Alan Hunter: Gently With the Painters

HUSBAND AT POLICE STATION FOR THREE HOURS

Victim’s Picture in Exhibition Yard to be called?

For three mornings now Gently had been turning to this news item with an eagerness which, in spite of himself, had continued to grow steadily. And now, for the first time, the ominous words had been invoked: at last they had mentioned Scotland Yard.

He folded back the paper and propped it against his teapot. Of the two photographs reproduced one was a print which had been heavily retouched. This depicted the husband being escorted into the police station; he was a burly, heavy-featured man, with fair wavy hair and a Bomber Command moustache. The other showed a watercolour with a number on its frame — a pale, somewhat indefinite picture of a figure striding through driving rain.

‘Mr Johnson Arriving At The Police Station Yesterday.’

‘The Last Picture Painted By Shirley Johnson.’

At the foot of the column a smaller photograph was cut in. It was of St John Mallows, RA, with whose features Gently was familiar. He was the chairman of the Palette Group of which Shirley Johnson had been a member, and he had gone to press with the statement that her picture would certainly remain on show. Why not, when it was guaranteed to treble the attendance…?

About Gently the established routine of his morning continued its methodical course. After twenty years in his Finchley rooms he went through the ritual with little conscious direction. When he had bathed and shaved he took a walk down the garden — it wasn’t very far, up there in Finchley! — and then he would stand for a moment in Mrs Jarvis’s kitchen, exchanging a few words of domestic commonplace.

‘There’s a bit of fly on those roses of yours…’

‘I know, Mr Gently, Fred was only saying last night…’

‘Have you been to the Golder’s Green Hip this week?’

‘Oh yes, Mr Gently. Me and Olive went on Tuesday.’

Then he went to his room, where the table was set. His mail and his papers always lay beside his plate. There were the usual bills and perhaps a letter from his sister; he would conscientiously read it first before turning to the news.

For six days in the week it went on like that, whenever he wasn’t called out on a case. It formed a sort of hors d’oeuvre, an appetizer to the day, and he was always irritable if something interrupted it. And now, very delicately, something had. That business about the Johnsons had taken a hold on his imagination. It had occurred in the district on which he was regarded as a specialist, and more and more he had the feeling that the case belonged to him.

It belonged to him — but he wasn’t going to get it! At least, that was the impression he’d received since Tuesday. There was nothing in the press reports to suggest that the local police were flagging, and really, it looked an open and shut case against the husband. He didn’t have an alibi that held any water. He was admittedly estranged from his arty wife. They lived together in a flat about a mile from the scene of the crime, but they lived in separation, sleeping and eating in separate rooms…

‘What would you like to follow, Superintendent?’

That was something else which took a little swallowing. Though he had known it was coming for several months in advance, his promotion had nevertheless caught him off-balance. In a number of subtle ways it was affecting his personality. He no longer felt entirely at home with himself. Shamefacedly, he had bought some new suits and an expensive trilby, while he was thinking of parting with the old Riley in the garage. How was it that an external like rank had this effect on him?

‘Some of the liver you were frying… were there any letters for me?’

‘Go on, Mr Gently! You’ve put your grapefruit on them.’

And also, he remembered, he had cut his outing in the garden. With his mind fixed on the Johnsons he’d gone straight down to the breakfast table, barely pausing at the door to wish Mrs Jarvis a good morning. Was it intuition, perhaps? He read the relevant passage again. The local police had not committed themselves, but the reporter had smelt a rat. That case, apparently so watertight, had somewhere sprung a leak.

As he ate his liver and bacon he let his eye stray down the column. After the hottest news, as usual, there came a resume of the affair.

‘The questioning of Johnson follows the grim discovery on Tuesday. The body of his wife, pretty Shirley Johnson, was found behind dustbins on the City Hall car park. She was stabbed with a steel letter opener which was found still plunged in the body. The discovery was made by an old-age pensioner as he returned from the early morning fruit and vegetable auction held at the cattle market. He informed the City Police who have placed Chief Inspector Hansom, CID, in charge of the investigation.

‘It is established that the victim was attacked shortly after leaving a meeting of the Palette Group on the Monday evening. The Palette Group is composed of a number of local artists under the chairmanship of the well-known landscape painter, Charles St John Mallows, RA. The members meet on the first Monday of each month in the cellar of the George III public house, only a short distance from the scene of the crime. At the meetings they exhibit their work for criticism. They hold an annual exhibition in the nearby Castle Gardens.

‘Charles St John Mallows, RA, interviewed by our reporter, described Mrs Johnson as being one of the most talented members of the Group. Asked about the meeting on Monday, he declined to make any statement other than that it contained ‘the average amount of cut and thrust’. According to an independent source, the Palette Group meetings are noted for their frankness and forthright opinions.

‘Derek Paul Johnson, the husband, is an estate agent in the city. During the war he served in the RAF and was shot down over Cologne while piloting a Lancaster bomber. He was a prisoner of war in Germany for two years.’

It wasn’t difficult to see where the reporter’s fancy was leading him. He was selling the notion of a blood feud at the Palette Group. Johnson’s grilling was news and had to make up the headline, but the pedal of sympathy had been touched in the last paragraph. Was it the Palette Group that was worrying Inspector Hansom, too?

For a moment Gently was tempted to put a call through to Hansom, then he shrugged and hurried up with his marmalade and toast. It wasn’t his business yet, and perhaps it wasn’t going to be. Since they’d made him a Super he was being kept more at home; he had seen several likely jobs being handed on to his juniors.

‘I’ve ordered a joint for tonight, Superintendent. Do you know if you’ll be home for dinner?’

He shouldn’t have been irritated by that reasonable question, and yet he wanted to snap at Mrs Jarvis. All the way on the Tube he was brooding over the Johnsons. They clogged him up the Embankment from Charing Cross Station.

It was the beginning of July, and fine weather to boot, with the surface of the Thames a-dazzle in a bright sun. Several of Gently’s colleagues were away on vacation, and his own was due in a fortnight’s time. For the first week he was going to Bridgit in Wiltshire — a family sacrifice this, since his brother-in-law bored him. But the second week he was spending at a fishing inn in the Fens, near where, according to report, there were big bream and plenty.

A whole week of fishing! He’d been dreaming about it since Easter, when, while out on a case, he’d first heard about the spot. He had made a few inquiries and booked a room at the Fenman’s Arms. A local angler who had figured in the case was going to join him for the weekend.