Authors: Hunter Alan
Yes, a picture-book country! You almost found yourself saying: ‘This is a cow, a barn, a bow-wow.’ Even the colours seemed specially simple, brilliant-lit and glowing.
At one point they descended to a ford, flowing through a cauldron-like den of trees. A cloud of white butterflies, settled there drinking, scoldingly rose as the car washed by them.
Again, poised perfectly on a hill, as though placed there deliberately for an artist to paint, a post-mill pressed its sails to the sky and the rounded clouds with their purplish-brown bases.
From here, these cottages, these farmhouses, came the big baskets to the Saturday market . . .
Then they passed out of this fairy-tale country into a flatter, more fenny area, where the cottages, coloured yellow, white or blue, were partly hidden among groves of willow.
A signpost said: ‘Weston ½’.
Gently pulled up alongside a parked tractor.
‘I’m looking for Ted Cockfield’s place . . .’
‘Go straight through the village, then bear to your right.’
Gently drove through the village. Here, besides cottages, were houses of timber, plaster and pantiles. The single shop had a sagging bow window stuffed with saucepans, knitting wools and canned goods.
Near the church a lane forked to the right and was posted simply: ‘Fen Street’. It passed through a screen of very tall willows beyond which water glimmered through dense reed thickets. Then came three contemporary bungalows, set back in the trees, where the land was higher; and finally, ahead, a big chalet-bungalow, with a circular drive in which were parked two cars.
‘Hastings’s Jag – and a blue Mercedes!’
They stood bonnet to bonnet, as though conversing.
‘Come in.’
Hastings must have been watching for them, since he’d opened the door before Gently had parked. Now, exceedingly dapper in a dark grey lounge suit, he stood aside politely to let them enter.
‘You’re quite alone?’
‘There’s just us.’
‘It’s reporters I’m really worried about.’
Gently shrugged. ‘We weren’t followed. I’d given them a hand-out before you rang.’
‘In that case . . .’
He closed the door and led them down a wide hall. At the bottom were double doors of panelled oak with bottle-glass rounds set in the panels. He opened these and they passed through. The room beyond was a large sun lounge. It had a sweep of plate glass opposite the doors and looked down a lawn to a staithe and a boathouse. At the staithe was moored an awninged yacht and behind it, across the river, towered some huge poplars.
‘Let me introduce you. Lady Buxhall.’
Precisely what had Gently expected? If he’d written it down before he came in it would probably have read: ‘A born divorcée.’
But she wasn’t that type. She didn’t have eyes that smiled along with lips that didn’t: she lacked the aura of mental eroticism, of physical unreticence.
She was a tall woman, slender and leggy, with appealingly sincere green eyes. Her honey-coloured hair was cut simply and she wore a tailored costume of hyacinth blue.
And she was shy! Although her model training showed in the automatic grace of her movements.
When she shook hands, she did it hurriedly and with a nervous smile that faded quickly.
‘Please sit down. David wants to talk to you. We don’t have much time.’
She pointed to a semicircle of padded tub chairs which were grouped round a coffee table.
‘Drinks?’
‘Not for us.’
‘You don’t mind if we do?’
She went hastily to a cabinet at the end of the room. Hastings, meanwhile, had remained standing near the doors, suddenly tight-mouthed and still.
Gently sat himself in one of the tub chairs and Dutt took another. A pane was tilted in the glass wall but the room was still far too warm. It smelled of stale cigar smoke, of whisky. A folded card table stood by the drinks cabinet.
Lady Buxhall returned with glasses.
‘Dave?’
‘No . . . I’m not drinking.’
She stood holding the glases indecisively for a moment, then set them down on the coffee table.
Hastings came forward.
‘I’ve asked you here—’ he began. Then he looked at Lady Buxhall. ‘Oh hell!’ he said. ‘This’ll tell you quickest!’ And he caught her to him in a fierce embrace.
He kissed her, slowly, intensely.
‘There . . .’ he said. ‘Am I making it plain? You believe your own eyes, do you – there’s no lies about this?’
‘Dave, darling . . .’ Lady Buxhall protested, pushing him away from her.
‘I’m sorry, Lolly – but this was necessary. You don’t know these people like I do.’
He turned to Gently.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘Have I proved anything to you?’
Gently sketched the ghost of a shrug. ‘Yes . . . I’m beginning to think you have.’
‘I love Laura. I’ve always loved her. This isn’t some nasty little intrigue. I want to marry her like hell – and, by heaven, I
am
going to marry her. I’d have married her years ago, only she had the good sense to quit on me.’
Gently glanced at Laura Buxhall.
‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘That’s true. David asked me to marry him then. Such a long time ago.’
‘Before she ever met Buxhall – that’s what I want you to understand. Because I know what you must have been thinking – the Buxhall millions and all that. But you’re wrong. It’s nothing of that sort. I’m not in this for any money. I want Laura and nothing else – just Laura. Just Laura!’
‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘Calm down.’
‘I want you to tell me you believe that.’
‘If you’ll tell me—’
‘No – no conditions.’
Gently spread his hands. ‘All right – I believe it.’
David Hastings patted his brow, and now he did reach for the drink. He picked it up with an unsteady hand. But he only sipped a drop from it.
‘Suppose you sit down,’ Gently said.
‘I’d rather stand, if you don’t mind. What I’d sooner do is smash something.’
‘That won’t help things very much.’
‘I’m not so sure.’
He sipped another drop. He compressed his lips and looked at Gently.
‘I can guess what you started to ask me,’ he said. ‘And there’s a one-word answer to it. Yes.’
‘You are Dr Cheyne-Chevington?’
‘Yes. Or I was, four years ago.’
‘Can you prove identity?’
‘Here’s my passport.’
He took it from his pocket and handed it to Gently.
In the passport photograph Hastings had no beard and his moustache was more luxuriant, but the features were little changed and the expression of the eyes was unmistakable.
‘Why are you telling me this now?’
‘I should have thought it’s pretty obvious.’
‘Not to me.’
‘Oh my God! Laura’s about to file her divorce.’
Lady Buxhall said: ‘There’s another woman involved. My husband has been seeing her over a period of months. I hoped, when I had evidence, he would give her up, but he refuses. And I love David.’
‘Well?’
‘My husband doesn’t want to let me go.’
‘He’s proud of Laura,’ Hastings exclaimed. ‘This other woman is around fifty – having Laura boosts his beastly ego.’
Gently nodded. ‘So he’ll defend.’
‘Of course. If he has anything to go on. And if he sends detectives poking around he’ll find enough evidence for a shrewd lawyer.’
‘And so you want to make a deal.’
‘Isn’t that what I’m trying to say?’
‘On Cockfield’s advice . . .’
‘To hell with Cockfield! I’m offering you facts – isn’t that enough?’
Gently rocked his shoulders. ‘Ah well, I should be getting used to Abbotsham methods. If Shimpling had picked them up sooner he might have done a deal with the tiger.’
‘Just keep Laura out of it – that’s all we ask.’
‘And in return, you’ll come clean?’
‘As far as I can.’
‘Which won’t be very far.’
‘As far as I can. I can’t offer more.’
‘Right,’ Gently said. ‘Now for heaven’s sake, sit. There’s been enough Scotch spilt on this carpet. I’m offering you nothing. It’s up to you. But I didn’t come down here to upset any divorces.’
‘Fair enough,’ Hastings said.
He took one of the tub chairs facing Gently.
‘I was Dr Cheyne-Chevington,’ he said, ‘and I knew Shimpling, and he was blackmailing me. That’s the reason why I changed my identity and came up here in the first place. You’ll know about the trial. That charge was based on false evidence. Shimpling fabricated it because I played tough and resisted his demands. Whether the charge stuck or not didn’t matter, it was ruin for me as a professional man, and I daren’t come out in the open about the blackmail because it affected Laura here.
‘I’ll have to tell you about that. Laura came to me as a patient in 56. After that I saw a lot of her and did my best to persuade her to marry me. She refused – and she was right. To be frank, I was a pretty wild lot in those days – I was mixed up with a peculiar set, and I dare say the crash was coming in any case. I took Laura about to some of those parties and the poor girl was shocked by what went on – and well, she quit, and soon after that Buxhall began to lay siege to her.
‘All right – I deserved it: it knocked some sense into my head. And if I wanted any further sobering-up, there was Shimpling waiting on my doorstep. He’d also been to one of the parties and he’d managed to take a photograph, and he threatened to sell it to a scandal sheet unless I paid him a thousand pounds.
‘What he didn’t know – thank God! – was that Laura was also on the photograph. If it had been published, and Buxhall’s family had seen it, they’d have crucified Laura. But I knew, and I knew I’d have to get that photograph somehow. I felt pretty certain I wouldn’t get it merely by paying Shimpling his demand.’
Hastings broke off, stared hard at Gently.
‘Suppose I admitted to pinching it?’ he said.
Gently pulled a face. ‘We’d want proof,’ he said. ‘I doubt whether we’d get it, after so long.’
Hastings nodded. ‘Right. I pinched it. Shimpling made a mistake in coming to me personally. I knocked him out and took his keys and searched his car and found the negative. And I’d have burgled his flat too, if I hadn’t found it in the car. But that’s where it was, locked in the boot, along with a couple more prints.
‘So I destroyed them before his eyes – while he was swearing bloody murder. And he meant it. Twenty-four hours later a CID man came to check my drug-book.’
He darted a look at Laura Buxhall, but she sat gazing at the glass she held. Her colour was high . . . but of course it was warm, there in the south-facing sun lounge.
Gently said: ‘You were given Not Guilty. How was it you came to be struck off ?’
Hastings laughed shortly. ‘You should read up the evidence. Merely being innocent wasn’t going to help me. Shimpling had plenty of hard stuff about parties and orgies and classy prostitutes. Oh, my neck was stuck out, anyway. Perhaps I wasn’t cut out to be a physician.’
‘But at least, after the trial, you’d be clear of Shimpling.’
‘That’s just the devil of it – I wasn’t! In the meantime Shimpling had been doing some homework and he’d discovered about Laura. Now he was threatening to inform the Buxhalls that Laura was mixed up in my scandal – threatening me, of course. I had money. Laura wasn’t vulnerable till she married.
‘What could I do? This time it wasn’t a question of knocking him down and grabbing the evidence. He was the evidence – he was notorious for knowing the details of my misconduct. So I paid him. He promised it was to be his one and only demand. I knew it wouldn’t be, and I did the only thing possible – I vanished.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘You did a good job.’
Hastings shrugged. ‘It had to be good. If you’re thinking I may have cut some corners, well, I may have. That’s up to you.’
‘Not my department,’ Gently said. ‘I’d rather hear how you came to Abbotsham.’
Hastings laughed again. ‘Chance,’ he said. ‘Whenever I gamble, I lose.
‘My father was an estate agent at Bude, so I knew a little about the business. I decided I’d go in for that and I looked for something in the professional paper. I found an agency being offered at Abbotsham. It was miles away from my connections. I rang Sayers and got details and settled the matter the same day. I simply went. A very good friend of mine wound up my affairs in Kensington. How was I to know I was going to the one place where Shimpling was bound to find me again?’
He sipped his drink, almost indignantly.
‘The swine had another victim at Abbotsham,’ he said. ‘For six months, I really thought I’d slipped him. Then one day I met him in the street.’
‘How did you know Groton was another victim?’
Hastings went still. ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘It was worth a try, but it’s not coming off. I didn’t mention any names.’
‘We know about Groton.’
‘Good for you. But I’m not giving any names.’
‘It was Groton you meant.’
‘No names.’
Gently sighed. ‘Carry on!’
Hastings sipped some more. ‘Shimpling sounded me out. He didn’t know if he could still swing Laura on me. I tried hard to bluff him but he was too sharp and threatened to try his luck with Laura. Then of course I had to give in. By that time Laura was Lady Buxhall. I hadn’t seen her since the trial . . . ironically, it was Shimpling who brought us together again!
‘What he wanted now was not, at first, money, but a place at Abbotsham where he could live. He told me that business was improving in Abbotsham and that he intended to move there to watch his investments. He wanted a quiet place – nothing expensive! – somewhere handy but unobtrusive. I had Young’s bungalow on the books. I showed him that. He took it.’
‘So you’re actually the owner of that bungalow?’
Hastings nodded. ‘I bought it. Young is living near Derby now. Owles and Porteous did the conveyancing.’
‘But surely . . . haven’t you been back there?’
Hastings closed his eyes, said: ‘Never.’
‘Why not?’
‘Why should I? Do you think it’s a place of happy memory?’
Gently said: ‘Put it like this. Suddenly Shimpling disappears. You own the bungalow – wouldn’t you repossess it, perhaps sell it to get your money back?’
‘I might have done. But I didn’t.’