Gently With the Painters

by Alan Hunter

Now there could be no doubting it. Hansom’s tone, like his look, was eloquent of what he was thinking.

  ‘At Mr Mallows’s, sir – and we very nearly missed them. They were hidden under the matting outside his front porch.’

  If Hansom was unconvinced that Gently hadn’t foreseen this find there were adequate reasons for it in the latter’s sparse reactions. Though Gently, on occasion, had been known to show emotion, the present did not seem to be one of those times.

  ‘Get your print man on to them.’ His steady blankness was impervious – after a moment’s inspection of the exhibits, he seemed to have exhausted his interest. Still poker-faced, he knocked out his pipe and refilled it, and then quietly sat down at the side of the desk. Hansom, looking uncertain, waved a hand to the detective constable, then he too resumed his seat at the desk.

  ‘Well … that certainly gives the thing a different look!’

  ‘Hmm.’ Gently’s grunt was an archetype of neutrality.

  ‘If I’d guessed about that’ – Hansom stared hard across the desk – ‘I wouldn’t have been too worried about Johnson, either …’

  The cue was plainly Gently’s, but just as plainly, he wasn’t taking it, and instead his eyes had lapsed into that distant, absent expression. Those like Dutt who knew him well could have suggested what this meant, but to Hansom it merely suggested that Gently wasn’t quite with him.

  ‘Let’s see where it gets us.’ Hansom grew tired of waiting. If Gently wouldn’t play, he was going to press on without him. ‘Mallows was stuck on Mrs Johnson, and he was the last person to see her alive. Her picture was painted on a special paper and Mallows has got some of that special paper. The letter was also on that paper, and it referred to another knife: and the knife, plus a mutilated Times, is found concealed at Mallows’s house.

  ‘So what is a policeman going to think when he’s being a common, ornery policeman? He’s going to think that we should pull in Mallows and have a cosy, comfortable chat with him!’

  Gently blew him a puff of smoke by way of reward for this performance. ‘Don’t ever rush a fence like Mallows … you’re liable to wind up in the ditch.’

  ‘Does that paper and knife look like we’re rushing something?’

  ‘At least we can wait to check them for prints. And it might be wise to compare the Times with the letter, just in case someone has tried to work a ringer.’

  ‘And who in the blue blazes would do that?’

  ‘I don’t know … think it over for yourself. But in either case we’ll need to check the prints, to find if Mallows’s are actually on The Times.’

  ‘They won’t be. Chummie doesn’t leave his prints.’

  ‘Then surely you can see the implication? Mallows would hardly have been so careful as to handle the paper with gloves – nor would anyone else, except for a very special purpose.’

  ‘You mean’ – Hansom struggled to grasp this knotty point – ‘unless chummie was expecting us to find the paper?’

  ‘Just so – in the normal way, you’d expect the paper to be destroyed. It would be much easier to do that than to cut out small capitals while wearing gloves.’

  ‘Yeah!’ Hansom paused to let the idea sink in. But only a moment or so was necessary to deduce the grateful consequence:

  ‘So like that, Johnson may have planted it!’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Sneaked in after he did the job, and popped the evidence under the boyo’s doormat! Because he knew darned well that there’d be a search – there’d have to be, after Farrer showed us the letter; and if he knew where his missus had got the gash paper – bingo! Mallows was sitting right in the target area.’

  Gently blew some more smoke at this promising pupil. ‘We can assume, I dare say, that Johnson knew about his wife and Mallows …’

  ‘Hell yes! It stands out. There’s revenge in this too – he may have plotted it from the beginning to throw suspicion on Mallows. Or maybe just to drag him in, to roll his character in the mud: and this is the crafty way he’s done it – killing a couple of birds at once.’

  ‘He’s a bright lad, as you were saying.’

  ‘Yeah – only not so bright as he thinks!’

  In common with the group members, Mallows had had his prints taken, so there was the briefest of delays in checking the fresh evidence. As Gently had surmised, the artist’s prints were not on the Times; it showed only the detective constable’s and a pair of others, not on record. A comparison with the letter disposed of the other point – this was the veritable Times which had supplied the characters. The knife, needless to say, was bright and unsmirched, and identical in pattern with its two predecessors.

  They had tea, like lunch, sitting at Hansom’s special table, and the local man was too absorbed to notice Gently’s continued abstraction. He was busy devising plans for the further and decisive trapping of Johnson, and was now triumphant, now subdued, according to the aspect that came uppermost.

  ‘We’ll get Chelmsford to identify those spare sets of prints – they’re bound to find them at one of the newsagents. Then an identity parade, as soon as we lay hold of Johnson … it’s the devil, that chummie being able to fly!

  ‘And then there’s the knives. Of course, you’re right about them being bought here. The whole thing was planned, not done on the spur of the moment. Johnson hated the Palette Group because his wife ran around with it, he’s got the natural motive for wanting to slash those pictures …

  ‘So we’ll get on to the supplier, who probably recognized Johnson anyway … if not, it’s only a question of another identity parade. There’s this to be said for that chummie, he isn’t difficult to pick out – once seen, never forgotten, not unless he’s lost his moustache …

  ‘Where do you reckon he headed for – was it Orly, or somewhere quieter?’

  While they were eating another report was brought in, but now Hansom had no use for these tedious messages. The events of the day, though occasionally teasing, had all finally supported his dogged contention. He could see only Johnson, fenced in by every circumstance. Whatever line you chose took you straight to the estate agent. Like a spider he was sitting in the middle of a web of facts, and though at times they spiralled round him, their connection was never severed.

  It was Johnson who was Hansom’s chummie – however far he meant to roam!

  ‘A message from Inspector Stephens, sir …’

  Hansom deafened his ears to this fresh invasion of privacy. At the moment there was only one message he wanted to hear about, and that must come via the Yard, from the Quai des Orfèvres. By a stretch of imagination he could picture the desired event, he could see two sombre figures waiting to greet the taxiing Proctor … ‘M. Johnson, I believe? You must accompany us, monsieur’ – followed by a call from the nearest phone box, and a quick relaying of the news …

  Irritably, he noticed that Gently was speaking to him:

  ‘We’ll take your car, then, and get on the road …’

  ‘Take my car where?’

  ‘Why! After Stephens, naturally.’

  ‘What the blazes for – hasn’t he got a car of his own?’

  He was aware that Gently was looking at him oddly, and then of the slow smile that spread over the Superintendent’s face.

  ‘Didn’t you hear the message he sent? Miss Butters has vamoosed in her sister’s Jaguar, and Stephens is busy tailing her, in a westerly direction …’

  ‘Miss Butters … on her own?’

  ‘Yes, driving fairly fast. And I don’t think she’s gone after a breath of fresh air …’

  They were mobile in minutes, with Hansom taking the wheel; Gently barely had time to retrieve his pipe from the office. Two of the minutes, however, had been judiciously spent: they were occupied in the signing out of a police-issue Webley.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  BY THE TIME they had got clear of the city streets, Gently was beginning to feel sorry that he had let Hansom drive. The Chief Inspector, with all due allo
wance for his eagerness, was not a model of the correct and approved police driver. His deficiencies were the more apparent because they were meeting a flow of traffic. The spasmodic efflux of Saturday had become the steady influx of Sunday. It might have been worse, it was true: they were on the Fosterham Road; towards Starmouth, the traffic would now be packed in nose to tail. But there was plenty enough here to produce some breathtaking moments, and what was worse to suggest that such were commonplaces of Hansom’s style.

  Over his knees Gently had spread the three-inch map from the car’s pocket, and on this, with pencilled crosses, he was plotting their progress. They were in constant radio contact with the pursuing Stephens, who was conscientious in reporting every location he passed.

  ‘Hallo car ex-two … we’ve just come to a village … get you the name if I can … yes … Saxham King’s Head!’

  On a more southerly route they were catching up with the other two, whose progress was governed by the whims of Miss Butters. She was making straight across country with all the confidence of local knowledge, never hesitating to use a side road where its line was the most direct.

  ‘Hallo car ex-two … she’s just stopped for petrol … I had to go past her … don’t think she noticed … am waiting in side road, Braningham one mile.’

  ‘Hallo car ex-seven … don’t follow her so closely!’

  ‘Hallo car ex-two … message understood.’

  Gently held up the map so that Hansom could glance at it, the pencilled crosses now strung out in purposeful direction. ‘Does it suggest anything to you?’

  ‘Yeah – she’s heading for Fosterham. They’ve got a flying club there, but surely he wouldn’t have the nerve …’

  ‘I’ll call back to HQ.’ Gently flicked the switch across. To him too it seemed unlikely that Johnson would use an operational airfield. But, for all the estate agent knew, his latest ploy was undetected, and he might be unwarily sitting in the club house at Fosterham.

  ‘Car ex-two calling ex-ex-ex … I’d like you to get in touch with the County at Fosterham. Johnson may be at the flying club … tell them to send a couple of men. And remind them that he’s armed … repeat that: armed!’

  ‘Ex-ex-ex replying to car ex-two … message received and understood, and I have one for you … Lady Stradsett reports the loss of a grey Jaguar convertible, believed to have been taken from Lordham Grange at around seventeen-thirty hours … do you want any independent action on this?’

  ‘Hallo ex-ex-ex … no independent action.’

  The Wolseley drummed along at an unsteady sixty, with Hansom juggling rhapsodically with his brakes and throttle. It was in fact a good lick for that contorted country road, on which the stream of homing traffic was unceasing though irregular. On either side there was country which was typical of upland Northshire. It proceeded in gentle undulations with shaggy hedges and wistful trees. It had the muted and subdued charm of an unlistened-to sonata which, some day, one suddenly noticed had made a haunting and fixed impression. It was difficult to pin it down to any single feature. The villages, for example, had little truck with the picturesque. Like the landscape they were stern, but with an unaffected nobility, and one sensed a majestic strength which lay beneath the austere surface.

  Farther on the contours were higher but the astringent flavour remained; only here one could see more into it, more deeply probe the secret amalgam. There were glimpses of square flint towers, of ranked plantations, like armies marching; of farmhouses glowing in rusty brick, and monstrous barns with huge, peaked roofs. And the fields were seen quilted with colour, the yellow of mustard, the green of beet; and everywhere, dashed with poppies, the tawny wheat and paler acres of barley.

  Even from a Hansom-driven Wolseley one was compelled to observe and admire, and Gently, to whom the road was fresh, made a mental note to return in his Riley …

  ‘Car ex-seven calling car ex-two … passing through a small town … it’s Fosterham, I think.’

  Gently jabbed to transmit: ‘Hallo ex-seven … watch carefully here … she may turn off to the flying field.’

  But half a minute later Stephens came through again:

  ‘We’re out at the other side … still driving in the same direction …’

  So Fosterham was out. It wasn’t as simple as that. The wary ex-RAF pilot was doing nothing that might betray himself …

  ‘Any more suggestions?’ Gently tilted the map again, having just scrawled a cross on the far side of Fosterham. They too were approaching the town and would soon be hard on Stephens’s tail; there could not now be more than a few miles separating them.

  ‘If it was a question of boats, I’d say she was heading for the coast … as it is …’ Hansom frowned, giving a flickering look at the map. ‘The trouble is there’s two … no, three … old air-force dromes out that way, and they’re all in roughish country – just left to rot there, after the war.’

  ‘They sound a better prospect.’

  ‘Yeah … but it may not be so easy. It’s heathy country, you can see for miles – and chummie’ll have that angle covered.’

  It went without saying. Johnson didn’t miss his tricks. If there was an advantage to be gained he could be relied upon to take it. Gently brooded for a few moments over the advisability of calling on help, but under the circumstances there seemed little open to them that would give them a better chance. In the first place, they didn’t yet know for certain where they were going …

  ‘Car ex-seven calling car ex-two … we’re turning off south about five miles from Fosterham. Signpost says By-road and there’s a straw stack beside it … half a dozen tar barrels parked on the verge.’

  Gently referred to the map, but they were in a country of by-roads; narrow parallels, some dotted, straying out into blank spaces.

  ‘Calling car ex-seven … drop back as far as you can … you’re going into open country, you’ll be able to see her well ahead.’

  Then they were in Fosterham, making the townspeople stare – Hansom wasn’t in a mood to defer to country towns. Gently received a snapshot impression of a street of plastered house fronts, a sleepy market square and a hovering flint tower. A pleasant place, probably – but the Wolseley whisked him past it. Beyond it, almost directly, they entered a sparser-looking tract of country.

  Here the trees which had graced every hedgerow were become few and mean in appearance, and the fields, snowed with chalk-backed flints, supported thin and starve-acre crops. The hedges likewise had shrunk to mere scrub, soon to be choked and replaced by bracken; one saw far distances of brackened slopes scarred by gravel and by droves of sand.

  ‘Now you can see what I mean.’ Hansom made an embracing motion with his hand. ‘It goes on like this for miles, and farther down it’s a battle area. But I’d say she was making for Rawton, that’s what it sounds like, turning down there.’

  ‘Is there anything else in that direction?’

  ‘Yeah … she might find a way to Morsingdon.’

  They identified the turning by Stephens’s description and found themselves on a road with a surface that made Hansom swear. It had patently been neglected for a number of years – in all probability, since the end of the war. A rusted service sign confirmed this conjecture. Farther on, they passed a dump of disintegrating barbed wire. On both sides of the road stretched the god-forgotten heathland, relieved only at long intervals by ragged and wind-sculptured firs.

  ‘Car ex-seven calling car ex-two … she’s going very slowly … not sure of the way. There’s practically no road … just a track of broken concrete … I’ve stopped behind a pill box … we’ll have to let her get ahead …’

  ‘Calling car ex-seven … do we just keep straight on?’

  ‘Calling car ex-two … slow down where you see a gun emplacement.’

  Hansom was still bumping along at a stubborn forty-five, though the Wolseley was taking a hammering from potholes and sunken surfaces. Now, however, the metalled surface petered out entirely, giving way to a stony
track which looked as aboriginal as the heath. In front of them it stretched away into a hollow or valley where the bracken-covered slopes shouldered closely to each other; it was deep enough to take a shadow from the westering sun, and was guarded by two tattered firs standing one to either side.

  As they approached it they saw evident signs of a former occupation. A picket hut stood ruinous to one side of the track. Beside it lay a fallen gate and a W.D. property notice and, a little higher up, the gun emplacement referred to by Stephens.

  ‘They must have loved being stationed here …!’ Hansom clashed to a lower gear. The Wolseley slithered and yawed a little as it scrambled over some crumbling concrete. Almost immediately they were turning a corner, and then the need for caution was plain: they were coming out on the brow of a slope, from which they must be visible for at least a mile. Hansom jammed on the brakes abruptly.

  ‘If he was anywhere near her, she would have seen him …’

  Gently nodded, puckering his eyes as he searched the sweep of country before them. The heath here was very level and without a lot of cover, though leftwards, to the south, it slowly rose into a shallow ridge. Down the track, perhaps a quarter of a mile away, one could make out a pair of battered pill boxes.

  He flicked the radio to transmit:

  ‘Calling car ex-seven … report your movements.’

  After a minute, when there was no reply, he repeated the call with greater urgency.

  Still there was no response from Stephens. Hansom met Gently’s eye as he tried again.

  ‘What do you make of that … would he have gone off on a recce?’

  ‘I don’t know. But I warned him to keep clear of trouble …’

  It was at that instant that they heard the sound of a shot, coming distant but distinct from behind the southerly slope. A second later it was repeated by a second and a third, each producing a ringing echo from the stony little hollow.

  ‘Brother … let’s go!’ Hansom jerked in the clutch. The Wolseley went bumbling forward over the outrageous concrete track. Foot down, Hansom lashed the tortured vehicle into the fifties, making it bound and bucket like a goaded stallion. The track bore to the left through an area of scrubby bushes, but some distance beyond the pill boxes it apparently vanished into the naked heath. Swearing viciously, Hansom blazed on along the line it had been taking, the sheer power of his anger seeming to keep the car going.