Alan Hunter - Gently in the Sun

‘What do you know about him?’

Dyson was eager to supply information. It was the first time since they had left the guest house that Gently had shown the slightest curiosity.

‘His age is twenty-two. He comes from Cheapham but he’s living in Norchester. His mother is dead and he had a row with his father, who keeps a butcher’s shop in Cheapham. He works for an insurance firm in Norchester, but his head is full of this artistic nonsense.’

‘Who saw him with Rachel Campion?’

‘A girl from the guest house, name of Longman.’

‘What did she say they were doing?’

‘Just walking on the beach. Simmonds was carrying his painting gear.’

‘He’s got good looks, of course.’

‘Do you think — shall we pull him in?’

Gently smiled through his sweat.

‘Let him finish his picture! We’ll go back to the Bel-Air and have a long iced shandy.’

As Dyson said later, Gently had a genius for getting backs up.

The Bel-Air had an unsuspected merit: it really did seem cooler inside it than out. This may have been due to the trees, which were the only ones in Hiverton — they were wind-sculptured oaks and threw little enough shade, but their dark leaves tempered the all-pervading glare.

In the bar Maurice was serving milkshakes to a group of noisy teenagers. He seemed very popular with them and they all addressed him by his Christian name.

‘Some of that pineapple, Maurice.’

‘Maurice, make mine with maple syrup!’

A slim girl with a gamine cut had plugged in an electrical recorder. In a moment half of them were clapping and tapping to a recording of ‘Jailhouse Rock’.

‘How’s our crime coming along, Maurice?’

‘Jimmy looks like a killer, and he had a pash on her!’

‘Is it right that there’s a couple of Yard men down here?’

‘Dig that boss of hers — he’s got something on his conscience!’

Dyson had gone off to catch a bus into Norchester. He had got fed up with trying to help Gently. The manager of the Bel-Air, who wore a lounge suit despite the weather, had taken Gently aside for no conceivable reason. In his office he had produced a file of testimonials. One was signed by a former minister and another by a well-known comedian.

‘This has always been a place with a reputation. I don’t know how-’

‘Nobody remembers what they read in the papers.’

‘I only hope we shan’t have a rush of cancelled bookings.’

He treated Gently to a drink and seemed to want to hang on to him. Eventually he was called away to conduct a telephone conversation with some caterers.

Gently took his drink on to the lawn, where he found a vacant deckchair. A maid, not Rosie, was collecting glasses, and several guests had woken up to give her fresh orders. Mixer came by from the beach; he clenched his hands and stared at Gently. The tennis players, who had been sprawling on the grass, suddenly all chased indoors to fetch their swimsuits and towels.

‘They tell me in the office…’

Gently was almost in a doze. The dead woman’s image was hypnotizing him, he wanted to do nothing but puzzle and brood over it. In his mind he had been fitting to it one alternative after another.

‘They tell me you’re the bloke sent down to take charge here.’

He opened his eyes, frowning, and found that Mixer had come back. The man was still clad in his trunks but with the addition now of a flowered beach shirt. The shirt was unbuttoned to reveal a hairy chest: Mixer was tanned all over, though some of it was probably stain.

‘Aren’t you Chief Inspector Gently?’

‘What was it you wanted?’

‘I want to have a talk — don’t say you don’t know who I am!’

Gently nodded indifferently. Several pairs of eyes were watching them. Mixer was using a blustering tone as though to challenge everybody’s attention.

‘I’ve got a right to have a word with you — this is a serious matter for me! Already people have got the idea…’

‘You made your statement, didn’t you?’

‘Yes, but that’s different.’

‘You mean you want to add something to it?’

‘It isn’t that either. You know what I mean.’

Gently grunted. Yes, he knew! In his briefcase he had brought with him the thing that was worrying Mixer. It was headed ‘Mixer, Alfred Joseph (alias Thomas Beaumont)’. It had been typed out for him by Records less than twelve hours before.

‘Put yourself in my position. When it comes to a thing like this.’

The perspiration was trickling down through the hair on Mixer’s chest.

‘Now I want to get things straight. There’s nothing I have to hide. Otherwise I’d have had my solicitor down — as yet I haven’t bothered him.’

Not many of them were sleeping now, or even pretending to. The maid had come up with a fresh tray of drinks but her customers had mostly forgotten their orders.

‘You want to talk about it here?’

Mixer dashed a furious glance at the audience.

‘I don’t see why I shouldn’t, when everyone’s so concerned! Right from the start they’ve picked on Alfie — that Inspector Dyson, too! Do you think they’d have called you in if there’d been half a case against me?’

‘Let’s go into the house.’

Gently rose from his deckchair. Mixer was sweating so much that his whole body seemed to run with it. Behind them, as they crossed the lawn, they heard a faint stir and murmur. Mixer clenched his fists convulsively and breathed heavily through his nostrils.

‘Where is what they call the reading room?’

‘This way — I shan’t forget it in a hurry.’

‘Suppose we get a drink?’

‘Blimey, I could stand a dozen.’

In the bar the girl with her recorder was playing a treacly love song. Maurice was leaning across the counter and they were gazing into each other’s eyes. The rest of the teenagers it seemed, had gone off somewhere.

‘So I’ve been inside! Does it make me a crook?’

Mixer had a whining note in his voice which grated with Gently. The reading room was a gloomy place but not unsuited for interrogation. An architectural accident, it was remote from the rest of the ground-floor rooms; one reached it by a passage leading off near the main entrance.

‘I made my mistake and I paid for it, didn’t I? Since then I’ve gone straight, and nobody can say different.’

There were two mahogany bookcases and a varnished one with glass doors. The single window faced north and the atmosphere, strangely, had a schoolroom smell.

‘All the same, you know how it is — once you’ve got a record you might as well hang yourself! That’s why I kept quiet about it when big teeth was asking questions. Just let him get on to that, I thought, and I’ll be inside before you can say “knife”.’

‘You must have realized.’

‘That he’d get on to you blokes? That’s just why I kept my trap shut — you and me talk the same language!’

Mixer pulled out his handkerchief and patted himself down with it. Gently had never seen a man in such a muckwash before. The fellow’s skin was coarse and granular and he had tattoo marks on both wrists; his eyes, besides being small, were set so close that they gave a malformed appearance.

Yet this was the man whom Rachel Campion…

‘Are you sticking to your story that she was just your secretary?’

‘How do you mean — story? I’d like to see you prove different!’

‘She was living at your flat, wasn’t she?’

‘I don’t care if she was. I’m in business, see? I need a secretary. If they’re not around all the time what good are they to you?’

‘Even when you’re on holiday?’

‘That’s just when things crop up.’