Alan Hunter - Gently in the Sun

Eager to press home his advantage, he nearly bowled over a hurrying Dutt. The sergeant was coming out of the Bel-Air and seemed in a state of high excitement.

‘I’ve been back half-an-hour, sir!’

‘What’s the matter, Dutt — something popped?’

‘Popped is right, sir — listen to this! It isn’t quite what you might have expected.

‘There’s been a flap on at Starmouth — they’ve had some charlies raiding a warehouse. It took place on the Wednesday morning and there were four of them involved. Now one of them meets the others at a caff on the Castra Road — his description fits our Mixer — and he was driving a green Citroen!

‘That’s all, sir, excepting they’ve got witnesses who can identify him. I told them we’d bring him back, and they’re waiting for us now.’

It wasn’t exactly a race into Starmouth, but it developed into something distinctly undignified. Gently, whose driving was usually unexceptional, was led into small but reprehensible excesses.

The lounge of the Bel-Air was where it had started. Mixer had installed himself there with whisky and a sporting paper. As soon as Gently entered he was set on by two reporters; one of them he had seen before, but the other was a fresh arrival.

‘They’ll just be in time to catch the early edition.’

‘My editor’s been in touch with the Yard.’

Like a couple of terriers they yapped round his heels, pushing, keen eyed, determined to get some copy from him. From his basket chair Mixer cast them apprehensive glances. Gently swore under his breath. This would have to happen!

‘Come into the bar, will you?’

He appeared to capitulate, but on the way he had exchanged a couple of quick words with Dutt. Five minutes later he had heard the Wolseley’s horn sound twice: at the first excuse he had terminated his impromptu press conference.

The trouble was that they had been too sharp for him, that pair of reporters. They had smelled a rat, they had shadowed Gently out of the house. Apparently it was their Morris which stood parked on the gravel, and the Wolseley had scarcely reached Hamby before headlights began to pursue it.

So he had stood on the accelerator, foolishly, needlessly. He had practised several little tricks to get rid of those persistent lights. At Castra he’d turned left and gone round the houses, and again at Starmouth he’d done his best to shake them off.

And all to no purpose — they had stuck to him like pitch. Getting a big kick, no doubt, out of chasing a police car. While all the time he’d known that he was being a trifle childish, that at the bottom of it he was upset by this new and perplexing development.

‘This sort of lets him out sir.’

Dutt had quickly put his finger on it. Yet it didn’t let him out, not in a way that closed the file on him. Mixer, if it was he, had met his associates soon after midnight. In other words he could have strangled Rachel and still been in time to keep his rendezvous. But the probability had lessened, it had lessened considerably. With a robbery on his plate Mixer would hardly have chased back to Hiverton. Hadn’t he already eased his feelings by giving Simmonds a pasting? Wouldn’t he have lectured Rachel and perhaps threatened her with some punishment?

For this one night, at all events, he’d have let the matter ride. With three assistants down from town he couldn’t afford to play the jealous lover.

To which one had to add his reactions when he heard the time of her death. One could read them clearly now — he knew he was safe from the capital charge! If the worst came to the worst, then he had a cast-iron alibi! In his own mind he must have been confident that the warehouse job would clear him.

Yet… that little doubt remained. He could have got back to murder Rachel. Even — though criminals were rarely so devious — he could have planned the robbery for insurance. He might have driven back to Hiverton with her murder expressly in his mind.

It was perplexing and unsatisfactory, an untidy bundle of facts. In sum it was getting one nowhere, it simply had the appearance of progress. Mixer had the better alibi — but he also had the better motive.

Gently dragged the Wolseley to a standstill before the steps of Starmouth Borough Police H.Q. Behind him he heard a squeal of tyres followed almost immediately by running feet. A photographer bounded on to the steps, his camera poking at the ready: he got a beautiful shot of Dutt shoving Mixer out on the pavement.

‘That’s Alfred Mixer, isn’t it?’

‘You’ll get a statement later.’

‘Is it an arrest or are you just detaining him?’

‘Later, I said! Do you think we’ve nothing else to do?’

Mixer covered his face as he was hustled up the steps. He’d said scarcely a word on that journey into Starmouth. In the lobby they were met by Copping, with whom Gently had worked before. The Starmouth inspector shook hands cordially and signed to Dutt to take Mixer into a waiting-room.

‘That’s him, I’m willing to swear to it! We’ve got two independent descriptions. One is the watchman, who they left tied up, and the other the proprietor of the cafe where they met. Do you think that, now we’ve got him, we can get a line on the others?’

‘If he’s your man then you can rely on Records.’

Copping led him to the super’s office where Symms himself was waiting for them. There was further handshaking and exchanges of compliments. The office, Gently noticed, had been redecorated. The last time he was there it had been a depressing blue.

‘Your man gave you an outline?’

The super was his old spry self, spare, military, his small moustache crisply trimmed.

‘I’d like to have some details — Mixer is suspect in the other business. I don’t think there’s much connection, but a check won’t do any harm. And by the way… if your canteen’s open… I managed to miss my supper.’

Copping dispatched a constable with an order of coffee and sandwiches. Gently reversed himself a chair and stuck his empty pipe in his mouth. From somewhere down the corridor came a murmur of voices — volunteers, he guessed, for the identity parade impending.

‘The robbery took place at one o’clock yesterday morning. It was a fur warehouse — Svandal’s. They’re a Swedish firm with a depot here. Is Mixer the sort of man who’d be interested in furs?’

‘Yes. It checks in with what Records know about him.’

‘Good — that’s another point. We’re in luck, having you around. There were four men concerned and they drove up in two vehicles. One was a fifteen-hundredweight van and the other a saloon car. The watchman, William Hannent, has an office by the main gates. They told him they’d got a crate for him and coshed him when he came out.’

‘How many men can he describe?’

‘Only this man and another fellow. The other two were in ambush — they struck him down from behind.

‘They opened the gates with Hannent’s keys and drove the vehicles into the yard. There was no key to the inner store so they broke it open with fire axes. That’s where the choice stuff’s kept — the rest they didn’t bother about. Hannent they left gagged and fastened to a chair. He was found there by the warehousemen seven hours later.’

‘And the man on the beat — did he notice nothing?’

‘They’d timed it too well. It was a pretty piece of planning. As a matter of fact, our man’s on the carpet — he noticed Hannent was missing and did Fanny Adams about it. But then, of course, Hannent might have been on his rounds. We get precious little warehouse breaking in this part of the world.

‘Well, that was the job that we were called in on, and Copping can tell you that it didn’t bristle with leads. We guessed it was some city chummies and called up the Yard, but to date we’ve heard nothing from that direction.