Gently Between Tides

by Alan Hunter

  None of the others fitted as Hannah’s lover, Shavers, Claydon, Riddlesworth himself; she had had sympathy for all of these, but not the tenderness of love. That had been reserved for this young man, solitary, helpless-seeming, shy, fearful of the girls of his own generation: Endymion, waiting for a hand to touch him in his dreams.

  And if she had told him that it must end, just as once she had told Stoven?

  ‘You asked for me, Superintendent?’

  Gently pointed to the sheet of paper. For a second or so Riddlesworth stared at it, his face as expressionless as ever. Then his slit of a mouth twisted.

  ‘Wonder what it says.’

  ‘Is that all you have to tell me?’

  ‘What? I don’t know Czech, and Hannah would never explain it to me.’

  ‘You have seen it before?’

  ‘She gave it to me. It amused me to have a sample of Czech. I had some Czechs in my squadron at one time – they weren’t so mad as the Poles, though not far off it. So I asked Hannah for this. Then I gave it to Mark, to see if he could make anything of it.’

  The same readiness, the same blankness: but the same unmistakable tension. Riddlesworth was lying, and both of them knew it. A splendid lie, forged in those couple of seconds when he was apparently poring over the sheet.

  ‘What does the name, Endymion, mean to you?’

  ‘Keats and Disraeli come to mind.’

  ‘We have Hannah’s diary. She was having an affair with a man she called Endymion.’

  ‘With me.’

  ‘Endymion was a youth.’

  ‘Don’t think that would have bothered Hannah.’

  ‘She met him first in April.’

  ‘Another one of her fancies.’

  ‘It wasn’t a fancy that she thought herself pregnant in May.’

  ‘That could have happened at any time.’

  ‘They met on the river and made love on the bank where she was strangled.’

  ‘We have been on the river together and moored to make love, though I have to admit that it stopped short of strangling.’

  ‘And now we find this poem in your son’s possession.’

  ‘Only, as I explained, he had it from me.’

  ‘While, at the same time, you refuse to produce him.’

  ‘That is pure supposition, which I have to deny.’

  ‘Will you also deny that yesterday morning you had a serious discussion with him in your study, and that it was not until after that he packed his camping gear and left?’

  ‘Aha.’ He paused very briefly. ‘Since you know that, I certainly won’t deny it. I was hauling Mark over the coals about skipping lectures, and he cleared off in a bit of a huff.’

  ‘Previously you told me you didn’t know about his absences.’

  ‘Yes, well, they came to light yesterday.’

  ‘I think perhaps earlier.’

  ‘Say I had my suspicions, but yesterday he dropped something that confirmed them.’

  ‘He dropped what?’

  ‘Just an incautious statement. About being on the loose when he should have been in class.’

  And suddenly Gently grew fed up with the game, which both were playing in total awareness. It was a waste of time! He had won his trick with Riddlesworth’s first lie. Now nothing remained but to get hold of the son and to put him under the hammer: the chips were down, and Riddlesworth knew it, however clever his delaying tactics.

  ‘Finish the search.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  Gently took charge of the file and the sheet.

  ‘Do you require a receipt?’

  Riddlesworth shook his head as though that were a trifle not worth considering.

  ‘I shall be leaving a man here.’

  ‘Understood.’

  ‘I would prefer it if you held yourself available.’

  ‘I intend to.’

  He saw them out, not closing the door till they were in their cars.

  At the gates, Makovrilov started at the sight of him, and had to be restrained by Stoven and the bookseller.

  The sun was sitting low as they sped towards the forest, which marched in a dark line across the gentle sweep of the landscape. Mostly sections of Scots and Corsican pine, it gave an impression of extending to great depth. The sections were solid, keeping out the sky, housing an underworld of semi-twilight.

  ‘What are your arrangements?’

  ‘I’m in touch with Ashbridge, sir. They’re putting in men from the other side. I’ll be dropping off a man at each ride, but we may not have combed the whole area by dark.’

  ‘Are there any special areas where they’ve replanted lately?’

  ‘According to the forestry office, mostly in the west.’

  ‘That is where we’ll concentrate the search.’

  Leyston stroked a sideboard, and was silent.

  So it was a gamble! But much less of a gamble when all the circumstances were considered. The forest was large, it was close to Thwaite, and parts of it were visited only infrequently. Riddlesworth would want his son quickly into cover, and in a place where he could reach him at short notice: where he could be supported from home, and kept in touch with developments. Where better than the forest? The son was familiar with it, and no doubt the father was too. The marshes were inhospitable, the coast exposed, but the forest answered all requirements . . .

  ‘When do we start dropping, sir?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  They had arrived at a minor road striking into the forest. On one side recent felling had opened wide stretches, left guarded by a ragged line of pines. The vacant expanses were russet with bracken but otherwise offered little cover. On the other side, behind a colourful skirt of small beeches, larches and birches, the ranks of pine closed in; but there too the forest floor was sparsely carpeted, mainly with low brambles and pale-leaved elders.

  ‘Does this road run westerly?’

  ‘About west, sir.’

  ‘How far?’

  ‘A mile and a half, I’d reckon.’

  ‘We’ll start dropping men at the half-way point, but keep the dogs along with us.’

  They drove on slowly, peering at the trees and at the plains of unkempt bracken, among which dwarf birches here and there raised little auburn pyramids. At the junctions of some rides a car would be parked, and they caught glimpses of distant walkers: not there! If one thing could be relied on, it was that Riddlesworth would have chosen his spot with faultless judgement. Though the sections of pine were gloomy, because of their naked boles one could see into them for a considerable distance. Gently checked his mileometer.

  ‘We’ll start dropping now.’

  Behind them the patrol car and the minibus halted. So too did the other three cars that had been dogging them from the Maltings. Doors slammed, and Shavers hastened up, followed closely by Makovrilov.

  ‘Chiefie, I want to give you a hand!’

  ‘Stay clear, Shavers, or I’ll have you arrested.’

  ‘But listen, if the kid’s in there you’re going to need all the help you can get.’

  ‘It is I, I who will lead this search!’ panted Makovrilov, shoving in ahead of Shavers. ‘It is my daughter, 1 have the right, I demand to be leader of this search.’

  ‘You’ll both of you stay clear.’

  ‘It is meet, it is fitting—’

  ‘I’m telling you, Chiefie, I’ll stay in line—’

  ‘Shut up the pair of you!’

  Gently eyed them fiercely, halting even Makovrilov in mid-flow. But then Stoven hurried up, eager to get his word in too.

  ‘I really think it would be for the best—’

  ‘This is police business and you will not interfere.’

  ‘Mr Makovrilov is very upset, and I can promise that none of us will obstruct your proceedings.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Shavers broke in. ‘The old boy’s in a state, it isn’t human to stop him from tagging along. We’ll keep an eye on him for you, and that’ll be better than locking
him up.’

  ‘It will keep him away from a certain person,’ Stoven murmured. ‘If he goes back there, I can’t be responsible.’

  Something in that! Gently glared at the little group.

  ‘Very well, then – get back to your cars. But you’ll stay close to me and follow instructions, because if you don’t I shall pinch the whole bunch of you.’

  ‘I’m sure I can answer—’ Stoven began, but another look from Gently sent him packing.

  They dropped their man and passed on to the next ride, then the next, and the next. The road wound its way down a slight declivity and by verges of bracken and a pocket of dwarf birch. The low sun was still bathing the few pines on their right and setting aglow the yellow of maples, but none of it penetrated the chill twilight of the sections, where the pinkish boles stood together so closely. Now there were no more parked cars or any sighting of ramblers. Finally, they came to a wider ride, where a grove of tall birches stood pale against the pines.

  ‘This is where the new plantings are, sir.’

  Gently drove into the ride and parked. In rashes of stony ground and dead vegetation it ran away through the trees for at least half a mile. Sawdust around the entry suggested forestry activity, but the sawdust was caked and grey. Across the road from the ride was a thicket of young chestnut, now russet-yellow, and seemingly impenetrable.

  ‘Put two men and a dog in that thicket. The other dog we’ll take with us.’

  ‘There’s another ride further along, sir.’

  ‘They can cover that after checking the thicket.’

  He walked back to the three cars, which had dutifully parked behind the minibus. Claydon had ridden along with Stoven, and Shavers was now making one with the rest.

  ‘Now listen! I want you lot to keep together and not to chase about ahead of the search. By all means keep your eyes open – we’re looking for a tent or any evidence of an encampment. If you spot it, don’t touch it, just report the find to me.’

  ‘And if we see this criminal?’ Makovrilov demanded.

  ‘The same applies – tell me.’

  ‘But if he is escaping?’

  ‘He won’t escape far – and what you won’t do is try to arrest him.’

  ‘But it is my natural right—’

  Gently turned to Stoven. ‘You, I am putting in charge of the party!’

  He went back to Leyston and the dog-handler, whose charge was whining to be gone. They set off, with the dog ahead and Gently and Leyston working along the verges. Beneath trees on each side grew the low brambles and dead stalks of willow-herb and bracken still yellow, but as yet no cover that might hide a tent from a casual stroller in the ride. The sunlessness, the stony ground gave an aspect of wildness to the place, and suggested frost to come; the only sound was of their footsteps.

  They arrived at a cross-ride, rather overgrown, and here the dog paused to whine afresh. It dipped its muzzle, its black eyes glinting, and struggled hard against the leash.

  ‘Someone’s been this way lately, sir . . .’

  ‘Right.’

  They followed the dog in. And now ahead there was a splash of weak sunlight, where the pines gave place to low, stunted oaks. It was a section, apparently, of neglected wilderness, where the bracken stood high as a man: cover enough. But there was no sign of an entry, and the dog stood whining and looking up at its master.

  ‘Let him loose.’

  The handler obeyed. The dog ranged excitedly hither and thither. At last it came to a little screen of broom and vanished at once between the bushes.

  ‘Follow on . . .’

  What the bushes hid was a division between sections of sapling pines, trees of only a few years’ growth but set together as close as a fence. The gap was grown up with long dead grass, but plainly at times someone passed that way; and the dog was racing ahead enthusiastically, pausing only now and then to sniff.

  ‘Look, sir.’

  A patch of the fungi that grew everywhere in the forest had been crushed flat; and what was more, it still bore an impression – the splined print of a narrow tyre.

  ‘His bike, sir. It has to be.’

  ‘Call back the dog and put him on the leash.’

  The quartet of irregulars were already through the bushes and advancing on them rapidly.

  ‘Keep back, you —!’

  ‘But that dog’s on a scent, Chiefie—’

  ‘Stay back as I told you!’ Gently snarled.

  Reluctantly, they waited for the dog to be leashed, then came on again, twenty yards in the rear.

  Now the dog was panting and straining to get forward, ignoring the admonitions of its handler. Yet there was nothing to be seen ahead except tall, dark cliffs of fresh sections. The new plantings on either hand were opaque, choked with bramble, bracken and tangled grasses, while honeysuckle and Old Man’s Beard trailed across the path to catch at their feet. Finally more broom scrub impeded the path, obliging the dog to pause and hunt; but then, an instant later, it made a lunge at the bushes and set up a triumphant barking.

  ‘Quieten that dog!’

  But its jubilation was justified. A few yards from the bushes they came upon the tent – a small backpacker, trimly pitched on level turf in a little amphitheatre. Beside it was propped a sports bicycle equipped with flasks and pannier bags, and before it, on a flat stone, stood a single-burner gas stove and kettle. Gently stooped to feel the kettle: it was warm. The flaps of the tent were taped back. But of the tent’s occupant there was no sign; it might well have been a camp-site at an exhibition.

  ‘He can’t have got far, sir.’

  Leyston too had bent to give the kettle a caress. But if the kettle had boiled, it could have been an hour since the camper left his site.

  ‘Give the dog his nose.’

  Freed from its leash, the dog sniffed around the tent with interest, made a couple of sorties about the site, then returned to nuzzle its master. Was it possible that Mark Riddlesworth had left by the same route that they had come in?

  ‘So . . . at last you have discovered the assassin’s hideout!’

  Makovrilov had pushed through the bushes to glower at the tent. Behind him crowded the architect and Claydon, while Shavers had discovered a way in round the back. Makovrilov’s bushy hair was dishevelled and quaintly fluffed with Old Man’s Beard; he looked rather comic, so that you couldn’t help wondering whether his passionate anger was entirely genuine.

  ‘This you have found, but where is the miscreant? Why is the dog not set to find him? I think it is a game, a little trick, you do not mean to catch the son of your war-hero—’

  ‘Hush, Stefan!’ Stoven muttered. ‘They’re doing the best they can.’

  ‘I do not think so. I think it is play-acting. I think they can lay hands on him this very moment.’

  ‘Well, his bike’s still here,’ Shavers said. ‘And he would hardly have bolted our way. I reckon he’s out there in the trees, and if we get weaving we’ll catch the sod.’

  ‘Yes, we will catch him with the police, or without!’

  ‘I’ll bet he’s stuck out there now, watching us.’

  ‘Stefan, I really think—’

  ‘I will catch this man, this killer of my child . . .!’

  Just then Claydon gave an exclamation. He had been peering into the little tent. In it one could see a rolled sleeping-bag, an open haversack, aluminium utensils and other small gear. Claydon dropped to his knees and reached into the tent, then got up to extend a shaky hand.

  ‘This was hers, I’m sure . . . I’ve seen her with it.’

  What he had in his hand was a silver cigarette-lighter. Stoven grabbed it from him eagerly, and turned it over to exhibit an engraved monogram.

  ‘He’s right . . . look, H. S. This is a lighter I gave her one Christmas.’ He tried to flick it, but the action was defective. ‘The young devil must have pinched it from her bag.’

  Gently held out his hand. ‘Give it to me.’

  ‘But this proves everyth
ing, don’t you see? Hannah would never have given it away . . .’

  Makovrilov howled: ‘A thief too! Even, he stops to rifle her bag.’

  ‘Just give me the lighter.’

  Gently took it from Stoven. Clearly the lighter had not been used for some time. The silver was dull and had a sticky feel, while the movement was broken beyond repair.

  ‘You have seen her use this recently?’

  ‘Not recently,’ Claydon quavered. ‘After it broke she used matches. But before that she carried it in her bag, or had it on her table when she worked.’

  ‘Do you see anything else of hers in the tent?’

  Claydon seemed almost too upset to look. But Stoven dived into the tent and pitched the contents out on the grass. There was nothing anyone could swear to.

  ‘Oh dear. Suddenly it brings her so close . . .’

  ‘Let’s get the bastard,’ Shavers exclaimed. ‘I remember her having that lighter, too.’

  ‘Yes, we will get him – thief, assassin!’

  ‘He’d have to go straight ahead, because of the cops.’

  ‘If we spread out, the four of us . . .’ Stoven put in.

  ‘We’ll have him cold, just you see.’

  ‘Hold it!’ Gently bawled.

  But Shavers was already diving through the bushes, to be followed in a moment by Stoven and by the wild-looking Makovrilov. Claydon started to go too, but then faltered as though he felt the effort was beyond him.

  ‘It’s all so terrible . . . I can’t believe it. Two days ago she was working on the books . . .’

  ‘Give the dog a good smell of that sleeping-bag, then see if he can pick up a scent.’

  The move was successful. The dog picked up the scent a few yards clear of the broom, tugging its master deeper into the section, through bracken, bines and the ubiquitous brambles. Had the youngster heard them coming, to make his retreat this way? If so, they might not be far behind him. And meanwhile, Shavers’ voice could be heard whooping afar off, in a different direction.

  But soon the trail made a sharp turn, perhaps where the quarry had decided that he was safely away; and then it took a straight line to the edge of the section and the pines where Shavers and his crew were cavorting. For what had he been heading – some definite objective, or merely the safety of greater distance? In that direction lay the heart of the forest, with sections extending mile by mile.