Alan Hunter - Gently in the Sun

‘She certainly came from London, though I don’t recall what part. Esau met her on a fishing trip — it was when he was on the drifters. I have a hazy impression that they met in Ramsgate or Margate.’

‘What was her name?’

‘That’s asking too much! But if you want to know we can find it in the register.’

‘Can you remember the year she left him?’

‘Precisely. It was in the summer of nineteen-thirty.’

He was aware of the vicar staring at him gravely, a puckered little frown on the ecclesiastical brow. He had laid his pipe aside and placed the tips of his fingers together: now he was rocking them towards Gently in a manner of gentle reproof.

‘I’m not an idiot, you know, and I can guess what’s in your mind. Your colleague has already told me about that skeleton in the marrams. But it won’t do, Inspector, it won’t do at all. There’s a couple of hundred witnesses that Mrs Dawes really left her husband.’

‘A couple of hundred witnesses!’

Gently couldn’t help his incredulity.

‘A couple of hundred or more, and I was one of them myself. It was a seven-day wonder at Hiverton. The village talked about it for weeks. She went off to the station in Albert Johnson’s hire car, swearing like a trooper and cursing Esau to high heaven. It was a tragedy, I admit, but not the sort that you’re thinking of.’

‘But that was the last that was heard of her?’

‘You’re wrong again. She wrote to her acquaintances. Our maid at the time had a letter from Josephine — it was a shocking epistle, highly ungrammatical.’

‘You saw it, did you?’

‘I did, Inspector. It made me congratulate myself on being rid of such a parishioner. After applying every conceivable epithet to her husband she declared her intention of never again leaving London. And she never did, you can be certain. There has never been a whisper of her. She couldn’t have set foot here without the whole village buzzing of it.’

‘And that was in the summer of nineteen-thirty?’

‘Yes, almost a year from the day on which I married them.’

‘Was there a child of the marriage?’

‘It was unblessed in every way.’

‘If you’ve no objections I should like to use your phone.’

The phone was in a niche under the stairs in the hall, and to use it one was obliged to adopt a semi-crouched position. As always there was a wait before Pagram came on: for what seemed like half-an-hour he was listening to the exchange’s murmur.

‘Pagram? Listen carefully — there’ve been further developments. It’s Campion’s mother that I want you to get a line on. Her name may be Dawes, a Mrs Esau Dawes; and she may have been living with her mother in the summer of nineteen-thirty. The vital thing to know…’

He heard Pagram’s delighted chuckle.

‘This time we’ve beaten you to the punch, old horse! I’ve just taken a statement from an ex-neighbour of Mrs Campion’s. It’s all about the scarlet daughter — would you like me to read it over?’

‘Tell me when she left.’

‘Right… in the November of that year. She had a spat with her mother, if our source is to be relied on.’

‘Was she heard of after that?’

‘Not by this particular informant. She lived next-door to Mrs Campion until the outbreak of war, after she went to Hayes to the house of her married son.’

‘What was the daughter’s name?’

‘I tried to get it, but she couldn’t remember.’

‘Was the daughter pregnant at the time?’

‘Bless you, yes! Don’t you want the details?’

Gently eased his back away from the encroachments of the staircase. The lemonade had re-started his sweat, he could feel drops of it trickling down his brow. Or was the heat entirely responsible… was some of it due to a different reason? From down the hallway he could hear the vicar in conversation with a tradesman.

‘Are you with me? The daughter was married in nineteen-twenty-nine. Her mother disapproved and she wasn’t married from home. My informant never saw the man and Mrs Campion never spoke about him — the impression was that he was of the roving kind, or anyway, unrespectable.

‘She came back again a year later, not much to the joy of Mrs Campion. The old lady was a bit old-fashioned and her daughter had the reputation of being a man-eater. But the girlie was having a child, which I dare say made a difference; so she duly stayed on and had it — a girl, of course: our old friend Rachel.

‘Then there happened this spat between them and the daughter once more slung her hook. She went off in a towering passion, leaving her baby and junk behind her. Her mother thought she’d be coming back for them, but when she didn’t, wasn’t too surprised. So the baby stayed there and was brought up by its grandmother. It was known from the beginning as Rachel Campion.

‘Those are the facts, old man, less the picturesque trimmings. My informant, needless to say, put the least favourable construction on them.’

It had to be the same woman! Gently clutched at his moist receiver. Every detail fitted pat, there wasn’t a single trace of discrepancy. And she had come back to Hiverton, back to that lonely grave in the marrams. And nobody had missed her at Hiverton. Nobody had missed her at Camden Town.

‘Hallo? I want something else done.’

‘I could hear you thinking it up.’

‘The local police have sent in some dental impressions. I’m pretty well certain that they belong to Rachel’s mother.’

‘Oh no — don’t shove that on to us!’

‘Will you see what you can do?’

‘Why not? The taxpayers expect something for their money. By the way, as you sit there sweating in Northshire…’

Pagram’s voice grew suddenly fainter and more distant, and in its place Gently could hear a soft and sibilant drumming. For an instant it grew louder and resembled something familiar; then, as though a switch were pulled, it was cut off entirely.

‘Recognize that, old man?’

‘Would it be the sound of rain?’

‘Rain is right — if you make a habit of the British understatement! The stuff is fairly whirring down. We’re in the middle of a freak storm. Over the City way it’s as black as ink, and there’s a lot of lightning without any thunder. And here’s a tip — keep your mac handy: the stuff is heading straight up-country.’

Gently jammed the receiver on its cradle and hurried back to the vicar’s den.

‘That register… I’d like to see it.’

‘Come with me then. It’s kept in the vestry.’

Even a townsman could spot it now, the terrific weather that was breeding. The southern sky was all in a haze, and northward the landscape as fragile as glass. There was a tense, galvanic stillness. The clamour of a blackbird sounded like a threat. On a distant farm, seeming unable to stop itself, a cock was crowing again and again.

‘I could smell this coming all day.’

The vicar was forced to take two strides to Gently’s one.

‘There was scarcely any dew — did you happen to notice it? In this weather it’s a sign that we’re going to catch it.’

‘I had a feeling, too.’

‘Ah! You’re country-bred, aren’t you?’

‘Do you keep the church locked?’

‘Good gracious no. Whatever for?’

As he led him up the aisle the vicar gave his chuckle again:

‘Talking of that and Bob Hawks puts me in mind of something else. I caught him in here yesterday, and what do you think he was after? The date of his mother’s wedding! If she was wedded would be more like it!’

‘You mean?’ Gently caught him by the arm. ‘He was in here — looking at the register?’

‘Just so, as large as life. I had to laugh about it afterwards.’

Gently almost ran into the vestry. The register was lying on a chest of drawers. Quickly he flickered through the pages of life, hope, and mortality. The name stood plump and plain: it was Josephine Rachel Campion. And beside it, like an evil omen, lay a single, tarry thumb mark.