Gently Instrumental by Alan Hunter Page A

shake his head in a silence broken only by the creaking of the fan. The PCW’s pencil had ceased to drive and she sat gazing at her pad. Leyston was visibly holding his breath. Gently steepled his fingers, and considered them.
    ‘Of course, we have a special reason for mentioning that time. We have information that Virtue was out on his own and we are trying to pinpoint his movements. Wouldn’t you have called at Friday’s that day, for instance?’
    Meares moistened his lips. ‘No.’
    ‘You have a yacht there, haven’t you, that he’s repairing?’
    ‘Yes . . . but it wasn’t towed in till Monday morning.’
    ‘All the same, you were in the neighbourhood?’
    ‘No. I wasn’t there on Saturday.’
    ‘Not down at the south end . . . the yacht club?’
    ‘No. I was birdwatching – on the heath.’
    ‘The heath . . . ?’
    ‘Yes – the heath.’ Meares conjured a weak smile. ‘I’m – well – Mr Birdwatcher, I suppose! I run the local ornithological society.’
    ‘And you were on the heath?’
    ‘Yes . . . behind the town. I was there all Saturday afternoon. But it was too hot for birdwatching, really – they were fighting fires, further over.’
    ‘You were there with some colleagues?’
    ‘Actually – alone.’
    ‘But you saw other people on the heath?’
    ‘No – that’s not the object of the exercise! One goes alone to see the birds.’
    ‘Nobody saw
you
?’
    Meares gestured apologetically. ‘Unless they saw me without my knowing it. But of course I kept away from the footpaths. I was over by the birches, actually.’
    Gently clicked his tongue. ‘That’s disappointing! We hoped you were birdwatching somewhere else. Say on the shingle dunes, south of the town, just a bit beyond the Martello Tower. You didn’t work round there?’
    Meares tried to smile again. ‘No, I assure you! Nowhere near it.’
    ‘Then it wasn’t you who was seen there?’
    ‘It couldn’t have been.’
    ‘By someone at the tower?’
    ‘No. Quite impossible!’
    Gently shrugged. ‘A pity! You could have helped to place Virtue for us. He was seen disappearing into the marrams with a birdwatcher said to resemble you. But of course – it wasn’t.’
    Meares shook his head while clinging to the tatters of his smile.
    Gently collapsed his steeple, let his hands take up a praying position. ‘Let’s see if we can be luckier on a less-debatable occasion! After Tuesday’s rehearsal you left the Music Room in the company of Miss Hazlewood. You declined her offer of a lift and were passed by her in Saxton Road. Is that your way home?’
    ‘Well . . . no!’ Meares’s hands had coupled together with a jerk.
    ‘So?’
    ‘I – I had some idea . . . my cashier lives in Saxton Road.’
    ‘What about him?’
    ‘Well . . . a point of business! Something I’d forgotten to check.’
    ‘That isn’t what you told Inspector Leyston.’
    ‘No . . . because it wasn’t . . . didn’t seem important!’ His shoulders writhed. ‘I’d got this tummy bug – it had been bothering me all day. Then it suddenly struck when I left the rehearsal, when I was on my way to Maxwell’s. I simply had to find a toilet.’
    ‘So you returned to The White Hart.’
    ‘No—!’
    ‘Wasn’t that the nearest toilet?’
    ‘Not from where I was.’
    ‘Near the Tunstall Road junction?’
    ‘I didn’t stop to consider . . . I just went!’
    ‘Where?’ Gently said.
    ‘To the public toilet on the Front. Near the Moot House.’
    ‘Which is beyond the hotel.’
    Meares hugged his hands. ‘I didn’t think . . . I simply made for it!’
    Gently dipped his fingers. ‘Doubtless understandable! We’ve all been caught short now and then. And of course you’d prefer the anonymity of a public toilet to exhibiting your distress in the hotel. Nobody did see you, did they?’
    ‘Well – at the time – you wouldn’t expect . . .’
    ‘No of course not! And for the next half-hour, no question about your movements.’
    Meares’s head