Alan Hunter: Gently in the Sun

‘Last night there was a filmshow at the next village, Hamby. Most of the guests went to it in transport provided by the guest house. They left at six-thirty and arrived back at about eleven-fifteen, but Mixer didn’t go with them and neither did Campion. Mixer says he went to Starmouth to see a show on the pier. He was driving his own car and left the guest house at six-twenty. They’d given him a door key so that he could let himself in, and the bartender vouches that he was back soon after midnight.

‘Campion, on the other hand, spent the evening at the guest house. She was there for dinner and had a drink at half past nine. After that nobody saw her again, but the impression is that she went to her room. During the evening she was wearing the beach-pyjamas in which she was found later.

‘At midnight the fishing boats put out, and returned at around four a.m. The men were busy unloading and getting their nets out until approximately five-thirty. At just after seven the local poacher found Campion’s body. It was lying partly hidden between two of the boats. Mears, the village constable, saw it at seven-thirty-five: he made a note of the fact that the pyjamas were damp, which suggests that the body had been exposed all night.

‘The medical report-’ Dyson paused. ‘I expect you’ve seen it. She probably wasn’t raped, though she’d been with a man not long before. Death was effected by strangulation. The strangulation was violent. She was killed around midnight, roughly between eleven p.m. and one a.m. Some of the nails are bent back but nothing useful has been recovered from them.

‘Those are the principal facts that have come to light today. As I said, an early arrest doesn’t seem very likely.’

‘Hmm.’

The super twisted his empty glass between his fingers. In spite of the fan, there was a gleam of sweat on his forehead. A constable with his collar undone brought in a tray with Dyson’s sandwiches. Through the open window came the noise of traffic in the High Street.

‘There’s a number of interesting points there, Dyson.’

Dyson ate without appetite, grunting when he tasted the coffee.

‘In the first place, where was the body all night? and why did someone get up early to put it where it was found?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that.’

‘Then this other point… about the man.’

‘It struck me directly I saw the report.’

‘Perhaps you’d better give me your ideas.’

Illogically, it seemed to Dyson that the fan was stealing his air. He got up and took his tray to the illusive relief of the thrown-up window. Outside it was nearly dark. A violet tint had deepened the sky. The super had switched on his desk lamp soon after Dyson had entered the office.

‘Doesn’t it look like a crime passionel? All the makings are there, I’d say! An attractive woman — her jealous boss — several interested males — and now this medical evidence. Mixer found her with a bloke when he came back from Starmouth… and there you are. That’s how I see it.’

‘He admits she was his mistress?’

‘Naturally not! But he’s lying his head off. A business man doesn’t take a poppet like that on vacation for nothing.’

‘What’s he like, this Mixer chap?’

‘A flashy type; a bit of a spiv.’

‘What’s his business?’

‘Company promoting — which could mean anything under the sun. He gives a business address in the City… possibly Records could tell us something.’

The super nodded sagely.

‘He seems to fit the bill. What about the bloke she was with — any idea who he might have been?’

‘That’s the trouble. It might have been anyone.’

‘What about Simmonds?’

‘I gave him a grilling. He admitted he’d spoken to her on the beach once or twice, but I’d heard that up at the guest house already.’

‘Was he lying, do you think?’

‘He was nervous. I couldn’t tell.’

‘And you questioned some of the others?’

‘Four or five of them at the guest house. But it adds up the same way — none of them will admit anything. And you can’t narrow it down to Simmonds and the guest house.’

Dyson gulped some of his vile coffee and reached for another sandwich. Only one thing mattered in this business, he knew. He had put it first: no arrest was imminent. Once you’d said that the rest was very largely…

‘Well, I suppose it’s not important, though it might have helped the case. What was your idea about the body being left outside all night?’

‘It’s to do with the tide, I think. He was going to dump it in the sea.’

‘How did the tide affect that?’

‘It was flooding when he got down there. As I see it he made his first attempt soon after he did the murder. He drove the body down to the beach but found the fishermen there launching their boats. So he parked it somewhere handy — that accounts for the damp pyjamas. Later on, when he tried again, the tide was flooding and he’d lost his chance.’

‘So he left it by the boats.’

‘You have to remember that it was daylight. He probably came on foot, and a body is heavy in any case.’

The super massaged his chin with fingers that were moist.

His beard, he noticed, felt scruffier in hot weather than at other times.

‘You checked his car, I suppose?’

‘It’s a Citroen. It was clean enough.’

‘Anyone see it or hear it at the relevant times?’

‘Nobody I’ve questioned yet.’

‘So in fact you’ve got nothing material against him?’

Dyson shrugged feebly. Hadn’t he said as much?

‘He fits the pattern and that’s about all — apart from that it might have been anyone.’

‘Anyone at all who was jealous enough to murder.’

The super sighed regretfully. ‘You see where it gets us. Unless we can show something quick I daren’t hang on to the case. I talked to the C.C. I asked him for a couple of days at least. Between you and me this heat makes him irritable.’

‘We aren’t homicide experts.’

‘That’s just what he’s been telling me. I’m afraid you’ve had this one, Dyson, unless you can suggest something else.’

Dyson finished his coffee in silence. He had had a presentment of the outcome all day. At one point in the afternoon, when he had been questioning Mixer, he had realized with a bitter clarity that he was straying out of his depth. For homicide you needed a specialist: one couldn’t be two people.

‘On the whole it would be a relief.’

The super nodded at the flickering fan-blades.

‘We don’t see much of homicide, not enough to signify.’

‘It’s the only way to look at it, Dyson. Murder’s an unreasonable responsibility.’

‘And in this weather too! Anyone can have it, for me.’

Above the roofs now a moon was rising, a fisherman’s moon. It lay big and pale over the housetops of Wendham. At Hiverton it would be looking down on seven boats on an empty beach. And soon would come the fishermen with their nets over their shoulders.

It was the eighth day of the heat wave, and hotter than it had ever been. The sun was like a baleful presence nailed to a merciless sky. With both windows down the train compartment had been sweltering, and here and there, beside the track, one had seen black patches of spark-ignited grass. Gently, who never stood on ceremony, had stripped to his braces before the train reached Chelmsford. At Norchester Thorpe he had dived through the barrier for a hasty glass of beer. It had tasted insipid and only made him sweat the more, while Dutt, sprawled in his seat, seemed to have remained the cooler of the two.

‘But when we get to the sea…’

That was what he had kept telling himself. In his mind’s eye he had seen the pastelled marrams stir in the breeze. And the sea itself, the long falling combers; once get down to that and it would have to be cooler!