Gently Down the Stream

by Alan Hunter

  Out of a haze of abstraction Gently suddenly realized that he was looking at something, something very small and apparently out of place. It was a little shred of gold paper. It was caught between a horizontal timber and the reeds behind it. Quickly he bent to examine it more closely.

  Torn edges … a wisp of label adhering … the back soiled with a greasy brown substance.

  He gazed at it bemusedly for a moment, its significance dawning slowly. Then, in a sudden flash, the full comprehension began to arrive.

  ‘Dutt!’

  He couldn’t quite keep the excitement out of his voice.

  ‘Dutt – look at this! Come and tell me what you make of it!’

  The sergeant came squelching across, a lugubrious expression on his face. There was a thrill in Gently’s voice not to be denied, but the little strip of paper seemed scanty reason for such enthusiasm.

  ‘Looks like a bit of toffee-paper, sir.’

  ‘Toffee-paper, my foot!’

  ‘I seen plenty just like it, sir—’

  ‘Not like this piece, Dutt!’

  Almost as though it were a holy relic he was guiding it into an envelope, hardly allowing himself to touch it, even with the blade of his pocket-knife.

  ‘Dutt, we’ve as good as got him!’

  His voice was trembling with suppressed exultation.

  ‘It fits like a glove … I must have been mad not to see it before!’

  ‘But what’s it all about, sir?’

  ‘… about? You have to ask me?’

  ‘Well I might be hexceptional dense, sir, but that’s just toffee-paper to me!’

  Gently chuckled as he straighted up. His eye had that far-distant look which came at moments when mystery was ceasing to be mystery, when the picture he sought had begun to take shape.

  ‘Come on … this isn’t enough, Dutt! There should be something more solid. And now we know what we’re looking for, we may know where to find it – even if we aren’t quite certain about the bloke who put it there!’

  ‘Then we don’t know who it was, sir?’

  ‘We do, Dutt – and we don’t.’

  ‘Couldn’t you put it a little plainer, sir?’

  ‘It’ll be plain enough before long!’

  He set off back to the dinghy without vouchsafing another word. Dutt shook his head in sorrow and followed his senior with oozing steps. He wasn’t usually a stupid policeman – what had he missed on this amphibious excursion?

  Upper Wrackstead Dyke was a peaceful spot as the dinghy came sculling back to its moorings. The children were at school, the river-dwellers about their business and the sun shining hot on cottage, willows and boats. Only Thatcher was brought to his cabin door by the sound of the approaching oars.

  ‘Blast, bor!’ he commented. ‘Yew din’t want a boot for long!’

  Gently shrugged and cast a speculative eye over the deserted scene. So quiet it was, so still.

  ‘An look what yew’ve done t’her – she in’t half in a pickle! Yew din’t tell me yew’d be a-jammin’ about in the carrs!’

  ‘Here’s half a crown for the mess.’

  ‘Ah, an’ worth evra penna.’

  ‘What’s that wire-net contraption with handle you’ve got on the cabin roof?’

  Thatcher turned about to look. His cabin roof was a depository for all sorts of superannuated junk.

  ‘Yew mean this here?’

  ‘Yes – what’s it for?’

  ‘W’blast, tha’s a dydle, and they use it for dydlin’ out dykes.’

  ‘You can dredge in the mud with it?’

  ‘W’yes, tha’s what tha’s for.’

  ‘I’d like to borrow it … it’s worth another five bob.’

  With the dydle securely lashed to the roof-rack, they set out in the Wolseley. Gently was in an effervescent, schoolboy mood. You would almost have thought he was off on a treat.

  ‘We’re going to Ollby, sir?’

  Dutt was a little put out by his senior’s unwillingness to confide in him.

  ‘Yes, Dutt – Ollby ho!’

  ‘You reckon we’ll find something, sir?’

  ‘I reckon we stand a chance, Dutt … a very good chance!’

  Dutt jiffled a little. How like Gently it was, this irritating mysteriousness when he thought he had the scent!

  ‘Might I ask what we’ll be looking for, sir?’

  Gently grinned into his driving-mirror.

  ‘Let me put it to you, Dutt … I like to benefit by your Cockney common sense! Suppose you’d just popped off Lammas and you were going ahead with the cremation programme. Would you, or wouldn’t you be in a bit of a hurry?’

  ‘I’d be in a hurry, sir … too flipping true I would!’

  ‘And being in this hurry, suppose you discovered something on Lammas which, if even a trace of it were found, would give the game away – and which might not burn satisfactorily. What would you do with it?’

  Dutt hesitated cautiously.

  ‘Somethink which might be missed, sir?’

  ‘No – quite the contrary – somethink which would never be missed.’

  ‘Then I’d sling it overboard, sir, always provided it would sink nicely.’

  Gently nodded complacently.

  ‘That’s just how I argued.’

  ‘But what is this somethink, sir?’

  ‘Ah … that remains to be seen!’

  Nothing had changed at Ollby Quay, except that the wreck was missing and the smell of burning grown stale. Now that the wreck was gone the charred trees seemed a little unreal and ashamed of themselves. They presented such a woeful contrast to the smiling reed-and-alder bounded pool with its rampant lilies, its white-flowered plants and its domestic water-hens.

  ‘What a place to commit murder!’

  Gently brooded over it pensively a moment as he unbuttoned his jacket.

  ‘You’d think people would have more sense … it’s only a failure who would kill! Here, give me the net. I’ve always fancied my chances with one.’

  Dutt willingly surrendered the dydle, which, with its generous twelve feet of handle, was no sinecure.

  ‘We may have to get a boat up here – it depends on what sort of sling the fellow had.’

  Gently considered the spot where the yacht had lain, then dipped in at the far side of the dyke on which the quay fronted. The water didn’t run deep, but there was some exquisitely resistance-less mud beneath it. Some business it was going to be, finding anything in that lot …

  He trawled off a netful and drew it laboriously to the bank.

  ‘Roll your sleeves up, Dutt – you’re in this too!’ Together they went through it, getting muddied to the elbows. It had a peculiarly viscous quality, that mud; you knew you’d been amongst it. And the sum total of the catch was a number of fresh-water mussel shells …

  Gently tried again. One really couldn’t expect impossible luck! He trawled along the dyke carefully and systematically, trying to cover the whole area of the dyke adjacent to where the yacht had been. And slowly the grey-drying pile on the bank grew larger, and Dutt and himself muddier, and the collection of mussel shells more representative. There wasn’t even an old tin to diversify the proceedings. Not even some broken glass.

  ‘Have a go with the net, sir?’

  It was anything for a change.

  Gently wiped a streaming brow with a muddy hand and passed over the dydle.

  ‘I’ve just about covered the dyke … try your luck in the pool. Come to think of it, it’s probably the likelier place.’

  He scrubbed his hands in the grass and got out his pipe. There was no doubt that a professional dydler would earn all he could make at the job! He ought to have requisitioned a boat and some Constables … that would have been the way to tackle it. But when you got hold of a lucky break it gave you a feeling of inevitability.

  Dutt brought in his first netful. Even the mussel shells were getting scarce. Solemnly they felt their way through the atrocious mixture, the obscene a
nd glutinous mixture. And then … and then …

  ‘Here sir, would this be anythink?’

  It was Dutt who made the strike. From a handful of mud he was separating a smallish, horse-shoe-shaped object, part of which gleamed rosily through its porridge-like envelopment.

  Gently almost held his breath.

  ‘Go on, Dutt … scrape the mud off it!’

  Dutt obliged, with a look of perplexity.

  ‘Now – you tell me! What have we got?’

  ‘Well … it’s half a set of choppers!’

  ‘Yes, Dutt … half a set of choppers – and they’re going to hang a certain party!’

  He seized on the object in triumph and straightened a back which had suddenly ceased to ache. Here it was, the unarguable proof – the final fact, the fact that hung!

  Dutt stared dumbly at the muddied denture. ‘But I don’t quite see, sir—’ he was beginning, when two things happened which he didn’t see either. The first was a vicious hiss from across the pool and a rattling crash in the twigs behind them. The second was Gently’s tackle that sent him flying face-first into the mud.

  ‘Keep flat!’ bawled Gently, ‘Keep your head down on the ground. If you show a couple of inches you’ll maybe stop a .22 bullet between the eyes!’

  The rotten planks of the quay gave a modicum of cover, but they looked uncomfortably penetrable. Gently eased himself towards them until he could peer through one of the gaps. Not a sound, not a movement came from the direction from which the shot had been fired. Over there it was all green reeds and a single, scrubby alder. To get there one would have to skirt the dyke and make a rush through the slopping marsh and tangled undergrowth … a perfect target all the way. He had picked his spot well, the man with the gun.

  ‘Can you see him, sir?’

  Dutt was spitting the mud out of his mouth.

  ‘No, Dutt – and we shan’t! He doesn’t want to be seen.’

  ‘You don’t think he’s hooked it, sir, after taking a pot?’

  ‘Not him … this is too important. He’s got us on his list.’

  By way of testing the hypothesis Gently reached across for his jacket, which was lying folded under a bush. He rolled it into a tight wad and suddenly poked it up above the level of the planks. Almost simultaneously a bullet kicked it out of his hand…

  ‘That’s tidy shooting with a silenced .22!’

  ‘Here, but wait a minute, sir!’

  Dutt had crawled up beside him.

  ‘We’ve got a banger too – I never signed in that Webley yesterday!’

  Gently stared. ‘You mean we’ve got it here?’

  ‘Yessir. Right up there in me pocket.’

  ‘In your pocket!’ Gently craned his head. Dutt’s jacket was hanging on a snag, about three yards behind them.

  ‘If we can get that down we’ll have this geezer in a jam, sir. It’s the old .38, and I know which I’d sooner be behind!’

  ‘Also it’ll make a noise.’ A gleam came into Gently’s eye. ‘But how the devil are we going to get it down, with Davy Crockett sitting in the rushes?’

  Tantalizingly the jacket hung there, only just hooked on to a snag. A quick spring … a sweep of the arm! But a vigilant bullet was waiting for just such a move.

  ‘We’ll have to knock it off with the dydle, Dutt.’

  Dutt pulled a face. ‘A fine mess it’ll make.’

  ‘So would a bullet in the back – even a little .22!’

  Gently squirmed towards the dydle, trying to keep himself perfectly flat. He couldn’t quite have succeeded, since when he was halfway towards it there was a warning hiss and something plucked a loose part of his shirt.

  ‘That lad’s quite a marksman. I wonder what he’ll be like when someone’s firing back!’

  But he managed to get the dydle and tow it back to where Dutt was crouching.

  Now came the difficult part – raising the dydle to the level of the jacket. Dydles were no light-weights and the amount of leverage one could get while in a prone position was inconsiderable, to say the least.

  ‘Let’s anchor the butt-end under the planks.’

  It was done and they both braced themselves.

  ‘We want to get it first time – we shall have to show ourselves a bit!’

  How they managed it remained a mystery. A couple of bullets sliced by as the dydle wavered in mid-air. Then it fell with a thump, a white flake carved from the haft … and wonder of wonders, Dutt’s jacket had come down on top of it! Gently hooked it up with his toe. Yes … the Webley was still in the pocket. He slipped off the safety-catch and spun the magazine.

  ‘To the left of that tree, sir – I see the rushes twitching!’

  Gently had seen them too, but it wasn’t at the rushes that he aimed. When the healthy crash of the .38 rang out a bough shivered in the solitary alder … and there followed the splashes of hastily retreating footsteps.

  ‘Let me get after him, sir!’ Dutt was on his feet in a moment. ‘Just give me that gun – I’ll teach him the way to shoot at people!’

  Gently signified a negative and rose more leisuredly.

  ‘You’d be easy meat, Dutt. He couldn’t ask anything better than for you to follow him in there.’

  ‘But we can’t let him go, sir – he’s the bloke what we’re after! And if he’s in that marsh we can stow him up with a cordon—!’

  Gently shook his head again and clicked the safety back on the Webley.

  ‘No cordons, Dutt, and no following … there’s been enough bloodshed round here already. And I want him alive when I get him. I doubt whether I should, if we stowed him up with a cordon.’

  ‘But you can’t just let him go!’ It outraged all Dutt’s police-instincts. ‘If we don’t get him now we may never have another chance, sir. And don’t forget we never see him – we can’t swear to who he was if we don’t catch him!’

  Gently smiled a frosty smile. He weighed the Webley in his hand.

  ‘But we know who he was, Dutt … we knew from the very first bullet. And we know where to find him – because he doesn’t know we know! Now let’s forget about the drama and do some routine work on this denture. When it comes to the fun and games, you’ll get your share along with the rest!’

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  THERE WAS A little more animation about Upper Wrackstead in the middle of the afternoon. For one thing it was early closing in the village and some of the river-dwellers worked there. For another, it was the hour of gossip, when all the chores ought to have been done. And then there were freelances like Pedro, who couldn’t make up their minds to work in the afternoon and others like Thatcher, who didn’t work anyway.

  Quite a number were there to witness Gently drive up alone in the police Wolseley.

  He locked the doors casually and took his time about getting off the dydle. A couple of kids stopped chasing each other to stand and drink in the spectacle.

  ‘When are y’going t’lock up Mrs Grey, mister?’

  Gently grinned at them amiably.

  ‘She did for old Annie – she did, din’t she?’

  ‘Sid – Teddy!’

  It was the slattern screeching from her companion hatch.

  ‘Just yew come away from there an stop cheekin’ the pleeceman!’

  Reluctantly the youngsters heeded the voice of fate.

  Gently shouldered the dydle and humped it over to Thatcher’s houseboat. The gentleman in question lay snoring on his cabin-top, his hands clasped sedately over his shapely paunch. Not far away sat Pedro. He was playing sadly on his concertina. The nostalgic Italian music seemed somehow to harmonize with Thatcher’s magnificent snore.

  ‘Oi!’

  Thatcher broke off in mid-thunder.

  ‘I’ve brought your dydle back.’

  The recumbent figure sat up slowly and scratched its ear.

  ‘Yew din’t have to wake me up … I was havin’ a lovela sleep! An what ha’y’ been dewin’ with my dydle – tha’s got a lump took outta the han
dle!’

  Gently shrugged and handed it up to him.

  ‘It’s fair wear-and-tear.’

  ‘Not a lump like that i’nt! I suppose yew’ll tell me a pike bit it?’

  ‘You wouldn’t be so far out.’

  Gently moved a few steps towards Cheerful Annie’s wherry and Pedro, his legs dangling over the bows, stopped playing a moment. But Gently seemed to change his mind. He turned back to where Thatcher was tenderly replacing the dydle with his other junk.

  ‘Ah well … just one more bit of business! I want the dinghy again.’

  ‘What arter the way yew messed her up this mornin?’

  ‘I shan’t mess her up this afternoon.’

  Thatcher hesitated doubtfully. The nick out of the dydle seemed to have dropped his opinion of policemen by a few points.

  ‘That i’nt them carrs again, I s’pose?’

  ‘No – it’s that old mill across on the other bank.’

  ‘Yew can mess a boot up there, dew yew’re got a mind to.’

  ‘You come with me and keep me out of mischief.’

  Thatcher fingered the obnoxious bullet-score pointedly. It was almost humorous to watch his mind working …

  ‘Verra well, my man! Five bob – take it or leave it.’

  ‘It’s too much, you old sinner. But I’ll take it – if you row!’

  Thatcher climbed down from the cabin-top and drew in the dinghy. Everyone was watching as Gently stepped aboard. Thatcher winked at them ponderously over the policeman’s shoulder … he’d got his head screwed on, the wink seemed to say.

  ‘Are yew all set, ole partna?’

  Gently was arranging his feet.

  ‘Then here w’go, an’ the best of luck!’

  On the bows of the wherry Pedro continued to play his sentimental tune. It followed them for quite a distance as the dinghy turned downstream.

  ‘I’ve just about finished, ole partna.’

  Gently could slip easily into an imitation of Thatcher’s vernacular.

  ‘We’ll ha done by s’arternoon, an leave yew all t’get on with it, together.’