‘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?’
