Gently French Read online

  Alan Hunter was born in Hoveton, Norfolk in 1922. He left school at the age of fourteen to work on his father’s farm, spending his spare time sailing on the Norfolk Broads and writing nature notes for the Eastern Evening News. He also wrote poetry, some of which was published while he was in the RAF during the Second World War. By 1950, he was running his own bookshop in Norwich. In 1955, the first of what would become a series of forty-six George Gently novels was published. He died in 2005, aged eighty-two.

  The Inspector George Gently series

  Gently Does It

  Gently by the Shore

  Gently Down the Stream

  Landed Gently

  Gently Through the Mill

  Gently in the Sun

  Gently with the Painters

  Gently to the Summit

  Gently Go Man

  Gently Where the Roads Go

  Gently Floating

  Gently Sahib

  Gently with the Ladies

  Gently North-West

  Gently Continental

  Gently at a Gallop

  Gently in the Trees

  Gently French

  Gently Where She Lay

  Gently French

  Alan Hunter

  Constable & Robinson Ltd

  55–56 Russell Square

  London WC1B 4HP

  www.constablerobinson.com

  First published in the UK by Cassell & Company Ltd., 1973

  This paperback edition published by C&R Crime,

  an imprint of Constable & Robinson Ltd., 2013

  Copyright © Alan Hunter 1973

  The right of Alan Hunter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  A copy of the British Library Cataloguing in Publication

  Data is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 978-1-47210-870-8 (paperback)

  ISBN 978-1-47210-878-4 (ebook)

  Typeset by TW Typesetting, Plymouth, Devon

  Printed and bound in the UK

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  Cover image by David Woodroffe; Cover by JoeRoberts.co.uk

  CHAPTER ONE

  CRIME SOMETIMES PAYS: but it has its casualties, too.

  I was sitting behind a clear desk and smoking the last pipe of the day. Everything was tidy; my reports were in, and I was waiting only to give Dutt a lift to Tottenham. Since this was the new-New Scotland Yard I couldn’t see the Thames from my window any more; but I could see, far away over the roofs, a row of tall, graceful steel storks, dipping and raising their intelligent beaks and performing slow ballet-movements among themselves: dock cranes. They assist my thinking when I’m engaged in a two-pipe problem. Because the street, on the other hand, fails to do this, I have had the bottom of the window masked with hard-board; and, still in pursuit of a climate for thought, have smuggled all my old furniture into this otherwise soulless cubicle. Fertile irregularity. Like the unofficial patina my pipe has begun to lay on the upper paintwork.

  A moment of peace, with the blower resolutely silent: just the click of Dutt’s typewriter from next door. But then a step in the passage and the door opening without a knock. Only one man does that: the Assistant Commissioner.

  ‘Ah – Gently. Don’t get up.’

  I hadn’t been going to. He whisked in.

  ‘I’ve just come back from that Angry Brigade conference. Thought I had better look in if I was to catch you.’

  He sat; he bowled me over with a smile.

  ‘Are you feeling like a trip into the country?’

  ‘It depends on the weather.’

  ‘Capital. I have something here that will just suit you.’

  When he beams like that, watch out. I moved my feet under the desk. Dutt’s final barrage sounded off-stage, followed by the squeal of a sheet being whipped from a typewriter.

  ‘Would that be Len?’

  ‘I am waiting for him.’

  ‘Call him in. He’ll be going with you.’

  I rose and obeyed. The A.C. exploited the interval by humming a snatch from Pinafore.

  ‘Now look, you two. Frederick Albert Quarles. What do you know about that gentleman?’

  Dutt looked at me for a lead.

  ‘Isn’t he the villain they call Flash Freddy?’

  ‘The same.’ The A.C. beamed at us. ‘He’s the boss of a snatch gang located in Hammersmith. The Met have been after him for four or five years. He has been one of their real headaches. Well, no longer. Freddy is dead. Apparently a confederate slipped a knife in him.’

  ‘Have they got the man?’

  ‘Yes. He is cooling his heels in a cell in Norchester.’

  ‘Then where do we come in?’

  ‘A simple double check. You are just to go over the locals’ lines with them.’

  Pause for gentle laughter.

  I scratched a match for my pipe, which hardened the gleam in the A.C.’s eye. It is two years now since he gave up smoking, but the old Adam still twitches.

  ‘Don’t they have a case, then?’

  ‘Of course they have a case. The fellow’s name is Stanley Rampant. A local, he acted as a nose for Quarles. Freddy’s gang had just done a job in Norchester. Rampant gave them the tip and Freddy set it up, but somebody put in a squeak to Met. The Met boys stopped the gang at a roadblock. They nicked four out of five of them, but missed the money.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Thirty-five thousand.’

  I considered. ‘Isn’t Freddy a big operator?’

  ‘One of the biggest. He may have slipped up this time. Perhaps Rampant’s information wasn’t reliable.’

  ‘Then what happened?’

  A comic shrug from the A.C. ‘My guess is that Freddy wouldn’t pay up. He gave Rampant a pourboire for expenses and told him he would have to try again. So buying it. They got on to Rampant through the car he had supplied for the getaway. It was clean, you see, it had to be legitimate. He gave a false name but the dealer knew him. When they nicked the mug he was still wearing the suit he had been wearing when he killed Freddy. Blood-spots on the sleeve. He’s a petty villain with minor form.’

  ‘But he will have a story.’

  ‘He says he got there second.’

  ‘I can’t see that inhibiting a jury.’

  The A.C. made staccato popping sounds. ‘Very well, then! Perhaps the case does have a few wrinkles. For one thing, somebody shopped the gang, and that somebody would scarcely have been Rampant. I.e. there was another villain around who wanted to put a spoke in Freddy’s wheel. Then there are the injuries. He was badly cut up. There were thirteen stab-wounds in the back and neck. Any one of seven of them could have been fatal, and the rest weren’t exactly acupunctures. How does that strike you?’

  ‘Unprofessional.’

  ‘A panicky amateur. Or else?’

  ‘A hate killing.’

  ‘Or else?’

  ‘Cherchez la femme.’

  ‘Aha.’

  The A.C. had been selling it. And I’d bought it.

  He pulled out some paper.

  ‘Our dossier on Quarles. Freddy wasn’t a common villain. Father a senior civil s
ervant, deceased; a cousin in the Foreign Office, attached Washington. Prep school, Merchant Taylors’, Magdalen, called to Bar ’61, disbarred ’64: interfered with witness in murder trial. Not convicted. No form. Associate of villains listed hereunder. Suspected complicity in fifty-six snatch jobs, proceeds totalling £2,357,025, in part recovered. Alibi specialist. No person participating in robberies.’

  I delivered a smoke-ring. ‘A steady performer.’

  ‘The Met boys won’t shed any tears, sir,’ Dutt said.

  ‘Never mind that.’ The A.C. waved at my smoke. ‘Listen to what comes now. August ’69 Quarles went to Paris. There was a snatch job done at the Renault works. No known complicity. What Quarles came back with was a Frenchwoman, Mimi Deslauriers. She has been living with him since then and she was staying with him in Norchester. Mimi Deslauriers, who was tried in Paris for the stabbing-to-death of her husband, Charles.’ He rustled the paper. ‘A nice coincidence?’

  ‘I like the sound of Rampant better.’

  ‘Neater, of course. It will please everyone. But meanwhile, Mimi has a lousy alibi.’

  ‘Where were they staying?’

  ‘At a place called the Barge-House. A riverside hotel outside Norchester.’

  ‘Where was he killed?’

  ‘He was killed in his car. It was parked on heathland near the city.’

  ‘What type of car?’

  The A.C. gleamed again. ‘Not your or my sort of car, Gently. He didn’t get his sobriquet for nothing. The devil owned a Bugatti racer.’

  ‘A which?’

  ‘A Bugatti racer. One of those cars they sold to Maharajahs. A hundred and twenty in the shade. They were seeing off Bentleys when you were still at school.’

  ‘It’s an open two-seater?’

  ‘Right. You must allow that Freddy had flair.’

  ‘He would be wearing his shoulders handy for a knife.’

  ‘Well, that sort of thing didn’t happen to Louis Chiron.’

  ‘Huh.’ I stirred my feet. ‘So Mimi is what’s bothering them up there?’

  ‘Principally Mimi. I hear she’s flamboyant, is sort of giving the picture some colour. But don’t overlook the other angle. Freddy must have made a lot of enemies. His just sitting back and using catspaws couldn’t have made him terribly popular.’

  ‘Who is handling the case?’

  ‘Norchester and Mid-Northshire. But don’t bother to phone them, I already have.’ He dropped the paper on the desk. ‘It’s quite a simple case, really.’

  ‘Oh quite,’ I said. To the cranes.

  He headed for his Bentley.

  Dutt came round the desk and we skimmed through the bumf together.

  ‘Len,’ I said, leering at him. ‘Len. Since when were you on first-name terms with His Nibs?’

  Dutt coloured. ‘He must have had my docs, sir.’

  ‘And that means one of two things.’

  ‘Well, I hope it’s the right one, sir. With Terry going to Cambridge I could use the lolly.’

  Six foot of cockney, that’s Dutt. Born in Seven Sisters Road. Lifelong supporter of the Spurs, brown ale and small Fords. Not so much thick as slow: he’s got a brain that won’t be hurried. Hence missing preferment’s eye. Preferment being the loser.

  ‘Then we had better make a good impression with this one. I can get you a mug-shot in the local press.’

  ‘Don’t suppose His Nibs will see it.’

  ‘You are underestimating His Nibs.’

  As I chanced to know, one of His Nibs’ disbursements went to a cuttings agency in Chancery Lane. No press acquired by a Central Office lackey escaped the eye of Big Brother.

  Along with the CR mish were copies of photographs of Quarles (all highly confidential, of course, since Quarles had never been convicted). A handsome, long-featured man with a romantic black mane, smiling dark eyes, set close, and thin lips parted over ferret’s teeth. Forty-five. Slim, tallish. Spoke with a public school accent. Charm that triggered-off women. A numbered bank-account; a Bugatti.

  ‘Would you buy a used car from him?’

  Dutt sniggered. ‘He wouldn’t be selling my kind of car.’

  ‘I’m keen to see his choice in women.’

  ‘Bet you she looks like Ursula Andress.’

  The address given was a flat in Upper Cheyne Row (‘Where they half-inched the posh paving-stones’: Dutt), and alongside the Bugatti he had run a Citroën Pallas: for when it rained, no doubt.

  Attached to the rest, a résumé of the snatch job and the Met C.I.D.’s commendable action. The villains involved were named Norton, Elsing, Wicken, Lound and Fring. A specialist mob. They all had form; three had done time for GBH. Fring was the one who had got away, taking with him the loot in a black suitcase. Named i/c case, Chief Inspector Dainty. The switchboard got him at the third attempt.

  Burning question: ‘Who gave you the tip-off?’

  Dainty’s answers were evasive.

  ‘A regular?’

  ‘Not as far as we know.’

  ‘Man or woman?’

  ‘We think it was a man.’

  ‘You are not sure?’

  ‘Pretty certain. But he was talking through his scarf.’

  ‘When did it come through?’

  ‘At fifteen-five. We only just had time to set up the block.’

  ‘How did you come to lose Fring?’

  ‘They pulled up short of us. Fring was out of the car like a rabbit. He hooked on to a bus turning out of a junction. By the time we stopped it he had vanished.’

  They had had a dust-up with the other four, no doubt laid on to give Fring his start. Fring, of course, was removing the evidence. It was tucked away in the black suitcase.

  ‘What are you holding them on?’

  ‘An offensive weapon charge. But that will change when we catch Fring. We have a stake-out at his house in Battersea and a watch on all his known haunts.’

  ‘Well, he won’t be strapped for a night’s lodging.’

  Dainty’s laugh sounded sour. ‘We have had information coming in. I don’t think you need worry about Fring.’

  I nagged him again about the tip-off, which had come from a call-box. The informant had named two of the men, Lound and Fring, and had referred to the gang as ‘Flash Freddy’s mob’. He had also described the car accurately, except for transposing numerals in the registration.

  ‘A local call?’

  ‘No way of telling.’

  ‘Who would have it in for Flash Freddy?’

  ‘That’s what the snouts aren’t telling us. When they do, you will be informed.’

  I hung up and exchanged looks with Dutt, who had been listening on the extension.

  ‘So. What do we make of that?’

  He rumpled his face. ‘It beats me, sir. It can’t have been Rampant who put the squeak in. He’d be cutting his own throat.’

  ‘Suppose he had reasons.’

  ‘Like what, sir?’

  ‘Like trying to put the squeeze on Freddy.’

  Dutt shook his homely bonce. ‘Wouldn’t be a sensible thing to do, sir.’

  No, it wouldn’t. But villains are stupid, especially little-leaguers like Rampant. And if it wasn’t Rampant who put in the squeak, then we were groping around already.

  Ah, well. Blessings on snouts.

  ‘First thing in the morning then, Dutt.’

  ‘Perhaps we’ll have had a tinkle by then, sir.’

  I’m not an optimist, but I like them round me.

  Living my life, and not theirs, I spent the evening with Brenda Merryn. Why aren’t we married? We prefer it that way, and Brenda would make a wretched housewife. It was May and sweet weather so we took a stroll along the Embankment, had a couple of drinks at her favourite pub, then returned to her flat to grill two steaks.

  With Brenda, I am indiscreet (she first came my way as a murder suspect). I mentioned Flash Freddy’s sad end, introducing the Bugatti and Mimi Deslauriers.

  ‘She’s a raving blonde,’ Bren
da said promptly.

  ‘Is this psychic vision or have you seen her?’

  ‘Seen her, met her, watched her operate. I’ve always moved in exalted circles.’

  Which didn’t altogether surprise me. Brenda works in Chelsea and has friends and a relative there.

  ‘Where did you meet her?’

  ‘At one of Siggy’s parties. He never did sail round the world, you know. She’s a busty bitch with a snub nose and dimples. If you disappear I shall know what has happened.’

  ‘She was accused of stabbing her first husband.’

  ‘Ha,’ Brenda said. ‘Then watch your back. I was going round telling myself all evening that Mimi Deslauriers had probably stabbed her first husband.’

  ‘Was Quarles with her?’

  ‘Tall, dark and sneaky?’

  ‘That’s the man.’

  ‘He was there. He made a teeny-weeny little pass at me, and then keeled over when she looked at him.’

  ‘She was jealous.’

  ‘Possessive.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘I don’t think he had much say in the matter. Mimi was lining them up in a queue, but that was her pre-rogative. Not Sneaky’s.’

  ‘Interesting.’

  Brenda went out and returned wearing something more comfortable. I got back to Elphinstone Road at about ohone-hundred hours: not the best of preparations for a trip to the country.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NO TINKLE IN the morning. Just an electricity bill and a letter in pencil, signed Justice: a threat to bomb the Bank of England unless we released a felon called Dakin. Worth a try, I suppose. I made arrangements to have it collected. Outside, a brilliant day, with a scent of lime-flowers coming from the Gardens.

  Dutt arrived in time to drink coffee. We fetched my Lotus from the garage and locked up his Escort. Dutt had been brooding over the tip-off mystery and had reached the conclusion that, after all, the squeaker must have been Rampant.

  ‘It’s the timing, sir. It had to come from someone who knew the job had been pulled. Then there’s the car, he knew all about that. Even got the number nearly right.’

  ‘Rampant bought the car. Wouldn’t he have got it quite right?’

  ‘It couldn’t have been long in his possession, sir. And me, I always have to think twice when I’m asked for my number.’