For a good hour past he had been wandering about the village, staring at everything and gaping at everybody: why, he would have been perplexed to answer. One hadn’t to go far to see the whole of Hiverton. It was huddled together like a misplaced hill village. On one side was the sea, on the other stony fields. From a little distance it had the appearance of a watchful, red-brick citadel.
He had plodded along the terraces which formed the northerly ramparts, turning deliberately from one to another until he had covered every yard. Here jerry-building had flourished in the years between the wars. The houses were sullenly ugly, needed plaster, needed paint. They were served by unmade-up roads. The yards behind them were small and slummy. In front they had patches of scuffed grass or anaemic flower beds edged with bottles. The paths to them, almost without exception, were of trodden earth, cinder, and cockleshells.
And the people who lived in these places? At the thought he had hunched his shoulders. Yet something about them had struck him, difficult though it was to put it into words. He had met them coming out, seen them trudging up to their doors; here one had passed a civil word, there one plucked a curtain to stare at him. But in total, what was the impression? It was escaping him, for the moment. Unconsciously, intuitively, he had made a judgement, which later would reappear in the guise of inspiration.
Now he was standing at the crossways, at the physical heart of the village. Three other shops besides the Beach Stores each faced the irregular plain. A butcher’s — wasn’t that the place where Simmonds had bought his sausages? — a baker’s which dabbled in groceries, and a grocer who dabbled in bread. In fact, all the elements of a satisfying focal centre, helped out by the bus turnround, a chapel, and the post office. Then why did it fail, as if put together by an inept artist? Why did one’s eye go perpetually roaming after a factor that wasn’t there?
It was meaningless — that was the word! But one was checked directly by the paradox. There was plenty of meaning to be found in Hiverton, it was active and busy in its peculiar way. Only the word, once hit on, began to haunt Gently. It had an uncanny aptness which wouldn’t let him alone. In some sense to be decided he knew it was applicable: to someone, somehow, Hiverton was devoid of meaning.
Still puzzling, he went up the steps to the Beach Store. Mrs Neal gave him a smile and a nod over her bacon slicer. By now, like everyone else, she would know his identity, and was probably expecting an official visit from him. Gently had read her statement, which confirmed that of Nockolds. There was plenty of routine that he had studiously neglected.
‘Heard from your husband yet, Mrs Betts?’
A neat, drab woman stood waiting with a partly-filled rush bag.
‘I had a letter from him this morning. They’ve done with the mackerel. They’ll be working round this way for the season before long.’
‘They’re usually back at Starmouth by the first week in September
… let’s hope it’s a better herring-fishing this year than last.’
‘The Scots boats are coming for all they said last time.’
Bacon, tea, and the latest gossip, and you could supplement the news with a copy of the local ‘evening’. Gently picked one up from a pile on the stationery counter. It wasn’t carrying his picture although his arrival had made the headline.
‘My boy Tommy was telling me that the police are properly stumped.’
Mrs Neal hissed something in a whisper and her customer turned to stare at Gently.
‘Well, I suppose one can speak!’
‘That’s five-and-seven, Mrs Betts.’
The drab woman stalked out offendedly with the air of a hen driven from its hopper.
Mrs Neal came round the back of the counters. She beamed at Gently as though it were a great joke. She had a twinkle of transparent malice in her eye: it was this that gave point to the plump good nature of her face.
‘I suppose you get used to being gawked at and talked about? It’s just a job, like everything else, though I wouldn’t want it myself.’
‘Aren’t you in the same position?’
‘Here, you mean, behind the counter?’
‘I should have thought they talked about you.’
‘Oh, they do! Don’t you live in a village?’
Again that flash of unconscious malice, drawing a smile of response from Gently. He knew now what it was that attracted him to Mrs Neal. She was someone who understood Hiverton and understood it with detachment. More, unless he mistook her, she understood it with affection; he felt a twinge of surprise that such a thing was possible.
‘Of course, when you came in here I didn’t know you from Adam. It took half-an-hour for the word to get round. I’ve been wanting to have a talk with you. It’s about Fred Nockolds. There’s no harm in Fred, you know, but this business has got him worried.’
‘About what he was doing there?’
‘Yes… exercising his dog!’
‘It’s a bit thin, isn’t it?’
‘Go on! He’s up there regular.’
Gently brooded a moment, mentally reviewing Dyson’s file. In effect he had long dismissed Nockolds from his thoughts. The poacher, who worked at a farm a mile outside the village, had been assisting in a calf delivery at the critical period. The vet and two witnesses had established this fact. ‘I think we can accept his story.’
‘He’ll be relieved. Can I tell him?’
‘You can if you like, but I’ll be seeing him myself. By the way wouldn’t he have had a gun and stuff on him?’
‘There you are again! But he reported to Ferrety, didn’t he?’
Her husband came in, a smooth-faced man with a bald patch. He related afresh how he had accompanied Nockolds to the beach. Gently listened, his eyes closed, trying to visualize the scene. Had the body then been there two hours, or was it only one?
‘Did anyone get to the beach before you?’
‘If so I didn’t see them. But we couldn’t shut the dog up and they soon started coming. It’s a rum thing, that, how a body can upset a dog.’
‘Did you notice any tracks?’
‘It’s all tracks unless there’s been rain.’
‘What about the fellow in the tent?’
‘I didn’t see him come down till later.’
‘He’s a queer one, if you like,’ Mrs Neal interrupted them. ‘Not that I think any ill of the lad, though there’s nasty talk going round.’
‘What sort of talk is that?’
‘Why, that he’s the one you’re after. But I say it’s all nonsense, and I see as much of him as anyone. There’s nothing wrong there that a good home wouldn’t put right.’
‘You know about him, then?’
‘Of course. He’s often in for a chat.’
‘Did he ever mention Miss Campion?’
‘No. It’s his mother I usually hear about.’
It was still hot enough for ice cream and Gently took a cornet out with him. From the steep-roofed buildings long shadows were falling, but a thermometer on the wall had only just sunk below eighty. One of the village children had got a bike and they were all having fun with it. As he raced across the open space they tried to catch him and pull him off. Two or three of the older ones sat apart on a bench. They glanced sideways at Gently, muttered furtively to each other.
He paused outside The Longshoreman, before which were parked several cars. The windows were open upstairs and down and one could hear the chatter of the bar from the road. Some young men, probably farm workers, sat drinking on two outside seats. They wore white shirts and their tanned flesh looked hard and healthy. Although they had only been talking cricket they, too, subdued their voices.
It was the same when he entered the bar: a lively scene seemed suddenly to hesitate. At the end of the room a game of darts was in progress and above the quick hush one could hear their soft thumping.
‘Give me a glass of bitter.’
Without appearing to look round he was nevertheless taking it in. Fishermen, farm workers, one or two who worked in Starmouth: The Longshoreman was for regulars, people who fitted into their niche. On a trestle table under the window four old fishermen were shuffling dominoes. Round the dartboard they spoke in monosyllables and changed places automatically.
‘Have this one on the house.’
But Gently tendered his coin firmly. The publican, stout and middle aged, gave him a solemn wink as he returned the change.
‘We can’t complain of the weather!’
He leaned confidentially on his massive elbows.
‘If there’s anything you want to know… but I’d sooner it was in the back room. I try to please everyone. That’s the tricky part of pub business.’
Gently grunted indefinitely and settled his hip against the bar.
The hush which marked his arrival had passed, though the conversation was perhaps quieter than before. One quickly became aware of different groups among the patrons. The fishermen, in particular, stuck very much together. The dart players were largely farm workers, those round the bar from town. In a corner by himself sat the Keep Going’s owner; he smoked twist in a clay pipe, taking slow, measured puffs.
‘That’s Esau — Esau Dawes.’
The publican had followed his glance.
‘You’ve seen his boat, haven’t you? It’s a hard one to miss! That’s Jack Spanton, his mate, the young fellow having a joke. They think the world of that boat, it’s like it was a human being to them.
‘Then there’s Josh Ives, the short ’un. Him and Aaron Wright are mates. They got blown up with a mine, which is where Josh got his limp from.’
‘On the left it’s Peero Palmer — you’ll maybe hear them call him “Dutchy”. Took his boat across to Holland, he did, and never came back till five years later.’
‘Who’s the one they’re trying to shut up?’
‘Him?’ The publican looked uneasy. ‘Don’t pay any attention! It’s Bob Hawks of the Boy Cyril. But he went queer years ago — which is saying something, when it comes to fishermen. They aren’t ordinary people like you and me.’
It was the angry-eyed man whom Gently had seen talking to the reporters. Now, seemingly the worse for drink, he was angrier than ever. Every once in a while his voice would rise above the general hubbub, and his mates, who were soberer, could do nothing to stop him.
‘There isn’t a man among you…’
‘Keep you quiet, Bob!’
‘… not one, I say…’
‘You’ve had too much into you.’
For a little while they could drown him but always he broke through again. His voice was hard and strident and full of uncertain accusation.
‘He doesn’t usually get drunk,’ muttered the publican apologetically. ‘He’s too mean as a rule — he watches every penny. Some of them now… look at Esau over there! He gets drunk every night and you can’t tell him from sober.’
Gently finished his glass and the publican promptly refilled it. He was sticking to Gently as though to give him a personal sponsorship. From time to time he was summoned away to replenish other glasses, but always he hurried back to plant his elbows by the silent detective.
‘There’s always a lot said when a thing like this happens. A couple of pints — you know how it is! But they don’t mean any harm by it, that’s what I say. They come here to let off steam and to work it out of their systems.’
‘Who’s the mate on the Boy Cyril?’
‘Abby Pike — that’s him lighting his pipe. Another rum bloke! He’s been married three times. During the war he went mine-sweeping and got a couple of bullets in him.’
Was it his imagination or had the atmosphere really become more tense? During the last few minutes, he thought, the various groups had shrunk further away from each other. Those clustered round the bar had got their backs turned to the rest; they were discussing a make of car with a conscious deliberation. At the dartboard there was silent attention, scarcely a word even being exchanged. And the fishermen had contracted their knot — only Dawes puffed on in oblivion.
‘None of you seem to realize…’
The tipsy fisherman’s voice rose again. His drinking had made it unsteady but the actual words came clearly enough.
‘… one point of view, that’s your whole trouble! One point of view
… no feeling at all…’
‘Go and see to your nets, Bob.’
‘It’s the truth… and you know it…’
‘Can’t you shut him up, Abby?’
‘… you don’t like to hear it!’
The publican juggled clumsily with a couple of tankards. Beer slopped into the drip pan and made a river along the bar.
‘If ever there’s anything to mob about here!’
He grabbed up a dishcloth to restore the situation.
Over at the trestle table they had finished their game of dominoes and one old gentleman was muttering to the others. Dawes’s mate, Jack Spanton, had pulled out a mouth organ. He was playing it with a good deal more brio than feeling.
‘… that girl, I say!’
Now Hawks was having to shout, and his eyes, dark and spiteful, were darting towards Gently.
‘None of you cares a damn — laugh, it’s all you can do! And what are they doing about it… nothing… stand there drinking beer!’
‘What are you doing yourself, Bob?’
‘… stand there, I say!’
There was a storm of nervous laughter during which Pike tugged at Hawks’s sleeve. One or two of them, taking the cue, began singing raggedly with the mouth organ. The publican bawled for clean glasses, ignoring a trayful that stood under his nose.
‘She meant a lot to somebody.’
The note had changed to one of pathos.
‘Don’t you ever think? That girl was someone’s daughter, I tell you! How would you like it… put yourself in his place. And her mother — think of that! Her mother… didn’t she have one too?’
His voice broke absurdly in alcoholic grief. Tears ran down his thin cheeks, the corners of his mouth twitched downwards. Yet somehow he escaped being funny, this old man weeping into his beer. He was like a ham actor whose sham sentiments revealed a real tragedy. The long, bitter face seemed a picture traced by ancient suffering.
‘… little sister… brother perhaps. You aren’t to know who she’s left behind. And what do you care, any of you? Not a dashed thing! All you can think about… isn’t it the truth? She’s dead… lay there strangled… and that’s all you can think about!’
He drew a sleeve across his mouth and then gulped down some more beer. For a moment it looked as though the lachrymose vein would continue. But instead, he took a couple of belligerent steps towards the bar.
‘And I ask you again… what are they going to do about it? Where are these blessed policemen who ought to be on the job? Here’s one… just look at him. Holding up the bar! It isn’t his daughter, so what does he care? Holding up the bar, and listening to every mortal word.’
It was useless singing any longer, Hawks had gone too far for that. Swaying slightly on his feet, he was menacing Gently with his empty tankard. Spanton’s mouth organ clattered to the floor. The dart players ceased to throw their darts. Up and down the crowded bar there was a moment of bated, watchful silence.
And then, from Esau’s corner, came the scrape of a table pushed aside. Sparing a glance from the threatening Hawks, Gently saw the big man get to his feet. There was nothing hurried about it. Esau’s movements were slow and gentle. Taking all the time in the world, he settled a sea cap on his white head.
‘Esau… you let me be!’
Hawks’s tone was suddenly apprehensive. He stumbled back a pace and let the tankard fall to his side.
‘You haven’t got no right. Esau, listen… I’m warning you!’
Esau, deaf as the Ailsa Craig, continued his preparations for leaving. He shut his clasp-knife and put it away. He wrapped up his pigtail in a scrap of oilcloth. Pipe and matches went each into a stowage, and finally he drained what was left of his beer.
‘I tell you, Esau!’
Esau patted his pockets.
‘If you lay a hand on me!’
Esau took him by the arm.
There was no fuss about it and not another word. Hawks, the wind quite out of his sails, was walked out like a child. Somebody grabbed the tankard from him, somebody else gave him his cap. The whole business was so quiet that one could scarcely believe it had happened.
‘Phew!’
The publican made a gesture of wiping his brow.
‘I thought there’d be trouble there, Esau or no Esau. That Hawks… he’s a wicked so-and-so, even when he’s cold sober.’
‘They’ll be all right, will they?’
‘Oh yes! You don’t know Esau. You might say he’s the skipper here — they all pay attention to him. And one time him and Hawks were mates on a drifter together.’
At first they wondered how Gently would take it, but he continued to lean, apparently unmoved, at the bar. Eventually Spanton rescued his mouth organ and the dart players cleaned their board. The publican, in a great bustle, filled a great many empty glasses.
If anything, the incident seemed to have cleared the air a little. The exclusive grouping of the company was beginning to relax. Gently, pipe between his teeth, listened amiably to the publican’s chatter; one would have thought his only interest there lay in a pint in congenial company.
‘Then, of course, you never saw her alive.’
Was it Hawks or was it Dawes whose departure had eased the tension?
‘Not that she ever came in here, mind you.’
Or was it just that they’d weighed him up, deciding that probably he wasn’t a trouble maker?
Spanton had succeeded in collecting a crowd round him. He’d got one of the ancients singing ‘The North Sea Fisherman’. After that it was ‘Stormy Weather, Boys’, of which they all knew the chorus: Aaron Wright sang the verses, and it was the unexpurgated version.
Yes, the tension had relaxed — but wasn’t it now, perhaps, too boisterous? From one extreme it had gone to the other, like a fit of malarial fever. Every moment it was growing noisier, more hectic, more reprehensible.
‘How much is on the slate?’
‘Come on, don’t be awkward!’
‘Just take it out of this, will you?’
‘Well, if you say so.’
Had he missed something important by the skin of his teeth?
Outside the long twilight had commenced under a pale sky. Stars prickled overhead, and the coppery west suffused opalescence. Round a shrub in someone’s garden moths tapped and buzzed eagerly, while bats, scarcely audible, pipped as they flickered high above.
At the turn by the council houses he almost ran into a couple of lovers. They were leaning over a bicycle, heads together, very quiet. Then again, by a field gate, another silent couple. Their eyes followed Gently but they didn’t draw apart.
On such a night as this… two evenings ago. Hadn’t the Bel-Air been nearly empty and Mixer, presumably, in Starmouth?
An alien fragrance reached his nostrils as he approached the gates of the Bel-Air. Dawes, another ghost of the twilight, sat solemnly smoking on a hedge bank.
‘You wanted to see me, did you?’
The white head nodded very slightly. After an instant’s hesitation Gently sat down on the bank beside him. It was a pleasant conference seat: the bank was tall with summer grasses.
‘Bob Hawks… I wouldn’t pay much regard to him.’
The voice was like the man, slow, but full of grave decision.
‘He’s had his trouble, Bob has, and sometimes it makes him hasty. But I’ve had a word or two with him. I can answer that he’ll watch his tongue.’
‘What sort of trouble has he had?’
Dawes didn’t appear to hear him. One had the impression that he was unused to being questioned, that wherever he found himself his word was the law. Having made his pronouncement, he sat a long time silent. The smoke proceeded from his mouth with a clock-like regularity.
‘If that’s all you’ve got to say…’
‘Don’t be in a hurry.’
He hadn’t even looked at Gently, just sat there staring at nothing.
‘You were talking to that boy.’
‘Simmonds, you mean — the one with the tent?’
‘I was wondering how much he told you.’
‘Naturally, that’s confidential.’
Another silence, this time more irritating. At the mention of Simmonds Gently’s interest had been sharply roused. But he could see that it was useless to try hurrying the old autocrat. For years, very probably, Dawes had ruled the Hiverton roost.
‘Did he tell you he got a thrashing?’
For answer Gently shrugged.
‘So he didn’t — I thought as much. They don’t like to admit it, these youngsters.’
‘Who gave him the thrashing — you?’
Dawes puffed impassively four or five times.
‘Him up there who they say you’ve got an eye on.’
‘Mixer — the man who was with her?’
‘He found them together in the tent.’
Now there was room for a pause — Gently was frankly taken aback. So there had been more to the Simmonds story — apparently, a very great deal more! Simmonds had been leading him up the garden… as a matter of fact, he had almost convinced him.
‘How do you know about this?’
‘Saw it happen. From the net store.’
‘When?’
‘Last Tuesday, just before tea.’
‘Describe it to me.’
‘That’s all there is to it.’
‘How long had they been in the tent — how did Mixer come to find them?’
Esau shifted his long legs as though to express his disapproval. Nobody badgered him like that, the slow movements seemed to say.
‘I’ve seen him once or twice trying to find them up the marrams. Tuesday he hung around near the tent — have you seen that old pillbox? So then they came back and went into the tent together. He ran across there like a madman and hauled the boy out by his ankles.’
‘And the woman — what about her?’
‘She came out of her own accord.’
‘Didn’t she try to intervene?’
‘She might have said something, but that’s all.’
‘And when it was over?’
‘Why, he marched her off with him. They came by the store and went off towards the guest house.’
‘What were they saying as they passed you?’
‘Nothing I heard. But they looked the more for it.’
‘When was the next time you saw her?’
‘Under the sacks by Bob Hawks’s boat.’
‘Who else saw it happen?’
‘There wasn’t only me.’
‘Then why didn’t you report it?’
‘Didn’t think to till I saw you with the boy.’
Esau scratched a leisurely match, his pipe having died on him. The bobbing flame lit his stem features with their viking-like cut. In his ears he wore gold rings, his beard was brushed to a point. His blue eyes seemed permanently fixed on some far-distant horizon.
But they saw plenty, those eyes, there was no doubt about that.
‘And what else do you know?’
‘Nothing — about your business.’
‘I shouldn’t think you’re one to miss much.’
‘Nor one to talk about it, neither.’
‘Perhaps I’d better remind you.’
But Gently could see it was a waste of time. The Sea-King of Hiverton had concluded his audience: there was nothing more to be got from him but steady puffs of smoke.
Still, he hadn’t done so badly for his first day on the case. Gently got to his feet feeling that things had woken up a little. He’d got a handle now, both for Simmonds and for Mixer — especially on the latter he could put a little pressure!
Eager to press home his advantage, he nearly bowled over a hurrying Dutt. The sergeant was coming out of the Bel-Air and seemed in a state of high excitement.
‘I’ve been back half-an-hour, sir!’
‘What’s the matter, Dutt — something popped?’
‘Popped is right, sir — listen to this! It isn’t quite what you might have expected.
‘There’s been a flap on at Starmouth — they’ve had some charlies raiding a warehouse. It took place on the Wednesday morning and there were four of them involved. Now one of them meets the others at a caff on the Castra Road — his description fits our Mixer — and he was driving a green Citroen!
‘That’s all, sir, excepting they’ve got witnesses who can identify him. I told them we’d bring him back, and they’re waiting for us now.’