Alan Hunter - Gently through the Mill

Over the low hedges, comfortless in their early green, one saw sodden fields of black fen soil. Now and then, appearing like ships, were great barns or farmhouses in the rusty Northshire brick and pantile, by each a leafing elder or two.

Westward lay the marshes and the river, low, waterlogged, the primeval haunt of every depressing tone of brown, green and grey.

‘It’s got rid of the wind, anyway.’

Griffin wanted to talk — no doubt he’d already got a theory. Gently, sitting hunched over his first pipe of the day, was thinking more in terms of a roadhouse where one might get a sandwich and a cup of coffee.

‘Doesn’t seem as though they got far, does it?’

Somebody had to make that remark!

‘Looks as though they got out of town to give us the slip, and then hung around still trying to get whatever it was…’

‘And now there’s only one left alive.’

‘You think chummy will go after him too?’

Gently grunted.

‘Ask yourself the question! If it was necessary to get rid of two of them, it must be necessary to get rid of the other one. And they couldn’t all be making love to Mrs Blythely in the hayloft.’

Griffin was silent for a few moments after this rebuff. He had an irritating way of looking injured, Gently noticed. Beyond the streaming windows a dyke-wall had risen to conceal the view to the right. Judging from what they had passed already, there was small prospect of the coffee and sandwiches materializing.

‘It must be something in Lynton they were after, though.’

One day, would someone tell Griffin he was commonplace?

‘And it has to be pretty big — what happened to Taylor didn’t shake them off. Chummy meant business, but they were still trying for the jackpot.’

‘Almost looks like a racket again, doesn’t it?’

‘If I didn’t know Lynton…’

‘Look — isn’t that a cafe we’re coming to?’

Griffin must have breakfasted already, because he didn’t join Gently in his hasty snack. Instead, he remained in the back of the car, his eyes fixed on the road along which they ought to have been travelling.

‘If there’s traces of blood — in this rain…’

Gently got back beside him feeling a little more benevolent. The coffee had been freshly ground, and scalding hot at that. As well as two sandwiches he had gobbled down a Chelsea bun.

‘Five minutes won’t matter after all the rain we’ve had.’

‘I was thinking of footprints, too.’

‘The same applies to them.’

It wasn’t much further to the road-section near Apton. In the distance one could see the circular brick tower of the old drainage mill, capless and sailless but firmly lined in the dirty sky.

The lane leading to it was narrow but kept in good repair; though the mill was disused, it probably stood at an important point in the current drainage system.

‘If it had been dry we might have seen car-tracks.’

It wasn’t dry, so what was the point of harping on it? This wasn’t the first time rain had assisted a criminal…

The lane ended indefinitely by a clump of bush alders. Griffin, springing out almost before the car stopped, led the way past them to the riverbank beyond.

It was a spot quite as desolate and depressing as the sluice they had lately visited. The mill-tower, seen close-to, looked paltry and devoid of interest. A gap had been rent in the fabric above the door, apparently with intention, while the interior seemed to have been devoted to purposes unspecified.

‘Fishermen…’

Griffin sniffed but didn’t pursue his researches. The litter of paper about the earthy floor was patently of earlier date than yesterday.

‘Is the fishing good in these parts?’

‘Ask Worsnop there.’

‘We get some good bream, sir,’ put in the constable in question. ‘One of the blokes in my club pulled out a nine-pounder on a number twelve…’

Beside the mill still remained the axle of its paddlewheel, but the wheel itself had long since vanished. The apron of turf stretching to the river was tough and springy. It bore a number of marks, but they were shallow and indefinite. If there had been any blood it would have been washed out several hours ago.

‘Not much to see here.’

Griffin sounded disappointed.

‘I could have sworn it was the spot — it’s the only likely place. Do you think we can be certain about the distance the body travelled?’

Gently plodded down the bank and stood gazing into the muddy water. The tide was beginning to make again, but the level of the water hadn’t sensibly risen. On the other bank a bed of soiled reeds showed that it had some two or three feet to go.

‘He might have thrown the clothes in his car and got rid of them anywhere…’

‘Ames’s clothes, you mean?’

‘Mmn. But Ames had to get here… isn’t it three miles to Apton? There’s just a chance he pinched a bike — what do you think of that?’

Griffin stared at him seriously, trying to follow the logic of it.

‘Suppose chummy brought him here…’

‘It isn’t such a helpful supposition.’

‘But until we find a bike…’

‘There’s one down there in the bed of the river.’

He went back into the car and smoked while Worsnop waded for the abandoned bicycle. The rain had taken another turn for the worse and was beating like rods on the Wolseley’s roof and bonnet. Inside the car smelt dankly of moist leather, while a trickle of water was finding its way through one of the door jambs.

Griffin and Worsnop, reappearing with the bicycle, looked as though they had relinquished all hopes of staying dry.

‘It’s a Raleigh, nearly new — dynohub lighting and everything.’

‘Nobody was going to throw that in the river.’

‘What shall we do — issue a description?’

‘First we’ll take it into Apton and see if anyone’s lost one.’

He was feeling more himself now, wreathed in a cloud of navy cut. That little bit of luck with the bicycle had offset the initial disadvantage of being dragged out of bed… besides, Griffin was in something of a pickle now, himself! He had got all over mud helping to strap the bicycle to the roof rack.

One piece of luck sometimes led to another, and Gently’s seemed to be temporarily in form. At Apton the constable was out on his beat, but his wife, a buxom matron with a lively eye, had just booked the very piece of information they were after.

‘Fred Larkin’s just been round here… somebody pinched his bike from outside the village hall last night.’

‘Did he leave a description?’

‘It’s a green Raleigh roadster, newish, frame number — where’s the book! — PYS7 stroke 2964. Got a lot of extras on it, he says, and he only bought it in January.’

‘Where can we find him?’

‘He works in the garage — but won’t you have a cuppa? I’ve got the pot on for my husband, and you look as though you could stand one.’

In spite of a disapproving Griffin, Gently accepted the invitation. The Apton Constable’s kitchen was a cheerful place and his wife a comfortable body. Not knowing who he was, she at once placed Gently as the one in charge of whatever was afoot.

‘Have you any strangers staying in the village?’

‘There’s the vicar’s nephew, who’s a bit of a lad. Down from Cambridge, he is.’

‘Nobody at the pub?’

‘They sometimes have a commercial.’

‘What buses come to the village?’

‘There’s Service 56, runs between Westwold and Lynton.’

‘What time was the last bus through yesterday?’

‘I’ll have to look it up. It’s going to Lynton and gets in here at something to eleven. Do you reckon it was someone off the bus who whipped Fred Larkin’s bike?’