!’

  Gently snorted and rubbed his eyes. There really was a sound like that. It was coming through his bedroom window, and getting louder every minute. He jumped out of bed and went to have a look. And then he remembered … over how many years? It was the boy with the hot rolls, that wandering voice of the morning … his very accent had been handed down intact.

  Gently hammered on the communicating door. ‘Dutt! Aren’t you up?’

  ‘Yessir. Been hup half an hour.’

  ‘Half an hour!’ Gently glanced at the watch propped up on his dressing-table. ‘You’re late, Dutt. You should have been up before.’

  ‘Yessir.’

  ‘We aren’t on holiday, Dutt, when we’re out in the country.’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Discipline,’ said Gently, shoving his feet into his bedroom slippers, ‘that’s the key to success, Dutt. Discipline and luck, but mostly discipline. Is Mrs Davis providing hot rolls for breakfast?’

  ‘Well, sir, I really don’t know …’

  ‘Then find out, Dutt, find out, and if she isn’t go down and buy half a dozen off that expert out there.’

  Twenty minutes later a shining morning Gently put in his appearance at the breakfast table. The papers he had ordered lay fragrant on his plate and he turned them over as he stowed butter into his first roll. The case was still making front-page in the local. They had found a bigger and better photograph, one of which Gently was just a little proud. And they were up-to-date on his visit to the mortuary, and especially up-to-date on his calling out of the pathologist.

  PATHOLOGIST RECALLED IN BODY-ON-THE-BEACH CASE, ran the local. GENTLY MOVES – PATHOLOGIST RECALLED – SENSATIONAL MIDNIGHT DEVELOPMENT, ran a London paper.

  Gently shoved them across to Dutt. ‘Nice press,’ he said laconically.

  ‘We’ll have ’em round our necks today,’ grumbled the sergeant.

  Gently clipped the top off a boiled egg and took another bite from his roll. ‘They make it seem so exciting,’ he mumbled, ‘as though we were shifting heaven and earth. I wonder what people would think if they knew how simple it all was?’

  They were still finishing breakfast when Inspector Copping was ushered in. He bore an envelope in his hand and an almost reverential expression on his face.

  ‘You were right!’ he exclaimed, ‘my God – and how! There wasn’t only traces of gum on the face, there was crêpe hair too, and quite a bit of it considering. The super’s blown up the pathy for not finding it the first time and the pathy’s as sniffy as hell.’

  ‘Wasn’t his fault,’ grunted Gently stickily, ‘his job is finding out how they died …’

  He wiped his hands on his serviette and thumbed open Copping’s envelope. It contained the pathologist’s report. He glanced over it.

  ‘Must have been a full beard,’ he mused, ‘I’m glad he found some of the hair … it might have been a different colour.’

  ‘You were even right about it not being spirit gum. He’s going to do a thorough analysis when he’s had some shut-eye.’

  Gently shrugged. ‘Don’t wake him up specially. Have you got any artists down at headquarters?’

  ‘Artists?’ Copping stared.

  ‘Somebody who can put a beard on some photographs.’

  ‘Oh – that! Our camera bloke can do it for you.’

  ‘Then I’ll want some copies of the Missing Persons’ list and anybody you can spare to help Dutt go the rounds.’

  ‘I’ll have them laid on. But’ – Copping looked doubtfully at the marmalade Gently was lavishing on his toast – ‘what makes you so positive he came from the town?’

  ‘I’m not,’ grunted Gently, poising the piece of toast,

  ‘it just seems to fit the picture, that’s all.’

  ‘What picture?’ queried Copping.

  ‘Mine,’ retorted Gently, and he bit largely and well into the marmalady toast.

  * * *

  The super seemed a little off-hand that morning. He didn’t seem as pleased as he ought to be with the progress being made. He congratulated Gently briefly on his discovery of the beard and asked some terse questions about what he proposed to do. Gently told him.

  ‘You can have a couple of men,’ said the super.

  ‘There’s something else … I mentioned it to Copping.’

  ‘If it means more men, Gently, I’m afraid I can’t spare them just now.’

  ‘No hurry,’ murmured Gently, ‘I daresay it will keep. But it might be worth keeping an eye on the amusement arcade called “The Feathers”.’

  The super frowned. ‘Well?’ he snapped.

  ‘I don’t know quite what … vice, perhaps, for a start.’

  ‘In that case it will have to wait. Vice is too common during the season in towns like this.’

  ‘Could be something else … I thought it was worthwhile mentioning it.’

  ‘I’ll make a note of it, Gently. Is there anything else you want?’

  ‘Not just at the moment.’

  ‘Then I won’t take up any more of your time.’

  Outside the super’s office Gently shook his head. ‘Of course,’ he said to Copping, ‘I don’t expect gratitude …’

  ‘Oh, don’t let the Old Man worry you,’ returned Copping. ‘He’s got something else on his plate now, as well as homicide.’

  ‘It must be fascinating, whatever it is.’

  ‘It’s forgery – a faked hundred-dollar bill. The super’s panicking in case he has to run to the Central Office again. He’s trying like mad to trace it to some American Forces personnel.’

  Gently clicked his tongue. ‘Why should American Forces personnel forge hundred-dollar bills to work off in Starmouth?’

  ‘Search me – but if the super can get back to one of them he’s in the clear.’

  ‘Of course, I appreciate his point.’

  Copping led the way to the photographer’s shop, where Sergeant Dutt was watching the technician apply the final beard to half a dozen postcard prints. He had made two sets, profile and full-face, and the difference between the face bearded and the face unbearded was certainly striking.

  Copping whistled when he saw them. ‘No wonder we drew a blank the first time round … why do you think he dolled himself up that way?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘The usual reason – he didn’t want somebody to recognize him.’

  ‘But that’s fantastic when you come to think of it. Nobody does that sort of thing outside spy thrillers.’

  ‘Could be a spy thriller we’re working on,’ suggested Gently, dead-panned.

  ‘Could be,’ agreed Copping seriously.

  It was a Saturday, a day of coming and going. As Gently plodded down Duke Street, which led from the dock side of the town to the Front, he was obliged to thread his way through a stream of parties and individuals lugging bags and suitcases, all of them in a hurry, all of them going one way. He surveyed them lugubriously. They were all good potential witnesses – any one of them might hold the clue he wanted, the unsuspected information. And now they were departing in their hundreds and thousands. They were splitting up and scattering to the four quarters of the Midlands.

  On the Front it was the same. The beach had a patchy and unsettled look. Up and down the promenade chased laden cars, taxis and coaches, while the touts stood about in disconsolate groups, their function in abeyance. Everything had stopped. For a few hours the Pleasure Machine stood still. There were those who stayed on, but nobody paid them
much attention: they were only there on sufferance, it seemed, until a new lot arrived and the machine began to turn again.

  Gently crossed over by the Albion Pier and leaned on the balustrade overlooking the beach. In his breast pocket he could feel the stiff pasteboard of the two doctored photographs, and in the distance he could see the post set up by the Borough Police. If Nits knew him when he was alive, thought Gently, it was at least an even chance he met him here, on the Front … and if he met him on the Front it was ten to one he met him on this stretch, between the two piers. Because that was where ‘his’ part was, and beachcombers were jealous of their territories.

  What next … where was the best prospect after that?

  Did he drink, this false-bearded fugitive? Did he play bowls, or tennis, or eat a sandwich at one of the tea-shacks that prospered along the golden mile? Or buy himself a straw hat or sunglasses? Or an ice-cream?

  Sunglasses, mused Gently, rummaging in his pocket for a peppermint cream – he’d want some sunglasses if he were playing hard-to-find. At least, he would if he hadn’t bought them earlier, about the same time as he was buying crepe hair and adhesives. But it was no use making difficulties. There was a beach-gear stall only a dozen yards away. Gently swallowed the peppermint cream and presented himself at the counter.

  ‘Police,’ he said tonelessly, ‘can you remember having seen this man during the last week or ten days?’

  By lunchtime he’d got the usual mixed bag of possibles and improbables. There were people who thought they had, and those who weren’t quite sure: there were numbers who were determined to recognize nothing shown them by a policeman. One gentleman, indeed, was completely positive. The deceased had been to his stall two days running – he’d bought some sun-tan lotion and a pair of frog-man flippers. ‘When was that?’ asked Gently eagerly. ‘Yesterday and the day before,’ responded the helpful one …

  It was a dispiriting business. He’d been through it before many a time, and with similar results. But here and today it seemed particularly dejecting, as though the whole prospects of the case were tied up with his good or ill success that morning …

  They weren’t, of course. He was only probing a little of the surface. Elsewhere Dutt and his colleagues were at work on the lines of strongest probability. He glanced at his wristwatch and made for a phone-box. By now they ought to have made some progress.

  He dialled, and got the switchboard girl.

  ‘Chief Inspector Gently. Give me the desk.’

  She gave him the desk and the duty sergeant answered slickly.

  ‘Gently here … has Sergeant Dutt reported back yet?’

  There was a buzz and a faraway question and answer.

  ‘No, sir,’ returned the duty sergeant, ‘Bryce and Williams have come in – they’re in the canteen having their lunch. I don’t think they had much luck, sir. Shall I get them to speak to you?’

  ‘No … don’t bother them.’ Gently made a rapid survey of the terrain without. ‘When Dutt comes in get him to phone me at the Beachside Cafe … you got that?’

  ‘The Beachside Cafe … what is the number, sir?’

  ‘Find out,’ retorted Gently peevishly, ‘I’m a policeman, not the local directory.’

  He hung up frowning and shouldered his way out of the box. So Bryce and Williams had drawn a blank also. Like himself. Like Dutt, probably. And there couldn’t be so many chances left on that list …

  He directed his steps to the Beachside Cafe. It was one of the smaller of the cafes on that part of the Front, a green-painted wooden structure with a sort of veranda that faced the sea. Gently sat himself at one of the veranda tables and ordered a table d’hôte lunch. Three out of the four of them had drawn a blank … three out of four. Was it going to fold up on him, that little streak of luck – his ‘dramatic midnight move’, as the paper called it? But he’d been right … the man had been wearing a false beard. And Nits had known about it, so the man must have been in Starmouth …

  ‘Your soup, sir,’ said the waiter at his elbow. Gently grunted and made room for the plate.

  ‘Excuse me, sir, but aren’t you Chief Inspector Gently?’ faltered the waiter, hovering at a respectful distance.

  Gently eyed him without enthusiasm. ‘I might be,’ he said.

  ‘I recognized you from your picture in the paper, sir.’

  ‘You’re good at it,’ said Gently, ‘my mother wouldn’t have done.’

  ‘Naturally we’re interested, sir, it all happening so close …’

  Gently sighed and gave the waiter the benefit of a prolonged stare. ‘You wouldn’t like to be helpful, I suppose?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course, sir …’ The waiter sounded as though he were conscious of being about to buy something.

  ‘Really helpful?’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do …’

  Gently produced his two doctored prints and shoved them under the waiter’s nose. ‘What did he have for lunch last time he was here, or don’t you remember?’

  The waiter gulped like a guilty schoolboy. ‘Dover sole and chips, sir, and fruit salad to follow.’

  ‘He had what—!’

  ‘Dover sole and chips, sir. I remember because it was on the Tuesday, which is the only day we have it.’

  * * *

  There was a razor-edged pause while Gently clutched at his chair to prevent it revolving quite so fast. The waiter flinched and edged back a pace.

  ‘Now let’s be calm about this,’ said Gently sternly, ‘it was Dover sole and chips – not just Dover sole?’

  ‘No, sir … it was always chips. He was very fond of them.’

  ‘You mean he’d been here before?’

  ‘Of course, sir. He came here regular.’

  ‘Regular! How long does it take someone to become a regular?’

  The waiter looked worried. ‘I think it was Thursday last week … might have been Wednesday. Anyway, he came every day after that, including Sunday … he sat at this table, sir. I thought perhaps you knew him.’

  Gently laughed with a certain amount of hollowness. ‘I do,’ he said, ‘in a manner of speaking. But I’ve still a lot to learn. What’s your name?’

  ‘Withers, sir.’

  ‘Well, take that other chair, Withers.’

  ‘Y-yes, sir.’

  ‘Don’t be nervous – I’ll square you with your boss. And you can fetch in the roast beef when I’m ready for it – even Central Office men have to eat.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir!’

  Withers pulled out the chair and lowered himself dubiously on to the edge of it. He had the unhappy air of someone who had bitten off more than he could chew. Gently crumbled some roll into his Brown Windsor and tested a mouthful. It seemed up to a fairish standard in provincial Brown Windsors.

  ‘So he came here first on Thursday, Withers. Or it might have been Wednesday.’

  ‘That’s right, sir.’

  ‘You haven’t any preference.’

  ‘N-no, sir … I just don’t remember.’

  Gently nodded intelligently and tried another spoonful of soup. ‘Did he have any name that chanced to leak out?’

  ‘He said to call him Max, sir.’

  ‘Max, eh?’ Gently rolled the word round his tongue. Now he’d even got a name for the fellow! ‘Max anything or just Max?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘Just Max, sir.’

  Gently sighed. ‘I felt it had to be. He had an accent, though, this Max?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir.’

  ‘What sort of an accent … did you recognize it?’

  The waiter stirred tormentedly. ‘Foreign, I’d say, sir.’

  ‘Was it French, for instance?’

  ‘Yes, sir, it might have been.’

  ‘Or German?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so, sir.’

  ‘Russian, maybe?’

  ‘I wouldn’t like to say it wasn’t, sir.’

  ‘You couldn’t imitate something he said?’

  The wai
ter shook his head and sent a haunted look towards the rear of the cafe. Gently shook his head also and reapplied himself to his soup. But why should he complain, he asked himself, why look such a regal gift-horse in the mouth? Ten minutes ago he had begun to despair and now he actually knew the dead man’s name …!

  ‘Describe it,’ he said, ‘describe Max coming in here and having lunch.’

  ‘H-how do you mean, sir?’ faltered the waiter.

  ‘Tell me, man! Tell it as though he were just coming in at the door.’

  The waiter twisted his hands together agonizedly and cleared his throat. ‘H-he’d come in …’ he began, ‘he’d stand for a moment looking about … as though he expected to see somebody he knew …’

  ‘Did he ever see that somebody?’

  ‘No, I d-don’t think so, sir.’

  ‘What was he wearing?’

  ‘He’d got a light grey suit, sir. On Sunday he wore a darker one, but the other days it was the light grey. And he had a blue bow tie.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘He carried an attaché case, sir, he had it with him every day except the last day … then there was his beard, that struck me as being funny … and the way he spoke …’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘When he first came in he asked me my name, sir. Then he sort of laughed and told me to call him Max.’

  ‘Was there any reason for that?’

  ‘It was because I called him “sir,” sir. He said they didn’t call people “sir” where he came from, and then he laughed again and patted me on the arm.’

  ‘He was a friendly type, was he?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir, quite a gent.’

  ‘So he patted you on the arm. What happened then?’

  ‘He ordered the chicken, sir, and sent me out for a bottle of wine … we aren’t on the licence here, sir.’

  ‘And what day were you serving chicken last week?’

  ‘Wednesday, sir.’

  ‘Ah!’ said Gently with satisfaction. He laid down his spoon. ‘We’ll pause for a moment on that happy note … just pop along and see what the roast beef is doing.’

  ‘Certainly, sir!’

  ‘And fetch me a lager, Withers. The occasion seems to justify it.’

  The waiter slipped from the chair and resumed his function with obvious relief. Gently smiled distantly at a paddling child. Another time Withers wouldn’t be quite so forward in accosting chief inspectors who got their pictures in the papers …