by Alan Hunter
‘Well, I suppose that covers the case in outline.’
Relief showed in Griffin’s face, and the super could not repress an audible sigh.
‘If you’ll let me have the reports I’ll go through them this evening. Tomorrow, perhaps, we can do a little checking.’
They rose and shook hands, the super now cordial in his expressions of goodwill and offers of cooperation. A car would be at their disposal, an office was set aside for them. The super personally had booked them rooms at the St George Hotel, which they could see across the square.
Gently thanked him and left clutching Griffin’s well-stuffed file. Dutt tagged along behind him, a gloomy expression on his cockney features.
‘They certainly pick them for us, don’t they, sir?’
Gently grunted and tapped out his pipe on his heel.
‘Everythink cut and dried – except they haven’t got the leading suspects. So they calls us in to produce them out of a flipping hat.’
Gently pocketed his pipe and paused in the cobbled centre of the square. Such a quiet, quiet town! The bells of St Margaret’s sounded like a complacent benediction, the pigeons had settled finally to roost on the tower of a little church.
It might have been an artist’s picture of provincial peace and lawfulness.
‘We’ll check the hotels though … you can do it tomorrow. There’s an outside chance of a lead on Ames and Roscoe.’
‘Yessir. But if I don’t find nothink?’
Gently shrugged. ‘You know as well as I do. We’re here to scrape the barrel. After that it’s just a question of waiting for those two to turn up … it’s difficult to hide for ever in a country as small as this.’
CHAPTER THREE
THE ST GEORGE Hotel was one of those modest paragons of innkeeping virtue which, where they occur, are usually played down and kept quiet about; it was unmistakably a good thing.
Another example of the coaching inn, it had an unimpressive plastered front no larger than the average public house. But when you went through into the courtyard you saw the extent of the four sides, and heard without surprise that there were forty rooms available.
Gently lingered at the desk as he and Dutt booked in.
‘Did you have any guests who left hurriedly on Good Friday … they would probably have been here a fortnight or so?’
The receptionist, a dark, strong-faced woman, looked thoughtful and then shook her head.
‘As you see from the book, sir, we had nobody leave over the weekend.’
‘What about these people?’
He showed her the photographs.
‘I can’t be certain, but I don’t think we’ve ever had them here.’
They had roast pork for supper and after it a liqueur brandy with a cigar. Gently leafed through Griffin’s file while they sat in the lounge. It gave chapter and verse for everything the inspector had told him, but added nothing which struck one as being the least bit suggestive.
‘All well – we’ll sleep on it!’
That was often a good recipe. One’s mind sometimes sorted things out during the dark hours.
They retired to spacious rooms with enormous sash windows, and beds so large that you hardly knew where to start on them. And after London, the quietness seemed almost uncanny.
The morning showed grey with a chilling east wind. Gently had ordered three papers and he had got a press notice in each of them. At breakfast he was warned that there were reporters waiting in the hall, and he put on his most wooden expression when he went down with Dutt.
‘Are you expecting to make quick progress?’
‘I can’t say at this stage.’
‘Do you think Ames and Roscoe are in Lynton?’
‘We have no indication.’
‘Taylor double-crossed them, did he?’
‘On the facts the theory is feasible.’
They took some photographs which he knew would portray him villainously, and hastened away to catch the lunchtime editions.
‘Phew!’ Dutt scratched his head and made an expression of comical disgust. ‘They aren’t half keen on this one, sir – we’re going to be in the flipping headlines.’
He despatched Dutt to Headquarters to get a list of the hotels and himself set off in the direction of the mill. It was Wednesday, one of the two market days, which brought an influx of country people. There were more stalls in the square than had been there on the previous evening.
In the Abbey Gardens the east wind was chopping off the cherry blossom, scattering it in drifts about the gravel walks. The dull sky made the town seem frigid and unfriendly. People went about with faces which were glum and set.
An exception was the mill itself, which somehow exerted an air of benevolence. It may have been the jolly thumping of the naphtha engine or the sweet, warm smell of grain; and then there were whiffs of new bread from the bakehouse, and the general disreputable appearance of the whole.
Gently tapped at the door of the office and entered.
The man with the dark bushy hair was standing at the door of the screen talking, but he broke off and closed it as his visitor came in.
‘Can I do something for you?’
‘I’d like to have a talk …’
‘Oh – you’re from the police, are you?’
‘Chief Inspector Gently, C.I.D., Central Office.’
Griffin was right again, the man impressed one unfavourably. A quick flush had come over his bold features and his brown eyes darted away uneasily.
He was not unhandsome; he was about fifty. Without being tall he looked muscular, his shoulders broad and a little rounded.
He had a tenor voice with a careless provincial accent.
‘I heard they’d called the Yard in, but I thought they’d have finished with this side of it.’
‘We always like to make our own check … Mr Fuller, is it?’
‘That’s right – I’m the boss here.’
‘I’d like you to show me round the mill, Mr Fuller. But first I wanted to have a private talk with you.’
‘Mary!’
Fuller turned his head and jerked out the word. The rather pretty girl whom Gently had seen from the café came to the door of the screen.
‘Mary, be a sport and fetch my Mills and Milling from the bookstall … I’d have a tea break, too. I shan’t be wanting you for half an hour.’
Mary took the hint and departed, not daring to throw a glance at Gently. Fuller watched her disappear round the corner before motioning Gently towards a chair.
‘You’ve talked to Inspector Griffin, of course?’
Gently nodded and seated himself.
‘Well, I don’t know what else I can tell you, though I’ll be happy to help all I can.’
He was putting a bold front on it, but a child could see that he was nervous. He was having to stop his mouth from twitching and his eyes moved restlessly from object to object. Instead of sitting he remained leaning awkwardly against the screen.
‘With regard to keys, Mr Fuller …’
‘They’re with me and Mr Blythely – oh, and Mr Pershore, he could have a set.’
‘You mean the owner of the property?’
‘Yes – he might have some, don’t you think?’
‘Mmn.’ Gently didn’t sound impressed. ‘But they wouldn’t be strictly necessary?’
‘Not to get into the mill. There’s three or four busted windows … we’ve had kids roaming round there before. The engine-room needs a key, but that’s about all, I reckon.’
‘Isn’t it rather tempting providence?’
‘It’s the same with every mill.’
‘Do you close the gates, for instance?’
‘There’s no point in it. You can get in through the drying-ground at the back.’
So the mill had been wide open, beckoning to any passer-by. Late at night you could have run a car into the yard, provided Blythely didn’t hear you from the bakehouse.
‘You don’t remember any strangers
about the place?’
‘I can’t say I do.’
‘It seems credible to you that a stranger could have got in and dumped that body in the hopper?’
‘If they could get into the place what was to stop them dumping the body?’
Nothing, of course. Nothing at all. But why then was Fuller nervous? Was it just a natural reaction towards being questioned by a policeman, or was it something other and more interesting?
‘They tell me you’ve got quite a good Midland League side at Lynton.’
Fuller’s eyes found him quickly, alarmed at a question the drift of which he couldn’t fathom.
‘Yes, it’s not bad. They won the East Counties Cup on Friday.’
‘You didn’t see the match, naturally.’
‘How could I, with all this business going on? In any case, we work on Good Fridays.’
‘You follow them, though, do you?’
‘I suppose so, when I get the chance.’
‘Do you have a flutter sometimes?’
‘A flutter?’
Fuller could sense a danger which he was unable to identify.
‘I don’t bet a lot, if that’s what you mean. Just a quid now and then on something I fancy.’
‘You prefer to watch them, I expect.’
‘I do, as a matter of fact.’
‘Were you at Newmarket, for example, when they ran the Spring Handicap three weeks ago?’
‘I – no – yes, yes, I was! But what the devil has that got to do with it?’
Gently shook his head indifferently. ‘Nothing, I dare say. Unless you chanced to meet up with Taylor and his pals on the racetrack.’
Fuller didn’t do what he expected, jumping in with protestations of innocence. Instead he remained quite silent, his flush deepening and his lips tightened to control their quivering.
The pounding of the engine across the yard seemed to be vibrating the whole universe.
‘Would you believe me if I said I didn’t?’
‘Why not?’ Gently shrugged. ‘I’ve got no evidence.’
‘I didn’t, you know – I was there with my wife! She’ll swear I was with her every damned minute.’
‘Then I won’t press the point.’
‘But you don’t believe me, do you?’
‘It is immaterial for me to believe what I can’t prove, Mr Fuller.’
Again he was expecting an outburst and again it failed to come. The miller relapsed into an angry silence and stood digging with his nail at a crack in the varnished screen. Outside, two men in dusty denim jackets went lurching across the yard with a coomb sack of grain between them.
‘Can we go over your statement, perhaps?’
‘It’s been gone over – time and time again.’
‘All the same, I’d like my personal impression.’
‘I tell you they’ve had it all – Griffin’s never stopped getting at me.’
‘Wasn’t it at six p.m. when you locked the mill up?’
There was something there, and Gently went after it pitilessly. Griffin had smelt it with his conscientious nostrils, and now Gently had caught the selfsame odour. It was unlikely but it was there – and in the first instance one simply took up the pursuit.
‘What happened when you arrived at The Spreadeagle?’
‘I had some beer and played a game of darts.’
‘And after that?’
‘We had our dinner. It went on till midnight. A lot of people made speeches – you know the sort of thing. A bit near the knuckle, and smuttier as they went on.’
‘You were at table till midnight?’
‘I won’t swear to the hour.’
‘You were not absent, I mean?’
‘I – well, I may have gone to the toilet.’
After dinner the affair became a little more muddled. Almost everyone was drunk or well on the way. There had been more speeches and songs and somebody danced on a table-top. Two revellers passed out and several were being sick in the toilet.
‘You didn’t pass out, though?’
‘No, but I was sick. We had lobster at dinner and it sometimes disagrees with me. I had to go out into the yard to retch and get some fresh air.’
‘What time was this?’
‘Oh – when we got up from dinner. It was all right when I was sitting but it hit me when I got up.’
‘You were out there alone?’
‘Is it usual to retch in pairs?’
‘How long were you out there, Mr Fuller?’
‘My God, you don’t think I timed it! I was there half an hour, perhaps – longer, it might have been. When I came back in I had a glass of tonic water. If you don’t believe me you’d better ask the waiter.’
‘So it was approximately from twelve to half past, was it?’
‘I said before that I couldn’t swear to the time.’
‘According to the proprietor the dinner was over by half past eleven. Would that mean that you were absent for an hour?’
‘Nothing of the sort! It was half an hour at the most.’
‘The Spreadeagle is only five minutes’ walk from here.’
It was a chink, but a narrow one. Fuller could easily have got to the mill and back. But with only twenty minutes to spare – his account checked well with Griffin’s findings – he would need to have been lucky to have murdered and disposed of Taylor.
‘The waiter thinks it was later than midnight when he served you with the tonic water.’
‘I didn’t say it was midnight – that’s what you tell me.’
‘We know you went outside after the dinner, but not when you came back.’
‘If the dinner ended at eleven thirty then I was back by midnight.’
Like Griffin, he found that the chink wouldn’t open. He was getting all the same replies, and it was long odds that they were true.
Unless Fuller had a motive, what was the significance of opportunity? He might have been at Newmarket, but who could swear that Taylor had been there?
As for the vomit, Griffin had duly inspected the yard and noted some …
‘You went home at three a.m., didn’t you?’
‘So the wife says. I went home when it broke up.’
‘You walked, I believe?’
‘In that condition I would hardly have driven.’
‘There are taxis, Mr Fuller.’
‘At that hour in Lynton it’s simpler to walk.’
‘Why did you empty the hopper the next morning?’
About that he talked freely. It had clearly no anxieties for him. Omitting nothing in the report, he described how the consignment of grain had been delayed, how he had put the men on the hopper, and how one of them, Fred Salmon, had fetched him out of the office.
‘We thought it was an accident … a long time ago the same thing had happened. What we couldn’t make out was who the bloke was and what he’d been doing in the mill.’
‘Did anyone act queerly?’
‘We didn’t none of us think much of it. There were a few pale gills about, but what were you going to expect?’
Just that of course, and no other. The phrase summed it up consummately. One saw the silent group of mill workers standing near their grim discovery, the un-reckoned danger of the flour-hoppers brought suddenly and unanswerably home to them.
But for the grace of God …
‘What did they say?’
‘It was me who did the talking.’
‘You’re sure nobody recognized him?’
‘I asked them and that’s what they told me.’
‘What happened then?’
‘I had him put in the sack-store out of the way. Then I phoned the police and sat trying to figure out what he’d been after in the mill. The men knocked off for a cup of tea. I didn’t find them another job until they came back after lunch.’
Now Fuller seemed uneasy again, though heavens knew why he should be. As though the straightforward discovery of the body was a little island of blame-free certitude i
n an anxious sea.
‘I still thought it was an accident, of course. It wasn’t till later they came in …’
‘It must have been a grave shock, Mr Fuller.’
The brown eyes jumped up to him. ‘Yes … but in a way …’
They remained looking at each other for a long moment, the miller unable to disengage from the treacherous rapport he had established.
‘You understand … I’d been thinking! There are two ways, and naturally …’
‘You mean that you suspected foul play?’
‘No! But it was so odd, his being there. We didn’t know him, we’d never seen him … his clothes and everything. It simply wasn’t natural. I couldn’t help feeling …’
Gently held his eyes mercilessly and let him stumble on.
‘It was a premonition, don’t you see? I suddenly felt I was in … no, not that … but it was going to make trouble. Mr Pershore wouldn’t like it, you see? He hates any scandal! And then the reputation … wouldn’t do the business any good. Altogether I had an idea … you understand me?’
He faltered to a stop, and Gently hunched a careless shoulder. So it hadn’t been a shock to Fuller when he had heard that Taylor was murdered! But then, who wouldn’t have thought about it and had his premonitions? Good Friday, as a matter of interest, had occurred on the thirteenth.
‘You were right, weren’t you? It’s made a bit of trouble.’
Fuller nodded in relief. ‘Yes … that’s what I was trying to say.’
‘Everyone was suspect even though they were in the clear.’
‘God, yes! That’s the feeling. And I could sense it coming on.’
‘But you had seen nothing to substantiate that feeling?’
‘No, not a thing.’
‘You didn’t know Taylor and you’ve never met any of these people?’
Gently displayed half a dozen photographs among which were those of Ames and Roscoe.
Fuller examined them and shook his head.
‘I don’t know any of them from Adam.’
‘Then that’s all for the moment. But now I should like to see over the mill.’
There was no help for it, he was plodding in Griffin’s footsteps. He hadn’t got an inch further than the Lynton man’s report. Fuller had roused both their interests only to lull them both to sleep again. He impressed one unfavourably, but on the balance one could attach no importance to it.
