Gently Between Tides

by Alan Hunter

  ‘That’s it, sir.’

  ‘When did he leave the shop?’

  ‘After lunch, he never came in at all. He must have thought you wouldn’t bother to check.’

  Shavers would have known better.

  ‘Let’s go and get him.’

  There wasn’t far to drive, just up Saxton Road, a bit past Capel’s and the church. Like its neighbours, the house stood well back behind a lawn and frieze of shrubs. But unlike its neighbours, whose dark fronts showed only a window lit here and there, Claydon’s house was ablaze, with windows lit in every room.

  ‘Is he having a party, sir?’

  It seemed unlikely. No sound of revelry came from the house. When they parked and cut their engine they were met by perfect silence. Nothing at all seemed to be stirring in any of those brightly lit rooms.

  ‘It’s a bit odd . . .’

  Leyston rang, and chimes sounded emptily within. He rang again and kept pressing the button, but only the chimes rewarded his efforts.

  ‘What do you think, sir?’

  ‘Try a door.’

  But the doors were locked at both front and back. Ringing, knocking and shouts from Leyston brought no response from the silent house.

  ‘I don’t like this, sir.’

  ‘We’ll have to break in.’

  In his boot Gently carried a jemmy. Leyston took it and applied himself to the front door, which yielded smartly with a grinding creak. Then they were in.

  ‘Sweet Jesus!’

  In the staring light of the hall lay the body of a woman. Her blood was spattered along the wall and spreading in a pool, and she had horrific injuries to the head.

  ‘He’s gone mad!’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘I think . . . the housekeeper.’

  Still there was no movement in that brightly lit house.

  ‘I’ll look upstairs, you search below.’

  Gently rushed up tread covered with spongy carpet. On the landing a door stood wide. There, on a bed, lay a second body. This woman was wearing a dressing-gown: she had the same extensive injuries. On the floor lay a short-handled chopping-axe, its blade and handle drenched in blood.

  ‘Claydon!’

  No answer. He hurled open other doors. Then he came to one that was locked and launched himself against it, bursting a panel. Claydon was lying on the floor beside a bed, a glass, an empty bottle scattered near him. He was still breathing: his face was scarlet, lips parted over nicotine-stained teeth. His sleeves and shirt-front were soaked in blood, there was blood on his trousers where he’d scrubbed his hands, blood under his nails, in the creases of his fingers, on the glass, the bottle, a sheet of paper on the bed-table.

  ‘Is he . . . is he . . .?’

  Like a chattering ghost, Leyston was standing in the doorway. Gently heaved up the bookseller and dumped him on the bed. But wouldn’t it be better to leave him to die?

  ‘There’s a note . . .’

  Yes, there was a note, scribbled in writing barely legible. Among the bloodstains it said: I loved her I couldn’t bear it sorry please forgive me everyone.

  Forgive him? Did that have some meaning? Hadn’t Claydon killed all meaning?

  ‘Ring for an ambulance.’

  ‘I . . . yes.’

  Leyston tottered from the room. Yet down in the hall they were in the presence of the woman who perhaps had been trying to escape when she was butchered. Rather than that the frosty night, the futile bells of the church down the road! He went outside, Leyston joined him, and together they waited for others to arrive.

  And somehow – how? – he had to put it behind him, to become again the man whom Gabrielle expected: the husband she had left in England, whom she would meet on the platform, throwing herself into his arms with love and chatter . . .

  How could he do that?

  Claydon . . .

  The blood he had spilt washed out the world.

  ‘It’s all yours to wrap up.’

  ‘Yes, sir . . .’

  The first ambulance had come clanging through the gate, followed quickly by cars which, for lack of parking, were having to drive on to the lawn.

  ‘Just thank the Riddlesworths for their assistance . . . the boy’s statement you’ll need for the inquest. Keep me out of it.’

  Leyston seized his hand, but didn’t say anything at all.

  Was it he who drove the car? The next thing he remembered was driving too fast round the Ipswich ring road, looking for the turn-off to the station, and at least an hour too early for Gabrielle’s train.

  TWELVE

  CLAYDON DIED. by the middle of November the smell of paint had left the hall, and on a Saturday Capel brought the quintet to celebrate a house-warming at Heatherings. They played in the drawing-room, though at first Capel had fancied the galleried landing; but that would have interfered with Mrs Jarvis’s arrangements and had been vetoed by Gabrielle. The little concert began with gypsy music and ended with Hozeley’s ‘Beach Suite’. At supper, Capel produced some bottles of the Bruiseyard ’79, to receive Gabrielle’s reluctant accolade. She and Tanya Capel quickly struck up an understanding, the more so because Tanya was intelligent about cooking; Reymerston was there, with Mrs Quennell, and Tom Friday brought his daughter, now engaged to Lesley Capel.

  So the house for a while was filled with people and music, with conversation, toasts and laughter, and Gabrielle shone as mistress of Heatherings, the role she had coveted on first seeing the house. A happy woman! From the wings Gently admired her, so vivacious, so fulfilled: a queen in her setting. Yet wasn’t she even more beautiful when her face was for him only?

  He found Capel watching him smilingly.

  ‘Admit it, you think she’s the prettiest woman here!’

  ‘Well . . . don’t you?’

  ‘All wives excepted. If I had to start again, you might find me a rival.’

  ‘Actually, we’ve been married for only three months.’

  ‘Then I give you my permission to worship her. But not to keep her to yourself. She’s far too valuable. You must let her tight shine as far as Shinglebourne.’

  Could it be for only three months? In fact he seemed to have known her for much, much longer, as though long ago her image had been planted in him, to come to life at once, the first moment they met. An absurd idea? But that was how it felt . . . only thus could he begin to describe it.

  ‘Did you tell her what happened when she was in France?’

  Gently shook his head. And he never would tell her.

  ‘A frightful business. And I feel a bit to blame . . . I should have known that Stan was heading for a breakdown. I prescribed those pills.’

  ‘You were not to blame.’

  ‘Never be a doctor, whatever else. But I ought to have known. The signs were there.’

  ‘I missed them too. Until too late.’

  ‘Yes . . . but I knew Stan.’ Capel’s eyes puckered. ‘He wasn’t such a bad chap, either. When it comes to fellows like him, you begin to wonder whether some men aren’t born to be victims.’

  ‘To be them or make them?’

  ‘It could amount to the same thing. But in Stan’s case, you’re left wondering. It might even have been a matter of hormone imbalance, and outside the moral field entirely.’

  ‘Can you believe that?’

  ‘You see, I knew him.’

  ‘Just now, I think I’d sooner hear some more music.’

  ‘Well . . . perhaps you’re right. What shall it be?’

  It was Gabrielle who decided on something of Fauré’s.

  But later on, when the cars had gone, and Gabrielle sat musing over a nightcap, she said suddenly:

  ‘Aha! There is something I remember. Were you not to have bought that, what is it, a Suckling?’

  ‘I changed my mind.’

  ‘My friend, why?’

  ‘It was an extra-illustrated copy.’

  ‘And this you do not like? To be extra-illustrated?’

  ‘Also, I th
ought the man’s price was too high.’

  Brundall, 1981/82