Alan Hunter: Gently With the Painters

‘And after those six came Mallows and Mrs Johnson?’

‘That’s right. They stood in the doorway chatting for a moment. The cellar at the George III has got a separate door from the pub — it’s on a little side-lane, at the end of the marketplace.’

‘Then he saw her depart in the direction of the bus stop?’

‘Yeah… that seems to indicate that his car was parked elsewhere.’

‘Which makes him the last person to have seen Mrs Johnson alive.’

‘Excepting everybody else she might have passed on her way.’

Along with the reports, that had to be enough for the present. The solemn boom of the City Hall clock had already announced the hour of lunch. Superintendent Walker, who had a great respect for his meals, had for the last five minutes been pointedly examining his wristwatch.

‘Just one other thing — the knife. Did you find out where it was purchased?’

‘They stock them at Carter Brown’s, a draughtsman’s supplier in Prince’s Street.’

‘But they don’t remember selling this one?’

‘Not on your life. That would make it too easy. They haven’t sold one for several years — there’s a plastic job which has swept the market.’

For lunch, Gently took Stephens to a cafe which he knew about in Glove Street. The young Inspector had little to say to him as he accompanied him thither. Until the sweet came he was silent, a picture of solemn preoccupation, then, dipping his spoon in a trifle, he murmured:

‘It’s got to be blackmail or nothing!’

Through a mouthful Gently murmured back:

‘Unless the estate agent’s got a girlfriend…’

It may have been that chance remark which led him first to visit Johnson’s office, thus ignoring some obvious preliminaries which, quite frankly, ought to have been seen to. These included a visit to the dustbins, a step which Stephens regarded as de rigueur: Gently, with a better appreciation of Hansom, expected small profit from this piece of routine.

He had, moreover, used the car park in the past, and so was familiar with the general layout. More important for him, in the initial stages, were the things with which his mind’s eye was unable to help him.

‘I think I’ll take a look at the husband! Perhaps you’d like to go back to HQ?’

‘Whatever you say, sir. But shouldn’t we, to start with-?’

‘I’ll leave that to you, then we won’t be duplicating our efforts.’

Stephens, as he had intended, was mildly complimented by this, but a little to Gently’s surprise the young man preferred to tag along with his senior.

‘The husband, after all, is the number one suspect…’

It went without saying that Stephens was a graduate from Ryton. He was a product of the new policy for catching promising material young. He had been groomed into inspectorhood at an age when Gently had been proud to be a sergeant, and as with others of the new school, textbook lore came readily to his tongue.

Johnson’s office was in Upper Queen Street, in the business area of the city. It was housed in a Victorian building which owned a dignified, sugar-ice front. The street was a traffic artery to the north and was busy with steady streams of vehicles; it adjoined the cathedral precincts at one end and was closed by the GPO at the other. The office had a prosperous appearance and it rejoiced in some brilliant paintwork. To air-force blue had been added crimson linings, with a touch of gilt on the scroll above the portal. On the plate-glass of the window appeared Johnson’s name in discreet small capitals; the window was backed by a pegboard, to which details of the properties were attached.

‘He seems to get the county people…’ Gently brooded over the photographs and particulars. Very few of the advertised properties were at addresses in the city. A score or more of the neatly typed cards referred to substantial country houses, and there were mentions of shooting rights and ‘half a mile of the best coarse fishing’. It was the sort of estate-agent’s window before which Gently had often stood and dreamed.

The clerk’s office behind the window developed this note of established prosperity. It was furnished in contemporary style and contained electric typewriters and the most modern equipment. Two of the typists were middle-aged women and they paid no attention to the intruders; but the third, a rather sharp-faced brunette, rose to greet them with a flashing smile.

‘Is Mr Johnson busy at present?’

‘Did you want to see him especially, sir?’

The smile went into a decline when Gently introduced himself, and the two typers, looking up quickly, showed that they could listen as they worked.

A handsomely carpeted flight of stairs took them up to the first floor. The receptionist flounced ahead of them, her spiked heels trotting briskly. By the time they had reached the landing Johnson had emerged from his room to meet them; another girl, carrying a shorthand notebook, slipped out of the room and went down the stairs.

‘I saw they’d called you in, old sport!’ Johnson was insisting on shaking their hands. ‘They plastered it over the local, you know, and me, with a gendarme’s hand on my shoulder…’

He was so much to type that it was difficult to believe in him — you felt he must be clowning it, laying it on a bit. But there wasn’t much that was funny in the tone of his voice, and after the first defiant stare, his eyes switched about him nervously.

‘Come into the ops room…’

He turned and preceded them into his office, which in its smartness was of a piece with the rest of the premises. With an attempt at an air he swaggered across to his desk, and before sprawling into the revolving chair, spun it once with his fingertip.

‘I always do that — it’s a gimmick I’ve got.’

‘Something you picked up in the Service?’

Johnson nodded his head briskly. ‘I used to do it in the mess before we took off on a prang… then one day I forgot, and copped a packet over Cologne. Bloody Lanc went up in smoke. Mine was the only chute that opened. Funny thing, wasn’t it, cocker? All the way down I was laughing my head off…’

His grey eyes fastened for an instant on Gently’s, as though watchfully seeking the Yard man’s reaction. It produced an unpleasant impression, a feeling of distrust. What had Hansom said about Johnson? ‘I could smell him for our man…’

Hansom had also said that Johnson resembled Heath, but perhaps he was judging from the press photograph of the murderer. Certainly they both had fair wavy hair, and eyes of pale grey that stared a little. But Johnson’s features were heavier and broader, he lacked the cleft chin and the length of the nose. His mouth, too, was stronger, a mouth full of determination. It looked as though it knew how to keep itself shut.

‘You’ve come here to put me through it again? It’s like the old days with the Gestapo, cocker. Don’t apologize or anything — I’m well up in the drill. I’ve been through worse grillings than you’ll ever dish out.’

‘This is just a routine recap, Mr Johnson.’

‘Good show! I love going through it ten times.’

‘I’m hoping that so much repetition won’t be necessary.’

Gently pulled up one of the office’s plastic-seated iron chairs. At a respectful distance, Stephens also took a seat. Johnson had shaken a cigarette from a torn-open packet, and having struck a match on his nail, was puffing smoke out noisily.

‘You knew that your wife was a member of the Palette Group, Mr Johnson?’

‘That’s a silly question, cocker. I couldn’t very well not know it.’

‘How long had she been a member?’

‘Two years or thereabouts. But she’d always mucked about with paints, even before we got hitched up.’