Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together

They set off along the High Street in the direction of the Thames, Cribb accompanying Harriet, and the two constables following with the hamper. She was not in a position to judge whether they walked like policemen, but other people in the street appeared entirely unsuspicious and incurious. Boating parties were not worth a second glance in Henley.

On one matter she was unshakeably resolved: she would not ask Sergeant Cribb the purpose of this charade. If he did not choose to explain his intentions, she did not propose to give him the satisfaction of being asked. She had not known the man long, but he was obviously the sort who gave nothing away unless it suited him, and enjoyed the sensation of power his reticence gave him. He was civil enough, she admitted, and he had got the better of Miss Plummer, which was no mean feat, but that did not give him the right to assume Miss Plummer’s authority over her. If she could have been sure he was correct in his suspicions about the three men she had seen, she might have respected him more, but she was not. Sergeant Cribb would need to find something more remarkable than a dog bite before he convinced Harriet Shaw that she had seen a boatful of murderers.

At the landing stage a brown-skinned man with a peaked cap met them, took the picnic basket from Cribb and led them to where a skiff was tied up. Harriet’s travelling case was already aboard. She had forgotten its existence in all the excitement at the police station and was astonished to see it lying in the boat behind the seat as if it belonged there. It did not require much in the way of deduction to establish how it had got there, but the planning in all this was beginning to impress her.

As the hamper was taken on board, the stern dipped an inch or two lower in the water. Thackeray deposited himself on the seat at the opposite end and restored equilibrium. Hardy was next aboard, taking the position of stroke. Then Cribb stepped down and handed Harriet to her seat while the boatman held the skiff steady with his boat hook.

She had not even put up the parasol when Cribb arrived without warning beside her on the seat, in such inescapable proximity that their hips touched. She gave a small squeak at the contact.

“I didn’t mean to alarm you, miss. It’s the last seat left on the boat. Shall we draw the rug over our knees, or will you be warm enough?”

“Quite warm enough, thank you.”

The day was perfect for boating. The Thames stretched ahead like a blue silk ribbon dividing the counties. The skiff cruised through the current at a respectable rate, and if Thackeray’s work with the sculls betrayed some inexperience, the splashes did not often carry as far as Harriet and Cribb. Constable Hardy, plainly a practised oarsman, rowed with his eyes fastened on Harriet, obliging her to take an unflagging interest in the scenery along the bank. Sergeant Cribb, who was supposed to be managing the rudder lines, was deep in Three Men in a Boat, a copy of which he had purchased in Henley. For a second reading it was providing extraordinary amusement.

The agreement was that they would row the mile or so to Marsh Lock and there take lunch. They tied up at one of the posts before the lock gates and Cribb put down his book and began distributing plates with hard-boiled eggs, which proved difficult to control with knife and fork. Two, at least, were lost overboard. The porkpie was more manageable, but the next course, a Dundee cake, by general consent was consigned to the water and sank like a stone. Thackeray commented that it was a wonder the boat had stayed afloat so long. As compensation a stone jar of beer was provided. Cribb made some remark about the rights of a person in custody and poured Harriet a half-pint glass. It was bitter, but it took away the aftertaste of the food.

While Thackeray settled in the bows for a nap and Hardy washed up, Cribb helped Harriet ashore and they approached somebody in shirt sleeves and a white cap who had for some time been eyeing them from a distance.

“Good day to you, lockkeeper,” said Cribb civilly, but with the air of a man who did not have to do his own rowing. “Capital for us, this weather, but busy work for you I dare say.”

“It’s the job I’m paid to do, sir,” the lockkeeper answered. Something in his tone suggested he was not wholly contented in his work, but Cribb ignored it.

“Interesting occupation, I expect, meeting such a variety of people.”

“I get all sorts, it’s true.” The lockkeeper looked Cribb up and down as if he were one of the more remarkable specimens.

“I was wondering whether you might remember a party coming through in a skiff like ours a day or so ago. Three men together.”

This hopeful inquiry elicited a frown.

“People I’d give something to meet,” Cribb explained, putting his hand in his pocket. “I heard they were somewhere along this stretch. Thought you might have seen ’em through your lock, one way or the other.”

Far from the hoped-for flash of recollection in the lockkeeper’s eye, a disconcerting redness was appearing at the edges.

“Name of Harris, I suppose, with George and Mr. Jerome K. Jerome, to say nothing of a dog. No, they haven’t been through, not today, nor last week, nor the week before. They’re people in a book and I spend the greater part of my time now telling folks they don’t exist, no more than Oliver Twist nor Alice in blooming Wonderland. I’d like to meet Mr. Jerome and tell him all the trouble he’s caused in my life. This was a tolerable job before that book of his appeared. I don’t get ten minutes to myself now from one day to the next. It’s doubled the traffic on the river. Doubled it. They come through here in their hundreds, half of ’em not knowing one end of a boat from the other, all decked up in their flannels and straw hats and asking for glasses of water and things I wouldn’t care to mention in present company. I don’t know what they think a lock house is. I shan’t stand it much longer. My wife’s threatening to leave. I can tell you, when she goes, so shall I, and they can go over the blooming weir to Henley for all I care.”

“I wasn’t talking about the book,” said Cribb, keeping his copy tactfully out of sight behind his back. “I simply wanted to know if you remembered letting three men through your lock. The book has nothing to do with it.”

There was a pause while the lockkeeper considered whether such an unlikely claim could have an iota of truth in it. He looked along the river and said, “It’s novices that cause the trouble. They read the book and before they’ve finished a couple of chapters they’re down at Kingston hiring a skiff. They throw in a tent and some meat pies and away they go just like them three duffers in the book. If they survive the first night at Runnymede, they spend the second in the Crown at Marlow-them that can get in-and next morning they come through here looking for the backwater to Wargrave. ‘There shouldn’t be a lock here,’ they say. ‘What’s this lock doing in our way? It isn’t in the book.’ ‘Yes it is,’ I say. ‘Marsh Lock. Page 220.’ The book is generally open on their knees, so they pick it up and frown into it and sure enough they find it mentioned. The reason why they never see it is that the backwater is mentioned first, even though it’s half a mile upriver from here. And do you think they’re grateful when I point it out? Not a bit of it. ‘Well, if we must go through the beastly lock,’ they say, ‘you’d better get the gates open or we’ll never make Shiplake before dark. When you’ve done that, be good enough to fetch us some fresh water while we’re waiting. Rowing is devilish thirsty work.’ ‘So is managing a blooming lock,’ I tell ’em. ‘You get out and work the paddles for me, and I’ll get you your blooming water.’ That shuts ’em up.”