Gently Between Tides

by Alan Hunter

  ‘We’ve got your letter. She received it yesterday.’

  ‘Don’t talk stupid – that was last week!’

  ‘So you knew her. You wrote her letters, and she used to visit you on this yacht. She has been here, in this cabin, sitting, lying on one of these berths.’

  ‘Oh, sod it. Sod everything!’

  ‘We have a witness who saw her here. And I can see how she might have become inconvenient when you were working a meal-ticket like Myrtle.’

  Shavers bored at a bunk-board with his fist, his grimy face working tormentedly. Unmoved, Gently went on puffing, peering at Shavers through wreaths of smoke.

  ‘She could have tried to screw you.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that!’

  ‘So tell me how it was.’

  ‘You’d only laugh . . . a man like me and a peach of a skirt like Hannah.’

  ‘Why would I laugh?’

  ‘Because . . .’

  ‘Let’s start at the beginning. How did you meet her?’

  It was grotesque: you got the feeling that Shavers was on the point of bursting into tears. He was hugging himself, turned away from the lamp, a lock of hair fallen over his face.

  ‘Her engine conked out. That’s how I met her.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Well, that’s how it was. One day when I was on board. I got out the dinghy and towed her in.’

  ‘When did this happen?’

  ‘Last June some time.’

  ‘You’re sure it wasn’t earlier?’

  ‘It was just after my birthday, and that’s June 22nd.’

  Gently blew a ring. ‘She came on board.’

  ‘Yes, but it isn’t what you think! She wasn’t that sort, Hannah wasn’t, and I didn’t haul her on to a bunk. She’d got class, you understand? I don’t know how to tell you . . . She was a foreigner, for one thing. She’d got a funny way of talking.’

  ‘Just your style.’

  ‘Listen, Chiefie, I know my way about too! I’ve had women from here till breakfast, I thought I could make the grade with a duchess. But Hannah was different somehow . . . more like a sister. Like that.’

  ‘And you never touched her.’

  ‘We just . . . talked.’

  ‘She kept coming back – and you just talked.’

  ‘So bleeding laugh, I don’t care. But I never laid a finger on her. You could talk to her, tell her things, more than any skirt I’ve ever met. I told her what sort of villain I was and it never set her against me. I told her about Myrtle, about the pub. Somehow you felt she’d understand.’

  ‘Wasn’t it dangerous to open up like that?’

  Shavers shook his head impatiently. He was staring at the cabin-sole, not at Gently, and kneading his hands between his knees.

  ‘Hannah was all right. She didn’t come often, just on the bottom of the ebb. Then she’d take the flood back. When the tide was wrong, she went the other way.’

  ‘Didn’t you meet her up there?’

  ‘No. Nor I didn’t go to her place, either. It was always on the yacht. That’s what she wanted, and that’s the way it was. I tell you, she was more like a sister, someone you could talk to who wasn’t against you. There was something special about Hannah . . . I can’t put it into words.’

  ‘Did you mention her to Myrtle?’

  ‘Do me a favour. Why should I cut my own throat?’

  ‘Did she never find out?’

  ‘No, she didn’t. She’s used to me sodding off to the yacht. Up there on the mooring is out of the way, I’m the last buoy upriver. Some of the lads round here might have spotted it, but they wouldn’t have shopped me to Myrtle.’

  ‘So what about the letter?’

  ‘I tell you, that was last week, when I wasn’t sure I could make it.’ He dragged on his hands. ‘I didn’t know then that it was going to be the last time I’d see her.’

  ‘It was the last time?’

  ‘Bloody yes.’

  ‘Nobody could have seen her with you yesterday.’

  ‘Look, Chiefie, the sodding tide was wrong – it had started running up by half-past two.’

  ‘Which would have taken you upstream.’

  He rocked his shoulders. ‘Can’t I get you to understand? If I’d gone up to Shinglebourne on the top of the tide, it would have taken me four hours to get back. That bleeding dinghy isn’t a speedboat, and I was back at the pub by five.’

  ‘But you have a car, don’t you?’

  His eyes were wary. ‘What’s my car got to do with it?’

  ‘Tides don’t bother a car, and there’s a place where the road runs close to the river.’

  ‘So what about that?’

  But fear was back; you could smell it in the smoke-filled cabin. Gently took a few puffs off, his eye considering Shavers.

  ‘Did you have your car out?’

  ‘Well – yes. I was getting my gear out, wasn’t I?’

  ‘So then you could have made a little trip. Like down the back road by Bodney Church.’

  ‘What are you getting at?’

  ‘Didn’t you?’

  ‘So help me, I never did.’

  ‘To the place where you can get down to the bank – where there’s deep water and a pull-up?’

  ‘But I didn’t!’

  ‘Still, you know where I mean.’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I know—’

  ‘You didn’t meet her there?’

  ‘Christ, no.’ Shavers stared, his jaw slowly dropping. ‘Is that where . . .?’

  Gently went on puffing. Shaver’s eyes had a stunned look. He swallowed several times, his dirty hands clasped tight.

  ‘How . . .?’

  Gently said nothing.

  ‘But why? Why her?’

  ‘Perhaps she was in someone’s way.’

  ‘Not Hannah – not her.’

  ‘If she knew too much . . .’

  Shavers still looked shocked. ‘It’s just bleeding unfair, that’s all! There’s others that no bastard would miss . . . but Hannah. Who’d play a sodding trick like that?’

  Was he acting? On a previous occasion he had been through Gently’s hands, and then he had proved a facile liar, but never bright enough to make it stick. And the line he was taking was unexpected: Gently found himself unable to make up his mind.

  ‘You say she just came to talk?’

  ‘I swear it!’

  ‘Then she would have talked about herself.’

  ‘Well, a bit, she did. But you know me – it was mostly me talking and her listening.’

  ‘Did she mention any men?’

  ‘She wasn’t that sort—’

  ‘Did she name any man to you?’

  Shavers stared for a while. ‘Like the man she worked for, and her dad. And a bloke at the yacht club.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘She didn’t say his name. Just that he’d taken her out in his boat . . . could that shit have done it?’

  ‘Who else?’

  ‘Another bloke at the club. A doctor.’

  Gently sighed to himself.

  ‘Now listen, Chick. When you said you were up the creek you were right. You knew the victim, you had opportunity, and I can think of a couple of fat motives. So if you’re innocent you’d better speak up and tell me anything else you know. Because if you don’t, it’s ten to one that Inspector Leyston will be feeling your collar.’

  ‘But for chrissake, Chiefie, I don’t know anything! If I did, I’d bloody tell you. I want you to catch the bastard too. If I knew who it was, I’d kick his head in.’

  ‘Just bear it in mind, that’s all.’

  Shavers gulped. ‘Are you taking me in?’

  Gently stared and blew smoke-rings for several moments, then shook his head. ‘Just stay around.’

  ‘You believe me, Chiefie!’

  ‘I believe nothing.’

  ‘And you aren’t going to queer me up with Myrtle?’

  Gently shrugged, and got to his feet.

 
‘Try to think up a good tale to tell her . . .’

  Outside the dark and the mist combined to make the bank an awkward obstacle course. Sutton sat waiting in the car with Leyston; getting in, it was to the former that Gently turned.

  ‘How long have you been stationed at Harford?’

  ‘Just on two years, sir.’

  ‘Five years ago they were running cannabis in here. The ring was broken up. Shavers was one of them; he’s done his time, and for all I know he’s going straight. For your information, the stuff came from Scheveningen in a ketch called Seven Seas, captain Hans Kloostermans.’

  ‘You want an eye kept on Shavers, sir?’

  ‘Just bringing you up to date. I doubt if there is anything going on now, but if you spot a Dutchman, report at once.’

  Leyston said dully: ‘Do we take Shavers with us?’

  ‘We shall need witnesses to break his story.’

  Leyston made no comment. He was smoking a cigarette and staring ahead into the mist.

  Down there, when Gently switched on his lights, the visibility was barely twenty yards.

  FOUR

  A WAY FROM THE river the mist was less dense, except for occasional swirling patches, and along the fringe of the forest the pallid maples stepped out like a succession of looming ghosts. At the Maltings it was thick again, with a fuzz of light denoting a pub that neighboured the bridge; then they lost it altogether when the road struck higher ground towards the town.

  As he drove, Gently gave Leyston a synopsis of the interview with Shavers. The local man listened silently, at most interjecting a curt monosyllable. Well – perhaps Gently would have felt the same! Yet if Leyston had sat in, Shavers would never have opened up; while if he had handed over to the sad-faced Inspector Shavers might have buttoned his lip entirely. To a certain extent Shavers had been right: he and Gently spoke the same language. They knew the game . . . and perhaps it was this, most of all, that was offending poor Leyston.

  At the station Leyston’s sergeant, Mason, waited with the results of the search of the river bank. All they had found was a spot among the gorses where apparently two people were in the habit of lying down.

  ‘The grass was flattened . . . I’d say the spot had been used pretty often. There were patches of bare earth as though they might have put down a ground-sheet.’

  ‘How far into the bushes?’

  ‘Not far, but you have to push between bushes to get to it.’

  So over a period, perhaps all summer, there had been rendezvous at that secret place, with Hannah, or her lover, coming prepared for damp grass. Perhaps Shavers had told the truth, and her visits to him had been quite innocent – because wasn’t he another lame duck, like the Group Captain, with whom she might have found a tenuous compatibility? No need for him, if she had been his mistress, to go carting ground-sheets into the gorses: also there had been another point about which he could have seen no reason to lie.

  ‘May I use your phone?’

  Capel answered the phone as though he’d been waiting for it to ring.

  ‘Listen . . . I would like to know the exact date when you saw Mrs Stoven.’

  ‘Half a mo till I find her card . . . it was the twenty-second of May. I made a test, and she called in the next day for the result.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I say, are you joining us for a meal?’

  ‘Sorry, but I doubt if I shall be through.’

  He hung up, and met Leyston’s resentful eye.

  ‘About Shavers. One small problem.’

  ‘A problem . . .?’

  ‘He says he met Stoven first at the end of June, but it was May twenty-second when she went for a pregnancy test.’

  Leyston looked down his nose.

  ‘So if he’s telling the truth . . .’

  ‘There must have been another man, since May at least.’

  Leyston stared blankly: perhaps he thought Gently was going to produce him out of a bag.

  ‘Shavers is an ex-con.’

  ‘I doubt if he was lying.’

  ‘But all the same . . . if there was another man, Shavers might have got to know and caught them at it, and finished her off in a row.’

  ‘Yes – he might.’

  But did it square, either with Shavers’ character or hers? Shavers was vulnerable and he was no fool: he wouldn’t easily be tempted to step out of line. While Hannah, for her part, would probably never even have hinted to him that she had another interest.

  ‘To get him, we’ll have to break his alibi, but the other man is our top priority. Have you talked to her employer?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Let’s see if he can fill us in.’

  Leyston sniffed, and rose reluctantly; clearly, he was liking the idea of Shavers.

  Considering the modest size of the town, Claydon’s Bookshop was ambitious; it had three large windows to the street and combined the sale of books with fancy goods. One entered a spacious, well-lit store that smelled of paper and printing ink, with access on one side to the fancy goods section and on the other to a secondhand book department. Girls in pastel overalls manned the counters, where a few late customers still lingered. The book stock was large and looked intelligently arranged, though here and there bookshelves showed gaps.

  ‘Where is Mr Claydon?’

  ‘He’s in the office.’

  The girl behind the counter was pretty and smiling. She threw a curious look at Leyston, whom no doubt she recognized.

  ‘When do you close?’

  ‘Well, we’re closed now, actually . . .’

  ‘I would be obliged if the staff stayed behind for a few minutes. Just to answer a couple of questions.’

  Her smile faded slightly. ‘I’ll tell the others . . .’

  They went through into a stock-room, in the corner of which was a minute office. It was barely large enough to contain the desk, typist’s table and filing-cabinets with which it was cluttered. At the desk a small, spare man in black-framed glasses sat squinting at an open analysis-book. Other account books were ranged around him, and a cigarette burned on an ashtray at his elbow.

  ‘Mr Claydon?’

  The man started and gazed up at him. Behind the glasses, his eyes looked huge.

  ‘Yes? What is it?’

  Gently introduced himself and inserted his bulky frame into the office.

  ‘What is it you want?’ Claydon’s stare was unfriendly.

  ‘We are making enquiries about one of your employees.’

  ‘Who? What employee?’

  ‘Mrs Stoven.’

  ‘Her!’

  ‘We would like to know what you can tell us about her.’

  Claydon’s mouth opened a little to show small, nicotine-stained teeth. He grabbed nervously for the cigarette and inhaled some quick puffs.

  ‘What has she been up to?’

  ‘Have you heard no news about her?’

  ‘News . . .? What should I have heard?’

  ‘Perhaps you should prepare yourself for a shock, Mr Claydon. Mrs Stoven has met with an accident.’

  ‘An accident!’

  ‘When did you last see her?’

  Claydon puffed hard on the cigarette. The hand holding it was trembling, and he was squinting as though the smoke were stinging his eyes.

  ‘Are you telling me she’s dead?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘Oh my God! How – how did it happen?’

  ‘We’ll come to that. When was she last here?’

  ‘Yesterday. Yesterday morning she got out the wages.’

  ‘Did she mention any plans for the afternoon?’

  ‘Wait . . . she said she was going out in her boat.’

  He was plainly shaken. The cigarette kept bobbing, and his eyes weren’t seeing Gently. His sallow, rather foxy face had gone a shade paler.

  ‘Was it . . . drowning?’

  The words seemed forced from him.

  ‘Mrs Stoven was attacked.’

  ‘O
h no. Who did it?’

  ‘We are hoping you may be able to help us.’

  He stubbed out the cigarette, but then at once lit another; already, the ashtray was overflowing with a score or more of stubs. His fingers were deeply stained and the squint seemed a permanent habit. After a number of heavy drags, he gestured shakily to the account books.

  ‘This couldn’t have happened at a worse time. I don’t know what she’s been up to. And now, if it’s as you say . . . well, it’s just one disaster after another . . .’

  ‘She kept your books?’

  He nodded. ‘It was my accountant who suggested her. She went to him for a job, but he didn’t have a vacancy. So I took her on, one day and two mornings a week, keeping the books, paying accounts, working out the wages and handling the mail. She could do it, she was trained. I raised her money a couple of times. But I thought I ought to keep in touch with the books . . . this afternoon, I’ve been going through them.’

  ‘Is there a discrepancy?’

  ‘It’s double dutch! Look, can you figure out this writing?’

  He pointed to the column headings in the analysis-book, abbreviations scribbled in a spidery hand.

  ‘I can work out some of it from the figures, but most of it is a mystery – and now what the devil am I going to do? Only, one thing is wretchedly plain.’

  He took more drags, his eyes watering.

  ‘Do you suspect Mrs Stoven of embezzlement?’

  ‘No, not that . . . I don’t see how it’s possible. The cash she handled always checked, and of course the cheques she made out I signed myself. No, Hannah was honest, I’ll swear to that, but how am I ever to sort this lot out? And that’s not the worst of it . . . she’s allowed the VAT to run, and never thought to warn me.’

  ‘Could that be serious?’

  The cigarette bobbled. ‘I’ve got to pay it by the end of the month. If I don’t, I’ll have them in here . . . somewhere, I’ve got to find it up.’

  ‘Is it for much?’

  ‘On fancy goods and stationery . . . it’s more than I know how to lay my hands on.’

  He sat staring miserably at the spread-out books, looking not unlike an elderly schoolboy. A slight figure, he was clad in a charcoal pinstripe, with a black bow tie dragged a little awry.

  ‘How well did you know Mrs Stoven?’

  ‘Meaning . . . what?’

  ‘Did you know her before she became an employee?’