Alan Hunter: Gently With the Painters

He thought about it now as he walked by the morning Thames, but somehow a little of the glamour seemed to have departed from the prospect. He knew he was being childish to want the Johnson case made over to him: he couldn’t help it, the habit was stuck there — once, he would have got it automatically.

On the stairs he was passed by Pagram, who carried a box-file under his arm.

‘The AC’s looking for you — he wants the dope on Jimmy Fisher.’

‘Anything come in from the country?’

‘If it has I haven’t heard about it. Hoskins was briefed for that job at Plymouth, but I dare say you heard that yesterday.’

‘It shouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘Hoskins has got a flair for hold-ups.’

Gently went grumpily on his way. Hoskins was a young-and-coming Inspector. He had made a name for himself in a case where a sub-postmistress had been coshed to death, since when he was number one for any business of that description. And there were several young- and-coming Inspectors in Homicide, all eager to grab any plums that were going…

He banged into his office and pulled down the file on Fisher. This was the sort of job which they were finding for him these days! A long, complicated affair that revolved round the warehouse rackets, becoming Homicide’s pigeon only when a hot suspect was shot. It had been going on now for a couple of months, raids, tip-offs and a few unimportant arrests. Pagram and he were both working on it, and, it seemed, half the Metropolitan Police besides. Routine wasn’t his strong point, and the AC ought to know it… How did they expect him to get his teeth into a diffuse business of this kind?

‘Ah, Gently. Is that the Fisher file?’

The Assistant Commissioner was looking pleased with himself. He was a spare, genial man with horn-rimmed spectacles, and had always reminded Gently of an amiable schoolmaster.

‘You know, I think we’re going to crack that case at last. Limehouse had a tip-off last night, and it’s really put our hands on something. You remember Herbie the Fence? The little man with all the answers? Well, just look out that report, will you, and the interrogations of Wilbright and Sharp…’

In effect it had been a tip-off that Herbie had got the goods on him, and Limehouse Division had raided his premises. In a cellar they had discovered some of the furs which had been stolen, furs originating from the warehouse where Jimmy Fisher had been shot. Herbie was sitting in the cooler waiting for Gently’s expert attention: he hadn’t been charged with anything and so was free meat for the chopper.

‘Take your time over him, Gently, take all the time in the world. If we can crack Herbie we’ll have the whole consignment sewn up…’

So there it was, his day mapped out for him, another day with Jimmy Fisher. Not a word about jobs in the country, not a whisper of Inspector Hansom…

Gently returned to his office dourly and made arrangements for the interrogation. Herbie and he had had previous engagements, and even equipped with a lever, he knew what he was in for. At lunchtime he handed the business over to Pagram, with Herbie, still uncracked, going as strongly as ever. From the canteen he sent out for the lunchtime papers. They contained mostly rehashes, but there was one fresh development.

PUBLIC SEE THE JOHNSON PICTURE

Angry Scene At Exhibition

With his fork in his hand, Gently skimmed the column of letterpress. Only one paper had got it, and judging from the misprints it had been a rush job:

Ruction and tumult disturbed this old Cathedral City when the Palette Group’s Summer Exhibition was opened this morning. Cause of the contention was Shirley Johnson’s ‘Dark Destroyer’, the last picture she was known to have painted before she was murdered.

The exhibition was opened by the Lord Mayor, Mr Ted Brownlow. He recalled that the district had produced the only provincial school of painting.

Almost before he had finished speaking a noisy argument broke out, apparently between one or two members of the Group.

Others joined in and the argument became a row. Fists were waved and there was threatening behaviour. Police intervened to prevent a probable fight, and the most heated of the participants were escorted from the exhibition.

One of them told our reporter that the trouble arose from the Johnson exhibit. He refused to explain how it had caused the dispute.

A public apology for the members’ behaviour was made by Chairman St John Mallows, RA, who observed that it was not unknown for artists to hold strong opinions.

Not very hopefully Gently turned to the stop-press, but his luck was in and there was an intriguing postscript:

J OHNSON PICTURE — LATEST. Police have taken possession of picture [See Page One for full report].

He read it through again to make sure that he had missed nothing, but this was all that the paper could tell him. Again he was on the point of putting through a call to Hansom, but shamed himself from doing it when it came to the push. Hansom, he knew, wouldn’t be too pleased to hear from him; he had twice in the past stolen the local man’s thunder.

Back in the office Pagram took him to one side:

‘I think our friend Herbie is contemplating a deal. He’s harping now on how dangerous it would be for him to talk — he loves the police like brothers, of course, but he’s got to think of his widowed mother. His get-out is still that another man rents his cellar.’

‘I wish they’d given him a bath before they brought him up here.’

It was two hours later when Herbie laid out his cards. The procedure was delicate, though understood by both sides. In return for certain facts Herbie wanted his story accepted, but Gently wanted the facts before he agreed to consider the story. At last Herbie consented to give an outline of those facts, and Gently, with Pagram, had a huddle with the Assistant Commissioner. It then remained to get Herbie’s statement and to set the wheels in motion. Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, they would know if the coup had been successful.

In his office, now cleared of Herbies, Gently drank coffee and filled his pipe. He would have given a lot to have known what they had finally done with Jimmy Fisher. He had been put on the case almost as soon as he had been promoted: the whole of his superintending seemed to have been linked with that epic inquiry. And was this how it was going to go on now that he had reached administrative rank? Until the day of his retirement, was he to be crucified on routine?

Puffing rings across his varnished desk, he began to realize what had happened to him. It was no longer the simple augmentation of rank which he had always seemed able to take in his stride. It was different, this; it was the crossing of a Rubicon. It had slammed a door on nearly three decades of his career. Before, in some sort, he had been a rebel, at least a stubborn and unmovable individualist. He had kicked against the Establishment that hampered and disagreed with him; he had seen himself as standing a little apart from it.

And that had continued from stage to stage, with never any need for a revision of attitude. From Detective Constable to Chief Inspector he had remained the rebel within the gates. But now — almost treacherously — the case had altered; the rebel had been embodied as part of the Establishment. Without him for the moment having perceived what was done, he’d been jockeyed up to the line, his rebel teeth had been extracted. Unbelievably, he was one of them: he was on the other side of the fence.

Unbelievably! He stirred his feet in an access of irritation. As yet he couldn’t accept this sleight-of-hand which had been worked on him. He was in a state of flux, neither one thing nor the other, and just at the moment he couldn’t believe that he would ever settle again.