Alan Hunter: Gently by the Shore

‘Not precisely. Maybe six or seven knots.’

‘So you give him an hour to get into the current and another hour to come back ashore he might have been put in eighteen miles north.’

‘No.’ The super shook his head. ‘If he was put in from the shore it couldn’t be more than five or six. The shore starts in westward just north of the town, and six miles up the coast is Summerness, beyond which it recedes very sharply. At Summerness the current would be two miles off-shore.’

‘Two miles…’ mused Gently. ‘He wouldn’t drift out that far in the time. It’d have to be lower down. What’s up there in that direction?’

The super shrugged. ‘It’s a wide sand beach all the way, backed with marram hills and freshwater marshes. There are three villages and a lot of bungalows. A little way out of town there’s the racecourse.’

‘Has there been racing lately?’

‘No. It’s not due till next Tuesday.’

‘I suppose you didn’t do any checking up there?’

‘What’s the use?’ interrupted Inspector Copping. ‘It’s a hundred to one against him having been put in there, and even if he was, what would we be looking for?’

‘Someone might have seen something,’ suggested Gently mildly, ‘there’s never any harm in asking questions.’

Inspector Copping’s heavyish features flushed. ‘The case has had publicity,’ he said, ‘we’ve asked for information both in the cinemas and the press. If anyone knew anything we should have heard by now — we’ve looked into everything that’s come our way.’

‘Please don’t get the impression that we’ve been asleep,’ said the super snappily, ‘we may not be homicide experts, but at least we carry out our police duties with strict care and attention. You have made the suggestion that the body of the deceased was put into the sea somewhere between here and Summerness, but the suggestion rests merely on the fact that there is a north-south current. And the current may have brought it from some point at sea, and then again it may never have been in the current at all. It could even have drifted up from a southerly direction inside the current.’

Gently hunched his shoulders chastenedly and made a chessmove with the peppermint cream. ‘It could even have been dropped off the pier,’ he murmured.

‘My guess is it came off a ship,’ said Copping. ‘There’s no doubt about the fellow being a foreigner. Anyone could see that at a glance. The ethnologist who saw him reckoned he was a Slav of some sort, Central European. He could have gone overboard in the Wash somewhere and hooked on to that current.’

‘And that would mean trying to pinpoint a ship of some or any nationality which was in the Wash about midnight on Tuesday,’ said the super, ‘and just suppose we found it, what good would it do us?’

‘It’d be outside our jurisdiction,’ said Copping brightly.

‘Unless it was a British ship,’ hazarded Gently.

‘In which case we would have heard something before now,’ said the super with a note of finality. ‘No, Gently. I appreciate your attitude. It’s your business to see that no stone is unturned and I can see that you propose to carry it out. But I think you’ll have to agree in the long run that everything that can be done has been done. Where there’s no identity, no apparent motive and no hopeful line of inquiry, then to proceed with a case is simply a formality. You must do it — that’s your business: but I’m afraid that in this instance it will be a very thankless task.’

‘And yet this man was murdered,’ said Gently slowly. ‘Somewhere there’s someone who will kill more readily another time if we don’t put a finger on him…’

‘I know, I know!’ snapped the super, ‘but idealism is no use if there’s no prospect of implementing it.’

Gently sighed and heaved himself out of the rather bleak chair which was maintained for visitors. ‘There’s nothing else you want to tell me?’ he inquired.

‘I’ve told you everything that we know.’ The super paused, frowning. Then he looked at Gently a little more kindly. ‘Don’t think we’re against you… I assure you it isn’t that. If you can do anything with this affair I shall be the first to congratulate you, and Copping here will be the second.’

‘Hear, hear,’ responded Copping, though perhaps more from duty than conviction.

‘I’ve arranged lodgings for you and the Sergeant in Nelson Street. There’s a private office here you can use for interrogations. If you need a car you have only to ask for it, and any other assistance we can give.’ The super stalked round his desk and held out his hand. ‘The best of luck, Gently,’ he said warmly, ‘I only wish it had been someone with no reputation to lose.’

Gently shook the extended hand woodenly. ‘I’d like to see the body,’ he said.

‘I’ve a full set of photographs and a copy of the pathologist’s report for you,’ replied the super. ‘Copping will give them to you along with his own report.’

‘I still want to see the body,’ said Gently.

The super shrugged. ‘Very well, then. Copping will take you round.’

They filed out in strict order of rank, Gently, Copping and Dutt, the latter having been a silent and respectful auditor of the conference in the office.

‘We’ll take a car,’ said Copping, ‘it isn’t far to the mortuary, but you can put your bags in and I’ll drop you at your lodgings.’ He dodged into his office and came out with a file. ‘These are the reports and the photographs — for what they’re worth.’

Gently took them with a solemn nod.

The mortuary was a neat modern building of pastel-tone brick and had double doors of a reddish wood with lavish chromium-plated fitments. But it smelled exactly like all other mortuaries. Copping explained their errand to the sad-faced attendant. They were ushered into the dim and odoriferous interior.

‘He’s had company,’ observed the attendant, indicating a second draped form, ‘they pulled her out of the river up by the yacht-station.’

‘You’d better watch they don’t get into mischief,’ said Copping callously.

The attendant laughed a ghoulish laugh and twitched the sheet from corpse number one.

‘Voila,’ said Copping, ‘the cause of all the trouble.’

Gently stepped forward and conducted a stolid examination of the wax-like body. It had no humanity now. There was nothing about it to suggest the warmth of life, the kindling of a soul. And the attentions of the pathologist had done little to help matters, though he had tidied up afterwards with needle and gut.

Sergeant Dutt made a hissing sound. ‘No doubt about him being a foreigner, sir,’ he said, ‘there’s a bit of the old Eyetye about him, if you ask me.’

‘Age?’ demanded Gently through his teeth.

‘Early forties is their guess,’ returned Copping.

‘Much force?’

‘One stab busted a rib. There’s three in the lung and one in the heart. Penetration about four inches. Double-edged blade about three-quarters of an inch wide. And his wrists had been tied.’

‘Poor beggar!’ exclaimed the warm-hearted Dutt, ‘they never give him a chance.’

‘And those?’ jerked Gently, indicating a group of brownish marks just above the pathologist’s neat stitches.

‘Burns,’ said Copping, ‘that’s what the report says.’

Sergeant Dutt caught his breath. ‘I’ve seen burns like that before, sir… during the war when I was in France…’

‘I know,’ said Gently, ‘I’ve seen them too.’

He turned away from the slab and stood looking at the narrow window with its bar and pebble-glass pane.

‘They didn’t just want his life, they wanted something else too. I wonder what it was… I wonder why it was so important?’