Alan Hunter - Gently Go Man

‘You wanted to see me again?’ she asked. She held her hand out to Gently.

‘Just a recapitulation,’ Gently said. ‘I’m fresh here, and it always helps.’

‘I want to help you,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘I keep thinking I haven’t helped enough. If Les had been here…’ She stopped. ‘I want to help you all I can,’ she said.

She sat down on a wing armchair, crossing her calves and swinging them slantwise. She laid her hands in her lap. She made a small, hesitant smile for them.

‘I keep hoping it was an accident after all,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to know any more than that. It’s bad enough that Johnny is dead. I don’t think I could bear it if it’s something else.’

Gently nodded. ‘Life can be unkind.’

‘Yes.’ She smiled again. ‘Yes.’

‘And the worst of it is we have to find him,’ he said.

‘I understand that,’ she said. ‘I’m simply selfish.’

‘How did it start?’ he asked. ‘All this business. The motorcycling, the slang.’

‘I honestly don’t know,’ Mrs Lister said. ‘And yet I do. It happened after Les went.’

‘You think that was the cause of it?’ Gently asked.

‘I feel it had something to do with it,’ she said, ‘You see, up till that time Johnny was enthusiastic about his career. But Les going upset him terribly. I think there must have been a connection.’

‘What was his career to have been?’ Gently asked.

‘Building and contracting,’ she said. ‘Les wanted him to be an architect, but Johnny didn’t have the same talent for it. It was the practical side that Johnny was good at. Not just using his hands, but organization. So Les said all right, he’d better not waste time at college, and Johnny went straight into Hailey and Lincon’s. Which is what he wanted to do.’

‘Was he happy there?’ Gently asked.

‘I thought he was,’ Mrs Lister said. ‘He used to be talking about it always. And he went to evening classes in Castlebridge.’

‘Is that how he came to have a motorcycle?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘That was mostly the reason. He had a scooter on his sixteenth birthday, but Castlebridge is twenty-five miles from here.’

‘And then what happened?’ Gently asked.

‘Well, he seemed to lose interest,’ Mrs Lister said. ‘He dropped the classes. He dropped a lot of his old friends. He became moody and secretive, bored when he was at home. I thought perhaps there was a girl in it. I tried to get him to confide in me. Then there was this awful slang and the passion for jazz records, and the silly clothes he used to wear. I kept hoping it was simply a phase. He wouldn’t talk to me about it.’

‘He made other friends, didn’t he?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘though not the sort I approved of. He brought them home once or twice, but he soon stopped doing that. I’m to blame I suppose. I ought to have concealed what I thought of them. But I couldn’t help it. They were terrible. I don’t think some of them ever washed. And there they sat, in his room, playing jazz records and smoking. Till the small hours, sometimes. I had to say something.’

‘Do you remember who they were?’ Gently asked.

‘I’m not sure I knew their names,’ she said. ‘But I remember the Elton boy coming. And Elton’s sister. And Dicky Deeming.’

‘Jack Salmon. Frankie Knights.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘I don’t remember. Only Dicky. I thought that Dicky was old enough to have known better. But he’s a writer, of course, so he might have been slumming after material.’ She made a face. ‘If you can call this bungalow a slum,’ she added.

‘How old is Deeming then?’

‘Oh, thirty-ish,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘He looks younger because he’s boyish, short hair and that. He writes for the little reviews, I’m told, and does book notices and things. He’s our only local author. That’s why I remember him.’

‘And Johnny was specially friendly with him?’

‘Oh, quite infatuated,’ she said. ‘For a time, you know. A spell of teenage hero-worship. Dicky was what Johnny wanted to be. Cool, I think is the term they use. A rebel against all convention, a jazz expert and etcetera. For a time he was always around with Dicky. Then Dicky faded out again.’

‘Was there any reason for that?’ Gently asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘It was around that time, or soon after, that he fell so heavily for Betty Turner. Poor girl. She little knew how it would end, her romance with Johnny. But I think she may have displaced Dicky. I remember thinking so at the time.’

‘He was genuinely in love with her, was he?’

Mrs Lister nodded several times. ‘He was like his father. Fell with a bang. Very like his father, was Johnny.’

‘Did you approve of Betty Turner?’

‘I didn’t disapprove,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have picked her, she’s a sad little trollop. But I thought she was a healthier influence than Dicky. If she’d loved Johnny too.’

‘She didn’t love him?’ Gently said.

‘No,’ said Mrs Lister, ‘she didn’t. It was just a crush on her side.’

Setters shifted in his chair. ‘They were engaged, weren’t they?’ he said.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘They were engaged. But it wasn’t serious with Betty. If you want my frank opinion they wouldn’t have lasted for much longer. She was very pettish just lately. Johnny was much concerned, poor child.’

‘Was Elton the trouble?’ Gently asked.

‘He may have been,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘I know she used to be fond of Elton and sometimes she teased Johnny about him. I’m not sure. She was pettish and listless. She’d just grown tired of Johnny, I think.’

Gently sat silent for some moments. Mrs Lister was biting her lip. The wing of the armchair shaded her face, her eyes were hooded but staring fixedly. Now the sun had gone in. The light in the room was greyer.

‘I’ve seen your statement,’ Gently said, ‘about what happened last Tuesday. But I’d like you to go through it again, just in case there’s anything you forgot.’

She shuddered. ‘I’ve told you everything,’ she said.

‘I’d be grateful,’ he said, ‘if you’d face it.’

She nodded weakly. ‘I know I must. You’re very kind. I’ll try.’

‘First,’ he said, ‘did it differ in any way from your usual Tuesday programme?’

She thought a little. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I can’t remember anything different.’

‘You got your youngsters up, did you, got the breakfast and so forth?’

‘Mrs Jillings got the breakfast,’ she said. ‘Mrs Jillings is my daily.’

‘Then did you all have breakfast together?’

She shook her head. ‘Johnny had his first. He had to be at the site at eight. He was working on the Ford Road project.’

‘Did Johnny seem much as usual?’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘What I saw of him. Except perhaps he was a little short with me. But I’d been used to that, lately. He rang Betty.’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t listen,’ she said. ‘I thought he was arranging about the evening, you know, the jazz thing in Castlebridge. He used to go there every Tuesday.’

‘Did he usually ring her about it?’

‘I don’t remember,’ she said. ‘He used to ring Betty a lot.’

‘So then you saw him off, did you?’

‘I saw him get his bike out,’ she said. ‘I was dressing Jean in the kiddies’ bedroom. I gave him a wave but he didn’t see me. Then, well, it was much as always. I drove the kiddies to school. Mrs Jillings did the ironing while I prepared the things for lunch. Then I drove down to town, did some shopping, went to Leonard’s for coffee. It can’t be of importance. Only to me, that is.’