Gently Floating (4 page)

‘What about French,’ Gently said. ‘Any gossip there?’

Parfitt’s head shook. ‘None,’ he said. ‘French was a one-woman man. I’ve talked to his housekeeper, Playford, you’ll see her statement here. French was wrapped up in his wife. She was a fine-looking woman. She led him a dance, by all accounts, but he thought none the less of her for that. She died of anaemia last year. Her death hit French hard. He got broody, evil-tempered, tougher on his son. The son was a bit of a lost sheep, his mother didn’t care for him either, but she found money for him to throw about. He’s been having it thin since she died. He didn’t go to her funeral, by the way, and there was a row about that.’

‘What a hell of a family,’ Glaskell said. ‘You’ll get me feeling sorry for chummie in a minute.’

‘You’d be wasting it, sir,’ Parfitt said. ‘There’s nothing sweet about chummie.’

‘Has chummie any record of violence?’ Gently asked.

No,’ Parfitt said, ‘not that we know of. But he gives you the impression he could slip you a quick one if you turned your back on him. I try to be fair, sir, where I can. But this one I just do not like. I know he did it. I’m bloody certain. And it makes me mad I can’t nail him.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said. He stared out of the window a few moments. ‘Getting back to the launch and the body,’ he said. ‘What can you tell me about that?’

‘Well,’ Parfitt said. ‘The launch,’ he said. ‘That was picked up below the bungalows. The ebb was running till three-thirty a.m. and there wasn’t any wind. That’d probably be right, so the River Police tell us. If it went adrift from French’s quay at about ten p.m., it would fmish up a mile or so downstream. It might have backed a little on the first of the flood. It wasn’t picked up till near five a.m.’

‘And the body?’ Gently said.

Parfitt’s shoulders moved. ‘That’s not so easy. It was on the bottom, you can only guess what happens down there. But they reckon it didn’t shift much until the boats began to move, then it was sucked up through the bridge by the afternoon flood. It’s a narrow bridge, there’s a strong current through it and it’s scoured and deep under the arch. Then the water fans out after it gets through and pushes flotsam towards the bank. So the body got trapped in the slipway. That’s how the River Police see it.’

‘I see,’ Gently said, looking out of the window again. Then he said: ‘So the launch might have drifted a greater or a lesser distance.’

‘Well, yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘You can’t be precise with that sort of thing.’

‘It would touch here and there, might get stuck for a while.’

‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘It wouldn’t go straight down.’

‘And the body,’ Gently said. ‘You were dragging for it below the bridge, weren’t you?’

‘The River Police did it,’ Parfitt said. ‘They know pretty well where to drop the hooks.’

‘But this theory of theirs of how it was sucked through the bridge, that was something that came afterwards?’

‘Well, of course,’ Parfitt said. ‘They wanted to figure out how it got there.’

‘From below the bridge.’

‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. He looked at Gently. Gently looked out of the window.

Glaskell said to Parfitt: ‘I suppose it’s just possible that French wasn’t knocked off at the quay, drove somewhere else in the launch, ran into trouble there?’

‘I don’t see how,’ Parfitt said. ‘Nobody saw the launch going anywhere. It’s got nav lights and a big searchlight and there were lots of people around to see it. There were boats all down the quays and Reuben’s fair at the bridge. We talked to a score of people who were there. Nobody saw the launch take off.’

‘Perhaps he didn’t use his lights,’ Glaskell said.

‘He always used them,’ Parfitt said. ‘He used the launch as a sort of car to drive between his home and the yard. It’s a very swish launch. Everyone knew it. He used to annoy people with using the searchlight. I talked to the manager, Archer, about it. French never drove it at night without the lights.’

‘Say just this once,’ Glaskell said.

‘I think it very unlikely, sir,’ Parfitt said. ‘But even if he did, someone must have seen him. And they’d have heard the engine if they didn’t see him.’

‘You mentioned somebody’s fair,’ Gently said.

‘Yes, Reuben’s fair,’ Parfitt said.

‘What sort of a fair is it?’ Gently said.

‘Oh, just a small one,’ Parfitt said.

‘Any music?’ Gently said.

‘Yes, plenty of that,’ Parfitt said.

‘Pretty loud, is it?’ Gently said.

Parfitt nodded, didn’t say anything.

‘I’d call it bloody loud,’ Glaskell said, ‘if it’s the one I know. And it is. What’s upstream of Haynor Bridge, Parfitt?’

Parfitt hesitated before saying: ‘There’s a shed of French’s. Speltons’ yard. The Bridge Inn opposite. The bungalows.’

‘A shed of French’s?’ Glaskell said.

‘Where they keep their half-deckers,’ Parfitt said.

‘Where they keep their half-deckers,’ Glaskell said. ‘That’s a bloody alternative for you, isn’t it? Suppose he’d gone there to meet his son coming back from this moonlight sail of his, and there was a row, and the son bonked him. That’d cover the facts, wouldn’t it?’

‘Yes,’ Parfitt said.

‘With the son admitting being out in a half-decker,’ Glaskell said. ‘You don’t have to break his story. You have to build it up, Parfitt.’

Parfitt didn’t say anything.

‘Is that the idea?’ Glaskell said to Gently.

Gently grinned at one and the other of them. ‘I wouldn’t know that,’ he said. ‘Your inspector’s the man who’s been on the job. He’ll know the feel of things best. He’s got a very good grasp on the situation plus the local knowledge that counts.’

Glaskell stared at Gently, chuckled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Stop buttering him up. He’s a good man. I’d back him anywhere. Just don’t give him a swelled head.’

‘I’m not saying I’m right, sir,’ Parfitt said.

‘Shut up, Parfitt,’ Glaskell said.

‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir,’ Parfitt said.

‘You son of a bitch,’ Glaskell said.

They laughed.

Gently said: ‘That’s about all till I’ve had a look round. I’ll take your statements to read over and drive out after tea.’

‘Come home with me,’ Glaskell said. ‘I’ve got orders from Marion to invite you. The town stinks. We’re up the coast. Give you a look at the sea. What are you doing, Parfitt?’

‘I’ll have a meal here,’ Parfitt said.

‘Oh, to hell with that,’ Glaskell said. He put his hand on the phone.

Thus: Superintendent Gently went to tea with Superintendent Glaskell and Inspector Parfitt, and tea was provided by Marion, Mrs Glaskell, on a paved terrace, under a sun-awning. So that when Superintendent Gently had washed and begun to feel comfortable, he was invited to sit at a table which looked across a lawn and over some sand dunes to the North Sea. The sand dunes were fawny yellow and stippled with marram grass, which was chalky green, and the North Sea was a high wall of emerald, purple, straw and heliotrope. On the edge of this wall, very bluish, tiny ships moved north and south, and from it blew a soft breeze which smelled of seaweed and the marrams. They ate lobster salad. The lobsters had been caught and boiled locally that morning. When they had eaten Superintendent Gently read the statements which Parfitt had taken. They were very dry reading, but Superintendent Gently was an expert reader. As he read he asked Parfitt questions about the people who had made the statements. Marion, Mrs Glaskell, didn’t make the mistake of serving coffee. At six-thirty p.m. Superintendent Gently and Inspector Parfitt left the terrace. When Superintendent Glaskell returned from seeing them off he said something to his wife, who looked pleased.

They took the Moorford road from Hamby, driving almost straight inland. It was a narrow country road between stunted hedges of hawthorn. Beyond the hedges lay fields of stubble and fields of wheat and fields of barley, and in two of the fields lurched orange-painted combines, pushing out rectangular bales of straw. Amongst the wheat and the barley poppies grew and the air smelled of straw and poppies and dust. The sun was in front of them, low but brilliant. Air lay melted in dips of the road.

Parfitt said: ‘Will you see anyone tonight?’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘Don’t pay too much attention to what I say,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’s new to me, all this.’

Gently said nothing.

‘When you come to think of it,’ Parfitt said, ‘I’ve only been on the case twenty-four hours. Just rushed in and got a lot of impressions. I reckon I could have been too hasty.’

‘We all feel like that,’ Gently said.

‘You fetched me up short,’ Parfitt said. ‘I can see now I wasn’t certain at all, just rushing in there and picking out a chummie.’

Gently kept driving.

‘I think I panicked,’ Parfitt said.

Gently kept driving. Parfitt was silent.

They passed through Moorford, struck the Stallbridge Road. The marshes lay flat ahead across the fields. The marshes were pale green and pale fawn and pale brown and very level and very wide and found their own horizon. Peaked rectangles of sails stood small across the marshes. The sails were white sails but cowslip-coloured in the evening sun. The sails moved very little. Sometimes a patch of willow or alder hid one. Two windpump towers without sails rose, bluish-ochre, far south. Coming to the marshes, the road dipped and ran flat between dykes and pollard willows. It approached a group of buildings of painted timber which stood squarely, flat-topped. From each side of this group stretched close-packed lines of low hutments with painted roofs and in the centre the road lifted over a narrow stone bridge. To the left of the bridge striped awnings clustered. Above them a wooden-valanced canopy sparkled with light bulbs. Also to the left rose a handful of masts at the trucks of which small triangular flags hung drooped.

‘This is it,’ Parfitt said. ‘That’s Reuben’s, that is.’

A pulse of rhythm, overlaid with sprightly brass, grew towards them.

‘Is the fair a regular event?’ Gently said.

‘Ever since I can remember,’ Parfitt said. ‘Every August Bank Holiday week it’s here. It tours the other villages too.’

They came to the bridge, were halted by lights. The music bumped and clashed at their elbow. Through the stalls could be seen two elevated gangways which oscillated alternately in time with the music. At each side of the bridge the river appeared, narrow, across it gable-ended boat-sheds. Motor-cruisers and yachts were close-moored along the quays. A motor-cruiser and a launch were passing upstream, below the bridge.

The lights changed. Gently drove over.

‘There,’ Parfitt said, nodding to the right.

Gently drove on to a gravelled park on which a number of other cars were standing. Behind it a large single-storeyed timber building presented double glass doors and a range of windows. Over the doors were gilded wooden letters:
HAYNOR COUNTRY CLUB
(
Residential
). Gently fetched an attaché case from the boot. They went into the club. Gently checked in. Parfitt smoked in the lounge. Gently rejoined him there.

‘Where to?’ Parfitt said.

‘I’d like to stand on the bridge,’ Gently said.

‘We’ll probably get knocked down,’ Parfitt said. ‘The bridge doesn’t cater for being stood on.’

They went on to the bridge, stood facing downstream, pressing close to the grey parapet. The reach downstream was a short one and was fenced at the bend by shanty bungalows. On the left was a stretch of bare rond with a capped timber quay-heading, on the right the quays, sheds and cuttings of Harry French’s yard. On the tallest flat-topped building, in blue letters, stood:
HARRY FRENCH & SON, YACHTS.

‘So,’ Gently said.

‘Down there,’ Parfitt said, ‘where the cut goes into the yacht basin. Where
Caress 2
is moored. He was tied up on that corner.’

‘Where’s the office?’ Gently said.

‘In the tall building with the name on it,’ Parfitt said. ‘You come across by the toilets and a couple of store-sheds and over two bridges over slipways and along the quay.’

‘There are no buildings on the quay,’ Gently said.

‘No,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’d be dark.’

‘There’d be a certain amount of light from the fair,’ Gently said. ‘You’d see anybody on the quay with you.’

‘It dazzles a bit,’ Parfitt said. ‘French was going towards it. It was in his eyes. I think it’s possible for chummie to have nipped up behind him. If he was wearing yacht shoes, too.’

‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘Who lives in that bungalow?’

‘It’s let,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’re mostly let. I talked to the people, they didn’t hear anything. They were watching television. They come from Bradford.’

Gently looked along the quays, down into the water. The evening flood rippled softly under the arch. The water was yellowish-brown when separated from its reflections, carried small flotsam below its surface. Two cars went by a few inches behind them. Gently said:

‘You wouldn’t linger here after dark. Not to notice a launch without lights going below. With all this noise and light beside you.’

‘But people going along the bank,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’d have the light behind them, they might have noticed.’

‘They might have noticed him being killed too,’ Gently said. ‘Only they didn’t, or there’d surely have been a disturbance. Look, even with this row going you’d hear the splash of a body going in, perhaps even up here. When someone falls in there’s a thumping splash, people stick their heads out to see if help’s needed. And there was this yacht moored next door to the launch, but the statements say they didn’t hear a splash. So there wasn’t a splash. He must have fallen in without one. And he was a very large man to do that.’

‘Chummie might have eased him in,’ Parfitt said.

‘Try it some day,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s have a look over the other side.’

They crossed to the other parapet. The upstream reach was longer than the downstream. Adjacent to the bridge, on the left, was a wet boathouse, in which were moored five half-deckers with their masts lowered on crutches. Next came a run of shallow boat-sheds with five gables facing the river, beneath each gable sliding doors and slipways slanted into the water. Red lettering across the gables said:
SPELTON BROS. YACHTS – HALF-DECKERS – ROWBOATS
. Beyond these, rough rond, some small sheds, then the bungalows to infinity. On the right bank stood the Bridge Inn. It was an Edwardian brick-and-timber building. It had a quay-headed lawn to which hire launches were moored and on which stood metal tables and chairs where yachters sat with glasses and tankards before them. Next, small boat-sheds, cuttings. Next, quay-headed rond moored to capacity. Next, some store-sheds, a bit of rond with a houseboat; and the bungalows to infinity. The infinity of the bungalows curved to the right where it could be seen again, receding into the marshes.