Gently Down the Stream

by Alan Hunter

  Gently’s head shook slowly at the riotous jungle of the carrs. That was the crucial question which preceded all theory.

  Only, it helped to keep that picture firmly in view. Unless it was there one could easily overlook a detail which might be the very one.

  The launch slid up to the quay at Eccle and Gently jumped out without waiting for Dutt to make fast. Eccle Bridge was a little yachting community on its own, solitary in the wide marshes. A mile away was the village. Against the bridge clustered a boat-yard, a store, and at some distance a public house. For the rest it was a long, straight reach with good mooring on scrubby raised banks.

  Gently poked his way into a boat-shed.

  ‘Hi, you! Where’s the gaffer?’

  He was a tall, pale-eyed man of fifty, with a stoop and the calloused hands of a carpenter.

  ‘Police … Chief Inspector Gently. Is it right that Sloley’s Harrier moored here yesterday week?’

  It was. The tall man had seen it himself. They had come in at about 7 p.m., when the moorings were already crowded, and tied up about halfway down the opposite bank.

  ‘Did you know who it was?’

  ‘No … it’s the boats one notices.’

  ‘You wouldn’t know what they did that evening?’

  The tall man simply shrugged.

  It was the same at the pub – nobody knew Lammas, or knew if they’d seen him. Neither did they at the store, though they had a small piece of information for him.

  ‘Of course I never knew Mr Lammas, but we’ve always done business with him. He’s our wholesaler for a lot of lines … a lot of us deal with him round the Broads.’

  ‘You do, do you? And who’s his representative?’

  ‘It’s a traveller called Mr Williams.’

  ‘Did you owe him any money?’

  The store proprietor looked hurt.

  ‘We keep a small account, naturally.’

  ‘Nobody’s tried to collect it – say first thing last Monday morning?’

  But they hadn’t, of course. That wasn’t going to be the answer. Whyever else Lammas had spent his week on the Broads, it wasn’t to square up his odd accounts. At the same time … wouldn’t there be any of his customers who knew him personally? And if so, wasn’t it getting riskier and riskier, that honeymoon trip in the Harrier?

  Gently sat like a carved idol beside his colleague all the way up the Thrin to Hockling. Lammas couldn’t have kept that trip secret! Somewhere, sometime, he must have blundered into someone who would recognize him; even, perhaps, his own traveller. And then what had happened? Had they got on to Mrs Lammas? Or did they represent a mysterious extra element which so far hadn’t come into his calculations?

  And then once more … who knew better than Lammas the risk he was taking?

  He might have spent that week anywhere else in the wide world!

  ‘Stop here.’

  They were passing the village of Petty Hayner.

  Dutt fumbled with Old Man Sloley’s list.

  ‘It ain’t one of the places, sir.’

  ‘I know it isn’t, but he’d stop for lunch, wouldn’t he?’

  And so it went on through the burning afternoon and the endless evening, stopping, checking, throwing out leading questions – and getting nowhere. It was only the Harrier people had seen. It was a chronic complaint with them – they noticed boats, but they didn’t notice people. And, they would always add, if they had seen Lammas they wouldn’t have known him … it was like inquiring for someone from another planet. Was it barely possible he had come through that week unscathed?

  ‘Well, sir, it’s been a nice little houting!’ observed Dutt as they throbbed back upstream through the white smoke-mist. ‘I never did get round to one of those holidays afloat before, but I reckon I’ve seen it all now, sir.’

  Gently bit on the end of a dead pipe and reached automatically for a match.

  ‘I’ve got an odd feeling, Dutt.’

  ‘Yessir. That sun was bleeding fierce, sir.’

  Gently grinned. ‘I don’t mean sunstroke! The feeling I’ve got is that I’ve learned something about this trip of Lammas’, and I don’t know what the blazes that something is.’

  ‘You mean as how you can’t see the wood, sir.’

  ‘Exactly, Dutt – I can’t see the wood.’

  He scratched the match, which lit cheerily in the dank vapour curling past them.

  ‘The further we go, the more it grows on me … but it’s no use harping on it. What’s this place we’re just coming to?’

  ‘Halford Quay, sir, ’cording to the map.’

  ‘It isn’t on the list, but we’d better give it a whirl.’

  ‘You’ll have covered the lot then, sir,’ returned Dutt, with the merest tinge of bitterness.

  Halford Quay was a popular spot. There were yachts and cruisers moored two deep all along its not-very-great expanse. At one end it was blocked by the gardens of a brightly-lit hotel, at the other chopped off by the cut-in of a boat-yard. Into this Dutt directed the launch. As they came alongside the staithe an elderly, bearded man in navy cap and sweater ambled across to them.

  ‘Now don’t yew know this is private properta … or dew yew think yew can buy petrol at this time of night?’

  Gently shrugged and tossed him the painter.

  ‘We shan’t worry you long … and maybe you can tell us what we want to know.’

  ‘Ah … maybe I can an’ maybe I can’t.’

  He weighed up the launch with a professional eye, then cast a shrewd glance at the occupants.

  ‘Tha’s old Slola’s boat, now, i’nt’t? And I reckon I can guess who yew are without strainin m’self.’

  Gently nodded briefly and climbed out on to the staithe.

  ‘I was wonderin how long yew’d be gettin round here … thought that’d be a rummun dew yew missed me out!’

  ‘You know why we’re here then?’

  ‘Blast yes – I can read the paper.’

  ‘And you’ve something to tell us?’

  ‘W’either I dew, or else yew don’t hear it.’

  Gently considered this ambiguous reply for a moment.

  ‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

  ‘Me! I’m Ole Sid Crow – Ole Sid’ll dew round here.’

  ‘You work at the yard here?’

  ‘I dew, when I aren’t idle.’

  ‘Go on then – what’ve you got to tell us?’

  Sid Crow came a little closer, as though afraid that a precious word might go astray.

  ‘He dropped her here – tha’s what I’ve got to tell yew. Now say I’m a blodda liar an’ don’t know what I’m talkin’ about!’

  He did know what he was talking about. He proved that up to the hilt. Of all the interviewees they had tackled on that trip, Sid Crow was the single one who knew Lammas by sight – he had worked at the Yacht Club on Wrackstead Broad and seen Lammas pull in there on his half-decker. And he could describe the clothes Lammas was wearing. And also Linda Brent.

  The Harrier, it appeared, had moored at Halford Quay at tea-time on the Friday. The quay had been crowded then as it was now and she had tied up on the public side of the cut-in, right under Sid’s nose. The two occupants had then proceeded to get tea. They had had it in the well, without any attempt at concealment. After tea they had smoked a leisurely cigarette, washed and put away the dishes, and a little later had gone ashore, Lammas carrying two suitcases and Linda Brent her handbag and plastic raincoat. They went in the direction of the bus stop. About ten minutes later Lammas returned alone. Without any hurry he made the yacht ship-shape, checked his petrol and then quanted her over to Sid’s side for a fill-up. And then he had set off upstream; time, about twenty to seven.

  ‘You’re sure it was to the bus stop they went?’ queried Gently.

  ‘W’no.’ Sid Crow gave a deprecating twist with his shoulders. ‘But tha’s the way they went and there was a bus just about due.’

  ‘What bus was that?’

&nbs
p; ‘There’s one go into Narshter at twenta past six, weekdas.’

  ‘And what time would it get in at Norchester?’

  ‘Bout seven – yew’d better ask them what go on it.’

  Gently caught Dutt’s eye with a meaningful look in it.

  ‘There aren’t any other buses round about then?’

  ‘Nothin more till eight o’clock.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Crow. That’s a useful piece of information.’

  He paused a moment, puffing blue smoke into the tepid, misty air.

  ‘Of course, when you heard what had happened to Mr Lammas you mentioned what you had seen to one or two people …?’

  Sid Crow was disgusted.

  ‘I’m old enough t’know when t’keep m’mouth shut – specialla when I knew that parta wa’nt his missus!’

  ‘Then you didn’t mention it to anyone?’

  ‘Not the bit about the female.’

  ‘But the bit about his being here on the Harrier?’

  ‘W’yes – I told his missus.’

  ‘You told who?’

  ‘I told his missus – though mind yew, I woon’t have done dew I ha’nt thought she knew about’t alreada.’

  Gently coughed over his sparking pipe. It was quite a few seconds before he got round to his next question …

  ‘And when did you tell his missus?’

  ‘Why, that verra same evenin’?’

  She had driven up in her car at about a quarter past seven and parked it opposite the quay. Sid, alerted by what he had seen previously, had watched her with interest as she walked along the quay, obviously looking for the departed yacht. When she came to the end of the quay she had beckoned Sid across. She didn’t know he recognized her.

  ‘I’m looking for Mr Lammas on board the yacht Harrier. Have you seen him by any chance?’

  Sid told her he had supplied the Harrier with petrol.

  ‘His – er – wife, was she on board with him?’

  ‘No mum. He was alone when he pulled in here.’

  ‘He was on his way to Wrackstead, I suppose?’

  ‘He certainla went off in that direction.’

  Mrs Lammas had given Sid half a crown, gone back to her car and driven off again directly.

  Gently sighed deeply at the end of this narration.

  ‘And you weren’t going to tell me this if I hadn’t squeezed it out of you?’

  Sid’s weathered features wrinkled into a wink.

  ‘Well, yew got to remember, ole partna … it was her what give me the half-crown.’

  ‘Ahem!’ coughed Dutt, ‘don’t you think we ought to take a statement, sir?’

  It was dark when Gently sent the Wolseley bumbling down the lane to the cottage, but there were lights enough on the river bank. Besides the glimmer of lamps through houseboat windows there were two or three hurricanes placed at strategic points and in the space so illuminated an animated scene was enacting. As Gently switched off the engine the rollicking music of a concertina could be heard.

  ‘Looks like they’re having a spree, sir!’ exclaimed Dutt, his cockney eyes brightening.

  ‘And that bloke can really play a concertina,’ mused Gently as he slammed his door.

  Within the circle of light two grotesque figures were hopping and gyrating. Ponderous, massive, yet with a sort of elfin agility, they gave the impression of something non-human, of mindless animals caught in a bewitched pattern.

  ‘It’s Ted Thatcher and Cheerful Annie doing a hornpipe, sir!’

  On the roof of the wherry sat Pedro, Pedro the Fisherman. It was Pedro who was swinging and twirling the concertina. Never a false note trilled and cascaded from his long, tip-flattened forgers, never a pause interrupted the ecstatic rhythm. Like a Pied Piper of Upper Wrackstead he wove his spell and the corpulent couple had to obey him, though sweat trickled down their none-too-clean faces.

  ‘Go it, Annie! Keep it up, Tedda bor!’

  All around the boat-dwellers sat or squatted, clapping in time and shouting encouragement. Some visitors moored along the bank sat on their cabin roofs laughing and applauding. And there was no end to that lilting music. It frolicked on and on with rapturous and infinite variation. The very soul of music seemed to have settled in Pedro’s concertina, seemed to be releasing itself through his runaway fingers.

  Gently moved over to the magic circle of lamp-light.

  ‘Cor … couldn’t we half do with this bloke down at the “Chequers”!’

  ‘Come an join us!’ panted the dripping Thatcher, catching sight of Gently. ‘Dew I can dance the Starmth Hornpipe, there i’nt no reason why yew shoont!’

  But Gently was more interested in the slim figure perched on the wherry’s cabin roof.

  For a moment, as he regarded it, the curly hair, angelic eyes and shy smile faded into stolid East Anglian countenance beneath a peaked chauffeur’s cap.

  Then he shook his head and turned away.

  ‘Come on, Dutt, we’d better ring HQ.’

  ‘Just a moment, sir … it ain’t often you get a basinful of this!’

  Gently shrugged and went back to lock the car. As he pushed open the gate of the cottage he nearly ran into a thin, white-haired person who was standing there as motionless as the gate-post.

  ‘Ah, Mrs Grey! I didn’t see you in the dark.’

  She made no reply. By the faint glimmer of light from the lamps he could dimly descry her set, ashen face. There were tears running silently down it.

  ‘Mrs Grey … but what’s the matter?’

  She gave a little broken sob.

  ‘They say they’ve seen him … my nephew.’

  ‘Seen him! Seen him where?’

  ‘Here … going into my cottage. But it i’nt true, Mr Gently. It i’nt true! They’re a lot of good-for-nothings trying to make trouble for me! I woon’t hide him … not though he’s my own sister’s boy!’

  She broke down in a fit of sobbing.

  In the distance, Gently could see Dutt throwing off his hat and joining in that seductive hornpipe.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HICKS HAD BEEN seen, but nobody knew who had seen him. That was the result of lengthy and exhaustive questioning.

  About three in the afternoon the rumour began. Mrs Grey had set out to shop in the village at half-past two. Cheerful Annie was having a nap on her bunk. Ted Thatcher was fishing, Pedro gone off strawberry-picking and the rest of the community disposed in their various forms of idleness. And sometime during the half-hour that followed Joe Hicks was seen sneaking up the path to let himself into the cottage. By three o’clock, the knowledge was common property. Only everyone had heard it from somebody else.

  By guile and sarcasm, Gently did his level best to break the vicious circle.

  ‘There’s only thirty-three of you … suppose you stand in a row, each one next to the person who told him!’

  They were perfectly willing to try – if they could have remembered who in fact had told him.

  ‘It can’t be mass hysteria … do some of you know the difference between seeing a thing and being told it?’

  But it wasn’t any good. Nobody would own up. Fact or illusion, the image of Joe Hicks creeping into his aunt’s cottage seemed to have drifted into the little community on a passing breeze: everyone knew, nobody had seen.

  And Gently had other worries, anyway.

  ‘The super’s getting jumpy,’ Hansom had told him on the phone. ‘The Coroner’s beefing about his inquest and he’s a pal of the CC’s. The super wants to know if we’re going to make a grab in the next twenty-four hours …’

  ‘Coroners …!’ exploded Gently with deep feeling, as he hung up the phone.

  In the morning things looked brighter. They had a tendency to do so over Mrs Grey’s breakfast-table. Also, Gently noticed once more, the mind had a way of sorting things out while one was asleep … you went to bed with a problem and woke up with a new slant on it. Or a better attitude, which was sometimes as good.

  ‘We goes into
town, sir?’ enquired Dutt, soaking up the last of the bacon-grease with a piece of bread.

  ‘We goes into town, Dutt.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, sir, I reckon we might dig something up at the bus-station, the times of them buses being so cohincidental.’

  ‘You’re dead right, Dutt – that’s your assignment.’

  ‘Though I got to admit, sir, it beats me what the connection is there.’

  Gently reached for the ginger marmalade and dredged up a tidy spoonful.

  ‘You have to remember that we’ve got two camps at “Willow Street” – pro-Lammas and anti-Lammas.’

  ‘Yessir. I see that, sir. But what business could Miss Pauline have with this Brent woman?’

  ‘Well … this Brent woman might be running into trouble once Mrs L. found out about her. And she had found out, if we’re to believe Mr Crow.’

  Dutt nodded intelligently and rescued the marmalade.

  ‘But how would Miss Pauline know where to meet her, sir?’

  ‘She wouldn’t, would she, unless she knew the whole plot.’

  ‘Then why don’t we just pick her up and spring it on her sudden, sir?’

  ‘Because we’ve got nothing to spring, Dutt – not until we can prove she met Linda Brent.’

  The sapient Dutt allowed that his senior had got something.

  The super was out when Gently reported at HQ and Gently was duly thankful. Hansom’s print men had done a sterling job of work at ‘Willow Street’, but the results were entirely negative. They had acquired good specimens of Lammas’ prints and of Hicks’. It was Lammas’ which were found on the reverse of the drawer that had contained the gun. And Mrs Lammas’, of course … but they were accounted for. For the record Hansom had sweated out a press pic. of Lammas. It wasn’t too good. One got the impression of a dapper, athletic-looking man of middle-stature, expensively dressed, a touch of distinction about a badly caught profile and iron-grey hair.

  Gently said: ‘You’ve had nothing in about Hicks?’

  Hansom laughed a hard laugh.

  ‘I’m having that photo circulated … what gives you the idea that Hicks has been financed and tucked away somewhere?’