Gently Down the Stream (10 page)

‘They were to negotiate the new property … that’s what he told me!’

‘And you believed it – you, with your finger on the pulse of everything going on here! Do you think we’re imbeciles? You couldn’t help having an idea. And don’t think you’ll be left here any longer to cook the books and cover up!’

This was too much for the head clerk. He drew himself up with a fury that almost startled Gently.

‘Sir …
sir
! If you continue in these allegations I shall request the presence of my solicitor. I will
not
submit to such preposterous accusations!’

‘All right … all right!’ Gently waved him down pacifically. ‘We’ll check the books anyway … I’m only giving you a chance to come clean.’

‘But I have nothing to admit, sir! I am here purely in the office of a caretaker – unpaid, I may say. My services are gratuitous—!’

‘I’ll believe you … don’t labour it.’

‘—doing nothing but answering correspondence, which, sir, must be done!’

Further protestations seemed to hover on the outraged Page’s lips, but he was interrupted by the sudden clangour of the dead man’s phone. For a moment both of them stared at it, ringing away insistently on the corner of the desk. Then Gently grabbed it up and limbered it to his ear.

‘Chief Inspector Gently.’

It was Hansom at the other end.

‘I’ve been trying to get you for the last hour … thought you might like the latest bulletin from Upper Wrackstead.’

‘Upper Wrackstead!’ Gently stiffened. ‘You don’t mean you’ve picked up Hicks?’

‘Not yet … not quite!’ Hansom’s voice sounded gloating. ‘But we’ve picked up a specimen of the larky lad’s handiwork. You remember that fat burglar’s wife – Cheerful Annie, they call her? Well, they found her in the Dyke this morning … with a .22 bullet through her head!’

T
HE SUPER’S HUMBER decorated the scene of the crime when Gently arrived there. The great man was standing beside it holding forth to Hansom, while two plain-clothes men and the local Constable added dignity to the composition. In scared little groups the river-dwellers stood near their boats, even the children subdued and watching.

‘I want him,’ the super was delivering himself, ‘and I’m going to
have
him! I’m going to have him if it means drafting in blasted military. Why man, nobody’s life is safe while this damned chauffeur is at liberty – he’s running amok, he’ll put a bullet into anybody who recognizes him!’

‘We’ve got the district cordoned,’ put in Hansom defensively. ‘There’s road-blocks on all the main—’

‘Road-blocks!’ snapped the super, swinging his arms dramatically at the surrounding marsh and carrs. ‘
That’s
where he is – not playing tag with your road-blocks! Get some men in there – get a lot of men in there. I don’t care whether they sink in up to their backsides – I want
Hicks winkled out before he shoots down any more innocent bystanders!’

Hansom made a face outside the super’s range of vision. He knew, if the super did not, what it was like beating an alder carr …

‘Ah … and
you
Gently!’ The super’s eye fell on the Central Office man. ‘Where were
you
when Hicks was blazing away last night? You’re a Yard man, aren’t you! You’re one of those “lucky” types whom things creep up on! Well, there was something crept up here last night and I’ll bet my last chance of promotion you were sleeping like a baby, forty yards from the spot! And that, after you’d been told Hicks was lurking around here!’

Gently heaved his bulky shoulders non-committally.

‘That was only a rumour … we investigated it thoroughly.’

‘Only a rumour! Only a rumour!!! And I suppose the body they’ve just carted off is only a rumour, too! I tell you it’s not good enough, Gently. You might have prevented what happened last night. Ever since you’ve come down here you’ve been wasting your time probing and prying into the Lammas family, while the real criminal has been left running around loose … and now this happens, right under your very nose! If you’d exerted yourself in the right direction we might have pulled in Hicks before he had a chance to pot anyone else.’

Slowly Gently fumbled in his pocket for a peppermint cream and balanced it on his thumb.

‘Why,’ he asked simply, ‘would Hicks come here?’

‘I don’t give two hoots why Hicks came here!’

‘But it’s a relevant question … this is the last place you’d expect to find him.’

The super looked as though he’d bite him. ‘I don’t care if it’s so bloody irrelevant that Scotland Yard would lie down and weep! He’s been here – he was seen here – and he’s done another killing here. That’s all that matters, and that’s all that’s going to matter. We didn’t know where to start looking before, but we do now, and by glory we’re going to have him sitting in a cell before he’s very much older!’

Gently shook his head with the slightly admonishing air that superintendents took so hardly.

‘We don’t know he was here – we don’t know that he was seen here. All we know is that the gun which killed Lammas killed Annie Packer … and we don’t know that either unless we’ve recovered the bullet.’

And he skilfully popped the peppermint cream into his mouth.

‘All right!’ breathed the super chokingly. ‘All right, Gently. Let’s play it your way for half a minute. If it
wasn’t
Hicks who shot Annie Packer, perhaps you can tell me who in high heaven else would want to do it?’

Gently nodded his approval. ‘That’s what one should ask one’s self … though unfortunately the choice is rather wide. But I can suggest a motive, if you feel it might be interesting.’

‘I do, Gently … it just happens that I
do
!’

‘Well … it might occur to a clever sort of criminal that we weren’t taking as much interest in Hicks as we might be and that a carefully prepared episode of this sort would remedy the situation. The likelihood would
be all the stronger if Hicks was only the fall-guy in the first instance … wouldn’t it? And it wouldn’t hurt him any if he was already making well-paid tracks for South America …’

The super stared at him evilly, but he was too good a policeman to brush an idea aside.

‘You mean this rumour about Hicks being seen was a put-up job?’

‘That’s how it struck me … after I had investigated it.’

‘In fact Hicks never was anything but a red herring – the door is still wide open?’

‘Pretty wide open. Though it may have closed a little lately.’

The super brooded for a spell. ‘It’s narrow enough, if you ask me. If Hicks was just a blind then there’s only two people in it – Mrs Lammas and her son Paul. Nobody else would get Hicks to play. I suppose you can add the Brent woman – he might have been infatuated with her. But it’s pointing all the way to Paul and Mrs Lammas.’

‘And maybe one other.’

The super glanced at him keenly.

‘I keep getting the impression that we haven’t got a full list yet …’

‘Any reason for that?’

‘Not really … just a place in the picture for him.’

‘It’s a “him” then and not a “her”?’

‘Oh yes! I think it has to be a “him”.’

The super brooded some more with a terrier-like glint in his eye. Then he said nastily:

‘There’s just one little flaw in this precious theory of yours, isn’t there?’

‘There may be several …’

‘Yes – and the first one is how an outsider could spread a rumour about Hicks in a little closed community like this – without being identified! Did that cross the Central Office mind?’

‘I admit … it rather puzzled me.’

‘Ah! It rather puzzled you! Well, it isn’t going to puzzle me, Gently. There’s been too much puzzling in this case already. Now we’re going to have some action – a lot of action! Hansom, get back in that car. We’ll leave the chief inspector to do his puzzling while we tackle this thing like common, everyday policemen!’

There was a relaxed murmur amongst the river-dwellers as the super’s Humber departed, as though the great man’s presence had burdened their independent spirits. Gently, of course, was another matter … apart from being a resident he had a chameleon-like quality of blending with his environment. They crowded round him as though he were their personal representative with the latest news.

‘What are they goin’ to do, mister?’

‘Why did Joe Hicks do for our Annie …?’

‘They aren’t goin’ to make trouble, are th’?’

‘Yew don’t think that wa’nt none of us!’

Gently gazed at the nondescript group with a humorous wonderment.

‘You – lot – of – baboons!’ he exclaimed at last. ‘Don’t you realize you’ve brought this on yourselves? If you could have told me last night who spread that
rumour about Hicks, Annie Packer would be with us now – and Dutt and myself the only coppers for miles! Why do you have to be so infernally dumb?’

They shuffled a bit and looked rather abashed. Ted Thatcher eased back his greasy cap and scratched beneath it.

‘Now hold yew a minute, bor!’

‘Yew can’t remember evra mortal thing!’

‘An we reckon we know now ennaway …’

‘What was that?’

Gently turned to the last speaker, who chanced to be the slattern. She met his eye defensively.

‘Well … don’t it seem obvious? We’re been talkin’ it over b’tween us.’

‘Tha’s right,’ put in Thatcher, ‘I know she told
me
.’

‘
Who
told you?’

‘W’poor ole Anna.’

Intelligence dawned in Gently’s eyes.

‘Let’s get this straight! Is this something you’ll swear in the witness-box, or is it something you’ve dreamed up because Annie doesn’t live here any more …?’

They murmured indefinitely. Thatcher was the only one who stood his ground. Annie had told him and he had questioned the slattern’s son about it … whereupon the slattern thought she might’ve heard it from the kids after all.

Gently sighed and shook his head.

‘But there weren’t any strangers around yesterday afternoon – people who don’t usually come here …?’

He went over to Annie’s wherry. Four frightened little faces stared up at him out of the hatch.

‘Who’s looking after the kids?’

The slattern, it appeared, was seeing they were fed and was keeping an eye on them.

Inside the low, wide cabin it was close and redolent with boat-smell, paraffin, blankets and a subtle tincture of Deep River. On one of the berths lay the slim form of Pedro the Fisherman. His pale face was half-turned into a cushion and there were silent tears running down it. Gently touched him on the shoulder. He moaned and sat up dazedly.

‘You – you slept here last night?’

The Italian’s haunted eyes looked vacant, but he nodded as though he understood.

‘With Mrs Packer – with Annie?’

Now he shook his head. ‘In da … da forra-peak.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

Tears welled up again as Pedro tried to find words.

‘We finish da music … go to bed. Sometime I don’t sleep … hear her get up, go ’way. I hear. Da sound … lika da bird,
pzzzzzt
! Nodding else … nodding at all … I go to sleep.’

‘When was this, Pedro?’

‘When … I dunno. One hour, two hour.’

‘But there must have been a splash! Didn’t you hear that?’

Pedro shook his head stupidly, then his face twisted and collapsed, and he sank back sobbing on the bunk.

Gently took a quick look round the cabin and went back on deck.

‘Who was it found her?’

He was a sad-looking man answering to the name of
Dido Plum. He had just been setting out in his dinghy for the village. As he was passing Annie’s wherry he had seen something white down amongst the weeds. He had prodded it with his oar …

‘Show me where it was.’

Dido led him up to the bows of the wherry and pointed to a spot slightly ahead of them. If you had toppled off the bows you might have fallen right there … with a splash. And with a bullet through the head you ought to have left a little blood somewhere …

Gently frowned, and stooping, raised the hatch of the forepeak. Below him lay a disordered bunk. On a shelf opposite was Pedro’s concertina, lying unlatched and sagging drunkenly, beside it a silly little posy of marsh-flowers stuck in a potted-meat jar. Gently dropped the hatch back expressionlessly.

‘Who saw the body … what was she wearing at the time?’

She’d been wearing a night-gown, it appeared, and a knitted cardigan over it. And slippers, but one of them was still in the Dyke somewhere.

‘What would she have got up for?’

There were guffaws and tittering, and glances at a sheepish-looking Ted Thatcher. He grinned at Gently and turned on the others in mock indignation.

‘Don’t know what yew’re all lookin at me for! Ennaone’d think I made a habit of strange women.’

‘Well don’tch’?’ shouted someone and there was a ripple of laughter.

Gently said: ‘You were dancing with her last night.’

‘W’yes … but that i’nt the same as what this dirta-minded lot seem to think!’

‘She could have arranged to see you later.’

Ted gave him a wink. ‘Yew’re nearla as bad as they are, an tha’s pretta bad!’

‘Did she, or didn’t she?’

‘She di’nt then – though I woon’t say she ha’nt got a mind tew. But that wa’nt noth’n definite, an’ I aren’t agoin’ to have m’reputation dragged in the mud!’

It was suddenly comedy, that tragic occurrence on the river-bank. Perhaps it was reaction, perhaps it was the East Anglian resentment at being thrown emotionally off balance. But the comic side had come uppermost and the river-dwellers wanted it to stay uppermost. They insisted in finding something superlatively funny in the idea of the dead woman creeping out to meet Thatcher.

‘Were you expecting her?’ persisted Gently.

‘W’not exacla … but I woonta been surprised.’

‘Did you stay awake, for instance?’

‘What me – for that ole bitch!’

‘Then you didn’t hear anything – your boat is moored quite close?’

‘That i’nt apurpose either – onla b’cause there i’nt no room with better compana!’

He had heard something, all the same. When Gently could steer him away from the gallery he admitted to having been awakened. He had then heard the same sound that Pedro described.

‘Like an ole swan that was, or like a cute when she’s
a-sittin’ on some eggs. “Pssssh!” that go, onla a bit more wicious-like.’

‘Didn’t you get up to see what it was?’

‘W’no … I’m tew far uppa the tooth to get up evra time I hear a funna noise.’

‘And you’ve no idea of the time?’

‘Blast yes – yew can see me strikin a light to have a look!’

Like Pedro, he had heard no splash, and like Pedro he had dropped off to sleep again. Two other witnesses, the slattern and a little man with a big moustache, contributed substantially similar evidence. The little man could add a trifle more – he had stayed awake longer. Ten minutes or so after the hissing there had been a subdued bump, as though somebody had stepped cautiously into a dinghy, and there followed a number of similar noises occupying several minutes.

‘But not a splash?’

‘No, there wa’nt no splash.’

‘And of course you don’t know the time?’

‘I don’t – but I could hear “Moanin’ Minnie”, if tha’s enna help to yew.’

‘Moaning Minnie’ was the automatic foghorn off the coast, ten miles distant. It had probably been booming all night.

Gently bit his lip and stared about him at the rough, worn grass of the river-bank. Why wasn’t there any blood? Cheerful Annie had looked as though she had plenty!

He had got the tragedy into some sort of focus now. In his mind’s eye he could see what had gone on here
while he was sleeping so peacefully in the nearby bungalow.

It was twelve when he had gone to bed. Perhaps in deference to the resident coppers, the jollifications on the bank had ended half an hour earlier. A few people had stopped to chat, no doubt, but it hadn’t continued very long. When Gently had doused his light and drawn his curtains it was quiet and still outside. After that, how long had it been? How long had Annie given Pedro in the forepeak to drop off, before she pulled on her cardigan, stuck her feet into her slippers and crept away to try her charms on Ted Thatcher? An hour, perhaps. It would have been around one. At one or just after she had slipped ashore, turned riverwards towards Thatcher’s old tub and …