Gently Under Fire Page 2

  Frénaye stirred slightly. ‘You are perhaps unaware that our annual Antiques Fair opens tomorrow.’

  ‘And that is an event of some importance?’

  ‘It is one over which we take no chances.’

  After a pause, Gently said: ‘I passed the Fair pavilion only minutes before I was tipped into the harbour.’

  ‘Indeed . . .?’

  ‘No doubt a coincidence. And I had been all round the town by then. But I finished up by walking along the Rue Haute and returning by the Gardens and harbour.’

  ‘After a tiring day, an energetic walk.’

  ‘Honfleur is a town of great charm, monsieur. But yes, I must admit that when I’d passed the Gardens I was glad enough to rest at the harbour wall. French surfaces are rough to English feet – not to mention English cars.’

  Frénaye didn’t smile. He made a note on a pad.

  ‘From where you were standing you could be seen from the pavilion?’

  Gently puffed. ‘If anyone were looking. But it’s a hundred or two metres and the light wasn’t good.’

  ‘The parked cars – the street?’

  ‘Apparently deserted. Also the garage over the way. There may have been people down towards the town, but too far away to have seen what happened.’

  ‘Some words were spoken, it seems in English.’

  ‘What it sounded like was “Swim, you bastard!” But the accent wasn’t English and I couldn’t swear to them on oath.’

  ‘Yet he spoke to you in English.’

  ‘So did the patron. Doubtless my clothes give me away.’

  ‘All the same I find it interesting.’

  ‘Like the silencer on the gun.’

  Frénaye stared with mild, dark eyes, then added a couple of notes to his pad. The plain-clothes man came up with the bullets that had at last been retrieved from the counter.

  ‘Here you are, chief, but the third was a ricochet . . . it struck a bracket and took off somewhere.’

  ‘Show me.’ Frénaye rose and followed the man behind the counter.

  Bocasse had finished his statement-taking and now sat discussing some point with Auguste. Albert, Dubourg and the mechanic, on the other hand, had got into an argument about the stake-money. Jules stood apart with a face of thunder – someone was going to fork out for all the damage. Added up, it was a ruined counter, a bottle of Dubonnet and – and . . .

  Frénaye came back. Hands clasped behind him, he stared for a moment at his pad. Then he sighed and glanced timidly at Gently, who continued his expressionless puffing.

  ‘Monsieur, on the facts we have, this is clearly a case of mistaken identity.’

  ‘Clearly, monsieur. But by whom?’

  ‘Unfortunately at the moment we cannot say.’

  He sat again, fretted at the pad, leaned back to fix Gently with a frank gaze.

  ‘Does it not seem to you, monsieur, that all things considered, we are perhaps dealing here with a coincidence?’

  ‘Carry on.’

  ‘We have established no connection between what happened first and what happened second. At the harbour you were perhaps the victim of a prank by some person who thought he recognized you – possibly a fisherman the worse for drink who took you for a skipper against whom he bore a grudge. Certain words were spoken in an un-English accent, but you cannot be certain of what. May I suggest that, spoken in slurred French, “So I’m a bastard, then!” resembles what you heard?’

  Gentley’s eyes gleamed. ‘If you wish, monsieur. As you say, I cannot be certain.’

  ‘Exactly so. And thus we may regard the incident as separate and unconnected.’

  ‘Yet I was shot at later.’

  ‘Pardon, monsieur, but that is a point we have still to elicit. Now, if I may have your kind assistance, we will reconstruct what actually occurred.’

  It was delectable! Like a conscientious director, Frénaye marshalled his cast to their places – Gently, perched on a bar stool, Jules behind the counter, Bocasse on a stool to Gently’s right. About the others there was some uncertainty, little Dubourg trying several positions; but at last everyone was satisfied and the play ready to begin.

  ‘Puits, you will stand in for the gunman.’

  Puits retired to the bench by the door and sat.

  ‘Lights!’

  Jules switched them off, except for that over the counter.

  ‘And now, monsieur . . .’

  Feeling faintly ridiculous, Gently repeated the words he had spoken, heads turned theatrically and Puits made a move for the door. And yet in the end it was impressive. Puits pulled a real gun and mimed three rapid shots. One couldn’t help feeling a quirk of apprehension as the gun jerked three times in his hand . . .

  ‘Come back here, Puits . . . take monsieur’s place.’

  Solemnly the substitution was made. Frénaye urged Gently into the shadows by the door, sat him on the bench and put a gun in his hand.

  ‘Have no fear, it isn’t loaded. Now, monsieur, consider your position. You are a criminal with serious crimes on your conscience, aware that two of the men down there are policemen. Begin again!’

  As they began again, with Frénaye watching Gently’s every motion, the slide down the bench, the turn, the gun making its triple gesture.

  ‘Were you aiming at Puits?’

  ‘Not precisely.’

  ‘At anyone?’

  ‘Just down the bar.’

  ‘And your bullets would have finished up . . . where?’

  Gently heaved a deep shrug and handed back the gun.

  ‘So you see, monsieur . . . whoever sat on that stool would have the sensation that he was the target, whereas, in all probability, the gunman was merely securing his retreat. Do you not agree?’

  ‘What you say is possible.’

  ‘I suggest that no other explanation is logical.’

  ‘On balance, perhaps . . .’

  Nodding his satisfaction, Frénaye guided Gently back to the counter.

  ‘A drink for monsieur, if you please.’

  Reluctantly, Jules set up a glass. Auguste and his mates had been reduced to silence, dazzled by this example of police expertise. Bocasse, his impassivity quite restored, basked complacently at his boss’s elbow. Now the Englishman had been shown! In France, one applied the logic . . .

  Frénaye however, having made his point, became at once the model of politeness. His tender gaze dwelt fondly on Gently as the latter took a sip of his drink.

  ‘I trust that monsieur has not been too much discommoded by this very unfortunate business . . . monsieur need have no doubts that it will be sifted to the bottom. The fisherman we will find and punish. To lay hands on the gunman may take a little longer. In the meantime, may I offer a most sincere apology, and wish monsieur a happy and peaceful vacation.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And now, when monsieur has finished his drink, it will be a pleasure to drive him back to his car, which by chance he has parked near the police-station.’

  Gently grinned and, on impulse, shook hands, getting a warm clasp from Frénaye. On the counter he left a sodden banknote that almost fetched a smile from the indignant Jules.

  * * *

  But back in Geoffrey’s comfortable Rover, his system aglow with Jules’s brandy, Gently found himself frowning as he bumbled over the Honfleur pavé. It had been so preposterous, that strange affair! Even now it retained an air of unreality – as though after his stroll-about-town he had strayed on to the set of some comedy thriller. And not much less preposterous had been Frénaye’s explanation which, if you couldn’t fault it, neither could you swallow it: a charming exercise in ingenuity that skated an arabesque round the facts. As a theory it rested upon a coincidence more persuasive to Frénaye than to himself.

  Still frowning, he turned the car into the main street of the town, heading for the long, wooded gradient that brought one to outlying Equemauville. Setting Frénaye’s ideas aside, could there not be an explanation more convincing –
something that brought him into the picture, made it personal and credible? Something from the past? But he’d told Frénaye the truth: no murderous ex-client would be trailing him to France. Then the present? But that was equally innocent: his only act in Honfleur had been to stroll round it . . .

  Driving ever more slowly, he set his mind to recount the detail of that long day of travel, beginning in the morning at the hotel at Lewes where they had stayed overnight to catch the ferry from Newhaven. A French boat with a French crew, it had carried the usual sample of restless passengers: school parties, businessmen, students, tourists of half a dozen nationalities. Most of the trip he had spent in a lounge, watching the misty sea and the gulls . . . the roll, the murmurous vibration induced a relaxed mood, almost somnolence. Bridget had trotted back and forth, changing money, buying scent: Geoffrey had spent some time in the bar, where he’d scraped acquaintance with a lawyer from Amsterdam. Then there had been lunch. But most of the time he had spent relaxing in the lounge, watching the sea or the passengers lurching by in a continual stream.

  And then an image did float back to him, separating abruptly from the generalized scene. While watching the sea, in his peripheral vision he’d noticed one of the passers-by stare at him, and hesitate. At once his professional recall came into play. Yes, the man had been of a similar build. This one too had been wearing sunglasses and had a bushy mop of hair, though of a lighter colour. Dress? Something casual, perhaps a zip-jacket; but Gently hadn’t bothered to turn his head. The man had gone his way: on board there were plenty of others just like him.

  An encounter of significance? But who . . . what? Involuntarily Gently shook his head. Give him a wig and that man might have been the gunman, but that was all: you couldn’t put it higher. And possibly his stare at Gently had been unconscious, his hesitation occasioned by the roll of the vessel . . .

  Fortunately he had been able to ring Geoffrey from The Admiral’s and his late return was expected. Bridget’s reaction to his tale was wholly predictable:

  ‘George, where can one take you on holiday?’

  TWO

  WAKING UP IN a different country must always involve an agreeable sensation of disconnection, and the next morning, when Gently’s eye fell on the fisherman’s slop, he could scarcely believe he hadn’t dreamed the whole episode. A dream, a farcical dream. Frénaye had been right after all: the ludicrous violence of the night before had been coincidental and impersonal. At the harbour he had evidently been mistaken for another, and in the bar merely shared a common peril . . . and meanwhile the sun was shining on Normandy and a smell of coffee was invading his bedroom.

  Throwing wide his window, he saluted a scene of orchards, sunny meadows and steep-roofed houses, where freckled, ornamental cows strayed and a strange bird sang in the top of a poplar. Taking deep breaths, he fetched his towel and headed for Poulain’s sybaritic bathroom.

  But at breakfast this mood of euphoria received a check from his sister.

  ‘George, Geoffrey and I have been talking – and we’ve come to a decision.’

  Two years older than himself Bridget was inclined to lay the law down and, while not short of affection for her brother, to treat him at times with scant ceremony. Very like him in looks, she lacked his amused sense of humour: a discrepancy of temperament that sometimes led to friction.

  ‘I’m not sure now what happened last night but one thing is perfectly plain. Before you’d been in Honfleur five minutes you were mixed up in something that wasn’t your business.’

  ‘Oh, come now!’ Geoffrey protested. ‘You can hardly blame George for what happened.’

  ‘But I do, Geoffrey. From bitter experience I know that my brother attracts trouble like a magnet. You may say it’s in consequence of his being a policeman, but that doesn’t make it less distressing for his relatives. Such things don’t happen to me or you, and I’m sure, if he tried, they wouldn’t happen to George.’

  ‘I do try . . .’ Gently murmured.

  ‘No you don’t, George, or not hard enough. In all of Honfleur there was trouble last night in just one bar – and who was at the centre of it? We came here for a holiday, let me remind you, to seek peace and recreation. Geoffrey wants to paint, I want to visit Proust-places, and that without criminals taking potshots at us.’

  ‘It was an isolated incident.’

  ‘So you say. But the fact remains that it happened to you. And it’s happened before and will probably go on happening – that is, until someone puts their foot down.’

  In Bridget’s cheeks were spots of pink and her fork was dithering in her hand. Staring at her, Gently suddenly realized that she must be feeling shock about last night’s events.

  ‘A gun was let off . . . no one really shot at me.’

  ‘George, I don’t want to seem unfeeling. But we’ve decided that if this holiday is to continue you must abide by certain conditions.’

  Gently looked rueful. ‘Let me have them.’

  ‘First, you must stay away from other policemen.’

  ‘But . . . if I commit a parking offence?’

  ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean! And second, you’re to stay out of low dives where no respectable person would go. Last night you were positively asking for it, going into a bar used by dubious characters . . .’

  ‘But I was wet through.’

  ‘I don’t care. You could very well have got in the car and driven home. But no, not you – not the Chief Superintendent. Don’t you realize you’re in France and not in Soho?’

  ‘In point of fact it was a respectable bar . . .’

  ‘Do you agree to the conditions or don’t you?’

  Gently gestured defeat. ‘Very well.’

  ‘Then that’s that. And now we’ll try to forget it.’

  After which the meal proceeded in a silence broken only by polite requests. Bridget, still pink, kept her eyes on her plate, and Geoffrey, after a mischievous glance, did the same.

  By 10 o’clock they were in the car and coasting down the hill to Honfleur, Geoffrey driving, Bridget beside him and Gently lolling in the back with his pipe. The distance was little more than a kilometre; trees gave way quickly to a busy street; then suddenly one reached the contorted town-centre and the spread of the Old Basin, fringed with bright sunblinds.

  ‘Where does one park?’

  ‘Bear right.’

  It led to Gently’s park of the previous evening. There under the shade of trees, they found a slot among the Renaults, GS’s and Deux Chevaux. Though the Gendarmerie stood across the street its thunder was stolen by the town fire-station, and fortunately all that caught Bridget’s eye was a team of pompiers sluicing down an engine. In any case she had her own preoccupations.

  ‘First of all we must shop, Geoffrey.’

  Sighing, Geoffrey accepted a canvas shopping-bag and they trailed off towards the town-centre. Honfleur was aglow in the morning sunlight; the air was tender with soft warmth. Across the Old Basin the terrace of tall houses resembled so many packs of cards shuffled together. Very old, very French, cafés at their foot, not one of a style with another, not one with a roofline matching its neighbour’s, they might have slumbered there since the Flood. Seeing them, Geoffrey’s eyes became absent; and in fact a painter was already at work there. A figure dressed in a nondescript belted raincoat, he was daubing away lost to the world.

  ‘Oh, my goodness,’ Geoffrey sighed, ‘Boudin, Monet . . . no wonder they came here. This place is like breath in an artist’s lungs – who wouldn’t paint it, once he’d seen it?’

  ‘Don’t forget the shopping,’ Gently murmured.

  ‘But only look at that light and texture. And the colours like light itself . . . those yellow blinds are simply unfair!’

  ‘In a moment I’m going to make my escape. I have to return those clothes to their owner.’

  ‘George, what am I doing peddling law in Taunton?’

  ‘You’re making money to come painting in Honfleur.’

&nbs
p; They turned their back on the Old Basin, but only to plunge Geoffrey into fresh temptation. The crooked streets that converged on the old timber church set his fingers itching afresh. While Bridget tested Camemberts and considered pâtés, he tagged along behind them in a dream, scarcely noticing when baguettes were thrust under his arm or a carton of pâtisseries was hooked on his finger. At the Codec supermarket Gently saw his chance.

  ‘While you’re in there, I’ll look for a tobacconist.’

  ‘But I thought we passed one.’

  ‘If you like, I’ll drop that bag off at the car.’

  The offer was irresistible. After brief hesitation Bridget handed over a bag grown surprisingly heavy. Wasting no time, Gently humped it back to the Rover, then set off again with the bundle for Jules.

  Perhaps in consequence of the Fair, Honfleur this morning was especially busy. People were jostling on the narrow pavements and cars were being parked with carefree insouciance. The café-trade was booming; at tables by the harbour waiters were dashing up with smoking plates of mussels; and there a patient queue had formed to take a boat-trip on the estuary.

  Dodging mopeds and flying Deux Chevaux, Gently crossed the boulevard to The Admiral’s. At the door he ran into Auguste the Algerian, who was emerging with disgust on his swarthy face.

  ‘Aha – that’s all it needs! So you’ve come back to play the hero, have you?’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘This used to be a quiet place, somewhere to put up your feet and gossip. Take a look in there now. It’s standing room only, and you can’t get served for love nor money. And it’s all your fault, my friend – why can’t you English stay across the Channel?’

  ‘My regrets! Is the booze holding out?’

  ‘They’ll have drunk the place dry by evening. Look, the next time you get yourself shot at, couldn’t you make it Villerville or Trouville?’

  Auguste wasn’t exaggerating. The long bar was crowded from door to counter; Gently had to push by standing drinkers and duck his head round elevated glasses. At the counter the press was considerable – everyone wanting to gape at those bullet-holes. And behind it Jules, his face shiny, was telling a tale that would have made Frénaye stare. Catching sight of Gently, he gave a shout.