Peter Lovesey - Swing, Swing Together

“I’m sure!” said Cribb. “But we haven’t come to ask for water. Just tell me when you last had three men together through your lock.”

“With a dog,” added Harriet, and realized as she said it that Cribb had not mentioned this because it seemed too much like provocation. She wished she had drunk lemonade instead of beer.

“Three men and a dog,” said the lockkeeper slowly. “You’re asking me, are you?”

“I am indeed,” confirmed Cribb, chinking the coins in his pocket to show good faith.

“Three men and a dog. Three men is quite common,” said the lockkeeper. “Dogs is not so common. Only your real fanaticals actually go so far as to take a dog along with ’em.”

“But it isn’t unknown?”

“Last time were yesterday, towards teatime. Small white dog, it was, but don’t ask me the breed. I don’t know a bulldog from a beagle.”

“There were three men, though? Do you remember them?”

“I don’t recall things that easy, sir.”

“Sixpence apiece?” offered Cribb.

“For a florin I might remember the name of the boat as well.”

“Done.”

“It were the Lucrecia. Neat little skiff built not above a year, I’d say. The wood were light in colour, without many varnishings. Fine set of cushions, too, dark red plush.”

“And the men?”

“You do have that florin with you?”

The exchange took place.

“I reckon the one at stroke weighed all of fifteen stone. Bearded he was, and red-faced. Turned fifty, I’d say, but able to pull a powerful oar just the same. His hair was sandy-coloured and he had bright yellow braces. He were talking plenty, and it didn’t seem to matter that the others wasn’t listening. The voice matched his build. He’d have passed for a Viking, that one would, if he’d worn a helmet on his head instead of a boater. Sitting at bow was a smaller man. A queer sight they made rowing that skiff. He was dark-complexioned, the small fellow, Jewish if I can spot ’em, and with arms that barely reached the oars. I don’t know what difference he was making to the movement of the boat, but he couldn’t have got up much of a sweat-begging your pardon, young lady-for he was still wearing his blazer. Oh, and he had pebble glasses so thick you could hardly see his eyes behind ’em.”

“You’ve earned your florin already,” said Cribb. “Do you remember as much about the third man?”

“Most of all, because he was the one that spoke to me as I worked the gates for ’em. A rum cove he was, that one. He didn’t talk natural at all. He might have been standing at a pulpit instead of sitting in a boat. ‘Be good enough to explain, lockkeeper,’ he said, ‘why this lock does not appear in our itinerary, which we faithfully compiled from Mr. Jerome K. Jerome’s celebrated work.’ I gave him my usual answer and the little man at bow turned up page 220 and squinted at it. ‘He’s right,’ he says. ‘It’s here in the book. We went up the backwater to Wargrave. It is a short cut, leading out of the right-hand bank about half a mile above Marsh Lock. ’ ‘That,’ says the other, ‘is of no consequence. It is merely a retrospective reference. If there is a lock here as there appears incontrovertibly to be, then Jerome ought to have mentioned its existence at the appropriate point in the book. The omission is inexcusable.’ ”

“What was his appearance?” Cribb asked.

“For the river on a summer afternoon, very odd, very odd indeed. Pin-stripe suit and grey bowler. He was built on slimmer lines than either of the others, round-shouldered and white-faced, with tortoise-shell spectacles and buck teeth. I’d know him again.”

“I can believe you,” said Cribb. “Did you discover by any chance where they were making for?”

“Haven’t I said as much already? They’re doing the book, like everyone else. They’ll have spent last night on one of the Shiplake islands and today they’ll be making for Streatley. They’ve got two days there. If you’re wanting to meet ’em, that’s where you’ll catch ’em, for sure.”

After marsh lock the Berkshire bank rises sheerly in a clifflike formation festooned with ivy and capped with a beech wood. So far Harriet had studied the scenery more from necessity than choice, but momentarily the prospect was so spectacular that she was able to forget Constable Hardy. Then the voice of Sergeant Cribb jolted her out of her reverie.

“You’re pulling to port, Constable. I’m trying to steer an even course and you’re pulling the blasted thing to port.”

Hardy was quick to apologize. “I thought we must be goin’ by way of Hennerton Backwater. It saves nearly half a mile of rowin’. It’s a pleasant way. Plenty of shade.”

Harriet felt obliged to add, “I seem to remember the lockkeeper mentioning a backwater. To Wargrave, wasn’t it? It was the route the characters in the book were supposed to have taken.”

“I can believe that, miss,” said Hardy. “It’s a charmin’ little stream. Just right for a small boat, threadin’ its way through the rushes and under the trees. If I was writin’ a book myself, I’d have a chapter on Hennerton Backwater for sure.”

“Well, you’re not,” Cribb pointed out. “You’re rowing a boat and you’ll take your orders from me.” He gave a tug on the right-hand rudder line to reinforce the point. “We shall follow the main course of the river for another mile and then you can put me ashore at Shiplake. I shall pick up a cab at the station and drive to Streatley, where I expect to find the men we’re looking for. The rest of you will follow by way of the river, keeping a watch for the suspects in case they’re slower than they should be.”

Making it clear from the measured tone of his voice that he was providing information, not criticism, Hardy said, “It’s a good fifteen miles to Streatley.”

“Glory!” said Thackeray from behind him.

“Shan’t expect to see you there tonight, then,” conceded Cribb. “Report to the police station as soon as you arrive tomorrow.”

“Where shall we pass the night?” Thackeray bleakly asked.

“Bottom of the boat. There are cushions to lie on and you can put up the canvas in case it rains. By the time you’ve rowed a few miles more, you won’t mind where you sleep.”

Harriet heard this with amazement overflowing into indignation. It was alarming enough to be abandoned to the company of Thackeray and Hardy for the rest of the afternoon, but for Sergeant Cribb blandly to assume that she would spend the night with them at the bottom of a boat was insulting in the extreme. “ They might not mind, but I most certainly do,” she informed him, dipping the parasol at the same time, so that the others could not see the colour of her cheeks. “I should like to go back to my college, if you will kindly arrange it.”

“Back to Miss Plummer?” said Cribb.

“Miss Plummer may not hold me in very high regard,” said Harriet with dignity, “but I am confident that she will offer me a bed for the night when she knows the alternative.”

“I can’t let you go back to Miss Plummer, miss. You’re still my principal witness and I shall want you to take a look at those men tomorrow. I was about to suggest-before you assumed what you did-that I would book you a room at the Roebuck in Tilehurst. It overlooks the river, so you’ll have no trouble finding it. The constables can moor the boat nearby and you’ll simply have to step ashore and join ’em again tomorrow morning after breakfast. The Roebuck serves a very good breakfast grill, I’m told. Is that acceptable?”