Gently with Love

by Alan Hunter

  And so (as no doubt you will have guessed) I made the distant acquaintance of Nigel Fortuny, unloved by Alex, detested by Earle, but not entirely written off by Verna. He played the artist. The part was a poor one, and Fortuny could offer little to improve it. As an actor he rested on his good looks and a trim, athletic presence. He was an awkward mover, at least on set, and given to the frenetic use of gesture; he delivered his lines with a monotonous attack that had almost an air of bullying. But he was handsome. He had a Roman nose, which was something that Earle hadn’t mentioned, and a strong, obstinate jawline and straight, manly brows. For looks I’m afraid he left Earle in the shade. It was easy to see why women fell for him. It was not difficult to understand why Anne had turned to him after a hectic quarrel with Earle. Fortuny was a sweetie; by gathering him in she was soothing her injured amour propre. For that she hadn’t needed a paragon of virtue but a handsome brute for whom other women would envy her. She may not have intended an affair, but I imagined that Fortuny would be difficult to resist. He was thirty-five. He was a practised seducer and probably an exciting performer in bed. So Anne had fallen; and that casual union had evoked a havoc out of all proportion. Whatever happy ending Verna might be dreaming of I knew was vain after seeing the man. Fortuny was nobody’s husband, Fortuny could rate no respect from Anne. If Anne was as sensible as I supposed her, she would take care that she never saw Fortuny again. Fortuny was an episode in women’s lives: he would never be a principal actor.

  I asked Mrs Jarvis her opinion of him.

  ‘Oh, he’s lovely,’ she replied. ‘My Linda got his autograph up at the TV Centre. He made her go all over queer.’

  ‘Would you like him for a son-in-law?’

  ‘Go on with you. Why should he look at the likes of us?’

  ‘He might fancy Linda.’

  ‘Linda’s a good girl. She knows better than to lark with his sort.’

  Which I took to prove my point. Mrs Jarvis can usually see the end of her nose.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  EARLE NEGLECTED TO get in touch with me when he returned from his trip to Canada and on two later occasions when I rang Verna my ring was not answered. She was, I learned afterwards, visiting her mother, but I was discouraged from trying again, and contented myself with the reflection that I knew most of what there was to be known. The mystery was over, and my interest in the affair subsided. I was not, after all, very closely acquainted with the people who were involved. I doubted whether Verna regarded me highly, Alex viewed me with indifference, Anne had cut herself off and Earle had lost his taste for policemen. Anne I regretted. I had been too fond of Colin not to be moved by her misfortunes; but even Anne I had met only twice, however deep an impression she had made on me. And meanwhile, as I mentioned earlier, I was finding my own affairs absorbing. In all, I felt I could contain my impatience until the course of events brought me news.

  But the course of events was tardy. Christmas passed and I had heard nothing. At Easter I spent a few memorable days in Paris in the company I most desired. Then, at the beginning of June, some time fell due to me as compensation for extra duties, and since Brenda was unable to get away I planned to spend it on a visit to my sister and her husband in Somerset. I returned home early on the Wednesday to pack, and arranged with Mrs Jarvis to have breakfast next morning at seven. I rang Brenda and was about to retire when I was called back to the phone.

  ‘George? Verna. I must speak to you.’

  My first reaction was relief. When you are a policeman a late phone call is usually a prelude to lost sleep.

  ‘Verna. How are you?’

  ‘Skip the compliments. Something really ghastly has happened. You’ll probably read it in the papers tomorrow and you’re the only person I know who can help.’

  I hesitated. ‘Is it Earle again?’

  ‘My God. Yes it is.’

  ‘Another upset with Fortuny?’

  ‘It’s more than that. Earle’s killed him.’

  I had been standing by the desk, impatient to hang up and get to bed. Now I sat down rather suddenly and took a firmer grip on the phone.

  ‘Would you mind repeating that?’

  ‘I said Earle’s killed him. He went for him again and did him in.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘But there’s been no word of this at the Yard.’

  Verna made exasperated noises. ‘It didn’t happen in London, stupid. It was at Kyleness. Alex has just rung me. Earle is in custody at Dornoch.’

  ‘In Scotland, you mean?’

  ‘Yes, in Scotland! Of course, Anne was staying with Colin’s family. She had the baby there, that’s what it is about. Why else do you think Earle went for him?’

  ‘But what was Fortuny doing at Kyleness?’

  ‘Never mind that! It’s a long story. Listen, George, we’ve got to help them. That damned little fool is still in love with Earle.’

  ‘Exactly how can we help them?’

  ‘You’ve got to go up there. You’ve got to take over the case. Earle didn’t mean to kill him, it’s manslaughter. I should think you could get him off altogether.’

  ‘Do you know the cause of death?’

  ‘He threw him over a cliff. I believe there’s some nonsense about a knife.’

  ‘A knife!’

  ‘That’s why you’ve got to go there. The knife is a plant. You’ve got to prove it.’

  I leaned back in my chair and sighed. ‘Verna, you’d better face the facts. If what you tell me is true there is no question of manslaughter, and if Fortuny was stabbed the knife can’t be a plant.’

  ‘But you don’t know that until you get up there.’

  ‘Nor is there any question of my going up there. I am an officer in the Metropolitan Police Force and my writ doesn’t run outside the area.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘I’m afraid it’s true.’

  ‘You’re at the Yard and you go anywhere.’

  ‘Only on assignment in England and Wales. Across Carter Bar I would just be a nuisance.’

  ‘Oh God.’ She made other noises. ‘George, you know you’re just putting me off. I don’t know the protocol and I don’t care. They’ll listen to you all right if you go up there.’

  ‘They wouldn’t and I wouldn’t blame them. What Earle seems to need is a lawyer.’

  ‘With you breathing down their necks they’d have to go easy on him.’

  ‘They would probably arrest me too. For obstruction.’

  She paused to take second wind but then she came back strongly. ‘George, whatever you say you can’t just wash your hands of this. You were Colin’s great friend. And you are Earle’s friend too. And then there’s Anne. You know she loves him. How do you think she is feeling now? With this trumped-up charge against him, and him eating his heart out in a cell in Dornoch?’

  ‘The way you tell it it isn’t a trumped-up charge.’

  ‘You know very well what I mean. And you, the one person who could help them, sitting on the sidelines and talking protocol. It isn’t good enough. It isn’t like the man whom Colin told me so much about. He said I could always go to you in a jam and that’s what I’m doing, George. It’s up to you.’

  Though the subject was so grave I couldn’t resist a little smile. There was something so engaging in the naivety of Verna’s tactics. But of course she was right. I couldn’t turn my back if the affair was half as serious as she represented it. I could be of no use in an official capacity but I was a friend who knew the ropes; and Verna had struck the right chord when she harped on Colin and drew a picture of Anne’s distress. Also I was free to act. Geoffrey and Bridget I would be seeing in a few weeks anyway, and the relatives of policemen learn never to be surprised at a last-minute change of plan. I could go: but what I really needed to know was how far I could believe in Verna’s story. It was shocking, but was it entirely true? I felt I must have independent confirmation.

  ‘Look, I’ll run over to B
lockford in the morning. Then you can put me in the picture.’

  ‘That’s a waste of time. We’ve got to get up there. I can tell you on the way.’

  ‘You intend to come with me?’

  ‘Naturally. It’s a hundred miles from Inverness. I don’t drive and there are no proper buses. You’re the only way I can get there.’

  ‘Verna, you do have your facts straight?’

  ‘George, just try to get here early.’

  I made a face at the stuffed pike. ‘Very well, then.’

  ‘We can be in Inverness by evening.’

  I depressed the studs and dialled a number that seemed to have worn a groove in the gears. I asked for an extension and after a wait I was put through.

  ‘Gerald?’

  ‘George. I thought you were making tracks for the West Country.’

  ‘Gerald, I need some information.’

  ‘Who rings this number for anything else?’

  ‘After I left today was any check requested on a Canadian national called Sambrooke? I’m told he’s held at Dornoch. That would be Sutherland County Police.’

  ‘Sambrooke. Isn’t he a chum of yours?’

  ‘He was going to marry Colin Mackenzie’s daughter.’

  ‘Aha. What’s he been up to?’

  ‘That’s what I’m hoping to find out.’

  There followed another wait while Gerald Pagram pursued inquiries with CRO. He came back.

  ‘Sambrooke’s in trouble. He’s detained in a murder investigation. The victim was a TV actor, Nigel Fortuny. Sambrooke’s being held on an assault charge.’

  ‘An assault charge?’

  ‘Need I say more?’

  I shook my head. Not to a policeman. It meant only that they hadn’t dotted the last i; perhaps the knife hadn’t turned up yet.

  ‘What did CRO give them?’

  ‘Nothing known. He’s pure.’

  ‘He was nicked at Bow Street for common assault.’

  ‘What would CRO know about that?’

  It wasn’t an indictable offence, but Sutherland would certainly get to know of it. In fact, they would get to know of it from me. I should have to tell them if I went up there. Pagram chuckled.

  ‘Would I be right in thinking that your West Country trip is off?’

  ‘I’m in a difficult position. I know the background of the case.’

  ‘You could stay clear.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘I think I’d better forget you rang me.’

  ‘I think you better had.’

  He chuckled again. ‘Good luck with the natives.’

  I hung up and got my notes from the file drawer in the desk. I read them through twice and sat a little longer to scribble a fresh entry. I didn’t know it then, but I could perhaps have solved that case without ever moving from the phone. The critical fact was in the notes. But perhaps it was better the way it went.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I ATE MY breakfast at the hour appointed and was on the road by half-past seven. It was a drizzly sort of day, not what one would have picked for a punishing drive. Over breakfast I had scanned the Telegraph. It contained a cagey sort of paragraph. Fortuny wasn’t big enough to make a fuss over and Earle was still a man who was helping the police. Sutherland were playing it close, and I drew a sombre satisfaction from the circumstance. It meant that the case wasn’t yet cut and dried and that some small hope might remain for Earle.

  I arrived at Verna’s at half-past eight, by which time the rain was pelting in earnest. Verna was waiting impatiently in the hall with a pair of large and swagger suitcases.

  ‘You’re late. We’ll never get to Inverness.’

  ‘If you were in such a hurry you could have flown up.’

  ‘What’s the use of that when I’d have been stuck there?’

  ‘There are things called hire cars.’

  ‘It’s a hundred beastly miles.’

  I loaded her cases into the boot of the Sceptre, which was my transport at that time. Verna. who couldn’t afford a hire car, was wearing a short-cut classic coat in mink. Beneath it she had on a Hartnell suit in a becoming shade of beige and on her head a matching hat with a romantically swept brim. Her comely features were deftly made up and a diamond-cluster ring sparkled on her finger. She carried a lizard-skin handbag. I felt she was almost too grand to be travelling in the small beer of the Sceptre. She came out carrying a silver-mounted umbrella.

  ‘George, I’m planning to lunch at Penrith.’

  ‘We’re not taking that road.’

  ‘But I’ve booked a table.’

  ‘That’s too bad. It will be on your conscience.’

  She took her seat with a disconcerted air. I pointed the Sceptre towards the A1. We picked it up near Eaton Socon and settled down to the long haul north. I had a great deal to say to Verna but I felt it would do her no harm to stew a while, so I drove silently through the hissing rain and let the miles tick up against the clock. Verna seemed in no hurry to talk either. She sat staring sulkily ahead past the wipers. We put fifty-five miles in the first hour and not a word passed between us. At last she sighed with deep feeling and took a cigarette from the lizard-skin bag. She lit it with the lighter from the Sceptre’s dash and breathed smoke delicately through her nostrils.

  ‘I suppose it really is too much to expect that you would tell me I’m looking nice.’

  I spared her a glance from the road, but she continued to stare haughtily in front of her.

  ‘You hurt me last night, George. You made me crawl. I had every right to expect support from you. After all, if you were such a good friend of Colin’s you should have jumped at a chance of helping his wife.’

  ‘You think I should have.’

  ‘Yes I do. It would only have been the decent thing. And I wasn’t asking for so much either. This is right up your street.’

  ‘You haven’t asked why I’m not at the Yard.’

  She looked at me sideways and breathed smoke. ‘That has very little to do with it. I imagine you can always get time off for matters of this sort.’

  ‘In fact I was about to start a short holiday. I was leaving this morning to visit Somerset. Now instead I am chauffeuring you to the north of Scotland and about to meddle in affairs that are none of my business.’

  ‘How can you say they are none of your business!’

  ‘Because that’s what I’ll be told by the police at Dornoch. And furthermore there are long odds that my presence there will prejudice Earle rather than help him.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’

  ‘You had better believe it. In the first place I am a policeman. I can’t and I won’t bend the facts. If the facts are prejudicial then that’s too bad.’

  She breathed smoke fiercely. ‘I don’t think you want to help.’

  ‘Quite the reverse. I don’t think I can.’

  ‘You’ve taken against me, George, that’s what.’

  ‘Verna, I want to know what’s been going on.’

  She stuck her chin out at the windscreen and went into her silent sulks again. I drove on placidly. I was determined to be fully briefed before we reached Dornoch. It would perhaps need digging. I suspected that the facts were less than flattering to Verna. But I meant to have them. If I was going to help Earle I had to know exactly how things stood. Verna stubbed her cigarette with venom.

  ‘George, you’re being quite beastly to me,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what you meant by your last remark. Anyone would think that I was responsible.’

  ‘What was Fortuny doing at Kyleness?’

  ‘Well! And why shouldn’t he be there?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know. He was the father of Anne’s baby.’

  ‘So what was he doing there?’

  ‘In heaven’s name! He went to see Anne and the baby, didn’t he? Surely a man wants to see his own child. There’s nothing sinister about that.’

  I shook my head. ‘It won�
��t do. Fortuny had to know where to find them. And if my reading of Fortuny’s character is near the truth he wouldn’t travel seven hundred miles to visit his bastard.’

  ‘That’s a filthy word to use for Anne’s baby.’

  ‘I’m sure Fortuny would have used it himself.’

  ‘Nigel was a gentleman.’

  ‘Anything but.’

  ‘My God, why did I have to pick on you?’

  She sat back fuming. When Verna was angry she had an attractive sparkle in her eye and her painted mouth took on a curl so pronounced that it was mildly comic. Now she was breathing in short spurts through her pretty but dilated nostrils. No actress could have given a livelier impression of handsomely justified indignation.

  ‘Well, I told him where to go.’

  I paused to overtake a trailer van. ‘You had been keeping in touch with him?’

  ‘Yes – why not? Isn’t that what any mother would have done? Anne was having his baby. She’d run out on Earle. Obviously it was in her interest to keep up with Nigel. Being an unmarried mother isn’t a joke and she must have been attracted by him in the first place.’

  ‘Did you consult her?’

  ‘Anne is twenty-three. At that age a girl doesn’t know her own mind. She needs an older person to look out for her. Naturally, I dropped a hint now and then.’

  ‘But in so many words . . . she didn’t know.’

  ‘I thought I’d let her get on with having the baby. That would be the psychological moment, of course. When the baby comes you want a man around.’

  ‘So she didn’t know. What about Alex?’

  ‘You know what Alex was like about Nigel.’

  ‘And Earle would certainly be kept in the dark.’

  Her lips tightened. ‘He was out of the picture.’