Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

‘It can’t be mass hysteria… do some of you know the difference between seeing a thing and being told it?’

But it wasn’t any good. Nobody would own up. Fact or illusion, the image of Joe Hicks creeping into his aunt’s cottage seemed to have drifted into the little community on a passing breeze: everyone knew, nobody had seen.

And Gently had other worries, anyway.

‘The super’s getting jumpy,’ Hansom had told him on the phone. ‘The Coroner’s beefing about his inquest and he’s a pal of the CC’s. The super wants to know if we’re going to make a grab in the next twenty-four hours…’

‘Coroners…!’ exploded Gently with deep feeling, as he hung up the phone.

In the morning things looked brighter. They had a tendency to do so over Mrs Grey’s breakfast-table. Also, Gently noticed once more, the mind had a way of sorting things out while one was asleep… you went to bed with a problem and woke up with a new slant on it. Or a better attitude, which was sometimes as good.

‘We goes into town, sir?’ enquired Dutt, soaking up the last of the bacon-grease with a piece of bread.

‘We goes into town, Dutt.’

‘If you don’t mind, sir, I reckon we might dig something up at the bus-station, the times of them buses being so cohincidental.’

‘You’re dead right, Dutt — that’s your assignment.’

‘Though I got to admit, sir, it beats me what the connection is there.’

Gently reached for the ginger marmalade and dredged up a tidy spoonful.

‘You have to remember that we’ve got two camps at “Willow Street” — pro-Lammas and anti-Lammas.’

‘Yessir. I see that, sir. But what business could Miss Pauline have with this Brent woman?’

‘Well… this Brent woman might be running into trouble once Mrs L. found out about her. And she had found out, if we’re to believe Mr Crow.’

Dutt nodded intelligently and rescued the marmalade.

‘But how would Miss Pauline know where to meet her, sir?’

‘She wouldn’t, would she, unless she knew the whole plot.’

‘Then why don’t we just pick her up and spring it on her sudden, sir?’

‘Because we’ve got nothing to spring, Dutt — not until we can prove she met Linda Brent.’

The sapient Dutt allowed that his senior had got something.

The super was out when Gently reported at HQ and Gently was duly thankful. Hansom’s print men had done a sterling job of work at ‘Willow Street’, but the results were entirely negative. They had acquired good specimens of Lammas’ prints and of Hicks’. It was Lammas’ which were found on the reverse of the drawer that had contained the gun. And Mrs Lammas’, of course… but they were accounted for. For the record Hansom had sweated out a press pic. of Lammas. It wasn’t too good. One got the impression of a dapper, athletic-looking man of middle-stature, expensively dressed, a touch of distinction about a badly caught profile and iron-grey hair.

Gently said: ‘You’ve had nothing in about Hicks?’

Hansom laughed a hard laugh.

‘I’m having that photo circulated… what gives you the idea that Hicks has been financed and tucked away somewhere?’

‘He’s supposed to have been seen at Upper Wrackstead yesterday afternoon.’

‘Seen?’ — Hansom’s mouth gaped open.

‘Supposed to have been… it’s probably just a rumour. I can’t get hold of a first-hand witness. I ran over the cottage to please Mrs Grey and Dutt took a shufti at the boats. We didn’t find anything.’

‘But Jeez — shouldn’t we get a man out there?’

‘Maybe we should… though he’ll show up like a sore thumb.’

Back in the Wolseley Gently sat for a minute or two gazing at the well-polished facia board. Then he solemnly produced and tossed a coin. It came down heads.

Pacey Road was a shabby-genteel thoroughfare off Thorne Road. It consisted of rows of late Victorian iced-cake houses, solid though stupid, and derived an air of sooty forlornness from the nearby marshalling yards of Thorne Station. Most of it had been taken over by the County Council and Gently, cruising slowly down, discovered the Drama Organizer’s office at the extreme and stationmost end. He was lucky, they told him. One didn’t often catch the Drama Organizer in his office.

Gently introduced himself and stated his business. John Playfair, an impish, smiling little man with bushy hair and glittering brown eyes, checked his information with scientific thoroughness. Yes, Pauline was one of his most promising young players. Yes, she had been waiting at the door of St Giles’ Hall when he got there for rehearsal on Friday. What time she left he couldn’t be sure… he was trying to iron out the Hovel scene, he seemed to remember. But it was round about her usual time. She had flashed him a goodnight and a promise to be there all day Sunday.

‘Did she seem upset at all that evening?’ Gently prompted.

‘Well… there you are! I can’t swear I noticed anything different about Pauline — I wasn’t really on the look-out for it. As far as I was concerned, she was her usual cheery self.’

‘Of course, you knew Mr Lammas pretty well.’

The smile died from the Drama Organizer’s eyes.

‘Yes… poor old Jimmy! He’d been the backbone of the Anesford since our St Julian’s Hall days… it’s a shocking thing to have happened to him.’

‘Was he popular with the Players?’

‘He was rather more than that… he was almost a tradition with us. Life won’t be quite the same here with old Jimmy gone.’

‘He wasn’t in the present production, however?’

‘No.’ Playfair frowned. ‘I wanted him to play Kent, but he said he couldn’t manage this time. This is an extra production, you understand — we’re putting it on for Festival Week. It isn’t easy to get people at this time of the year.’

‘Did he say why he couldn’t play?’

‘Well… something about business. One doesn’t bully people, you know.’

‘Had business ever stopped him before?’

‘No. But then, we’ve never put on a show in July before.’

Gently half-lofted a shoulder in acknowledgement of the loyalty implicit in the other man’s reply.

‘He was a good actor… what sort of parts did he play?’

‘Jimmy? He was a comedy actor… one of the best I’ve ever seen. The stage lost something when Jimmy went into business. The amateur stage, you know, is plagued with people who simply play themselves — the amateur who can create character is the rarest of rare birds. And Jimmy was that rare bird. Heaven knows how we’re going to replace him!’

‘He was very attached to his daughter, was he?’

‘Very attached indeed.’

‘You knew something about his family affairs?’

‘A little… though not from Jimmy. It was Pauline who dropped something occasionally.’

Gently nodded and picked up his trilby.

‘And his secretary… did he ever mention her?’

‘No — never, within my hearing.’

‘Thank you, Mr Playfair.’ Gently extended his hand. ‘If I should still be in town next week, I’ll make a point of getting along to your Lear!’

The tails side of his coin took him to a thirties-looking reinforced concrete building which stood on the river bank near Count Street bridge. Count Street was dull and industrialized, showing high, bleak walls diversified with an occasional small shop, or a flint church which had got lost during the nineteenth century. The warehouse of Lammas Wholesalers Ltd. was quite an adornment.

Gently turned in at the open gate and parked in the yard. Four steel-shuttered doors over a loading-ramp were closed and locked, but a smaller door at the side stood ajar. He pushed it open and went in. In the office to his right an elderly man in a dark suit was working at a high desk.