by Alan Hunter
‘So that was the thing which you had to preserve: the goodwill of William Butters, and your steady flow of clients. And the only way to do that was to marry his daughter, to make good the role you played of being an honourable man. Until Anne became pregnant the matter had no great urgency. You could fob off the pair of them with suitable excuses. You could tell him that you were waiting to buy a property that suited you, and her that you were still seeking the grounds for a divorce.
‘But once she became pregnant the situation began to run away with you, and you had to cast about to find a way out of the tangle. What was more, you needed a way which wouldn’t alienate Butters — he was due for a shock, of course; but it was essential not to make him an enemy.
‘No doubt you reviewed the possibilities, of which there were three in number. The first of them, abortion, was the one which you mentioned to Anne. But abortion had grave objections, besides being dangerous in itself: how could you keep the family from knowing, and what effect would it have on Anne? Then there was the possibility of blackmail, which I dare say crossed your mind. So, on the whole, you didn’t favour abortion, except as another excuse to amuse Anne.
‘So you were brought to the second alternative, that of the divorce of which you had talked for so long. As to grounds, you probably had plenty, and without recourse to private detectives. But here again the objections were insuperable. You had to proclaim yourself perjured to Butters. Anne you were sure of if the divorce went through, but she was no use to you unless with her father’s blessing. Also, wasn’t there a chance that he might have spiked that divorce for you? With divorce, the odds were that you would have come off with nothing.’
Gently discontinued his doodling to look hard at the estate agent, whose frowning grey eyes had never left the busy pencil. Stephens, his pipe between his teeth, was sitting as stiff as a cleaning rod. Tobacco smoke drifted lazily towards the harsh strip lighting.
‘Which left you with the third possibility: murder.’
Gently tore off the sheet and crumpled it into the office waste basket.
‘It meant risking everything, but you were a man used to risks — and the reward for it was everything that you had hoped to gain. Oh, I realize that Butters was going to have his suspicions, and that his suspicions would be near certainties when he learnt of Anne’s condition. But you banked on the initial shock of the affair to shut his mouth, and afterwards — by then, he was halfway to being an accomplice.
‘You would have had him where you wanted him! He wouldn’t dare, then, to discountenance you. He would feel that he shared the guilt, or perhaps persuade himself that there was none. And Anne’s baby would be the clincher: it would ensure that the marriage went through — with a little delay, of course, a little subterfuge — just enough to sink Butters some further!
‘I don’t know at what stage you made up your mind, but the Palette Group was always waiting to provide you with scapegoats. Your wife went about with them, ate with them, perhaps slept with them — you had plenty of time to find out about that. So, naturally, you arranged to take advantage of the Palette Group. You would murder your wife on their doorstep, so to speak. You checked what her movements were when she attended one of their meetings, and you decided that the car park would best suit your plan.
‘Next you needed an alibi, or at least a story that would check — you were clever enough to risk not producing a perfect alibi. Thus instead of going to Nearstead you went off on a round of the pubs, keeping Anne concealed in your car in case the police heard tell of her later. Then, after dropping her at ten, you drove quickly back to town; you parked your car, I think, in Chapel Street, to avoid having it seen in the park.
‘You took your stand by the City Hall, probably at the St Saviour’s end, and when your wife came by you accosted her, telling her that you were just driving back to the flat. She accepted a lift and went with you. You led her past the bus stop and into the park. As you approached the terrace wall you contrived to drop behind her, and strangling her scream with your arm, you drove the knife into her back.
‘She died instantaneously and without much bleeding. You threw her down behind the dustbins, tossing her handbag after her. Then you walked back to your car by the footway at the end here, and drove home, probably arriving at the time given in your statement.
‘You made only one mistake — you thought that Butters hadn’t got any guts.
‘But, in spite of his bottle of brandy, he has just committed you to the hangman!’
The silence that marked the end of his accusation was made the more telling by the murmurs from without — the voice and footfall in the building, the drone of a car from Chapel Street below. Johnson kept frowning at the moving pencil, his childlike lips hung slightly open. He seemed unconscious of the scene about him, unconscious, even, of Gently’s presence.
Was he trying, with desperate concentration, to find a plausible way out of this trap?
‘Poor Shirley!’ — the words came huskily. ‘She was a bitch, but Christ… she was human.’
Gently sighed to himself and reached out for the jug of coffee. He was never at his best, making speeches of that sort. They required an indignation, a degree of faith in moral judgements: to himself, at all events, they never quite rang true. He poured a cup of coffee and tossed it off in three quick gulps. Stephens cast an eye at the cup, then he folded his arms and leaned them on the desk.
‘That’s the way it was done, of course…’
‘I’m glad to find you agreeing with me.’
‘Hell, but it wasn’t me!’
Gently preserved an unimpressed silence.
‘Look, cocker…’ Johnson was stumbling, making beating motions with his hand. ‘You’ve had your fun… all right — I don’t mind!.. But it won’t stand up… I never dreamed of killing Shirley!’
‘I think I should warn you, Mr Johnson.’
‘I know all about that — and I don’t care a damn! You can take it down if you want to, you can print it off on toilet paper. But I’m warning you, cocker, your imagination ’s running away with you… you’ve cooked up a case, and it won’t convince a flea!’
Gently grunted indifferently and felt for his pipe and pouch. He had issued Johnson a warning, and now the ball lay with him. Rather sooner than he had intended he had made this concession, though in view of the facts it probably mattered very little. He filled his pipe with scrupulous care, pressed it down and struck a match.
‘You’ve figured out the way of it — good! I was wondering about that. I couldn’t think how he’d got her there, unless… it doesn’t matter! But you’re tackling the wrong kiddie… I don’t care what you’ve found out…
‘I’ve had to listen to your version — now just you listen to mine!’
He could hardly find the words, so fast did he want to bring them out; the stenographer’s pencil sounded like a mouse as it nibbled at the paper. Johnson’s legs weren’t folded now. He was leaning forward towards the desk. His frowning brow was creased with ridges and his eyes were staring and protruded.
‘I’m glad that Butters had the sense to speak up… it was me who hadn’t got the guts! I knew you’d hold it over my head — I could see that coming from the start. But I’m glad, you understand? Because I’m fond of old man Butters! You can say what you like about his bottles of brandy — he’s a decent old stick, and I’m here to say so.
‘And I like his wife… I like his family… and Anne, she isn’t just the floozie you seem to think her!
‘She’s my wife, you understand? Not the way that Shirley was! But she’s my wife all the same, in spite of not having been to church. She loves me and I love her… it’s been like that ever since we met…
‘And I didn’t give a damn about the blasted business. I’d have thrown it all up for a chance to marry Anne…’
Stephens, who had begun to sneer, was now gazing at Johnson in perplexity; he also glanced in Gently’s direction, trying to glean a cue from his senior. This w
asn’t at all what he had expected to hear from a man with a murder tied on him! Johnson was blurring an open and shut case, he was upsetting its nice, clean lines…
‘Something else… I didn’t have anything on Shirley. She was too darned clever to give me a chance! You’ll never understand, because you never met her alive… as for offering her a lift… it’s funny, don’t you see?
‘She was a sadist — she liked to see other people squirm. She got a kick out of sticking to me, though we couldn’t stand each other. But if you think for a minute… I’m not going to blame her!.. Only that’s the way she was, and you’ve got to accept the facts.
‘And I did try for a divorce, whether it would have mucked me up or not — it wouldn’t have done, either. Butters wouldn’t have let me down! Just ask my solicitor… I’ve talked it over with him. But I didn’t want a detective, I tried to do the job myself, and the long and the short of it was that I never caught her at anything…
‘Then that alibi — that’s rich! My God, I could have done better than that. But the whole idea is cockeyed — we always hit the pubs on a Monday. On Sundays we used to visit the cottage, and you don’t need me to tell you… so on Mondays we toured the pubs — having a rest, if you want it in words!
‘And the abortion, too — did you ever try to fix one? You’d be surprised just how easy it isn’t! You’ve only got to hint at abortion to a medico, and the next minute he’s slinging you out on your ear. Then, after a couple of clangers like that…
‘In any case, I was dead against the idea… when I’d talked Anne round a bit, I was going to have it out with Butters. You think you know Butters, but you don’t, and that’s a fact. When he’d realized how it was with Shirley… hell, there’s nobody who’s quite an angel!’
He was brought up at last by sheer lack of breath and sat for some moments panting, a blond lock fallen across his forehead. The stenographer dropped his pencil on the desk and, in massaging his fingers, produced an unusual cracking sound. Then he selected another pencil from a supply in his breast pocket.
‘I know how it looks to you and I don’t blame you for a moment… but you can’t know, you’re only guessing about things that really matter.
‘What do you know about me, for instance? You only met me seven hours ago! You look at my car, at this moustache… and then you tack a label on me.
‘It says: “Flying Officer Kite” — all right, so I deserve it! But do you know how people came to be Flying Officer Kites? They were scared into being them — scared silly by what they were doing! They were driven into behaving like clots by sheer terror. Because there aren’t any heroes in the whole state of nature… only cowards, who one day get shoved into the breach…
‘But underneath that, what do you know about me? You must be able to see how crazy it all is. By guessing and a few facts you’ve made me out to be inhuman — an egoistic monster, a psychopath at the very least! And I’m not — I’m not like that. It’s too utterly bloody ridiculous. Get on to my friends — I’ve got plenty of them! The worst they can call me is a line-shooting bastard… I’m human, I tell you, I’m not a bloody monster…’
He flung the hair out of his eyes and dragged his chair closer to the desk; with his hands gripping the edge of it, he was only a couple of feet from Gently.
‘Listen to what I tell you, cocker… I want to see that swine collared too! Not out of revenge, or anything like that, but because he ought to be put inside. Shirley… you know how I felt about her. She wasn’t any credit to the human race. But damn it, she had a right to live, and only a madman would take it away from her…
‘But now you’re playing the madman’s game, because it was someone who knew about me and Anne. He gambled that you’d pin it on me for certain, as soon as the rest of the tale came out. So for Christ’s sake try to see this straight — I wouldn’t have laid my little finger on Shirley!
‘On Monday night I did just what I told you. I was never near here, and I didn’t kill my wife…’
Gently had never stopped puffing at his pipe, but now he put an entirely gratuitous match to it. Having done that, he broke the match in two pieces and arranged them fastidiously in the ashtray.
Always, with Johnson, it was the selfsame question — was he being honest, or was he being clever? Before, they had given him the benefit of the doubt, and even now he was keeping his foot in the door. He had no defence against the charge, and yet… what was the answer going to be?
‘Take Mr Johnson back to the charge room, will you?’ He swung on Hansom’s revolving chair, so that his back was towards them. From the reluctant way in which Stephens got to his feet, Gently knew that the Inspector was critical of the order.
‘You’re holding me… is that it?’
‘I may want to ask some more questions.’
‘And meanwhile I’m in custody?’
‘You are assisting the police…’
They took him out while Gently was still savouring the irony of the phrase.
Stephens came back quickly, his face wearing a worried look.
‘Super, I don’t know…’
‘Sit down and light your pipe.’
‘Yes, sir. But my impression-’
‘Take a seat! I’m trying to think.’
Stephens did as Gently bid him with the best grace possible, but his pipe, that pride and joy, seemed unable to absorb him. Gently continued to face the wall, his cogitations marked by smoke rings; Stephens was not the first person to have noticed that the Super’s back was like an iron curtain.
‘So you’d slap him inside, and no more nonsense?’
Ten minutes had passed in the silent smoke rings.
‘Under the circumstances, sir-’
‘I’ve got no option. But suppose I was damn fool enough to make myself the option?’
Stephens was thoroughly unhappy and didn’t know what to say. He had never before come across Gently in this awkward, angular mood.
‘I must admit, sir… to my way of thinking…’
‘Just tell me straight out, Stephens.’
‘Very well, sir. I wouldn’t think twice about it. He’s our chummie, and we’d get a conviction.’
‘Hmm.’ Some more smoke rings rose towards the ceiling, and again the office was broodingly silent. Then suddenly Gently swivelled round in the chair, the ghost of a grin spreading over his face.
‘I always like to ask someone’s advice when I’m in danger of making a fool of myself! You are perfectly right about Johnson, of course. No jury would give him twenty minutes.’
‘Then we’ll go ahead and charge him, sir?’
‘No, just get him to amend his statement.’
‘But I don’t understand-!’
Gently’s grin grew broader. ‘That’s exactly what Johnson was trying to tell us…’
Once more he was rebelling against the accepted order, and once more he was positive that he was doing the right thing. He wished that he could have explained himself to Stephens, but how could one explain an unreasoning intuition? It was a faculty which had to grow, there was no passing it on.
As it was, he simply patted Stephens on the arm.
‘Don’t look so upset! I’m going to put a tail on him. If he tries to do a bunk we’ll pull him in fast enough. In the meantime, I don’t want to tie my hands with Johnson.’
‘But if ever there was a case where circumstantial evidence…’
‘I know. But Johnson made one very good point. We haven’t been here long and we don’t really know the people… why he said it doesn’t matter. We can afford to take our time.’
In the end he had Stephens partly propitiated; the young detective, though apprehensive, was eager to follow where Gently led. Johnson’s statement was revised, typed out and signed. Nobody had very much to say apart from the bare requirements of the transaction.
‘But I can take it that I’m still number one on your list…?’
If Johnson was surprised to be getting away with it, he was at
pains to conceal the fact.
‘For the present I want you to stay within the city jurisdiction. If you try to go outside it you will be instantly arrested.’
The detective who was to tail him, a raw-boned local with prodding dark eyes, had been instructed that coyness was not essential to the contract. From the window they watched him setting out after his quarry — Johnson must have known he was there, although he didn’t turn his head.
‘I suppose it’s all right, sir, to let him go like that…?’ All Stephens’s uneasiness returned at the sight.
‘Come on — let’s go to bed! It’s getting on for two already, and in the morning we’ve got a couple of statements to take.’
The hotel into which they had been booked was only a short distance from the marketplace and as they walked there, step for step, they didn’t meet a single person. A train whistle from the Thorne Yards was the only sound to break the stillness and above them, in a clear sky, a new moon was scratched in silver.
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘ Superintendent Gently.’
‘Damn it — you get up early, Gently!’
Gently grinned, snuggling himself a little deeper in his pillows. It was in fact five minutes to eight and he could hear the weather being announced: ‘An anticyclone over the Azores is continuing almost stationary…’
A cup of tea stood on the cabinet from which he had unlatched the phone, the sun was streaming through the window and the traffic was busy below. From next door, where there was a bathroom, he could hear the comfortable sound of a filling bath; in his imagination he could see the water descending and savour the voluptuous fragrance of bath salts and steam.
‘I’m sorry if I got you up…’
‘My dear fellow, don’t waste apologies. Though at this hour in the morning — you remember what Caruso said about it? “Madam, I can’t spit
…!” Well, it’s like that with me: I need at least a pint of coffee to turn me into a human being.’