Gently with Love

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Earle.’

  He looked round slowly, his eyes without focus.

  ‘What happened, Earle?’

  He stared wretchedly and gave a dull shake of his head.

  ‘Listen,’ I said. ‘I met Anne yesterday. She had just left a doctor’s surgery. She was upset and very pale. What can you tell us about that?’

  I heard Verna draw a quick breath. Earle’s eyes rounded slightly. It took a few moments for my words to sink in but when they did he jumped to his feet.

  ‘Are you saying she’s sick?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘You said she was looking pale and upset.’

  ‘But that may well have been due to shock.’

  ‘Shock! What shock?’

  I shrugged deliberately and said nothing.

  ‘Oh, you dumb Canadian!’ Verna wailed. ‘Finding yourself pregnant is a hell of a shock.’

  ‘Pregnant!’ Earle echoed. He stared bemusedly at Verna. ‘But that’s crazy. We never fooled around like that.’

  ‘It doesn’t take much fooling around.’

  ‘But it’s crazy all the same! Anne wants to have children – we both want them. She wouldn’t have been shocked, she’d have been delighted.’

  ‘Finding out could still have been a shock,’ I said. ‘Perhaps she’d only gone in for a check-up.’

  Earle dropped back on the chair. ‘No. It’s screwy. It couldn’t have happened, you can take my word for it.’

  Verna rose with a gleam in her eye. ‘This is one thing we can settle. Dr Gurney is a personal friend of mine. He’ll soon tell us what she’s been up to.’

  ‘It wasn’t a Dr Gurney.’

  ‘Who was it?’

  ‘The names on the plate were Steele and Carruthers.’

  ‘So she went to a strange doctor! That explains a lot. But I’m going to check up just the same.’

  ‘They may not tell you,’ I cautioned.

  ‘Rubbish,’ Verna said. ‘I’m her mother. If my daughter is going to have a baby, I suppose I’ve a right to know that?’

  She swept out to the telephone and soon we could hear her voice raised commandingly. Alex poured himself a drink and sank wearily on the arm of a chair beside me.

  ‘It’s insane,’ he said. ‘Simply demented.’

  ‘You don’t know anything that might throw some light on it?’

  He shook his head helplessly. ‘I don’t know about Earle, but I feel as though I’d been hit over the head with a hammer. This is so unlike Anne. She’s wilful, of course, she’s always had a mind of her own. But she has always confided in me before. I feel suddenly that I don’t know my own sister.’

  ‘This idea of another man.’

  ‘Forget it. I was angry when I said that. Anne has been a one-man girl ever since she met Earle.’

  ‘Wasn’t there a quarrel?’

  ‘It wasn’t serious. It lasted a month then they made it up. They were both as sick as dogs.’ He gave me a wry look. ‘You were right of course. They love each other.’

  ‘No question of another man.’

  ‘None. Earle had an arrangement with the CBC. He was going back to a post in Toronto. Anne felt she had to stay over here with Verna.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘A couple of months back. When Anne was still working as an assistant producer. When they made it up she resigned and came home. They were only waiting for Earle’s vacation to get hitched.’

  ‘Do you know why she resigned?’

  He shrugged. ‘Just clearing the decks, I imagine. Anne has never been keen about living in London – she was bred a country girl, you know.’

  We were interrupted: Verna stormed in.

  ‘My God, I never would have believed it! That wretched girl actually left instructions that nobody was to be told why she consulted them. I argued. It was Dr Steele. I told him it was absurd that I couldn’t be told. I said she’d run away and that we were worried stiff and that if he didn’t tell me I would hold him responsible. Do you know what he said?’ Verna trembled with indignation so that her silver pendant earrings jingled. ‘He said that he could understand why she wanted to keep her own counsel and that if she was missing we’d better try the police. And then he hung up. Oh, I could have murdered him! My God, let me have a drink.’

  She poured herself a stiff Scotch and swallowed a hefty mouthful. Her eyes sparkled; she gave a groan of disgust and plumped down on the settee.

  ‘Well, it can’t be anything serious,’ Alex said soothingly. ‘He would surely have given you a hint if it was.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have cared if she were dying tomorrow. That man is a disgrace to medical practice.’

  ‘If she isn’t ill then it must be the other thing.’

  ‘I knew it all along.’

  ‘But why should it make her run off like this?’

  ‘I told you, it’s shock. It does queer things to women.’

  Earle stirred and raised his head. ‘You have to be wrong,’ he said huskily. ‘Anything like that she would have told me. And if she was sick she would have told me too.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ Verna said. ‘The girl is pregnant. That’s the only explanation.’

  ‘It does make a certain sense,’ Alex said. ‘Though I admit that Earle is in the best position to know.’

  Earle scowled at them. His mouth was twisted and his chubby face was looking curiously older. One could see traced in it the face that would be there twenty, thirty years from now. He looked at me.

  ‘George, I’ve got to find her,’ he said hoarsely. ‘I don’t know where or how. But I’ve got to find her. I’ve got to.’

  ‘We can’t help you,’ I said. ‘She has a perfect right to disappear.’

  ‘I’m going to find Anne if it takes from now till the end of time.’

  ‘But if she doesn’t want you to find her?’

  He clenched his fists. ‘That can’t be so. Anything else I can believe, but not that. It’s too crazy.’

  ‘Suppose she’s in trouble that you can’t help her with.’

  ‘There couldn’t be that sort of trouble. Whatever it is I don’t care, nothing would ever make any difference. I love her. I’ve got to find her. Though I have to take the world apart.’

  I sighed to myself. These were brave words, but the world isn’t taken apart so easily. Every day people disappear and are added to lists that rarely become shorter. If Anne really wanted to break away from Earle I had little doubt that she could succeed. She would have contacts in Rhodesia for one thing. But she could lose herself equally well in the next large town.

  ‘Alex tells me she left you a letter.’

  Earle’s eyes were stubborn. ‘That doesn’t help.’

  ‘I think I had better see it if you want a professional opinion.’

  He hesitated before feeling in his breast-pocket and producing a crumpled envelope. He handed it to me reluctantly. It had been torn open roughly and bore only his name scribbled large on the front. I took out the letter.

  My darling [I read], this is the most dreadful letter that I shall ever have to write. Something has happened, darling, that means that now I can never marry you. Please try to understand. If you can’t read the writing it’s because I’m crying so much. I love you, darling. I have to do this. It’s my own fault and I must take the consequences. Don’t believe I love you the less. There never will be any other man. It’s just damnable. I can’t tell you what it is. I daren’t wait to let you ask me. I’m going now, darling. Mother knows nothing. There’s nobody I can tell. I’m not asking you to forget me but you must be sensible, darling, and try not to be unhappy. Don’t try to find me, it’s no use. Oh darling, God bless you. Anne.

  The missive was tear-stained and the handwriting an uneven scrawl.

  I looked it over twice to give my professional faculty of a photographic memory time to function, then I refolded the sheet and placed it in the envelope and handed it back to Earle. Verna was watching me like a lynx: I fel
t safe in assuming that she had not had sight of that letter.

  ‘She says she can’t marry you. Not that she won’t.’

  Earle nodded miserably as he returned it to his pocket.

  ‘If there is a reason, shouldn’t one of you be able to guess at it?’

  I gave them a hard stare: they merely stared back.

  ‘Then suppose we consider some reasons,’ I said. ‘I agree with Alex that Dr Steele would have mentioned a serious illness. But he might not have felt bound to mention some abnormality, say something that might prevent Anne from having children.’

  ‘Oh, nonsense,’ Verna said promptly. ‘Anne is as normal as you or I.’

  ‘She would have told me,’ Earle said. ‘She just would have. Like I would have told her if I was crook.’

  ‘And pregnancy is out?’

  ‘That’s certain.’

  ‘She has no other connection with Dr Steele that we know about.’

  ‘I’ll swear she hasn’t,’ Verna said. ‘I know who she’s been seeing since she came home.’

  It wasn’t a conclusive circumstance, but I passed it. ‘What I’m getting at is this. If there are no medical reasons, we seem left with the alternatives of influence and coercion. Anne says it is her own fault. That suggests that she has placed herself in some sort of quandary. She is under threat or pressure from some quarter. At least you should be able to make suggestions.’

  Alex’s eyes narrowed. ‘What exactly do you mean by threats and pressures?’

  I shrugged. ‘They would have to be strong to make Anne act the way she has.’

  ‘A political thing? You’re thinking of father?’

  ‘I am asking for suggestions.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think that’s one. We’re none of us political. No connection with reds or terrorists.’

  ‘I believe your father had pro-African sympathies.’

  ‘Father was a policeman doing his job. He might have had sympathies but he was never disloyal. You may take it that we have no subversive leanings.’

  ‘Oh, how stupid!’ Verna moaned. ‘George, you have no idea about Rhodesia. And Alex and Anne were in school in England, anyway. You just don’t know how silly you’re being.’

  I saw Alex give his mother a quick look.

  ‘Very well then,’ I said. ‘We’ll forget politics. That brings us to the BBC and Anne’s residence in London. You two saw plenty of her there and you would know the people she knew. You would know her routines and her free-time activities and her flatmates, if she had any. Take your time and think about that. Anything unusual or surprising may have a bearing.’

  Alex stared at the empty glass he was holding and Earle frowned at Verna’s Indian carpet. Both were items of some small value but neither seemed to contain enlightenment.

  ‘She was staying with another girl,’ Alex said at last. ‘Peggy Taylor. Peggy’s a script editor. She has a flat in Shepherds Bush. But I can think of nothing unusual about that.’

  ‘Peggy is a nice girl,’ Verna said. ‘We’ve had her down here once or twice. Her father is a director of a firm in Reading. There is nothing sinister about Peggy.’

  ‘Was she particularly friendly with Anne?’

  Alex gestured with the glass. ‘Rather more with me. I don’t think Anne would run to Peggy if she were in trouble. Peggy would have rung us by now if she had.’

  I glanced towards Earle. ‘What about Anne’s men-friends?’

  ‘Yes, well, she was popular,’ Alex said smoothly. ‘But strictly Queensberry. Then Earle came along, and none of the others stood a chance after that.’

  ‘Could you single one out?’

  He shook his head firmly.

  ‘The other evening a name was mentioned.’

  Alex looked blank. Then he remembered. ‘Nigel Fortuny. Just forget him.’

  ‘Nigel is Alex’s bête noire,’ Verna said hastily. ‘He thinks he played him a dirty trick. I don’t think we should discuss Nigel. Anne would never have got mixed up with him.’

  I was silent for a moment. In this Nigel Fortuny I sensed an area of interesting morbidity. And it was Anne who had brought up his name on that earlier occasion in this room. I tried to recall the way it had happened. She had been seeking to puncture her mother’s effusiveness. But she must have known that a reference to Fortuny would offend Alex and introduce a disagreeable note to the conversation. I felt this was out of character; there had been a certain bitterness in her tone; it was as though Fortuny had been uppermost in her mind and she had been unable to pass an opportunity to mention his name. But of course this might have had no connection with her disappearance and nobody seemed inclined to attribute it to Fortuny. Earle sighed suddenly.

  ‘It’s no use. There just isn’t any reason but me. I guess she loved me but I wasn’t good enough. When it came to the crunch she couldn’t go through with it.’

  ‘Oh Earle,’ Verna cried. ‘How can you say that?’

  Earle shook his head. ‘It has to be true. I railroaded her into it. She wasn’t ready. So she panicked. And that’s all.’

  ‘The little fool. She didn’t know when she was lucky.’

  ‘She had a right to do it,’ Earle said. ‘What sort of a heel would I have been if I’d held her to marrying me when she didn’t want to?’ His voice faltered. ‘But I want another chance. I want a chance to prove to her that she’s wrong. I must find her. If you know where she is, in pity’s name tell me.’

  ‘Oh, if I could, if I could!’ wailed Verna tearfully. ‘Do you think we’re hiding her from you, Earle? I’ve racked my brains to think where she could have gone. Ask Alex if you don’t believe me.’

  ‘One usually starts by checking relatives,’ I put in.

  ‘But what relatives could Anne possibly go to? She wouldn’t dare to try Colin’s people and mother would never—’ she broke off, her eyes rounding comically. ‘Oh my God – mother must be at the station, and there’s nobody there to meet her!’

  Alex got to his feet. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘Yes, but Alex, what shall I say to her? Oh, that girl! I could honestly beat her. She doesn’t know what humiliation she’s caused.’

  Verna groaned and poured more Scotch and drank it in quick, indignant gulps. Alex went. Earle sat hugging his knees, his mouth small and his eyes empty.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  WHEN VERNA’S MOTHER arrived, I left. My usefulness, if any, was at an end. Verna may have had initial apprehensions but in fact her mother was the person she most needed at that time. Mrs Granger was a fortress. She was a no-nonsense matron with a sturdy figure and blue-rinsed hair. She spoke in determined tones and with a Devon accent that seemed to give unusual authority to what she said. She quickly took charge of the situation, both emotionally and practically, and her presence was so bracing that from this point onwards I felt that Verna could relax and enjoy her calamity. I would like to have spoken to Earle alone but it was doubtful whether I would have got the chance. In the court that formed around Mrs Granger there was little opportunity to get him aside. I did hint that he might drive me home but Earle was too absorbed in his misfortune to respond; so I took my picture and quietly withdrew: I believe only Alex noticed my going.

  And this time I did make notes when I returned to my comfortless room. Though I couldn’t put a finger on it, I had an uneasy sensation that the mystery had a side that was less than innocent. I wished I had been able to interrogate freely. I didn’t think that they had told me the whole truth. I felt that I could have sorted the matter out with just a little more co-operation. I wanted to know more about Fortuny; I wanted to know more about the quarrel; I wanted to know more precisely why, after the reconciliation, Anne had given up her job and returned home. There was meat in this. I chafed at my present incapacity to dig it out; but the affair was not a police matter and I had to be content with what I’d got. So I noted down the details, including the text of Anne’s pitiful letter. I have these notes beside me now on the desk in my study at Elphinstone Road
. While on the wall, between my stuffed pike and a bookcase overloaded with forensic literature, hangs that view of a landscape in Provence on a scorching day in 1820.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  THE COURSE ENDED and I returned to town. I was quickly involved in a case of some consequence. It concerned the death of a wealthy socialite and a man distantly connected with my sister’s husband. The case was not merely of consequence to the news media (though a dramatic development brought them running) but it included a suspect who, in the upshot, was to change my life quite radically. In short, I fell in love. I met the woman who presumably had been waiting for me. I must confess that I fell with all possible reluctance because, as I said, she was one of my suspects. But she was cleared; she had made up her mind; it then remained for me to make up mine; and my private life for a time was preoccupied in coming to terms with this engaging problem. Thus the affair of Colin’s family and Earle Sambrooke tended to be pushed out of my mind, and I was thinking of anything but that when, three months later, I came across a short paragraph in the Evening Standard.

  At Bow Street Magistrates’ Court today Earle Jeffrey Sambrooke (29), a newsreader, was fined £50 for assaulting the radio and television actor, Nigel Fortuny. The offence took place in Fortuny’s flat at 23, Surrey Gardens, St John’s Wood. Sambrooke pleaded guilty.

  I still had Earle’s number. I rang him. ‘What’s this trouble you’ve been in with Fortuny?’

  ‘You read the paper?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I busted that creep on the jaw.’

  ‘But what’s it about?’

  ‘I’d sooner not discuss it.’

  ‘It has to do with Anne, hasn’t it?’

  He hesitated and I knew I was right: I’d had money on Fortuny from the start.

  ‘Look, I’d appreciate a chat,’ I said. ‘Join me at home for a bite to eat.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I want to chat to coppers at the moment. And I sure as hell don’t have an appetite.’