Alan Hunter - Gently Does It

Gently’s lips formed a soundless whistle. ‘You’re sure about that?’

‘Heard it with my own ears!’

‘And she agreed?’

‘That she did, first time of asking.’

Gently slowly shook his head. ‘Fisher seems to have got a very long way in a very short time… a very long way.’

‘That’s how it struck me, sir. And I couldn’t help bringing to mind how he’s been talking this last day or two about how things was going to change and all that. Well, they seem to have changed now all right, and that’s a fact.’

Gently said: ‘There’s only one thing that has any weight with Susan…’

‘But that isn’t all, sir. Fisher, he come back here a few minutes later, seems like he was looking for somebody. “What’ve you lost?” I say, a bit sharp-like. “Never you mind,” he say, “but if that b-Inspector Gently comes snooping around here, just you tell him I want to see him, see?” And out he stalks again. So what do you make of that?’

Gently shook his head again. ‘He didn’t say where I could find him, I suppose?’

‘Well, no, he didn’t…’

‘Never mind, Charlie — you’re doing well. Keep your eye on him.’

Gently went out of Charlie’s with slightly more zest than when he had entered it. Things were undoubtedly whipping up a bit, he told himself. Something was beginning to move… He glanced up and down Queen Street for a sight of the familiar figure in the American-style jacket, then ambled slowly away in the direction of the city. At Mariner’s Lane he came to a standstill. Had Fisher gone back to his flat? But it was a long climb up there… and Gently had overeaten at lunch. Moreover, he could still see the fragment of masonry lying at the side of the pavement where he had placed it… and Fisher might be quieter when he dropped the next piece. So Gently continued to promenade along Queen Street.

He passed the Huysmann house, aloof and withdrawn, its great street-ward gables almost windowless, wended round thick-legged women pushing decrepit prams, stopped to light his pipe in a yard-way. He had just completed this operation when the American-style jacket loomed up beside him. He turned his head in mild surprise. ‘You do it better than a policeman…’ he said.

Fisher’s dark eyes glared at him. ‘You been looking for me?’ he asked smoulderingly.

‘I thought you were looking for me,’ said Gently.

‘I got something to say to you.’

‘So I gathered, one way or another.’

Fisher indicated the yard from which he had emerged. ‘Come up here, Mr Inspector Gently… I’m not telling it to half Norchester.’

Gently moved into the derelict yard, glancing round quickly at the disintegrating walls, at rotted flooring from which the nettles sprang, at falling plaster chalked on by children. Fisher sneered: ‘You don’t need to be afraid… nobody’s going to jump on you.’ Gently shrugged and puffed complacently at his pipe.

‘You been trying to get Miss Gretchen to say I was up at the house on Saturday,’ began Fisher challengingly.

Gently removed his pipe. ‘Well — weren’t you?’ he asked.

‘That’s what you’d like to know, isn’t it? That’s what you’ve been getting at all the while?’

‘It’s one of the things,’ admitted Gently.

‘And now you’re going to hear about it — straight — just like it happened!’

Gently blew an opulent smoke-ring. ‘You wouldn’t like to step into headquarters for this little scene, I suppose?’ he enquired.

‘What — and have it all taken down and twisted about by you blokes? What a hope!’ Fisher laughed raucously. ‘You just listen to it here, if you want to listen.’

Gently nodded gravely. ‘There’s just one thing I’d like to know first… why are you telling me this now, when you took such pains to hide it before?’

Fisher glowered at him. ‘It’s on account of you getting at Miss Gretchen.’

‘I didn’t think you worried a great deal about Miss Gretchen these days.’

‘I aren’t worried about her — but if she’s going to tell her tale then I’m going to tell mine… see?’

‘Sort of getting it in first…’ murmured Gently.

‘Never you mind.’ Fisher came a little closer to Gently, but getting into the line of fire of the smoke-rings he moved back again. ‘Listen,’ he said, ‘just suppose I was there that afternoon — suppose he was there — suppose we were in her room together all the time that was going on — that don’t make us murderers, does it?’

‘It makes you liars,’ said Gently affably.

‘But it don’t make us murderers… that’s the thing. Naturally, you weren’t going to expect us to be mixed up in it if we could help it.’

‘Not even with a man’s life at stake?’

‘Well, how could us being mixed up in it help him?’

‘You’re telling me,’ said Gently. ‘Just keep right on.’

‘All right, then, so I was there. I got in through the kitchen while there wasn’t no one there and went up into her room.’

‘What time was that?’

‘How the hell should I know what time it was? It was after lunch, that’s all I know about it. She come up a little bit later on.’

‘With a cup of coffee?’

‘All right — she’d got a cup of coffee! And I suppose you’d like to know what we was doing up there, as well?’

‘No,’ said Gently, ‘no, it might amuse the jury, but it isn’t strictly relevant… pass on to the next bit.’

‘Well, then, during the afternoon there was somebody come to the door, and I go out on the landing to see who it is… like you know, it was Mr Peter. Miss Gretchen, she come out too. We stood there listening to what was going on… you could hear some of it up on the landing. Then the old man shrieked, and Miss Gretchen she go rushing down to see what had happened.’

‘Why didn’t you go?’ asked Gently.

‘I wasn’t bloody well supposed to be there, was I? We didn’t know the old boy was done for… anyway, back she come and tell me what it is, so I say: “You and me is outside this — we’ll go out and make it look like we haven’t been here this afternoon,” and that’s what we did, Mr Inspector Gently, so now you know.’

Gently puffed three rings, one inside the other. ‘You went out through the study,’ he said, ‘so you saw the body. Where was it lying?’

‘It was by the safe. You don’t think we moved it, do you?’

‘How was it lying?’

‘It was face down with the legs shoved up a bit.’

‘Was the knife there?’

‘… I can’t remember every squitting little thing!’

‘But this isn’t a squitting little thing, and it’s not one you’re likely to have missed. Was it there?’

‘I tell you I can’t remember…!’

‘Was it because you didn’t look very closely… because it wasn’t, in fact, the first time you had seen the body?’

Fisher’s eyes blazed at him. ‘All bloody right! It was there — stuck in up to the hilt. Now are you satisfied?’

Gently smiled up towards Burgh Street. ‘I’m beginning to be…’ he said.

‘You’re still trying to get me to say I see it done — that’s what you’re at!’

Gently shrugged and puffed smoke.

‘You may try — but it isn’t going to get you anywhere, see? I’ve told you what happened that afternoon, just like it was, and I’ll swear to it in court if need be. But that’s all you’re getting out of me!’

‘Even if Peter Huysmann hangs?’

‘If he got into trouble that’s his look-out — not mine.’

Gently sighed, and turned to regard a blue-chalk mannequin which leered surrealistically from an obstinate patch of plaster. He poked it tentatively. It came crashing down amongst the nettles. ‘That girl Susan… she certainly gets around,’ he said.