It was the eighth day of the heat wave, and hotter than it had ever been. The sun was like a baleful presence nailed to a merciless sky. With both windows down the train compartment had been sweltering, and here and there, beside the track, one had seen black patches of spark-ignited grass. Gently, who never stood on ceremony, had stripped to his braces before the train reached Chelmsford. At Norchester Thorpe he had dived through the barrier for a hasty glass of beer. It had tasted insipid and only made him sweat the more, while Dutt, sprawled in his seat, seemed to have remained the cooler of the two.
‘But when we get to the sea…’
That was what he had kept telling himself. In his mind’s eye he had seen the pastelled marrams stir in the breeze. And the sea itself, the long falling combers; once get down to that and it would have to be cooler!
Only at Hamby there was no sea to be seen, and certainly nothing suggestive of a breeze. The little station lay blistering in a heat still untempered, its asphalt platform soft to the foot. The porter, who picked up their bags, shed sweat. His face was the colour of a freshly boiled lobster.
‘But when we get to the sea…’
It couldn’t be so far away. Beyond the line of dusty trees, perhaps, beyond the air dancing over the pantiles.
‘Morning Chronicle — can you give us a statement?’
They had warned him that the press was taking a keen interest in the affair. A reporter in a printed play shirt was shoving a notebook under Gently’s nose, while in the background a photographer manoeuvred for a shot.
‘As you see, we’ve just arrived.’
‘Have the police got a theory?’
‘It was probably a man who did it.’
‘Hasn’t Mixer been inside?’
‘If you check the records…’
‘Isn’t it a fact that she was his mistress?’
A thin-faced man with prominent teeth hurried up just as the photographer was immortalizing Gently’s deshabille.
‘Sorry I’m late… the car broke down! It’s all right now, I’ve got it outside.’
‘Are we fixed up at the Bel-Air?’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t easy. They’ve had to turn two of the staff out of their rooms.’
He had met Dyson before, about six months previously. The county man wasn’t really surprised to see Gently in braces and trailing his jacket. The photographer, however, couldn’t get enough of it. He ran ahead into the station yard and took two more candid shots.
‘Was it like this in town?’
Above the bonnet of the police Wolseley the air simmered as though the engine was boiling. When you opened a door the heat spilled out, carrying along with it a smell of warm leather.
‘Yesterday it was ninety-one. Today, so they tell me…’
Steeling himself, Gently plunged into the oven-like interior.
Once they were moving things became more tolerable. The air that rushed in wasn’t cool but it was moving. They were driving through flat country along a narrow coastal road. To the right, although the sea was invisible, one could see the pale marram hills which marked the boundary of the land.
‘We sent you the file by despatch.’
‘I looked it over coming up.’
‘Naturally, with only one day…’
‘I thought you’d done a pretty sound job.’
Dyson looked relieved rather than pleased. He was driving, Gently noticed, with text-book care and attention.
‘What about the photographs?’
‘You’ll find some in that briefcase.’
‘I want to know what this Campion looked like before she was killed.’
‘There’s a couple there I got from Mixer. He was carrying them about in his pocket.’
Gently delved in the briefcase, pausing only briefly over the official post-mortem photographs. The two which had belonged to Mixer were post-card enlargements a little soiled at the edges. One was a full-length and the other a three-quarter profile. The full-length print showed the victim in a bikini.
‘Some dish, wasn’t she?’
Dyson threw Gently a curious side glance.
‘From what I’ve been hearing she was everything she looks. She made a stir in Hiverton during the short time she was there.’
‘Went round with several men, did she?’
‘No, but not because they didn’t try!’
‘Because her boss kept an eye on her?’
‘You’ll never get him to say so.’
Gently held the two photographs side by side, staring from one to the other. A ‘brunette bombshell’ was how one of the morning papers had described her. Slender, rather tall, she had the feline type of gracefulness. Her bust and hips were large and there was a misting of down on her calves. Her features were strong and the nose a little prominent. Her black hair, perfectly straight, flowed down her back like the mane of a horse. But it was the eyes that held the secret, the pulsating key to the woman. They were large and very dark and set a long way apart. They didn’t have a smile, and neither did the ripe-lipped mouth. Instead they suggested a smile, a smile compact of sensual intelligence: in a moment one seemed to have penetrated all the promise of the passionate body.
‘Do you think he’d introduce her to his wife?’
Gently grunted and dropped the photographs back into the briefcase. They had come to a string of houses reaching out down the dusty road; just beyond them, at a crossing, was the flint tower of an enormous church.
‘Is this the village?’
‘Yes… this is Hiverton.’
Dyson turned off right by the church. The village street down which they cruised was short and disappointingly commonplace, and was flanked by flint cobble cottages and featureless houses of local brick. The church had promised something better, but one looked in vain for a compensating factor.
‘The Bel-Air is to the right — over there, amongst those trees.’
Dyson paused at a lop-sided crossways for Gently to take it in.
‘To the left you might call it residential — some rows of old terrace houses! Straight ahead is the track across the marrams. The boats are pulled up on the far side of the gap.’
‘What’s that hut place by the gap?’
‘It belongs to the fishermen, I believe.’
‘And that other thing, on stilts?’
‘A coastguard lookout, but it’s disused these days.’
Really, there was nothing to see in Hiverton! Dyson pressed the accelerator with gentle impatience. But Gently was still gazing about at the sun-struck scene, unconscious, apparently, of the rising temperature in the car.
‘Let’s stop at that shop with the grass hats hung outside.’
Dyson let in his clutch with a suspicion of a jerk.
‘I’ve questioned the fellow there, but I’m pretty sure he doesn’t know.’
‘I’m too hot to talk shop! What I want are some of those play shirts.’
Leaving Dyson with Dutt in the car he went up the steps of the establishment. It was a modern shop with two long counters and seemed to sell everything from slabcake to paperbacks. A bright-faced woman in overalls was making ice cream cornets for two children. She gave Gently a smile and blew expressively through rounded lips.
‘Anyway, it’s good for trade — that’s what I say!’
He bought three of the shirts of the sort he had seen the reporter wearing. They were manufactured in Hong Kong and not very expensive. One of them was printed with rich fruit-like designs in green, orange, purple, and black, another featured rock-and-roll singers, the third film actresses. If that photographer really wanted something to enliven the silly season!
‘I’d better have a hat — one of those Italian straws with the green bands. And a pair of sunglasses. Have you sandals in a broad nine fitting?’
He finished up with a bottle of sun lotion and a threepenny ice cream cornet. Nibbling at the latter he began to feel happier, in spite of the intolerable heat. He had been given the run of the shop. The proprietress was treating him almost like an acquaintance. As he had pondered the various items she had left him for other customers, returning each time with a fresh smile and a remark.
‘You’re popular here, I see.’
‘We do our best to keep people happy.’
‘Where’s your husband today?’
‘Do you want him? He’s having his lunch with the girl.’
For some reason he was wanting to linger there: it was as though, quite by accident, he had got his foot in at Hiverton. The Beach Stores, it was obvious, played a big part in the village scene. People came there to exchange a word as well as to make their purchases.
‘Did you get what you wanted?’
Dyson couldn’t help the sarcasm. He squirmed as he turned the Wolseley in front of the shop. His long nose was peeling and the colour of rhubarb, and he shrank every time Gently came near his arm.
They took the turning to the guest house, which passed a public house on its left. To the right were ugly bungalows of a bad pre-war vintage and, a little further on, an estate of forbidding council houses. There were no two ways about it — Hiverton was no beauty spot. It had a breathtaking church, but it had very little else.
‘I expect you’ll want to have a talk with Mixer.’
‘To begin with I want a shower.’
‘He struck me as being… I suppose you checked with Records?’
‘And then something to eat. I scamped breakfast to catch the train.’
He caught a puzzled expression on the county man’s face: Dyson wasn’t quite used to Gently yet. He was apparently expecting him to dive straight in, armed with his particular brand of Central Office magic.
‘In my report, as you’ve seen…’
‘It was adequate, I thought.’
‘Then you agree with me that Mixer?’
‘What’s the food like at the Bel-Air?’
Dyson sliced the car through an open pair of white gates, puffing up fiercely and with a scuttling of gravel. The Bel-Air loomed above them in Edwardian grandeur; it was marzipan and brick of the most exuberant vintage. A stopped door revealed a vista of black-and-white tiles. The sash windows were fitted with pale yellow Venetian blinds. In a room not far away someone was playing a jazz record, and one could also hear the sound of a tennis ball being struck.
If Gently had been down there on holiday he could hardly have behaved more eccentrically. That was Dyson’s fixed impression by the time they had finished lunch.
Gently, resplendent in his fruity shirt, was well aware of his colleague’s opinion, but he gave no sign of it as he dallied over his coffee.
They had taken the meal alone, the three of them. It was half past two and most people had retired, some of them to the beach, some to deckchairs in the garden. Six times during the past quarter of an hour Dyson had tried to get to business, and six times Gently had merely grunted and continued to stare at the pretty waitress.
Now he was just sitting there, spinning out time over the coffee. He had had his shower, he had eaten his lunch, and that seemed to be everything at present on his mind.
‘How about some more coffee?’
Injuredly, Dyson poured it for him. From the way it was received he knew that Gently was stalling him. Nobody in this heat could want two cups of coffee.
As a matter of fact, Gently’s state of mind was curious. Ever since he had seen the photographs his ideas had been saturated by Rachel Campion. A woman… but what sort of woman? That was what he couldn’t decide on. Again and again he had summoned the pictures before his eyes, trying to fit a character to the enigma of the flat statement.
Those eyes — was it perhaps just a trick of the camera? Were they really such windows to a world of reckless passion? And her body, too, with the perfection of imperfection: was it honestly so calculated to whet the keen edge of desire?
He would never know, he could only imagine. The reality he was left with was the garbled witness of chance observers. But he wanted to know and he kept trying to surprise the knowledge. A woman… but what sort of a woman? Everything seemed to hang on it!
‘Waitress, come here a moment.’
Her name was Rosie and she was a synthetic blonde. Her fairly obvious attractions did not go unappreciated. Gently had noticed a suggestive passage between her and Maurice, the slim young bartender.
‘Was it you who waited at Miss Campion’s table?’
‘Oh yes — she sat at that one by the window.’
‘Was she easy to get on with?’
‘She wasn’t a lot of trouble.’
‘Tip you, did she?’
‘It was her boss who did the tipping.’
‘What did you think of her?’
Rosie giggled.
‘She’d got what it took, but she had her head screwed on too. All the men had a spot for her, even old Colonel Morris. If you ask me, some of the wives here aren’t so sorry about what’s happened.’
‘What do you mean by saying that she had her head screwed on?’
‘She kept her eye on the main chance, that’s what I mean. Her boss was jealous and she wouldn’t play the fool. Mind you, I wasn’t kidded. I know an act when I see one. There were times when he wasn’t about and then she wasn’t quite so starchy — only she never let it get anywhere, if you see what I mean. She’d got a wonderful talent for knowing where to draw a line.’
‘She was what you’d call a tease?’
Rosie giggled again, but the question didn’t embarrass her. At twenty-four or — five she had the assurance of a much older woman.
‘I wouldn’t know that, would I? But I wouldn’t put it past her. Some women get a kick out of that, and she was the right type. But she liked the rest too, don’t you forget it. One woman can’t keep that from another.’
‘Who did she encourage?’
‘She wasn’t too particular.’
‘Was there anyone especial?’
‘If there was she was clever about it. She let old Colonel Morris kiss her. Then she put some of the kids into a trance. And one or two married men who ought to have known better, though it’s a fact that their wives are mostly old bitches.’
‘But your impression is that none of them got very far?’
‘They didn’t get a chance, what with her boss always hanging around.’
‘What about Tuesday? He wasn’t around then.’
‘They’d had a row, I think, and she wasn’t in the mood. In any case most of them had gone to Hamby. There were only two of the old couples playing bridge in the lounge.’
‘So she spent the evening alone?’
‘She was alone at dinner.’
‘What about after that?’
‘I went off duty. It was the last time I saw her.’
In the doorway Maurice had appeared carrying a tray of dirty glasses. He set it down on the mahogany sideboard and began to pile on one or two more. His languorous eyes rested an instant on Rosie’s trim back.
‘Tell me — was she really so outstanding, or was it just her manner?’
‘It was a bit of both if you ask me, but she’d got the goods in the first place.’
‘Did she talk a lot, and laugh?’
‘Not her. She was always serious.’
‘Was she off hand to other women?’
‘She could afford to be nice to them. She’d got them all whacked.’
‘And how about you — weren’t you jealous?’
Her giggle was accompanied by a slight gesture of the hips.
‘I get along. I wasn’t worried. Some gentlemen prefer blondes.’
In the glass at the back of the sideboard Maurice was now studying her profile. He had abandoned his stacked tray and was apparently counting the serviettes.
Gently stirred at last, to Dyson’s great relief. He wandered out on to the verandah and stood gazing down at the afternoon sea. Below the lawn there were two hard courts for the use of the guests, and in spite of the temperature they were occupied by sweating youngsters in shorts and singlets. In the shade of the oak trees sat their elders, sleeping or knitting. From the other side of the marram hills could be heard the faint cries of children.
‘I’ve used the reading room for interrogation.’
Gently shrugged his multi-coloured shoulders.
‘I daresay that the manager…’
‘Let’s take a stroll along the beach, shall we?’
It was no use, Gently would have his way. He kept bulldozing aside all Dyson’s hints and veiled suggestions. He had dressed like a holidaymaker and now it seemed he was going to behave like one. With Dutt trailing behind they crossed the lawn at a leisurely saunter.
‘How does one get down to the beach?’
A few of the lotus-eaters in the deckchairs looked up as they passed. They knew Dyson, of course, but they knew nothing of Gently. Superintendent Stock had carefully delayed the news that the Yard was being called in.
‘Down there, past the tennis courts.’
The way led through a dusty shrubbery. At the bottom there was a gate with a spring giving access to the back of the marrams. Everything one touched was burning to the hand, and the ground struck hot through the soles of shoes. The marram grass, pale and rustling, looked as though it had been dried in a botanical press.
‘You can see what it’s like for footprints.’
Gently nodded, plodding through the scalding sand. Still that silent face was haunting him, charging every step with its presence. Hadn’t she come this way, perhaps, not much more than thirty-six hours ago? When the sand, now hot, was already cold, and the dew falling chill on the sere of the marram?
He had propped the photograph against his mirror and kept his eyes on it while he was dressing. After reading Dyson’s report he had been certain that the face would tell him something. Several things might have happened. It depended upon the type of woman. Once you had settled that, then you could begin to see your way.
Only the face had told him nothing of those things he wanted to know. The obvious thing was unimportant. Even Dyson could hardly have missed it.
‘There’s Mixer over there now.’
They had got to the top of the hills. Below them, a steep slide, lay the silvery-fawn beach, the tiniest of combers sending white washes along its margin. The sea looked heavy and drunken with sun. Its dark acres were mottled with purple and green patches. At the tideline the children paddled and screamed, their dumpy bodies showing through their sagging swimsuits. Higher up sat the parents, some of them beneath sunshades.
‘He’s watching us, you bet.’
Could it even have been that passion…?
‘You see? He’s getting up.’
Or the body, would that tell him?
He turned impatiently in the direction which Dyson was indicating. One hadn’t had to ask the county man where his suspicions lay. Alfred Joseph Mixer — he was the candidate! The ‘company promoter’ with his cash and cockney accent: who, in all probability, had outsmarted Dyson.
‘He’s expecting us to tackle him.’
Gently was only confirming impressions. In his twenty years with the Central Office he had met a lot of Mixers, and this one seemed to follow the general pattern. A biggish man of about forty with something of a stomach. Thinned hair, a large nose, and small, hard eyes. He had been sitting under a sunshade and was wearing shiny black bathing trunks. Now he was standing up apprehensively, twisting his sunglasses as he watched the three policemen.
‘Don’t you think perhaps?’
‘What makes you so sure he did it?’
‘The evidence… well… one forms an impression.’
‘He’s done time for embezzlement.’
‘There — I was certain!’
‘At the same time, there’s nothing about violence on his record.’
Gently dug in his heels and went skidding down through the loose sand. At the moment he hadn’t got time for Mixer. A little higher up the beach he could see the boats and the fishermen, and above them, on the hill, somebody painting at an easel. Two days ago hadn’t she looked on this same scene?
At this point the shore was very slightly convex, but one could see at least a mile of beach in either direction. At quarter-mile intervals pillboxes had been built, a few of which remained poised drunkenly above the beach. On the nearest one of these some youths were performing acrobatics.
‘What sort of fish do they catch?’
In the shallows a child with tucked-up skirt was pushing a shrimp net and looking the picture of earnestness. ‘Soles… plaice… I don’t know.’
Another, a little boy, was trying his best to fly a kite.
They came up with the boats, still a centre of interest. The reporter and his colleague were in conversation with the fishermen. One of the latter was showing the photographer where the body had lain; another, a freckled-faced youngster, was sweating over an engine.
‘Any statement for us yet?’
‘It was probably a man who did it.’
‘You told us that before.’
‘It could have been a woman.’
The reporter touched his photographer’s shoulder. It wasn’t often that one got a present like this! Gently, apparently unconscious of his picturesque qualities, continued his unhurried survey of the group of boats.
Of the seven, six were gaily painted and one alone was white. This was the boat in which the freckled youth was working at the engine. They were bluff-bowed, deep-bodied, powerfully built little craft, not more than seventeen feet long but big and burly for their size. Each had an ‘S.H.’ registration board bolted to its gunwale and its name, with suitable flourishes, carved in its transom. There was the Girl Betty, the Boy Cyril, the We’re Here, and the Willing Boys. The white boat had a varnished name board and was called the Keep Going.
Gently paused beside the latter, so utterly different was it from the others. Quite apart from the paint and the name board, it stood out as a separate species. It had a finish like a yacht. All the fittings were chromium plated. The paintwork had been built up until the surface resembled velvet, while the gunwale and the transom were of varnished teak that shone like glass.
‘Is this one a pleasure boat?’
The youngster wiped his brow with a hand which left a greasy mark.
‘There isn’t a lot of pleasure in her!’
‘No… but does she go fishing?’
‘W’yes, that’s what she’s for.’
‘Then what was the idea of getting her up like this?’
‘You’d better ask Mr Dawes — it just happen he take a pride in his boat.’
A wave of a spanner indicated the net store on the hill. Beside it was standing a tall fisherman with a white beard. He was leaning against one of the tarred posts from which the drying nets were slung; his eyes, staring out to sea, had the peculiar vacancy of seafaring men ashore.
‘He like to show off his money!’
One of the fishermen spat contemptuously — the same man who had been showing the site of the tragedy to the photographer. He was a lean but powerfully built fellow of sixty or so. His face had a vindictive cast and his dark eyes looked angry.
‘Boats like mine aren’t good enough for Esau Dawes — did you ever see such truck on a longshore fishing boat? Next thing you know it’ll be gold-plated ringbolts!’
‘Shut you up, Bob!’ came from several of his mates.
‘Why should I shut up? I don’t owe nobody no money!’
Gently hunched his shoulders and wandered over towards the gap. The Keep Going’s owner paid him no attention as he passed by. Fifty yards further on sat the young artist with his easel; he held a brush between his teeth while he stroked vigorously with another. An old umbrella tied to a broom handle was keeping the glare of the sun from his work.
‘That’s Simmonds… you remember?’
If he did, Gently made no reply. Like any other curious stroller he went up to see what was happening to the canvas. Simmonds, a taut-faced young man with reddish-gold hair, charged his brush nervously as he felt himself being overlooked. He was painting a beach-scape in rather sombre colours; he had perhaps noticed it and was now darkening his sky.
‘Do you sell any of your pictures?’
Simmonds looked round quickly, flushing. He possessed wide hazel eyes which had an oddly vulnerable appearance. His lips made a perfect Cupid’s bow and the lower one trembled.
‘As a matter of fact I do!’
He was forcing a hardness into his voice.
‘I’ve sold several pictures — I’m not entirely an amateur! Now, if you don’t mind, I prefer not to talk while I’m working.’
‘I thought I might buy one.’
Simmonds seemed more upset than ever. He attacked his sky with an awkwardness that threatened to ruin everything. In the background his tent looked snug with its flaps neatly rolled and tied. One of the tracks which intersected the marrams passed close beside it on the way from the village.
‘What do you know about him?’
Dyson was eager to supply information. It was the first time since they had left the guest house that Gently had shown the slightest curiosity.
‘His age is twenty-two. He comes from Cheapham but he’s living in Norchester. His mother is dead and he had a row with his father, who keeps a butcher’s shop in Cheapham. He works for an insurance firm in Norchester, but his head is full of this artistic nonsense.’
‘Who saw him with Rachel Campion?’
‘A girl from the guest house, name of Longman.’
‘What did she say they were doing?’
‘Just walking on the beach. Simmonds was carrying his painting gear.’
‘He’s got good looks, of course.’
‘Do you think — shall we pull him in?’
Gently smiled through his sweat.
‘Let him finish his picture! We’ll go back to the Bel-Air and have a long iced shandy.’
As Dyson said later, Gently had a genius for getting backs up.