Gently Floating

by Hunter Alan

  ‘So what, so what,’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘So he came here,’ Gently said, ‘and there was a fight with your husband.’

  ‘Cross my heart it’s a bloody lie,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘He never came here at all nor didn’t nobody that night.’

  ‘Then who was fighting?’ Gently said. ‘Who threw this doorstop? Who was he throwing it at?’

  The woman stared at him. Her lids were widened. Her spidery mouth-lines were drawn deep. Along with the smell of cloves that came from her was the smell of perspiration. Her body was slightly thrown back from her hips and her elbows were bent and her fingers crooked.

  ‘All right you prying sod,’ she said. ‘Then I did have a fight with my old man. Now you know perhaps you’re happy. And I did throw the bloody stopper at him. Pity I didn’t hit him too. He’d have laughed on the other side of his face. And what the hell’s it got to do with you or Harry French or any other bugger?’

  ‘Do you have a telephone?’ Gently said.

  ‘No I don’t have a telephone,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘I don’t have a coffee-shop with a flush either, anything else you want to know?’

  Gently set down the doorstop, took out a notebook. He drew a sketch-plan of the hallway of the bungalow. On the sketch-plan he marked the bruises and indicated the areas of the scratches and scuff-marks and kick-marks. The woman watched him with big eyes. Gently added notes to the sketch-plan. The woman’s breathing which had been fast began to subside while Gently was writing. Gently put the notebook away, picked up the doorstop, hefted it.

  ‘You don’t bloody well believe me do you?’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘If I swore it on a Bible you wouldn’t believe what I told you. I can’t help it, that’s your lookout. You’re going to shift the blame on to someone. Perhaps you think we’ve got a bad name, you can shift it on to us easy.’

  ‘How long has John French been visiting you?’ Gently said.

  ‘Didn’t know he had been visiting me,’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘He admits he’s been here,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh and very nice too,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘So he admits he’s been here does he? I’ll have something to say to him about that. Dragging my name in the mud, bringing the police snooping round here. What else does he say?’

  ‘How much did he pay you?’ Gently said.

  ‘The damn little liar,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘He’s never paid me anything, I’ve never had a penny off him.’

  ‘Never?’ Gently said.

  ‘Never,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘Cross my heart I never asked him for it. What do you think I am anyway?’

  ‘What did his father think you were?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh go and jump in the river,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘You’re all alike the last one of you. It’s a different thing when you want your under. If he did come round here whose business is that, what’s it got to do with you lot? It didn’t do him any harm I can tell you that. He needed someone to take him in hand.’

  ‘And his father knew?’ Gently said.

  ‘Why don’t you go down to the mortuary and ask him?’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘And knew about the money angle,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh Christalmighty,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘It was bloody free. Can’t I get it across to you. Free, for nothing, I throw it in. I like a kid to cut some off with.’

  ‘But money came into it,’ Gently said.

  ‘Money didn’t come into it,’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘Sid was getting money out of it,’ Gently said.

  ‘Fall under a bus,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘Fall under a bus.’

  ‘Sid was putting the screw on tonight,’ Gently said.

  Mrs Lidney looked at him, didn’t say anything.

  ‘Quite a big screw,’ Gently said. ‘What could it be, now the father is dead?’

  The back-door latch lifted softly. The woman’s eyes jerked towards it. Gently turned towards the door. The door opened. The humpty man entered. He stood squinting towards them, his eyes tiny, sharpened. His eyes fell on the doorstop. He closed the door slowly behind him. He said:

  ‘Hullo Rhoda. I could hear you’d got company.’

  He took some steps up the hallway, stopped, peered at Gently.

  ‘Yes,’ the humpty man said to Gently, ‘I know who you are. Got a nerve haven’t you, coming here talking to Rhoda at this time of night. I could report you for that mate. You could get yourself into trouble. I dunno what you’ve been up to, visiting my wife this late.’

  ‘You’re Lidney,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes, I’m Lidney,’ the man said.

  ‘It isn’t so late,’ Gently said. ‘It’s about the time Harry French got here on Tuesday.’

  The humpty man looked at Gently, puckered eyes, squashed nose. His head was back in his humpty shoulders, his long body weaved a little on the short splayed legs.

  ‘What do you mean,’ the humpty man said, ‘come here talking to me like this? Harry French has never been near this place. You’d better watch what you’re saying, hadn’t you.’

  ‘Harry French came here on Tuesday,’ Gently said. ‘Some time after ten p.m. he came here. He came here looking for his son who was with you. He didn’t like his son associating with you. Also his son was coming into some money and Harry French had suspicions about where it might go to. Tuesday was the day his son should have got the money. He didn’t get it. I don’t think he was going to get it. Harry French came here that night to blow the set-up apart. He wound up in the river with a hole in his skull about the size of the knob on the bent arm of this doorstop.’

  The humpty man came a step closer. ‘Say it,’ he said, ‘say it mate. I’ll bloody sue you for defamation that’s what I’ll do about you. I wasn’t trying to pinch young French’s money nor Harry French didn’t come up this way. Nor nobody didn’t kill him with our doorstopper, that got bent being hulled about.’

  ‘Yes, it was hulled about,’ Gently said. ‘There’s marks of that on the lino. There’s also marks of a struggle and they haven’t been there very long.’

  ‘Didn’t I tell you why?’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘You gave me an explanation,’ Gently said. ‘I shall have underestimated your husband if he didn’t hear it through the keyhole.’

  ‘You lousy sod,’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘You’re a nice bugger aren’t you?’ the humpty man said.

  ‘What I want to know,’ Gently said, ‘is how you’re putting pressure on young French now.’

  The humpty man weaved, crouched his head lower in his shoulders, pushed it up close towards Gently.

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that mate,’ he said, ‘or I’ll down you, cop or no cop. You come here insulting my wife, now you’re insulting me. You’d just better watch your trap, you had, we’re not scared of your sort in these parts.’

  ‘But I’ve got the doorstop tonight,’ Gently said.

  ‘What’s that,’ the humpty man said. ‘What’s that about a doorstopper?’

  ‘You threw it at French,’ Gently said. ‘It grazed his shoulder, didn’t down him. He was facing you then. Later on he had his back turned.’

  The humpty man’s eyes were like needles. He twisted his body, his arms swinging. The smell of Mrs Lidney’s cloves and perspiration came strongly. The Cakewalk thumped downriver, it was the only sound from outside. The humpty man’s lips were turned in so that his mouth was a seam.

  ‘John French won’t be bringing the money,’ Gently said. ‘That’s finished. You won’t be touching any money of his. I know he was here, that’s the hold you had on him. I don’t think he killed his father. I spend my life meeting killers.’

  ‘You filthy pig,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

  ‘You do what, you do what?’ the humpty man said.

  ‘I meet killers,’ Gently said. ‘All shapes and sizes of killers. That’s why I’m on this job, I’ve got a nose for them. Their lies, their threats, their silly mistakes. They make a pattern, an unoriginal pattern, you get to learn it after a time. It doe
sn’t vary, the motive’s the same. A killer’s alone and he’s afraid.’

  ‘Shut up, shut up,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

  ‘Alone and afraid,’ Gently said. ‘He’s playing at innocence and he daren’t relax because there’s nobody who won’t betray him.’

  ‘If you say I did it,’ the humpty man said.

  ‘Just throw the sod out, Sid,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

  ‘If you call me a killer,’ the humpty man said.

  ‘Yes, if I call you one,’ Gently said.

  ‘Throw him out, throw him out,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

  The humpty man drew back a little from Gently. His pointed eyes stared at Gently’s chest. He kept lifting and dropping his hands like a wrestler shaping to take a hold.

  ‘You lousy bugger,’ he said, ‘lousy bugger.’

  ‘I’ll rip his bloody eyes out,’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ the humpty man said. ‘Come in here, telling me that. You’re another one thinks he can do what he likes with me. Kick me about. Say what you like. Well nobody can do that to me I tell you, I don’t give a frig who they are.’

  ‘Not me or Harry French either,’ Gently said.

  ‘I don’t care who they are,’ the humpty man said.

  ‘Calling you a swindler maybe, a pimp,’ Gently said. ‘In front of your wife and John French. Giving you the sack.’

  ‘Why don’t you bash him one Sid?’ Mrs Lidney said.

  ‘I’ll bash him one yet,’ the humpty man said.

  ‘The way you bashed Harry French,’ Gently said. ‘On Tuesday night. Right where we’re standing.’

  ‘He wasn’t here,’ Mrs Lidney screamed. ‘How many more times, it’s a load of bull.’

  The humpty man stared at Gently’s chest, swung his hands, didn’t say anything.

  ‘It’ll come out,’ Gently said. ‘Nothing will stop it coming out. We’ve tracked him through the bridge to the rond, from the rond to this hallway. This is where he had the fight that left the marks on his body. Perhaps he died in this hallway. We’ll find that out too.’

  ‘You can’t find it out,’ Mrs Lidney shouted. ‘You bloody well can’t.’

  ‘Shut your mouth Rhoda,’ the humpty man said.

  ‘Or if he was followed outside,’ Gently said, ‘whichever way, we’ll find out. It’ll take a few hours longer if you stick to your lies, that’s all.’

  ‘You think you’re clever,’ the humpty man said.

  ‘We don’t need to be clever,’ Gently said.

  ‘You aren’t clever at all,’ the humpty man said. ‘You’ll find that out. You aren’t clever. If I get you into court you won’t look clever, you’ll look the lousy frigger you are.’

  ‘It’s a risk,’ Gently said. ‘I’ll try not to lose sleep over it. That’s not the advice I’d give you. I’m taking this doorstop away with me.’

  ‘Oh and are you?’ the humpty man said.

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Any objections?’

  The humpty man looked at him intently.

  ‘Here’s your receipt,’ Gently said.

  He set down the doorstop, took out his notebook, scribbled a receipt, shoved it in the man’s hand. The man looked at the receipt, threw it on the floor. The woman stooped and picked up the receipt. Gently took the doorstop and pushed past the man. The man staggered. Nobody said anything.

  Also on this night of August 7th when Superintendent Gently was returning along the cinder path being abreast of the rond where the shred of nylon was found his eye was caught by a small bobbing flame on the other bank of the river and Reuben’s Cakewalk being by that time silent he heard a faint hiss after the flame was extinguished. Thus Superintendent Gently halted and stared very hard across the river and advanced to the dyke under the Speltons’ fence in which three of the Speltons’ dinghies lay moored. He took the outermost dinghy and rowed it across the slow flood and in the well of the old houseboat moored opposite he found a man smoking a pipe and ledger fishing. As the dinghy drew close the man said:

  ‘Do you watch out for my line down there.’

  ‘I can see your line,’ Gently said.

  ‘Well keep your oar out of it,’ the man said. ‘What do you want, you’re not a bailiff. You’ve just pinched one of Speltons’ dinghies.’

  ‘I’m a policeman,’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh, ah,’ the man said. ‘I get you now.’

  Gently shipped his oars, let the dinghy touch, took hold of the gunnel of the houseboat. The man who was fishing was a short elderly man and he wore a dark-coloured hat with a sagging brim. He was smoking shag. He was fishing with a short glass rod. The glow of the pipe showed a wrinkled forehead and thick uptilted eyebrows.

  ‘About this Harry French job,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘You’re the owner of this houseboat?’

  ‘Blast yes of course,’ the man said. ‘I’m Billy Stratton, that’s who I am.’

  ‘Were you here on Tuesday?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes I was here Tuesday,’ the man said. ‘But I didn’t stir out of the old boat, so I didn’t see nothing worth talking about. I live at Starmouth you know, I come here nights now and then. Too much traffic in the daytime. I get a little fishing in the evening.’

  ‘You were fishing on Tuesday evening?’ Gently said.

  ‘From about eight o’clock time,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘Till Reuben packed up, it was slow on Tuesday. All this close weather don’t do it any good.’

  ‘Do you know young John French?’ Gently said.

  ‘I knew his father,’ Billy Stratton said.

  ‘Did you see John French on Tuesday?’ Gently said.

  ‘Not as far as I know,’ Billy Stratton said.

  ‘Did any yachts go by? A half-decker?’

  ‘Can’t say I’d remember,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘There was a lot of these, spiv-boats, I call them, those hire launches that make the wash. Then there was a banana-boat, that’s a trip-boat, and cruisers any amount. But I did see Harry French, couldn’t have been a long while before.’

  ‘When?’ Gently said.

  ‘Oh sometime after ten,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘Not long before I packed up he came creeping up here. Of course it might not have been him, he didn’t have any lights on, but anyway it was his launch and I thought it was him when he got out. Just over there where you came from. He looked this way, but he wouldn’t have seen me.’

  ‘After that how long were you fishing?’ Gently said.

  ‘Till Reuben finished,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘He’s finished now, about half past ten. Then I brewed some cocoa and turned in on the bunk.’

  ‘Did you see or hear anything after that?’ Gently said.

  ‘Not once I’m in kip,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘I’m like the Seven Sleepers when I’m aboard the Penelope, you could let off an atom bomb and I wouldn’t hear it. He moors up, stands there a bit. He was looking around, listening. Then he mooches away up the path. That’s about all I can tell you.’

  ‘Up the path,’ Gently said.

  ‘Why yes,’ Billy Stratton said, ‘up the Sounds way.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Gently said. ‘Where can I find you again?’

  ‘Thirty-seven South Quay Row,’ Billy Stratton said.

  Gently said: ‘Tomorrow morning I’d like you to make a statement of what you’ve told me. If you’ll go to the County Police Headquarters in Trafalgar Road they’ll take your statement there.’

  ‘Blast I’d have been before,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘I didn’t know I’d seen anything special.’

  ‘If you will,’ Gently said. ‘How’s the fishing tonight?’

  Billy Stratton laid down his rod, felt for a string that hung from the gunnel. He pulled on the string. A wobbling keep-net came out of the water with splashings and slitherings.

  ‘Do you strike a match,’ Billy Stratton said.

  Gently struck a match, held it to the net. About a couple of stone of biggish bream were flapping and writhing at the b
ottom of the net. Their fish smell was heavy. The brown mesh of the net was coated with their slime. Most of them were around the pound mark but several would have scaled two or three.

  ‘What do you think,’ Billy Stratton said. ‘There’s some rum old bream there, aren’t th’?’

  Gently nodded. ‘Some rum old bream,’ he said.

  ‘I got amongst them,’ Billy Stratton said.

  Thus and finally on August 7th Superintendent Gently rang County Police Headquarters and requested a photographer and two men else and a van to carry a roll of lino and a drill and a saw to cut out a section of plasterboard and a certain instrument of authorization and notice to technical personnel who might otherwise have been off duty and asleep. All of which requests were expedited.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  INSPECTOR PARFITT DROVE into Haynor and it was the morning of Saturday August 8th. Because Inspector Parfitt was a local man he knew what to expect at Haynor and he found what he expected. He found first a stream of traffic not to say a jam which halted him a long time at the bridge but which treated him to the sight which he always enjoyed of Reuben’s Cakewalk being dismantled: Reuben having done with Haynor for a twelvemonth and in early train to remove to Wrackstead. He found secondly about the yards and about the car parks and open space adjacent to the yards a large busy population wearing slightly crumpled city clothes with on their faces expressions of irritation and anxiety and in their hands crammed luggage packed fishing rods even tennis rackets and frogman flippers moving transporting inquiring packing calling swearing nagging queuing at toilets queuing in the café queuing to drag luggage on to overfilled buses waiting for hire cars that didn’t arrive and waiting to extract private cars which were temporarily unextractable. He found thirdly a species of marine charlady in active possession of the moored craft winkling out reluctant hirers who had not packed overnight and causing an opening and shutting of suitcases on the quays: village ladies of character and energy who shook blankets whisked off sheets rattled saucepans counted cutlery tossed out tins dustpanned out fluff and loudly advised each other of their discoveries and theorized keenly on the basis of them. He found fourthly a team of technicians equipped with toolbags and paintpots and varnish pots and lengths of raw greyish-pink mahogany and brass screws and mastick who with much hammering sawing drilling planing shaping fitting swearing dressing screwing caulking painting varnishing arguing and incidental comment were making good the minor bashings stovings rakings grindings hackings bruisings and raspings inflicted by the hirers who held it as an article of faith what they had read in the letting agent’s catalogue namely that anyone who could drive a car could drive a twenty-ton motor-cruiser without brakes (though along with three or four thousand other powercraft in one hundred and fifty miles of narrow waterway). He found fifthly a quadruple impingement of evacuees from the bungalows treading their four cinder paths for the last time adding their luggage to the pool of heaps of luggage themselves to the queues their voices to the general voice: and sixthly a number of early-rising night-driving Jones-pacing newcomers arrived heavyeyed but hopeful but now somewhat silent and in amaze. He did not find William Archer and David Spelton who were superintending the filling out of insurance claims in their respective offices nor easily a place to park his car though it was recognizably a police car. The sun however was shining hotly on the totality of these transactions the empty river moved towards the Sounds a few village people stood watched. None of which surprised Inspector Parfitt or suggested abstract ideas to him. Along with Detective Constable Joyce he entered the Country Club and inquired at the desk for Superintendent Gently.