Alan Hunter: Gently by the Shore

It was just what was in Copping’s report. The efficient Inspector had covered the ground admirably. Nits had told what he knew, and he didn’t know anything: it just so happened that the corpse had been washed up on ‘his’ part of the beach.

‘You were told not to talk to me,’ said Gently wearily, ‘who was it told you that?’

Nits grinned and chattered but made no intelligible reply.

‘And why did you talk to me, after being warned not to?’

The halfwit frowned ferociously and turned his trouser-pockets inside-out. ‘The other man — he took it away!’

‘Took what away?’

‘My knife — he took it!’

Gently smiled and felt for the little broken-bladed penknife. Nits gabbled with joy and snatched for it with the speed of a striking snake. But Gently had already experienced a sample of the halfwit’s snatching and he held the knife carefully out of range.

‘Who was it told you not to talk to me?’ he demanded.

Nits chattered and tried another sudden grab.

‘You get it when you tell me, not until.’

Nits made all sorts of fierce faces, but Gently merely made as if to return the knife to his own pocket.

‘Jeff!’ piped the halfwit suddenly, ‘it was Jeff and Bonce — they told me.’

‘And who are they?’

‘I don’t know — I don’t know!’

‘You know their names — you must know something else about them.’

‘I just see them, that’s all.’

‘See them where?’ persisted Gently, ‘see them here — on the beach?’

But the halfwit relapsed into a mewing and gabbling, and refused to make himself any further intelligible. Gently sighed and tossed him the knife. It was plucked out of the air as though by the lash of a whip and Nits capered off, clutching it to his bosom, his two trouser-pockets still turned inside-out.

‘Whoa — wait a minute!’ called Gently, rising to his feet.

He produced a florin and held it out between thumb and finger. The halfwit paused in his flight, hesitated, and then came sidling back, spaniel-like, his chin tucked in until there seemed nothing of his face below the two bulging eyes. He didn’t snatch at it, as Gently expected: he reached up and took the coin quietly from Gently’s hand. Then he crept closer still, crouching, cringing almost, and stared up with his faceless eyes.

‘The man who wouldn’t wake up!’ he piped, but in a sort of whisper.

Gently nodded silently.

‘Different… different!’

‘Different from… what?’ murmured Gently.

‘From when he was awake.’

‘From when he was awake!’

Nits went into one of his fits of nodding.

‘Hold it!’ exclaimed Gently, feeling his universe beginning to rock, ‘did you know him, Nits — did you know him when he was awake?’

‘I knew him — I knew him!’

‘But when did you know him — and where?’

Nits screwed his face up into an expression of rage and shook his head. Then he pointed to the tip of his almost non-existent chin.

‘Hair!’ he chattered, ‘hair — when he was awake!’

The next moment he was capering over the beach again, leaving Gently with his eyebrows hoisted in almost comical surprise.

Twilight had become dusk and the lights which had sparkled like fugitive jewellery were now glowing and full. The blazing Front had a strange glamour about it, as though it belonged to a different world, and the holidaymakers too seemed to partake of the strangeness. Perhaps it was simply the multiplicity of lights destroying the shadows, perhaps only the sense of anonymity and freedom… they felt changed and in some way abnormal.

Gently picked his way through the promenade crowds and paused at the edge of the carriage-way. He felt changed also, though his changedness was due to something quite different. He’d got a lead, that was it. He’d found something to hang on to in this slippery orphan of a case.

Almost jauntily he crossed the carriage-way and directed his steps to a phone-box on the other side.

‘Chief Inspector Gently… is Inspector Copping in, by any chance?’

The switchboard girl thought he might be if Gently would kindly hang on. Gently grunted and wedged himself into a supportable position in the corner of the box. Outside he could see the front of the amusement arcade from which blared much of the canned music which disturbed that part of the promenade — a striking blaze of light in the shape of three feathers, with a lurid red arrow snapping backwards and forwards as though working up to burst in through the door. And there was some jutting neonry which said LICENSED BAR… a ritzy sort of touch for an amusement arcade, thought Gently.

‘Inspector Copping,’ said the switchboard girl.

Gently jammed the door yet tighter-shut on the racket without. ‘Gently here… I want something done,’ he said. ‘Look, Copping, can you get on to the pathologist who did the post-mortem? I want him to have another check.’

‘Can’t see what that’s going to buy,’ came Copping’s voice plaintively, ‘he didn’t die of asthma.’

‘I’m not interested in the way he died. I want a thorough examination of the skin of the face for spirit gum.’

‘Spirit gum!’

‘Or any other mucilage that may be present,’ added Gently generously.

There was a pause at the other end, and then Copping came back: ‘But what’s he supposed to be now — a member of a touring company?’

Gently smiled at the leaping red arrow. ‘Your guess is as good as mine…’

‘And where did you dig up the idea, anyway?’

‘Oh… it was a present for a good Central Office man. And by the way, Copping, you wouldn’t know anything of two characters called Jeff and Bonce, would you?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Are they hooked up to this business?’

‘Could be,’ admitted Gently, ‘it’s an even chance…’

There was a noise like a snort at the other end. ‘But how do you do it? I’ve been three days on this case!’

‘Just luck, you know… you need it in homicide.’

‘It looks like all the breaks were being saved up till you came. Are there any other small ways I can help?’

Gently brooded a moment. ‘There’s an amusement arcade down here… it’s called “The Feathers” and it sports a licensed bar. What do you know about that?’

‘Is that in the case too, or are you just being curious?’

‘I’ve been tailing Nits… when he’s finished collecting he makes for “The Feathers” like a homing pigeon.’

‘Well, it’s got a clean record. The proprietor is a man called Hooker — Louey Hooker. He lives in a flat at the back of the building, and he runs a bookie’s business too. The office is under the flat and fronts on Botolph Street, which runs parallel with the Front.’

‘A bookie’s business.’

‘That’s right. They’re still legal in this year of grace.’

Gently nodded at the undiscourageable arrow. ‘Well… send me Dutt along, will you? And drag that pathologist away from whatever he’s doing and put him to work.’

‘You mean tonight?’ inquired Copping in surprise.

‘We’re working, aren’t we?’ retorted Gently heartlessly.

He hung up and levered open the door of the phone-box. The year’s hit-tune, mildly interruptive till then, leaped to meet him with a vengeful roar. Gently frowned and felt in his pocket for a peppermint cream. Mr Edison, he felt, hadn’t been an unmixed blessing to mankind.

The interior of the amusement arcade was as aggressive as the exterior had promised. It was lit with a farrago of fluorescent tubes and popping bulbs, and the walls were panelled in a gooey pink plastic relieved by insets of ‘teinte de boiled cabbage’. And there was a vigorous use of chromium plate in all departments. The decor man had obviously had a flair for it. Left and right of a central aisle the machines were deployed — all the latest attractions, space-flights, atom-bombing and the rest, with a few tried favourites still making a stand against the march of science. There was the crane that picked up a prize and dropped it down a shoot, Gently noticed… at least, it picked up a prize when Nits was operating it. The halfwit had apparently got the low-down.