Alan Hunter - Gently Down the Stream

‘Did they keep it under cover?’

‘I suppose so… anyway, I knew about it!’

‘What about your father?’

Paul shrugged feebly. ‘I couldn’t say what he knew.’

From the beginning Paul had been suspicious and before long he had had a row with his mother. It was then he was made to realize that he had slipped into second place. His mother wouldn’t listen to him. His old influence with her had vanished. For the first time in his life he felt the icy wind of neglect seek out his pampered ego and after astonishment and self-pity had run their course he reacted in strict character.

‘At first I threatened to commit suicide, but she wasn’t impressed by that. Then I told her I would inform Father unless she stopped seeing him. It was this that put an end to it — for the moment.’

It would, of course. Mrs Lammas had no intention of either losing or being lost by her husband. A love affair was all very well while it remained a gay flourish to the pattern of life. It was not very well when it threatened to disrupt that pattern, to demolish reputations, to liberate a bondman. So Mrs Lammas had yielded, or at least appeared to yield. When Paul was around she no longer drove off to her discrete rendezvous.

Gently wondered what sort of certificate Paul would get from his mother’s specialist the next time National Service reared its ugly head.

‘But you weren’t satisfied?’

‘No… I knew the difference in her manner towards me! Once we were everything to each other, nothing could come between us. Now she was cool, so horridly cool! How can I describe it? She no longer confided in me and I felt I could no longer confide in her. All the little things that pass between people who love one another! And I knew I couldn’t trust her. She had put me outside her heart. I was sure she would tell me the biggest lie without a grain of remorse.’

So it had become an armed peace between mother and son. Outwardly, everything was the same. Inwardly, they spied upon each other, two enemies, each watching to catch the other at a disadvantage. And Paul couldn’t be away from Cambridge all the time.

‘That’s the real reason why you are at home, is it?’

‘Of course it is! You knew what I told you was an excuse. While I was here she had to stop seeing him… before this happened, anyway. If she went out, I followed her. What else was there I could do…?’

On the Friday morning he had followed her into Norchester and witnessed her visit to the office. During the afternoon she was very silent and absorbed in thought. At about half-past three he had passed through the hall and found her in the act of telephoning. She had immediately hung up and avoided him by going into the kitchen and giving some orders about tea. A little later he had seen her slip out of the house by the kitchen door.

‘She went to the phone-box at Wrackstead Turn. I timed her. She was talking for twenty minutes.’

Suspicious and very much on his guard, Paul had laid his plans for the evening. Instead of staying in the house he would deliberately go off on his motorcycle and then lurk in a side-turning, waiting to see what she would do. Mrs Lammas fell into the trap. Within five minutes she had set out to visit her lover. On the way, for motives then obscure to Paul, she had turned off to Halford Quay and made some inquiries of a petrol-pump attendant. But then she went directly to Marsh’s house. She had remained there for the rest of the evening.

‘You’re sure of this — it’s important, you know!’

‘How can I be other than sure, when I was watching the whole time on a thousand knives! She drove straight up the drive as though she owned the place, parked the car so it was out of sight and ran into the house without even knocking. Do you think I took my eyes off it one second after that?’

Gently nodded, satisfied. If Paul were telling the truth, no plain-clothes man could have watched that house half as intently as the slighted spoiled boy…

‘I watched for nearly two hours, from just after half-past seven till just before half past nine. Then she came out, and him with her — patting her shoulder and all that sort of slush! When she got into the car I raced back home. I wanted it to be a surprise, didn’t I just! And I waited for her in the lounge — and that was the row the servants heard.’

Under the circumstances, he had simply refused to believe her excuse that she had gone to Marsh for advice. What sort of tale was she telling him, about his father having sold out the business and gone off with Linda Brent? It was all too ridiculous! A palpable invention! They had gone on rowing till the return of Pauline put an end to it.

Gently refilled his pipe and lit it meticulously.

‘All right… it hangs together. Now where is Henry Marsh’s house?’

Paul hesitated before replying. He had talked himself back into fettle.

‘I suppose you’ve got to know?’

‘Oh yes, I’m afraid we have.’

‘Very well, then — and please don’t think it’s something significant! — his house is at Ollby.’

‘His house is where?’ The spent match stayed put in Gently’s fingers.

‘At Ollby, about quarter of a mile from the turning. But I can tell you right now that it means exactly nothing!’

It seemed an age before that spent match was flicked into the water. Gently kept staring at it as though it were something he hadn’t seen before. Then it went suddenly, with a curve of irritability, and Gently was lugging out his beginning-to-be-dog-eared Ordnance Survey.

‘Come on, now! No fooling about. Just whereabouts is that house situated?’

Paul pouted at his rough tone, but pointed to the spot.

‘Yes — just where I thought! It’s that white house with the trees round it, standing all on its own… over a mile this way from the village, and a good two from Panxford Upper Street!’

‘But it doesn’t signify — it might have been twenty miles away!’

Gently’s eyes fastened on him and there was no mildness in them now.

‘You can’t be that stupid! Don’t you realize what you’ve told me? On your own admission you, your mother and this Marsh were within half a mile of the scene of the murder at the time it was going on.’

‘That’s just the point — I can prove she didn’t go there!’

‘On the contrary, Mr Lammas… you can’t even prove that you didn’t go there.’

The cheeks blanched to their incredible whiteness, as though Gently had stabbed him with a knife. Even the hand clutching at the counter was drained of colour.

‘You — you trapped me into telling you this!’

Gently shook his head. ‘You seem to have trapped yourself.’

‘I told you in good faith — now you’re making it evidence against me!’

‘You told me because you had to tell me something… how much remains to be seen.’

‘I told you everything!’

‘Then look at this map.’

He prodded at the buff coloured line of the secondary road taping out from Wrackstead. It left Panxford to one side, passed through the hamlet of Panxford Upper Street and for over three miles from thence to Ollby proceeded without a single side-turn… except one.

‘You must have seen the chauffeur pass.’

‘I didn’t, I tell you!’

‘You must have done, if you were on that road. Do you want me to believe he went ten miles about?’

‘I wasn’t watching the cars!’

‘You’d have noticed your father’s.’

‘I’d got my back to the road!’

‘Then you’d be in full view of the house.’

Paul swayed as though he would fall and Gently halted to give him time to recover.

‘Another thing… you’d have seen the smoke.’

Paul moaned like a stricken animal.