Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

‘I have told you — but you don’t seem to be satisfied. If you expect a different tale you must give me time to concoct one.’

‘The simple truth will do, ma’am.’

‘Not, it would appear, for a policeman.’

An impasse seemed to have been reached and the intelligent Hansom jiffled and breathed stern smoke through his powerful nostrils. If only Gently knew when it was time to turn some heat on! But he remembered a former pointed glance of the chief inspector’s.

‘You see, ma’am, in a business like this we’ve got to have proof that people were where they say they were.’

‘I am fully aware of that fact, Inspector Hansom.’

‘And neither you nor Mr Paul have given us any.’

‘For which we are much to be blamed. Have you any further comment?’

Hansom’s eyes gleamed, but he struggled manfully against the instinct to bite off heads.

‘We shall make stringent inquiries, ma’am.’

‘I trust you will, in view of the exorbitant rates I pay.’

‘We shall get the truth in the long run. It’s in your own interest to make a clean breast now.’

‘Your advice is kind, if not, perhaps, asked for.’

‘It’s not advice — I’m warning you!’ bawled Hansom, goaded beyond discretion, ‘this is a homicide inquiry — not a variation on Twenty Questions!’

Mrs Lammas turned cuttingly to Gently.

‘Is this man strictly necessary to you, or is he here merely because of some ridiculous regulation?’

She wasn’t going to alter her story. They went over it point by point, with special reference to Gently’s large-scale map. It clicked home everywhere, like the movement of a Swiss watch. She had gone out. She had gone to Sea Weston. She had parked the car on a piece of waste ground. She had walked along the evening beach, where the tide had left the sand firm and smooth. And she had driven home again, to arrive just ahead of Paul. No, she hadn’t spoken to anyone. She did not patronize the cafe or ice-cream bar at Sea Weston. Whether anyone who knew her had noticed her she could not say. Presumably the police would elicit that in the course of Inspector Hansom’s stringent inquiries.

‘And the disagreement you were alleged to have had with your son when you got home?’

‘Entirely mythical, inspector. My servants are Welsh, you know, and inclined to use their imaginations.’

‘They talked about it as though they were in no doubt.’

Mrs Lammas’ tinkle of laughter was restored to office.

‘You are too English, inspector… you don’t understand Welsh people! Do you know what I honestly think is at the bottom of it?’

‘I’d be glad to know.’

‘Paul was giving an animated impression of a woman driver hogging the middle of the road. He raised his voice, of course. They must have heard it and assumed the rest.’

‘They say it was going on for over an hour. Until your daughter came in, in fact.’

‘They mean they were talking about it for over an hour, if I know anything about my own servants.’

Gently hunched his shoulders and stared at his pad full of scribbles.

‘Leaving that, what happened to the photograph of your husband which used to stand on the bureau there?’

She looked sharply where he indicated and hesitated.

‘I really couldn’t say… unless he chanced to take it with him.’

‘You agree that there was such a photograph?’

‘Naturally! He was an inmate of the house. One was obliged to suffer certain evidences of it.’

‘There would be other photographs… you have some you could show me?’

‘I have one or two in my albums, though I should warn you that none of them are very recent.’

‘All the same, I should be obliged to see them.’

Mrs Lammas rose and went over to a dainty little cabinet, from which she took four expensively bound snapshot albums. She brought them over to the table and laid them in front of Gently.

‘This green one is the earliest; it was bought at Torquay. It should have quite a number of him.’

She flicked over a few of the pages. Then an expression of perplexity came into her eyes.

‘Oh — but someone’s taken them all out!’

‘Mmn?’

‘Look — here, and here… and here! There are only the mounts left. This is really going too far! I didn’t particularly want them, but they were my property!’

She threw the green volume aside and picked up another. The anger growing in her countenance indicated what she found there.

‘The absolute pig! These were not his to make away with. And I was on some of them — there were several with myself and Paul-!’

‘You must remember that he was planning to disappear.’

‘But this is criminal! Taking my photographs — they can never be replaced!’

‘There’ll be the negatives… what about them?’

She was back at the cabinet in a moment, rifling in a cardboard box and tossing film-wallets on to the carpet. But Lammas had apparently been thorough. She stamped on the floor with her tiny foot and hurled the box into a corner.

‘I could kill him for this! I tell you I’m glad he’s been murdered!’

‘Come now, Mrs Lammas.’

‘He knew it would hurt me… as though I should ever try to find out where he went!’

For a moment it looked as though she would burst into tears. Then she recovered herself and came slowly back to the table.

‘Well, it didn’t get him far. No, it didn’t get him far!’

Gently nodded profoundly and made a sympathetic clicking noise.

‘Something has just occurred to me.’

Mrs Lammas raised her head.

‘Paul… he hated your husband. Wouldn’t he hate anyone who tried to step into his shoes?’

What happened next was so unexpected that Hansom’s jaw dropped open wide, while the Constable’s pencil made a scribble like a seismograph recording.

Mrs Lammas screamed — a loud, blood-chilling scream. And having screamed, she rushed out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

‘Glory O’Rory!’ gabbled Hansom, ‘what the blue blazes was all that about!’

Gently gazed at the slammed door stupidly. ‘I’m not absolutely certain… just at the moment.’

‘But what did you say to her to get a skirl like that?’

‘Oh, something about Paul. I daresay it wasn’t very important.’

Hansom looked at him darkly as he bent to find his cigar stump.

‘All I can say is that you might give us a warning — that’s all! Some of us have got nervous systems that haven’t been chilled off with peppermint!’

Gently chuckled and gave his colleague a light.

They weren’t so very busy, serving lunch at the Bulrush Cafe near the bridge. Later on in the week the novelty of using one’s galley or cooking-locker would have worn off and things would liven up, but on Monday one still had a fund of enthusiasm.

Sitting in the window, you could watch the gay yachting crowd pass and re-pass. They were a heterogenous lot, both sexes and all ages. Now it would be a noisy crowd of teenagers in open wind-cheaters and jazzy tasselled caps, now a family party, the father looking self-conscious with his legs sticking out of shorts. Or a young couple carrying a baby between them and looking very capable. Or vigorous young men in white jerseys and the beginnings of beards. Or a self-intent pair of honeymooners, or noisy children, or pretty girls.

Gently stared at them absently over his cup of coffee. He was aware of a certain irritation with himself. By now he ought to have been getting into the picture of this business — nothing would induce him to call the picture a theory! — there ought to have been a few broad strokes on the canvas indicating the final composition, however imperfect in detail.