Alan Hunter: Gently Go Man

‘And Betty Turner?’ Gently asked.

‘She’s a chick, man. A cool chick.’

‘How did she go after it?’ Gently asked.

‘Like she shot the ton,’ Maureen said.

‘Like she was smoking sticks?’ Gently asked.

‘Like she may have done,’ Maureen said.

‘And what about Laurie,’ Gently asked. ‘Wasn’t he smoking sticks too?’

‘He went for kicks,’ Maureen said. ‘He went way out for wild kicks.’

‘Would you pass me your handbag?’ Gently said.

‘Like help yourself,’ said Maureen, grinning.

He took the drawstring bag she had brought with her and made a quick check of the contents. He handed it back. She grinned again. She took out a cigarette and lit it.

‘Man, I’ve known brighter squares,’ she said.

‘Take that smirk off your face,’ said Mrs Elton.

‘Like my face is my own,’ Maureen said. ‘I don’t have to keep it straight for nobody.’

Gently watched her for a moment. She puffed smoke towards him. She flicked her hair once or twice. She kept her eyes away from his. He said:

‘How well did you know Lister?’

‘I saw him around,’ Maureen said. ‘I wasn’t never a chick of his. I saw him around, like that.’

‘Didn’t he used to be friends with Laurie?’

‘Till the Turner chick,’ Maureen said.

‘Who else was he friends with?’ Gently asked.

‘Lots,’ Maureen said. ‘We all liked Johnny.’

‘Name some of the others.’

‘Sure,’ Maureen said. ‘There was Sidney Bixley and Dicky Deeming. And Jack Salmon. And Frankie Knights. Like he used to be way out with Dicky, but Dicky’s the coolest. We dig him big.’

‘Tell me about Dicky,’ Gently said.

‘Like I have done,’ said Maureen. ‘He’s crazy, he’s wild, he’s way out with the birds. We meet at his pad sometimes. He’s got a pad in Eastgate Street. We’ve got a combo and make with the music — man, it’s the wildest. I go for Dicky.’

‘He’s some sort of a writer,’ said Setters. ‘A long-hair. I checked him.’

‘He’s nice,’ said Mrs Elton. ‘He ain’t one of these silly kids.’

‘What does he write?’ Gently asked.

‘Booksy jazz,’ Maureen said. ‘He fakes some action for the papers, but that’s nowhere stuff, it isn’t it. Like he writes some wild poetry, jazz that really makes the touch. And he’s writing a book too. Man, that book is the craziest.’

‘And he was a special friend of Lister’s?’ Gently asked.

‘He’s friends with all of us,’ Maureen said. ‘I’ve got big eyes for that jeebie. But he don’t never have a regular chick.’

‘You’ve seen him since the accident?’ Gently asked.

‘Sure,’ Maureen said. ‘I saw him last night.’

‘What does he think about what’s happened?’

‘A kick,’ Maureen said. ‘The mostest.’

‘A kick for Lister?’

‘Like what else?’ she said. ‘Like he was touching and heard the birds. When you shoot the ton you get to touching. It sends you, man. Like you must go.’

‘How old are you?’ Gently asked.

‘I’m seventeen,’ she said. ‘Like Laurie.’

‘And where did you pick up all this jargon?’

‘Not from me, she didn’t,’ said Mrs Elton.

Maureen flipped her hair again, gave her other ankle a scratch.

‘Squares,’ she said. ‘Always squares. It’s a nowhere drag. It hangs me up.’

‘So that’s what you get,’ Setters said as they went down to the car. ‘Her brother talked like that too until I scared the daylights out of him. You put the fifty-dollar question. Where do they get this hokum from? It isn’t film-stuff, not the most of it, nor they don’t get it on TV. It just creeps in like an epidemic. It frightens me. They don’t care.’

Gently got in, slammed his door. ‘I know where it comes from,’ he said. ‘How it got here is another matter. I’d like the answer to that too.’

‘It came with the overspills,’ Setters mused.

Gently shook his head. ‘No. There’s something like it west of Whitehall, but not in Bethnal Green and Stepney.’

‘They don’t care,’ Setters repeated. ‘That’s what’s different about this lot. They’ve got that thing about touching something. And they’re not quite with you.’

‘What’s the Listers’ address?’ Gently asked.

‘Now there’s someone who cares,’ Setters said.

They charged four thousand eight hundred and fifty for the bungalows in Chase Drive and they looked worth about half of that, which is known in some circles as modern architecture. The Lister bungalow was the last in the road, the road being a two-hundred yard cul-de-sac. There were similar bungalows on each side of the road and this one at the bottom, backing straight on the Chase. The Chase at this spot had thirty-year pines with a screen of birches in front of them. The leaves of the birches had turned pale yellow. They trembled. They caught the last of the afternoon sun. The bungalow in front of them was composed of units with flat, shed-like roofs, and was built of glass and varnished wood and painted wood and a little brick. It had a semicircular concrete driveway and the driveway had no gates. In the arc of the driveway was a goldfish pool and a rockery and a small grass plot. There was a sign staked in the grass plot, a varnished section of a tree trunk. It said Treeways. To the right of the driveway was a tradesman’s entrance with an iron gate.

‘She’s all right. Got money,’ Setters was saying as they parked. ‘Lister was one of the architects here. Coronary occlusion, about a year ago. But he left her well-off, it’s all tied up in these houses. She’s got a couple of younger kids. Good-looking. Probably marry again.’

‘Living alone?’ Gently asked.

‘Till last week,’ Setters replied. ‘She’s got her mother here now to tide her over for a bit.’

They left the car on the road and walked up the driveway. The main door was plain wood painted white and had an iron bell-pull. It rang some chimes. An elderly woman came. She looked sharply at Gently. Setters addressed her as Mrs Clarkson and did his introduction again.

‘Jennifer’s dressing,’ said Mrs Clarkson. ‘You’d better come in, and I’ll tell her. But I hope you’re not going to be here for long. I’m fetching the children from school shortly.’

‘Not for long,’ Gently said. ‘We could come back tomorrow.’

‘It isn’t that, but she really isn’t fit to talk to people,’ said Mrs Clarkson.

She ushered them in through a square hall with a polished parquet floor and into a three-sided, slant-ceilinged room of which the fourth side was a glassed-in veranda. She left them. Setters sat down. Gently moved about the room. The slant-ceiling gave it spaciousness. The furniture was unpolished in a grey-toned wood. The upholstery of the furniture was in off-white and lemon and the carpet was off-white with flecks of black. The walls were papered in a trellis design. There was a piano. There was a record player.

‘What makes a kid from a home like this run riot?’ Setters inquired. ‘I wish I’d been a kid here. I wish I owned a place like it.’

‘When did Lister leave school?’ Gently asked.

‘That’s a point,’ Setters said. ‘It’d be a year ago, wouldn’t it, about the time his old man went. Since when he’s been working as a plumber’s mate for the firm his father was connected with. Starting at the bottom, more than likely. Not a question of money here.’

‘Did Elton work for that firm?’ Gently asked.

‘Yes,’ Setters said. ‘Hailey and Lincon’s. They’re a local firm here in Latchford. They brought in Lister for the overspill project.’

The door from the hall opened. Mrs Lister came in. She was a woman above middle height with a slender waist and wide hips. She had straight-cut gold-brown hair and green eyes and wide cheekbones and under the eyes were blued patches, and the cheeks were pale and a little sagged. She wore a charcoal dress with a bushed skirt. It had a belt. She wore a thin gold chain. She came forward.