Gently With the Painters

Book 0: George Gently

by Alan Hunter

Genres: Mystery

Synopsis

When artist Shirley Johnson is murdered and her body dumped outside a provincial police headquarters, Gently is despatched from London to take over the investigation. The prime suspect appears to be the woman's husband, a former bomber pilot with a guilty secret, but the other members of the woman's art group also have strong views about her controversial final painting - Dark Destroyer. With too many motives, too many suspects and too little time, George Gently must work quickly before the murderer manages to slip through his fingers.

Release date: November 3, 2011

Publisher: Constable

Print pages: 246

Sample

HUSBAND AT POLICE STATION FOR THREE HOURS Victim’s Picture in Exhibition Yard to be called?


FOR THREE MORNINGS now Gently had been turning to this news item with an eagerness which, in spite of himself, had continued to grow steadily. And now, for the first time, the ominous words had been invoked: at last they had mentioned Scotland Yard.


He folded back the paper and propped it against his teapot. Of the two photographs reproduced one was a print which had been heavily retouched. This depicted the husband being escorted into the police station; he was a burly, heavy-featured man, with fair wavy hair and a Bomber Command moustache. The other showed a watercolour with a number on its frame – a pale, somewhat indefinite picture of a figure striding through driving rain.

‘Mr Johnson Arriving At The Police Station Yesterday.’

‘The Last Picture Painted By Shirley Johnson.’

At the foot of the column a smaller photograph was cut in. It was of St John Mallows, RA, with whose features Gently was familiar. He was the chairman of the Palette Group of which Shirley Johnson had been a member, and he had gone to press with the statement that her picture would certainly remain on show. Why not, when it was guaranteed to treble the attendance …?


About Gently the established routine of his morning continued its methodical course. After twenty years in his Finchley rooms he went through the ritual with little conscious direction. When he had bathed and shaved he took a walk down the garden – it wasn’t very far, up there in Finchley! – and then he would stand for a moment in Mrs Jarvis’s kitchen, exchanging a few words of domestic commonplace.

‘There’s a bit of fly on those roses of yours …’

‘I know, Mr Gently, Fred was only saying last night …’

‘Have you been to the Golder’s Green Hip this week?’

‘Oh yes, Mr Gently. Me and Olive went on Tuesday.’

Then he went to his room, where the table was set. His mail and his papers always lay beside his plate. There were the usual bills and perhaps a letter from his sister; he would conscientiously read it first before turning to the news.

For six days in the week it went on like that, whenever he wasn’t called out on a case. It formed a sort of hors d’oeuvre, an appetizer to the day, and he was always irritable if something interrupted it. And now, very delicately, something had. That business about the Johnsons had taken a hold on his imagination. It had occurred in the district on which he was regarded as a specialist, and more and more he had the feeling that the case belonged to him.

It belonged to him – but he wasn’t going to get it! At least, that was the impression he’d received since Tuesday. There was nothing in the press reports to suggest that the local police were flagging, and really, it looked an open and shut case against the husband. He didn’t have an alibi that held any water. He was admittedly estranged from his arty wife. They lived together in a flat about a mile from the scene of the crime, but they lived in separation, sleeping and eating in separate rooms …


‘What would you like to follow, Superintendent?’

That was something else which took a little swallowing. Though he had known it was coming for several months in advance, his promotion had nevertheless caught him off-balance. In a number of subtle ways it was affecting his personality. He no longer felt entirely at home with himself. Shamefacedly, he had bought some new suits and an expensive trilby, while he was thinking of parting with the old Riley in the garage. How was it that an external like rank had this effect on him?

‘Some of the liver you were frying … were there any letters for me?’

‘Go on, Mr Gently! You’ve put your grapefruit on them.’

And also, he remembered, he had cut his outing in the garden. With his mind fixed on the Johnsons he’d gone straight down to the breakfast table, barely pausing at the door to wish Mrs Jarvis a good morning. Was it intuition, perhaps? He read the relevant passage again. The local police had not committed themselves, but the reporter had smelt a rat. That case, apparently so watertight, had somewhere sprung a leak.

As he ate his liver and bacon he let his eye stray down the column. After the hottest news, as usual, there came a résumé of the affair.


‘The questioning of Johnson follows the grim discovery on Tuesday. The body of his wife, pretty Shirley Johnson, was found behind dustbins on the City Hall car park. She was stabbed with a steel letter opener which was found still plunged in the body. The discovery was made by an old-age pensioner as he returned from the early morning fruit and vegetable auction held at the cattle market. He informed the City Police who have placed Chief Inspector Hansom, CID, in charge of the investigation.

‘It is established that the victim was attacked shortly after leaving a meeting of the Palette Group on the Monday evening. The Palette Group is composed of a number of local artists under the chairmanship of the well-known landscape painter, Charles St John Mallows, RA. The members meet on the first Monday of each month in the cellar of the George III public house, only a short distance from the scene of the crime. At the meetings they exhibit their work for criticism. They hold an annual exhibition in the nearby Castle Gardens.

‘Charles St John Mallows, RA, interviewed by our reporter, described Mrs Johnson as being one of the most talented members of the Group. Asked about the meeting on Monday, he declined to make any statement other than that it contained ‘the average amount of cut and thrust’. According to an independent source, the Palette Group meetings are noted for their frankness and forthright opinions.

‘Derek Paul Johnson, the husband, is an estate agent in the city. During the war he served in the RAF and was shot down over Cologne while piloting a Lancaster bomber. He was a prisoner of war in Germany for two years.’


It wasn’t difficult to see where the reporter’s fancy was leading him. He was selling the notion of a blood feud at the Palette Group. Johnson’s grilling was news and had to make up the headline, but the pedal of sympathy had been touched in the last paragraph. Was it the Palette Group that was worrying Inspector Hansom, too?

For a moment Gently was tempted to put a call through to Hansom, then he shrugged and hurried up with his marmalade and toast. It wasn’t his business yet, and perhaps it wasn’t going to be. Since they’d made him a Super he was being kept more at home; he had seen several likely jobs being handed on to his juniors.

‘I’ve ordered a joint for tonight, Superintendent. Do you know if you’ll be home for dinner?’

He shouldn’t have been irritated by that reasonable question, and yet he wanted to snap at Mrs Jarvis. All the way on the Tube he was brooding over the Johnsons. They clogged him up the Embankment from Charing Cross Station.

It was the beginning of July, and fine weather to boot, with the surface of the Thames a-dazzle in a bright sun. Several of Gently’s colleagues were away on vacation, and his own was due in a fortnight’s time. For the first week he was going to Bridgit in Wiltshire – a family sacrifice this, since his brother-in-law bored him. But the second week he was spending at a fishing inn in the Fens, near where, according to report, there were big bream and plenty.

A whole week of fishing! He’d been dreaming about it since Easter, when, while out on a case, he’d first heard about the spot. He had made a few inquiries and booked a room at the Fenman’s Arms. A local angler who had figured in the case was going to join him for the weekend.


He thought about it now as he walked by the morning Thames, but somehow a little of the glamour seemed to have departed from the prospect. He knew he was being childish to want the Johnson case made over to him: he couldn’t help it, the habit was stuck there – once, he would have got it automatically.

On the stairs he was passed by Pagram, who carried a box-file under his arm.

‘The AC’s looking for you – he wants the dope on Jimmy Fisher.’

‘Anything come in from the country?’

‘If it has I haven’t heard about it. Hoskins was briefed for that job at Plymouth, but I dare say you heard that yesterday.’

‘It shouldn’t be too difficult.’

‘Hoskins has got a flair for hold-ups.’

Gently went grumpily on his way. Hoskins was a young-and-coming Inspector. He had made a name for himself in a case where a sub-postmistress had been coshed to death, since when he was number one for any business of that description. And there were several young-and-coming Inspectors in Homicide, all eager to grab any plums that were going …


He banged into his office and pulled down the file on Fisher. This was the sort of job which they were finding for him these days! A long, complicated affair that revolved round the warehouse rackets, becoming Homicide’s pigeon only when a hot suspect was shot. It had been going on now for a couple of months, raids, tip-offs and a few unimportant arrests. Pagram and he were both working on it, and, it seemed, half the Metropolitan Police besides. Routine wasn’t his strong point, and the AC ought to know it … How did they expect him to get his teeth into a diffuse business of this kind?


‘Ah, Gently. Is that the Fisher file?’

The Assistant Commissioner was looking pleased with himself. He was a spare, genial man with horn-rimmed spectacles, and had always reminded Gently of an amiable schoolmaster.

‘You know, I think we’re going to crack that case at last. Limehouse had a tip-off last night, and it’s really put our hands on something. You remember Herbie the Fence? The little man with all the answers? Well, just look out that report, will you, and the interrogations of Wilbright and Sharp …’

In effect it had been a tip-off that Herbie had got the goods on him, and Limehouse Division had raided his premises. In a cellar they had discovered some of the furs which had been stolen, furs originating from the warehouse where Jimmy Fisher had been shot. Herbie was sitting in the cooler waiting for Gently’s expert attention: he hadn’t been charged with anything and so was free meat for the chopper.


‘Take your time over him, Gently, take all the time in the world. If we can crack Herbie we’ll have the whole consignment sewn up …’

So there it was, his day mapped out for him, another day with Jimmy Fisher. Not a word about jobs in the country, not a whisper of Inspector Hansom …


Gently returned to his office dourly and made arrangements for the interrogation. Herbie and he had had previous engagements, and even equipped with a lever, he knew what he was in for. At lunchtime he handed the business over to Pagram, with Herbie, still uncracked, going as strongly as ever. From the canteen he sent out for the lunchtime papers. They contained mostly rehashes, but there was one fresh development.


PUBLIC SEE THE JOHNSON PICTURE


Angry Scene At Exhibition

With his fork in his hand, Gently skimmed the column of letterpress. Only one paper had got it, and judging from the misprints it had been a rush job:

Ruction and tumult disturbed this old Cathedral City when the Palette Group’s Summer Exhibition was opened this morning. Cause of the contention was Shirley Johnson’s ‘Dark Destroyer’, the last picture she was known to have painted before she was murdered.

The exhibition was opened by the Lord Mayor, Mr Ted Brownlow. He recalled that the district had produced the only provincial school of painting.

Almost before he had finished speaking a noisy argument broke out, apparently between one or two members of the Group.

Others joined in and the argument became a row. Fists were waved and there was threatening behaviour. Police intervened to prevent a probable fight, and the most heated of the participants were escorted from the exhibition.


One of them told our reporter that the trouble arose from the Johnson exhibit. He refused to explain how it had caused the dispute.

A public apology for the members’ behaviour was made by Chairman St John Mallows, RA, who observed that it was not unknown for artists to hold strong opinions.

Not very hopefully Gently turned to the stop-press, but his luck was in and there was an intriguing postscript:

JOHNSON PICTURE – LATEST. Police have taken possession of picture [See Page One for full report].


He read it through again to make sure that he had missed nothing, but this was all that the paper could tell him. Again he was on the point of putting through a call to Hansom, but shamed himself from doing it when it came to the push. Hansom, he knew, wouldn’t be too pleased to hear from him; he had twice in the past stolen the local man’s thunder.

Back in the office Pagram took him to one side:

‘I think our friend Herbie is contemplating a deal. He’s harping now on how dangerous it would be for him to talk – he loves the police like brothers, of course, but he’s got to think of his widowed mother. His get-out is still that another man rents his cellar.’

‘I wish they’d given him a bath before they brought him up here.’

It was two hours later when Herbie laid out his cards. The procedure was delicate, though understood by both sides. In return for certain facts Herbie wanted his story accepted, but Gently wanted the facts before he agreed to consider the story. At last Herbie consented to give an outline of those facts, and Gently, with Pagram, had a huddle with the Assistant Commissioner. It then remained to get Herbie’s statement and to set the wheels in motion. Within twenty-four hours, perhaps, they would know if the coup had been successful.


In his office, now cleared of Herbies, Gently drank coffee and filled his pipe. He would have given a lot to have known what they had finally done with Jimmy Fisher. He had been put on the case almost as soon as he had been promoted: the whole of his superintending seemed to have been linked with that epic inquiry. And was this how it was going to go on now that he had reached administrative rank? Until the day of his retirement, was he to be crucified on routine?


Puffing rings across his varnished desk, he began to realize what had happened to him. It was no longer the simple augmentation of rank which he had always seemed able to take in his stride. It was different, this; it was the crossing of a Rubicon. It had slammed a door on nearly three decades of his career. Before, in some sort, he had been a rebel, at least a stubborn and unmovable individualist. He had kicked against the Establishment that hampered and disagreed with him; he had seen himself as standing a little apart from it.


And that had continued from stage to stage, with never any need for a revision of attitude. From Detective Constable to Chief Inspector he had remained the rebel within the gates. But now – almost treacherously – the case had altered; the rebel had been embodied as part of the Establishment. Without him for the moment having perceived what was done, he’d been jockeyed up to the line, his rebel teeth had been extracted. Unbelievably, he was one of them: he was on the other side of the fence.


Unbelievably! He stirred his feet in an access of irritation. As yet he couldn’t accept this sleight-of-hand which had been worked on him. He was in a state of flux, neither one thing nor the other, and just at the moment he couldn’t believe that he would ever settle again.

‘Desk Sergeant here, sir.’

Gently grabbed the phone up sulkily.

‘There’s a man here, name of Tulkings, wants to see you on urgent business.’

‘Is it about his long-lost nephew?’

‘Don’t know, sir. He wouldn’t tell me.’

‘If it is, say I’ve gone to America.’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll get rid of him.’

Another time it would be Mad Jenkins, or the widow from Bethnal Green. There was a floating congregation of crackpots who spent their time in harrying Scotland Yard.

‘Super? This is Morris at this end.’

Gently sighed and prepared to be intelligent. Morris was an Inspector on a job in Walsall; just as Gently used to do, he was ringing in for information.

‘… So I’d like anything you can get on this chap Polson. I’m pretty certain he’s the chummie who knocked off Steen. If you could send a man to make inquiries at Shoreditch …’

‘Get those prints off, will you?’


‘They’ll be in tonight, Super.’

In his desk Gently had a portable and he flicked it on to get the news, but the BBC, true to form, took notice of nothing so paltry as homicide. Another day had elapsed … had Hansom risked it and arrested Derek Johnson?

Immediately the phone was ringing again:

‘Old man?’

It was Pagram, from the AC’s office.

‘We’ve got a tip-off about another warehouse raid, said to be by the same lot who perforated Jimmy. Limehouse again – could you come along up?’

Gently groaned and tapped out his pipe.

This time the conference was shorter and more decided. Limehouse and the Flying Squad were going to handle the job between them. The details were worked out over a large-scale plan, and on his wall-map the AC added one of the coloured flags he was so fond of.

‘You see how they stick to those same three districts? It all gives support to what Herbie was telling us …’

Stephens, of Homicide, had sat in on the conference, but his failure to contribute to it suggested that he was there for something else. He chewed at his nails and occasionally stared at Gently. As the conference was breaking up he came forward with an expectant air.

‘Oh, Stephens … Gently, hold on a tick!’

The AC rested his hand on Gently’s arm.

‘There’s a job come up in your old hunting grounds. I’m putting Stephens on it, and I thought you could give him some tips.’

As far as Gently was concerned that was the very last straw, and it was no use reminding himself that he had expected it. For an instant, looking at Stephens, he felt all of his fifty-two years: he felt himself pensioned off, to make room for these brisk newcomers.


‘The Johnson case …?’

‘You’ve been reading about it, . . .