Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

‘I’ll get on to the chief constable,’ he muttered at last, ‘we’ll get it straightened out, Cora… there can’t be anything in it.’

‘Oh, Chris… I’m so frightened… so frightened!’

‘It’s all a mistake… we’ll get it straightened out. The lad’s due for his service in October…’

Up the long High Street marched PC Atkins, the Sunday-silent High Street with its newspaper-men, milkmen and a few early-stirring visitors in holiday attire. Beside him slouched Bonce, looking neither to right nor left. Behind him frisked Nits, a chattering, excited Nits. Halfway along the High Street PC Atkins paused to address the ragged idiot. ‘You run along home, m’lad, and stop making a nuisance of yourself… off with you now, off with you!’ Nits backed away apprehensively while the constable’s eyes were on him, but as soon as the march recommenced he was dancing along in the rear again…

The sunshine had renewed Gently’s feeling of nostalgia. They had all been sunny days, on that holiday of long ago. He remembered getting sunburned and his nose peeling, and the peculiarly pungent lotion they had put on his arms to stop them blistering (though of course they did blister), and, by association the suave smell of the oiled-paper sunshades which had been fashionable about then.

‘We had rooms somewhere about where we’ve got them now,’ he confided to a bleary-eyed Dutt as they set out for headquarters. ‘They used to do you awfully well in those days… I can remember having chops at breakfast.’

‘Don’t know as I should think so much of that, sir,’ admitted Dutt honestly.

‘Nonsense! You’ve been having these degenerate meals of bacon-and-egg too long.’

‘I should think a chop sits a bit heavy on your stomach first thing, sir.’

‘It’s true I was only a boy, Dutt… all the same, I think I could still face one.’ He plodded along silently for a space, a little frown gathered on his brow. ‘We seemed to be younger in those days, Dutt…’

‘Younger, sir?’ inquired Dutt in surprise.

‘Yes, Dutt… younger.’

‘Well, sir, I s’pose we was — in those days!’

But there was no smile on the face of his superior as they turned up the steps at headquarters.

The landlord of the Southend Smack was waiting patiently in the office which the super had assigned to Gently, and Copping, who had got to bed earlier than most, and was consequently his old spry self, officiously performed the introduction.

‘You think you can remember the youth who changed the note?’ inquired Gently dryly.

‘Ho yes, sir — don’t you worry about that!’ replied the landlord, a red-faced beery individual called Biggers.

‘You’ve seen him before, then?’

‘Ah, I have — once or twice.’

‘You know his name?’

‘No. No, sir. But he’s been in the bar once or twice, I can tell you that.’

‘It didn’t occur to you that he might be a little young to be served in a bar?’

‘W’no, sir… I mean… there you are!’ Biggers faltered uneasily, beginning to catch on that he wasn’t Gently’s blue-eyed boy. ‘He looked old enough, sir… couldn’t be far off. You can’t ask all of them to pull out their birth-certificates.’

‘Was he on his own?’

‘Ho yes, sir!’

‘Does he always come into your bar on his own?’

‘Y-yes, sir, as far as I remember.’

‘How do you mean, as far as you remember?’

‘Well, sir… I wouldn’t like to swear he never had no one with him.’

‘A woman, perhaps.’

‘No, sir — no women!’

‘Another youngster dressed like himself?’

‘Yes, sir, that’s it!’

‘Dressed exactly like himself?’

‘Yes, sir, exactly!’

‘And younger — about a year?’

‘Yes, sir… I mean…!’ Biggers trailed away, realizing the trap into which he had been unceremoniously precipitated. Gently eyed him with contempt.

‘This hundred-dollar bill… didn’t it seem odd to you that a young fellow should have one in his possession?’

‘Oh, I dunno, sir… what with the Yanks about and all…’

‘And how should he have acquired it from an American?’

‘Well, sir, they’re master men for playing dice.’

‘You thought he’d won it gambling?’

‘I never really thought… that’s the truth!’

‘Good,’ retorted Gently freezingly, ‘I’m glad it’s the truth, Biggers. The truth is what we are primarily interested in… let’s try sticking to it, shall we? How much did you give him for it?’

‘I… I give him its value.’

‘How much?’

‘Why, all it was worth to me…’

‘How much?’

Biggers halted sulkily. ‘I give him a tenner… now turn round and tell me it wasn’t enough, when it was a dud note in the first place!’

Gently turned his back on the sweating publican. ‘Is the parade lined up?’ he asked Copping.

‘They’re in the yard — just give me a moment.’

It was a scrupulously fair parade. Copping had wanted to impress Gently by his handling of it, and after witnessing the momentary appearance of the mailed hand lurking beneath the chief inspector’s velvet glove he was glad that he had so wanted. There was something almost deceitful about Gently, he thought…

Biggers took his time in going down the line, as though wishing to display his helpful care and attention. He paused before several law-abiding youths before making his final selection. He also paused before Bonce, whose wild-eyed guilt proclaimed itself to high heaven, but the pause was a brief one and might even have been involuntary… Having done his conscientious best, he carried his findings to Gently.

‘That’s him… fifth from the far end… kid in the brown suit.’

Gently nodded briefly. ‘And this one… the carroty-headed boy?’

‘No, sir. Don’t know him. Never seen him before!’

‘Positive?’

‘Ho yes, sir… I never forgets a face.’

The same mailed hand which Copping had so judiciously observed fell lightly on Bigger’s arm and the astonished publican found himself whirled a matter of three yards in a direction not of his choosing.

‘Now see here, Biggers, you’ve come forward voluntarily and given us some useful information, but there’s not much doubt that you’re sailing a bit too close to the wind. From now on there’ll be an eye on you, so watch your step. Don’t change any more money, American or otherwise, and if any of your customers looks a day under fifty — ask for his birth certificate. Is that clear?’

‘Y-yes, sir!’

‘Quite clear?’

Biggers gulped assent.

‘Then get away out of here… we’ve finished with you — for the moment!’

A blue-bottle buzzed in a sunny pane of the office window, a casual, preoccupied buzzing which focussed and concentrated in itself a vision of all fine Sundays from time immemorial. Copping lifted the bottom of the window and let it out. It fizzed skywards in a fine frenzy of indignant release, wavered, scented a canteen dustbin and toppled down again from the height of its Homeric disdain. Copping left the window half-open.

‘One at a time?’ he asked.

‘Yes. Shove the Baines boy into a room by himself where he can do a little quiet thinking.’

Copping nodded and went out. Gently seated himself in awful state behind the bleak steel desk with its virgin blotter, jotting-pad and desk-set. He slid open a drawer. It contained a well-thumbed copy of Moriarty’s Police Law and some paper-clips. The drawer on the other side contained nothing but ink-stains and punch confetti.

‘I wonder who the super turfed out to make room for us?’ he mused to Dutt.

Copping returned, prodding Jeff before him. The Teddy boy looked a good deal less exotic in his quieter lounge-suit, but there was still plenty of swagger about him. He stared round him with a sullen defiance, his thin-lipped mouth set tight and trapped.