Gently by the Shore

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Yessir!’ gasped Dutt, ‘yessir – I’ll be there with you!’

  But by that time Gently was gone.

  It was a hummocky bit of paddock separating the race-course from the lane to ‘Windy Tops’ and Gently, past his best sprint years, found it very heavy going. At the far side was a scrubby thorn fence in which he had to find a gap. Nits, frisking along at his side, went over it like an Olympic hurdler.

  ‘You get back, m’lad!’ panted Gently, ‘there’ll be trouble up there!’

  ‘You going to take him away!’ chuckled Nits. ‘I want to see you take him away!’

  ‘You stop down here and you’ll get a grandstand view!’

  ‘I want to see – I want to see!’

  There was no discouraging him. Gently ploughed on up the slope of the cliff. By the time he reached the gates of ‘Windy Tops’ he was glad of the breather offered by a pause to reconnoitre and Nits, entering into the spirit of the thing, gave up his leaping and frisking, and slid away like an eel behind the cover of some rhododendron bushes. Not a sound had come from the house. Not a vestige of life was to be seen at any of the windows. Only the front door stood half ajar, as though whoever was within didn’t mean to be there for very long.

  Keeping his breathing in check, Gently moved swiftly across to the threshold. Inside he could hear voices coming from somewhere at the back. Silently he worked his way down the hall towards the baize-covered door of the kitchen, which was shut, and pressed himself close to it, listening …

  ‘No, Peachey,’ came Louey’s voice at its softest and silkiest, ‘we don’t seem able to find that money anywhere, do we?’

  ‘B-but boss … he give me the message,’ came Peachey’s whine in reply.

  There was the sound of a cupboard door being opened and shut, and something else moved.

  ‘Quite empty, Peachey … not a dollar-note to be seen.’

  ‘Boss, he t-took it with him … you don’t think I’d l-lie?’

  ‘Lie, Peachey?’ Louey’s laugh sounded careless and easy. ‘You wouldn’t lie to me, now, would you?’

  ‘N-no, boss, of course I wouldn’t!’

  ‘And you wouldn’t tell tales, Peachey, would you … not even to save your own worthless skin?’

  A confused noise was Peachey’s answer to this sally.

  Louey’s laugh came again. ‘You see, Peachey, we all have our value, looked at from a certain point of view. I have mine. Streifer has his. Stratilesceul had a value too, but unfortunately for himself he lost it. And now the pressing problem of the moment, Peachey, is your value … you do see what I’m driving at?’

  A strangled sound suggested that Peachey saw it very plainly.

  ‘Yes, Peachey, I thought you would. I don’t want to be unkind, you know. I’m prepared to listen to any defence you may have to offer, but it seems to me that there can’t be any real doubt about the matter … doesn’t it to you? Here am I, on whom the forces of liberation in this country depend, and there are you, a small and expendable unit. Now I could betray you, Peachey, and that might be wrong. But if you were to betray me, that would be a crime comparable to the crime of Judas. You understand?’

  ‘But boss – I never – I didn’t – I told them I wouldn’t!’

  ‘SILENCE!’ thundered Louey’s voice, stripped in a moment of its silky veneer. ‘Do you think I didn’t know, you miserable worm, do you think you can lift a finger without my knowing it?’

  There was a pause and then he continued in his former voice: ‘I like to make these matters clear. I tried to make them clear to Stratilesceul. I’m not a criminal, Peachey, in any real sense of the word. There’s only one crime and that’s the crime against the forces of liberation: when we, the liberators, proceed against that crime, we are guiltless of blood, we are the instruments of true justice. So I am not killing you, Peachey, from hatred or even personal considerations … I am killing you in the name of Justice, in the name of Society!’

  ‘… No!’ came Peachey’s terror-stricken cry. ‘Boss … you can’t … you can’t!’

  ‘Oh but I can, Peachey.’

  ‘No boss – no! It’s a mistake – I never told them nothing!’

  ‘And no more you shall!’ came Louey’s voice savagely, ‘this is it, Peachey – this is the tool for traitors!’

  Gently hurled open the door. ‘Drop it!’ he barked, ‘drop that knife, Louey!’

  The big man spun round suddenly from the sink, over which he was holding the helpless Peachey. His grey eyes were blazing with a malevolent light, strange, fey. ‘You!’ he articulated with a sort of hiss, ‘… you!’

  ‘Yes, Louey – me. Now drop that knife and take your hands off Peach.’

  ‘… You!’ hissed Louey again, and the light in his eyes seemed to deepen.

  ‘Stop him!’ whimpered Peachey, ‘oh, God, he’s going to do for me!’ And with the energy of despair he twisted himself out of Louey’s grip and made a dive for the back door, which fortunately for him was only bolted. But Louey made no move to restrain him. His eyes remained fixed on Gently.

  ‘Let him go!’ he purred, ‘he won’t talk … I’m not so sure now he ever would have done, are you, Chief Inspector Gently?’

  ‘He’ll talk,’ retorted Gently, ‘there’s a limit to what you can do with a knife. Now drop it and put your hands up. It’s time you started thinking of your defence.’

  By way of answer Louey let the knife slide down his hand, so that now he was holding it by the tip of the blade. ‘My defence, Chief Inspector Gently; you are looking at it now. Isn’t it a pity? I’ve let a miserable parasite like Peachey escape and in his place I must execute a man of your … attainments. Isn’t – it – a – pity?’

  With the last four words he had reached back with his gigantic arm and was now leisurely taking aim at Gently’s heart. There was no cover to dive for. There was no prospect of a quick back jump through the door. The knife was poised and on a hair-trigger, it would reach its mark long before Gently could move to evade it. And then, at the crucial split second, the knife disappeared – one instant it was flashing in Louey’s hand, the next it was spirited away as though by a supernatural agency.

  ‘You take him!’ piped the delirious voice of Nits through the back door, ‘ha, ha, ha! You take him – you take him!’

  With a roar of anger Louey recovered himself and leaped at Gently, but it was too late. A hand that felt like a steel bar smashed into the side of his throat and he collapsed on the floor, choking and gasping, a pitiful, helpless wreck of humanity. Gently snapped handcuffs on the nerveless wrists.

  ‘It had to come, Louey,’ he said grimly, ‘there has to be an end to this sort of thing.’

  ‘Ha, ha, ha!’ giggled Nits, dancing around them and brandishing Louey’s knife, ‘we’ll take him away now – we’ll take him away!’

  Gently put out his hand for the knife. It was a curious weapon. The hilt and blade were one piece of steel, the former heavy, the latter relatively light and narrow. On each side of the hilt was engraved the mark of the TSK along with a number of Egyptian hieroglyphics.

  ‘Double-edged, about three-quarters of an inch wide,’ mused Gently, ‘it couldn’t be any other … it would have to be this one.’

  Louey struggled up into a sitting position. He was still gagging for breath, his face was grey. He stared at Gently, at the knife, at the discreet links shackling his enormous wrists. ‘No!’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘you weren’t big enough … you just weren’t big enough!’

  Gently nodded sadly and slipped the knife into his pocket. ‘It’s you who weren’t big enough, Louey … that was the mistake. We’re none of us big enough … we’re just very little people.’

  Half the Starmouth Borough Police Force seemed to be congregating in the garden as Gently led Louey out. There was the super with Copping and three or four plain-clothes men, at least ten constables and the complete Special Branch outfit. Dutt came panting up the steps, relief showing in his face at the sight of the handcuffs
and an unmarked Gently.

  ‘You’re all right then, sir – he never give you any trouble?’

  Gently shrugged faintly. ‘About the routine issue …’

  ‘And Peachey, sir – you got him away safe and sound?’

  ‘Safe and sound, Dutt … all Peachey had was a scare.’

  ‘By thunder, Gently, you’ve pulled off a splendid piece of work!’ exclaimed the super, striding across. ‘I have to admit it – I thought you were going to fall down over this fellow. I suppose it’s unnecessary to ask whether you’ve got the goods on him?’

  ‘I got him red-handed … he was going to stab Peach with a TSK patent executioner’s knife. I think we’ll find it adds up to the weapon which was used on Stratilesceul.’

  ‘You’re an amazing fellow, Gently!’ The super gazed at him with honest admiration. ‘You’re not an orthodox policeman, but by heaven you get the results!’

  There was a cough of some penetrative power indicative of the near presence of Chief Superintendent Gish. ‘I’m sure you’ll forgive me for interrupting,’ he observed bitterly, ‘but we, at least, have still some business to transact in this affair. I take it that Chief Inspector Gently no longer has any objections to my carrying out my duty?’

  Gently signified his innocence of any such desire.

  ‘Then possibly Peach can be produced to answer a few of my irrelevant questions?’

  Gently deposited Louey with Dutt and took a few steps towards the edge of the wildered garden. ‘Peachey!’ he called softly.

  There was a rustling amongst some rhododendrons.

  ‘Peachey … it’s all right. We’ve got Louey under lock and key. You can come out now.’

  There were further rustlings and then the parrot-faced one emerged. He was still trembling in every limb and his knees had a tendency to buckle, but the sight of so many policemen reassured him and he walked shakily over to the front of the house.

  ‘That’s the boy, Peachey … nobody’s going to hurt you.’

  ‘You got his kn-knife?’ gabbled Peachey, darting a wild-eyed glance at his shackled employer.

  ‘Yes, Peachey, we’ve got his knife … everything’s as safe as houses. All we want now is a little information – just a little, to begin with! I suppose you’re in a mood to do some talking, Peachey?’

  Peachey was. He had never been so much in the mood before. Shocked to his plump core by his experiences in the house, Peachey had learned the hard way that honesty was his only hopeful policy and he was prepared to give effect to that policy in all-night sittings, if that should be required. Chief Superintendent Gish, however, was more moderate in his exactions. He was obstinately and snappily interested in but one set of facts – a short-wave transmitter and some records – and when he had obtained the address of same he departed in haste, leaving Peachey to waste his sweetness on the East Coast air.

  ‘But you wanted a statement about the m-murder, didn’t you?’ asked Peachey aggrievedly, though with an anxious look at the silent Louey.

  ‘We do, Peachey … don’t you worry about that,’ Gently assured him. ‘We’ll take you right back now and you can tell us about it over a cup of canteen tea.’

  ‘Then there’s Frenchy … she can b-back me up …’

  ‘She hasn’t been overlooked.’

  ‘And I dare say some of the boys … it was only me what was sworn into the p-party.’

  Gently nodded and urged him towards the gate. The super signed to his men and Dutt touched Louey’s arm. From below them, through the scrub trees, came a murmur like a swarming of bees, a murmur that grew suddenly, became a frenzied roar. Louey stood his ground a moment. It was another race in progress.

  And then there came a second sound, a rumbling, subterranean sound … like the first one and yet strangely unlike it. The roar of the crowd died down, but the second roar didn’t. It seemed to be vibrating the air, the trees, the very ground itself. Yet there was nothing to see. There was nothing to account for it. It was Copping who suddenly realized what was going on.

  ‘Run for it!’ he bellowed, ‘it’s the house – it’s going over – get the hell out of here, or we’ll all be over with it!’

  A sort of panic followed his words. There was a general and high-powered movement on the part of one super, one inspector, four detective sergeants, ten constables and a plump civilian in a down-hill and due south direction. This left a balance of three to be accounted for and a backward glance by Copping revealed them in a snapshot of dramatic relation which rooted him to the ground. There was Dutt, sprawling on the pavement; Gently, racing up the path; and Louey, roaring defiance from the top of the steps. And the house was already beginning to move.

  ‘Come back!’ howled Copping, ‘it’s on its way – come back!’

  Gently pulled up short some feet from the steps. A crack was opening like magic between himself and the house.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ roared Louey. ‘Come on, Mister Chief Inspector Gently – let’s die together, shall we? Let’s die as though we were men – let’s die as though we were more than men!’

  Gently measured the distance and poised himself for the leap. Louey rattled his handcuffs in ironic invitation. Then, as though his good angel had whispered in his ear, Gently flung himself backwards instead of forwards: and at the same instant ‘Windy Tops’, complete in every detail, lurched out frightfully into space …

  They ran to pick him up, Dutt, Copping and two uniform men. As they pulled him to safer ground another chunk of cliff dropped thundering to the beach. Down below them a raw gap loomed, large enough to put the Town Hall in. There was a curiously unnerving smell of dank and newly-revealed gravel. On the beach was piled the debris, lapping into the sea, a cloud of dust and grit still rising from it. Gently tore himself loose from his rescuers and stared down into the settling chaos.

  ‘Not so close!’ shouted Copping, ‘you don’t know where it’s going to stop!’

  But Gently remained staring from the edge of the yawning pit. Then he turned to Dutt, a curious expression on his face. ‘All right … fetch him up. Use that little path over there and fetch him up.’

  ‘Fetch him up?’ echoed Dutt. ‘Yessir. Of course, sir. But we’ll need some picks and shovels, sir, and maybe a stretcher …’

  Gently shook his head and walked away from the edge. ‘Not a single shovel, Dutt … not the strap off a stretcher. Poor Louey! This is his final tragedy. He thought he was big enough to play God, but when it came to the push he couldn’t even commit suicide.’

  ‘You mean he – he’s alive?’ goggled Dutt.

  ‘Yes, Dutt, and kicking too. If we’d left the door unlocked he’d have been buried in the middle of that lot, but as it is he went down on top … he’s sitting there now, shaking the muck out of his ears.’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT WAS GREAT stuff for the press, the double arrest of Louey and Streifer. It sent the Body On The Beach rocketing right back into the headlines. There were encomiums for Gently and encomiums for the Borough Police – it was only Chief Superintendent Gish who got a cold and cautious mention. But Gish didn’t mind. They were used to it in the Special, he told everyone.

  All the same, it was a pity that the best angle on the story didn’t come out. It drove the reporters wild to see so much delectable copy laid for ever in the freezer. There was that transmitter under a ruined pill-box down at South Shore, for instance, with its aerial cheekily installed on the Scenic Railway … and there were the mass arrests and deportations of agents all over the country, a major operation which the British Public had an undoubted Right To Know About. But it was no use arguing. Chief Super Gish had a heart of stone. As a result of his inhuman decree the British Public were left with the vague and erroneous impression that the Body On The Beach had to do with a gang of international counterfeiters, with an element of vice thrown in by way of a gift to the Sunday papers.

  BODY ON THE BEACH – VICE KING ARRESTED declared one such. BEACH MURDER TRACED TO VIC
E EMPIRE said a second. And it was almost pure libel – Louey only did a bit of sub-letting. After all, even revolutionary parties have to get their funds from somewhere …

  But it was a London Evening that produced the really telling caption. It caused Chief Super Gish to drop dark hints about people being friendly with editors. ‘Body On The Beach’ ran a small by-line and then, in a triumph of Cooper Black, GENTLY DOES IT AGAIN! – with one of Gently’s better press photos cut in across two columns. Of course, Gently pooh-poohed it. He folded up his copy and stuck it in his pocket with scarcely a glance. But a little later, when he thought he wasn’t being watched, Copping saw him perusing that paper with more than common attention.

  ‘We didn’t waste no time, when you comes to think of it, sir,’ Dutt remarked with a tinge of regret, as they stood on the bridge by the station awaiting their train. ‘We comes here on the Friday night to meet a stiff what nobody don’t know about and by Tuesday tea-time we got the two geezers what done it, busted up a lot of bolshies and run in a sample of ponces and Teddiesall in a long weekend, you might say.’

  Gently passed him a peppermint cream and took one himself. ‘We certainly haven’t been too heavy on the ratepayers.’

  ‘And me, I was just getting attached to the place, sir. I reckon it beats Sahthend hollow for some things … there’s a bloke off Nelson Street as does a plaice-and-chips that knocks you backwards.’

  Gently smiled at a distant tug with an orange funnel. ‘Talking of plaice, there’s some first-rate fishing goes on off the Albion Pier.’

  ‘And them digs of ours, sir, they wasn’t half bad neither. I reckon I could stand a week down here with the missus next Bank Holiday …’

  A train-whistle sounded close at hand. Gently consulted the watch on his clumsy wrist. Beneath them an empty motor-barge came chugging past, its skipper lounging lazily by his wheel.

  ‘But things change, Dutt … it doesn’t take long to alter them. Do you know what struck me most while we were on this job?’