‘How long were you with him?’ — Gently puffed voluminously. Rosie’s knee was tentatively brushing his leg. ‘I couldn’t say, I’m sure! One doesn’t really notice, does one? But it couldn’t have been so late, because I had to get up in the morning.’
‘About one say, or two?’
‘Oh, not as late as that. When you have to be down by seven you don’t let things get out of hand. More like about midnight, that would have been it.’
‘Are you sure about that?’
‘I don’t like to lose my beauty sleep.’
From outside they must be seeing this intimate tete-a-tete. Gently, his back against the window frame, was fairly cornered by Rosie’s advance. Now she was leaning on the sill and gazing up into his eyes. Her face, in effect, was scarcely a pipe’s length from his own.
‘How long have you known Maurice Cutbush?’
With difficulty he slid from the sill and escaped into the room.
‘Ever since I came here — Easter, that was. But he was here before that — two years, I think he said.’
‘What are your impressions of him?’
‘Oh, he’s not so bad. He’s been on the liners, you know, that makes them free and easy. From all accounts it was a poor trip when Maurice didn’t get off.’
She had got up from the chair and was trailing him across the room. The moment he came to a standstill she seemed to be breathing down his neck.
‘Has he got off with any other guests?’
‘Dozens. That’s how things go. In this sort of business you get bored stiff — ask anyone you like. It’s the same wherever you are.’
‘And the guests make passes at you?’
‘All the time, and some you wouldn’t think.’
‘Did Mixer ever make one?’ Indignantly she recoiled.
‘As a matter of fact he didn’t — but you’ve got to have your self-respect!’
Gently grinned to himself and struck a protective match. Rosie watched him reprovingly as he set it to his pipe. She was really trying hard — was it Maurice who had put her up to it? She couldn’t believe yet that Gently was as coy as he pretended.
‘Is that all you wanted to ask me?’
The match was out and she swayed towards him. For a moment her parting lips were tilted under his, her two firm breasts pressed lightly against him.
‘It’s my afternoon off… I’m not doing anything. There’s some things of mine I want to fetch from a drawer in your room.’
After she had gone he went back to the window. The lawn was now better tenanted and more deckchairs were being fetched. An old lady with her knitting was casting furtive glances in his direction, but the majority of the baskers were still discussing their papers.
He relocked the door and slipped the key into his pocket. All the way down the stairs he was chuckling softly to himself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The sun, by ten o’clock, was fully established, and the last of the morning had gone out of the day. The village and vicinity, which till then had seemed tolerable, now began to weary with its pitiless exposure. So little shade there was, so little promise of respite! Beach, marrams, and houses glared and rippled in the furnace. Not a motion stirred the grasses, not a bird sang anywhere. The air was a burden and one sweated doing nothing.
Oddly enough the effect was of darkness. The extreme brilliance of the sun appeared to vitiate colour. The sea looked heavy, the houses dulled, the sky itself seemed dusky and unluminous. It was the sun alone which throbbed with brightness. Into itself it drew again its effulgent light. Left behind was the heat, enveloping, ennervating: the world seemed plunged into a dark, fierce fever.
‘Another scorcher!’
One heard it everywhere. With a peculiar emphasis, it expressed the weather exactly. And yet people were somehow proud of it, this Homeric bout of sun. Inevitably the two words would come out like a boast.
‘Another scorcher, sir!’
Dutt had said it as they started out. The manager, too, had got it in when they passed him on the lawn. A little further on they encountered Colonel Morris. His step had lost its briskness and he had ceased to swing his cane.
‘Another scorcher, eh? Reminds me of Alex!’
Why did they sound so personal about it, as though in some way it did them credit?
‘That kid’s in for a rough time, sir,’ observed Dutt as they tramped along the beach. ‘I haven’t said nothing before, sir, but from the first I’ve had my doubts about him. I don’t reckon we need worry about Mixer any more.’
Gently trudged ahead without replying. Everything was pushing the ball in Simmonds’s direction. If you agreed to let out Mixer, then there seemed but one thing for it; yet, out of sheer pig-headedness no doubt, his mind kept shying away from Simmonds. It was as if he had formed an equation the terms of which excluded the artist.
‘There’s his background, sir, you can’t overlook it. The bloke on the Echo brought that out pretty well. Haven’t we seen it before with kids like that? A little extra shove, and click! — they’re over the edge.’
‘You can’t argue like that, Dutt.’
‘I know, sir. But it makes you think. And like the paper says, she wasn’t found far from his tent.’
Like the paper says! Was that what was influencing him? Not for the world would he have admitted it to himself. As always when on a case he made a point of reading the papers: sometimes they gave him a fact which he hadn’t succeeded in eliciting. But he didn’t let them bias him, one way or the other. They were a necessary evil which he had learned to put up with.
Besides, in this particular case… there was Maurice, for instance. And even on the facts, those that one knew.
‘You’d better tail him, I suppose, after we’ve had his statement.’
‘It won’t do any harm, sir, and might do some good.’
‘He might do something silly. Let him see you around. If necessary I’ll get another man out from Wendham.’
‘He’s the type to blow his gaff, sir, if he thinks we’re really after him.’
As they drew nearer to the campsite the effect of the Echo article became apparent. Most of the people on the beach had gravitated in that direction. Except for a few small boys they didn’t precisely stand and stare, but now and then a head would turn or a voice be cautiously lowered.
When the detectives arrived it was different: the crowd began to exhibit a purpose. From an accidental scattering they drew together in a group. They followed the two men up the sandhill and casually deployed themselves at the top — if this was to be the arrest, then nobody there was going to miss it!
‘What are you doing with your tent?’
Simmonds was not alone at his campsite. On the hummocks round about were seated the reporters and their cameramen.
‘I’m packing it up. I’m going!’
‘Not today you aren’t, I’m afraid.’
‘But I am — I’ve got to! Can’t you see what’s happening?’
‘You should have thought of that before you talked to the press.’
Already the tent was struck and partly packed away in a pannier. In another were stuffed his blankets, while his gear lay together in a pile. A photographer, rising to his feet, made an adjustment to his camera. Simmonds started back involuntarily and shrank behind Gently’s protective bulk.
