Gently Instrumental (3 page)

‘Might have done it when he fell,’ Leyston suggested. ‘The knuckles too, the way he’s lying.’

‘Was Hozeley examined?’

‘Yes sir. Negative.’

‘I think Virtue defended himself.’

‘He might not have done any damage,’ Leyston said. ‘I reckon he was taken out pretty damn quick.’

‘How active is Hozeley?’

Leyston pursed his lips. ‘He’d do all right with that flint in his hand.’

‘What’s the report on the flint?’

‘Well, negative. But lab says they wouldn’t expect it to pick up much.’

Gently emptied his bottle and drank. Clearly, Leyston was selling himself Hozeley. Perhaps that wasn’t surprising, when the mores of Shinglebourne were so far removed from the mores of, say, Chelsea. Yet already the case was showing holes through which an astute counsel could drive a truck.

‘What’s Hozeley’s story?’

‘What you might expect, sir. He says he went for a stroll on the Front. Says the row with Virtue upset him, that he couldn’t face going back to the cottage. Dr Capel had offered to put him up, but he didn’t arrive there till two hours later. Says he sat on the shingle for a bit, didn’t realize how long he’d been there.’

‘Any corroboration offered?’

‘No sir.’

‘Is it likely that nobody would have seen him?’

‘Well, it was dark,’ Leyston said. ‘But he’s pretty well known, and we’ve talked to one or two people who were about there.’

‘Can you place him at the cottage?’

‘Not exactly, though we do have a couple of likely statements. About a man seen hurrying along Saxton Road at around 9.20 p.m., which would have been the time.’

‘But no identification.’

‘Afraid not, sir. Neither witness got a proper look at him.’

Gently tapped on the desk. ‘Getting back to that rehearsal! What’s your impression of what happened there?’

‘I’ve got the statements, sir . . .’

‘Never mind those. I want you to give me your idea.’

Leyston glanced at the window for a moment, his solemn face blank. He fingered the corner of a sideboard. ‘I’d say . . . it was a sort of lovers’ quarrel, sir.’

‘Go on.’

‘Well, that’s how it reads. There was this mention of another man. They say that Virtue was hinting at it, telling Hozeley that he was through with him. Of course, Virtue was playing up as well, trying to wreck the performance on Saturday. Some of the others were rowing with him. But it was really between him and Hozeley.’

‘It began with him playing badly.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Which of the others were rowing with him?’

‘Mr Meares and Mr Friday. They were wanting Hozeley to throw him out. But of course he wouldn’t, sir, he was too stuck on him. And then Virtue decided to take off. That was when he really let go at Hozeley and when this other man was talked of.’

‘Any names mentioned?’

‘No, sir. And I haven’t turned up a likely customer.’

‘There’s no question that Hozeley was seriously disturbed?’

Leyston shook his head. ‘No question at all, sir. When he went off he was in such a state that they thought someone ought to go with him. He was acting crazed. And this was only five minutes after Virtue left.’

‘When did the others leave?’

‘Mr Meares and Miss Hazlewood left together soon after Hozeley. Dr Capel and Mr Friday had a drink in the bar, then they left together at around 10 p.m. Hozeley didn’t arrive at the doctor’s until nearly half-past eleven. The doctor says he gave him a sedative and packed him off to bed.’

Gently nodded. ‘And the ETD?’

‘Between nine and midnight,’ Leyston said. ‘The pathologist wouldn’t put it closer. Seems this heat plays tricks with bodies.’

‘He died where found.’

‘Yes, sir. By the gateway of Gorse Cottage.’

‘Right,’ Gently said, rising. ‘Now I think I’m ready to meet the bereaved and the damned.’

They went down to Gently’s white Marina, which stood frying in the sun. Shinglebourne’s main street ran north and south and offered little shade at mid-morning. It was a broad, unusual street, developed in a piece by some mid-Victorian: a double run of small shops and houses that alternated brick fret with voluptuous plaster. A lesser street ran parallel with it, and then the undistinguished Front. All was coeval, on a minor scale, and disturbingly poised between quaint and ugly.

Gently unlocked the car and they paused to let its plastic breath exhale. Leyston, encouraged by example, had removed his jacket, to look even more in period in waistcoat and shirtsleeves. They drove up The Street. No later developments interrupted the dogged Victorian scene. At its top The Street was closed by a red-brick block that squeezed the traffic into narrow thoroughfares.

‘Where is the White Hart?’ Gently asked.

‘At the north end, sir,’ Leyston said. ‘Near the Saxton Road junction. You wouldn’t have passed it, driving in.’

‘When was it built?’

Leyston looked vague. ‘Don’t reckon it’s a new place, sir. But it’s a three-star. All the important music people stay there.’

They turned into Saxton Road. Here at last the Victorian clef faltered. After passing a large but insipid flint church one began to see cheerful Edwardian houses. They peered from behind beeches and parched lawns and drives that led to multiple garages. Saxton Road, Shinglebourne’s link with England, was also the preserve of its affluent. Higher up still the houses were modern; they ended at the golf course and the open heath.

‘On your left, sir.’

Where the houses stopped a lane turned down between hawthorn hedges. It was surfaced with gravel, and within a hundred yards reached a wide, low gate. Behind the gate stood a thatched cottage, partly concealed by thick shrubberies; because it lay lower than the road, one could glimpse the heath lying all around it.

‘Gorse Cottage . . . ?’

‘That’s it, sir.’

Gently drove down and parked by the gate. The cottage was large; it had gable-fronted wings and dormer windows tucked under its thatch. The walls were faced with white plaster and the thatch was reed, crisp and new. Before the cottage a weedless sweep encircled a trim bed of roses.

‘Hozeley can’t be poor,’ Gently murmured.

‘He’s all right, sir,’ Leyston said. ‘Old Mrs Suffling used to own this place. She was his aunt, she left it to him.’

‘No question about the way she went?’

‘Well . . . no, sir!’ Leyston looked alarmed.

Gently shrugged; he got out of the car. ‘Now . . . let’s see the spot where you found him.’

Leyston stood by the varnished gate and traced an outline with his foot. Virtue had fallen just short of the gateway, with his head pointing towards the right-hand post. A little blood which had oozed from the head had later been tidied away, and the embedded gravel had taken no marks. Of the tragedy, nothing remained.

‘What about the flint?’

‘It was holding the gate, sir. Hozeley left the gate open when he drove out.’

Leyston demonstrated how the gate, when opened, would swing slowly shut unless stopped. And of course it had been dark, or nearly so, when the attack had taken place: the assailant must have known of the flint’s being there, and Hozeley knew: QED.

‘Still only presumption, Gently said.’

‘Oh, I don’t know, sir,’ Leyston said. ‘It was Hozeley who put the flint there only a couple of hours earlier. So he chases back here, catches Virtue, and Virtue provokes him to violence. Then he drops his hand on the flint. I reckon that’s as near as we’ll get to it, sir.’

They were interrupted. From an open window came a frantic outburst of piano-playing, a demented hammering. Someone was batting out the Dead March from
Saul
.

Leyston rang; the playing stopped. Firm footsteps approached the door. It was opened by a white-haired matron who glared at Leyston, and then retired. Leyston looked hot.

‘Mrs Butley,’ he muttered. ‘I reckon she went with the cottage, sir.’

‘Does she live in?’

‘No, sir. She’s got a little place by the vicarage.’

The lady returned. She led them down the hall and threw open a heavy panelled door. It admitted them to a large room that spanned the entire width of the ground floor. Its ceiling was low and beamed and its windows set deep in massive walls; at the far end a man was sitting at a walnut-cased Steinway grand.

‘The policemen, sir,’ Mrs Butley said bleakly.

Walter Hozeley rose from the grand. He was a large, deep-shouldered man with a head of untidy, grey hair. He had heavy, brooding features and a big, coppery nose, feathery brows, a mouth that drooped and absent, pale blue eyes. He hesitated, then gestured.

‘Thank you, Butty. You may go.’

The voice was clipped and neutral. It seemed to come from a long way off. Leyston stepped forward.

‘Chief Superintendent Gently, sir. He’s in charge of the case now. He’d like to ask you a few questions, sir – just to get things clear in his mind.’

Hozeley peered at Gently. ‘From Scotland Yard?’

‘Yes, sir. From the Yard.’

‘Hasn’t he read my statement?’

‘Well yes, sir, but—’

‘I don’t have anything more to add.’

He stalked to a wing-armchair and sat, his craggy profile turned to a window: Walt, Walter Hozeley, whose large brain had heard the
Beach Suite
.

Gently hunched. He strolled across to the piano. He began pressing notes with unskilled fingers. It was that theme again, Leyston noticed, at first picked out haltingly, then with more confidence. And at last Gently got it together, was making note follow note in tempo. He played it lingeringly, sensitively, searching for the feeling. Hozeley jumped up.

‘
Not
like that!’

He stormed over to the piano stool. His large hands spread over the keyboard and for an instant were quite still. Then they struck. From another world the theme came tumbling in a poised rhapsody, an electrifying fabric which the hands seemed to conduct rather than play. They stilled again. ‘Thus.’

‘But I don’t play,’ Gently admitted.

‘You don’t listen,’ Hozeley retorted. ‘You haven’t heard it. Perhaps you never will.’

‘Could Virtue hear it?’ Gently said.

Hozeley glared for a space at the keyboard. He raised and let fall his hands, but without striking a note. ‘Yes.’

‘Virtue really had talent?’

‘Yes.’

‘He just lacked the discipline to go with it.’

‘When he wished he had it.’

‘But is that good enough?’

Hozeley said nothing and his hands stayed still.

‘I think Virtue was a failure,’ Gently said. ‘He didn’t have the character to be an artist. You tried to give it to him but you couldn’t. He belonged where you found him – in someone’s Palm Court.’

‘That is unfair!’

Gently grunted. ‘We know a bit about him, too.’

‘If I could have kept him long enough—’

‘But that’s the point, isn’t it? He would never have stayed with you until then.’

Hozeley pressed hard on the edge of the keyboard. ‘Terry had his failings and I wasn’t blind to them. First they had to be overcome, and that was a task that called for patience. But Terry was worth it. He had a wonderful ear and his fingering was quite exceptional. Those are two things that rarely come together. I couldn’t let him throw such potential away.’

‘But by Tuesday you knew it was useless.’

‘What happened on Tuesday was just one more hurdle.’

Gently shook his head. ‘Tuesday was the end. You knew that Virtue was a dud, that you were going to lose him.’

Hozeley slammed a chord. ‘I deny that.’

Gently shrugged. He turned away into the room.

It was a cool room: between it and the sun lay eighteen inches of fragrant thatch. Also it smelled of potpourri and another scent, less easy to identify. Gently prowled around it. The potpourri was contained in two Chinese jars on a teak stand. The keener odour he traced to a deeply carved camphor-wood chest. Then there was other Chinese bric-a-brac and a Chinese carpet, the colour of jade. The furniture however was conventional, with loose covers of flowered cretonne.

Hozeley had begun to play again: Chopin that sounded like tears. Leyston stood by with a gloomy expression – no doubt he preferred the hard-shooting game. Gently came back to the piano.

‘Tell me about Tuesday.’

Hozeley didn’t stop playing. ‘I gave the Inspector an exhaustive statement.’

‘Not the air. The orchestration.’

Hozeley played the Chopin to a close. ‘Terry was . . . fretting.’

‘Go on.’

‘The young are restless – impatient. Terry was a London boy. Of course, he would find Shinglebourne dull.’

‘Had there been other rows?’

Hozeley struck a note. ‘Terry would have liked me to have given him money. A substantial sum, I mean. Naturally, I saw he had pocket money.’

‘Did he ever threaten you?’

‘He could be excitable, saying things he didn’t mean.’

‘He had a record of attempted blackmail.’

Hozeley played softly a succession of melodic phrases. ‘I promised him a holiday after the Festival. A fortnight’s touring in France.’

‘What was his response?’

‘He spoke wildly, pretended I was trying to keep him a prisoner.’

‘And were you?’