by Hunter Alan
‘What sort of blunt instrument?’ Gently asked.
‘Something heavy with a knob on it,’ Glaskell said. ‘Probably a hammer, that’s the most likely. There’s plenty of hammers about a boat-yard, and chummie would know where to lay hands on one. Too many hammers, that’s the trouble. He only had to wipe it and put it back.’
‘Is there a hammer missing at the yard?’ Gently asked.
‘Not that we’ve heard of,’ Parfitt said. ‘We took away a hammer from the French house, but it was a snob’s hammer, didn’t fit. We looked at some at the yard. Perhaps chummie slung it in the river.’
‘What do you make of the position of the injury?’ Gently said.
Parfitt looked at him, said nothing.
‘Wouldn’t you expect it higher up the skull,’ Gently said, ‘a blow with a hammer, descending.’
‘I don’t know,’ Parfitt said, ‘if he was stooping to get in the launch. Then the back of his head would be uppermost, he’d get the injury there.’
‘But if he wasn’t stooping,’ Gently said.
Parfitt shrugged, said: ‘That’s the way we see it.’
‘How tall is the son?’ Gently asked.
‘About five ten,’ Parfitt said.
‘Let’s send for a hammer,’ Gently said. ‘I’d like to get this point clear.’
Parfitt went out to fetch a hammer. Gently looked at the photographs again. Glaskell watched Gently looking at the photographs. He didn’t say anything while Parfitt was out. Parfitt came back with an old, rusty hammer, and Gently rose, laid down the photographs. He said to Parfitt:
‘I’m six feet tall, you’d be about five eleven. How tall was French?’
‘Six one,’ Parfitt said.
‘I’ll need to raise myself a couple of inches,’ Gently said. He took a telephone directory from Glaskell’s desk, laid it on the floor, stood on it.
‘Now come behind and hit me,’ he said to Parfitt. ‘Don’t hit me hard. It’s too hot.’
Parfitt grinned very slightly. He went behind Gently, swung the hammer. He let it come to rest delicately on Gently’s skull. It lay on a spot at the top of the skull.
‘Now,’ Gently said, ‘suppose you’re a woman. It doesn’t take a superman to kill with a hammer. Bend your knees till you’re six inches lower, then you’ll be relatively five six. Then try it again.’
Parfitt tried it again. The hammer came to rest just above Gently’s nape. Gently stood off the directory, put it back on the desk. Glaskell was frowning at the hammer. He moved the directory slightly.
‘So you think we’re wrong about the son,’ he said to Gently. ‘But there’s nobody else in the picture, and he’s lying. You talk to him.’
‘I don’t think you’re wrong,’ Gently said. He smiled. ‘I’m only fact-finding,’ he said. ‘It probably happened the way you think, but it’s useful to know about the alternatives. Let’s talk around it a bit. Give me some background stuff.’
‘Parfitt can give it to you,’ Glaskell said. ‘He comes from that direction anyway.’
Parfitt set the hammer on the floor so that it balanced, handle up, then he sat. He glanced at Gently, let his glance slant sideways.
‘I don’t come from Haynor,’ he said. ‘I don’t know everything that goes on there. But I was brought up in a Broads village and they’re all about the same. This boat-letting trade is pretty recent, most of it’s grown up within living memory. So you get men who went to school together in a boss and employee relationship. So there’s jealousy and friction. The boss has to put up with a lot of familiarity. Also there’s a shortage of skilled boatbuilders, and the men can afford to be independent. Maybe it keeps the industry healthy, I wouldn’t know about that. It seems to work pretty well. While the boss keeps in line.’
‘It’s an expanding industry,’ Glaskell said. ‘That’s why the skilled men are having it good. When the National Parks Commission scuttled from the Broads it was a signal for exploitation. Go to Blackpool. It’s quieter. Better policed. More dustbins.’
‘And probably fewer drownings,’ Parfitt said. ‘A drowning was rare when I was a kid.’
Gently nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And what sort of a boss was French?’
Parfitt moved his shoulders. ‘A bit uppity,’ he said. ‘That’s what Reeve says. He’s the constable at Haynor.’
‘How?’ Gently said.
‘Well,’ Parfitt said. He slid a look at Gently, and away. ‘French threw his weight about,’ he said. ‘He didn’t like his men being familiar. He was a foreigner, of course. But he’d lived in Haynor since he was a kid. His old man moved there from Beccles way and worked a while for Speltons. Then he started the yard over the road. Speltons were the big people at that time. Old man French was a fine designer and he went ahead between the wars. Harry French was more of a businessman, and he took over in thirty-eight. Harry French got the Admiralty contracts, expanded right, left and centre. Now it’s Speltons who are the small yard. Harry French was a big man.’
‘A big man,’ Gently said.
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘A big man. Don’t get me wrong, he was pretty all right, but he was a big man. That’s how he was.’
Gently said: ‘Who did he marry?’
‘One of the Spenlows,’ Parfitt said.
‘They’re county people,’ Glaskell said. ‘They do a lot of sailing. She had money.’
‘So you’d say he married above him,’ Gently said. ‘That wouldn’t make him popular either.’
‘Don’t suppose it did,’ Glaskell said. ‘They’re a bloody independent lot round here.’
‘The son takes after his mother,’ Parfitt said.
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘tell me about the son.’
‘He’s a bit of a, you know,’ Parfitt said. ‘He’s a bit wet. And he lies like a bastard.’
‘Is he in the business?’ Gently said.
‘Not from what I could make out,’ Parfitt said. ‘He’s at Cambridge for another year, for whatever good it’s going to do him. That’s what half the rows were about, him being too good to go into the business. He was to have picked up some money his mother left him. Now he gets it all, of course.’
‘So he wasn’t at the yard much?’ Gently said.
‘Oh yes he was,’ Parfitt said. ‘Reeve says his old man kept a short rein on him, had him holding tools for the yard men. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of motive there. If we could get something to back it.’
‘What else do you know about him?’ Gently said.
‘Runs after the women, doesn’t he?’ Glaskell said.
Parfitt shifted. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have enough guts to run after them. But he’s been hanging round the village whore, whether he’s got anywhere or not. She’s the wife of one of the yard-hands. Lidney. A red-hot momma, I’ve seen her. Nobody knows whether his father knew about it, but there’d have been hell to pay if he did.’
‘What about French,’ Gently said. ‘Any gossip there?’
Parfitt’s head shook. ‘None,’ he said. ‘French was a one-woman man. I’ve talked to his housekeeper, Playford, you’ll see her statement here. French was wrapped up in his wife. She was a fine-looking woman. She led him a dance, by all accounts, but he thought none the less of her for that. She died of anaemia last year. Her death hit French hard. He got broody, evil-tempered, tougher on his son. The son was a bit of a lost sheep, his mother didn’t care for him either, but she found money for him to throw about. He’s been having it thin since she died. He didn’t go to her funeral, by the way, and there was a row about that.’
‘What a hell of a family,’ Glaskell said. ‘You’ll get me feeling sorry for chummie in a minute.’
‘You’d be wasting it, sir,’ Parfitt said. ‘There’s nothing sweet about chummie.’
‘Has chummie any record of violence?’ Gently asked.
No,’ Parfitt said, ‘not that we know of. But he gives you the impression he could slip you a quick one if you turned your back on
him. I try to be fair, sir, where I can. But this one I just do not like. I know he did it. I’m bloody certain. And it makes me mad I can’t nail him.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. He stared out of the window a few moments. ‘Getting back to the launch and the body,’ he said. ‘What can you tell me about that?’
‘Well,’ Parfitt said. ‘The launch,’ he said. ‘That was picked up below the bungalows. The ebb was running till three-thirty a.m. and there wasn’t any wind. That’d probably be right, so the River Police tell us. If it went adrift from French’s quay at about ten p.m., it would fmish up a mile or so downstream. It might have backed a little on the first of the flood. It wasn’t picked up till near five a.m.’
‘And the body?’ Gently said.
Parfitt’s shoulders moved. ‘That’s not so easy. It was on the bottom, you can only guess what happens down there. But they reckon it didn’t shift much until the boats began to move, then it was sucked up through the bridge by the afternoon flood. It’s a narrow bridge, there’s a strong current through it and it’s scoured and deep under the arch. Then the water fans out after it gets through and pushes flotsam towards the bank. So the body got trapped in the slipway. That’s how the River Police see it.’
‘I see,’ Gently said, looking out of the window again. Then he said: ‘So the launch might have drifted a greater or a lesser distance.’
‘Well, yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘You can’t be precise with that sort of thing.’
‘It would touch here and there, might get stuck for a while.’
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘It wouldn’t go straight down.’
‘And the body,’ Gently said. ‘You were dragging for it below the bridge, weren’t you?’
‘The River Police did it,’ Parfitt said. ‘They know pretty well where to drop the hooks.’
‘But this theory of theirs of how it was sucked through the bridge, that was something that came afterwards?’
‘Well, of course,’ Parfitt said. ‘They wanted to figure out how it got there.’
‘From below the bridge.’
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. He looked at Gently. Gently looked out of the window.
Glaskell said to Parfitt: ‘I suppose it’s just possible that French wasn’t knocked off at the quay, drove somewhere else in the launch, ran into trouble there?’
‘I don’t see how,’ Parfitt said. ‘Nobody saw the launch going anywhere. It’s got nav lights and a big searchlight and there were lots of people around to see it. There were boats all down the quays and Reuben’s fair at the bridge. We talked to a score of people who were there. Nobody saw the launch take off.’
‘Perhaps he didn’t use his lights,’ Glaskell said.
‘He always used them,’ Parfitt said. ‘He used the launch as a sort of car to drive between his home and the yard. It’s a very swish launch. Everyone knew it. He used to annoy people with using the searchlight. I talked to the manager, Archer, about it. French never drove it at night without the lights.’
‘Say just this once,’ Glaskell said.
‘I think it very unlikely, sir,’ Parfitt said. ‘But even if he did, someone must have seen him. And they’d have heard the engine if they didn’t see him.’
‘You mentioned somebody’s fair,’ Gently said.
‘Yes, Reuben’s fair,’ Parfitt said.
‘What sort of a fair is it?’ Gently said.
‘Oh, just a small one,’ Parfitt said.
‘Any music?’ Gently said.
‘Yes, plenty of that,’ Parfitt said.
‘Pretty loud, is it?’ Gently said.
Parfitt nodded, didn’t say anything.
‘I’d call it bloody loud,’ Glaskell said, ‘if it’s the one I know. And it is. What’s upstream of Haynor Bridge, Parfitt?’
Parfitt hesitated before saying: ‘There’s a shed of French’s. Speltons’ yard. The Bridge Inn opposite. The bungalows.’
‘A shed of French’s?’ Glaskell said.
‘Where they keep their half-deckers,’ Parfitt said.
‘Where they keep their half-deckers,’ Glaskell said. ‘That’s a bloody alternative for you, isn’t it? Suppose he’d gone there to meet his son coming back from this moonlight sail of his, and there was a row, and the son bonked him. That’d cover the facts, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Parfitt said.
‘With the son admitting being out in a half-decker,’ Glaskell said. ‘You don’t have to break his story. You have to build it up, Parfitt.’
Parfitt didn’t say anything.
‘Is that the idea?’ Glaskell said to Gently.
Gently grinned at one and the other of them. ‘I wouldn’t know that,’ he said. ‘Your inspector’s the man who’s been on the job. He’ll know the feel of things best. He’s got a very good grasp on the situation plus the local knowledge that counts.’
Glaskell stared at Gently, chuckled. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Stop buttering him up. He’s a good man. I’d back him anywhere. Just don’t give him a swelled head.’
‘I’m not saying I’m right, sir,’ Parfitt said.
‘Shut up, Parfitt,’ Glaskell said.
‘Yes, sir. Certainly, sir,’ Parfitt said.
‘You son of a bitch,’ Glaskell said.
They laughed.
Gently said: ‘That’s about all till I’ve had a look round. I’ll take your statements to read over and drive out after tea.’
‘Come home with me,’ Glaskell said. ‘I’ve got orders from Marion to invite you. The town stinks. We’re up the coast. Give you a look at the sea. What are you doing, Parfitt?’
‘I’ll have a meal here,’ Parfitt said.
‘Oh, to hell with that,’ Glaskell said. He put his hand on the phone.
Thus: Superintendent Gently went to tea with Superintendent Glaskell and Inspector Parfitt, and tea was provided by Marion, Mrs Glaskell, on a paved terrace, under a sun-awning. So that when Superintendent Gently had washed and begun to feel comfortable, he was invited to sit at a table which looked across a lawn and over some sand dunes to the North Sea. The sand dunes were fawny yellow and stippled with marram grass, which was chalky green, and the North Sea was a high wall of emerald, purple, straw and heliotrope. On the edge of this wall, very bluish, tiny ships moved north and south, and from it blew a soft breeze which smelled of seaweed and the marrams. They ate lobster salad. The lobsters had been caught and boiled locally that morning. When they had eaten Superintendent Gently read the statements which Parfitt had taken. They were very dry reading, but Superintendent Gently was an expert reader. As he read he asked Parfitt questions about the people who had made the statements. Marion, Mrs Glaskell, didn’t make the mistake of serving coffee. At six-thirty p.m. Superintendent Gently and Inspector Parfitt left the terrace. When Superintendent Glaskell returned from seeing them off he said something to his wife, who looked pleased.
They took the Moorford road from Hamby, driving almost straight inland. It was a narrow country road between stunted hedges of hawthorn. Beyond the hedges lay fields of stubble and fields of wheat and fields of barley, and in two of the fields lurched orange-painted combines, pushing out rectangular bales of straw. Amongst the wheat and the barley poppies grew and the air smelled of straw and poppies and dust. The sun was in front of them, low but brilliant. Air lay melted in dips of the road.
Parfitt said: ‘Will you see anyone tonight?’
‘No,’ Gently said. ‘Tomorrow.’
‘Don’t pay too much attention to what I say,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’s new to me, all this.’
Gently said nothing.
‘When you come to think of it,’ Parfitt said, ‘I’ve only been on the case twenty-four hours. Just rushed in and got a lot of impressions. I reckon I could have been too hasty.’
‘We all feel like that,’ Gently said.
‘You fetched me up short,’ Parfitt said. ‘I can see now I wasn’t certain at all, just rushing in there and picking out a chummie.’
Gently kep
t driving.
‘I think I panicked,’ Parfitt said.
Gently kept driving. Parfitt was silent.
They passed through Moorford, struck the Stallbridge Road. The marshes lay flat ahead across the fields. The marshes were pale green and pale fawn and pale brown and very level and very wide and found their own horizon. Peaked rectangles of sails stood small across the marshes. The sails were white sails but cowslip-coloured in the evening sun. The sails moved very little. Sometimes a patch of willow or alder hid one. Two windpump towers without sails rose, bluish-ochre, far south. Coming to the marshes, the road dipped and ran flat between dykes and pollard willows. It approached a group of buildings of painted timber which stood squarely, flat-topped. From each side of this group stretched close-packed lines of low hutments with painted roofs and in the centre the road lifted over a narrow stone bridge. To the left of the bridge striped awnings clustered. Above them a wooden-valanced canopy sparkled with light bulbs. Also to the left rose a handful of masts at the trucks of which small triangular flags hung drooped.
‘This is it,’ Parfitt said. ‘That’s Reuben’s, that is.’
A pulse of rhythm, overlaid with sprightly brass, grew towards them.
‘Is the fair a regular event?’ Gently said.
‘Ever since I can remember,’ Parfitt said. ‘Every August Bank Holiday week it’s here. It tours the other villages too.’
They came to the bridge, were halted by lights. The music bumped and clashed at their elbow. Through the stalls could be seen two elevated gangways which oscillated alternately in time with the music. At each side of the bridge the river appeared, narrow, across it gable-ended boat-sheds. Motor-cruisers and yachts were close-moored along the quays. A motor-cruiser and a launch were passing upstream, below the bridge.
The lights changed. Gently drove over.
‘There,’ Parfitt said, nodding to the right.
Gently drove on to a gravelled park on which a number of other cars were standing. Behind it a large single-storeyed timber building presented double glass doors and a range of windows. Over the doors were gilded wooden letters: HAYNOR COUNTRY CLUB (Residential). Gently fetched an attaché case from the boot. They went into the club. Gently checked in. Parfitt smoked in the lounge. Gently rejoined him there.