by Alan Hunter
A convicted dope-handler, owner of a yacht, residing in a village on the coast: whether or not he was concerned with Hannah Stoven, ‘Chick’ Shavers still deserved a little attention!
‘Has he any form here?’
‘Any form?’
Not bothering to answer, Gently started his engine. One way or another, he felt that his day wasn’t going to be wasted.
THREE
MIST WAS RISING from the river again when they drove over the bridge at Thwaite, and the narrow stream they had left there had grown to a flood that covered the mud shoals. Just past the Maltings, through a fringe of trees, one glimpsed the windows of a house, and at gates to a drive a stocky, blazered figure stood watching the car go by.
Beside Gently, Leyston stirred.
‘How well do you think that man really knew her?’
Gently drove on a little further before grunting:
‘I doubt if she was soaking him, if that’s the idea.’
‘I’ve met his wife and she could be a tartar. He wouldn’t want her to get wind of a fancy piece. Then he’s a big man on committees and fund-raising stunts, as well as chief sponsor of the concert hall. In a scandal, he’d have plenty to lose.’
Gently shook his head. ‘It doesn’t fit.’
Meaning that it didn’t fit the picture of Hannah Stoven which was slowly taking shape in his mind. Essentially she was a secret person, probably living an intense hidden life: a life that bubbled over only with one other person, the father whom she saw but at intervals. And probably it was a father-image she had seen in Riddlesworth, rather than that of a lover. A vital person with, deep in her shell, a yearning tenderness: a blocked passion.
‘She had a bit of money put away,’ Leyston mused.
But those few thousands weren’t enough. They could have been presents from her father, or simple savings, since she didn’t run a car and the tower was costing her no rent. No: if Riddlesworth was the culprit then the motive was more obscure. She would have shrunk from revealing such a secret, even if willing to put the bite on him . . .
‘What’s the name of this forest?’
For a while now the road had been running by plantations of pine, spoked by twilit rides and skirted by fiery beeches and maples. The massed trees were quite dark, suggesting that the sections ran deep. Bracken that was russet along the verges showed yellow and green below the pines.
‘Foulden Forest. It’s quite big.’
For a mile or more they kept in touch with it, but finally the road bore away seawards and shortly after they were entering a large village.
‘Harford . . .’
They drove into a square, closed at one end by a church, at the other by trees above which rose the castellations of a lofty keep. Two or three shops and a couple of pubs were dotted among picturesque houses, while the centre of the square offered parking. There a uniformed man was waiting.
‘P.C. Sutton. Your man isn’t back yet, but I can show you where he keeps his boat.’
In speaking, he had glanced towards one of the pubs, which stood a little back, with metal tables in front of it. In its doorway stood a stout, dark-haired woman, hands on hips, scowling at them. Quite unabashed, she continued to stare, and had the appearance of defying them to walk over.
‘Is that Mrs Shavers?’
‘Yes, sir. She was none too pleased to have me calling.’
‘Have you had any problems with the Shavers?’
‘No, sir. They keep a quiet house.’
And there stood the reason!
‘Get in.’
Sutton pointed out the road. It dropped down from the level of the square to pass by cottages and some derelict maltings. Then, surmounting a flood-baulk, they came to the river, which here was much wider than at Thwaite or Shinglebourne, and widened still further on the downstream reach to provide buoyed moorings for a number of craft. Straight ahead was a short jetty equipped with some manner of lifting gear, and upstream a beach where small boats were pulled up, along with one or two stored yachts.
‘How far is the sea from here?’
‘As the crow flies, a couple of hundred yards, sir.’
‘And downstream?’
‘Another six miles. That’s where the spit ends, at Shingle Point.’
In fact, down there at the jetty, the sea might have been a hundred miles away. The spit, with a covering of coarse marsh vegetation, was just high enough to conceal it from view. Upstream and down stretched dour marshes which everywhere were steaming under mist, while the moored boats, streamed on the flood, each presented a stern to the jetty.
‘A quiet spot like this . . . don’t you get any smuggling?’
‘I daresay there was some in the old days, sir. But nothing lately.’
‘Do you get foreign yachts here?’
‘Once in a while you’ll see a Dutchman.’
Sutton led them along the bank between tarred store-sheds and the pulled-up boats. They had to step over sleepers and wend round timber, oil drums and frames hung with nets. The bank seemed deserted: doubtless those who normally frequented it were at home, tuned in to the football.
‘That’ll be him, sir.’
At the very top end a black-painted yacht stood supported by oil drums, partly hidden by a canvas cover drawn along it as far as the well. Puddles lay around it, and its bilges were still damp from scrubbing. On other oil drums lay the mast in a raffle of wire shrouds.
Nobody seemed in attendance, but from inside came sounds of scrubbing. Gently tapped on the hull:
‘Chick . . .?’
A moment later, a face was staring down at them.
‘Well, well!’
For a brief instant, fear had flickered in the man’s eyes, as they went first to Gently, then to Leyston, then to the uniformed Sutton. But he quickly got control of himself. He came out a bit further from under the cover.
‘So what do you know! I thought it was a mate of mine, then I look out to see a deputation. You and all, Chiefie. Has someone nicked the Crown Jewels?’
‘Are you surprised to see me, Chick?’
‘Surprised – I’m flabbergasted.’
‘So come down here where I can talk to you.’
‘Well – as long as it isn’t a bust.’
He hung on for a few seconds, his eyes switching again to Leyston and Sutton; then, shrugging, he clambered out of the well and down a short ladder. He was wearing a boiler suit, and some of the grime from his hands had got on his face. About forty, he had small, close-set eyes, marring otherwise personable features. He wasn’t, as Gently knew, a common villain, but came from a respectable East End background, his father being the chief buyer for a firm of fruit-importers. But Donald Shavers had turned out shiftless and with little interest in regular work. For a while he had lived on the earnings of women, then had graduated into the rackets.
Now he stood warily at the foot of the ladder, facing them with an expression of careful innocence.
‘Is this your yacht, Chick?’
‘What if it is?’
‘When did you haul it out?’
‘I hauled out this morning, if you want to know. But what’s that got to do with you lot?’
‘Then yesterday you were on moorings.’
‘Suppose I was. That’s my buoy, over there.’
‘And you were on board?’
‘Yes, I’m telling you, I was getting the gear off her.’
‘And that’s your dinghy – with the outboard?’
Shavers’ eyes were getting more and more cautious. Involuntarily he was wiping his hands on the overalls which, in spite of some soiling, looked freshly-laundered.
‘Look – what’s this about? Here I am, minding my own sodding business, then away come you three blokes and start asking questions like I was on a caper. What am I supposed to have done?’
‘Don’t you know, Chick?’
‘Do me a favour. What should I have done?’
‘Yesterday, at what time were you on yo
ur yacht?’
‘All the afternoon – just ask someone.’
‘You’re claiming an alibi for the afternoon?’
‘Yes – no! I don’t need any alibi. Anyway, in the morning I was at home, I was serving in the bar till after two.’
‘You were alone on the yacht?’
‘There were blokes about here . . . ask around, they’ll soon tell you.’
‘Moored to that buoy, the furthest upstream?’
‘So what?’
‘With the use of an outboard dinghy?’
Shavers’ mouth hung open slightly and his uneasy eyes flitted to Sutton. Yet still the uneasiness was struggling with indignation and a sort of bafflement that might well have been genuine. He passed a grubby hand over his pale hair.
‘So some geezer was croaked – is that it?’
‘Is it?’
‘Yes, it is – or why would they have called in a nob like you? You aren’t Narcotics, and everyone knows I’m out of that caper for good. So someone’s been done, and here I am, a poor bleeder with a record – and straightaway you jump on me, who’s been going straight ever since I got out! Ask him.’ He gestured to Sutton. ‘I’ll bet he never even knew I had a record.’
Sutton, a heavy-faced man, looked a little pink; but said nothing.
‘So you’re out of the business.’
‘Listen, Chiefie, I’ve done my time and I’m on the level.’
‘You’re just living down here because you like the place. Along with your yacht. And your outboard dinghy.’
‘Sod my outboard dinghy! Why shouldn’t I live here?’
‘You never did tell us where the stuff came in.’
‘Because I never knew . . .’
Gently stared hard at him. ‘Then you won’t mind if we take out a warrant for the Eel’s Foot.’
‘Oh, bloody hell . . .’
Now it was bafflement that had got the upper hand. Shavers stood working his hands and scowling at the puddles under the yacht. Near him stood a bucket of filthy water and a long-handled scrubbing brush; in sudden exasperation he grabbed the bucket and emptied it towards the river.
‘I’m up the effing creek, aren’t I?’
‘Let’s have the truth about where you were yesterday.’
‘But I’ve told you. And if someone’s been done, I don’t know the first thing about it.’
‘So why the alibi for the afternoon?’
‘It wasn’t a bloody alibi! You came asking me, didn’t you? And I told you. How did I know I needed an alibi?’
‘That’s what I’d like to know.’
‘If I’d wanted an alibi, I could have thought up a better tale than that.’
‘So start thinking.’
‘But what have I done?’
‘Perhaps we should begin at the Eel’s Foot.’
Shavers pitched the bucket under the yacht and gave it a kick for good measure. The frustration in his face was comical, and twice he seemed about to blurt something out. At last he turned to Gently.
‘Look, Chiefie, you and me speak the same language! I’m in a bind, I have to admit it, but I could tell you some things you’d like to hear. So why don’t we have a quiet chat, just you and me together? You’re from the Smoke, so you’ll understand . . . there are things a bloke doesn’t want blabbed out.’
‘You have something to confess?’
‘No! Just personal like, that’s all.’
A whining note had come into his voice and the small eyes were fixed on Gently’s pleadingly.
Gently glanced at Leyston’s face of stone, and at the restive figure of Sutton. Once more, he was going to steal the local man’s thunder, and this time in front of a subordinate . . . But there was nothing else for it.
‘All right. I’ll listen to you.’
‘Chiefie, I swear you won’t regret it!’
‘We’ll talk on the yacht.’ Impassively, Gently turned to Leyston. ‘Perhaps you’ll wait for me at the car.’
Shavers replaced floorboards that had been set to air and hung a portable gas lantern over the chart-table, but that was the extent of the comfort to be found in the womb of the stripped-out yacht. The cabin reeked with moisture and condensation fuzzed the metal frames and glass of the opened portholes; to sit on there were only the bare bunk-boards, much too low and with no backrests.
Properly, it was only a single-cabined boat, though a spare bunk forward was tucked deep into the forepeak. Opposite it was the toilet, and at the aft end of the cabin quarter-bunks vanished under the galley and chart-table. But now it was all damp woodwork with a dulled sweet smell of varnish and bilge.
Having lit the lamp, Shavers squatted and turned earnest eyes on Gently.
‘Chiefie, you’ve got to believe this – I’ve got nothing on my conscience!’
Gently stared at him before grunting: ‘Is that all you’ve got to say?’
‘No – I’m going to tell you, aren’t I? But you’ve got to look at my position. Those other two wouldn’t understand, while you, you know the whole story.’
‘I know you did three years for handling cannabis, and one for living on immoral earnings.’
‘That’s just it, it’s all behind me – an ex-con can go straight, can’t he? And now I’m all fixed up with Myrtle – a couple of years, and no trouble. I run the bar, I’ve got this little boat, and nobody here knows a thing. Not except Myrtle, that is. She knows I’ve had my bit of bother.’
Gently hunched. One had heard this before! And once in a blue moon it might be true. Smudge-faced, his hair tousled, Shavers continued to eye him imploringly.
‘Where does Myrtle come into it?’
‘You see? A man like you can put things together. I’ve done my time, so I can tell you now . . . as long as you don’t put it about who grassed. You’re thinking we brought the dope in here – well, you’re right. This was the pick-up. The stuff came over from Holland once a month on a big ketch-rigged Dutch yacht. She dropped her hook off the spit and ferried it to the beach in a dinghy, and it was my job to be waiting over there with a suitcaseful of cash. Then back I’d come across the river and deliver the stuff to a car waiting on the jetty – and then away it went to the Smoke for the lads to parcel it up. And yes – you’re right again – I’d be staying up at Myrtle’s. That’s how I got to know her, spending a couple of nights there once a month.’
‘Didn’t she know what your game was?’
‘Chiefie, she’s straight as the Bank of England. She stood by me all the same, never missing a visit when I was in Brixton.’ He jerked up suddenly. ‘Stone the crows! You didn’t go looking for me there, did you?’
‘P.C. Sutton enquired for you.’
‘Sod my luck. I’ll have to think up some story . . .’
His eyes for a moment were panicky, and then his mouth twisted.
‘I daresay you’re getting the idea now! It’s true, Myrtle watches me like a hawk. The least little bit of bother, and—’ He drew his hand across his throat.
‘Is she as tough as all that?’
‘I’m telling you. I just have to keep my nose clean, Chiefie.’
‘You are her husband, I take it?’
For answer, Shavers got up to squint through a porthole.
‘No need for that stupid bobby to know, but Myrtle just took my name . . . I’m on trial, you might say. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, Chiefie.’
He slumped back on the bunk, and sat staring unhappily at his knees. Like the woodwork, his forehead was beginning to gleam, and one could hear his quick breathing in the close silence of the yacht.
‘And this is the only reason why you don’t want us to search the Eel’s Foot?’
‘I swear it, Chiefie. You go in there, and I’ll be out on my ear before you can spit.’
‘Yet here you are. With your yacht and dinghy.’
‘But I keep telling you, that game is over! Now would I have let on what I did if I was still picking up the goods?’
‘What’s the name of the ketch?’
Shavers gulped. ‘It’s the Seven Seas, from Scheveningen. But don’t go putting it about—’
‘What’s the captain’s name?’
‘Hans Kloostermans.’
‘And you’re positive you have nothing on your conscience?’
‘No. . .’
‘Nothing you wouldn’t let on to Myrtle?’
‘What are you getting at?’
‘I’ve just been reading a letter of yours, making a rendezvous with a girlfriend.’
Shavers stared wide-eyed, his mouth drooping. Then he hugged himself, and groaned.
Gently lit his pipe with deliberation, sending clouds of grey smoke round the yacht’s sweating cabin. In spite of the lantern it was chill in there, as though a frost had come on with the mist and the darkness. Outside there was no sound. He smoked with slow, measured puffs. For some moments, Shavers watched him with wretched eyes, slumped a little, his mouth small.
‘Tell me straight, Chiefie . . . she’s dead, isn’t she?’
‘Is she?’
‘She’s got to be! It’s the chop when they call you in, not sodding dope. You were having me on.’
‘Where were you yesterday afternoon?’
‘I’ve told you, and I’ll tell you again—’
‘You were out in your dinghy.’
‘But I never was! I was on board, stripping out.’
‘So nobody could have seen you upstream.’
‘If they say they did, they’re liars.’
‘They couldn’t have seen you at Shinglebourne.’
‘No, they couldn’t.’
‘Or near Thwaite.’
Shavers’ mouth set tight.
‘All the same, you admit that Hannah Stoven was your girlfriend.’
‘I’m admitting sod all.’