by Alan Hunter
Alan Hunter was born in Hoveton, Norfolk in 1922. He left school at the age of fourteen to work on his father’s farm, spending his spare time sailing on the Norfolk Broads and writing nature notes for the Eastern Evening News. He also wrote poetry, some of which was published while he was in the RAF during the Second World War. By 1950, he was running his own bookshop in Norwich. In 1955, the first of what would become a series of forty-six George Gently novels was published. He died in 2005, aged eighty-two.
The Inspector George Gently series
Gently Does It
Gently by the Shore
Gently Down the Stream
Landed Gently
Gently Through the Mill
Gently in the Sun
Gently with the Painters
Gently to the Summit
Gently Go Man
Gently Where the Roads Go
Gently Floating
Gently Sahib
Gently with the Ladies
Gently North-West
Gently Continental
Gently with the Innocents
Gently at a Gallop
Gently Where She Lay
Gently French
Gently in the Trees
Gently with Love
Gently Where the Birds Are
Gently Instrumental
Gently Sinking
Gently with Love
Alan Hunter
Constable & Robinson Ltd
55–56 Russell Square
London WC1B 4HP
www.constablerobinson.com
First published in the UK by Cassell & Company Ltd, 1975
This edition published by C&R Crime,
an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd, 2014
Copyright © Alan Hunter, 1975
The right of Alan Hunter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.
A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in
Publication Data is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978-1-47210-872-2 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-47210-880-7 (ebook)
Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon
Printed and bound in the UK
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Cover by David Woodruffe and design by Joe Roberts
For Helen, my daughter
CHAPTER ONE
THE CASE I am about to relate is not one of my own, though in the long run I became involved in it at least as deeply as the officer concerned. It did not end in a prosecution and so I have seen fit to change the names of the people and the places. The case excited only modest publicity. It is generally believed to be unsolved.
CHAPTER TWO
SHORTLY BEFORE I was due for promotion to higher executive rank I was sent on a Senior Officers’ Course to prepare me for such an elevation. At that time (the first Wilson administration had just taken office) the course was held at a country house near a town about forty miles from London. I went down by train with ten of my colleagues; we were collected by a minibus and driven through the town; at Copdock Place, as the country house was called, we were allotted rooms and told to assemble in the hall. Here we were addressed by the IC, a senior Metropolitan officer named Stapleton, who gave us a synopsis of the rather boring three weeks that were to follow; when, at the end, he shook our hands, and carefully repeated each man’s name, he gave me an unusually penetrating stare and held on to my hand for a second.
‘George Gently?’
‘Sir.’
‘How did you come to be acquainted with the aristocracy?’
I must have looked blank. ‘I don’t remember any acquaintances of that sort, sir.’
‘Well, there’s a message for you in the office from a gentleman calling himself Earl Sambrooke. He wants you to ring him. He noticed your name in the list we release to the local press.’
Earle Sambrooke: they had the spelling wrong. Sambrooke was far from being aristocracy. In fact he was a Canadian newsreader who was currently employed in the BBC’s World Service. I had met him a short time before when I was on a case in which a Canadian serviceman figured; later he brought me a script about police work to vet, and we had lunch together at Aunty’s expense. He was a husky, likeable young man who had done some flying with the RCAF. But I was at a loss to know why he should want me to ring him or, for that matter, what he was doing in Blockford.
I rang the number he had left.
‘Earle?’
‘Hello there, Superintendent!’
‘What was it you wanted?’
‘If you’re free this evening, I would like you to meet some nice people.’
I hesitated. ‘Here in Blockford?’
‘Sure, right here in Blockford.’
‘What sort of people?’
‘The nicest. You’ll find I am doing you a big favour.’
I considered this. Though my evening was free I had intended to use it settling in – getting to know the rest of the intake, sizing up Stapleton and his establishment. But doubtless there would be time for that, and meanwhile it would be pleasant to spend an evening in civilian company.
‘Have you transport?’
‘You bet. Pick you up around seven.’
‘Is this a pub crawl?’
‘No sir.’
‘Right. I’ll see you at seven, then.’
Promptly at seven Earle arrived, driving a hideous American car: at that time they still had a comic-strip styling and more chromium plate than an espresso bar. We drove away with a clatter of gravel that brought a frown from the watching Stapleton, and took up an improbable angle of heel as we swooped through the lodge gates. Earle was grinning.
‘You like this bus?’
‘I’d like you to ease your big foot.’
‘She’s a wedding present, fella.’
‘Whose?’
‘Mine. I’m getting married on Saturday.’
I glanced sidelong at him. His grin was blissful as he zoomed the car towards Blockford. Earle wasn’t handsome, but he had those boyish features that some women find irresistible. He had fairish hair and pale grey eyes and stood a long-legged six feet. He must have looked well in air force rig. I imagined that he had never been short of a date.
‘Who is she?’
‘She’s out of a dream. She makes Brigitte Bardot look a hundred. She is the classiest, deloveliest dame since Cleopatra and Lady Hamilton.’
‘But she has a name.’
‘Anne Mackenzie.’
‘How did you find her up in Blockford?’
‘She’s the sister of a guy I work with – Alex Mackenzie. You’ll have heard of him?’
At which point I began to catch on. I certainly had heard of Alex Mackenzie. He was the son of Colin Mackenzie, with whom I had done my early service, and with whom I had kept in touch until his death in Rhodesia. Colin had joined the Rhodesian Police. I had been the best man at his wedding; we had seen little of each other after that, but I did know that his son, Alex, had joined the BBC. Also, I remembered, I had heard of a daughter, though I had not had an opportunity to meet either of
the children. I tried to recall Mrs Mackenzie, but my memory of her was vague.
‘Your name came up,’ Earle explained. ‘I was telling them about the Dupont Case. Then Anne’s mother got to wondering if you were the Gently her husband used to know. So she got out some old letters, and I recognized your handwriting straight away. Then Alex capped it by saying that your name was listed in the Police Call column of the Blockford Herald. So here you are – the old family friend turning up for the kid’s wedding.’
‘But I’m a perfect stranger,’ I protested. ‘I didn’t ever really know Colin’s wife.’
‘You’ll like her,’ Earle said. ‘She remembers her husband thought you were great.’
‘That was several years ago.’
‘She’ll like you anyway. She’s the easiest person to get on with. I picked myself a bride in a million and a mother-in-law to match.’
I wasn’t so sure. The eve of a wedding was perhaps not the best time for reunions of this sort, and it occurred to me that if Mrs Mackenzie had wanted to renew our acquaintance she need not have waited till now for an opportunity. I was indeed a stranger. Before her marriage Mrs Mackenzie had lived in Devonshire. Until the wedding, at Axminster, I had never set eyes on her, and soon after she departed with her husband to Rhodesia. I had met Colin again when he was home on furlough, but Mrs Mackenzie had spent her time with her family. Colin had been dead three years. And a serving police officer is not a difficult person to contact. Well, we would see.
‘I guess it’s fate,’ Earle smiled. ‘You turning up on the doorstep like this. I’ve got a crazy feeling that everything is going for me. Perhaps that’s what being in love is all about.’
CHAPTER THREE
WE CROSSED A bridge and turned down by the river, which is the most attractive feature of Blockford: a slow, wide stream that reminds one of the upper reaches of the Thames. The road runs beside it. On the opposite bank is a park, or pleasaunce, shaded by willows, and among the willows stands the boathouse of a rowing club, just where a footbridge crosses at an eyot. This was a bland evening in June. Several scullers were out on the river; people were strolling beneath the willows or loitering on the elegant footbridge. It was a scene so wistfully English that it somehow made me feel like a tourist: especially when seen from an American car, and past Earle’s stubbornly transatlantic profile. I couldn’t help wondering what he thought of it (I knew he came from Hamilton, near Toronto), or whether, if the cards fell that way, he could adapt himself to such a setting. Meanwhile, on the left, we were passing a succession of large, handsome houses, each one set behind its lawn and guarded by shrubberies and mature trees. Clearly this was patrician Blockford, a reservation of the affluent; it was not where one would expect to find living the widow of a Rhodesian police inspector. But Earle slowed the car and we turned in at one of the gateways. We crunched over raked gravel between well-shorn plots and double lines of disciplined roses. Before us spread a gracious Regency front with a wrought-iron veranda at first-floor level, and below it an ornate porch over which clematis had been trained. Earle stopped the car and turned to me.
‘Now wouldn’t you say this was something?’
I gave the house an appraising glance. ‘About forty thousand at present values.’
‘Remind me to kick you,’ Earle grinned. He unbuckled his belt and sat back. ‘It belonged to Anne’s great-aunt. She left it to Verna. Her husband was something on the Stock Exchange.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘I was wondering.’
‘Oh sure,’ Earle smiled. ‘You’re a cop. Now you’re going to suspect me of marrying for money and other felonious designs. But look at this house. Couldn’t you just live there and let the world pass you by? It would be bliss. That place is music. You would hear it playing all the time.’
‘It would need to be your sort of music.’
‘It’s Mozart, the Clarinet Concerto. Then you look down across the river. That’s when it changes into Strauss.’
‘So you’ll be living here.’
‘Till we find a house.’
‘Then you’ll get to know about Regency villas,’ I said dryly. ‘How the floors sink and the ceilings crack and the draughts get past those sash windows.’
Earle made a face. ‘It isn’t like that. Verna has had it all fixed. And anyway we’ll be in town most of the week. I shall keep on my flat in Notting Hill.’
‘But here is where you’ll be settling. In Blockford.’
‘Sure. In a house as like this one as I can get.’ He checked for a moment, then wriggled his shoulders. ‘Let’s stop gassing and join the people.’
CHAPTER FOUR
WE WENT IN. Mrs Mackenzie came out into the hall to greet us. I would not have recognized her as the smooth-cheeked West Country girl who had married Colin just before the war. I remembered her as plump, but now she was slim, a point underlined by a costly black dress, and hair which I remembered as bushy and faintly auburn now was dark brown and elaborately styled. The girl had become a sophisticated woman. She wore heavy but perfectly managed make-up. It did not quite conceal the fine seaming of her features which doubtless was a legacy of her years in Rhodesia. She took my hand.
‘George – at last! You’ve changed, but I think I would have remembered you. Colin had your photograph hanging in his office, but it got lost when we came back to England.’
‘I wrote to you when I heard of his death.’
‘I don’t think we can have received your letter. But it was all so confused about then, I didn’t really know what was happening.’
‘It must have been a shock.’
‘I was prostrate. Alex and Anne were both in England. Fortunately we had some good friends out there who saw me through and took care of everything.’
She touched a handkerchief to her eye, though taking care not to smudge her make-up. She smiled bravely for my approval. I felt that now we could dismiss Colin.
‘May I call you Verna?’
‘Oh, please do. I hate my friends to be formal.’
‘This must be a busy time for you.’
‘Come and meet the children. Earle, I’ll let you pour the drinks.’
She led us into the lounge. Alex Mackenzie rose from a chair to be introduced. He was a young man of solid build with dark hair and eyes, in whose features I could find no trace of his father. For that matter he was unlike his mother too, but I assumed it was from her side that he got his looks: there was a suggestion of Devonshire in his bold, oval face with its firm, dimpled chin and strongly marked brows. He had been to Oxford and it showed in his speech. His manner was polite rather than cordial; but he took my hand with a pleasant smile and a friendly degree of pressure.
‘Where is Anne?’ his mother asked.
‘She slipped out to the study to phone.’
‘Wouldn’t she just! Who was she phoning?’
Alex gave a disclaiming shrug.
‘My daughter is a sad girl,’ Mrs Mackenzie sighed. ‘Oh, I know you won’t agree, Earle. You’ve been dazzled. But just you wait. Your eyes will be opened after Saturday.’
‘Then I surely will close them again,’ Earle smiled, offering her a drink from a silver salver. ‘It’s no use your knocking her now, Verna. The damage is done. You have a son-in-law.’
Mrs Mackenzie took her drink but her expression betrayed displeasure. I found myself wondering if she was less than delighted with the prospect of Earle’s marrying her daughter. Canada is still a long way from Blockford, and Earle might well change his plan of settling in England. He was young; the adventure of exile has a habit of wearing thin when long indulged in. I looked at Alex, who was smiling faintly, as though he remembered something that amused him: I sensed that there had been family discussions. I wondered which side Alex was on.
But then Anne entered and at once I was in a presence that truly recalled Colin. Nobody who had known the father could be in doubt about the daughter. She had his fair hair and his blue eyes and his purely Scottish cast of feature, with
high and slightly prominent cheekbones and a hint of freckles about the nose. She had too his long-limbed frame and his easy, light carriage; but more than this: she had his shy haughtiness that I knew would dissolve into a roguish smile. It did; it was almost a shock. I might have been shaking hands with the young Colin. I could even hear, very faintly limned, a ghost of his brogue in her soft, well-educated voice.
‘So you are the friend Daddy used to talk about.’
I nodded, still taken aback.
‘He said that you were an intuitive with a marked capacity for thought.’
I chuckled. I could hear him saying it.
‘Would you say he was right?’
‘Of course. He was a Scot.’
‘You had better qualify that as a compliment.’
‘How can one qualify an ultimate?’
‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I think Daddy was right.’
‘George is a lulu,’ Earle put in. ‘You had better watch what you say to him, honey. He’s the trained brain from Mindsville.’
Anne flashed him a look that I couldn’t interpret; it was a look with energy but of equivocal content. Then she took the drink from the salver he was still holding and impulsively touched it to mine.
‘To auld lang syne.’
‘That’s my girl,’ Earle said.
‘Well, now we are introduced,’ Mrs Mackenzie said brightly. ‘Do drink up. We must go in to dinner, because I promised to let the help leave early.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE DINNER WAS simple but excellent and accompanied by a suitable choice of wine. We ate in a room in the front of the house with windows that faced the lawn and the river. The windows were open. From the shrubberies outside came the evensong of the birds. From the river we could hear now and then the dip and clunk of passing oars. It was very relaxing. I wished that Colin could have been there to enjoy that affluent haven. I would have liked to learn some more about his death but it was not a subject that I could introduce and our conversation was naturally channelled toward the happy event on Saturday. It was, I found, to be a quiet affair at the local Registry Office. This was not Verna’s choice, nor even Earle’s, but had been insisted on by Anne. A few friends had been invited from the BBC, where Anne too had worked for a while, a few Blockford acquaintances, mostly Verna’s, and Verna’s mother, who was travelling up from Axminster. And now, of course, myself, who fitted into no category, except that in a curious way I could feel them regarding me as, in some sort, the absent Colin’s representative. So I asked a natural question.
