Gently Floating (3 page)

Thus: the launch was returned to the yard and the angler left a note on it and resumed his angling. Later the note was seen by a yard-hand called Nunn who took it to the office and gave it to the manager. The manager’s name was William Archer. He gave the French house a ring. He talked to the son, John French, who told him that French had apparently not returned to the house. Then the manager frowned, sat thinking, got up, made some inquiries around the yard, discovered that French had been at the office the previous evening, that the office had been found unlocked in the morning. He took the yard foreman with him and searched the yard. It was staring hot midday by then. The two men sweated as they climbed ladders, peered into lofts smelling of tar, timber, canvas. They found a suit of sails which had been missing since Whitsun, but they found no body turning on a rope. The manager returned to the office to telephone, found John French waiting there. John French was nervous.

Thus: the Haynor police constable was called from his lunch, and the River Police were informed and sent a patrol boat to Haynor. The two authorities conferred. From the known facts they evolved a theory. It was that Harry French fell in and was drowned when embarking in his launch to drive home from the yard. The River Police approximated the area of search, impressed two rowboats, sank their grapnels. People watched from the bank, from the bridge. Yard-hands came to the quay, watching. Mr Archer was kept busy in the office. John French was not in the office, nor watching. The dragging went on from three till six p.m. in the reach from the bridge to the first bend downstream. At six p.m. a message came from Speltons. The body had been found submerged in their downstream slipway. Downstream for Speltons, upstream from the bridge: but the movements of a body under water have not been reduced to an exact science.

Thus: the police took charge of the body and laid it in Speltons’ rigger’s shop. They telephoned, stood by. A police Wolseley arrived from Starmouth. One of the men who got out of it carried a black leather bag. This was at ten minutes to seven. At seven p.m. there was more telephoning, and two of the men out of the car went across to French’s office. They saw the manager, asked for John French, asked questions, did further telephoning. Until very late they were in the office, so that tea and sandwiches were sent over from the restaurant. Afterwards two of them went to the French house. Meanwhile, the launch lay where the angler had tied it.

Thus: on Thursday August 6th a conference was held at Police Headquarters, Starmouth, at which it was decided to request the assistance of an expert from the Central Office.

Thus: the Central Office instructed Superintendent George Herbert Gently to proceed to Starmouth and to provide such assistance.

The weather continued fine, with heavy dews at night.

S
UPERINTENDENT GENTLY LEFT
London on the A12 and drove through Ipswich and along the coast to Starmouth. He drove alone. He stopped at a café in Saxmundham for an iced drink. He arrived at Starmouth at four-thirty p.m. and drove directly to the County Police Headquarters in Trafalgar Road. He parked in a slot in front of Headquarters, put on his jacket, went in. The desk sent an usher with him to the first floor, to the office of Superintendent Glaskell. He met Glaskell. Glaskell sent for his C.I.D. Inspector Parfitt. Neither of these men were wearing jackets. Gently took off his jacket again. They sat. Glaskell said:

‘Parfitt has been on the case since yesterday. He’s pretty sure who the chummie is, but we haven’t found a way to make it stick. The trouble is getting hard facts. On circumstantial evidence we might nail him. No weapon, nothing like that. We need a breakthrough badly.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said. He looked at Glaskell. Glaskell was a heavy-featured, balding man. He had a thickly boyish face and green-grey eyes that protruded slightly. Parfitt was big-boned, level-shouldered, had a large face with a pointed jaw. He had light-blue eyes. They stared intently. Neither man had smiled when shaking hands.

Glaskell said: ‘They’d have given you the facts, would they? An outline, something like that?’

‘Merely an outline,’ Gently said. ‘I’ve seen the press accounts, of course.’

‘Yes, those,’ Glaskell said. ‘French was a V.I.P. of sorts. His yard is one of the biggest in the Broads. Did a lot of Admiralty work during the war. Plenty of money. Wife died last year. Now his son collects everything.’ He cleared his throat. ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘They didn’t get on, and now the son collects.’

‘I see,’ Gently said. ‘What’s his alibi?’

Glaskell grunted, Parfitt moved his shoulders.

‘About as weak as it can be,’ Glaskell said. ‘Only, let’s face it, we can’t break him. Parfitt had an all-night session with him. Parfitt’s good at interrogation. The chummie was lying like an idiot, but he stuck to the tale. And no witnesses.’

‘Still, what’s the alibi?’ Gently said.

Parfitt said: ‘He was out sailing.’

Gently thought, said: ‘Sailing in the dark?’

‘That’s right,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’s what he says. He took out a half-decker after tea, went up to Hickstead and back. He’d be breaking the by-laws, sailing without lights, but that doesn’t concern us. He’d have got back to Haynor at about eleven-thirty p.m., then he walked back to the house and got there at midnight. He knocked on the door of the housekeeper’s bedroom, asked her where he could find some cold sausage. But he knew darned well where to find the cold sausage. He was just making sure she knew when he came in.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘but how does that cover him? The E.T.D. was between nine p.m. and midnight.’

‘It covers him this way,’ Parfitt said. ‘We’ve got a witness to when Harry French left his office. One of the French boats was moored there and the hirer was using the phone-box. He’d met French when he took over the boat and he saw him come out of the office at around ten p.m. French had switched off the office light and he went straight across the yard to the quay. The hirer was using the phone-box till ten-thirty p.m., then he went back to his yacht. French’s launch had been moored near the yacht when the hirer went to phone but it was gone when he returned. So French must have been killed at about ten p.m., when the son says he was still upriver.’

Gently nodded. He said: ‘You’re accepting the theory that French was killed as he embarked.’

‘I can’t see anything else for it,’ Parfitt said, ‘unless it was arranged to look like an accident. But it could hardly have been that, with that sort of head injury. Nobody was going to think that French did it when he fell in.’

‘How about the bruising?’ Gently said.

‘I don’t know,’ Parfitt said. ‘If there’d been a fight it would have attracted attention. I can’t see there having been a fight. But someone could have bashed him and he slipped in, and nobody noticed the splash. Nobody did notice a splash. Unless they’d gone before we talked to them.’

‘Was there any sign of a struggle in the launch?’ Gently asked.

‘None,’ Parfitt said. ‘Nor on the quay.’

‘In the office?’ Gently said.

‘Nor there either,’ Parfitt said. ‘Dr Thomas had a look at the son, and there was no evidence that he’d been fighting. He couldn’t have stood up to French anyway. We reckon the bruising doesn’t come into it. Perhaps French took a knock off something, it’s easy enough in a boat-yard. Anyway, he was bashed from behind. We reckon chummie crept up on him.’

‘Can I see the photographs?’ Gently said.

Parfitt opened a box-file he’d brought with him. He handed Gently a sheaf of glossy full-plate prints. They showed Harry French and his injuries. Harry French’s skull had a depressed fracture about an inch above the nape of the neck. It was a circular depression, almost regular, not more than two inches in diameter at its widest.

‘Blunt instrument,’ Glaskell said, looking at the prints over Gently’s shoulder.

‘What sort of blunt instrument?’ Gently asked.

‘Something heavy with a knob on it,’ Glaskell said. ‘Probably a hammer, that’s the most likely. There’s plenty of hammers about a boat-yard, and chummie would know where to lay hands on one. Too many hammers, that’s the trouble. He only had to wipe it and put it back.’

‘Is there a hammer missing at the yard?’ Gently asked.

‘Not that we’ve heard of,’ Parfitt said. ‘We took away a hammer from the French house, but it was a snob’s hammer, didn’t fit. We looked at some at the yard. Perhaps chummie slung it in the river.’

‘What do you make of the position of the injury?’ Gently said.

Parfitt looked at him, said nothing.

‘Wouldn’t you expect it higher up the skull,’ Gently said, ‘a blow with a hammer, descending.’

‘I don’t know,’ Parfitt said, ‘if he was stooping to get in the launch. Then the back of his head would be uppermost, he’d get the injury there.’

‘But if he wasn’t stooping,’ Gently said.

Parfitt shrugged, said: ‘That’s the way we see it.’

‘How tall is the son?’ Gently asked.

‘About five ten,’ Parfitt said.

‘Let’s send for a hammer,’ Gently said. ‘I’d like to get this point clear.’

Parfitt went out to fetch a hammer. Gently looked at the photographs again. Glaskell watched Gently looking at the photographs. He didn’t say anything while Parfitt was out. Parfitt came back with an old, rusty hammer, and Gently rose, laid down the photographs. He said to Parfitt:

‘I’m six feet tall, you’d be about five eleven. How tall was French?’

‘Six one,’ Parfitt said.

‘I’ll need to raise myself a couple of inches,’ Gently said. He took a telephone directory from Glaskell’s desk, laid it on the floor, stood on it.

‘Now come behind and hit me,’ he said to Parfitt. ‘Don’t hit me hard. It’s too hot.’

Parfitt grinned very slightly. He went behind Gently, swung the hammer. He let it come to rest delicately on Gently’s skull. It lay on a spot at the top of the skull.

‘Now,’ Gently said, ‘suppose you’re a woman. It doesn’t take a superman to kill with a hammer. Bend your knees till you’re six inches lower, then you’ll be relatively five six. Then try it again.’

Parfitt tried it again. The hammer came to rest just above Gently’s nape. Gently stood off the directory, put it back on the desk. Glaskell was frowning at the hammer. He moved the directory slightly.

‘So you think we’re wrong about the son,’ he said to Gently. ‘But there’s nobody else in the picture, and he’s lying. You talk to him.’

‘I don’t think you’re wrong,’ Gently said. He smiled. ‘I’m only fact-finding,’ he said. ‘It probably happened the way you think, but it’s useful to know about the alternatives. Let’s talk around it a bit. Give me some background stuff.’

‘Parfitt can give it to you,’ Glaskell said. ‘He comes from that direction anyway.’

Parfitt set the hammer on the floor so that it balanced, handle up, then he sat. He glanced at Gently, let his glance slant sideways.

‘I don’t come from Haynor,’ he said. ‘I don’t know everything that goes on there. But I was brought up in a Broads village and they’re all about the same. This boat-letting trade is pretty recent, most of it’s grown up within living memory. So you get men who went to school together in a boss and employee relationship. So there’s jealousy and friction. The boss has to put up with a lot of familiarity. Also there’s a shortage of skilled boatbuilders, and the men can afford to be independent. Maybe it keeps the industry healthy, I wouldn’t know about that. It seems to work pretty well. While the boss keeps in line.’

‘It’s an expanding industry,’ Glaskell said. ‘That’s why the skilled men are having it good. When the National Parks Commission scuttled from the Broads it was a signal for exploitation. Go to Blackpool. It’s quieter. Better policed. More dustbins.’

‘And probably fewer drownings,’ Parfitt said. ‘A drowning was rare when I was a kid.’

Gently nodded. ‘I see,’ he said. ‘And what sort of a boss was French?’

Parfitt moved his shoulders. ‘A bit uppity,’ he said. ‘That’s what Reeve says. He’s the constable at Haynor.’

‘How?’ Gently said.

‘Well,’ Parfitt said. He slid a look at Gently, and away. ‘French threw his weight about,’ he said. ‘He didn’t like his men being familiar. He was a foreigner, of course. But he’d lived in Haynor since he was a kid. His old man moved there from Beccles way and worked a while for Speltons. Then he started the yard over the road. Speltons were the big people at that time. Old man French was a fine designer and he went ahead between the wars. Harry French was more of a businessman, and he took over in thirty-eight. Harry French got the Admiralty contracts, expanded right, left and centre. Now it’s Speltons who are the small yard. Harry French was a big man.’

‘A big man,’ Gently said.

‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘A big man. Don’t get me wrong, he was pretty all right, but he was a big man. That’s how he was.’

Gently said: ‘Who did he marry?’

‘One of the Spenlows,’ Parfitt said.

‘They’re county people,’ Glaskell said. ‘They do a lot of sailing. She had money.’

‘So you’d say he married above him,’ Gently said. ‘That wouldn’t make him popular either.’

‘Don’t suppose it did,’ Glaskell said. ‘They’re a bloody independent lot round here.’

‘The son takes after his mother,’ Parfitt said.

‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘tell me about the son.’

‘He’s a bit of a, you know,’ Parfitt said. ‘He’s a bit wet. And he lies like a bastard.’

‘Is he in the business?’ Gently said.

‘Not from what I could make out,’ Parfitt said. ‘He’s at Cambridge for another year, for whatever good it’s going to do him. That’s what half the rows were about, him being too good to go into the business. He was to have picked up some money his mother left him. Now he gets it all, of course.’

‘So he wasn’t at the yard much?’ Gently said.

‘Oh yes he was,’ Parfitt said. ‘Reeve says his old man kept a short rein on him, had him holding tools for the yard men. Don’t worry, there’s plenty of motive there. If we could get something to back it.’

‘What else do you know about him?’ Gently said.

‘Runs after the women, doesn’t he?’ Glaskell said.

Parfitt shifted. ‘Not exactly,’ he said. ‘He doesn’t have enough guts to run after them. But he’s been hanging round the village whore, whether he’s got anywhere or not. She’s the wife of one of the yard-hands. Lidney. A red-hot momma, I’ve seen her. Nobody knows whether his father knew about it, but there’d have been hell to pay if he did.’