SHORTLY BEFORE I was due for promotion to higher executive rank I was sent on a Senior Officers’ Course to prepare me for such an elevation. At that time (the first Wilson administration had just taken office) the course was held at a country house near a town about forty miles from London. I went down by train with ten of my colleagues; we were collected by a minibus and driven through the town; at Copdock Place, as the country house was called, we were allotted rooms and told to assemble in the hall. Here we were addressed by the IC, a senior Metropolitan officer named Stapleton, who gave us a synopsis of the rather boring three weeks that were to follow; when, at the end, he shook our hands, and carefully repeated each man’s name, he gave me an unusually penetrating stare and held on to my hand for a second.
‘George Gently?’
‘Sir.’
‘How did you come to be acquainted with the aristocracy?’
I must have looked blank. ‘I don’t remember any acquaintances of that sort, sir.’
‘Well, there’s a message for you in the office from a gentleman calling himself Earl Sambrooke. He wants you to ring him. He noticed your name in the list we release to the local press.’
Earle Sambrooke: they had the spelling wrong. Sambrooke was far from being aristocracy. In fact he was a Canadian newsreader who was currently employed in the BBC’s World Service. I had met him a short time before when I was on a case in which a Canadian serviceman figured; later he brought me a script about police work to vet, and we had lunch together at Aunty’s expense. He was a husky, likeable young man who had done some flying with the RCAF. But I was at a loss to know why he should want me to ring him or, for that matter, what he was doing in Blockford.
I rang the number he had left.
‘Earle?’
‘Hello there, Superintendent!’
‘What was it you wanted?’
‘If you’re free this evening, I would like you to meet some nice people.’
I hesitated. ‘Here in Blockford?’
‘Sure, right here in Blockford.’
‘What sort of people?’
‘The nicest. You’ll find I am doing you a big favour.’
I considered this. Though my evening was free I had intended to use it settling in – getting to know the rest of the intake, sizing up Stapleton and his establishment. But doubtless there would be time for that, and meanwhile it would be pleasant to spend an evening in civilian company.
‘Have you transport?’
‘You bet. Pick you up around seven.’
‘Is this a pub crawl?’
‘No sir.’
‘Right. I’ll see you at seven, then.’
Promptly at seven Earle arrived, driving a hideous American car: at that time they still had a comic-strip styling and more chromium plate than an espresso bar. We drove away with a clatter of gravel that brought a frown from the watching Stapleton, and took up an improbable angle of heel as we swooped through the lodge gates. Earle was grinning.
‘You like this bus?’
‘I’d like you to ease your big foot.’
‘She’s a wedding present, fella.’
‘Whose?’
‘Mine. I’m getting married on Saturday.’
I glanced sidelong at him. His grin was blissful as he zoomed the car towards Blockford. Earle wasn’t handsome, but he had those boyish features that some women find irresistible. He had fairish hair and pale grey eyes and stood a long-legged six feet. He must have looked well in air force rig. I imagined that he had never been short of a date.
‘Who is she?’
‘She’s out of a dream. She makes Brigitte Bardot look a hundred. She is the classiest, deloveliest dame since Cleopatra and Lady Hamilton.’
‘But she has a name.’
‘Anne Mackenzie.’
‘How did you find her up in Blockford?’
‘She’s the sister of a guy I work with – Alex Mackenzie. You’ll have heard of him?’
At which point I began to catch on. I certainly had heard of Alex Mackenzie. He was the son of Colin Mackenzie, with whom I had done my early service, and with whom I had kept in touch until his death in Rhodesia. Colin had joined the Rhodesian Police. I had been the best man at his wedding; we had seen little of each other after that, but I did know that his son, Alex, had joined the BBC. Also, I remembered, I had heard of a daughter, though I had not had an opportunity to meet either of the children. I tried to recall Mrs Mackenzie, but my memory of her was vague.
‘Your name came up,’ Earle explained. ‘I was telling them about the Dupont Case. Then Anne’s mother got to wondering if you were the Gently her husband used to know. So she got out some old letters, and I recognized your handwriting straight away. Then Alex capped it by saying that your name was listed in the Police Call column of the Blockford Herald. So here you are – the old family friend turning up for the kid’s wedding.’
‘But I’m a perfect stranger,’ I protested. ‘I didn’t ever really know Colin’s wife.’
‘You’ll like her,’ Earle said. ‘She remembers her husband thought you were great.’
‘That was several years ago.’
‘She’ll like you anyway. She’s the easiest person to get on with. I picked myself a bride in a million and a mother-in-law to match.’
I wasn’t so sure. The eve of a wedding was perhaps not the best time for reunions of this sort, and it occurred to me that if Mrs Mackenzie had wanted to renew our acquaintance she need not have waited till now for an opportunity. I was indeed a stranger. Before her marriage Mrs Mackenzie had lived in Devonshire. Until the wedding, at Axminster, I had never set eyes on her, and soon after she departed with her husband to Rhodesia. I had met Colin again when he was home on furlough, but Mrs Mackenzie had spent her time with her family. Colin had been dead three years. And a serving police officer is not a difficult person to contact. Well, we would see.
‘I guess it’s fate,’ Earle smiled. ‘You turning up on the doorstep like this. I’ve got a crazy feeling that everything is going for me. Perhaps that’s what being in love is all about.’