Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

Gently sighed and shook his head.

‘But there weren’t any strangers around yesterday afternoon — people who don’t usually come here…?’

He went over to Annie’s wherry. Four frightened little faces stared up at him out of the hatch.

‘Who’s looking after the kids?’

The slattern, it appeared, was seeing they were fed and was keeping an eye on them.

Inside the low, wide cabin it was close and redolent with boat-smell, paraffin, blankets and a subtle tincture of Deep River. On one of the berths lay the slim form of Pedro the Fisherman. His pale face was half-turned into a cushion and there were silent tears running down it. Gently touched him on the shoulder. He moaned and sat up dazedly.

‘You — you slept here last night?’

The Italian’s haunted eyes looked vacant, but he nodded as though he understood.

‘With Mrs Packer — with Annie?’

Now he shook his head. ‘In da… da forra-peak.’

‘Tell me what happened.’

Tears welled up again as Pedro tried to find words.

‘We finish da music… go to bed. Sometime I don’t sleep… hear her get up, go ’way. I hear. Da sound… lika da bird, pzzzzzt! Nodding else… nodding at all… I go to sleep.’

‘When was this, Pedro?’

‘When… I dunno. One hour, two hour.’

‘But there must have been a splash! Didn’t you hear that?’

Pedro shook his head stupidly, then his face twisted and collapsed, and he sank back sobbing on the bunk.

Gently took a quick look round the cabin and went back on deck.

‘Who was it found her?’

He was a sad-looking man answering to the name of Dido Plum. He had just been setting out in his dinghy for the village. As he was passing Annie’s wherry he had seen something white down amongst the weeds. He had prodded it with his oar…

‘Show me where it was.’

Dido led him up to the bows of the wherry and pointed to a spot slightly ahead of them. If you had toppled off the bows you might have fallen right there… with a splash. And with a bullet through the head you ought to have left a little blood somewhere…

Gently frowned, and stooping, raised the hatch of the forepeak. Below him lay a disordered bunk. On a shelf opposite was Pedro’s concertina, lying unlatched and sagging drunkenly, beside it a silly little posy of marsh-flowers stuck in a potted-meat jar. Gently dropped the hatch back expressionlessly.

‘Who saw the body… what was she wearing at the time?’

She’d been wearing a night-gown, it appeared, and a knitted cardigan over it. And slippers, but one of them was still in the Dyke somewhere.

‘What would she have got up for?’

There were guffaws and tittering, and glances at a sheepish-looking Ted Thatcher. He grinned at Gently and turned on the others in mock indignation.

‘Don’t know what yew’re all lookin at me for! Ennaone’d think I made a habit of strange women.’

‘Well don’tch’?’ shouted someone and there was a ripple of laughter.

Gently said: ‘You were dancing with her last night.’

‘W’yes… but that i’nt the same as what this dirta-minded lot seem to think!’

‘She could have arranged to see you later.’

Ted gave him a wink. ‘Yew’re nearla as bad as they are, an tha’s pretta bad!’

‘Did she, or didn’t she?’

‘She di’nt then — though I woon’t say she ha’nt got a mind tew. But that wa’nt noth’n definite, an’ I aren’t agoin’ to have m’reputation dragged in the mud!’

It was suddenly comedy, that tragic occurrence on the river-bank. Perhaps it was reaction, perhaps it was the East Anglian resentment at being thrown emotionally off balance. But the comic side had come uppermost and the river-dwellers wanted it to stay uppermost. They insisted in finding something superlatively funny in the idea of the dead woman creeping out to meet Thatcher.

‘Were you expecting her?’ persisted Gently.

‘W’not exacla… but I woonta been surprised.’

‘Did you stay awake, for instance?’

‘What me — for that ole bitch!’

‘Then you didn’t hear anything — your boat is moored quite close?’

‘That i’nt apurpose either — onla b’cause there i’nt no room with better compana!’

He had heard something, all the same. When Gently could steer him away from the gallery he admitted to having been awakened. He had then heard the same sound that Pedro described.

‘Like an ole swan that was, or like a cute when she’s a-sittin’ on some eggs. “Pssssh!” that go, onla a bit more wicious-like.’

‘Didn’t you get up to see what it was?’

‘W’no… I’m tew far uppa the tooth to get up evra time I hear a funna noise.’

‘And you’ve no idea of the time?’

‘Blast yes — yew can see me strikin a light to have a look!’

Like Pedro, he had heard no splash, and like Pedro he had dropped off to sleep again. Two other witnesses, the slattern and a little man with a big moustache, contributed substantially similar evidence. The little man could add a trifle more — he had stayed awake longer. Ten minutes or so after the hissing there had been a subdued bump, as though somebody had stepped cautiously into a dinghy, and there followed a number of similar noises occupying several minutes.

‘But not a splash?’

‘No, there wa’nt no splash.’

‘And of course you don’t know the time?’

‘I don’t — but I could hear “Moanin’ Minnie”, if tha’s enna help to yew.’

‘Moaning Minnie’ was the automatic foghorn off the coast, ten miles distant. It had probably been booming all night.

Gently bit his lip and stared about him at the rough, worn grass of the river-bank. Why wasn’t there any blood? Cheerful Annie had looked as though she had plenty!

He had got the tragedy into some sort of focus now. In his mind’s eye he could see what had gone on here while he was sleeping so peacefully in the nearby bungalow.

It was twelve when he had gone to bed. Perhaps in deference to the resident coppers, the jollifications on the bank had ended half an hour earlier. A few people had stopped to chat, no doubt, but it hadn’t continued very long. When Gently had doused his light and drawn his curtains it was quiet and still outside. After that, how long had it been? How long had Annie given Pedro in the forepeak to drop off, before she pulled on her cardigan, stuck her feet into her slippers and crept away to try her charms on Ted Thatcher? An hour, perhaps. It would have been around one. At one or just after she had slipped ashore, turned riverwards towards Thatcher’s old tub and…

But that was where the picture went hazy. For the life of him, Gently couldn’t fill in the next bit. If she’d been attacked between the wherry and Thatcher’s boat, where was the blood? If she’d been enticed to a distance first, how could four people have heard the fizzing of that silenced. 22 Beretta? And if, for some inscrutable reason, she had gone to the bows of the wherry… right above Pedro’s head… and been cleanly bowled off into the Dyke, why no splash?

Once she was dead, the picture grew clear again — at least, the picture of what had happened: the motive wasn’t quite so obvious. Her body had been lowered into a dinghy, the dinghy had been pushed out to the stream-side of the wherry and the body noiselessly jettisoned. So it wouldn’t be found too quickly…? That was just possible. If that were the reason, then it was necessary to jettison the body towards the middle of the Dyke, since it ran shallow near the bank.

But where was the blood… where was the blood?

Shaking his head, Gently explored the whole length of the bank, his eye fixed now on the grass, now on the decrepit collection of dinghies belonging to the various boats. The most suspect was Annie’s own, moored between the wherry’s bows and the bank. But like the others it showed nothing more sinister than certain years of undisturbed grime.