Alan Hunter - Gently through the Mill

He couldn’t have talked, and Fuller realized it…

‘How long were you without a foreman?’

‘How long? Roughly six or eight-’

‘Quite a time in fact! Yet you suddenly appointed a new one.’

‘It meant extra work…’

‘Then why did you wait so long?’

‘At first-’

‘Meaning what?’

‘The first week or two-’

‘But you talked of six or eight weeks!’

‘I know! It was later on-’

‘So you were overworked for a month or six weeks, but did nothing about it till last Friday?’

‘I’d been meaning to-’

‘How long has Blacker worked here?’

‘Several years — Mary will tell you-!’

‘Six years. What about the others?’

‘Of course, there’s some of them-’

‘Ten years? Twenty? One or two of them who worked here before you took the mill over?’

‘Yes — one or two!’

‘Then why was Blacker made foreman?’

‘Because he’s got the-’

‘After a bare six years?’

‘It’s enough-’

‘Over the heads of the others — and a man of his character?’

‘I tell you-’

‘Good for discipline, eh? Just the move to keep them happy!’

‘I made him up on his ability!’

‘About twelve hours after a murder on the premises!’

Pershore seemed about to break in again, but Gently nailed him down with a glance that made the mayor-elect shiver. Let him interfere this time — only let him dare! But Pershore had appreciated the threat of that glance…

‘Why are you afraid of Blacker?’

‘That’s ridiculous…’

‘Don’t tell me you like the man!’

‘We’ve always got on-’

‘He’s a bad lot, and you know it. He haunts the pubs and keeps company with prostitutes — probably runs one of them, if I know anything about it! And he’s a slacker and a troublemaker, despised by the men you’ve put under him, on top of which he’s insolent to you personally. If you’re not afraid of him, why don’t you kick him out? Of all the others, why make that fellow the foreman of your mill?’

‘You don’t know him, I tell you!’

‘Oh, yes, I do — I’ve met Blackers before! They are constitutional parasites, Mr Fuller, one meets them at all levels. They are a work-shy race always on the lookout for the easy touch. And Blacker has found one in you, hasn’t he? He’s found a way of putting the pressure on! He saw something — he heard something — and now you’re under his thumb.

‘And that was on Thursday night, because he put the bite on you first thing on Friday morning.

‘If it wasn’t to do with Taylor, Mr Fuller, you’d better have a cast-iron story to tell!’

The miller shuddered as though he were being whipped, but the obstinate pout of his lips set tighter. Blacker hadn’t talked, that was the sheet-anchor he was clinging to. Gently could suspect what he liked… but Blacker hadn’t talked!

‘Look — where did you see this before?’

Gently shoved the gold cross into the wretched man’s hand.

‘I–I haven’t ever seen it!’ Fuller shrank away from it sensibly. ‘I don’t understand-’

‘And you wouldn’t know where I found it?’

‘No! How should I know?’

‘Though it was amongst the barley-straw in the hayloft?’

‘I tell you — how should I know!’

This time the barb had caught something. Gently could feel the tug at his line. The desperation was seeping back into themiller’s tone, a ghastly look had come into his eyes.

‘Let me tell you something, Mr Fuller! We’ve got very comprehensive records of criminals like Taylor. He happened to have been a Roman Catholic — not a very good one, perhaps, but a man likely to have carried one of those things about.

‘It could have been his — what have you got to say to that?’

‘Nothing!’

‘You mean it wasn’t his?’

‘I mean — no, I’ve never seen it before!’

‘But even so, you’ve got an idea how it came to be in the loft — it was dropped in a struggle, wasn’t it? Taylor’s struggle for his life!’

The mixture of fear, despair and frustration in Fuller’s look was difficult to analyse, but it was a long way from being the simple emotion of conscious guilt.

‘You’ve got it wrong — he — he wouldn’t have carried one!’

‘Indeed? So you knew Taylor?’

‘No! But a man like that — he wouldn’t have been religious!’

‘I disagree, Mr Fuller. Some crooks are very religious.’

The miller bit his lip and stared agitatedly at the floor. He seemed to be being wrenched by two contrary forces, two equal powers which prevented him from articulating.

‘This cross… it might be anybody’s…!’

Gently shrugged with expression.

‘I mean… kids… a tramp — the door’s never locked! Why imagine, for instance… it might have been there…’

‘It’s anybody’s but Taylor’s, in fact?’

‘I didn’t say that, but…’

‘But you want to give that impression?’

‘No — but why jump to the conclusion…?’

Why indeed, when the miller had so unmistakably recognized the cross, and was trying his hardest to throw doubt on its ownership?

‘Of course, it could have been dropped by the murderer.’

Gently took back the cross and held it poised in front of him.

‘In strangling there’s always a struggle — even when the victim is a small man! Unless you know precisely where to press — and Taylor’s strangling was bungled — it takes an unexpected length of time to do a man in. Stranglers often panic and begin making mistakes…’

He had made a mistake himself. He had forgotten the presence of Miss Playford. The attractive clerk, the colour blanched from her cheeks, suddenly slipped forward from her chair and collapsed untidily on the floor.

‘Inspector, that was completely uncalled for!’

Pershore was on his feet in a minute, spluttering his safely grounded indignation.

‘You had no right, sir, whatever — your methods, if one may call them methods-!’

‘All right — let’s see to the lady!’

‘But you had no right to employ such despicable-’

‘For heaven’s sake shut up — fetch some water, if you want to be useful!’

He was angry with Pershore and angry with himself. For the second time that afternoon he had slightly misplayed a promising card. Fuller was on his knees by his clerk, chafing her hands and murmuring reassuringly. Now the spell was broken — Gently had lost his opportunity!

‘In spite of the threat you have seen fit to offer-’

‘Take this glass, sir. There’s a tap by the bakehouse.’

‘At whatever personal risk, I feel bound in duty-’

‘If you don’t mind, we’ll discuss it later.’

Pershore snatched the glass from him and stalked toweringly out of the office. Gently found a cushion and stuck it under Miss Playford’s well-shod heels.

Twice in a row… it was too much of a bad thing! If he went on like this it was time for his retirement…

Fiery red sun had broken through slated sky, touching the teatime streets with rosiness. There was no warmth in the phenomenon. It made the east wind feel colder than ever. Like an inflamed and warning eye the sun peered down the comfortless streets, threatening to bring storm and wrack in its wake.

People were hurrying homeward, dour and silent as they had been all day. Along with the streets and buildings they seemed driven into themselves; nothing merged, nothing harmonized, everything was separate and alien to everything else.

Lynton…

‘Just a coffee, please, waitress!’

Was it different in the summer? Perhaps… when the sun burned down! Or was it always like this, always at loggerheads with itself — was that the peculiar essence of the town?