Gently through the Mill

by Alan Hunter

  He rocked the chair, watching Gently closely. The man from the Central Office appeared to be studying infinite distances. Blacker ran his tongue over tobacco-stained lips.

  ‘Not that I want to say a word against Harry – see? He’s a good pal to me, you can say what you like about him. So I know how to hold my tongue. If I sees anything I just keep my eyes shut. And Harry, he appreciates it – he knows that he can trust me! Which is why he made me his foreman when he found he couldn’t get on without one.’

  ‘Is he trusting you now, sitting here talking to me?’

  Blacker tried to smirk, but a wryness had got into it. He darted a glance through the window at the spectral face of his employer.

  ‘I didn’t mean nothing by that, just pulling your leg! Blast, this business is enough to make anybody get edgy.’

  ‘Where does the stable come into it?’

  ‘The stable …?’

  Blacker’s chair fell forward.

  ‘The stable at the back there … don’t tell me you don’t know about it!’

  This time he had got home with a vengeance. There was no complacency in Blacker’s manner now. He stared stupidly at Gently, his long face longer still; for two whole seconds he could only open his mouth and gape helplessly.

  Mrs Blythely, from her shop door, looked a moment in their direction. But then she seemed to shrug and went back to poring over her newspaper.

  ‘What about it … that there stable?’

  ‘That’s what I’m asking you.’

  ‘Don’t know what you mean … the stable! What’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘Not only with you, but also with Messrs Fuller and Blythely.’

  ‘It’s their stable, isn’t it? What am I supposed to know about it?’

  They were calling each other’s bluff, and both of them were aware of the fact. Gently had touched a chord which threw Blacker on the defensive, but he was giving nothing away until he could see what cards were being held …

  ‘Harry keeps some hay up there – that’s all I can tell you! If you want to know anything else, then I reckon you’d better ask him.’

  ‘I’ve asked him already and now I’m asking you.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know nothing, and that’s the fact of the matter.’

  Gently brooded a second over his empty teacup, then he produced a ten-shilling note and tossed it down on the table.

  ‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Let’s go and look it over. The sight of the place may improve your memory …’

  Protesting, Blacker allowed himself to be led out of the café. At least a dozen pairs of eyes were on them – even Blythely was watching from a window high up above the bakehouse.

  Just as they went past it the side door of the office opened, but Gently was looking neither to the right hand or the left.

  ‘In you go – it isn’t locked. We’ll take a look at this side first.’

  The stable was a double one with the loft over the inward compartment. Lit by no windows it was gloomy enough, but Blacker pushed in as though he knew his way about. He came to a sullen standstill amongst a raffle of packing-cases and broken chairs.

  ‘What happens now?’

  ‘Pull that rubbish to one side.’

  ‘There’s nothing behind that …’

  ‘Never mind – pull it aside!’

  Blacker was right, there was nothing behind it, with the exception of spiders and a great deal of litter. The floor beneath was of corrugated black tiles, sunk a little at the centre for the purpose of drainage.

  ‘Satisfied now?’

  ‘Shift the rubbish on the other side.’

  ‘I tell you it’s a waste of time …!’

  But the rubbish was duly removed, yielding the same result as before.

  ‘How do you get into the loft?’

  Blacker indicated a wooden fodder-trough at the end of the compartment. A packing-case stood by it by way of a step, and above, in a wooden dividing wall, two planks had been left out to provide a means of ingress.

  ‘Right – up you go!’

  Blacker swung himself up with ungainly grace. The loft smelt fragrant with the scent of clover hay, several bales of which lay stacked by the loading door. In addition to this there was a pile of barley straw; it was making a lot of itself and covering much of the floor-space.

  ‘Move those bales, will you? I’ll turn over the straw.’

  There was a pitchfork standing by the wall, and Gently showed that he knew how to use it. Blacker, resigned to the futility of protest, quickly tumbled apart the heap of wire-bound hay bales.

  Nothing, and again nothing.

  The smirk was creeping back to the foreman’s lips.

  ‘What did you expect to find – somebody else strangled? I reckon there was only that one …’

  ‘What’s this – a new sort of horse-brass?’

  Gently bent down and picked out something from the tousled straw. It was a tiny gold cross, measuring not more than an inch in length. He held it up so that Blacker could see it.

  ‘Something you know about or something you don’t?’

  ‘What, me! What should I know about it? I aren’t never up here.’

  ‘All right … don’t labour it!’ Gently shrugged and dropped the cross into his pocket. ‘We’ll get on to our next port of call – perhaps it will be a little more productive.’

  Blacker scowled at him suspiciously. ‘I’m not going nowhere else.’

  ‘Oh yes.’ Gently nodded. ‘You’ve begun to rouse my interest. I think we ought to check on that woman of yours … don’t you?’

  Coming out of the stable they had run into Fuller. The miller had followed them along the passage and now stood, a picture of desperate indecision, some yards from the stable door. Blacker tried to catch his eye and failed absolutely. Gently, who might have had better luck, appeared to be unaware of Fuller’s existence …

  The unhappy man followed them with his eyes until they turned out of the upper passage into Cosford Street.

  ‘There’s a lot of work on this afternoon …’

  Blacker’s anxiety was increasing by leaps and bounds.

  ‘I don’t care if you see Maisie – I haven’t got nothing to hide! But why can’t I just tell you where to find her, and you let me get on with my job …?’

  Gently, however, seemed to have added deafness to his visual affliction.

  Lynton was dead on that chilly afternoon. The east wind had swept the streets as cleanly as a corporation road-sweeper. Looking in the shops, you saw the assistants talking together or leaning bored at their counters; you marvelled that it was worth anyone’s while to pretend to have a business there.

  In the square the stallholders looked perished and miserable, and even the pigeons had retired to fluff their feathers somewhere else.

  An east wind in Lynton … what lower depths could one plumb?

  ‘What time did you visit this woman?’

  Gently broke a long silence as they drew opposite the police station.

  ‘I met her in The Fighting Cock – you know what I told them! We went round to her place when the pub closed at half ten.’

  ‘What had you done before that?’

  ‘Before that …? What I always do! I went home and got my tea, then had a wash and got into my pub-crawling outfit.’

  ‘Is she a regular of yours?’

  ‘Off and on, as you might say.’

  ‘How long have you known her?’

  ‘I don’t know – ten years, p’raps.’

  ‘Local, is she?’

  ‘You wouldn’t think so when she opens her mouth.’

  ‘Has she been in trouble with the police?’

  ‘No, she haven’t, or she’d have told me.’

  ‘Has Mr Fuller ever met her?’

  ‘How should I know who he’s met?’

  Out of the square they took a street leading into the dock area. It was an ugly district of narrow thoroughfares and rows of houses built of dirty yellow brick.
Aspidistras flourished in the windows, filling the gap between draped lace curtains. Now and again, as they passed, a curtain would be twitched by an anonymous hand.

  ‘How long have you been interested in horses?’

  ‘I don’t know – who said I was interested?’

  ‘You bet on them, don’t you?’

  ‘You can’t pinch me for that!’

  ‘Did this woman go with you to Newmarket that day?’

  ‘I never went to Newmarket – haven’t been there in my life.’

  ‘With whom do you lay your bets?’

  ‘Nobody ever said I laid any.’

  To the left lay the warehouses with the quays behind them – small, unextensive, but adequate to handle the few small tramps touching in with timber and coal.

  The sea didn’t touch Lynton; it was served by a muddy estuary. One picked up a pilot a long way out to bring a ship through the labyrinth of shoals.

  ‘What time did you leave her on Friday?’

  ‘Maisie? Time enough to get to my work.’

  ‘Who else is she friendly with?’

  ‘You’d better ask her.’

  ‘Sailors, perhaps?’

  ‘All the girls pick them up.’

  ‘You should know if she’s got a regular.’

  ‘Well, I don’t, and that’s the fact.’

  Blacker was jumpy now and he couldn’t hide it. He kept trying to read the expression on Gently’s stolid countenance.

  ‘What other pubs do you go in?’

  ‘All of them – I aren’t particular.’

  ‘When were you last in The Roebuck?’

  ‘The last time I was a millionaire!’

  ‘How about your girlfriend – does she ever go there?’

  ‘It’s likely, isn’t it – living in a dump like this!’

  They had turned into a gloomy cul-de-sac guarded by a solitary lamp post, a nameplate on which bore the designation: Hotblack Buildings. A brick wall closed in one side and a ramshackle store the end. The row of houses, each projecting a solitary worn step to the pavement, had a blind, eyeless appearance, as though they had ceased trying to look the world in the face.

  Halfway along a begrimed infant was sitting in the road, frowning as it tugged at the spring of a broken toy; it seemed unaware of its frozen fingers and smiled at the two men.

  ‘Which is her house?’

  ‘The one at the end.’

  Gently had to knock twice before he got a reply.

  The door, opened cautiously, revealed a woman of uncertain age, a dressing-gown thrown hurriedly about her plumpish shoulders.

  ‘Chief Inspector Gently of the Criminal Investigation Department … I’d like to have a few words with you, ma’am.’

  She stared over his shoulder at the lagging Blacker.

  ‘About him again, is it? I’ve been through all that before!’

  Inside the house was even more depressing than without. The street door opened straight into a small, icy room, its single window providing a totally inadequate light.

  On the floor was worn linoleum patterned to look like parquet. The three-piece suite, upholstered in brown rexine, appeared too small for the actual practice of sitting.

  ‘Don’t you coppers trust one another? The last one wanted to know the inside of a maggot’s behind! And as for Sam being mixed up in that business at the mill—!’

  A little too shrill, was it … a little too aggressive?

  Gently seated himself massively, his hips nipped between the narrow arms of the chair. Not for the first time he wondered what men saw in this sort of woman …

  ‘Your name is Maisie Bushell, is it?’

  ‘Of course it is – do I look like Marilyn Monroe?’

  She looked more like a Blackpool landlady, with her domineering chin and pugnacious green eyes.

  ‘Are you a Lynton woman, Miss Bushell?’

  ‘Yes, I am, if you must know.’

  ‘You’ve lived all your life in Lynton?’

  ‘Course I have – didn’t the others tell you?’

  ‘You’ve never stayed in London, for instance?’

  ‘Stayed there! I’ve never even seen the stinking place! What are you getting at, mister – what am I supposed to have done now?’

  ‘Won’t you sit down, Miss Bushell? This may take a little time.’

  She dumped herself on to the settee, never once taking her eyes off him or glancing at Blacker. The foreman, after hanging about by the door for a little while, folded his bony frame into the other chair and put on an expression of exaggerated unconcern.

  ‘Now … about what happened on last Thursday evening. Would you mind going through it again for my benefit, Miss Bushell?’

  ‘There isn’t nothing to go through. Sam spent the night with me. We’ve been pals a long time, you don’t want to think that every Tom, Dick and Harry …’

  ‘How long have you been friends?’

  ‘How should I know? Years—!’

  ‘And he is in the habit of spending the night here?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t he, if he wants to?’

  ‘Last Thursday … was that by arrangement?’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. I just ran into him.’

  ‘Start from there, if you please, Miss Bushell. Just tell me everything that happened.’

  Now she did throw a quick look at Blacker, but the foreman was gazing fixedly at the empty bars of the fireplace.

  ‘Well, I went down town like I always do – I’m not one for staying in of an evening! And I had a drink at The Craven Arms, and another one at The King’s Head. Then I went on to The Three Cocks, where I saw Sam here sitting on his lonesome—’

  ‘Just a moment, Miss Bushell … what street is that in?’

  ‘It isn’t in any street. It’s in Junction Road.’

  ‘And The Fighting Cock – where’s that?’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘According to Mr Blacker it was there that he met you.’

  She stared at him angrily as though he were trying to pull a fast one. Then she jerked her head commandingly in Blacker’s direction.

  ‘Why can’t you remember instead of telling the man a fib! You know it was The Three Cocks – I’ve told them that all along!’

  ‘lt just slipped out, Maisie …’

  Blacker stirred his feet embarrassedly.

  ‘And now you’ve got him thinking I’m telling him a lot of lies!’

  ‘Whoa!’ interrupted Gently. ‘Let’s have the correct version, shall we? Is The Three Cocks simply what you’ve been telling the police, or is it in fact where the meeting took place?’

  ‘It’s where I met Sammy.’

  ‘You’re sure about that?’

  ‘Course I’m sure about it! What does it matter, anyhow? We went to several places – could have been The Fighting Cock amongst the rest of them.’

  ‘But Mr Blacker says you stopped in one public house!’

  ‘And I say we didn’t! Him … he’s got a memory like a sieve – mixing it up with another night, that’s what he’s been doing!’

  ‘That’s right!’ chimed in Blacker. ‘Now it’s just dawned on me. It was Saturday we was in The Fighting Cock, Maisie. But I got it right when the bloke was taking it down …’

  Gently sighed and felt for his pipe. It was symptomatic, perhaps, but they’d soon get the story squared up again.

  ‘What public houses did you visit?’

  ‘As if I’d remember! But I dare say we finished up in The Dun Cow, being on the way here.’

  ‘They’d remember you there?’

  ‘Don’t see why they shouldn’t.’

  ‘What time did you get home?’

  ‘After they turned out – we come straight back.’

  ‘And neither of you went out again?’

  ‘Sam didn’t leave here till the eight o’clock news was on.’

  ‘And you, Miss Bushell?’

  ‘Don’t ask a stupid question!’

&
nbsp; ‘I’d appreciate a straight answer …’

  ‘All right – I stinking well didn’t!’

  She was undoubtedly the stronger character of the two, sitting bolt upright in her dressing-gown on her comfortless settee. Blacker had automatically accepted a secondary role. His memory wasn’t so good … and that was dangerous, in a liar!

  Gently filled his pipe with slow care and lit it with a couple of matches. The narrow chair made him feel as though he were in a straitjacket, and the chill of the room was sending shivers up his back.

  ‘Have you ever been to Newmarket, Miss Bushell?’

  ‘Dare say I have at one time or another.’

  ‘Recently, have you?’

  ‘No, I haven’t – and what’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Do you know any of these men?’

  He flashed his set of photographs.

  She lingered over them boldly, but if she recognized any of them she gave no indication of it.

  ‘You know The Roebuck, of course?’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I know it?’

  ‘Have you been in there during the last fortnight?’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh, copper!’

  ‘The mill too … you’ll know that? Have you been round the back – into that stable, perhaps?’

  Once more it scored a hit, that apparently harmless building. You could almost hear Blacker holding his breath in the silence following the question.

  ‘What stable … what do you mean? I don’t know nothing about stables!’

  ‘Not the stable behind the mill, Miss Bushell?’

  ‘No, I don’t – I haven’t never been there!’

  ‘Then this wouldn’t belong to you, would it?’

  Gently suddenly produced the little gold cross.

  ‘You wouldn’t have dropped it there on Thursday night – when you were entertaining somebody in the hayloft?’

  The moment of silence had a different quality this time. Instinctively Gently could feel that he had played his card wrongly. They were still scared, both of them, he was on or around the target, but the tension had subtly relaxed a few degrees.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about, copper!’

  ‘Maisie was with me – you ask them round the pubs.’

  ‘I never went near the mill, and you can’t prove I did. As for that cross thing—!’

  ‘She never had one of those.’

  Gently smoked expressionlessly through the clamour of denial. He was wrong, and they were relieved, and the relief betrayed itself in the fervour of their disclaimers.