Alan Hunter - Gently by the Shore

‘We had some trouble with them a few years back. The Borough Engineer scheduled it as being unsafe because of cliff erosion and they made a case of it. He won the case, but there hasn’t been a cliff-fall in that area from that day to this. Just mention “Windy Tops” if you want to get him in the raw.’

‘It’s been empty all the time?’

‘Naturally. Nobody’s allowed to live in it. The B.E. is just living for the day when it goes over the top.’

The narrow road skirted the northern end of the racecourse, crossed the railway line and turned abruptly left. Here the ground rose suddenly to form the first of a line of crumbling gravel cliffs and perched at the top, looking in no-wise conscious of its danger, was a small but well-architected modern house.

‘Looks safe enough,’ Gently murmured.

‘Probably is,’ grunted Copping, ‘but the B.E. got rapped on the knuckles about a row of cottages that went over… he hasn’t taken any chances since then.’

The road came to an end at a spacious turning place and the gate to ‘Windy Tops’. Bryce was sent round to the back while Gently and Copping advanced on the front. The garden had run to seed and there was grass growing out of the crazy paving, but the house itself seemed in a fair state of preservation and Gently found himself sympathizing with the Thorners in their reluctance to abandon the place. He stooped to inspect the crazy paving.

‘Someone’s been up here recently all right.’

The grass had been bruised by trampling feet. But Copping was already trying the front-door handle and apparently expressing surprise at finding it locked against him. He ran an eagle eye over the front of the house and thus discovered a partly-open window which Gently had noticed as they got out of the car.

‘Easy!’ called Gently, ‘there may be some interesting prints about.’

Copping whisked up the sash and dumped himself over the low sill. Gently followed him at a more dignified pace. It was a large room and had probably been the lounge, but it was quite empty except for some ashes of burnt paper in the grate. Copping swooped on them, sniffing like a well-trained hound.

‘They’re fresh!’ he exclaimed, ‘they haven’t been there longer than a few days.’

Gently nodded and applied a speculative finger to the light switch. Pale radiance shone from an unshaded bulb.

‘Every modern con… and I think I can hear a cistern hissing somewhere.’

‘He’s been living here!’

‘Undoubtedly…’

‘He might be here now!’

‘There’s just the remotest chance…’

The efficient Copping needed no more. He invaded the house like an unleashed jumping-cracker, pouncing from room to room, poking in cupboards, surprising the backs of doors and generally making life hectic for anything in the shape of a secret agent.

‘He slept up here!’ came his muffled cry from above-stairs, ‘There’s a mattress and some blankets… cigarette-ash… empty matchbox!’

Gently shook his head sadly and went to unlock the kitchen door. The cupboard was bare, he knew it intuitively. There had been that chance, that one chance, that Streifer had decided to lie low until the heat was off, but he had sensed it evaporating the moment he had set foot in this so-silent house. He called to Bryce.

‘Any signs of life out there?’

‘No sir, nobody — not even on the beach.’

‘What about the garage?’

‘The door’s on the latch — there’s nothing in there except a pair of old tyres.’

‘Well, come in and give Inspector Copping a hand upstairs. You’ll have to get into the loft somehow.’

Bryce came in without much enthusiasm and went up to join his superior. Gently remained below in the kitchen. There were plenty of signs there of recent occupation. On the draining-board stood a plastic cup and plate with a knife and fork, all dirty. A hot-plate was plugged in at the electric switch-point, upon it a tin kettle and nearby an aluminium teapot. In a wall-safe were a tin of condensed milk, tea, sugar, a couple of rolls… stale of course, but no staler than Saturday’s rolls usually are on Monday afternoon… butter and an unopened tin of anchovies. By the wall leaned two cheap folding-stools. Under the sink stood a rusty distemper-tin containing refuse. And there were several newspapers, including Sunday’s, and a pile of brown paper. Gently unfolded a Sunday Express. It had had a cutting taken from it. He unfolded three others. Each had cuttings taken from them.

‘He’s hopped it all right.’ Copping came in, dusty and aggrieved. ‘Bryce is up in the loft now, but he’d have hardly got up there without someone to give him a bunk… there’s nothing to stand on. I’m afraid we’re just too late… they always seem one jump ahead, these bastards!’

Gently pointed to the pile of brown paper. ‘What do you make of that?’

Copping stared intelligently. ‘Looks as though he bought a geyser or something.’

‘Was that mattress upstairs a new one?’

‘Brand new — and so were the blankets.’

‘And what does that suggest to us… knowing what we do?’

There was a pause and then the divine spark fell. ‘By glory — it’s the same paper that was used to wrap the clothes!’ Gently nodded approvingly. ‘Used to wrap mattresses — and there’s the new mattress and you can see it’s the same paper — it’s got that crimp in it, just the same!’

‘And it’s had a piece torn off it… just about the same size.’

Copping’s heavy features flushed with excitement. ‘We’ve got him, then — we can tie him in! We’ve got proof now, good, hard, producible proof — the sort of thing juries love — material proof!’

‘Just one thing, though,’ murmured Gently.

‘Proof!’ boomed Copping, ‘what more do we need?’

‘We need something we haven’t got right at this moment and that’s the initial proof that Streifer was ever in the house at all.’

Copping faltered in his raptures. ‘But good lord… it must have been him!’

Gently shook an indulgent head. ‘Remember that jury and keep your hands to yourself. Don’t touch the paper, the taps, the dishes or anything else that’s lying about. I suppose it’s too late to worry about the doorknobs. As soon as Bryce is through having fun in the loft he’d better light out for your print man. It isn’t likely that Streifer was too careful here… he expected to be far otherwheres when and if we ever identified the place.’

‘And how right he was — how dead bloody right!’

Gently hunched his shoulders soberly. ‘He’s a man like you and me. People don’t become magicians when they join a secret police.’

‘It’s enough to make you think so, the way this bloke keeps himself lost.’

A dishevelled and wash-prone Bryce was dispatched in the car and Gently, having completed his tour of the house, went out to inspect the grounds. They had nothing relevant to disclose. The tumpy wilderness which had been a lawn, the nettled and willow-herbed flower-beds, these looked as though a full five years had elapsed since a foot had trodden there, or a hand had been raised in their defence. Gently went round to the Achilles heel, the seaward side. Not more than five yards of stony land separated the house from its inevitable tumble to the beach.

‘Can’t last another winter,’ observed Copping knowingly, ‘should have gone in the January gales. It was sheer cussedness that made it hang on… there were falls everywhere except here.’

Gently approached timidly to the treacherous edge. Seventy feet below the wet sand looked dark and solid. North, south, the sullen lines of slanted combers fretted wearily, told their perpetual lie of harmlessness and non-aggression. Down by the racecourse a lonely path wore its way to the beach.