‘Goodbye, Father.’
The police, thought Jonathan dolefully; he’d had enough of the police already, but there was nothing else for it. There certainly was a jinx on this trip. Only three days afloat and they had run into trouble from the very start.
It was four o’clock the following afternoon and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy was crowded. Sitting on the single bunk sat a Police Inspector, and next to him was Malcolm with Bill at his side. On the double bunk sat Jonathan and his father, and by the side of Mr Crawford sat Joe’s father, and in the doorway with his shoulders hunched because of his height stood a uniformed policeman.
The Inspector was addressing himself to Mr Taggart, saying, ‘That seemed our main hope, that he was with his mother. You are sure, sir, that he isn’t?’
‘Positive, positive.’ Mr Taggart shook his head vigorously, then ran his hand round his pale worried face. ‘Anyway, she’s coming here. She should arrive somewhere around six.’
‘She told you, you say, that she put her address on the letter?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then he could still be on his way to her.’
‘It doesn’t take nearly two days to get to East Croydon.’
‘No, no, you’re right there.’ The Inspector nodded slowly. ‘But a lot of things can happen to a young boy to delay him.’
‘I don’t think my son would go to his mother without my permission.’
‘You don’t know what young boys will do when they are emotionally disturbed. As you said yourself, sir, he was upset at his mother’s absence.’ The Inspector now turned to Jonathan and for a third time in the last half an hour he said, ‘Now think again. Tell me exactly what he said before he left the boat.’
Jonathan bit on his lip and the Inspector put in quickly, ‘Yes, I know you’ve told me everything you can remember, but there’s often some little thing that escapes the memory and it could turn out to be of great assistance to us…just think.’
‘Well,’ said Jonathan once again; ‘he said, “If I’m not back on time mind, don’t you leave the fat chop for me,” and then he looked at Malcolm and said, “And don’t forget, galley boy, to take the eyes out of the spuds. They watched my every bite yesterday.”’
Malcolm nodded in confirmation, and not even the policeman smiled now as he had done when he first heard it.
The Inspector put his head on one side and looked down at Bill, and reaching over Malcolm’s knee he rubbed Bill’s muzzle, then remarked casually, ‘You caused a bit of a rumpus up at The Royal Oak I hear. Gave some folks a laugh, but not everybody…Your trip has been quite eventful, hasn’t it?’ The Inspector’s head was turned to the side now and his eyes were resting on Jonathan. ‘Being moored near the reed cutter when it started up; and before that gallivanting down the river in the middle of the night…’
‘We didn’t.’
‘But you were on the river in the middle of the night, weren’t you?’
‘Yes, but somebody had untied the ropes from the rond anchors, and the wind blew us off the bank. And what’s more, sir, we knew nothing whatever about the reed cutter, only the fact that none of us had started it up.’
‘All right, all right, no need to raise your voice.’
‘He’s got every right to deny the accusation if he didn’t do it.’ Mr Crawford was bristling in defence of his son, and the Inspector nodded and said calmly, ‘Yes he has, but what I’m trying to say is, if there’s a bright spark among a group, he’s apt to get up to all sorts of tricks. I’m just wondering if your missing boy could have…’
‘That’s nonsense…! Oh, I’m sorry, sir.’ Malcolm shrunk back a little from the look on the Inspector’s face. ‘What I mean is that Joe stayed on the boat with Bill here while we swam up the river, so it couldn’t have been him, sir.’
‘Well, I was just wondering,’ said the Inspector, ‘because if a boy is used to getting up to tricks, he could also be the type who could take off for a tramp on his own and not think of letting you know.’
‘Joe wouldn’t do that.’ Malcolm shook his head slowly. ‘I know Joe.’
‘I may sound prejudiced’—Mr Taggart was leaning forward now towards the Inspector—‘but as Malcolm says, my son wouldn’t do anything like that. He’s got a sharp pithy way of speaking, and likes a bit of fun, but underneath it all he’s very sensible…thoughtful and sensible; he was never one to cause trouble.’
‘Well, you see, sir, we’ve got to examine every avenue. Now what I propose…’
What the Inspector was about to propose was cut off by a voice calling from the bank, ‘Anyone there? I’ve found these; they may be of help.’
The Inspector rose quickly and, going from the cabin, joined the policeman on the bank, to be immediately followed by Mr Crawford, Malcolm and Mr Taggart. Jonathan, too, left the cabin but didn’t get out of the boat; he just stood looking up at the visitor who held a letter in one hand and a bag of crisps in the other, and he listened to the owner of The Night Star, saying, ‘We had moored above Denver Sluice and I was taking a walk along the bank. I was…oh, probably halfway between the sluice and the mouth of the Wissey when I saw these lying near a bush. It was an utterly isolated place, and there was the letter held down by the bag of crisps. Well, I read the letter and then I came upriver as quickly as possible.’ He nodded along the bank to where The Night Star was now berthed.
The Inspector, after reading the letter, looked at Mr Taggart; then handing him both the envelope and the letter, he asked quietly, ‘Do you recognise the writing?’
Mr Taggart’s face had turned deathly white long before he had come to the end of the letter; then pressing his teeth into his own lower lip to stop it trembling he closed his eyes and lowered his head.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but this throws new light on the situation,’ said the Inspector very quietly now. ‘It would seem that the news of his mother taking proceedings for a divorce unbalanced him for the moment.’ The Inspector now turned to Mr Leech and said, ‘Could you show us the exact spot where you found these articles, sir?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. It was near a bit of muddy bank where the cattle had churned it up, but I also left a marker by means of some driftwood to denote the place because after all one muddy place on a river bank looks much like another.’
The Inspector now turned to Mr Taggart and said, ‘There’ll be no need for you to come at the moment, sir, if you’d rather not.’
‘I want to come.’
‘And I’ll come too,’ said Mr Crawford. Then turning to Jonathan and Malcolm, he added in a low tone, ‘We won’t be long.’
Malcolm stepped down slowly into the boat and stood by Jonathan’s side, and together they watched the group of men walking towards The Night Star.
Suddenly Malcolm made a choking sound in his throat and muttered, ‘No, no, he couldn’t. He wouldn’t, would he, Jonathan?’ Yet at the back of his mind he was recalling the day when Mrs Taggart had left home, and Joe had sat with him in the summer house near tears as he said, ‘It’s me granny has done this. She’s out to get them divorced; she even said she would. Well, if that ever happened I would die, I couldn’t bear it.’
And apparently he hadn’t been able to bear it. Malcolm turned his head and buried it against Jonathan’s shoulder, and Jonathan held him and patted him, but all the while he kept his eyes fixed on the men as one after the other they boarded The Night Star. Mr Leech was the last one to leave the bank and as he did so he turned back and looked at The Mary Ann Shaughnessy and Jonathan thought, ‘Well, that’s that.’
Jonathan hadn’t realised that up to this very moment he had been pinning his hopes on Joe’s theory that The Night Star and its crew were a funny lot and that in some way they were connected with his disappearance. But now the idea was as deflated and flat as a pricked balloon.
PART TWO
Six
Joe tried to move his feet and the effort sent an excruciating pain up his spine. He was cold, he had never felt so cold in his life bef
ore, nor had he ever thought it was possible to experience the throbbing that was filling his head.
As the grey light seeped in through the space at the top of the window, where there was neither glass nor boards nailed across, he turned his stiff aching neck and looked at the figure propped up against the wall an arm’s length from him. The man’s head was hanging towards his shoulder, his body was turned slightly away, and his other shoulder, resting against the wall, showed his hands tied behind his back. His legs, close together and stretched out over the wet brick floor, were tied tightly at the ankles, and the rope leading from them, as in Joe’s case, was tied to a large sack of grain. But this sack was intact, whereas the sack attached to Joe’s stockinged feet had burst and the fermenting grain was spilling over the floor, adding a sour smell to the dankness pervading the room.
They would be looking for him. These were the words that Joe still repeated to himself. At first they had brought comfort to him, but now, although they ran through his mind they had ceased to bring any hope because he knew that if they were looking for him it would be around Denver Sluice where, as THAT DEVIL had said, the divers would be searching for his body, and when they didn’t find it they would come to the natural conclusion that they were too late because it had gone through the sluice when the gates had been opened on the night he drowned himself.
This was the second dawn he had seen breaking from this wet and filthy cellar. They called it a cellar because apparently it had held the barrels when this place was an inn, but it was merely a room a little below ground level. But you only needed to be a little below ground level on the fens, Joe had found out during these last two days, to reach water, and he had sat on the wet stones for so long that the lower part of his body was numb, and he still continued to shiver though his head throbbed and burned.
His companion’s head moved and he opened his eyes from a fitful doze and, looking at Joe, whispered, ‘Been asleep, young ’un?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t stop shivering, and my head’s burnin’.’
With an effort the man twisted his body round until his other shoulder was touching the wall, and he peered down at Joe; then, thrusting up his head, he yelled, ‘You there! Do you hear me, you in there?’ He waited a moment, then again he yelled, ‘Hi there! You!’
There came a sound of scuffling from the next room and the door was pushed open and, in the dim light at the top of the two steps, stood Sloper, his face red, his eyes bleary with sleep. He blinked from one to the other as he growled, ‘I warned you, mind, I warned you what would happen if you raised your voice again. You’ll have a mouthful of greasy tow to suck on for the rest of the day. I warned you; don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
‘Shut your mouth,’ said the man against the wall, ‘and bring the young ’un something hot, unless you don’t want to be brought up for murder an’ all. He’s cold to the bone and hot with it. Look at his face.’
Sloper came down the steps and peered at Joe, and his lips left his teeth as he leered, ‘Hot, are you? Well, you should be thankful; you’ve got it both ways, hot and cold.’ He kicked at some wet grain under his feet and added, ‘An’ if you want it any cooler I’ll oblige any minute. If I had my way you’d be right cool by now, you young upstart.’ He accompanied this last remark with a sharp jab of his foot against Joe’s calf, and as Joe winced the man against the wall said slowly, ‘My God, if I only had me hands free.’
‘You’d what?’ Sloper came round and stood by the man now, and repeating the action with his foot, only harder this time and against the man’s thigh, he said, ‘I’ve dealt with too many of your sort. “If only I had me hands free,” he mimicked. ‘That’s what they say to the newspaper guys. “I would have done somethin’ if only I’d had me hands free.” And what would you do if you were free eh? I’ll tell you, you’d sit there, just sit there, your belly full of scare, Mr Williams.’
‘Well, loosen me and see,’ said Mr Williams grimly. ‘But in the meantime, if you don’t want your big boss to give you another slating…SLOPER, you’d better see the young ’un’s alive when he pays his daily visit, hadn’t you? He wasn’t very pleasant to you yesterday, was he?’
Sloper ground his teeth together; then after using his boot again he went out of the room, muttering darkly to himself.
When the door closed on him, Mr Williams looked down at Joe and said, ‘He’ll bring something; he’s a white-livered rat, that one, if ever I saw one. And don’t you worry, son; they’ll be looking for you as they’re looking for me.’
‘How…how long have you been lo—’ Joe was going to say ‘lost’, but instead he whispered, ‘missin’?’
Mr Williams screwed up his eyes as he looked up towards the light. ‘Four days I think…five. You know you lose count of time.’
‘I wonder if me mam’ll come looking?’
‘What do you say, son?’
‘Oh nothing; I was just thinkin’.’
‘They’ve only got three more days left to complete whatever they are going to do. How big is their boat do you think?’
‘Going by the length of The Mary Ann Shaughnessy, I should say forty-five to fifty feet.’
‘By, they’re clever. I must hand it to them on that point. I’d like to bet that the ballast in that boat is worth a fortune. And their bilges simply bustin’ with cash and jewellery. And who’d think of searching a pleasure craft with such a nice man for captain?’
Yes, who’d think of searching a pleasure craft with such a nice man for captain? The thought made Joe more despondent still.
The door opened again and Sloper entered with a mug in his hand and, putting it down on the floor, he pushed Joe roughly around and undid his hands. But Joe couldn’t move his arms to the front of his body for a moment because of the excruciating pain.
‘I’ll give you three minutes dead to get through that. An’ don’t try any monkey tricks. I’ll leave the door open just to remind you I’m on the other side.’
‘Look here. What about mine?’ said Mr Williams now.
‘You’ll get yours at the stated time, not until.’
Joe slowly lifted the steaming mug of tea from the floor and sipped at it. Then when Sloper had gone from the room leaving the door open, he put out his arm holding the mug to his companion’s mouth. But Mr Williams, shaking his head vigorously, indicated his tied hands with a movement over his shoulder, and Joe, quick to take up the suggestion, put down the mug and, leaning to the side, set about tearing at the tight knot on Mr Williams’s wrists. His fingers were stiff with the cold and he winced as his nail tore down into the quick, but he had managed to get his finger inserted in one loop when Mr Williams suddenly swung round and leant against the wall again, and Joe, grabbing up the mug, put it to his mouth, and so hot was it that he almost spat it out. But the sight of Sloper looming in the doorway made him swallow the mouthful of scalding liquid.
‘Put a move on and get it finished or I’ll dampen the floor with it for you. It might help to cool you down that way.’ He gave a snigger, and Joe said, ‘It’s…it’s very hot.’
‘Well, you wanted it hot, didn’t you? Get it down you or give it here.’
Joe kept gulping at the tea until the mug was empty; then Sloper, having tied his wrists again, went out once more, and Joe, looking towards Mr Williams, whispered, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘That’s all right, son,’ Mr Williams whispered back. ‘But listen. Do you think you could try moving your feet just the slightest every now and again, because if you could get rid of more of the wheat from that sack you’d be able to bring yourself nearer to me, then perhaps you could have a go at the rope with your teeth.’
‘I can’t move me feet at all,’ said Joe softly.
‘Just try, just a little bit. It would help your circulation an’ all if you could do it. Go on.’
Joe tried. He put what strength he had into his legs and, stiffening his body, he pulled upwards.
‘That’s it, a bit moved. Go on, try again.’
>
Again Joe tried, and a few grains of wheat spilled from the slit at the foot of the sack.
‘Splendid!’ encouraged Mr Williams below his breath. ‘Just do a little bit every now and again like that. Don’t overtire yourself. And you mustn’t get too much out at once else they’ll notice, but just enough so that you could pull yourself nearer tonight.’
Joe stopped his exertions and exclaimed on a heightened whisper, ‘The night? You think they’ll not find us afore the night?’
‘Now don’t get agitated, son. Likely they will, but this is just in case, you see. And once I could get me hands free we’d be out of here in a brace of shakes.’
So every now and again for the next few hours Joe tensed his body and brought a few more grains of wheat onto the floor. And then, when the sun was slanting across Mr Williams’s knees and Joe’s ankles, there came the sound of voices from the next room, and they knew that the boss had arrived.
Joe’s body stiffened at the sound of the low voice and he kept his eyes glued on the door until Mr Leech walked down the two steps into the room. Behind him came the bandy-legged man, and behind him Sloper.
Mr Leech was impeccably dressed as usual, and his face looked the same, pleasant and kindly, except for the eyes. And now their steely gaze surveyed first Joe, and then Mr Williams, then came back to Joe again, and it was to him he spoke. ‘Poor little Joe,’ he said mockingly. ‘Poor little Joe who drowned himself because his mother told him she was going to be divorced. Poor little Joe who was so upset he couldn’t eat his bag of crisps. Do you know where they found your mother’s letter, Joe? On the river bank where you left it before you walked into the water, leaving all your footprints in the mud. The footprints clinched it, Joe, conclusively, because they were identical with a pair of shoes the policeman brought from your home.’
Bill and The Mary Ann Shaughnessy Page 7