Gently Instrumental (2 page)

‘Hear, hear,’ Tom Friday said. ‘And no squit about it being all right on the night. More like it’ll be a ruddy fiasco, with young Lochinvar playing “Baker Street Rag”.’

‘You,’ Virtue said, ‘can jump in the sea.’

‘I mean look at it this way,’ Leonard said. ‘If one of us wants to back out of the performance there may just be time to bring in an understudy.’

Virtue put down the clarinet. He took a step closer to Leonard. His narrow face with its small mouth for a moment seemed all eyes.

‘Are you looking for trouble?’ he asked softly.

‘Come on,’ Tom Friday said. ‘None of that.’ Tom came of fisherman stock: he could have eaten Virtue twice before breakfast.

‘I think that’s your department,’ Leonard said.

‘I’m asking you,’ Virtue said, just as softly.

‘You’re going to let Walt down, I can see that.’

‘But I’m asking you. Are you looking for trouble?’

Leonard stared, his neat, handsome face suddenly violent with distaste. He, too, could have eaten Virtue, once at least. But he said nothing.

‘Of course, Leonard’s right!’ Laurel burst out passionately. ‘Oh, I’m sick of the whole thing! And it could have been so wonderful.’ She turned impulsively to Virtue. ‘Why – why do you want to ruin it?’

‘Because he’s built that way,’ Tom Friday said. ‘What about it, Walt? Do we get an understudy?’

Poor Walt fanned weakly with his hands, his mouth droopier than ever. But what could he say? Capel asked himself. Virtue had him in a deadlock. Goddamn sex . . . ! You couldn’t cure it with any drug in the pharmacopoeia.

But now Virtue, with deft movements, was running a cloth over his instrument, whistling as he did so a further snatch of ‘Colonel Bogey’. The polishing over, he laid the clarinet in its case, snapped shut the catches and reached for his jacket.

‘That’s that, then.’

‘But . . . Terry!’

‘Out of my way, you old tom-cat.’

‘No, Terry! You can’t do this. You know we can’t get an understudy.’

‘Ask Foxy Meares to help you out.’

‘Terry, you know that’s impossible. This is your part, yours alone. If you pull out we shall have to cancel.’

Virtue stood implacable, hands linked on the case’s handle, jacket draped over an arm. His eyes, almost black, protruded slightly, causing Capel to wonder . . . epilepsy?

‘So bloody cancel.’

‘Terry!’

‘Look, Walty, you can effing stuff it.’

‘No, Terry, you’re making too much of this . . .’

‘Stuff it, I said. Effing stuff it.’

Walt’s mouth hung. Suddenly there was poison exploding in the overwarm room. One felt the shock of it. Laurel’s face had a hurt, horrified look. Tom Friday rose.

‘Lay off that, Virtue.’

Virtue’s eyes flickered to him briefly.

Walt’s mouth was opening and closing. He gasped: ‘Listen, Terry . . . please listen . . .’

‘No – you listen.’

‘Not here, Terry . . .’

‘Bloody here and bloody now.’

‘Terry . . .’

‘Sod Terry! I’ve had Terry till I’m choked.’

‘But . . .’

‘You’re out, Aunty.’

‘No, Terry!’

‘Wet up your kilt. I’m on my way.’

‘You can’t just—!’

‘Save it for Christmas. You’re back with the choirboys, Aunty Walt.’

Walt was a mess. His face had gone livid – there were areas of near-purple, Capel noted – and he was panting quickly. His pupils were small, the whites prominent, lids retracted.

‘Walt,’ Capel said. ‘Walt.’

Walt half-choked: ‘There’s . . . someone else!’

‘Wouldn’t you think so,’ Virtue jeered. ‘You dirty old queen, that’s just what you’d think.’

‘Terry . . . who?’

‘Never you mind.’

‘Terry, you must tell me who!’

‘Why should I tell you?’ He laughed tauntingly. ‘It could be someone in this room.’

‘In this room . . . ?’

‘Why not? Don’t think you’re the only tom-cat here! Or it could be one of those naughty little things’ – he rolled his eyes at the shrinking Laurel.

‘Right,’ Tom Friday said. ‘Out. Out, you dirty-minded scrubber.’

‘Oh sailor, how strong you are!’ Virtue sneered.

‘Out – or I’ll break your bloody neck!’

Virtue danced aside.

‘Please, no!’ Walt wailed.

‘Oh, I’m going,’ Virtue jeered. ‘Don’t get into bad company, Aunty Walt. And don’t wake me when you come in.’

‘Terry . . . Terry!’

‘Just stuff it.’

Virtue dodged round Tom Friday. He dumped the clarinet in Walt’s arms, blew him a mocking kiss, and went.

The door slammed. Walt sagged down on one of the Music Room’s stackable chairs. Tom Friday stood stroking his knuckles, as though they itched from blows unstruck. Laurel was trembling; Leonard looked pale. Capel all this time had nursed his violin. Now he rose, laid the violin on his chair and went to pat Walt’s shoulder.

‘Easy, old lad. You’re with friends.’

Walt groaned and covered his face. They could see his bowed shoulders heaving, hear him choke down a sob. A wretched sight! And this was the man who’d written the
Festival Quintet
. . .

‘Oh Mr Hozeley!’ Laurel cried. ‘I’m so sorry, so sorry!’

‘I should have thumped the little rat,’ Tom Friday muttered.

‘A pity we don’t still have the stocks,’ Leonard said savagely.

Walt shuddered; he snatched a great sigh and raised his head from his hands. He stared at them muzzily for a moment, his pale eyes a mist.

‘I can’t . . . I can’t go on now.’

‘Hush, Walt,’ Capel said. ‘We’ve lost our soloist, that’s all. That’s the way you have to look at it.’

‘I can’t, Henry. I wrote the part for him, I couldn’t bear to have someone else play it.’

‘Walt, the part is bigger than the player. You’ve got to give another man the chance.’

Walt gazed, then shook his head.

‘Yes,’ Capel urged. ‘You’ve
got
to, Walt. The
Quintet
is too important, it mustn’t be sacrificed to personal feelings. If necessary we can postpone it. There’s a vacant date at the end of the week. That’ll give us time. But you mustn’t call it off. This is something you owe to yourself. To music.’

‘It’s just another . . . festival piece.’

‘No, Walt.’

‘But Henry – I can’t take it!’

‘You’re upset, Walt. But you know I’m right.’

Walt jumped to his feet: went to stare at a window.

‘God’s bloody pyjamas,’ Tom Friday muttered. ‘I could strangle that snivelling Virtue! Do we know of an understudy?’

Capel touched his nose. ‘If only I can get Walt up to scratch.’

‘Walt’ll come round.’

‘Don’t be too certain. Virtue won’t let him off the hook.’

‘I’ll run that scrubber out of town!’

‘Only,’ Capel said, ‘it wouldn’t cure Walt.’

They stared at Hozeley’s hunched back. In Laurel’s eyes there were tears. Leonard’s face was still pale, had a set, empty expression.

Walt came back.

‘I can’t go home tonight.’ His heavy features were all misery.

‘That’s all right, Walt,’ Capel said hastily. ‘There’s always a bed for you at my place.’

‘I need to think . . . and it’s so hot. I’ll go for a walk along the Front . . . where I can hear the sea. I need some coolness in my brain.’

Clumsily, he picked up his jacket, set his wide-brimmed hat on his locks. Then he shambled out: sixty-one, admitting to eighty when crossed in love.

‘Go after him, Henry!’ Tom Friday exclaimed. ‘The poor old sod is acting desperate.’

Slowly Capel shook his head. ‘Not Walt. He’s a survivor.’

‘You could talk to him.’

‘I’ll talk to him later. Right now he’s best left alone. When he comes in I’ll give him a sedative and a little tot. Tomorrow we’ll talk.’

‘Oh, poor Mr Hozeley!’ Laurel cried. ‘I wish there was some way we could help him.’

Capel gave her a meditative glance, then moved his angular shoulders. ‘Let’s go for a drink.’

‘Not me,’ Leonard said. ‘I’m like Walt. I need air.’ He moved abruptly to his cello and laid it away in its case. ‘I’ll leave this here – on chance.’

‘Yes, do that,’ Capel nodded.

‘I think I’ll go with Leonard,’ Laurel said. ‘Really, it’s too hot for drinking.’

So then they were two, Capel and Tom Friday, standing together in the silent room: with the chairs grouped emptily on the low platform, the evening’s music dead and buried.

‘Tom,’ Capel said. ‘Isn’t sex a bastard. It does for men like drink. It sets them up but it knocks them down. It’s like a fire you can’t control.’

‘Sex is all right,’ Tom Friday said. ‘As long as you don’t have it on the brain.’

‘Walt has it on the brain,’ Capel said. ‘He’s sick with it.’

‘So,’ Tom Friday said, ‘what can we do?’

This, in the Music Room of The White Hart, at the top end of the small town, where it verged into country, when the night of 24 August was beginning. The world turned. Sidelong light flickered across the grey plains of sea. From shadow stepped the houses, the tinder trees, the blackened heaths. Early men walked. In street and road and lane they went their way: gate to gate, house to house, with little clatterings and clinkings. Then one stopped and stood still, stopped between the dawn light and the sun: stopped, in a great silence that strangled song in the birds’ throats. Cruelly the sun came out of Holland on the morning of the twenty-fifth, sharp as a broken bottle. Cars arrived, other men.

W
HAT THE OFFICE
smelled of was soot, like a railway waiting room of earlier days. And in fact there was a shuttered-off fireplace, painted over but not otherwise effaced. Inspector Leyston went with the room: a tall, lean man, nearing retirement, dressed in a dark suit and waistcoat and sporting a pair of well-combed sideboards. In shaking hands, he touched his heels together.

‘Didn’t expect them to send us one of the brass, sir.’

Gently grinned. ‘There’s a reason for it. Our Assistant Commissioner is a culture vulture.’

Then, to Leyston’s surprise, Gently rounded his lips and began to whistle: a haunting little theme. And Gently had a twinkle in his eye.

‘Recognize it?’

‘Well . . . no, sir.’

‘It’s from Hozeley’s
Beach Suite
. They gave it on the Proms last summer, and our AC is something of an addict. Also, it’s been taped by the LSO. Your Walter Hozeley is a Name.’

‘Yes . . . I see, sir.’

Gently sent him an amused look. ‘Got any beer?’

‘You bet, sir.’

‘It was hot work, driving down.’

Leyston set up bottles and glasses – old-fashioned tumblers, heavy and fluted. Through the office window one looked down on a street which the sun was pounding like a hammer. Slung across it was a canvas banner: Shinglebourne’s 27th Festival of Music and Art, 28 Aug–6 Sept It hung unstirred by any breeze.

‘Let me guess why you called us in. There’s too many toes here to tread on.’

Gently had gulped down half a tumbler before Leyston had finished his first sip. Another contrast: he was wearing sandals, a short-sleeved shirt and calf-length slacks, from the hip-pocket of which his wallet bulged. All of which Leyston had eyed almost guiltily.

‘Well . . . I have to admit that, sir.’

‘There’ll be some who are too close for comfort.’

‘Yes, sir. One or two.’ Leyston took a nervous swig. ‘I mean, Dr Capel, sir. He’s my doctor. It’d be a bit awkward to have a go at him. And Mr Meares manages the building society office where I took out the mortgage for my house. Then there’s Friday, he’s the boatbuilder, he looks after my old yacht. Miss Hazlewood I don’t know personally, but her old man is the town clerk.’

Gently drank. ‘And you fancy the whole bunch?’

‘Just Hozeley, sir. But the others are involved.’

‘Very awkward,’ Gently said. ‘My Assistant Commissioner doesn’t see Hozeley in the part at all.’

He drank; Leyston drank. It was what that summer was all about. Though by now the sun was off the office window, still it seemed to pulse through the walls, the ceiling.

‘What do you know about Virtue?’

Leyston’s face was long between its sideboards. ‘He doesn’t have form, sir. Came here from Eastbourne. Been living with Hozeley for six months.’

‘I can add a bit to that.’ From his briefcase Gently hoisted a limp folder. ‘Born at Streatham. Two years ago he was selling cars at a Streatham garage, run by the Parry brothers, Frank and Arthur, who copped three apiece for ringing cars.’ He spread photographs on the desk. ‘Full remission. They’ve been back in circulation for a month. Virtue shopped them. Dodgy alibis. It’s an idea that appeals to the AC.’

Leyston gazed doubtfully, then shook his head. ‘Haven’t twigged them up this way, sir.’

‘Probably a coincidence,’ Gently said. ‘But we’ll leave it on the table. Next we hear of Virtue at Eastbourne. He was employed as a waiter at the Rampton Court Hotel. Occasional stand-in with the orchestra, which no doubt was how he came to Hozeley’s notice. Tried to blackmail a guest, who reported it. Virtue sheered off, no charge. Ring any bells?’

‘Not with me, sir.’

Gently sighed and gulped more beer. ‘We’ll stick with Hozeley then, for the present. Now I’ll take a look at your pictures.’

Leyston handed him a file. A spread of glossies showed the body lying on its back, legs crumpled to the side, arms upflung and head turned to the left. The clothes were trendy: candy-striped shirt, skin-tight slacks and close-waisted jacket. A brushed hairstyle framed delicate features. Lying near the head, a large flint.

‘Was the body frisked?’

‘No sir. Cash and possessions intact.’

‘I don’t see a watch.’

‘He wasn’t wearing it. We found a Timex watch in a drawer of his dressing table.’

‘How much cash?’

‘Three fivers and change. Hozeley says he gave him twenty the day before.’

‘Robbery no motive, then.’

Leyston shrugged; as though perhaps it hadn’t even crossed his mind.

‘Now the medical bit.’

‘Depressed fracture of the skull, sir, on the left side of the head. Bruising on knuckles of both hands. Bruising on left buttock.’

Gently pondered. ‘It sounds like a fight. But how did he bruise his left buttock?’