Alan Hunter: Gently in the Sun

Only at Hamby there was no sea to be seen, and certainly nothing suggestive of a breeze. The little station lay blistering in a heat still untempered, its asphalt platform soft to the foot. The porter, who picked up their bags, shed sweat. His face was the colour of a freshly boiled lobster.

‘But when we get to the sea…’

It couldn’t be so far away. Beyond the line of dusty trees, perhaps, beyond the air dancing over the pantiles.

‘Morning Chronicle — can you give us a statement?’

They had warned him that the press was taking a keen interest in the affair. A reporter in a printed play shirt was shoving a notebook under Gently’s nose, while in the background a photographer manoeuvred for a shot.

‘As you see, we’ve just arrived.’

‘Have the police got a theory?’

‘It was probably a man who did it.’

‘Hasn’t Mixer been inside?’

‘If you check the records…’

‘Isn’t it a fact that she was his mistress?’

A thin-faced man with prominent teeth hurried up just as the photographer was immortalizing Gently’s deshabille.

‘Sorry I’m late… the car broke down! It’s all right now, I’ve got it outside.’

‘Are we fixed up at the Bel-Air?’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t easy. They’ve had to turn two of the staff out of their rooms.’

He had met Dyson before, about six months previously. The county man wasn’t really surprised to see Gently in braces and trailing his jacket. The photographer, however, couldn’t get enough of it. He ran ahead into the station yard and took two more candid shots.

‘Was it like this in town?’

Above the bonnet of the police Wolseley the air simmered as though the engine was boiling. When you opened a door the heat spilled out, carrying along with it a smell of warm leather.

‘Yesterday it was ninety-one. Today, so they tell me…’

Steeling himself, Gently plunged into the oven-like interior.

Once they were moving things became more tolerable. The air that rushed in wasn’t cool but it was moving. They were driving through flat country along a narrow coastal road. To the right, although the sea was invisible, one could see the pale marram hills which marked the boundary of the land.

‘We sent you the file by despatch.’

‘I looked it over coming up.’

‘Naturally, with only one day…’

‘I thought you’d done a pretty sound job.’

Dyson looked relieved rather than pleased. He was driving, Gently noticed, with text-book care and attention.

‘What about the photographs?’

‘You’ll find some in that briefcase.’

‘I want to know what this Campion looked like before she was killed.’

‘There’s a couple there I got from Mixer. He was carrying them about in his pocket.’

Gently delved in the briefcase, pausing only briefly over the official post-mortem photographs. The two which had belonged to Mixer were post-card enlargements a little soiled at the edges. One was a full-length and the other a three-quarter profile. The full-length print showed the victim in a bikini.

‘Some dish, wasn’t she?’

Dyson threw Gently a curious side glance.

‘From what I’ve been hearing she was everything she looks. She made a stir in Hiverton during the short time she was there.’

‘Went round with several men, did she?’

‘No, but not because they didn’t try!’

‘Because her boss kept an eye on her?’

‘You’ll never get him to say so.’

Gently held the two photographs side by side, staring from one to the other. A ‘brunette bombshell’ was how one of the morning papers had described her. Slender, rather tall, she had the feline type of gracefulness. Her bust and hips were large and there was a misting of down on her calves. Her features were strong and the nose a little prominent. Her black hair, perfectly straight, flowed down her back like the mane of a horse. But it was the eyes that held the secret, the pulsating key to the woman. They were large and very dark and set a long way apart. They didn’t have a smile, and neither did the ripe-lipped mouth. Instead they suggested a smile, a smile compact of sensual intelligence: in a moment one seemed to have penetrated all the promise of the passionate body.

‘Do you think he’d introduce her to his wife?’

Gently grunted and dropped the photographs back into the briefcase. They had come to a string of houses reaching out down the dusty road; just beyond them, at a crossing, was the flint tower of an enormous church.

‘Is this the village?’

‘Yes… this is Hiverton.’

Dyson turned off right by the church. The village street down which they cruised was short and disappointingly commonplace, and was flanked by flint cobble cottages and featureless houses of local brick. The church had promised something better, but one looked in vain for a compensating factor.

‘The Bel-Air is to the right — over there, amongst those trees.’

Dyson paused at a lop-sided crossways for Gently to take it in.

‘To the left you might call it residential — some rows of old terrace houses! Straight ahead is the track across the marrams. The boats are pulled up on the far side of the gap.’

‘What’s that hut place by the gap?’

‘It belongs to the fishermen, I believe.’

‘And that other thing, on stilts?’

‘A coastguard lookout, but it’s disused these days.’

Really, there was nothing to see in Hiverton! Dyson pressed the accelerator with gentle impatience. But Gently was still gazing about at the sun-struck scene, unconscious, apparently, of the rising temperature in the car.

‘Let’s stop at that shop with the grass hats hung outside.’

Dyson let in his clutch with a suspicion of a jerk.

‘I’ve questioned the fellow there, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know.’

‘I’m too hot to talk shop! What I want are some of those play shirts.’

Leaving Dyson with Dutt in the car he went up the steps of the establishment. It was a modern shop with two long counters and seemed to sell everything from slabcake to paperbacks. A bright-faced woman in overalls was making ice cream cornets for two children. She gave Gently a smile and blew expressively through rounded lips.

‘Anyway, it’s good for trade — that’s what I say!’

He bought three of the shirts of the sort he had seen the reporter wearing. They were manufactured in Hong Kong and not very expensive. One of them was printed with rich fruit-like designs in green, orange, purple, and black, another featured rock-and-roll singers, the third film actresses. If that photographer really wanted something to enliven the silly season!

‘I’d better have a hat — one of those Italian straws with the green bands. And a pair of sunglasses. Have you sandals in a broad nine fitting?’

He finished up with a bottle of sun lotion and a threepenny ice cream cornet. Nibbling at the latter he began to feel happier, in spite of the intolerable heat. He had been given the run of the shop. The proprietress was treating him almost like an acquaintance. As he had pondered the various items she had left him for other customers, returning each time with a fresh smile and a remark.

‘You’re popular here, I see.’

‘We do our best to keep people happy.’

‘Where’s your husband today?’

‘Do you want him? He’s having his lunch with the girl.’

For some reason he was wanting to linger there: it was as though, quite by accident, he had got his foot in at Hiverton. The Beach Stores, it was obvious, played a big part in the village scene. People came there to exchange a word as well as to make their purchases.

‘Did you get what you wanted?’

Dyson couldn’t help the sarcasm. He squirmed as he turned the Wolseley in front of the shop. His long nose was peeling and the colour of rhubarb, and he shrank every time Gently came near his arm.