Alan Hunter: Gently by the Shore

Dutt clicked his heels and did as he was ordered.

Gently wandered away with a frown on his brow. He was biting Dutt’s head off now! The double strain of a waiting game with Louey and a checking game with Gish was beginning to fray at his nerves. Gish wanted action. He hadn’t any faith in Gently. One had a shrewd suspicion that twenty-four hours would be the limit of his patience.

A slinking figure appeared to materialize out of the worn turf in front of him and Nits’ pop-eyes strained up to his own. Gently summoned up a smile for the halfwit.

‘Hullo! You come to see the races too, my lad?’

Nits gibbered a moment with his invisible mouth.

‘You better get over by the rails — there’s a race starting in five minutes.’

‘You let her come back!’ piped the halfwit, ‘you let her come back!’

Gently nodded gravely. Nits chittered and gabbled under his staring eyes. Then he turned to cast a glare of hatred at the towering form of Louey.

‘Him — he’s a very bad man — very bad!’

Gently nodded again.

‘He came to see her — frighten her!’ Nits hesitated and crept a little closer. ‘You take him away! Yes! You take him away!’ He laid a hand on Gently’s sleeve.

‘I’m thinking about it, Nits…’

‘He’s the bad one — yes! You take him away!’

Gently shrugged and slowly released his sleeve. The halfwit gabbled away furiously, darting angry glances, now at Louey, now at Gently. Gently produced a coin and offered it to him.

‘Here you are… but don’t go making bets with Louey.’

‘Don’t want it — don’t want it!’

‘Buy yourself an ice-cream or a pint of shrimps.’

The halfwit shook his head violently and knocked the coin out of Gently’s hand. ‘You take him away!’ he reiterated, ‘yes — you take him away!’ Then he jumped backwards with a sort of frisking motion and dived away through the crowd.

There was a stir now and a general surge towards the rails. The horses had come up to the tapes and were under starter’s orders. Out of a grey sky came a mild splash of sun to enliven for a moment the group of animals and riders, the brilliantly coloured shirts, the white breeches, the chestnut, grey and dun of satin flanks. Tense and nervy were the mounts, strung up and preoccupied the jockeys. A line was formed, a jumpy horse coaxed quiet and almost before one realized what was happening the tapes flew up and the field was away. Instantly a shout began to rise from the crowd, commencing near the gate and spreading right down the track. Fifty thousand pairs of eyes were each magnetized by that thundering, flying, galloping body of horse.

Out in front went the favourite, Swifty’s Ghost, and following it close came Cambyses and Rockaby, the latter at a hundred to one and scarcely looked at by the punters. Three furlongs, and the field was getting lost. Six furlongs, and you could almost draw your money. Seven furlongs, and Cambyses, a big grey, was making a terrific bid and going neck-and-neck. Eight furlongs, and out of the blue came Rockaby, fairly scorching the turf, a little dun horse with a halting gallop, but moving now like a startled witch. Could Swifty’s Ghost hold them? Could Cambyses maintain his challenge? — The roar of the crowd ebbed up to a fever pitch. But Rockaby drew level with a furlong to go, Rockaby slipped through with a hundred-and-fifty yards in hand, Rockaby passed the post two lengths ahead of the grey and the favourite was beaten to a place by another outsider called Watchmego. The roar died away, the roar became a buzz. They’d done it again… another race to line the bookies’ pockets!

Gently hunched his shoulders and turned away from the rails, and at that precise moment things began to happen. He had only time for a confused impression; it took place like a dream. There was a crash, some angry shouting, a sound like a quantity of coins being shot on the ground, and then somebody or something struck him heavily in the back and he was lying on his face on the bruised turf.

He wasn’t hurt. He got up in a hurry. All around him a crowd was milling about a centre of attraction which was otherwheres than himself. Inside this centre a dialogue for four voices was developing with great verve.

‘Of course it was on purpose — I bloody saw you do it!’

‘I was shoved, I tell you.’

‘You can tell it to the coppers!’

‘I tell you I was shoved — some bastard tripped me up!’

‘Do you think we’re blind?’

‘Well, you don’t look too bloody bright.’

‘Now look here, you dirty so-and-so!’

Gently shouldered his way through. The scene enacting was self-explanatory. A bookie’s stand lay on its side amid a debris of betting-slips, notes and coins, about it four angry men. Three of the men were obviously allies. The fourth, a burly gentleman in a mackinaw, appeared to be the defendant in the case.

‘Police!’ snapped Gently, ‘you can stop that shouting. One of you tell me what’s been going on here.’

The gent in the mackinaw broke off a challenge to the opposition and stared at Gently with aggressive insolence.

‘Police, he says! A snouting copper! You keep your big nose out of this, mate, or it’ll finish up a different shape from what it started this morning!’

‘You hear him?’ struck in one of the aggrieved, on his knees and trying to collect the scattered money, ‘that’s your man, officer — you don’t have to ask! Come up and threw down my bleeding stand, he did, never as much as a word offered to him!’

‘Mad!’ snapped a little man with a big coloured tie, ‘mad, I tell you — that’s what he is!’

The gent in the mackinaw seemed about to resent this allegation when he was interrupted a second time by a new arrival. This time it was Dutt and he was propelling in front of him no less a person than Artie of the ferret face.

‘I got him, sir!’ panted Dutt, ‘he’s the one, sir — saw him wiv me own mince pies! Standing right close-up to you he was, sir, all during the race, and as soon as this lot here started he catched you a right fourpenny one and hooked it… all he didn’t know was that I was watching him!’

Gently stared at the scowling bartender as though he had seen a ghost. ‘Get back!’ he thundered at Dutt. ‘Good God, man — don’t you understand? The whole thing’s a trick to get us out of the way — get back at the double, or there may be another body on the beach tomorrow!’

The odds were still being called under the orange banner, but it wasn’t Louey calling them. The slips were still being scribbled and handed out, but the man with the book wasn’t Peachey. It was the sporty individual who had taken over, with one of the touts for his clerk. He welcomed Gently and Dutt derisively as they rushed up to the stand.

‘Hullo-ullo! Coupla gents here getting in training for the selling-plate!’

‘All right!’ rasped Gently, ‘where are they — where have they gone?’

‘Gone, guv’nor? And who is it that’s s’posed to have gone somewhere?’

Gently wasted no time. A brown hand flicked out and fifteen stone of sporty individual was picked off the stand like a pear. ‘Now…! This may be fun for you, but it’s murder to me, and if you don’t tell me what I want to know I’ll see you in dock for complicity. Where’s he taken Peachey?’

‘I don’t know, guv, honest-!’ He broke off with a yell as Gently applied pressure to his arm.

‘Where’s he taken Peachey?’

‘I don’t know — we don’t none of us know!’

‘That’s right, guv!’ broke in the tout with the book, ‘he just said him and Peachey had got some business to see to what he didn’t want you to know about.’

‘It’s the truth!’ shrieked the sporty individual, ‘oh, my bloody arm!’