by Alan Hunter
‘So I told Maurice to keep a watch on her.’
‘Maurice? You mean the bartender?’
‘He’d got the evening off — I gave him some money to stop around.’
‘Wasn’t he the one who gave you an alibi?’
‘He didn’t mean no harm by that.’
‘In fact, what time did you get back to the Bel-Air?’
‘It was half past two and that’s the God’s honest truth!’
Gently nodded again, this time more slowly. The super, at his desk, was pencilling notes on a pad.
CHAPTER SEVEN
There was no sign of the weather breaking on the Friday morning, and Gently, fresh from his shower, selected another of his amazing shirts. This time it was the film-stars’ turn to have an outing. He spent a minute or two studying the effect in his wardrobe mirror. In front it was Miss Bardot in company with Miss Loren. Behind it was Miss Mansfield with Miss Dawn Addams. They had been portrayed, most probably, during just such another heatwave: they were sensibly dressed for it in light summer clothing. A garnish of palm trees assisted the composition, and the whole was carried out with a commendable vivacity.
When one was at Hiverton shouldn’t one make a gesture?
Dyson had rung him early with compliments about the Starmouth business, but his lab report, touching the beach pyjamas, was next door to negative. Gently had himself rung Pagram at the Central Office. His colleague had sounded unhopeful and apologetic.
‘We’ve worked back three addresses without turning much up… she had a grandmother in Camden Town, if that’s any help to you.’
‘Is the grandmother still alive?’
‘Give us time! We’ve only just heard of her.’
‘You haven’t got her surname?’
‘No, it’s very hearsay evidence. One of Campion’s ex-landladies had it from another of her lodgers. Apparently he used to know Campion when she was living with her grandmother — we’re trying to get on to him, but his tracks are a bit ancient.’
‘Nothing about any parents?’
‘Not yet, but we’ll keep trying. The local records, incidentally, went up in the blitz; just one of the little things that make life easier.’
‘What about her boyfriends?’
‘There again we’ve had no luck. Since she joined up with Mixer she seems to have kept her nose clean. Before that, as you might expect, it’s all rather vague.’
Gently told him about the warehouse raid, in which direction he had some hopes. If Mixer’s gang was pulled in, an event not unlikely, then something might be elicited from one or another of them.
‘I’ll follow that up, naturally… by the way, have you seen the Echo yet? In case you’re at a loss, they’ve just solved the case for you.’
Gently had hung up and gone to collect the papers he’d ordered. Over coffee and rolls in the breakfast room he and Dutt browsed through them. Gently’s braces and cheerful shirt figured on several front pages, but, as Pagram had hinted, it was the Echo which provided the highlight.
The Echo reporter had scooped Simmonds. Following closely in Gently’s footsteps, he’d dragged the self-same story from Simmonds’s lips.
Nude Pose in Lonely Sandhills. ‘Friend’ Says Youth Who Left Home. Police Seize Pictures.
It was all there except for mention of the thrashing. Detail for detail, it was what Simmonds had told Gently. Nor did one need to be a mind-reader to divine what the reporter thought about it — the murderer was Simmonds: it only awaited confirmation.
Yesterday I talked to John Peter Simmonds. We sat outside his tent on the remote Hiverton Sandhills. Two hundred yards away were drawn up the fishing boats. It was there, on Wednesday morning, that Rachel Campion was found strangled…
Facts, every one of them, and set down without comment; but how much could be inferred from facts put side by side like that!
In addition there was a picture of Simmonds standing at his easel, and a reproduction of a Rachel drawing which hadn’t been in the satchel.
‘Bloody little fool!’
Gently threw down the paper in disgust. Now the artist had really put his foot in it — there’d be no mercy for him from press or populace. Why hadn’t the imbecile had the sense to keep his mouth shut? Instead, he’d poured it out to one of his worst enemies.
The rest of the papers had taken the Mixer angle and done their best to squeeze something out of it. They had got on to Blaydon and noticed the time factor: once again there was no comment, but a naive juxtaposition of facts.
Mixer was seen at Starmouth at twelve fifteen a.m. on Wednesday.
At Hiverton, seven miles away, Rachel Campion died between eleven p.m. and one a.m., according to police estimates.
But this was prosaic stuff beside the disclosures of the Echo. From now on it was going to be Simmonds who featured in the headlines.
The manager interrupted them, his manner almost guilty:
‘Those are two of my best rooms… do you think it might be possible?’
Gently had poked round Rachel’s room already, following in the footsteps of the scientific Dyson. The local man had performed prodigies in the matter of print taking; he had also established that two cigarette-ends had been the property of the inmate. Mixer’s room they had searched on their return from Starmouth. It contained nothing remarkable except some pornographic literature.
‘Tonight, probably…’
He left Dutt with the papers. Just once more he wanted to look round that room of Rachel’s. In a very little while it would own her personality no longer, like the scent of cut flowers, it would have vanished away.
He unlocked the door, to be met by the close smell of a shut-up room. Its windows faced seaward and admitted the morning sunlight. He went across and lifted the sash. The view comprised the lawn and tennis courts. Beyond them, over the marram hills, lay the dark, pacific sea; one could sit here counting the ships or watching the activities of the guests below. Mixer, of course, had had a similar prospect. His room was next door, though it didn’t communicate.
‘Fifteen-love!’
The youngsters were out already, bounding elastically around the courts. One could sense their exhilaration in the cool of the morning air. Over the lawn strode Colonel Morris, swinging a big Malacca cane. A moment later appeard the Midlands couple with their children and carrying towels. The inevitable record had just begun playing: it was a rendering of ‘Long Black Nylons’.
And the room? That was simple enough, one took it in at a glance. A bed with shiny panels, wardrobe and dressing table to match, a bedside cabinet, three Lloyd Loom chairs, a cheap Indian carpet, and a candlewick bedspread. By the bed stood her array of shoes, on the dressing table a silver-backed brush. In the wardrobe her clothes, gay, but not too expensive. In the cabinet cigarettes and Mlle. Sagan’s latest novel.
He took out the photographs and stood them up against the mirror. A little of that personality had started to filter through! The photographs had lied, or at best told half the truth. They had emphasized her sensuality and missed the human warmth behind it. She had been a friendly person… wasn’t that what stood out? Friendly, perhaps generous, perhaps even with a strength of character — allowing for a weakness, a failing not to be countered. Hadn’t they each tried to tell him that in their separate, different ways? Simmonds, cleaving to the unexpected response, Mixer, grateful for her contradictory faithfulness? Yes… a strength of character, an ability to go her own way. Sensual, promiscuous, but level-headed as well. A born and bred cockney, she was first of all a realist: she had accepted her life and produced something like a glow from it.
Wasn’t that the true attraction, setting aside her physical beauty? Wasn’t that what fascinated men even more than all the rest?
‘Thirty-fifteen!’
Down below the game waxed furious. Racquets in hand, those waiting their turn stood by shouting advice and comment.
‘Come into the net, Barry!’
‘Whee! What a backhander!�
�
She had seen it all, heard it all, but now it went on without her. The essence of tragedy lay in other people’s indifference.
Gently swept up the photographs with a sudden surge of violence. Who would have wanted to have killed her? What had she done to deserve that? Mixer didn’t fit the picture — he was jealous, but he understood her. Simmonds? He was a better bet — a twisted little egoist. But there again, she’d been kind to him. She was a blend of mother and mistress. If Mixer had been killed that would have been another story
… as it was, what could have prompted a murderous fit in Simmonds?
He heard a movement by the door and glanced quickly towards it. Just too late a white jacketed figure glided silently out of view.
‘Here… you! Come back a moment.’
Reluctantly Maurice reappeared. His expression was a little sheepish but otherwise he seemed at ease.
‘Come in here — I want to talk to you.’
Maurice entered with his neat, graceful step. At close quarters one saw that he was not so young; there were fine lines meshing the corners of his eyes, a few white hairs amongst the sleeked dark brown.
‘Take a chair, will you?’
‘I should be in the kitchen.’
‘Never mind that. You can refer them to me.’
Maurice shrugged delicately and took a chair beside the window. Rachel’s bag was lying on it but he removed the obstruction without curiosity.
‘I suppose you know why I want to see you?’
Gently himself sat on the broad wooden sill. The bartender’s face was directly facing the sun: it was a perfectly calculated deployment for interrogation.
‘It’s about Mr Mixer, isn’t it?’
‘You didn’t take long to guess.’
‘Well, there you are — I knew it’d come out. It stands to reason that you wouldn’t be satisfied.’
‘Yet you told us a lie, didn’t you?’
‘I did my best for him.’
‘How much did he pay you?’
‘Fifteen quid altogether.’
This was frank to a point — Maurice seemed rather to enjoy talking about it. His grey eyes nudged Gently’s with a sort of confidential cynicism.
‘It was a fiver to start with — did he tell you about that? I was supposed to keep an eye on her while he was away in Starmouth. Then the next morning he sent for me and coughed up two more. That was to tell you he got in at a quarter after midnight.’
‘And you told us — just like that!’
‘I’d taken his money, hadn’t I?’
‘Didn’t you realize that he might be Miss Campion’s murderer?’
‘We didn’t hear about it till later, and then it was too late. Anyway, I reckoned that you’d soon have the truth out of him.’
There was no abashing the bartender by representing his iniquity to him. He obviously looked on Gently as a fellow cognoscente. Mixer had been tossing fivers about — good! Maurice had been in their way. It wasn’t in human nature to have behaved any differently.
‘And suppose I charge you with obstructing the police?’
‘Go on! You wouldn’t make a fuss about a little thing like that.’
Gently grunted but didn’t press him. The time for that, perhaps, would come. He pulled out his pipe and filled it with deliberate slowness. The smoke curled bluely in the still, hot air.
‘Tell me about Tuesday evening.’
‘Tuesday?’ Maurice grinned at him. ‘It’s a long story, that is. How much do you want to hear?’
‘All of it.’
‘You’ll get your money’s worth. But it started before
Tuesday. In a manner of speaking it started when she first set foot in the place.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Can’t you guess? I like the ladies.’
‘You’re telling me that you?’
‘I wouldn’t pass up a girl like Rachel!’
There was no hesitation about it — quite the reverse, indeed. Maurice revelled in the telling of his amorous history. He winked at Gently and made gestures with his head. When he came to the tit-bits he fairly rolled his tongue round them.
‘I saw what she was the moment I clapped eyes on her — so could anyone else, if it comes to that. She’d got just that way with her — you know the sort? Every move, every jiggle… and what a body she had!
‘Her breasts were like melons and her thighs like trees, and sometimes she looked at you as though she wanted to eat you.’
Though he was properly behind the bar, Maurice had rushed to take up her baggage. He found her standing in front of her mirror and taking the fastenings out of her hair.
‘I nearly dropped a clanger. Mr Mixer was round the corner. She opened her bag to give me a tip, and I could see right down… you get me? Luckily I heard him coming — but don’t tell me she did it by accident!’
After that he was more cautious, though his lecherous mouth was watering. He watched and spied and made sheep’s eyes at Rachel. She, too, had noticed him and gave him contemptuous encouragement. His sheep’s eyes were caught and answered, and once or twice she was more provoking.
‘Got me to run her bath and came in wearing next to nothing… another time the bar was empty. She leaned on the counter and gave me a proper old eyeful.’
But the moment came when the teasing was made up to him. Perhaps Rachel felt sorry for the tricks she had played. One evening she retired early, saying that the sun had given her a headache. Within twenty minutes she rang the bar asking for aspirins and water.
‘Didn’t Mixer suspect anything?’
‘No, he was stuck into the Record — I’d just fixed him up with a nice long Scotch. Rosie took the bar for me — she’s all right, is Rosie — and I went up the back way to keep it nice and unobtrusive.
‘Guess how I found her? Stretched flat across the bed there! The light was out, of course, but it wasn’t properly dark.’
‘How long were you away from the bar?’
‘Half an hour or forty minutes. I daren’t stay longer, and perhaps it was just as well. As it was… you understand me? I needed a brandy to pull me round. Rosie laughed her head off to see me looking so pale.’
‘Where was Mixer when you got back?’
‘Right there where I’d left him. He’d drunk another couple of whiskies but he hadn’t left the bar. And for the rest of the evening
…’
‘When else did you make love to her?’
‘There wasn’t never another chance until Tuesday, worst luck.’
Gently relit his pipe while Maurice gabbled on. There was something absurd about this oversexed little man. He had the obscenity of a dog making public his amours: he couldn’t be reticent, he had to talk about it too.
Yet Rachel had been attracted by him… or amused, was it that? Had she been curious to make a trial of his superabundant amorousness? That would account for her provocations. She was probing him, trying him out. Maurice had amused her and she was deliberately applying the stimuli.
‘All right — let’s get to Tuesday.’
Maurice winked and shrugged his slim shoulders.
‘It wasn’t the way you think, but as a matter of fact I earned that fiver.’
‘You went to bed with her again?’
‘And that’s just where you’re wrong! She was upset about something and not in the right mood.’
They had come in late to tea, had Mixer and Rachel, and it was apparent to everyone that they had had a row. Rachel was looking sulky and sat very stiff and apart. Mixer’s face was flushed and he growled ill temperedly at Rosie.
Throughout the meal they hadn’t addressed a word to each other.
‘After tea they both went upstairs, and Rosie heard them carrying on in here. She hadn’t time to listen but she says they were proper angry. Mr Mixer was laying the law down and Rachel getting in a word now and then. Half an hour later he came into the bar. I was just getting things straight for Jimmy Simpson,
my relief.
“‘I want a word with you,” he says, and opens his hand to show me a five-pound note. “They tell me you’re off-duty, and I’ve got a little job for you. It won’t give you a lot of trouble and it’s worth what I’ve got here.”
‘I nearly had a fit when he told me what it was. It was all I could do to stop giving myself away. You might think it was a bit off, taking his money into the bargain; but then, I was a member of the union already. And if Rachel was with me she couldn’t be somewhere else, could she?’
Fortunately or unfortunately, Maurice had been disappointed. Rachel’s sulkiness had not diminished by the time she came down to supper. He no longer amused her. She had satisfied her curiosity about him. After the meal she fetched a book and went to sit with it in the lounge.
Then, at half past nine, she had a drink and went to her room. Maurice, following behind her, heard the bolt shot on her door.
‘This was at half past nine, you say?’
‘Give her ten minutes in the bar. I dare say it was closer to a quarter to ten.’
‘And what did you do after that?’
‘The best I could. I’m not one to pine.’
The best in this case happened to be Rosie, who had just finished in the kitchen. With a little persuasion she went into his room with him. There they entertained themselves till an early hour in the morning — which, exactly, Maurice wasn’t able to say.
‘Whereabouts is your room?’
‘The one next to yours.’
‘You wouldn’t have heard Miss Campion go down again?’
‘Not unless she wore hobnail boots.’
Gently smoked and brooded in silence. This was where the trail ended, at a quarter to ten. After that it was all surmise with very little to go on. She might equally well have gone out or stopped in her room… unless the presence of her bag weighted the scales in the latter direction. If it did, who had persuaded her to unbolt that door?
‘Did she have her bag with her when she went down to supper?’
‘Can’t say I noticed. It wasn’t where my eyes were.’
‘Did she usually have it with her?’
‘Women don’t go far without one.’
