Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

‘It’s a filthy bag of lies!’ she burst out at last. ‘The — little liars — they’re trying to pin it all on me!’

‘They seem to have made a job of it, too…’

‘There isn’t a word of truth!’

‘But there’s some evidence that goes with it…’

Frenchy stormed up and down the muggy room with perspiration beading on her pasty face. ‘You know what it is… You know why these pigs have said this. It’s because I wouldn’t go to bed with them… that’s what they’ve wanted! They’ve wanted to be little men, to go to bed with a woman… they’ve been hanging round me ever since I came up here. But I don’t go to bed with children… nobody can blame me for that!.. and now they’re in trouble they’re trying to blame me — somebody it’s easy to get in bad with the police!’

‘Whoa!’ interrupted Gently pacifically, ‘it’s no use getting out of breath, my dear. Somebody had to tell them about that suitcase and where to find it…’

‘It wasn’t me! I didn’t know nothing about it.’

‘Then who did — who else knew about it?’

‘How the hell should I know? Perhaps they saw him carting it around and got the idea it was something valuable…’

‘Who told you he was given to carting it around?’

‘Nobody told me-!’

‘And how did they know where he lodged — that he was out — that for some reason he’d left it in his room?’

‘They could’ve watched him, couldn’t they?’

‘They aren’t professionals, Frenchy.’

‘They’re sneaking little swine, that’s what they are!’

She flung herself at the bed and disinterred some cigarettes from under the pillow. Gently produced a match and gave her a light, steady brown fingers against her trembling pale ones. She swallowed down the smoke as though it were nectar.

‘You know, Frenchy, it isn’t burglary you’ve got to worry about… we aren’t terribly interested in that. It’s the way your customer finished up on the beach the next morning that’s the real headache.’

‘He wasn’t my customer — I never knew him!’

Gently shook his head. ‘I’ve got another witness who saw you with him, quite independent. Do you remember having lunch at the Beachside Cafe?’

‘I was never in the place!’

‘And now, according to these two statements, you were the last person we know to see Max alive…’

A shudder passed through the blonde woman’s body and she had to struggle to keep her hold on the jerking cigarette.

‘Weight it up, Frenchy… it’s a nasty position to be in.’

‘But mister,’ — her voice was hoarse now — ‘it wasn’t nothing to do with me — nothing — I’ll swear to it!’

Gently shrugged and picked up his hat to fan himself again.

‘I didn’t have no hand in it… honest to God!’

Gently fanned himself impassively.

‘I didn’t — I didn’t — I didn’t!’ The voice was a scream now and she threw herself on her knees in a fit of anguish. ‘You got to believe me… mister… you got to!’

Gently nodded a single, indefinite nod and went on fanning.

‘But you’ve got to, mister!’

Gently paused at the end of a stroke. ‘If,’ he said, ‘you didn’t, Frenchy, then the best thing you can do is to come clean…’

‘But I can’t, mister!’ Her face twisted in indescribable torment.

‘You can’t?’ Gently stared at her bleakly and recommenced his fanning.

‘I can’t — I can’t! Don’t you understand?’

‘I understand there’s a murder charge being kept on ice for someone.’

Frenchy moaned and sank in a heap on the floor. ‘I didn’t do it,’ she babbled, ‘I didn’t do it… you got to believe me!’

Gently bent over and picked up the cigarette, which was making an oily mark on the dubious lino. ‘Listen, Frenchy, if it’s any consolation to you, I don’t think you knocked off Max, and I’m not personally trying to pin it on you. But you’re obviously in it up to your neck, and unless you make yourself useful to us you’re going to have a pretty rough passage in court. Now what about it… suppose we do a deal?’

‘I can’t, mister — I daren’t!’

‘We’ll give you protection. You’ve nothing to be afraid of.’

The dyed-blonde hair shook hopelessly. ‘They’d get me… they always do. They don’t never forget, mister.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Gently stoutly, ‘this is England, Frenchy.’

Her haunted eyes looked up at him, hesitating. Then she gave a hysterical little laugh. ‘That’s what Max thought, too… he’d be safe once he got to England!’

They went down the naked stairway, Frenchy clicking her high heels, Gently clumping in the rear. She had put on her white two-piece with its red piping and split skirt, and there was almost a degree of respectability about her make-up. At the bottom she fished a key out of her handbag and locked the street door. Gently took it from her and slipped it into his pocket.

‘And to save a little trouble…?’

Frenchy sniffed and tossed her head towards the corner shop. ‘Mother Goffin over the way… and don’t let her kid you up she’s deaf.’

‘I won’t,’ murmured Gently, ‘at least, not twice in one day.’

They proceeded towards the Front, Gently feeling a trifle self-conscious beside so much window-dressing. At the corner of the street lurked Nits, his bulging eyes fixed upon them. As they drew closer he sidled out to meet them.

‘Giddout of the way, you!’ snapped Frenchy, angering suddenly. But Nits’ attention had focused on Gently.

‘You leave her alone — you leave her alone!’ he piped, ‘she’s a good girl, you mustn’t take her away!’

‘Clear out!’ screeched Frenchy, ‘I’ve had enough of you hanging round me!’

Gently put his hand in his pocket for a coin, but as he did so the halfwit came flying at him with flailing arms and legs.

‘You shan’t take her away — you shan’t — I won’t let you!’

‘Here, here,’ said Gently, ‘that’s no way for a young man to behave-!’

‘I’ll kill you, I will, I tell you I’ll kill you!’

‘And I’ll bleedin’ kill you!’ screamed Frenchy, catching Nits such a cuff across the face that he was almost cart-wheeled into the gutter. For a moment he lay there, pop-eyed and gibbering, then he sprang to his feet in a whirl of limbs and darted away down Dulford Street like a bewildered animal.

‘Dirty little git!’ jeered Frenchy, ‘they’re all the same — doesn’t matter what they are. Men are all one filthy pack together!’

The super wasn’t feeling his pluperfect best just then. He’d been butting his head against brick walls all day. He’d disregarded Gently, made an enemy of Christopher Wylie, been torn off a helluva strip by the chief constable, failed to find the merest trace of a suitcase full of hundred-dollar bills and, to cap it all, he was beginning to realize that he’d been wrong anyway. It was this last that really hurt. The rest he was prepared to take in his superintendental stride

…

‘So she won’t talk!’ he almost snarled, as Gently and he sluiced down canteen tea in the latter’s office.

Gently shrugged woodenly. ‘You can’t really blame her. She’s convinced she’d be signing her own death-warrant.’

‘Well, if she doesn’t sign it I shall — she can bank on that for a start!’ yapped the super.

‘Oh, I don’t know…’ Gently put down his cup and mopped his forehead with a handkerchief that had been seeing life. ‘I’ve got a couple of men looking for the taxi that picked them up on Tuesday night… if we can find that, we shall be getting somewhere.’

‘Now look here, Gently!’ The super almost choked. ‘This woman is the crux of the case. If your guessing is correct she knows everything — where he went to, who picked him up, who was after the money — she may even have been a witness to the murder, for all we know! And all you can tell me is she won’t talk. That’s all! They’ve put a scare into her, so she won’t talk!’