Gently Instrumental

by Alan Hunter

  ‘It could have been a consultation.’

  ‘What – for an hour?’ Friday snatched his head back, shedding sweat. ‘I wouldn’t have told you, and that’s straight, if you hadn’t tried to pin it on me. But I’m not carrying the can for anybody, least of all for clever-boy Meares. I don’t owe him any money – not like some I could mention round here.’

  He struck a match on the bole of the hawthorn and relit his pipe with measured puffs. The scowl still moulded his face but touched now with a shade of complacency. He puffed smoke towards the distant yawl which, clear of its tack, was drifting through the bend.

  ‘Still . . . it was you who advocated violence.’

  Friday powered smoke. ‘Meaning what?’

  ‘If there was a conspiracy to get rid of Virtue, wouldn’t you have been deputed to put the boot in?’

  ‘But aren’t I telling you—!’

  ‘You haven’t told me much. Just tried to switch my interest to Meares. You aren’t out of the wood yet, Mr Friday – not if that’s the best you can do.’

  Friday’s eyes were sullen. ‘So that’s it, then.’

  ‘If you’ve more to say, you’d better say it.’

  ‘I reckon I’ve said too bloody much now.’ He jumped to his feet and stood glowering down at Gently. ‘You’re a right son of a seacook, aren’t you?’

  Gently tipped his hat and leaned back in the grass. The half-decker, at last, had reached the yacht club jetty and the yawl had cleared the bend and picked up a wind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  A COLOURFUL NEW banner had gone up in The Street: The Peacock Players present Twelfth Night. But now it was the hour of the lunchtime siesta when every shop door was closed. A street of silence: the only vehicles were those standing shimmering at the kerb, and no face appeared at any window as Gently tramped back to the police station. The sun had won; the town, its victim, lay depopulated and stunned.

  Leyston was waiting in his shirtsleeves and divested of his tie. He had his feet up on the desk, but withdrew them discretely as Gently entered.

  ‘I’ve booked you a table at The White Hart, sir.’

  ‘You’d better come along to give it ballast.’

  Leyston’s long face expressed pleasure. He rose and began rolling down his sleeves.

  ‘Have you had any luck, sir?’

  Gently grunted. ‘Did you get anything new from Hozeley?’

  ‘Not exactly from Hozeley, sir, but I got something. It could be a line on those chummies from Streatham.’

  ‘The Parry brothers?’

  ‘Yes sir.’ Leyston buttoned his sleeves with conscious modesty. ‘Of course, it may have no connection. But the description sounds about right.’

  Gently dropped on a chair. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘Well sir, it was the Crag lad. After we left he went to Hozeley and told him about a man who’d spoken to him on Monday.’

  ‘Monday was one of his days at the cottage?’

  ‘Yes sir. This happened just as he was leaving. Crag lives with his grandfather down at Town End, so he uses the footpath across the Common. There’s a gate from the garden on to the Common. This chummie was waiting just outside. He asked young Crag who lived at the cottage, and if he hadn’t got a young man called Virtue staying with him.’

  Gently pouted his lips. ‘How good is the description?’

  ‘Crag wasn’t too strong with the details, sir. He isn’t very bright, as no doubt you noticed, and he was nervous when he talked to me.’ Leyston eased a cuff. ‘About thirty-five, sir, around six feet, with dark hair, dressed in a blue shirt and dark-coloured slacks, speaking with an accent that Crag took for Cockney.’

  ‘It might fit Frank Parry.’

  ‘Apart from the age, sir, and Parry’s being only five-ten-and-a-half.’

  ‘Has Crag seen the photographs?’

  ‘I showed him a spread, but he picked a villain who’s doing a stretch.’

  Gently made a face. ‘Who spun you this tale – was it Crag on his own, or did Hozeley prompt him?’

  ‘It was Hozeley who mentioned it, sir. But the kid confirmed what he said.’

  ‘And Crag was nervous?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ Leyston touched a sideboard uncertainly. ‘Do you reckon he was put up to it?’

  ‘That’s what I would reckon – if it wasn’t for the Parrys.

  Yet even the Parrys were no guarantee if Virtue had boasted of his exploits, giving Hozeley to understand that he had enemies in town who might seek him out. And the description, conveniently vague, might well have come from the same source. Gently sighed.

  ‘One thing is certain – if there was a man, and the man was Frank Parry. He was here on Monday, which means he may have stayed in the town overnight.’

  Leyston echoed the sigh. ‘Yes sir. I’ll put a couple of men on it.’

  ‘And meanwhile I need some information. What time did Leonard Meares get home?’

  ‘Meares, sir . . . ?’

  Leyston had been about to pick up the phone. Now he hesitated, his hand poised: his tone sounding almost reproachful.

  ‘Yes – Meares. His statement ends with the time he left The White Hart. I assume you checked him out further than that, even though he left in impeccable company.’

  Leyston coloured slightly. ‘Yes sir. I did have a word with him and his wife. Seems he got in at about nine-fifty. He had a bit of trouble after leaving the hotel.’

  ‘What sort of trouble?’

  Leyston grew pinker. ‘Got caught short is what I mean, sir. There’s a bug going around with all this hot weather – I’ve had a dose of it myself.’

  Gently stared. ‘And you accepted that?’

  ‘Well – yes, sir. Yes, I did. I’ve known Mr Meares for a long time, and – well, his wife was present when I questioned him.’

  ‘What has his wife got to do with it?’

  Now Leyston was looking positively unhappy. ‘She – she’s a bit of a case, sir. I didn’t want to put him in the wrong with her.’ He ran his tongue over his lips. ‘You see, she’s jealous of Miss Hazlewood. There’s nothing in it, sir, nothing at all. But I didn’t like to query him in front of his wife.’

  ‘So Meares was adrift for half an hour too.’

  Leyston didn’t try to contradict it.

  ‘Where does Meares live?’

  Leyston gulped. ‘In Tunstall Road, off the top end of The Street.’

  ‘That’ll be less than a mile from Hozeley’s.’

  Leyston nodded. ‘All the same, sir—’

  ‘In half an hour he could have gone after Virtue, clobbered him in the lane, and been back home.’

  Leyston slumped into the desk chair. ‘Look, sir . . . Mr Meares isn’t that sort at all, ! He’s a member of the Rotary and the yacht club and runs the Birdwatchers’ Association. He’s a man you can trust, sir. I can’t see the likes of him going in for violence. I wouldn’t put it past Friday, nor even the doctor. But Mr Meares is another matter.’

  ‘A man of stainless reputation.’

  ‘Yes, sir. That’s what he is.’

  ‘Which would make him a perfect mark for Virtue.’

  ‘Sir—!’ Leyston almost choked on his tongue.

  ‘What’s Capel’s number?’

  Leyston gave it miserably and Gently reached for the phone and dialled. After an interval he got Capel, who apparently had been fetched from his lunch.

  ‘Just a minute . . . I’ve got some coffee!’ There followed a sound of quick gulping. ‘Ach . . . it tastes foul in this weather! What can I do for you, Superintendent?’

  ‘Is Meares your patient?’

  ‘Leonard? He’s been on my books for years.’

  ‘So you can tell me the present state of his health.’

  ‘Well, I suppose so – if it concerns you.’

  ‘It concerns me.’

  Capel chuckled. ‘You’ve been busy with a spade, Superintendent! What you want to know is whether Leonard was telling the truth about Tuesday night.’
/>
  ‘And?’

  ‘I must confirm it. Leonard had a dose of false dysentery. He consulted me yesterday morning and I prescribed a kaolin treatment.’

  ‘Would that have taken you an hour during a busy surgery?’

  ‘Oh, an hour is an exaggeration.’

  ‘Not according to my information.’

  ‘Well, if you say so, Superintendent.’ The line was harmonic for a moment. ‘Of course, I didn’t time Leonard’s consultation and it might have run on for a few minutes. But not for an hour. You will have to take my word for it against your informant’s.’

  ‘And of course, your discussion with him was privileged.’

  ‘Strictly between doctor and patient. On which subject I may as well inform you that both Walt and Tom Friday are patients of mine.’

  Gently grunted. ‘That would be no excuse in a case of obstruction.’

  ‘I must bear it in mind,’ Capel laughed. ‘Is that all?’

  Gently hung up.

  Leyston had been listening anxious eyed: now he regarded Gently with concern.

  ‘Sir . . . is it true that Mr Meares was with the doctor for an hour yesterday?’

  Gently nodded. ‘I put pressure on Friday. His daughter Marion is Capel’s receptionist. Meares was there for over an hour yesterday morning, allegedly in a disturbed state.’

  ‘Still . . . it might just have been his tummy, sir.’

  ‘Did you visit the Music Room yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, I did, sir.’

  ‘Was Meares’s cello there?’

  ‘Yes, sir. In its case, standing on the platform.’

  ‘On every other evening he’d taken it home with him. On this one evening he didn’t. And it was Meares who provoked the row with Virtue by suggesting they drop him for an understudy.’

  ‘But sir!’ Leyston’s eyes were pained. ‘You’re forgetting that he left the hotel with Miss Hazlewood.’

  ‘Where does she live?’

  ‘Off Saxton Road, sir.’

  ‘That’s on the way.’

  ‘But all the same . . .’

  All the same it was a load of nonsense, was what Leyston left his expression to say: you couldn’t believe such stuff about a citizen with the credit rating of Leonard Meares.

  ‘You think Friday might have been having me on?’

  ‘I think he might try, sir, if you were pushing him. It’s a fact that he doesn’t love Mr Meares – some fuss about a mortgage that didn’t go through.’ Leyston tested a sideboard. ‘And now we’ve got this lead, sir, the chummie who was asking the Crag boy questions. I reckon that’s more in character with the case – and you did say the Parrys didn’t have an alibi.’

  Gently shook his head. ‘We’re still feeling around.’

  ‘But if we do get a line on Frank Parry, sir . . .’

  ‘Then we’ll have to think again!’

  He grinned wryly and heaved himself from his chair.

  The White Hart was quarter of a mile from the police station and Leyston kept silence on the way there. With his jacket over his arm, he made rather an absurd figure in the waistcoat and long sleeves. He wore, Gently noticed, black Oxford shoes of a type scarcely to be found in town, a line perhaps reserved for undertakers. But they suited the style of the man.

  As they approached the hotel he gave an exclamation.

  ‘Hozeley must be in there, sir.’

  He pointed to a double line of cars parked on the plain before the hotel. One was distinctive: a black Rolls-Royce that might have strayed from someone’s museum.

  ‘Is that Hozeley’s?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It was left him with the cottage.’

  ‘Does he drive it?’

  ‘Oh yes, sir. Like you or me might drive a Mini.’

  They paused beside it. It was a glorious beast of late twenties vintage, with a carriage-like body, horizontally-slatted radiator and coned wheels with eared hubcaps. Inside there was sufficient headroom and carpet almost to have walked up and down, while the gadgets and instruments on the dash belonged to an era awesomely remote. Nevertheless, it was a drivable vehicle. Just standing by it one could get the feel. Climb in behind that flat steering wheel and height and bulk would fall into place . . .

  ‘What do you reckon it’s worth, sir?’ Leyston murmured.

  ‘Too much for it to be left around in public.’

  ‘Old Mrs Suffling had a chauffeur for it. But Hozeley’s always driven it himself.’

  ‘Yesterday morning, where did you find it?’

  ‘Parked out here, sir, like now.’

  ‘That supports his story.’

  ‘He could have brought it back, sir. Or someone could have brought it back for him.’

  Yes they could: it was not a point that the ingenious doctor would overlook. Gently gave the Rolls a parting nod and turned away.

  ‘Let’s interrogate lunch.’

  In fact the meal was nearly over when they entered the hotel’s spacious dining room, with its tall, broad windows facing the Front and the sea. More than half the tables were vacated and at others they were dallying over coffee. There was an uninhibited chatter of conversation, as though those present were members of a single group.

  ‘Festival visitors,’ Leyston muttered as they were shown to a table by a window. ‘They come here early to book accommodation. There’ll be nothing left in town by tomorrow.’

  ‘Is it always a sell-out?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Everything’s taken for miles around. A lot of them drive up from London each day, and then the trick is to find parking.’

  Certainly the clientele appeared more cosmopolitan than one would expect in a country town hotel. Gently took interested stock of the other lunchers as he disembowelled a prawn cocktail. There was chatter in French, in German, even a steady stream of Russian, along with cooing and meticulous English and accents identifiably Scots and Welsh. And exotic types to go with the chatter; smooth, insouciant faces and decorative clothes. At the next table sat a silk-shirted Italian and a dark, svelte female with a yard of cigarette-holder . . .

  ‘There’s Hozeley, sir.’

  Leyston nodded to a corner. The composer sat alone at a single table. Before him was a coffee cup. He was smoking a cigar and staring through a window at the shingle and sea.

  ‘I think he’s spotted us,’ Leyston murmured. ‘But he doesn’t want to know.’

  Gently made a mouth. ‘That’s understandable.’

  ‘Perhaps we should have another chat with him, sir.’

  ‘Aren’t you hungry?’ Gently said.

  ‘Well . . . yes, sir!’

  ‘I doubt if Hozeley will run away.’

  Their salad came, with fresh lobster, and Hozeley showed no sign of departing. Once or twice his eye slid towards them, to return at once to contemplation of the sea. A massive but shapeless figure: it could easily have been a woman who sat there smoking, her untidy grey hair reaching to her collar, her large but fine hand holding the cigar. And strangely, he seemed in his place, among those people babbling many tongues, though alone and regarding only the sea, though apart: he seemed at home. They were his disciples, if they knew it or not, and to each he could speak a familiar language. The heavy, slumped smoker in his solitary corner was the key presence in that room.

  ‘Just an ice and peach to follow.’

  The rest of the tables were emptying now. Lunchers were sauntering out to their cars, the Renaults, Citroëns, Volks and Alfas. Hozeley was almost at the end of his cigar: he dabbed it in the tray near him. But still he sat on. A waiter, passing his table, paused enquiringly, but went on his way.

  ‘I think he’s waiting for us, sir.’

  ‘Did anything new come up when you saw him?’

  ‘Not apart from Crag, sir. He was acting vague. I thought perhaps the doctor had overdone the dope.’

  More than likely; and perhaps that accounted for his immobility now. Or perhaps he was merely waiting for them to leave, in hope of avoiding a fresh encounter.
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  They finished their lunch. A waiter poured coffee: from the corner of his eye Gently saw Hozeley rise. Slowly, the big man collected his jacket, put away his lighter, and started towards them.

  ‘I wish to speak with you.’

  ‘Please sit down.’

  ‘I would sooner it was somewhere more private.’

  His blue eyes fixed on Gently’s determinedly and his tone was calmly resolute.

  ‘Very well. Where do you suggest?’

  ‘We can use the private lounge.’

  ‘Why not the Music Room?’

  Hozeley’s mouth twitched. ‘If you prefer it we can go there.’

  Gently drank his coffee. They followed Hozeley from the dining room into a passage, then into a well-proportioned room fitted with sound equipment and a stage. Four music stands stood on the stage, with a grand piano pushed back behind them. Chairs were stacked along a wall and others scattered about the room. The walls were lined with dyed hessian, the floor carpeted with spongy matting. A range of thickly curtained windows looked out on the coast road and the sea. The room had a close, dead feel: it smelled faintly of hessian and cigar smoke.

  ‘Were you here earlier?’

  Hozeley nodded.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I was . . . trying to remember.’

  He crossed the room, opened a window and stood inhaling the fresher air.

  ‘You know that Henry wants to bring in an understudy.’

  ‘Is that all you have to tell me?’

  Hozeley shook his head. He came back from the window, hesitated, sat himself on the edge of the stage.

  ‘Since it happened I’ve been so . . . confused. I couldn’t bear to think about it quietly.’ He touched his chest. ‘Something in there was scattering my thoughts. I was living in chaos.’

  ‘And now?’

  Hozeley drew a deep sigh. ‘Now, I think I may have got over it. I came here to force myself to relive it – to see it with someone else’s eyes.’ He spread his hands. ‘Of course I was infatuated. I can bear to say that now. Terry was never truly fond of me, never disinterested in his kindness. His talent blinded me. I longed to cherish it, to keep it always by me. And so I believed what I wanted to believe . . . that Terry responded in all truth.’ His eyes met Gently’s squarely. ‘I am responsible for what happened here. The blame for it lies in my egotism. Yes – I knew what I was doing.’