Gently in the Sun by Alan Hunter Page B

three addresses without turning much up … she had a grandmother in Camden Town, if that’s any help to you.’
    ‘Is the grandmother still alive?’
    ‘Give us time! We’ve only just heard of her.’
    ‘You haven’t got her surname?’
    ‘No, it’s very hearsay evidence. One of Campion’s ex-landladies had it from another of her lodgers. Apparently he used to know Campion when she was living with her grandmother – we’re trying to get on to him, but his tracks are a bit ancient.’
    ‘Nothing about any parents?’
    ‘Not yet, but we’ll keep trying. The local records, incidentally, went up in the blitz; just one of the little things that make life easier.’
    ‘What about her boyfriends?’
    ‘There again we’ve had no luck. Since she joined up with Mixer she seems to have kept her nose clean. Before that, as you might expect, it’s all rather vague.’
    Gently told him about the warehouse raid, in which direction he had some hopes. If Mixer’s gang was pulled in, an event not unlikely, then something might be elicited from one or another of them.
    ‘I’ll follow that up, naturally … by the way, have you seen the Echo yet? In case you’re at a loss, they’ve just solved the case for you.’
    Gently had hung up and gone to collect the papers he’d ordered. Over coffee and rolls in the breakfast room he and Dutt browsed through them. Gently’s braces and cheerful shirt figured on several front pages, but, as Pagram had hinted, it was the Echo which provided the highlight.
    The Echo reporter had scooped Simmonds. Following closely in Gently’s footsteps, he’d dragged the self-same story from Simmonds’s lips.
    Nude Pose in Lonely Sandhills.
‘Friend’ Says Youth Who Left Home.
Police Seize Pictures.
    It was all there except for mention of the thrashing. Detail for detail, it was what Simmonds had told Gently. Nor did one need to be a mind-reader to divine what the reporter thought about it – the murderer was Simmonds: it only awaited confirmation .
    Yesterday I talked to John Peter Simmonds. We sat outside his tent on the remote Hiverton Sandhills. Two hundred yards away were drawn up the fishing boats. It was there, on Wednesday morning, that Rachel Campion was found strangled …
    Facts, every one of them, and set down without comment; but how much could be inferred from facts put side by side like that!
    In addition there was a picture of Simmonds standing at his easel, and a reproduction of a Rachel drawing which hadn’t been in the satchel.
    ‘Bloody little fool!’
    Gently threw down the paper in disgust. Now the artist had really put his foot in it – there’d be no mercy for him from press or populace. Why hadn’t the imbecile had the sense to keep his mouth shut? Instead, he’d poured it out to one of his worst enemies.
    The rest of the papers had taken the Mixer angle and done their best to squeeze something out of it. They had got on to Blaydon and noticed the time factor: once again there was no comment, but a naïve juxtaposition of facts.
    Mixer was seen at Starmouth at twelve fifteen a.m. on Wednesday.
    At Hiverton, seven miles away, Rachel Campion died between eleven p.m. and one a.m., according to police estimates.
    But this was prosaic stuff beside the disclosures of the Echo . From now on it was going to be Simmonds who featured in the headlines.
    The manager interrupted them, his manner almost guilty:
    ‘Those are two of my best rooms … do you think it might be possible?’
    Gently had poked round Rachel’s room already, following in the footsteps of the scientific Dyson. The local man had performed prodigies in the matter of print taking; he had also established that two cigarette-ends had been the property of the inmate. Mixer’s room they had searched on their return from Starmouth . It contained nothing remarkable except some pornographic literature.
    ‘Tonight, probably …’
    He left Dutt with the papers. Just once more he wanted to look round that room