Gently Instrumental

by Alan Hunter

  Meares’s eyes were muzzy. ‘You . . . wish me to return with you to the station?’

  Gently angled his shoulders. ‘Oh – I don’t think so. We can continue our chat tomorrow.’

  ‘Tomorrow . . . ?’

  ‘It may be cooler. Just make your arrangements – to be available.’

  They drove off with their haul in the boot. For a short distance Leyston was silent. Then, to the road ahead, he said mournfully:

  ‘That’s got to settle it, sir, him trying to snow us.’

  Gently’s smile was distant. ‘Sometimes we win one.’

  ‘A spot of blood and we’ve got him, sir. Perhaps we ought to have had him back in, and let him sweat it out at the station.’

  ‘I think he’s better off sweating with Mrs Meares.’

  ‘Sir . . . ?’

  ‘And meanwhile I need a soak. Tell the doctor, if he asks for me, that he’ll find me at The White Hart.’

  Leyston drove a few yards before echoing: ‘The doctor . . . ?’

  Gently nodded to the windscreen. ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  LEYSTON HAD BEEN sufficiently provident to reserve a room at The White Hart: one of the best rooms, so that from his bath Gently could ponder the evening sea. Not that much came into view on those tired, grey miles, whose shallow corrugations were now beginning to be yellowed by the westering sun. Still it was luxury. Up to his chin, he considered the ocean’s modest offering: two tiny vessels patrolling the horizon on courses that promised eventual collision. One was a long, low container ship, a shape almost without definition; the other a tall-stemmed tramp, its white-painted superstructure proud and distinct. Through the open window he watched them, while his water slowly cooled to tepid. They failed to collide: the spectacle lost interest. Regretfully, he heaved his dunked torso from the bath.

  Next door the phone had remained silent . . . also a luxury, in its way! Yet he gave it a thoughtful stare as he emerged naked from the bathroom. Beside it there stood his tea tray, a mute witness of time passed, while his bath had taken almost an hour . . . He shrugged talcum, and began to dress.

  Below they’d already started dinner and he was shown to the single table that Hozeley had occupied. No glamorous Rolls was parked out front in slots now covered by the hotel’s shadow. The spite was going out of the sun, though still it glared on the Ruskinian Moot House: but this was the last flick of the whip. Soon, if not cool, they would at least be sunless.

  ‘Soup, sir . . . ?’

  ‘Just an iced lager.’

  He tried to drink slowly but found himself gulping it. Around him the tables were filling with the same polyglot crowd as at lunch. A few of the women wore long evening dresses but most hadn’t bothered. And the conversation was languid: even the Russian lady was brooding silently over her Martini.

  ‘Dover sole, sir . . . ?’

  But he couldn’t face it and ordered salad again: crab, this time. It came with a tray of etceteras that he left barely touched. And, while he ate, the shadow on the Moot House grew sensibly higher, until only the glazed pantiles remained burnished and iridescent.

  ‘They talk of rain on the way, sir.’

  Gently eyed the waiter with small enthusiasm. ‘They’ had talked of rain on the way since April, but now, in August, who was believing them?

  ‘We had a bit of overcast one day last week, sir. Perhaps we’ll get a few drops soon.’

  But he spoke to please: the nearest rain was doubtless that drenching the North Atlantic.

  ‘Bring me an ice!’

  He segmented it moodily, still eyeing each new-comer to the room. Also, outside, the cars that were rapidly filling up the slots. On the Front pedestrians still loitered, seeking comfort in the onset of evening, and across the shingle two fishermen were feeding net into one of the boats. Yes . . . evening was coming: another spell of the sun had been endured.

  ‘Coffee, sir . . . ?’

  He grunted.

  ‘Would it be cooler in the lounge?’

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s north-facing.’

  ‘Bring it to me in there.’

  He rose, collected his jacket, and passed through the double glass doors. The very faintest of faint breezes was creeping through the lounge’s wide-set windows. He crossed to them. Alone in the room, a man sat reading an evening paper: now he folded it and, smilingly, gestured to the chair next to his.

  ‘I’ve been talking to old Walt,’ Capel smiled. ‘You know, that man really is a marvel!’

  Gently shrugged and accepted the chair, which had the advantage of facing the window.

  ‘Has he returned to your place . . . ?’

  ‘No – that’s just it. He’s been talking to me on the phone. He’s decided to lay the ghost – his own words – by going straight back to live at the cottage. He’s persuaded Butty, that’s his housekeeper, to live in until after the Festival, by which time he estimates the ghost will have got tired of walking. Now what do you think of that?’

  ‘I think that Hozeley’s a man of character.’

  ‘A survivor – what? But who could have guessed it from the state he was in, even this morning? Believe me he was in shock. I don’t mind admitting that I had doubts if he would ever get over it. And now, like a phoenix arisen, he comes bounding back into the arena. Somehow it makes me feel terribly humble. Beside men like Walt, one is just an infant.’

  ‘He was here for his lunch.’

  Capel nodded. ‘He told me. In fact, that was when the miracle seems to have happened. He spent an hour in the Music Room reliving it, compelling himself to face the truth. Glory be!’ Capel’s rectilinear features took on an awestruck expression. ‘Think of what was going on through there – Walt Hozeley, wrestling with his soul!’

  ‘Perhaps that’s romanticising it a little.’

  ‘Then this is a time to be romantic. Believe me, in my trade I see enough of people trying to come to terms with the unbearable. Mostly it’s death, and you’d be surprised how little it seems to mean to most people – as though, in spite of all logic, they had a super-awareness that death is just a phase. But emotional disaster seems less endurable. It undermines the basic personality. If people succeed in clawing back to themselves it’s a matter of months – not forty-eight hours.’

  ‘This could be the first stage of reaction . . .’

  Capel shook his head. ‘Not with Walt. It’s much more of a Zen response – he’s turning his back, and walking on. Now, instead of wanting to scrub the performance, he’s hell-bent on honouring our date. In fact, his only tragedy at the moment is that my man Davies won’t arrive in time for a rehearsal this evening.’

  Gently stared through the window. ‘And that’s your . . . only problem?’

  ‘You know it isn’t.’ Capel rustled his paper. I’ve had Leonard round to see me. It appears that now you’re trying to nobble our Cello.’ He gave a jerk of annoyance. ‘Why couldn’t that bloody fool, my gardener, have kept his mouth shut?’

  The coffee came, and from nowhere the waiter spirited an extra cup. He made a gracious ritual of the pouring and dripped cream over the back of a spoon. Two more diners had drifted in, but they sought a settee across the room. The waiter, all smiles, gave a little bob before retiring.

  They sipped coffee; Capel sighed.

  ‘Isn’t it a shame how the heat spoils the flavour? It’s a physiological thing, I think. The taste buds reject a substance unsuited to the local conditions. Tea isn’t so affected – tannic acid must meet the requirements better than caffeine.’

  ‘At the rehearsal,’ Gently said, ‘what was he wearing?’

  Capel tilted his head. ‘Oh – you got the clothes right! The poor devil made a pass at conning you, but unluckily for him you were right on the button. No doubt you acquired the details from Laurel.’

  ‘Did Crag neglect to inform you about that?’

  Capel grinned. ‘Old Bill was livid. It was naughty of Leonard to make jokes about Dave, and bound to raise the waters whe
n Craggy heard of it. Dave is the apple of his eye, you know. He’s been brought up in the paths of righteousness. Bill loves him better than a son, and who offendeth Dave had better watch out.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that Crag slandered Meares?’

  ‘Good gracious no.’ Capel’s grin was broad. ‘You don’t know our Adam – he’s the conscience of Shinglebourne. It’s a frank to my character that he deigns to work for me.’

  Gently sipped. ‘Meares denies it all.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you, with the law breathing down your neck?’

  ‘He was under no pressure when the subject was raised.’

  ‘That’s being naive – you’ve got us all under pressure.’

  ‘Yet . . . if he was innocent?’

  Capel shook his head. ‘Poor old Leonard has too much to lose. What happened on the dunes could be as innocent as snow but still he would try to avoid admitting it. And really what does it amount to? He met Virtue. That seems to be the whole story. The rest is all Craggy’s dirty-mindedness, provoked by Leonard’s joke about Dave.’

  ‘It makes a link in a chain.’

  ‘Too circumstantial.’

  ‘Another link is his deception with the clothes.’

  ‘But – fair do’s – by then he was in a tizzy, and thinking his arrest was just around the corner.’ Capel glanced at another couple who had come in. ‘Look, you’re talking to a man who understands Leonard. Under all that phlegm he can easily be panicked into saying and doing the silly thing. He’s behaved suspiciously, that’s a fact, and you do quite right to follow it up. But look me in the eye and hear me telling you that, in his case, you’re being misled.’

  ‘Your faith in him is touching,’ Gently said.

  ‘Is there nothing I can say that will convince you?’

  Gently hunched. ‘You could try a confession.’

  Capel snatched his head and turned away.

  Now there was quite a little influx of diners, spreading out to all corners of the lounge. Waiters followed, and a party of four pulled up chairs to face the window. Capel gulped his coffee.

  ‘We can’t talk here – and there’s a devil of a lot more I want to say.’

  ‘What do you suggest?’

  ‘How about a stroll – across the links to Gorse Cottage?’

  Gently considered the proposition. Then he put down his cup and rose.

  Capel led the way to a footpath that skirted the houses at the north end of the town. The sun, a malignant disc, still glared on the horizon ahead of them. To the right were marshes, veined by ditches exposing beds of cracked, dried mud and, more distantly, clustering under trees, the white walls of a village higher up the coast. Was it cooler now . . . ? Even the long shadows still seemed envelopes of heat. Dust and chaffy ends of grass kicked up as they strode along the path.

  ‘My favourite walk,’ Capel explained. ‘Though usually it’s muddy, along here.’

  ‘It leads to Gorse Cottage . . . ?’

  ‘More or less. After you cross the toe-end of the links.’ He turned to slide Gently a grin. ‘I suppose that’s giving you some naughty thoughts! But frankly, the choice is quite innocent. We’ve only come here to be on our own.’

  He loped ahead, a jerky figure, yet with an awkward grace in his stride; they crossed a plank bridge and came to a stile beyond which the path entered a meadow. At the stile Capel paused, his hand upon it.

  ‘Were you serious when you suggested a confession?’

  ‘Should I have been?’

  ‘Well, I can’t help wondering which way your ingenious ideas are straying! You’ve got old Leonard in a half-nelson, but you’re not a man to take for granted. Perhaps you’re just putting the screws on Leonard to see if you can make the other pips squeak. Isn’t that possible?’

  ‘You seem to think so.’

  ‘After all, old Leonard is a moderate prospect. You must have met murderers enough in your time to know that his face doesn’t fit the picture. Killing needs too much or too little imagination, and either way lets Leonard out. But Tom Friday and myself make the perfect combination. And you certainly won’t have overlooked that.’

  Gently shrugged. ‘I’ve always preferred facts . . .’

  ‘But psychology is a fact, too!’

  ‘At the moment we have to regard it as secondary.’

  Capel looked at him, sighed, then took a spring at the stile.

  ‘Of course you know what I’m after, don’t you?’ he said, as they resumed their way, now side by side. ‘I don’t give a hoot who killed Virtue. My single-minded target is the performance on Saturday. We’ve got our understudy. Walt’s bounced back. George V Hall is booked solid. But now the law is making passes at our good Cello, enough to throw Rostropovich off his stroke. Damn it, you’re being anti-cultural, man! Couldn’t it wait at least until after Saturday?’

  Gently shook his head. ‘I’ve no powers of postponement.’

  ‘You could drag your feet – just a very little! It isn’t as though nations hung on the upshot. The world is no worse for the loss of Terence Virtue.’

  ‘Is that your opinion?’

  ‘Absolutely. I’m quite willing to speak ill of the dead.’

  ‘The Quintet is worth more than his dying.’

  ‘Infinitely more – now that he’s dead.’ Capel waved a large hand. ‘You can’t cancel it, you know, and I’m sure you’re above simple hypocrisy. Likely enough Virtue died as he lived, and that’s an end. Music is for ever.’

  ‘For music, I should interrupt the course of the law?’

  ‘Till Sunday – and it’s worth a brace of cops.’

  ‘You know I can’t do that.’

  Capel worked his shoulders pettishly. ‘Somehow you’ve got to see sense before Saturday!’

  He strode on with his jerky lope over the wiry straw that had once been grass. Ahead, shrivelled trees netted the sun, breaking up its last spite into fiery stilettos. In the dusty sky no birds flew, no grasshoppers chirred in the swarf beneath. But, as they approached the trees, two bats took wing to flutter round them boldly.

  ‘Did you check when I left The White Hart on Tuesday?’

  ‘Inspector Leyston had already done so.’

  ‘That’s a pity – it doesn’t help you. Though of course I was going spare after that.’

  ‘You, but not Friday.’

  Capel turned to smile. ‘Only you can’t be certain of that, can you? Tom has only his daughter to vouch for him, and she’d lie like a trooper for either one of us.’

  ‘Do you want to bring Friday in?’

  Capel chuckled. ‘He’s an option you’ll have to keep open. He made no secret of his feelings about Virtue, and would have used a strong arm if I hadn’t stopped him.’

  ‘The motive isn’t there.’

  ‘That bothersome factor!’ Capel gave a snatch of his head. ‘But people get killed for no motive, you know. You mentioned manslaughter yourself.’

  ‘Only Meares may have motive.’

  ‘That’s still guesswork.’

  ‘The presumption is too strong to ignore.’

  Capel bounced a few paces in silence, his slanting brow creased in a frown. ‘What we need is a deep, dark motive that would have even me reaching for a blunt instrument. I did see quite a lot of Virtue, remember. He came to my house several times with Walt. And dear old Walt would never have suspected evil, even if I’d invited Virtue on his own.’

  Gently gestured impatiently. ‘We’ve been through all that.’

  Capel raised his hand. ‘But have you met my wife?’

  ‘Your wife . . . ?’

  ‘Tanya. I don’t want to boast, but she’s usually regarded as quite a peach.’ He turned his Mephistophelean leer on Gently. ‘You remember me telling you that Virtue was bisexual. You didn’t ask me why I was so certain – and perhaps I wouldn’t have told you, if you had.’

  Gently hesitated. ‘For that you’d take a . . . blunt instrument?’

  Capel nodded. ‘The first that c
ame to hand. I love my wife. If Virtue had seduced her, somewhere, sometime, I would have killed him.’

  They had come to a second stile; it admitted them to the golf links and the sweep of the heath. The sun had slipped finally beneath the horizon to leave the western sky in a lurid glow. But the glow was soiled. Mushroom pillars of smoke hung upon it right along the skyline with, at their feet, like lingering fragments of the sun, small bright eyes of flame. And faintly one could smell smoke on the warm lifeless air.

  ‘Our world’s alight . . .’

  Capel stood gazing on the other side of the stile, his gaunt face for once empty, the lips in a slack line.

  ‘Leslie intends to go to Canada when he has qualified here. It’s too late for me. My generation was the one that tried to sit tight and weather it. Only the ship has let us down. Now we’re fit only for the burning.’

  Gently, too, stood gazing. ‘You seem to have weathered it pretty well . . .’

  ‘I – yes!’ Capel angled a shoulder. ‘I dropped my line in a pleasant place. But that’s a garrison town back there, a cell that still resists the creeping anaemia. The body is sick, the brain is tumoured. Leslie will go with my blessing.’

  ‘Aren’t you a diagnostician?’

  Capel’s mouth twisted. ‘Who is in doubt about the disease? Plato left us an account of it, and Laotse before him. When the gods seek to destroy us they send us a madness called equality. We of course interpret it as uniformity, and then the vital structure of society fails. Men are unequal. There is more than education between a fitter and a physician. Not the opportunity of princes could turn me into a Walt Hozeley. But now we make it an article of faith: and wait for Plato’s will to be done.’

  ‘May not the disease be reversible?’

  ‘Have you seen any signs of it slackening? Sometimes the patient has a better day, but that’s usual in the course of a fatal illness. Soon now we may expect a crisis, and that will answer the question for us. Either the patient will get up and walk or he will exhibit total collapse.’