Alan Hunter - Gently in the Sun

‘Down there, past the tennis courts.’

The way led through a dusty shrubbery. At the bottom there was a gate with a spring giving access to the back of the marrams. Everything one touched was burning to the hand, and the ground struck hot through the soles of shoes. The marram grass, pale and rustling, looked as though it had been dried in a botanical press.

‘You can see what it’s like for footprints.’

Gently nodded, plodding through the scalding sand. Still that silent face was haunting him, charging every step with its presence. Hadn’t she come this way, perhaps, not much more than thirty-six hours ago? When the sand, now hot, was already cold, and the dew falling chill on the sere of the marram?

He had propped the photograph against his mirror and kept his eyes on it while he was dressing. After reading Dyson’s report he had been certain that the face would tell him something. Several things might have happened. It depended upon the type of woman. Once you had settled that, then you could begin to see your way.

Only the face had told him nothing of those things he wanted to know. The obvious thing was unimportant. Even Dyson could hardly have missed it.

‘There’s Mixer over there now.’

They had got to the top of the hills. Below them, a steep slide, lay the silvery-fawn beach, the tiniest of combers sending white washes along its margin. The sea looked heavy and drunken with sun. Its dark acres were mottled with purple and green patches. At the tideline the children paddled and screamed, their dumpy bodies showing through their sagging swimsuits. Higher up sat the parents, some of them beneath sunshades.

‘He’s watching us, you bet.’

Could it even have been that passion…?

‘You see? He’s getting up.’

Or the body, would that tell him?

He turned impatiently in the direction which Dyson was indicating. One hadn’t had to ask the county man where his suspicions lay. Alfred Joseph Mixer — he was the candidate! The ‘company promoter’ with his cash and cockney accent: who, in all probability, had outsmarted Dyson.

‘He’s expecting us to tackle him.’

Gently was only confirming impressions. In his twenty years with the Central Office he had met a lot of Mixers, and this one seemed to follow the general pattern. A biggish man of about forty with something of a stomach. Thinned hair, a large nose, and small, hard eyes. He had been sitting under a sunshade and was wearing shiny black bathing trunks. Now he was standing up apprehensively, twisting his sunglasses as he watched the three policemen.

‘Don’t you think perhaps?’

‘What makes you so sure he did it?’

‘The evidence… well… one forms an impression.’

‘He’s done time for embezzlement.’

‘There — I was certain!’

‘At the same time, there’s nothing about violence on his record.’

Gently dug in his heels and went skidding down through the loose sand. At the moment he hadn’t got time for Mixer. A little higher up the beach he could see the boats and the fishermen, and above them, on the hill, somebody painting at an easel. Two days ago hadn’t she looked on this same scene?

At this point the shore was very slightly convex, but one could see at least a mile of beach in either direction. At quarter-mile intervals pillboxes had been built, a few of which remained poised drunkenly above the beach. On the nearest one of these some youths were performing acrobatics.

‘What sort of fish do they catch?’

In the shallows a child with tucked-up skirt was pushing a shrimp net and looking the picture of earnestness. ‘Soles… plaice… I don’t know.’

Another, a little boy, was trying his best to fly a kite.

They came up with the boats, still a centre of interest. The reporter and his colleague were in conversation with the fishermen. One of the latter was showing the photographer where the body had lain; another, a freckled-faced youngster, was sweating over an engine.

‘Any statement for us yet?’

‘It was probably a man who did it.’

‘You told us that before.’

‘It could have been a woman.’

The reporter touched his photographer’s shoulder. It wasn’t often that one got a present like this! Gently, apparently unconscious of his picturesque qualities, continued his unhurried survey of the group of boats.

Of the seven, six were gaily painted and one alone was white. This was the boat in which the freckled youth was working at the engine. They were bluff-bowed, deep-bodied, powerfully built little craft, not more than seventeen feet long but big and burly for their size. Each had an ‘S.H.’ registration board bolted to its gunwale and its name, with suitable flourishes, carved in its transom. There was the Girl Betty, the Boy Cyril, the We’re Here, and the Willing Boys. The white boat had a varnished name board and was called the Keep Going.

Gently paused beside the latter, so utterly different was it from the others. Quite apart from the paint and the name board, it stood out as a separate species. It had a finish like a yacht. All the fittings were chromium plated. The paintwork had been built up until the surface resembled velvet, while the gunwale and the transom were of varnished teak that shone like glass.

‘Is this one a pleasure boat?’

The youngster wiped his brow with a hand which left a greasy mark.

‘There isn’t a lot of pleasure in her!’

‘No… but does she go fishing?’

‘W’yes, that’s what she’s for.’

‘Then what was the idea of getting her up like this?’

‘You’d better ask Mr Dawes — it just happen he take a pride in his boat.’

A wave of a spanner indicated the net store on the hill. Beside it was standing a tall fisherman with a white beard. He was leaning against one of the tarred posts from which the drying nets were slung; his eyes, staring out to sea, had the peculiar vacancy of seafaring men ashore.

‘He like to show off his money!’

One of the fishermen spat contemptuously — the same man who had been showing the site of the tragedy to the photographer. He was a lean but powerfully built fellow of sixty or so. His face had a vindictive cast and his dark eyes looked angry.

‘Boats like mine aren’t good enough for Esau Dawes — did you ever see such truck on a longshore fishing boat? Next thing you know it’ll be gold-plated ringbolts!’

‘Shut you up, Bob!’ came from several of his mates.

‘Why should I shut up? I don’t owe nobody no money!’

Gently hunched his shoulders and wandered over towards the gap. The Keep Going’s owner paid him no attention as he passed by. Fifty yards further on sat the young artist with his easel; he held a brush between his teeth while he stroked vigorously with another. An old umbrella tied to a broom handle was keeping the glare of the sun from his work.

‘That’s Simmonds… you remember?’

If he did, Gently made no reply. Like any other curious stroller he went up to see what was happening to the canvas. Simmonds, a taut-faced young man with reddish-gold hair, charged his brush nervously as he felt himself being overlooked. He was painting a beach-scape in rather sombre colours; he had perhaps noticed it and was now darkening his sky.

‘Do you sell any of your pictures?’

Simmonds looked round quickly, flushing. He possessed wide hazel eyes which had an oddly vulnerable appearance. His lips made a perfect Cupid’s bow and the lower one trembled.

‘As a matter of fact I do!’

He was forcing a hardness into his voice.

‘I’ve sold several pictures — I’m not entirely an amateur! Now, if you don’t mind, I prefer not to talk while I’m working.’

‘I thought I might buy one.’

Simmonds seemed more upset than ever. He attacked his sky with an awkwardness that threatened to ruin everything. In the background his tent looked snug with its flaps neatly rolled and tied. One of the tracks which intersected the marrams passed close beside it on the way from the village.