Gently Where the Birds Are

by Alan Hunter

  Gently nodded. ‘Now we’ll come to the body.’

  Dick Middleton breathed a little faster. ‘It was lying there, the way I photographed it. What more can I tell you than that?’

  ‘Presumably you approached it.’

  ‘Well – yes.’

  ‘Didn’t you examine it for signs of life?’

  ‘My God I didn’t!’

  ‘Why not? The wound on the head might not have been fatal.’

  ‘But – but!’ His eyes were round. ‘You could see that it was fatal! It was into the brain, it must have been – he couldn’t have been alive, after that.’

  ‘You didn’t look for the exit wound?’

  ‘I tell you no!’

  ‘The exit wound should have been obvious. It would have been much larger than the entry wound and most likely would involve some collapse of the skull.’

  Dick Middleton blanched. ‘I . . . didn’t see that!’

  ‘You didn’t turn the head or examine the injuries.’

  ‘No . . . no!’

  ‘You didn’t feel the pulse, or check for breathing?’

  He swayed. ‘. . . no! I didn’t touch him.’

  Gently nodded indifferently. ‘But you did see the entry wound and some blood draining from it. And the photograph was taken at fairly close range. What did you notice about the blood?’

  Dick Middleton’s pale face blurred. ‘It . . . was running down his face. There wasn’t much of it.’

  ‘Running down?’

  ‘Yes . . . I suppose so.’

  ‘It could be important. Aren’t you certain?’

  ‘Yes . . . well . . . it had to be running.’ He gestured pleadingly. ‘I thought it was running.’

  ‘It hadn’t congealed.’

  ‘No . . . of course!’

  ‘You could see it was still wet.’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘It had a glimmering appearance – say, like oil being poured from a bottle?’

  His hand flickered about his face. ‘I don’t know . . . it was just blood.’

  ‘You saw it in sunlight.’

  ‘Just blood! It was wet . . . fresh . . . that’s all I know.’

  ‘And no breathing. No movement?’

  ‘Oh God!’ He covered his face with his hands.

  Gently paused and eased comfortably in his chair. Over by the piano Aspall’s pencil was driving. Middleton père, his face switched off, sat stiffly twiddling his well-scrubbed thumbs.

  ‘So you didn’t examine the body closely . . .’

  ‘No . . . I’ve already said so!’

  ‘And naturally you were experiencing some apprehension that the killer was near by, and might attack you.’

  ‘Yes – yes, I was!’

  ‘Yet all the same you noticed the favourable photographic conditions and, putting your fears to one side, you took an excellent photograph of the body.’

  * * *

  Slowly Dick Middleton’s hands sank from his face. ‘You still – still don’t believe me, do you?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘Your devotion to your craft was certainly remarkable in the circumstances.’

  ‘But I just took it – like that!’

  ‘The result was a print of some quality.’

  ‘I can’t help it. I simply whipped up the camera, adjusted the focus, and shot.’

  ‘Dick is a very good photographer,’ his father put in. ‘He’s used to taking action shots of birds.’

  ‘But with the knowledge of a gun possibly being trained on him?’

  Middleton senior hooked his thumbs and was silent.

  ‘Look, I don’t know why I did it,’ Dick Middleton said. ‘It was a reflex action, that’s all. I’d come to get a photograph of the fellow, and there he was . . . so I took him.’

  ‘Your hands weren’t trembling.’

  ‘No – they wouldn’t! When you’re trained with a camera your hands lock steady. And then . . . well, I felt I ought to have a record, to show what happened. I had to take it.

  Gently nodded. ‘Then you had evidence. To submit with your story to the police.’

  ‘I . . . I . . . well, it was evidence – even though I didn’t know what I was going to do with it.’

  ‘Surely that was obvious?’

  ‘I . . . no, it wasn’t!’ Suddenly his chin was stuck out again. ‘I know it should have been, but it involved Ka, and I wanted to hear her side of the story.’

  ‘For Miss Stoven you were prepared to withhold evidence.’

  ‘I had to give her a chance, don’t you see? That fellow was tied up with her in some way, but she needn’t have been to blame for what happened.’

  ‘But meanwhile the killer was getting away with it.’

  ‘I don’t care.’ The chin jutted firmly. ‘I didn’t believe that Ka was mixed up in it, and I wanted to be certain, and that’s that.’

  ‘It was an upsetting situation to be in,’ Middleton senior ventured. ‘You can’t blame the young man too much for being loyal.’

  Gently gave him a hard stare; Middleton senior pursed his lips.

  ‘So now what did you do,’ Gently said. ‘You had discovered this crime and acquired some evidence.’

  ‘I wanted to see Ka,’ Dick Middleton said sulkily. ‘After that I was going to decide.’

  ‘You went in search of her?’

  ‘I went back to Sandlings. That’s where I expected her to be. But she wasn’t there, and when we rang her there was no reply from the cottage.’

  ‘Of course, you told Lionel Easton what you’d seen.’

  ‘Of course.’ Dick Middleton’s tone was sour. ‘Only he was as bad as you are – he insisted on seeing the body himself. I didn’t much fancy going back there, but that made him all the keener, so in the end we did go.’ He shrugged. ‘You can guess what we found there.’

  ‘The body had gone.’

  ‘Yes. And I daresay that puts the tin hat on it. It did for Lionel in any case, and I can’t expect any better from you.’

  ‘But you could show him the print.’

  Dick Middleton scowled. ‘You don’t think that would convince Lionel, do you?’

  ‘It convinced our experts.’

  He looked sceptical. ‘Only Lionel specializes in making fakes! He does it with props and double exposures and that sort of kit. When he saw the print he laughed like a drain – he thought I’d been setting him up all along.’

  ‘So he wouldn’t swallow it.’

  ‘Well, it puzzled him a bit that I wouldn’t give in and admit the fake. That’s why he sent a copy to you – to score off me, because I wouldn’t give in.’

  ‘Didn’t he tell you he was sending it?’

  ‘No, he didn’t. Not till he’d put it in the post.’

  ‘And you were angry?’

  ‘Of course I was angry! But he only seemed to think that it proved his point.’

  Gently paused, his eyes on the ceiling. ‘But Miss Stoven would know that it wasn’t a fake.’

  ‘How could she know? She wasn’t there. She’d gone out earlier, with Phil.’

  ‘But surely she was able to tell you something?’

  ‘I . . . no! I didn’t ask her.’

  ‘You didn’t?’

  The young man was scarlet, his wayward mouth quivering. ‘No. You see, she came in later, when Mrs Easton was there – her and Phil – to explain why she’d cut her date with Lionel. Phil had called for her early on – while she was still at lunch, she said – and they’d gone to the reserve together to see a stork that had turned up. So I knew she was out when it happened – and well, I couldn’t tackle her then. And afterwards . . . it was awkward, you see! I shouldn’t have known that the fellow was staying with her.’

  ‘It was none of your business.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Even though you knew the fellow had been murdered.’

  ‘Ka didn’t know that!’

  ‘But you say that you did.’

  ‘Oh God – who else was going to beli
eve it?’

  Middleton senior cleared his throat at length. ‘And that’s probably the nub of it, Super,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Yes. When you come to think of it, Dick was in a very peculiar position. He was certain that the body he’d seen was genuine, but his best friend wouldn’t take it seriously – and meanwhile the body vanishes without trace!’ Middleton senior chuckled sagaciously. ‘I don’t know about you, Superintendent, but in a situation like that I wouldn’t have been in a hurry to make an ass of myself.’

  ‘You would prefer to forget what you’d seen.’

  ‘Oh now, I didn’t quite say that! But looking at it from Dick’s point of view, I think I’d have been inclined to hold my horses. After all, if the man had really been shot, there’d almost certainly be an inquiry. And if there wasn’t, then the odds would be that it was all a hoax in the first place.’

  Gently stared from father to son. ‘Was that how you viewed it?’ he asked.

  ‘I don’t know!’ Dick Middleton squirmed, his fingers digging into his thighs. ‘I just didn’t want to hurt Ka. I guessed she was implicated in some way. But not responsible – not that. And I didn’t want to give her away.’

  ‘But it did occur to you that you might have been hoaxed?’

  ‘All right, it did. Yes, it did!’

  ‘So which way do you want it written into the record?’

  Dick Middleton met his eye. ‘That man was dead.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  AND HE STUCK to that.

  In the end, Aspall fetched a statement form from the car, and Dick Middleton recorded and signed his belief in writing as nervous, but as dogged, as himself. Claude Middleton watched the while; and when the job was done, ventured an ingratiating smile.

  ‘Do you anticipate bringing charges . . .?’

  ‘Not at this stage!’ Gently grunted.

  ‘But the possibility remains . . .?’

  ‘Of course. Your son is an accessory by default, isn’t he?’

  Then they left as they had come, those two intrepid citizens of Grimchurch, father striding ahead of son; how could one doubt their complete integrity?

  Behind Gently, Aspall shuffled the statement sheets.

  ‘So what do we make of that, sir?’

  Gently heaved an expressive shrug. What could you make of such an enigma? Since yesterday morning they’d identified the scene, named the victim and deduced a motive – and now they’d interrogated a virtual eyewitness: and still they didn’t know where they stood!

  ‘What’s your opinion?’

  Aspall had lit a fag; he took a few lungfuls before replying.

  I’m not sure, sir. But you brought out one thing. The kid didn’t look too hard at the body.’

  ‘Not many people would have done, coming on it like that.’

  ‘No sir. Especially kids of eighteen.’

  ‘But they couldn’t have known he’d photograph it.’

  ‘It was on the cards, sir. He’s a nut with a camera, and they knew that he’d have it with him.’

  ‘But why bother to con Middleton?’

  Aspall dragged more smoke. ‘They’d want a witness who we could believe in, sir. No doubt they were hoping we’d never get round to him, but if we did – there he was.’

  ‘Dick Middleton?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. I don’t know about you, but I was believing him. He’s too green, too easy to pump. He doesn’t have gall enough to tell us a tale.’

  Gently brooded. There was something in that! Dick Middleton was the model of a naive witness. If you primed him with the required material, he was bound to deliver it in a way that would convince . . .

  ‘But if that’s the case . . . where would it get them?’

  Aspall puffed. ‘Off the hook, I’d say, sir. We can’t find the body, because there isn’t one, so all they’ve got to do is keep their traps shut.’

  ‘But we do know of Sternfield’s connection with the girl.’

  ‘And the girl has cleared out for a spell, sir. Then, when Sternfield is fixed, she can turn up again with a tale about him spending a couple of nights with her. She has her alibi, don’t forget. All she knows is that Sternfield left again. He didn’t say anything about robbing any banks, and why would she sneak a look in his bag?’

  ‘And suppose we catch up with him?’

  ‘There’s still no proof, sir. All we’ve got is Middleton’s statement. And I reckon that if we laid our hands on Sternfield, we wouldn’t waste a lot of beef about what happened here.’

  Gently took some steps up and down the drab room. Aspall’s view was certainly persuasive! Give the conspirators enough imagination to have made a tool of Middleton, and the plot was credible, might well have been tried.

  ‘Sternfield got here on Thursday.’

  ‘Yes sir. And young Middleton spotted him on Friday.’

  ‘That was what started it.’

  ‘Right, sir. They’d need to make some sort of move, after that. Young Middleton was in a stew about it, he was going to cause trouble. So they put their heads together and came up with this caper.’

  ‘Easton, the girl and . . . Rushmere.’

  ‘Yes sir. Rushmere would have to be part of it. I daresay they met together at her cottage that night, after young Middleton had gone home. Somehow they had to fix him – and fix it for Sternfield, too. His coming after Sternfield with a camera was just the angle they needed.’

  ‘It still sounds a bit elaborate . . .’

  ‘Look sir, follow it through! You’ve got Easton at his house, starting Middleton off, and then phoning to say that laddie’s on his way. They can guess how long it will take him to get there, or perhaps the girl was keeping watch down the cliff. When he reaches the wood she gives the other two a wave, and then they go into their act. After the gunshot Rushmere takes cover, and the girl hides where she is.’

  ‘The timing would be critical.’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. There’s a view down the cliff from the top of the track.’

  ‘What about the blood?’

  ‘A squirt from a syringe. The hole in the head they could have faked earlier.’

  Gently grunted. ‘Too ingenious!’

  ‘But it could have been worked, sir, that’s what I’m saying. And then the rest falls into place, with Easton posting the photograph on Monday. Sternfield and the girl hang on for a day or two, giving us time to swallow the photograph, then they take off – and all we find here is a bullet and a credible witness.’

  Gently took a few more strides. Yes . . . very nearly it could have been like that! Putting some other character in the place of Rushmere, and supposing singular trustingness on the part of Sternfield . . . He turned.

  ‘So what would be your next move?’

  ‘I’d have a go at young Easton, sir.’

  ‘Then sometimes great minds do think alike!’

  Aspall looked pained as he stubbed his fag.

  Plus ça change . . .

  Easton senior was the antithesis of Middleton père, yet clearly he came from the same box, took equal breaths of the Grimchurch air.

  He answered the door, a plump, sharply dressed man with incipient jowls and a discreet moustache, sending before him an air of confident station and a whiff of fresh aftershave.

  ‘Ah yes . . . you are the police officers?’

  He regarded them with eyes that were firm but welcoming: a good man to present a rocky balance-sheet, to reassure the anxious with well-chosen words.

  ‘Actually, we’re having a bite . . . I suppose I couldn’t persuade you to join us?’

  The overlarge hall, with its black-and-white tiles, was the perfect frame for his port-wine manner.

  ‘No doubt you’ll have heard from Mr Middleton.’

  ‘Claude rang me twenty minutes ago. This is a foolish business, Superintendent.’

  ‘I wish to speak to your son.’

  ‘Of course.’

  He waved them into the loun
ge and switched on its row of chandeliers. Then, with a sort of polite haste, went to draw the long velvet curtains.

  ‘May I bring you a tray . . .?’

  ‘No thank you.’

  ‘I would like to be present during this interview.’

  ‘That’s your privilege.’

  ‘I appreciate it, Superintendent. Please make yourself comfortable while I fetch Lionel.’

  He went out with the same deferential despatch, which nevertheless seemed to put one in one’s place. Gently met Aspall’s raised brows and shrugged faintly: you met them all in this line of business!

  When he returned, five minutes later he was accompanied by his wife as well as his son, the former dressed now in a sheath-like gown with a plunge that the central heating made credible. She rustled forward smiling. Lionel Easton also smiled: really, it might have been a social visit! A pleasant group, they sought the big settee and sat, taking their time from Mrs Easton.

  ‘May I put one question, Superintendent?’ Cosmo Easton asked.

  Gently shrugged his assent.

  ‘Are you taking the line that this affair is serious, or do you see it as a foolish prank?’

  Gently hesitated. That indeed was the question! And Cosmo Easton was watching him alertly. He made his face blank. ‘I would scarcely be here unless we regarded it as serious.’

  ‘But truly . . . serious?’

  Gently said nothing.

  ‘Well, that does surprise me, Superintendent! When Lionel explained it to me I formed a rather different opinion. No doubt you have reasons?’

  ‘I have reason for being here.’

  ‘Then of course we accept what you tell us. But I must admit to being puzzled. Lionel has never for one moment supposed it was serious.’

  It was a good cue, and young Easton rose to it. ‘I’m afraid I must admit that, sir,’ he agreed. ‘I thought at first that Dick was fooling me, and then perhaps that someone had fooled Dick.’ He sank his head slightly. ‘Sir, I’m sorry if I misled you this morning. I didn’t understand that it was so important, and I didn’t want to give anyone away.’

  Gently stared. ‘And who is “anyone”?’

  ‘Well . . . Dick, sir! And whoever was in it. I wasn’t lying about the fellow in the photograph – I’ve never seen him before, that I know of.’

  Mrs Easton smiled winningly. ‘I think we can guess about the “anyone”, Superintendent.’