‘You don’t understand!’
‘I do, I’m afraid.’
‘I didn’t know — I thought I could trust him! He said I should put my story before the public. I trusted him, I tell you! I didn’t guess for a moment.’
‘I’m sorry about that, but you’ve got to stay in Hiverton.’
‘You wouldn’t make me do it!’
‘I can’t let you do anything else.’
Persuasively the photographer sidled towards him.
‘If you wouldn’t mind turning…’
Simmonds threw up a terrified hand.
‘They can’t keep doing that — stop them! I won’t have it!’
The camera clicked smoothly, catching his gesture and desperate expression.
‘I can’t stop here!’
He was pretty well in tears. His slight figure was shaking as he stood helpless by the ruined camp. From the crowd came a motion which made Gently turn sharply. He found himself staring into the burning eyes of Bob Hawks.
‘If you’ve got any feeling!’
‘Very well. Finish your packing.’
‘You mean you’ll let me go?’
‘No. Just do as I say.’
Everyone was straining their ears to catch the gist of what was passing. A few bolder ones had pushed forward, but the majority were holding their line. The reporters, however, felt no need for constraint; they crowded around chatting and trying to lever something out of Gently.
‘You’re going to detain him, are you?’
‘He’s going to sign a statement for me.’
‘Where’s he going then?’
‘That has still to be decided.’
‘He was her lover, wasn’t he?’
‘So far I haven’t asked him.’
‘It’s a fact that you think he can assist you?’
‘Everyone in Hiverton can be of assistance.’
From the corner of his eye he could see Hawks approaching. The fisherman was shuffling gingerly towards the centre of the circle. At a few yards distance he stopped, his lean frame slightly crouched: his gaze was fixed on Simmonds with a ferocious intensity of hate.
‘Did you know he struck his father, and that that was why he left home?’
Nobody seemed to care whether Simmonds heard or not.
‘We’ve been in touch with his ex-schoolmaster. He was noted for his violent temper. Once he struck a boy who was ragging him and knocked out a couple of teeth.’
The artist was trembling uncontrollably as he fumbled with his belongings. His hands were shaking so much that he could scarcely buckle the pannier-straps. From every side eyes were turned on him; the heat on the sandhill was terrific. At one time it looked as though he never would get those bags on.
‘I’ve got n-nothing to put my paintings in!’
He turned towards them desperately, a pile of the canvases clutched piecemeal in his arms.
‘You took away my satchel.’
‘Dutt here will look after them.’
‘Perhaps I can get some p-paper and string.’
He spilled two of them on the sand as he handed them to the sergeant. A reporter grabbed them eagerly, but they were only a couple of beachscapes. The crowd had fallen quiet and unnaturally still: one could well-nigh hear their breathing above the gentle wash of the combers.
‘I’m ready to go.’
Simmonds heaved on the loaded cycle. Its wheels were burying in the sand and he had much ado to push it. The crowd shifted and murmured, but parted to make him way. It was Hawks, standing right in his path, who wouldn’t budge an inch for him.
‘You — murdering — little rat!’
He spat the words straight into Simmonds’s face. One could feel, like an electric charge, the violence suddenly begin to generate.
‘Hanging’s too good for your sort — drowning in a sack’d be better! By rights we ought to string you up — here, where you did for her!’
It was trembling in the balance, that situation on the sandhill: in an ugly silence it was preparing to explode. A moment before the crowd had wavered between contempt and pity, but now, in a flash, the seed of hatred had been sown.
‘There’s only one thing for your sort!’
‘That’s enough from you. Get back!’
‘I’ll say what I please.’
‘You’ll get back out of the way!’
This was no time for argument, and Gently didn’t argue. Poking his fingers into the fisherman’s chest, he drove him backwards into the crowd.
‘You two — Pike and Spanton! Take charge of this fellow will you?’
Coming out of their stupor, they seized Hawks by the arms.
‘Now take him away and see he doesn’t cause more trouble.’
With surprising alacrity they marched Hawks off the sandhill.
It was enough to break the spell: the crowd had temporarily forgotten Simmonds. Their attention divided, they permitted him to depart. They watched him off the campsite in a sort of murmuring indecision: he was sobbing like a child and scarcely able to shove the bicycle.
The cameramen, in the meantime, had taken several excellent photographs.
The Police House was a building of stodgy brick which stood some distance inland from the village. It bore the date, on a tablet, of nineteen-thirty-five, and had a garage-like addition which was obviously a detention- room.
Mears was out when they arrived and they were received by his wife. She was a tall, raw-boned woman whose false teeth had a tendency to slip. She was nursing a baby and had another child in the garden. From her kitchen a smell of greens boiling was wafted through the house.
‘We’ve a statement to take. May we use the office?’
She showed them through to her front room, which served the usual dual purpose. Across one of the corners was placed an old knee-hole desk. It bore a telephone, a Moriarty, a Kelly’s, and the Starmouth directory.
‘You’ll find the forms and some paper.’
‘Thanks. Don’t let us disturb you.’
‘I was wondering about a drink. I can soon fetch some lemon squash.’
Simmonds, at least, looked in need of refreshment. His cheeks were burning feverishly and his lips were dry as paper. Dutt had kindly wheeled the bicycle for him all the way through the village, but the artist was still trembling and much relieved to sit down.
‘Now we’ll just go over again what you told me, I think.’
He gave Dutt the desk and sat himself by the window. From there he could see, over Mears’s lawn and hollyhocks, the road and the reporters — the latter having, of course, followed them. They were squatting in the shade of a tree opposite the gate. After a minute or two, as he knew they would, they produced a pack of cards.
‘Please answer the questions slowly because the sergeant doesn’t write shorthand. First give him your name, age, profession and address.’
His back was turned to Simmonds to give him a chance to recover himself. For the same reason he tried,
