Gently French

by Alan Hunter

  I stared. ‘Tell me about them.’

  Frayling hefted his neat shoulders. ‘Don’t forget she is still a guest here.’

  ‘And don’t you forget we’re talking about murder.’

  He sulked a bit; flipped the leaves of the register. ‘All right. But don’t let on that I told you. Anything in trousers was getting an eye from her. Some of the wives here weren’t so tranquil.’

  ‘How far did it go?’

  ‘I don’t think it went anywhere. The lady is just fond of exciting attention.’

  ‘Was she needling Quarles?’

  Frayling hesitated. ‘I don’t think I’m qualified to pronounce on that.’

  ‘So he just took it in good part.’

  ‘Yes, as far as I could see. But like I said, he wasn’t easy to read. A quiet sort of character. He would sit chatting racing while the lady was preening herself with the men.’

  ‘Quiet.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Well, he’d have things on his mind; which weren’t necessarily connected with Mimi Deslauriers.

  I fetched up my brief-case.

  ‘Then from what you’re saying, neither Quarles nor Deslauriers were particularly stand-offish.’

  Frayling nodded. ‘They were both good mixers. Quarles arranged several picnics to go on the river.’

  ‘Any special friends?’

  ‘None I noticed. I can give you some names of the people they invited.’

  ‘Did you notice if there was anyone they specially avoided?’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did they have any visitors?’

  ‘Not to my knowledge. But of course, strangers use the public rooms. The saloon and bar are packed every night. It goes on like that till late September.’

  ‘People off the boats?’

  ‘Mostly from the boats. Some of them drive out here from town. Then you get day-trippers in from the coast. We have a big turnover of casuals.’

  ‘Anyone like this?’

  I took out a mug-shot of Rampant, part of the bumf I’d collected from Hanson. Frayling stared at it curiously, but apparently it didn’t ring a bell.

  ‘You’d better show that to the bar-tenders. I’m not often in the bar. Who is he?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’ I returned the photograph to the brief-case. ‘Now: about Quarles’ movements. What can you tell me?’

  Frayling made an act of weaving his head. ‘You can’t expect me to keep tabs on the customers. For one thing I’m too busy running the place.’

  ‘You’d know about meals: who was in, who was out.’

  ‘Not necessarily with guests who are on full board. But I can tell you that Quarles lunched out most days. We packed him baskets to take on the launch.’

  ‘How many is most days?’

  ‘All the week except Friday. Going on the river is why people stay here.’

  ‘Including, say, the Sunday?’

  ‘Not including the Sunday. That day he must have gone out in his car.’

  His contact with Rampant, checking of the route.

  ‘Where do the guests make their phone-calls?’

  ‘There’s a pay-box down the hall. We switch incoming calls through to it.’

  ‘Did Quarles use it often?’

  Frayling shrugged. ‘That’s something I wouldn’t know, isn’t it? But he had an incoming call on Friday. I called him down from his room to take it.’

  ‘At what time?’

  ‘Half-past elevenish.’

  ‘Were you around when he took the call?’

  ‘I didn’t listen-in, if that’s the idea, but I was in the hall talking to the housekeeper. It was a short call, two or three minutes, and the caller was a man with a local accent. Quarles came out of the box looking vexed. He went straight past us up to his room again.’

  Rampant, of course.

  ‘You don’t remember any calls made?’

  ‘No. But he could have made a dozen.’

  ‘Madame Deslauriers?’

  Frayling checked. ‘Yes, I saw her in the box once.’

  ‘Which day?’

  ‘The same day, Friday.’

  ‘Friday! Before or after Quarles?’

  He puckered his eyes. ‘Must have been after. I’d’ve been going to the dining-room for my pre-lunch inspection.’

  ‘That you can swear to?’

  ‘Yes. Is it important?’

  I let my eyes empty. I didn’t know. Just that the information touched a nerve which good detectives keep near the surface.

  ‘Where is Madame Deslauriers now?’

  ‘I rather think she’s taken a launch out. Incidentally, she’s miffed at being made to stay on here. Apparently she has business to see to in London.’

  ‘I’ll take that into consideration. Let me see the register.’

  Frayling obligingly turned it towards me. During the previous week there had been eighteen other guests and five transients staying at the Barge-House. None of the names meant anything to me. The addresses ranged from Kent to Glasgow. Nearest to Chelsea were a couple called Stanwick who lived in Garden Lane, Chiswick. I shoved the book back.

  ‘Any more to tell me?’

  Frayling’s eyes jerked, steadied.

  ‘If I remember any more, I’ll tell you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Please do.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FRAYLING DEPARTED TO make apologies to two guests and to prepare their rooms for the gendarmerie. I sought the lounge, a long, sunny room with a view down the lawn to the river. An entertaining place. The two walls facing south and east had been glassed, so that besides the river you could see the bridge, which on this side had its parapet intact. The parapet was of local brick, stone-capped and very elbowable – or would have been, except for the traffic which crashed over the bridge in fractious queues. Rubber-tyred bulldozers, impatient to level it. No more elbows on the comfortable stones. While below blundered other queues, motor-cruisers, battering and scarring brick and stone. Give it two years? Five? They don’t really care in these parts. The National Parks Commission turned its back and the joyful exploiters were soon in business.

  Several of the late-lunching guests were taking their coffee in the lounge: middle-aged respectables, business-workers, bank-employees, small traders. An atmosphere of defensive politeness, into which Quarles would probably have merged neatly. With Deslauriers in tow, they would perhaps have put him down as a TV wheel or something in films. Speak nicely, dress well and only a cop can smell your b.o. I took a seat at the back of the house and helped the atmosphere with my pipe.

  ‘Coffee, sir?’

  The waiter was intriguing: a long-haired youth with a bush of beard. And a blush.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘N-no, sir. I don’t think so.’

  But he knew me. Which suggested that Frayling had already briefed his staff.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Bavents, sir.’

  It was not a name I would be likely to forget.

  ‘Bring me coffee for two.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Dutt arrived as Bavents left.

  Dutt was looking pleased. He glanced round the company, then took a seat in my lee.

  ‘I’ve been having a chat with the landlord, sir. Very interesting it was.’

  ‘Did he have a guest last week?’

  ‘As a matter of fact he had five. But four we don’t have to bother with. They were youngsters down here for a bit of sailing.’

  ‘So get to the other one.’

  ‘Yes, sir. He’s a lad who registered as Peter Robinson. And he gave an address in Finsbury Park, which I just happen to know doesn’t exist.’

  ‘You’re sure of that?’

  ‘Dead sure. I go past the place when I drive to work. And this is what makes it really interesting: chummie stayed here for only the one night.’

  ‘Which night?’

  ‘Thursday.’

  I clic
ked my tongue. ‘After the snatch, before the kill.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Arrived here during the evening, driving a pale blue Viva. Called himself a speciality salesman and said he might be staying a couple of days. But something must have changed his mind, because he checked out again on Friday morning.’

  ‘What time did he leave?’

  ‘After breakfast.’

  ‘Was he away from the pub at any time during his stay?’

  ‘That evening, sir. He took his bag to his room, went out and didn’t return till closing-time.’

  ‘You’re right, it is interesting.’

  Dutt nodded happily. ‘I reckon he could be our killer, sir. A pro they sent up here for the job, some lot who wanted to fix Freddy for good. Just shopping his mob wasn’t enough, because Freddy could soon have whipped together a fresh bunch. So they hired this pro. A quiet, out-of-town killing, no strings, no come-back.’

  ‘That’s how it could have been.’

  ‘It fits the facts, sir.’

  I rasped the bristle on my chin. If that’s how it was, then we might as well pack up. The loose ends, if any, were all back in town.

  ‘Did you get a description?’

  ‘A pretty fair one. Aged between thirty and thirty-five. About five-foot-ten, strong build, fair hair with short side-boards, pale eyes. London accent. Wearing a fawn sports jacket with an open-necked shirt and grey slacks.’

  ‘Does it bring anyone to mind?’

  ‘It’d fit Jack Straker.’

  ‘Straker’s doing a niner on the Moor.’

  ‘Well, perhaps Fring will talk when they catch him, sir.’

  ‘It’s a big perhaps. And they haven’t caught him.’

  Dutt hunched a little. ‘Still, Met may know him. It may give them a lead to the gang who worked it.’

  ‘And that’s probably where it will end. In Met’s files.’ Dutt put on a glum look and stayed silent.

  I worked my chin again. ‘Just answer me one thing. Is this a job that carries a Straker-type signature?’

  ‘Perhaps not, sir.’

  ‘You know it isn’t. There was nothing professional about that knife-attack.’

  ‘But then who is this Peter Robinson joker, sir? Him being here could hardly be a coincidence.’

  ‘The odds are against it. But they’re even longer against him being a professional killer. So we’ll just hand him on to Hanson and Dainty – and bear him in mind when we’re asking questions.’

  Dutt looked unconvinced; but Bavents chose that moment to return with the coffee. He poured it with a nervous sort of obsequiousness, his hair weeping round his eyes. Dutt took his cup. I considered Bavents. I was still finding him an intriguing subject. He draped a napkin round the plated coffee-pot, then referred to his little pad.

  ‘Will that be all, sir?’

  ‘No. Tell me where I should look for Madame Deslauriers.’

  ‘M-Madame Deslauriers?’

  ‘You know her, don’t you?’

  He was going hot amongst his hair.

  ‘She went out in the l-launch, sir.’

  ‘So I was told. But where do you think she was heading?’

  ‘W-well, you could try the Broad, sir. I heard her asking where she could pick some w-water-lilies.’

  I tipped him ten pence. He departed pinkly, doubtless to report to Mr Fr-Frayling. I sipped coffee, then went to the french windows, from which I could see the hotel’s boat shed and mooring cut. I saw a runabout moored with three skiffs. I drank up my coffee and returned to Dutt.

  ‘Get off Peter Robinson’s description. Then you can make a start with checking statements.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Dutt said. ‘Will you be around?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’m going on the river.’

  The runabout was called Frolic III. It was a fibreglass twelve-footer powered by a 20 hp Mercury outboard; it displayed a certain degree of zip as I dodged it downstream among the cruisers. At first, a suicidal-seeming project. The river here was narrow and weltering with craft: clumsy, steep-sided motorised barges that rolled and moaned and crunched their topsides. No effective right and wrong side: just a weak side and a strong side. Frolic III was hip, however, and we skated through to less-saturated reaches.

  There followed a mile of plugging. I hadn’t lost the traffic, but below the village it fell into queues. We grumbled along resignedly between bungalow lawns and saluted moored craft with grinding wash. 200-seater trip-boats thundered by with their 200-sitters waving and jeering. We met one piece of flotsam, a misguided yacht, and left it with its gear bucking and slatting. Then we reached the Broad and the battle of the gateway: when finally the mess could spread out.

  I zimmed Frolic III across to the reed-beds. I was beginning to wonder if I’d been a fool to come chasing Mimi. The Broad was larger than I had remembered, full of ranging bays and hidden corners. Yachts, allowed a little breeze, loitered across it. I could see numerous launches, moored and manoeuvring. On the opposite bank lay the yacht club, bristling with moorings, where a dozen Mimis might be lurking. I tried to formulate a plan of action that would maximize my chances of meeting her: none occurred to me. I set out to plod conscientiously round the perimeter.

  I knew which launch I was looking for because I had asked the boatman at the Barge-House. Mimi had taken the hotel’s best boat, Osprey, a mahogany, slipper-sterned, twenty-footer. She had left a short while before noon, but had taken no lunch with her; which suggested that either she had stuck among the water-lilies, or had steered for one of the down-river hostelries. Of the latter the nearest was at Harning, about four miles distant. But if she had gone there, then it was likely she would have returned before now. So look out for water-lilies. I pedalled circumspectly, scanning each inlet for white blossoms.

  Twenty minutes later I had reached the south end, where the reeds thinned out into beach-fringed meadows. Beyond these, to the west, was a small concealed bay. And in there were the lilies and Mimi’s launch.

  Mimi wasn’t in the launch.

  It was moored to a landing-stage that had been built out on piles from the bank. Open water led up to the stage through acres of lilies and their brawling roots. I tinkered Frolic III up to the stage; the scent of the lilies was stupefying; alder carrs were hedging them from the modest breeze and they simply lay sunning and disgorging their odours. There was nothing in Osprey except her cushions, no sounds but the murmur of distant motors. A still-life of fire-white, saffron-hearted stars, scenting yellow cups, an empty launch and flashing water.

  I looped Frolic III’s painter over a post and climbed out on the stage. A footpath led from it across the meadow and disappeared between high, flowering hawthorn hedges. I followed it. It led to a stile beyond which was a narrow lane. On each side of the lane were fields of green crops, bounded by hedgerows and mature woodlands. Here and there were glimpses of pantile; a long way off stood a sad church-tower. It all basked sleepily in afternoon sunlight and whiffs of fragrance from the hawthorns.

  But where was Mimi?

  I mounted the stile, intending to continue down the lane. Not necessary. As I straddled the stile, a figure came into view ahead. It had to be Mimi. At a hundred yards range you could feel the vibrations beginning. Seeing me, she hesitated, but then came on. I settled on the stile and waited.

  ‘Madame Deslauriers?’

  ‘Yes, okay?’

  The sun wasn’t sunnier than the smile she gave me. She had come swinging up to the stile, her bag dangling, and had halted in a playful, swayed stance. Her hair was a warm straw blonde and her eyes a startling emerald green; her features had that majestic, sleeping, symmetry one sometimes finds in Greek marbles.

  ‘Who are you – shall I guess?’

  ‘I’m a policeman.’

  ‘Oh yes, but there are policemen and policemen, huh?’

  ‘My name is Gently. Chief Superintendent.’

  ‘A famous one, yes. That is what I was guessing.’

  She dredged up a throaty lit
tle laugh. To describe her voice as husky was a simplification. It had an ecstatic, caressing quality that seemed to go straight to the base of your spine.

  ‘You are famous, aren’t you?’

  ‘You seem to have heard of me.’

  ‘But no, it is just guessing. Poor Freddy now, he would have heard of you. But the policemen were in his line of business.’

  ‘Is business how you thought of it?’

  She made a mouth, and dimpled. ‘That’s the way it goes, my friend. Cops and robbers. Freddy was a robber. At least you must agree he had talent for it.’

  ‘That didn’t help him in the end.’

  ‘No. But I think poor Freddy had got careless. Going out to meet a little rat like Rampant, and at such a place. It wasn’t wise.’

  ‘Didn’t you try to dissuade him?’

  ‘How could I? Freddy didn’t tell me his affairs.’

  ‘Not that Rampant was making trouble?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘But no! He told me nothing at all. Freddy was a lawyer, you understand? Perhaps that was why he was such a good crook. He told people only what they needed to know, then the policemen can get nothing out of them. And I, what did I need to know? I am just his woman, that’s all. He would say, It has been a good week, we have cleared so-and-so, you can read about it in this paper. Okay?’

  ‘And you didn’t want to know more?’

  ‘Ha, ha. Why should I be interested in crookery? Do you think I am a crook?’

  ‘You have been associating with one.’

  ‘No, Monsieur. Just with a man.’

  Well, it was believable. I eyed her clinically. Not only the face was borrowed from Praxiteles. With a body as regal as that one might not feel the need for additional excitements.

  ‘Were you fond of Quarles?’

  She swirled her hair. ‘He was a man of great savoir faire, Freddy. He could talk about this, about that. It did not matter what company he was in.’

  ‘But you were fond of him.’

  ‘He was fun to be with.’

  ‘That isn’t really answering the question.’

  She warmed her smile for me. ‘Perhaps I don’t like the question. So perhaps I’m not going to give you an answer.’

  ‘Then I’ll draw my own conclusion. You weren’t fond of him.’