Gently to a Sleep

by Alan Hunter

  Equally distressed, Clive Raynes hugged her and patted her limp hand.

  At last she raised her head, eyes muzzy behind the glasses.

  ‘What have we done . . . how have we offended . . . how have we brought this trouble upon us . . . ?’

  ‘Perhaps we don’t live right,’ Noel Raynes murmured. ‘Not you, Mamma – but the rest of us.’

  With sudden energy she pushed Clive Raynes away and fixed her eyes on Gently.

  ‘My children are not wicked . . . it doesn’t matter what people are saying! Clivey, Gretel, Carrie and No – No . . . how can you call my children bad?

  ‘Poor Ronnie is dead . . . isn’t that enough? We would have loved him if we could . . .

  ‘But what they are saying is cruel lies, and if you are a good man . . .

  ‘Oh, my children!’

  Sobbing ended the little outburst. Tremblingly, Clive Raynes snatched out a handkerchief, removed the glasses and dabbed his mother’s eyes.

  ‘Take me home, Clivey . . .’

  ‘We’re going now, Mother . . . !’

  Gentle as a girl, he helped her to rise. Supported by her sons and still shaken with sobs, she was led away to the yellow Scimitar.

  Mrs Swafield rose. ‘I trust the spectacle was edifying . . . may I take it you have no further questions?’

  Receiving no answer, she swept after the others and scrambled into the car behind her mother.

  But the two cars had barely departed when another arrived, from the opposite direction. Driving a honey-coloured Chrysler Alpine, Carole Meeson braked sharply beside the lych-gate. Hesitantly, she lowered her window.

  ‘Have you by any chance seen my brothers . . . ?’

  Gently growled: ‘The family conference is over! But if you need briefing, they headed that way.’

  ‘If I need . . . ?’

  Her hazel eyes wondered at him before she zipped up the window; small gravel scattered from the Alpine’s wheels.

  Then the churchyard was left to policemen.

  ELEVEN

  ‘WELL, SIR . . . THAT settles one thing!’

  Seeing Gently light up, Ives had ventured on a small cigar. Puffing it, he leaned against the car, eyes considering, watching the church.

  The constable had come into sight again; now he’d equipped himself with a stick. Unhurriedly he was beating his way down a hedgerow where the verge was jungly with bramble and nettles.

  And, very high, an aircraft was passing, looking translucent in the clear sky.

  ‘You’re thinking the old man knows his children?’

  ‘I’d say he knows Mrs Swafield, sir. He said she’d shop Mrs Clive when it came to it, and that’s just what she’s been doing.’

  ‘Mrs Clive has been chosen as scapegoat . . .’

  ‘Yes, sir. No doubt about that.’

  ‘In spite of objections from Mr Clive.’

  ‘I don’t reckon she’ll let them stand in her way.’

  Hunching, Gently took slow puffs; Ives drew in quick whiffs. Distantly one could hear the constable’s stick making leisurely thrashing sounds.

  ‘On the other hand, Mr Noel is feeling pretty secure . . .’

  ‘He would do, sir.’ Ives flicked ash. ‘By now they’ll have a watertight story figured out for him – I’d say you could trust Mrs Swafield for that.’

  ‘No evidence tying him in . . .’

  ‘No, sir. Just his being adrift to explain. And if Mrs Clive tells a different yarn – well, it’s them against her, and she’s in the cart anyway.’

  Ives whiffed and flicked again; on his face a dogged look. Though not tall he was solidly made and had the air of one who kept his powder dry.

  ‘And the source of the atropine . . . ?’

  ‘There’s that again, sir. I reckon we’re wasting time around here. Mr Wallace doesn’t expect us to find anything, and they could have fetched it in from anywhere.’

  ‘They’d have to know where to look.’

  Ives huffed smoke. ‘Perhaps that isn’t such a problem, sir. The book is in the library. Take a list from that, and likely you’d soon be on the track.’

  Gently hunched higher and went on puffing. With his stick, the constable was prying among head-high ragwort. Alert for a moment, he prodded at something; then resumed his perambulation.

  ‘Let’s go . . .’

  They climbed into the Cortina. Ives’s expression was more dogged than ever; he drove with the cigar in the corner of his mouth and one eye narrowed, giving him a mean look.

  At The Steampacket Wallace was sitting in the sun with a portable typewriter on his lap; quite oblivious to surroundings, he was banging away briskly.

  ‘You don’t object . . . ? I’m doing my daily dozen for the local rag! Today I thought it would be rather appropriate to do a piece on Solanaceae . . .’

  Gently took a seat beside him. Untroubled, the naturalist continued his rattle. In a moment, he pulled out a sheet, folded it, and tucked it into an envelope with a printed address.

  ‘Now . . . any progress?’

  Gently shook his head. Ives was standing by, mumbling his cigar. Along at the waterfront, cars were manoeuvring into slots that faced the river.

  ‘Tell me this . . . is what we’re after growing near the beach area at Marsey?’

  Wallace’s china-blue eyes were lively. ‘Not exactly! Who told you that?’

  ‘Where, then?’

  ‘That’s rather secret! But you wouldn’t find it just by chance. If it’s really important I’ll give you directions, though even then you could miss it.’

  ‘So just knowing it’s at Marsey wouldn’t do?’

  Wallace chuckled. ‘Not for a moment! Only this I can tell you, it’s not near the beach, and you could go there for ever without spotting it.’

  ‘It needs very special knowledge . . .’

  ‘Very special.’

  Gently sucked on a dead pipe. Sulkily, Ives was scrubbing out his cigar and looking for somewhere to drop it.

  ‘You’d better take me there, then.’

  ‘Now . . . ?’

  ‘The Inspector will sit in for you here.’

  Wallace chuckled again. He put away his typewriter and went to lock it in his car.

  Gently drove, with Wallace piloting him through a skein of narrow roads. Seeming to know each yard of the territory, the naturalist kept up a breezy chatter.

  With him nothing was entirely serious, everything a source of fascination. A weasel crossing the road or the flash of a bird’s wing was enough to set him off. And if these failed:

  ‘Notice the roads. This is country between two rivers. The theory is that the roads follow ox-tracks, tracing a network of underground streams . . .’

  ‘A chalkless area of course.’

  ‘No, but the chalk stratum is buried . . . there’s a tiny outcrop below the church at Brondale . . . only the attraction there is Heracleum mantegazzianum.’

  ‘And at Marsey?’

  ‘Oh, mostly wetlands, with a subsoil of clay and sand.’

  ‘So why there . . . ?’

  Wallace’s eyes twinkled. ‘I did offer you a clue earlier on.’

  Eventually they passed through a small town, beyond which marshes spread afresh. Now the road proceeded in long straights between the lines of pollard willows. Lifting over a bridge, it crossed a river crowded with holiday craft, some under way, others moored down the bank as far as the eye could reach.

  The marshes too seemed restless, moving craft being visible in reaches that were hidden. A few sails dotted the expanse, some minute in blued distance.

  ‘The North River . . .’

  Wallace sighed and gave a chuck of his head.

  ‘These are the wetlands of a naturalist’s dream, but now they’re dying of over-exploitation. Too many power-boats, too many people, too much leaching of farmers’ chemicals. The end is perhaps only a decade away . . .

  ‘Nobody cared enough when it mattered.’

  ‘Would you say Walter Ra
ynes had a hand in it?’

  Wallace wriggled his shoulders. ‘Let’s keep it impersonal! Actually the South Rivers are less affected – fewer moorings, faster tides.’

  ‘Yet boats hired there find their way up here.’

  ‘To that extent yes – old Raynes is a villain.’

  ‘A genius with boats . . . yet with a flaw.’

  Wallace shook his head. ‘Once, he built some fine yachts . . .’

  After skirting the marshes the road took a higher line, bringing fresh vistas into view. Flint towers of churches marched in the distance and towers of pump-mills, sail-less, capless.

  Also gleams of broads and more sails, all distant; then finally, dipping down through a village, the road reached marshes fringed by low sandhills.

  ‘The sea . . .’

  Its presence was signified only by blueness behind the hills. Shaggy with marram grass, they ranged in breasts along the entire sweep of coast.

  ‘This is ticklish country at times . . . when a spring tide is backed by north-west gales. Tragic country – perhaps that’s part of its attraction.

  ‘Of course the hills are small compared with those, say, in Sutherland.’

  ‘Is it much further?’

  ‘A couple of miles. Marsey is where the broads meet the sea.’

  A twist of the road brought into view an island of trees and a few houses. Near them stood a pump-mill with sails, its clap-board bonnet painted white.

  Here there was a pull-up with stores and a mooring-dyke, its level above that of the road. The dyke was full of craft; scantily-dressed holidaymakers had ascended the mill and were crowding its gallery.

  ‘Pull over for a bit . . . there really isn’t much more to see! That handful of houses represents the village.

  ‘A lane leads to the sandhills, where there’s room to park cars. This way there’s the mere and reed-swamp and an acreage of pasture and arable. Nothing very accessible!

  ‘Perhaps now you can weigh the chances of finding a scarce plant here by accident . . .’

  Gently grunted. ‘Can’t we get on?’

  Wallace twinkled him a look. ‘You’re the governor! But I thought there’d be no harm in rubbing it in.’

  He was still smiling to himself as they approached the grove of trees. An unusual feature in the flat landscape, it had an air of slightly-forbidding privacy.

  ‘Turn off here.’

  From a bend in the road a dank lane led into the trees. Seemingly a private drive, it brought them to a house beside which a lawn made a patch of sunlight.

  Then they were clear of the trees. The lane ended by two cottages; one looked well-cared-for, the other a ruin with a sinking roof.

  ‘Look . . . there’s old Jimmy!’

  Wallace was out of the car at once. He waved vigorously. Before the first cottage, an old man sat sunning in a strap-back chair.

  ‘Hullo, Jimma!’

  ‘W’hullo, Dick!’

  ‘Don’t get up – we’re going next door!’

  The old man had a full white beard and his hands clasped a stick placed between his knees. About him the garden was trim, a mixture of vegetables and flowers. Beside tents of runner beans and rows of potatoes reared heads of sunflowers and mighty hollyhocks.

  ‘Jimmy’s an old marshman – a great chum of mine. He knows more about wetlands than two universities.’

  ‘I’d like a word with him . . .’

  ‘Of course! Only don’t get him on the subject of eels . . .’

  Blithe as a kitten, Wallace stalked ahead of Gently to the fallen gate of the tumbledown cottage. Here the garden was a sad jungle where bramble vied with docks and willow-herb. Flint cobbles were dropping from damp walls, pantiles shedding from rafters. Nettles had invaded the cottage interior and, in the gutters, wall-leek grew.

  ‘Absolute paradise!’ Wallace chuckled. ‘Really, this place should be listed a reserve. Old Jimmy’s garden is a desert in comparison . . . only don’t let on to him I said so.’

  ‘Who else knows of it?’

  ‘Just the cognoscenti – one or two people I can trust.’

  ‘Including . . .’

  ‘Not the lady we talked of! Truly, she’s rather dropped out of things lately.’

  Eagerly he led the way round the cottage, holding aside brambles with a stick he’d picked up. If anything the back garden was more savage than the front, being everywhere choked with long dead grass. Two or three fruit-trees, bowed and dying, made each a focus for climbing bramble; thickets of sloe were advancing from the boundary and a flint-cobble wall was breached and overgrown.

  ‘Watch your step . . .’

  Beside bramble-runners, rubble hidden by grass made the footing uncertain. Cautiously Wallace picked his way down the garden, stamping down mats of grass before treading on them. They came to the wall.

  ‘Well . . . ?’

  Silently Wallace pointed with his stick.

  Almost incredulously, Gently realized that he was staring at A. belladonna.

  A clump of eight or ten, they grew out of rubble fallen from the wall; at first sight of no greater significance than the rubbish crowding about them.

  Tallish, shrubby-looking plants with small, limp, purple flowers, they might well have fallen to a hedger’s sickle without him giving them a second thought.

  ‘Needless to say . . . noli me tangere.’

  Yet could they really be so deadly . . . ? Perhaps only the large, black berries gave a hint of lurking malevolence. These, hung from short stalks among the drab, unequal leaves, had a shiny inviting plumpness, not unlike a bloomless sloe.

  ‘Notice where they are growing . . . no lack of lime there.’

  With his stick Wallace swept aside undergrowth to reveal scattered mortar.

  ‘And these are the only ones in Marsey?’

  ‘They’re the only ones for twenty miles. Unless your men have had some luck at Hulverbridge – other than in turning up Policeman’s Helmet!’

  ‘Yet, if they grow here . . . ?’

  Wallace shook his head. ‘These are quite certainly introductions. As I told you, they were grown by the old’uns for their healing and cosmetic properties.’

  ‘Cosmetic . . . ?’

  ‘Consider the name. They’ve been used by women since Roman times. An application of the leaf gives a doe-eyed look . . . after which you swallow arsenic, for extra sparkle!

  ‘But principally it was grown as a specific for the cure of ulcers and tumours. This is a typical location: an old cottage garden, left to run wild.’

  He gave Gently amused glances; Gently remained gazing at the A. belladonna. Its message, plain to him, must have been no less so to the naturalist. None of the plants showed signs of injury and nowhere had the environment been recently disturbed.

  A few empty fruit-calyces were probably accounted for by fallen berries.

  ‘When were you last here?’

  ‘At the end of June. I was showing the site to a couple of friends.’

  ‘Friends . . . ?’

  ‘Visiting colleagues – one from Dorset, one from Banffshire.’

  ‘Let’s talk to the old fellow.’

  Agreeably, Wallace led the way back. The cottager, who’d come to lean on his gate, was awaiting their return with impatience.

  ‘Now then, Dick!’

  ‘Now then, Jimma!’

  ‘Did you find your old gear in trim then?’

  ‘Well bor, reckon I did. Who have you seen up this way lately?’

  Turning eighty at least, the old man stood as straight as a guardsman; his large features were rosy and beard combed neat. Introduced to Gently, he eyed him shrewdly, but answered his questions with concision.

  ‘No bor, we don’t see many visitors – not bar Dick and a few of his chums.’

  ‘Two week-ends ago . . . the Sunday and Monday.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Nobody come then.’

  ‘You’d remember those days . . . ?’

  ‘Ah, I would. On the Sunda my son com
e and brung me some sprouts. Monda I was out here putting them in – there they are, coming along.’

  ‘What about the Tuesday?’

  ‘Rained all day, bor – nobody come near nor by. Come to that, you’re the first foreigner I’ve seen this way for a month.’

  ‘You would notice visitors?’

  ‘Reckon I would, bor. Here I sit like a harnser in a deek.’

  ‘And that’s a heron in a ditch,’ Wallace grinned. ‘Nothing keeps a sharper look-out than that.’

  Grumpily Gently got back to the car, leaving Wallace to exchange some last words. So Marsey was a frost – or at most a red herring, skilfully trailed by Mrs Swafield! And that one might have guessed . . . given opportunity, she wasn’t the sort to pass it up. And meanwhile . . .

  He hunched in his seat, seeking automatic solace from a pipe.

  Wallace was unexpectedly subdued as they drove back to Hulverbridge. He too had put on a pipe, a Ropp cherry-wood of modest calibre.

  Puffing away beside Gently, he gazed thoughtfully for a spell. Then, as they recrossed the North River, mused:

  ‘That’s rather stopped an earth for you, hasn’t it?’

  The searchers had come in for lunch and were sitting around the minibus with snacks and glasses. Ives had retired to the private lounge, there to eat sandwiches in fitting seclusion. As they entered he rose.

  ‘Anything to report . . . ?’

  One of the searchers had a find for checking. Cheerfully postponing lunch, Wallace set out again with the man in his car.

  ‘Did it sound promising?’

  ‘Not very, sir . . .’

  Shrugging, Gently went to fetch refreshment. On a seat opposite Ives he champed and drank, eyes on the sun-blaze in the river.

  Nothing doing . . . !

  He’d pushed the case along until, just for the moment, he’d seemed to be winning . . . at the church that morning there’d been a critical tension . . . something that nearly, but didn’t quite, click!

  They’d been vulnerable then, he was certain of it . . . yet somehow he’d played his cards wrong. He’d allowed Mrs Swafield to take the initiative, to steer him away, send him off on a wild-goose chase . . .

  What was it he’d sensed there, in the church? What could have rendered them suddenly vulnerable?

  Once outside again, it was too late . . . had become mere fencing, leading nowhere.