Alan Hunter - Gently in the Sun

Watching him, Gently grunted again. Maurice was noticeably more nervous, less inclined to be matey. It went without saying that he had compared notes with Rosie — had her memory been bad, and the truth leaked out by accident?

‘What part of the world do you come from?’

‘Me? I belong to Starmouth.’

‘Your family lives there?’

‘Well no — not exactly. But I’ve been settled up here for a few years now.’

‘Where does your family live?’

‘In Lambeth, as a matter of fact.’

‘In Lambeth! When was the last time you were there?’

‘To tell the truth, I haven’t been home since after the war.’

The nervousness was alarm now- Maurice didn’t like this at all. In spite of the ears cocked in their direction he was letting his voice rise from its confidential whisper.

‘Look, I had some trouble, see? But it’s all over and done with! I may as well admit it — it had to do with a woman. She swore I made her do it — you know how it is — tore her clothes and got some bruises! And all the time, if she’d told the truth.’

‘How far is Lambeth from Camden Town?’

‘I don’t know! What’s that got to do with it?’

‘And how long did you say you’d known Miss Campion?’

‘I told you — since last week. And the same goes with her boyfriend.’

‘You’d better let me have your family’s address.’

He left Maurice staring after him very unhappily. The bartender had the air of being completely taken down. He began polishing glasses which were sparkling bright already, and when he served a customer, kept his eyes strictly lowered.

‘Pagram? It’s me again. I’ve got another assignment for you.’

As he talked Gently could imagine the airless heat trap of the Lambeth streets.

Some of the youngsters had formed a skiffle group which practised in the reading room, and Gently, on his way out, caught a snatch from it in the hall. They weren’t entirely beginners, you could tell it by their panache: just then they were improvising a rather neat calypso.

‘Rachel, she was a lady -

At least, some people thought so!

Rachel, she was a lady -

At least, some people thought so!

Rachel came to the Bel-Air,

Rachel had long coal-black hair -

Rachel, she was all the rage,

Isn’t it a pity she was in a cage!

Oh, we all liked Rachel so,

But not that other so-and-so!’

The performance ended in laughter and shrieks of applause. It was sung, Gently thought, by a certain fair-haired youth who played a good game of tennis. It depended on your age how you reacted to shock.

Did he have a premonition that he would find Esau waiting for him? He couldn’t precisely have said, but at least the event didn’t surprise him. The fisherman must have known that Gently would want to see him — no policeman was going to be satisfied by the events of that morning! At the same time, Esau didn’t need to put himself forward; and that was what he was doing, sitting there on his hedge bank.

Or was he? Gently had to admit a second of doubt about it. The fisherman looked so unconcerned, his darkened clay resting between his teeth. He was, of course, ignoring Gently. The Sea-King paid his respects to no man. But surely he could be there for one purpose only, he wouldn’t have chosen that seat by accident?

He was there, in any case, in his odd, inscrutable fashion. Gently advanced towards him deliberately, trying to frame his opening gambit. Then — instinctively — he wavered. What was the use in asking questions? Hadn’t it already got beyond words with them, this majestic man and himself?

Instead, he sat down silently beside him. It seemed suddenly the only thing to be done. If there was to be any communication, then the initiative lay with Esau: Gently’s role was to wait alertly for what the other might care to impart. They had got into a peculiar relationship and one could only give it its head.

And so it began, a bizarre half-hour, unequalled by anything in Gently’s experience. Looking back on it from a distance he was still unable to make sense of it. Not a word was spoken by either, nor did they once exchange a look. If they had been a couple of statues they could hardly have sat stiller or quieter. Bizarre — and yet something did pass between them however inexplicable it was to remain. Gently became conscious of a growing clarity, a slow development of his earlier mood. Was the Sea-King a telepathist — could that be the explanation? Was he secretly shaping Gently’s thoughts as the smoke rose from the guttering clay?

Perhaps it was simply the other’s serenity which was being communicated to him. He sat so still, so effortlessly still, his eyes scarcely blinking or shifting direction. His face was as a mask from which all emotion had drained away: its lines contained a history, but of itself it had no expression. And sitting there beside him one had to echo that brooding serenity. It was like a sensible ether that he extended round about him. This it was, at the least, which was prompting Gently’s awareness, soothing him, persuading him that he was seeing things more clearly.

Because, in sum, what was it that this clarity embraced? It was an indefinable conviction that now he knew all there was to be known. There was nothing material to support it, no new fact to square the circle. As intangible as the pipe smoke the conviction had stolen upon his mind. Now… he knew it all! — Esau’s silence was to tell him that. The facts were all before him, he needed only a moment of vision. Esau had done what he could for him. He had given him the hint that mattered. For the rest it was up to Gently to recognize the picture on the canvas.

Only here, unfortunately, his vision wouldn’t carry. The very sharpness of the detail was perplexing his interpretation. The facts might well be there and he seeing them vividly, but as yet they wouldn’t assemble into a revealing viewpoint.

Was he reading too much into his fascination with Esau — was he missing something simple but crucially important?

Twice their odd communion was broken by the passage of other people, and each time the interruption bore an interesting character. The first was when Maurice appeared on an errand into the village. On seeing them he drew back and seemed to debate whether he would continue. Eventually he did, though with some discomposure; he kept his eye on Gently as though he expected him to interfere.

The second intruder was Hawks, who was with them rather longer. It was apparent from a glance that they were his object in coming there. He came unsteadily up the road and stopped about twenty yards short of them; he remained for four or five minutes, staring hatred at one and the other.

A Hawks who had been drinking… But he contented himself with his stare. At the end of the session he lurched away again, probably to buy a last pint at The Longshoreman.

At this juncture Gently did risk a glance at Esau, but the Sea-King remained as unmoved as before. It was when Gently shrugged and felt for his pipe that the fisherman made his solitary gesture. Slowly, he picked up his pouch and offered it to the detective. The action was so unexpected that it seemed to carry a special point. Nothing else went with it, no nod, no inclination: just the extending of the pouch in the steady, gnarled hand.

Was it purely an accident that it happened when it did? Gently could never be certain, either then or afterwards. His reaching for his pipe had given Esau the opening — if he hadn’t chanced to do so, what device would have been used?

The audience was ended peremptorily by the Sea-King getting to his feet. Gently, still in a state of bemusement, let him depart without demur. He was feeling again that uneasy reaction, that suspicion that perhaps the fisherman had fooled him. Oughtn’t he to have cracked down hard on Esau — to have really put some pressure on him?