Gently Floating

by Hunter Alan

  ‘Where to?’ Parfitt said.

  ‘I’d like to stand on the bridge,’ Gently said.

  ‘We’ll probably get knocked down,’ Parfitt said. ‘The bridge doesn’t cater for being stood on.’

  They went on to the bridge, stood facing downstream, pressing close to the grey parapet. The reach downstream was a short one and was fenced at the bend by shanty bungalows. On the left was a stretch of bare rond with a capped timber quay-heading, on the right the quays, sheds and cuttings of Harry French’s yard. On the tallest flat-topped building, in blue letters, stood: HARRY FRENCH & SON, YACHTS.

  ‘So,’ Gently said.

  ‘Down there,’ Parfitt said, ‘where the cut goes into the yacht basin. Where Caress 2 is moored. He was tied up on that corner.’

  ‘Where’s the office?’ Gently said.

  ‘In the tall building with the name on it,’ Parfitt said. ‘You come across by the toilets and a couple of store-sheds and over two bridges over slipways and along the quay.’

  ‘There are no buildings on the quay,’ Gently said.

  ‘No,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’d be dark.’

  ‘There’d be a certain amount of light from the fair,’ Gently said. ‘You’d see anybody on the quay with you.’

  ‘It dazzles a bit,’ Parfitt said. ‘French was going towards it. It was in his eyes. I think it’s possible for chummie to have nipped up behind him. If he was wearing yacht shoes, too.’

  ‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘Who lives in that bungalow?’

  ‘It’s let,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’re mostly let. I talked to the people, they didn’t hear anything. They were watching television. They come from Bradford.’

  Gently looked along the quays, down into the water. The evening flood rippled softly under the arch. The water was yellowish-brown when separated from its reflections, carried small flotsam below its surface. Two cars went by a few inches behind them. Gently said:

  ‘You wouldn’t linger here after dark. Not to notice a launch without lights going below. With all this noise and light beside you.’

  ‘But people going along the bank,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’d have the light behind them, they might have noticed.’

  ‘They might have noticed him being killed too,’ Gently said. ‘Only they didn’t, or there’d surely have been a disturbance. Look, even with this row going you’d hear the splash of a body going in, perhaps even up here. When someone falls in there’s a thumping splash, people stick their heads out to see if help’s needed. And there was this yacht moored next door to the launch, but the statements say they didn’t hear a splash. So there wasn’t a splash. He must have fallen in without one. And he was a very large man to do that.’

  ‘Chummie might have eased him in,’ Parfitt said.

  ‘Try it some day,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s have a look over the other side.’

  They crossed to the other parapet. The upstream reach was longer than the downstream. Adjacent to the bridge, on the left, was a wet boathouse, in which were moored five half-deckers with their masts lowered on crutches. Next came a run of shallow boat-sheds with five gables facing the river, beneath each gable sliding doors and slipways slanted into the water. Red lettering across the gables said: SPELTON BROS. YACHTS – HALF-DECKERS – ROWBOATS. Beyond these, rough rond, some small sheds, then the bungalows to infinity. On the right bank stood the Bridge Inn. It was an Edwardian brick-and-timber building. It had a quay-headed lawn to which hire launches were moored and on which stood metal tables and chairs where yachters sat with glasses and tankards before them. Next, small boat-sheds, cuttings. Next, quay-headed rond moored to capacity. Next, some store-sheds, a bit of rond with a houseboat; and the bungalows to infinity. The infinity of the bungalows curved to the right where it could be seen again, receding into the marshes.

  ‘French’s,’ Parfitt said, pointing to the wet boathouse.

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Straight across from the inn.’

  ‘I couldn’t get anything there,’ Parfitt said. ‘Nobody was on the lawn after half past nine. The staff rooms are at the back. They’ve got some fishermen upstairs. One of them was about till after eleven, but he didn’t notice anything going on over here.’

  ‘Perhaps there was nothing to notice,’ Gently said.

  Parfitt moved his shoulders. ‘That’s my theory,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe young French’s alibi. And I don’t believe French was knocked off here. It might look good in the Super’s office, but not when you run a rule over the layout.’

  ‘Then what are we left with?’ Gently said. ‘I don’t think he was knocked off at the quay. I think he came upstream in the launch. Without lights. Where was he going?’

  Parfitt moved his shoulders again. ‘Speltons. It’s the only obvious answer. And the body turned up in their slipway. It couldn’t have happened far away.’

  ‘Unless,’ Gently said, ‘it was brought there and jettisoned.’

  ‘That’s making it very hard,’ Parfitt said. ‘Unless chummie was carrying a hammer on board the half-decker, and went for his old man on Haynor Sounds.’

  Gently smiled very slowly. ‘We’re getting ahead of the facts,’ he said. ‘Did French have any quarrel with the Speltons?’

  ‘No quarrel we know of,’ Parfitt said.

  ‘Where else might he have been going?’ Gently said.

  Parfitt shook his head. ‘Search me,’ he said. ‘Past the bungalows is Moorford Staithe, where there’s two yards and a few more bungalows. Then you branch left for Haynor Sounds and Hickstead Broad and Marsey. Keep straight on for Sotherton. That’s what’s upstream from here.’

  ‘Nearer than that,’ Gently said.

  ‘Well,’ Parfitt said, ‘what you can see. Just the bungalows, which are mostly let. We could get a list of residents from the post office.’

  Gently took out his pipe, filled it, lit it. He leaned elbows on the parapet and stared. Reuben’s Cakewalk was thundering ‘Valencia’, a tall gaff sail was inching downstream.

  ‘Get on to the River Police,’ Gently said. ‘Try to find some of the other craft that moored here on Tuesday. In fact, we know nothing except that French left his office at ten, and that you think the son is lying.’

  ‘And that he collects,’ Parfitt said.

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘That too.’

  CHAPTER THREE

  AT FOUR FIFTY-FIVE a.m. on Friday August 7th a milk float clattered over Haynor Bridge and the driver, looking to his left, saw a bulky man in a tweed jacket unpopping the canvas cover of a white-painted launch. The launch was conservative in design, but its lines were conserving something very beautiful and on the lotusblossom shape of its transom appeared: WHITE HERON Haynor Country Club, in flowing copperplate, gilt, shadowed. The man heard the float and straightened to look at it. His eyes met the eyes of the driver. His eyes were greenish-hazel eyes which had a mild expression but which were nevertheless penetrating. The driver didn’t know who this man was but supposed he might be a doctor or perhaps a medical specialist on holiday. The expression of his eyes startled the driver and the driver remembered it for some time afterwards. Later he saw a newspaper picture of the man. He was Superintendent George Herbert Gently.

  The milk float went. Then it was very quiet again. Though there was no breeze a whitish mist was twisting and driving along the river. Reuben’s fair stood still and sheeted. Wet-awninged yachts lay still along the quays. The bridge, carrying five hundred years, lay wetly still. The surface of the water lay like lightly smoked glass. Gently folded the cover, stowed it, went ashore for the painters, coiled the painters on the planked decks, fore and aft, stepped back into the launch. His movements in the launch rippled the water which just there was blued with oil, and from that and from the launch rose a cold smell of petrol and smell of river which was the smell of waterlilies. He felt in a side-locker, took out a cloth, ran it over the cream leather upholstery of the driver’s seat. He sat, switched on, closed the choke. He pressed the starter. The launch tremble
d.

  When he drove out from the Club moorings the sun had reached the top of French’s office building and the white paint on which the sign was painted showed reddish-lemon in a pale sky. He drove at the launch’s slowest speed, turned upstream, below the bridge. The vault of the bridge had yellow scores and reflected the throb of the engine as a rumble. French’s wet boathouse showed dark timber beams, wash sounded hollowly up the Spelton slipways. The metal furniture on the Bridge Inn lawn streamed with dew above dew-sodden grass. The launch pressed softly over the weak ebb. Its wash veed out from bank to bank. When the wash of the launch reached a moored craft the craft heaved slightly and was still again. In front of the launch the water was luminous. Behind the launch the water was grey.

  He drove past the sheds, past the rond moorings, past an old boat upturned on the bank, past the houseboat converted from a ship’s lifeboat, into the bungalowland of fretted quays. The bungalows had names such as Osokosi, R EEEE, Dutch Hutch and La Cabina, and occasionally names such as Uprond and Marshways and Heronby. They were of timber with tin roofs or roofs of coloured felt tile. They were small, single-storeyed, and brightly but ineptly painted. A few had been factory-designed or followed some structural scheme but the majority resembled a collection of outhouses which had grown to fill the available space. They were old. The plots they occupied were only as deep as the river rond. A little scurfy grass in front of each one of them ended in decayed piling of non-professional origin. Short shallow boat-dykes held a few small craft and collected scum and flotsam from the river. Some baroque decoration of paint-thickened timber invested an occasional veranda or gable-end. They were old. They had outside closets. Water would need to be carried to them. Tolofin. Kumfee.

  Gently continued to drive very slowly, his gaze shifting from bank to bank. The bungalows were placed so near one another that the marshes behind them were mostly hidden. The marshes were below the level of the river and the bungalows made their own skyline and the sun, brilliant but still reddish, lay on the roofs to the left. The stream bore east. Moorford church lay to the east. Its grey tower, the buttresses battered, rode a green slope a mile distant. On the left bank a windpump tower stood rusty brown in full sun, and at that point the bungalows ended and the banks were reeded down both sides. Tall reeds, pastel green, left whispering as the launch passed them. Full of tiny grey-brown birds who poured out rusty creaking song. Gently went on driving. He passed Moorford Staithe. It had a small yard, a few more bungalows, a ferry pontoon niched into the bank. A branch of the stream turned left and the branch was signposted: Hickstead & Marsey. Ahead, very distant over the marshes, appeared the cream-white breasts of the coastal sandhills. Behind the sandhills was hyacinth blue. Here it was that Gently turned the launch.

  William Archer was a thin man. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it.’ He kept shaking his head and staring at the skirting and sucking his breath through his lips. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not that.’ He had a pendulous nose and it was bluish.

  ‘How long have you been here?’ Gently said.

  ‘Seven, eight years,’ Archer said. ‘Harry advertised the post. I knew him. We used to come here for holidays. I was on a yard down at Maldon. I’m a foreigner all right. I dare say that’s why Harry picked me. They don’t respect you unless you’re a foreigner. You know how it is round here.’

  ‘Have you any interest in the firm?’ Gently said.

  ‘No,’ Archer said. ‘No interest.’

  ‘How much are you getting?’ Gently said.

  ‘Twenty-five hundred,’ Archer said.

  ‘It’s a responsible job you have here,’ Gently said.

  ‘I’m getting paid for it,’ Archer said. ‘Twenty-five hundred is a pretty good screw. Ask some of the other managers what they’re getting.’ He looked at Gently, looked at the skirting. He had a long face with drooped lines. The skin was flaccid and the complexion flushed. They were sitting in his office with one of the blinds drawn. ‘Of course, there’s some perks,’ Archer said. ‘There’s always something goes with the job. Like my motor-cruiser, I get that maintained, and anything I need doing to my house. I never quarrelled with Harry about that. There’s plenty would like to walk in here.’

  ‘So what did you quarrel with him about?’ Gently said.

  ‘Who’s been saying I quarrelled with him?’ Archer said. ‘I may have had words with him once or twice. You didn’t always know how to take Harry.’

  ‘Words about what?’ Gently said.

  ‘About running the yard,’ Archer said.

  ‘Such as?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh any mortal bloody thing,’ Archer said. His hand went to the deep drawer of the desk, came away. He lit a cigarette clumsily. He took several quick puffs from the cigarette, looked at it. ‘I got on with Harry all right,’ he said. ‘You’re bound to have a set-to every now and then. He’s got his way, you’ve got yours. They don’t always click. You can’t expect it. But we got on all right together, don’t try to make anything out of that.’

  ‘When was the last time you had words with him?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh,’ Archer said. He flicked the cigarette. ‘I don’t know, I can’t remember,’ he said.

  ‘Wasn’t it as late as last Tuesday?’ Gently said.

  ‘Last Tuesday?’ Archer said, looking at Gently. He had yellowish-brown eyes and they were watering. ‘Have you been talking to that girl in there?’ he said.

  ‘We talk to a lot of people,’ Gently said.

  Archer puffed at the cigarette.

  ‘Tell me what happened on Tuesday,’ Gently said. ‘A man gets murdered. Something has to lead up to it. Tuesday wasn’t just another day. What happened on Tuesday?’

  ‘What are you getting at?’ Archer said. ‘I didn’t have anything to do with it. I was in the pub over there. You know I was. You’ve been asking people.’

  ‘Of course,’ Gently said. ‘They remember you were in there. But they weren’t with you after you came out. You drove home, you say. Alone.’

  ‘But I did,’ Archer said. ‘My wife told you. I was in by eleven. This is bloody mad, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘What happened on Tuesday?’

  Archer stared at nothing in particular. His thin lips sagged at the corners. His hand went to the deep drawer again, opened it, groped, came out with a Vat 69 bottle. He groped again, found a tumbler, spilled whisky into it. He didn’t watch his hands do this. When the whisky was poured he drank it.

  ‘I know it looks bad,’ he said. ‘Me having a row with Harry, all that. I know the way you look at things. Somebody hit him over the head.’

  ‘What was the row about?’ Gently said.

  ‘Have a drink,’ Archer said. ‘No, all right, I know you won’t. Maybe you’re not a drinking man.’

  He poured some more whisky and drank it.

  ‘I wasn’t a drinking man,’ he said. ‘A couple of bitters, that was me. Point of fact, I didn’t like it. You know, it was only by chance I went down to the pub. The girls had gone to a show in Starmouth and the missus was out at her sister’s. Another night I wouldn’t have gone, that’s just the way things happen. So first you think it was young French who did it. Now you think it was me.’

  ‘It could have been you,’ Gently said.

  ‘Now I’m drowning it in booze,’ Archer said. ‘Only I was drowning it in booze before then, and never hit Harry over the head. I’m not drunk either. You can tell it by the bottle. I had a nip at home, that’s all.’

  ‘Harry came in here to talk to you,’ Gently said.

  ‘All right,’ Archer said, ‘why ask me? That fluffy bitch in the next room has probably got it down in shorthand. Not that it’s new, any of it. She’ll know it off by heart by now.’

  ‘He didn’t like you drinking,’ Gently said.

  ‘To hell with my drinking,’ Archer said. He picked up the bottle with a sort of flourish, poured whisky, drank it. ‘Rows,’ he said. ‘What are they always about? Bloody money, that�
��s what. Don’t let the set-up here fool you. We’ve lost thousands on one or two contracts.’

  ‘And French blamed you?’ Gently said.

  ‘Aren’t I his manager?’ Archer said. ‘It’s all my fault that wages go up and timber and every damned thing else. And I warned him about it, that was my fault. I told him his estimating was crazy. And I was right, that’s what really needled him. Harry thought he couldn’t make a mistake.’

  ‘And yet you say you got on with him,’ Gently said.

  Archer gestured with the tumbler. ‘That’s not a lie, either. When things went right I got on with Harry, I knew how he worked. He was vain as the devil. That’s why he couldn’t take it when things didn’t go right – he was losing face, you know how they are. So he’d come in here and take it out on me. And then I’d take it out on a bottle.’

  ‘And it was like that Tuesday,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes,’ Archer said. ‘Just like that. He’d seen the worksheets of a job we’ve contracted and it’ll be a loss and he blew his top. Mind you, he was niggly before that. One of the yachts came in smashed up. A Nereid copped it with its bowsprit, stove in a couple of yards of coaming. You’re getting damage all the time, the Broads are jampacked with hire-boats. But Harry got upset about it. He was in one of his black moods.’

  ‘You mean before that happened?’ Gently said.

  ‘Right from the start,’ Archer said. ‘I reckoned he’d had a spat with his son. They both turned up looking like death.’

  ‘What was the son doing all day?’ Gently said.

  ‘Loafing,’ Archer said, ‘loafing around. You can drive your son into the yard, but you can’t make him work. The son likes to go sailing. He doesn’t like scrubbing bottoms.’

  ‘Were they rowing at the yard?’ Gently said.

  ‘No,’ Archer said, ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Did they go home to lunch?’

  ‘Harry did,’ Archer said. ‘I saw young French having his in the restaurant.’