Gently in the Sun (8 page)

Yet Rachel had been attracted by him … or amused, was it that? Had she been curious to make a trial of his superabundant amorousness? That would account for her provocations. She was probing him, trying him out. Maurice had amused her and she was deliberately applying the stimuli.

‘All right – let’s get to Tuesday.’

Maurice winked and shrugged his slim shoulders.

‘It wasn’t the way you think, but as a matter of fact I earned that fiver.’

‘You went to bed with her again?’

‘And that’s just where you’re wrong! She was upset about something and not in the right mood.’

They had come in late to tea, had Mixer and Rachel, and it was apparent to everyone that they had had a row. Rachel was looking sulky and sat very stiff and apart. Mixer’s face was flushed and he growled ill temperedly at Rosie.

Throughout the meal they hadn’t addressed a word to each other.

‘After tea they both went upstairs, and Rosie heard them carrying on in here. She hadn’t time to listen but she says they were proper angry. Mr Mixer was laying the law down and Rachel getting in a word now and then. Half an hour later he came into the bar. I was just getting things straight for Jimmy Simpson, my relief.

“‘I want a word with you,” he says, and opens his hand to show me a five-pound note. “They tell me you’re off-duty, and I’ve got a little job for you. It won’t give you a lot of trouble and it’s worth what I’ve got here.”

‘I nearly had a fit when he told me what it was. It was all I could do to stop giving myself away. You might think it was a bit off, taking his money into the bargain; but then, I was a member of the union already. And if Rachel was with me she couldn’t be somewhere else, could she?’

Fortunately or unfortunately, Maurice had been disappointed. Rachel’s sulkiness had not diminished by the time she came down to supper. He no longer amused her. She had satisfied her curiosity about him. After the meal she fetched a book and went to sit with it in the lounge.

Then, at half past nine, she had a drink and went to her room. Maurice, following behind her, heard the bolt shot on her door.

‘This was at half past nine, you say?’

‘Give her ten minutes in the bar. I dare say it was closer to a quarter to ten.’

‘And what did
you
do after that?’

‘The best I could. I’m not one to pine.’

The best in this case happened to be Rosie, who had just finished in the kitchen. With a little persuasion she went into his room with him. There they entertained themselves till an early hour in the morning – which, exactly, Maurice wasn’t able to say.

‘Whereabouts is your room?’

‘The one next to yours.’

‘You wouldn’t have heard Miss Campion go down again?’

‘Not unless she wore hobnail boots.’

Gently smoked and brooded in silence. This was where the trail ended, at a quarter to ten. After that it was all surmise with very little to go on. She might equally well have gone out or stopped in her room … unless the presence of her bag weighted the scales in the latter direction. If it did, who had persuaded her to unbolt that door?

‘Did she have her bag with her when she went down to supper?’

‘Can’t say I noticed. It wasn’t where my eyes were.’

‘Did she usually have it with her?’

‘Women don’t go far without one.’

‘All right. You can go now. Send Rosie up here, will you?’

Was there a tinge of uneasiness in those insolent grey eyes? Gently had deliberately hooked on the order to provoke some. But Maurice would hardly have given Rosie for an alibi unless he could depend on her: he rose jauntily from his seat, clicking his heels before he departed.

Rosie came in some five minutes later. She had had time to repowder and to dab on some scent. Closing the door, she favoured Gently with a truly blonde smile, and in sitting down she crossed her legs and leaned intimately towards him.

‘What did Maurice say when he asked you to come up?’

‘Maurice? He just said you wanted me in the bedroom.’

‘What else did he say?’

She flickered her eyes coyly.

‘He said you were a bit of all right, and that I needn’t be afraid of you.’

‘Just as long as I know!’ Gently eased himself back a little. Rosie’s perfume was oppressive and so was her person. She wasn’t uncomely but there seemed to be a lot of her: when she talked she found it necessary to move a little closer.

‘You remember last Tuesday, do you?’

‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t.’

‘Were you serving tea in the lounge?’

‘Me and Betty were, between us.’

‘Did you serve Mr Mixer?’

‘Yes – he got on to me for spilling some tea.’

‘What was his attitude towards Miss Campion?’

‘Right-down nasty. You can take it from me.’

Gently’s pipe was dead but he was obliged to get it going again. It was necessary protection against Rosie’s affectionate incursions. Her face kept swimming up to him like a cheap-scented flower, and each time, by sensible degrees, she dragged her chair forward.

‘How did you spend the evening?’

‘Like one usually does here. After tea there was the supper to get, and then there’s the washing-up. It isn’t a rest-cure, I can tell you. We deserve our bit of fun.’

‘You served Miss Campion at supper?’

‘They sit at one of my tables.’

‘What sort of mood would you say she was in?’

‘She’d got a book with her but she didn’t read much. Thoughtful, I’d say she was. Kept staring out of the window.’

‘What did she do after supper?’

‘I really wouldn’t know. She went off out of the dining room and that’s the last I saw of her. As it was I didn’t finish up much before ten.’

‘When you finished, what did you do?’

Rosie’s face loomed up to within inches. She had painted her lips a pillar-box red, but a fine dew of perspiration had beaten the powder on her nose.

‘Didn’t Maurice tell you that?’

‘I’d rather you told me.’

‘You don’t want a girl to give details, do you?’

‘The facts and the times will do, I think.’

‘Well!’ Her lids sank modestly. ‘I did spend a bit of time with him. You have to take your fun where you can get it, cooped up in a guest house. But you needn’t think that just anyone … on the whole, I’m very particular! Only sometimes you get fed up with it, day-in, day-out.’

‘Where did you meet Maurice?’

‘He came into the kitchen looking for me.’

‘At what time, did you say?’

‘As near to ten as makes no difference.’

‘And then?’

‘Well, I had a wash – don’t say I did a lot to myself! Then I went along with him, just like he told you. He was hanging about while I was having my wash – our rooms are next door, you see. They’ve put you in mine.’

‘How long were you with him?’ – Gently puffed voluminously. Rosie’s knee was tentatively brushing his leg. ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure! One doesn’t really notice, does one? But it couldn’t have been so late, because I had to get up in the morning.’

‘About one say, or two?’

‘Oh, not as late as that. When you have to be down by seven you don’t let things get out of hand. More like about midnight, that would have been it.’

‘Are you sure about that?’

‘I don’t like to lose my beauty sleep.’

From outside they must be seeing this intimate
tête-à-tête
. Gently, his back against the window frame, was fairly cornered by Rosie’s advance. Now she was leaning on the sill and gazing up into his eyes. Her face, in effect, was scarcely a pipe’s length from his own.

‘How long have you known Maurice Cutbush?’

With difficulty he slid from the sill and escaped into the room.

‘Ever since I came here – Easter, that was. But he was here before that – two years, I think he said.’

‘What are your impressions of him?’

‘Oh, he’s not so bad. He’s been on the liners, you know, that makes them free and easy. From all
accounts it was a poor trip when Maurice didn’t get off.’

She had got up from the chair and was trailing him across the room. The moment he came to a standstill she seemed to be breathing down his neck.

‘Has he got off with any other guests?’

‘Dozens. That’s how things go. In this sort of business you get bored stiff – ask anyone you like. It’s the same wherever you are.’

‘And the guests make passes at you?’

‘All the time, and some you wouldn’t think.’

‘Did Mixer ever make one?’ Indignantly she recoiled.

‘As a matter of fact he didn’t – but you’ve got to have your self-respect!’

Gently grinned to himself and struck a protective match. Rosie watched him reprovingly as he set it to his pipe. She was really trying hard – was it Maurice who had put her up to it? She couldn’t believe yet that Gently was as coy as he pretended.

‘Is that all you wanted to ask me?’

The match was out and she swayed towards him. For a moment her parting lips were tilted under his, her two firm breasts pressed lightly against him.

‘It’s my afternoon off … I’m not doing anything. There’s some things of mine I want to fetch from a drawer in your room.’

After she had gone he went back to the window. The lawn was now better tenanted and more
deckchairs
were being fetched. An old lady with her knitting was casting furtive glances in his direction, but
the majority of the baskers were still discussing their papers.

He relocked the door and slipped the key into his pocket. All the way down the stairs he was chuckling softly to himself.

T
HE SUN, BY
ten o’clock, was fully established, and the last of the morning had gone out of the day. The village and vicinity, which till then had seemed tolerable, now began to weary with its pitiless
exposure
. So little shade there was, so little promise of respite! Beach, marrams, and houses glared and rippled in the furnace. Not a motion stirred the grasses, not a bird sang anywhere. The air was a burden and one sweated doing nothing.

Oddly enough the effect was of darkness. The extreme brilliance of the sun appeared to vitiate colour. The sea looked heavy, the houses dulled, the sky itself seemed dusky and unluminous. It was the sun alone which throbbed with brightness. Into itself it drew again its effulgent light. Left behind was the heat, enveloping, ennervating: the world seemed plunged into a dark, fierce fever.

‘Another scorcher!’

One heard it everywhere. With a peculiar emphasis, it expressed the weather exactly. And yet people were
somehow proud of it, this Homeric bout of sun. Inevitably the two words would come out like a boast.

‘Another scorcher, sir!’

Dutt had said it as they started out. The manager, too, had got it in when they passed him on the lawn. A little further on they encountered Colonel Morris. His step had lost its briskness and he had ceased to swing his cane.

‘Another scorcher, eh? Reminds me of Alex!’

Why did they sound so personal about it, as though in some way it did them credit?

‘That kid’s in for a rough time, sir,’ observed Dutt as they tramped along the beach. ‘I haven’t said nothing before, sir, but from the first I’ve had my doubts about him. I don’t reckon we need worry about Mixer any more.’

Gently trudged ahead without replying. Everything was pushing the ball in Simmonds’s direction. If you agreed to let out Mixer, then there seemed but one thing for it; yet, out of sheer pig-headedness no doubt, his mind kept shying away from Simmonds. It was as if he had formed an equation the terms of which excluded the artist.

‘There’s his background, sir, you can’t overlook it. The bloke on the
Echo
brought that out pretty well. Haven’t we seen it before with kids like that? A little extra shove, and click! – they’re over the edge.’

‘You can’t argue like that, Dutt.’

‘I know, sir. But it makes you think. And like the paper says, she wasn’t found far from his tent.’

Like the paper says! Was that what was influencing
him? Not for the world would he have admitted it to himself. As always when on a case he made a point of reading the papers: sometimes they gave him a fact which he hadn’t succeeded in eliciting. But he didn’t let them bias him, one way or the other. They were a necessary evil which he had learned to put up with.

Besides, in this particular case … there was Maurice, for instance. And even on the facts, those that one knew.

‘You’d better tail him, I suppose, after we’ve had his statement.’

‘It won’t do any harm, sir, and might do some good.’

‘He might do something silly. Let him see you around. If necessary I’ll get another man out from Wendham.’

‘He’s the type to blow his gaff, sir, if he thinks we’re really after him.’

As they drew nearer to the campsite the effect of the
Echo
article became apparent. Most of the people on the beach had gravitated in that direction. Except for a few small boys they didn’t precisely stand and stare, but now and then a head would turn or a voice be cautiously lowered.

When the detectives arrived it was different: the crowd began to exhibit a purpose. From an accidental scattering they drew together in a group. They followed the two men up the sandhill and casually deployed themselves at the top – if this was to be the arrest, then nobody there was going to miss it!

‘What are you doing with your tent?’

Simmonds was not alone at his campsite. On the hummocks round about were seated the reporters and their cameramen.

‘I’m packing it up. I’m going!’

‘Not today you aren’t, I’m afraid.’

‘But I am – I’ve got to! Can’t you see what’s happening?’

‘You should have thought of that before you talked to the press.’

Already the tent was struck and partly packed away in a pannier. In another were stuffed his blankets, while his gear lay together in a pile. A photographer, rising to his feet, made an adjustment to his camera. Simmonds started back involuntarily and shrank
behind
Gently’s protective bulk.

‘You don’t understand!’

‘I do, I’m afraid.’

‘I didn’t know – I thought I could trust him! He said I should put my story before the public. I trusted him, I tell you! I didn’t guess for a moment.’

‘I’m sorry about that, but you’ve got to stay in Hiverton.’

‘You wouldn’t make me do it!’

‘I can’t let you do anything else.’

Persuasively the photographer sidled towards him.

‘If you wouldn’t mind turning …’

Simmonds threw up a terrified hand.

‘They can’t keep doing that – stop them! I won’t have it!’

The camera clicked smoothly, catching his gesture and desperate expression.

‘I can’t stop here!’

He was pretty well in tears. His slight figure was shaking as he stood helpless by the ruined camp. From the crowd came a motion which made Gently turn sharply. He found himself staring into the burning eyes of Bob Hawks.

‘If you’ve got any feeling!’

‘Very well. Finish your packing.’

‘You mean you’ll let me go?’

‘No. Just do as I say.’

Everyone was straining their ears to catch the gist of what was passing. A few bolder ones had pushed forward, but the majority were holding their line. The reporters, however, felt no need for constraint; they crowded around chatting and trying to lever something out of Gently.

‘You’re going to detain him, are you?’

‘He’s going to sign a statement for me.’

‘Where’s he going then?’

‘That has still to be decided.’

‘He was her lover, wasn’t he?’

‘So far I haven’t asked him.’

‘It’s a fact that you think he can assist you?’

‘Everyone in Hiverton can be of assistance.’

From the corner of his eye he could see Hawks approaching. The fisherman was shuffling gingerly towards the centre of the circle. At a few yards distance he stopped, his lean frame slightly crouched: his gaze was fixed on Simmonds with a ferocious intensity of hate.

‘Did you know he struck his father, and that that was why he left home?’

Nobody seemed to care whether Simmonds heard or not.

‘We’ve been in touch with his ex-schoolmaster. He was noted for his violent temper. Once he struck a boy who was ragging him and knocked out a couple of teeth.’

The artist was trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled with his belongings. His hands were shaking so much that he could scarcely buckle the
pannier-straps
. From every side eyes were turned on him; the heat on the sandhill was terrific. At one time it looked as though he never would get those bags on.

‘I’ve got n-nothing to put my paintings in!’

He turned towards them desperately, a pile of the canvases clutched piecemeal in his arms.

‘You took away my satchel.’

‘Dutt here will look after them.’

‘Perhaps I can get some p-paper and string.’

He spilled two of them on the sand as he handed them to the sergeant. A reporter grabbed them eagerly, but they were only a couple of beachscapes. The crowd had fallen quiet and unnaturally still: one could well-nigh hear their breathing above the gentle wash of the combers.

‘I’m ready to go.’

Simmonds heaved on the loaded cycle. Its wheels were burying in the sand and he had much ado to push it. The crowd shifted and murmured, but parted to make him way. It was Hawks, standing right in his path, who wouldn’t budge an inch for him.

‘You – murdering – little rat!’

He spat the words straight into Simmonds’s face. One could feel, like an electric charge, the violence suddenly begin to generate.

‘Hanging’s too good for your sort – drowning in a sack’d be better! By rights we ought to string you up – here, where you did for her!’

It was trembling in the balance, that situation on the sandhill: in an ugly silence it was preparing to explode. A moment before the crowd had wavered between contempt and pity, but now, in a flash, the seed of hatred had been sown.

‘There’s only one thing for your sort!’

‘That’s enough from you. Get back!’

‘I’ll say what I please.’

‘You’ll get back out of the way!’

This was no time for argument, and Gently didn’t argue. Poking his fingers into the fisherman’s chest, he drove him backwards into the crowd.

‘You two – Pike and Spanton! Take charge of this fellow will you?’

Coming out of their stupor, they seized Hawks by the arms.

‘Now take him away and see he doesn’t cause more trouble.’

With surprising alacrity they marched Hawks off the sandhill.

It was enough to break the spell: the crowd had temporarily forgotten Simmonds. Their attention divided, they permitted him to depart. They watched him off the campsite in a sort of murmuring indecision: he was sobbing like a child and scarcely able to shove the bicycle.

The cameramen, in the meantime, had taken several excellent photographs.

The Police House was a building of stodgy brick which stood some distance inland from the village. It bore the date, on a tablet, of nineteen-thirty-five, and had a garage-like addition which was obviously a
detention-room
.

Mears was out when they arrived and they were received by his wife. She was a tall, raw-boned woman whose false teeth had a tendency to slip. She was nursing a baby and had another child in the garden. From her kitchen a smell of greens boiling was wafted through the house.

‘We’ve a statement to take. May we use the office?’

She showed them through to her front room, which served the usual dual purpose. Across one of the corners was placed an old knee-hole desk. It bore a telephone, a Moriarty, a Kelly’s, and the Starmouth directory.

‘You’ll find the forms and some paper.’

‘Thanks. Don’t let us disturb you.’

‘I was wondering about a drink. I can soon fetch some lemon squash.’

Simmonds, at least, looked in need of refreshment. His cheeks were burning feverishly and his lips were dry as paper. Dutt had kindly wheeled the bicycle for him all the way through the village, but the artist was still trembling and much relieved to sit down.

‘Now we’ll just go over again what you told me, I think.’

He gave Dutt the desk and sat himself by the window. From there he could see, over Mears’s lawn and hollyhocks, the road and the reporters – the latter having, of course, followed them. They were squatting in the shade of a tree opposite the gate. After a minute or two, as he knew they would, they produced a pack of cards.

‘Please answer the questions slowly because the sergeant doesn’t write shorthand. First give him your name, age, profession and address.’

His back was turned to Simmonds to give him a chance to recover himself. For the same reason he tried, where possible, not to interrupt the artist’s answers.

‘When did you first meet Miss Campion?’

Dutt would excise the superfluous verbiage.

‘Where did you say she posed for this picture?’

‘Which were the days on which she posed?’

Incoherent at the beginning, Simmonds gradually staged a revival. The even flow of the questions soothed him, coaxed him into a readier response. He paused to drink long draughts of the fruit drink which Mrs Mears had brought in. From where he sat he could see nothing outside except the pink and yellow heads of the hollyhocks.

‘On the Tuesday afternoon.’

They were getting towards the end; the end, at least, of what Simmonds had told him.

‘She left you where, you say?’

‘On the beach near my tent.’

‘And what did you do then?’

‘I went up and got my tea.’

Gently paused, listening to Dutt’s slow pencil go over the paper. When it came to a stop he swivelled round in his chair. Simmonds was sitting, glass in hand, looking much more collected: he even contrived to smirk at Gently with that ingratiating undertone.

‘Where did you get that bruise from?’

‘Bruise?’

‘The one on your cheekbone.’

‘Oh that … on the tent pole. I hit it as I was coming out.’

‘So it wasn’t caused by a fist?’

‘Fist? I …!’

Simmonds looked at him pitifully.

‘Mr Mixer’s fist on Tuesday afternoon – after he pulled you and Miss Campion out of your tent?’

The young man shivered and set his glass down on a cabinet near him. The blood was beginning to drain from his feverish cheeks. He made a fluttering movement with his hand, a sort of gesture that didn’t materialize. He looked very much as though he wanted to be sick.

‘I would have told you … I didn’t think …’

‘You didn’t think that I’d get to hear about it?’

‘No … not that! It didn’t seem important.’

‘What was so trivial about it – when she was murdered a few hours later?’

Again that silly fluttering movement, this time with both hands. Really it was embarrassing to witness the artist’s
mauvaise honte
.

‘I wanted to tell you about it! Can’t you see that? I
want to tell you everything. I hate having to lie. But what would you think?’

‘I think you can lie when it suits you.’

‘But that’s just the point! If you’re going to take that attitude.’

The puzzle was that he sounded sincere in a naïve and curious way. One felt that he honestly did want to make a confidant out of Gently. The memory of another case flashed across the detective’s mind, one in which, at his request, there had been a psychiatric examination. The subject there, a convicted
sex-criminal
, had shown much the same response. Only in his case they had known for a fact that the ‘revelations’ were crude romancing.

‘You see, you can’t help being a policeman, can you? By that I don’t mean … but there has to be a difference!’