by Alan Hunter
‘Ten or twelve miles… less, probably, since it wasn’t floating. This is your district — have you got any ideas about it?’
Griffin examined the map keenly, not to be rushed into a hasty judgment. One idea was as good as another, but Gently felt somehow compelled to defer to the spruce inspector.
‘There’s not much up that way for miles. It’s all fen and grazing marshes till you get to Beetley.’
A glance could tell you that.
‘But there’s the main south road there — that runs close to the river near Apton. And there’s a lane down here to one of the old drainage mills.’
‘Let’s get down there and see if we can find anything.’
It was going to be a wet day. Already the interval of spitting was over and the rain reverting to a steady, measured rhythm. It hissed in the wheels of the Wolseley as it sped along the level highway, rising in sheets where puddles had collected.
Over the low hedges, comfortless in their early green, one saw sodden fields of black fen soil. Now and then, appearing like ships, were great barns or farmhouses in the rusty Northshire brick and pantile, by each a leafing elder or two.
Westward lay the marshes and the river, low, waterlogged, the primeval haunt of every depressing tone of brown, green and grey.
‘It’s got rid of the wind, anyway.’
Griffin wanted to talk — no doubt he’d already got a theory. Gently, sitting hunched over his first pipe of the day, was thinking more in terms of a roadhouse where one might get a sandwich and a cup of coffee.
‘Doesn’t seem as though they got far, does it?’
Somebody had to make that remark!
‘Looks as though they got out of town to give us the slip, and then hung around still trying to get whatever it was…’
‘And now there’s only one left alive.’
‘You think chummy will go after him too?’
Gently grunted.
‘Ask yourself the question! If it was necessary to get rid of two of them, it must be necessary to get rid of the other one. And they couldn’t all be making love to Mrs Blythely in the hayloft.’
Griffin was silent for a few moments after this rebuff. He had an irritating way of looking injured, Gently noticed. Beyond the streaming windows a dyke-wall had risen to conceal the view to the right. Judging from what they had passed already, there was small prospect of the coffee and sandwiches materializing.
‘It must be something in Lynton they were after, though.’
One day, would someone tell Griffin he was commonplace?
‘And it has to be pretty big — what happened to Taylor didn’t shake them off. Chummy meant business, but they were still trying for the jackpot.’
‘Almost looks like a racket again, doesn’t it?’
‘If I didn’t know Lynton…’
‘Look — isn’t that a cafe we’re coming to?’
Griffin must have breakfasted already, because he didn’t join Gently in his hasty snack. Instead, he remained in the back of the car, his eyes fixed on the road along which they ought to have been travelling.
‘If there’s traces of blood — in this rain…’
Gently got back beside him feeling a little more benevolent. The coffee had been freshly ground, and scalding hot at that. As well as two sandwiches he had gobbled down a Chelsea bun.
‘Five minutes won’t matter after all the rain we’ve had.’
‘I was thinking of footprints, too.’
‘The same applies to them.’
It wasn’t much further to the road-section near Apton. In the distance one could see the circular brick tower of the old drainage mill, capless and sailless but firmly lined in the dirty sky.
The lane leading to it was narrow but kept in good repair; though the mill was disused, it probably stood at an important point in the current drainage system.
‘If it had been dry we might have seen car-tracks.’
It wasn’t dry, so what was the point of harping on it? This wasn’t the first time rain had assisted a criminal…
The lane ended indefinitely by a clump of bush alders. Griffin, springing out almost before the car stopped, led the way past them to the riverbank beyond.
It was a spot quite as desolate and depressing as the sluice they had lately visited. The mill-tower, seen close-to, looked paltry and devoid of interest. A gap had been rent in the fabric above the door, apparently with intention, while the interior seemed to have been devoted to purposes unspecified.
‘Fishermen…’
Griffin sniffed but didn’t pursue his researches. The litter of paper about the earthy floor was patently of earlier date than yesterday.
‘Is the fishing good in these parts?’
‘Ask Worsnop there.’
‘We get some good bream, sir,’ put in the constable in question. ‘One of the blokes in my club pulled out a nine-pounder on a number twelve…’
Beside the mill still remained the axle of its paddlewheel, but the wheel itself had long since vanished. The apron of turf stretching to the river was tough and springy. It bore a number of marks, but they were shallow and indefinite. If there had been any blood it would have been washed out several hours ago.
‘Not much to see here.’
Griffin sounded disappointed.
‘I could have sworn it was the spot — it’s the only likely place. Do you think we can be certain about the distance the body travelled?’
Gently plodded down the bank and stood gazing into the muddy water. The tide was beginning to make again, but the level of the water hadn’t sensibly risen. On the other bank a bed of soiled reeds showed that it had some two or three feet to go.
‘He might have thrown the clothes in his car and got rid of them anywhere…’
‘Ames’s clothes, you mean?’
‘Mmn. But Ames had to get here… isn’t it three miles to Apton? There’s just a chance he pinched a bike — what do you think of that?’
Griffin stared at him seriously, trying to follow the logic of it.
‘Suppose chummy brought him here…’
‘It isn’t such a helpful supposition.’
‘But until we find a bike…’
‘There’s one down there in the bed of the river.’
He went back into the car and smoked while Worsnop waded for the abandoned bicycle. The rain had taken another turn for the worse and was beating like rods on the Wolseley’s roof and bonnet. Inside the car smelt dankly of moist leather, while a trickle of water was finding its way through one of the door jambs.
Griffin and Worsnop, reappearing with the bicycle, looked as though they had relinquished all hopes of staying dry.
‘It’s a Raleigh, nearly new — dynohub lighting and everything.’
‘Nobody was going to throw that in the river.’
‘What shall we do — issue a description?’
‘First we’ll take it into Apton and see if anyone’s lost one.’
He was feeling more himself now, wreathed in a cloud of navy cut. That little bit of luck with the bicycle had offset the initial disadvantage of being dragged out of bed… besides, Griffin was in something of a pickle now, himself! He had got all over mud helping to strap the bicycle to the roof rack.
One piece of luck sometimes led to another, and Gently’s seemed to be temporarily in form. At Apton the constable was out on his beat, but his wife, a buxom matron with a lively eye, had just booked the very piece of information they were after.
‘Fred Larkin’s just been round here… somebody pinched his bike from outside the village hall last night.’
‘Did he leave a description?’
‘It’s a green Raleigh roadster, newish, frame number — where’s the book! — PYS7 stroke 2964. Got a lot of extras on it, he says, and he only bought it in January.’
‘Where can we find him?’
‘He works in the garage — but won’t you have a cuppa? I’ve got the pot on for my husband, and you look as though you
could stand one.’
In spite of a disapproving Griffin, Gently accepted the invitation. The Apton Constable’s kitchen was a cheerful place and his wife a comfortable body. Not knowing who he was, she at once placed Gently as the one in charge of whatever was afoot.
‘Have you any strangers staying in the village?’
‘There’s the vicar’s nephew, who’s a bit of a lad. Down from Cambridge, he is.’
‘Nobody at the pub?’
‘They sometimes have a commercial.’
‘What buses come to the village?’
‘There’s Service 56, runs between Westwold and Lynton.’
‘What time was the last bus through yesterday?’
‘I’ll have to look it up. It’s going to Lynton and gets in here at something to eleven. Do you reckon it was someone off the bus who whipped Fred Larkin’s bike?’
The village was typical of that part of the county, a short, level street winding between a huddle of quite spacious houses, several with architectural pretensions. In the centre it broadened into a small plain where grew a massive oak tree. Here there was a shop and post office, and around the corner a garage with a solitary petrol pump.
Griffin followed Gently doggedly as he strolled into the latter.
‘Is there a Fred Larkin here?’
A figure in soiled dungarees eased itself from under a pre-war Singer which almost filled the small building.
‘I’m a police officer… I understand you had your bicycle stolen last night.’
He was a young fellow with ginger hair, obviously alarmed by this unnatural incursion of policemen.
‘I… yes — somebody took it.’
‘Would you like to repeat the registration number?’
He was so upset that he had to have two goes at it.
The village hall was a rather ornate structure of red brick and stone, incorporating also the village’s two war memorials. On the noticeboard was still pinned a weird amateur poster advertising in brushwork last night’s ‘Gala Supper Dance’; in a cycle stand beside it three machines had been left.
‘I put it there, three from the end… there was two other blokes with me.’
‘What time was that?’
‘About eight… you see, my girlfriend…’
‘Was that the last time you saw it?’
‘I’m going to tell you — she wasn’t ready! I went up for her, and
… one thing and another… it was getting on for ten, and the bike was here then.’
‘When did you miss it, then?’
‘When I came out. I thought someone had shifted it for a joke. When it wasn’t here this morning, I went to the police.’
‘Where’s the bus stop?’
‘It’s over there by the oak.’
He hung around uncomfortably, probably under the impression that he was going to get his bicycle back. Gently ignored him and went over to the post office. There, in a red frame, were posted the times of the village’s rather infrequent bus service. There was nothing in the evening between 7.10 and 10.42.
‘We’ll want a list of all these villages covered by Service 56 — the ones that use it as well as the ones it goes through. Better phone in to H.Q. and get them on the job. I want the check-up before the evening paper gets around.’
‘You think they were biding out there?’
Even Griffin was beginning to be impressed by the breaks Gently was getting.
‘I think it’s worth a try — and we may be lucky. Though if Roscoe’s got any brains he won’t be waiting for the evening papers.’
‘He might be thinking that Ames-’
‘That’s why I want a quick check-up.’
Again he got back into the car and left Griffin to deal with the donkey work. Now he was almost truculent — damnation, he wasn’t in the Central Office for nothing!
Larkin, still wandering like a ghost, seemed fascinated by the sight of his bicycle strapped to the roof of the car. It wasn’t until Griffin came back from the phone box that he learned that certain formalities must be gone through…
It was still only half past eight when Gently, further postponing his shave, sat down in the breakfast room of the St George. Dutt, who had had a relief, was already embarked on his bacon, egg and kidney.
‘Been a dirty night, sir.’
Gently grunted and poured himself some coffee. A plate of cornflakes was laid at his place, but he felt made of sterner stuff and had them taken away.
‘My man has just been in, sir. He’s got a streaming cold and left a copper watching the mill.’
‘What was Blacker doing last night?’
‘Nothink, sir. Being very quiet, he was.’
‘You know what’s turned up?’
‘Yessir. The copper told my relief. But Blacker was in kip when I handed over, and he never showed his nose again till he went to the mill this morning.’
‘Would he have a back way?’
‘No, sir. I checked it personal.’
‘He’s a lucky man, Dutt.’
‘Yessir — we did him a favour, didn’t we?’
‘Keep on tailing him. He isn’t in the clear yet.’
After breakfast he sat smoking awhile. He had already had a brief interview with Superintendent Press. The Lynton police chief was plaintive almost — this time there couldn’t be much doubt that his crimeless town was tied into the business. That Roscoe was the culprit was his only hope now, and he had tried to sell Gently the idea with the shameless persistence of desperation. Gently, looking owlish, had mumbled unintelligible nothings.
Actually, there had always been two sides to this affair. From the very first it had split neatly into two perplexingly connected sections.
On the one hand, you might say, the rogues, Taylor, Ames, and Roscoe; they seemed to have been playing a game on their own, with nothing to show how it had ever brought them to Lynton.
On the other hand, Lynton, as represented by the mill and bakehouse — defensive, apprehensive, involved, suspect… yet still, in some odd way, quite detached from the other.
That was the heart of the problem and always had been. Sitting in his office, the assistant commissioner had straightway put a finger on it. And Gently, working round it, had done nothing but set the enigma in higher relief.
Griffin alone had been able to suggest a credible bridge between the two factions…
Shaking his head, Gently knocked out his pipe. There was far too much now that wanted explaining! Money came into it, apparently a great deal of money; and it was Lynton money, that was pretty well established.
And now two of them had gone, leaving only Roscoe.
What would the fellow do… faced by two such examples?
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was straight, steep, regular, rhythmic Northshire rain, which, having struck its tempo, seemed intending to continue till the crack of doom.
The market square, its gutters rushing with water, was as empty as a hosed-out fish barrel. In the streets one met only a few housewives hastening between the shops, their brightly coloured plastic macs glistening under advanced umbrellas.
It was dark, too. The shops had on all the lights in their display windows, usually switched off during the day. Near St Margaret’s Church, where there were no shops worth speaking of, a murky gloom seemed to have settled among the buildings.
As for the pigeons… who knew where they went on a day like this? Probably they had long since congregated in Fuller’s mill, taking charge of one forgotten corner or another.
Gently, who could rarely be bothered with such things, had been obliged to accept the offer of a car.
It had stood most of the morning among the puddles in the mill yard, getting in the way of the lorries which came in for loading.
Then it had disappeared, not long before lunch, going back in the town direction. Fuller from his office and Blythely from his shop had both watched it departing — the one con espressione and the other with none at all.
; And still it had rained and rained and rained; you couldn’t shift a yard without huddling into a raincoat and doing up every button.
The sky, a smoky wrack, seemed to rest on the gleaming rooftops. Some of the storm drains had got blocked with rubbish and were spreading aprons of water which they should have carried away.
Going in for lunch, grumpy and depressed, Gently had been obliged to change his shoes, socks, and trousers. He hated the rain, even of any kind, and this bout looked like being the limit.
‘It’s those atom bombs what’s doing it!’
He had exchanged a word or two with the maid who had taken away his discarded clothing to be dried. Logically speaking and according to the scientists… but had they really had such filthy weather in those halcyon days before the Second World War?
Before lunch he went into the bar and warmed himself with a hot rum. From the menu he chose the most solid-sounding dishes, beefsteak pudding followed by treacle tart and custard. Then he topped it all off by having a liqueur with his coffee, and had ordered an expensive cigar to be brought to him.
‘Have you got anything yet?’
There had been singularly little news from headquarters. He had phoned them twice while he had been at the mill.
‘There’s been two more reports in… both negative, I’m afraid.’
Could he have been wrong all along the line about that confounded bicycle?
His morning’s work had done nothing to clarify the situation. He could almost have predicted the result in advance. Fuller had an alibi which checked where it touched — he’d taken a van into Cambridge to pick up some spare parts. But Blythely! — well, he was running true to form. If it was a lie it was such a thin one that it almost compelled belief.
‘Don’t you remember my wife telling you we were going to the pictures?’
Likely, that, wasn’t it — after the emotional crisis Gently had provoked by his visit!
But the baker had stuck to the story, even elaborating it a little. And Mrs Blythely, whom Gently had cornered on her own, sullenly agreed that they had gone to the Ambassador.
‘Very well — describe the programme,’ Gently had challenged the pair of them.
