Alan Hunter - Gently through the Mill

Protesting, Blacker allowed himself to be led out of the cafe. At least a dozen pairs of eyes were on them — even Blythely was watching from a window high up above the bakehouse.

Just as they went past it the side door of the office opened, but Gently was looking neither to the right hand or the left.

‘In you go — it isn’t locked. We’ll take a look at this side first.’

The stable was a double one with the loft over the inward compartment. Lit by no windows it was gloomy enough, but Blacker pushed in as though he knew his way about. He came to a sullen standstill amongst a raffle of packing-cases and broken chairs.

‘What happens now?’

‘Pull that rubbish to one side.’

‘There’s nothing behind that…’

‘Never mind — pull it aside!’

Blacker was right, there was nothing behind it, with the exception of spiders and a great deal of litter. The floor beneath was of corrugated black tiles, sunk a little at the centre for the purpose of drainage.

‘Satisfied now?’

‘Shift the rubbish on the other side.’

‘I tell you it’s a waste of time…!’

But the rubbish was duly removed, yielding the same result as before.

‘How do you get into the loft?’

Blacker indicated a wooden fodder-trough at the end of the compartment. A packing-case stood by it by way of a step, and above, in a wooden dividing wall, two planks had been left out to provide a means of ingress.

‘Right — up you go!’

Blacker swung himself up with ungainly grace. The loft smelt fragrant with the scent of clover hay, several bales of which lay stacked by the loading door. In addition to this there was a pile of barley straw; it was making a lot of itself and covering much of the floor-space.

‘Move those bales, will you? I’ll turn over the straw.’

There was a pitchfork standing by the wall, and Gently showed that he knew how to use it. Blacker, resigned to the futility of protest, quickly tumbled apart the heap of wire-bound hay bales.

Nothing, and again nothing.

The smirk was creeping back to the foreman’s lips.

‘What did you expect to find — somebody else strangled? I reckon there was only that one…’

‘What’s this — a new sort of horse-brass?’

Gently bent down and picked out something from the tousled straw. It was a tiny gold cross, measuring not more than an inch in length. He held it up so that Blacker could see it.

‘Something you know about or something you don’t?’

‘What, me! What should I know about it? I aren’t never up here.’

‘All right… don’t labour it!’ Gently shrugged and dropped the cross into his pocket. ‘We’ll get on to our next port of call — perhaps it will be a little more productive.’

Blacker scowled at him suspiciously. ‘I’m not going nowhere else.’

‘Oh yes.’ Gently nodded. ‘You’ve begun to rouse my interest. I think we ought to check on that woman of yours… don’t you?’

Coming out of the stable they had run into Fuller. The miller had followed them along the passage and now stood, a picture of desperate indecision, some yards from the stable door. Blacker tried to catch his eye and failed absolutely. Gently, who might have had better luck, appeared to be unaware of Fuller’s existence…

The unhappy man followed them with his eyes until they turned out of the upper passage into Cosford Street.

‘There’s a lot of work on this afternoon…’

Blacker’s anxiety was increasing by leaps and bounds.

‘I don’t care if you see Maisie — I haven’t got nothing to hide! But why can’t I just tell you where to find her, and you let me get on with my job…?’

Gently, however, seemed to have added deafness to his visual affliction.

Lynton was dead on that chilly afternoon. The east wind had swept the streets as cleanly as a corporation road-sweeper. Looking in the shops, you saw the assistants talking together or leaning bored at their counters; you marvelled that it was worth anyone’s while to pretend to have a business there.

In the square the stallholders looked perished and miserable, and even the pigeons had retired to fluff their feathers somewhere else.

An east wind in Lynton… what lower depths could one plumb?

‘What time did you visit this woman?’

Gently broke a long silence as they drew opposite the police station.

‘I met her in The Fighting Cock — you know what I told them! We went round to her place when the pub closed at half ten.’

‘What had you done before that?’

‘Before that…? What I always do! I went home and got my tea, then had a wash and got into my pub-crawling outfit.’

‘Is she a regular of yours?’

‘Off and on, as you might say.’

‘How long have you known her?’

‘I don’t know — ten years, p’raps.’

‘Local, is she?’

‘You wouldn’t think so when she opens her mouth.’

‘Has she been in trouble with the police?’

‘No, she haven’t, or she’d have told me.’

‘Has Mr Fuller ever met her?’

‘How should I know who he’s met?’

Out of the square they took a street leading into the dock area. It was an ugly district of narrow thoroughfares and rows of houses built of dirty yellow brick. Aspidistras flourished in the windows, filling the gap between draped lace curtains. Now and again, as they passed, a curtain would be twitched by an anonymous hand.

‘How long have you been interested in horses?’

‘I don’t know — who said I was interested?’

‘You bet on them, don’t you?’

‘You can’t pinch me for that!’

‘Did this woman go with you to Newmarket that day?’

‘I never went to Newmarket — haven’t been there in my life.’

‘With whom do you lay your bets?’

‘Nobody ever said I laid any.’

To the left lay the warehouses with the quays behind them — small, unextensive, but adequate to handle the few small tramps touching in with timber and coal.

The sea didn’t touch Lynton; it was served by a muddy estuary. One picked up a pilot a long way out to bring a ship through the labyrinth of shoals.

‘What time did you leave her on Friday?’

‘Maisie? Time enough to get to my work.’

‘Who else is she friendly with?’

‘You’d better ask her.’

‘Sailors, perhaps?’

‘All the girls pick them up.’

‘You should know if she’s got a regular.’

‘Well, I don’t, and that’s the fact.’

Blacker was jumpy now and he couldn’t hide it. He kept trying to read the expression on Gently’s stolid countenance.

‘What other pubs do you go in?’

‘All of them — I aren’t particular.’

‘When were you last in The Roebuck?’

‘The last time I was a millionaire!’

‘How about your girlfriend — does she ever go there?’

‘It’s likely, isn’t it — living in a dump like this!’

They had turned into a gloomy cul-de-sac guarded by a solitary lamp post, a nameplate on which bore the designation: Hotblack Buildings. A brick wall closed in one side and a ramshackle store the end. The row of houses, each projecting a solitary worn step to the pavement, had a blind, eyeless appearance, as though they had ceased trying to look the world in the face.

Halfway along a begrimed infant was sitting in the road, frowning as it tugged at the spring of a broken toy; it seemed unaware of its frozen fingers and smiled at the two men.

‘Which is her house?’

‘The one at the end.’

Gently had to knock twice before he got a reply.

The door, opened cautiously, revealed a woman of uncertain age, a dressing-gown thrown hurriedly about her plumpish shoulders.

‘Chief Inspector Gently of the Criminal Investigation Department… I’d like to have a few words with you, ma’am.’