Alan Hunter: Gently Down the Stream

‘Let’s anchor the butt-end under the planks.’

It was done and they both braced themselves.

‘We want to get it first time — we shall have to show ourselves a bit!’

How they managed it remained a mystery. A couple of bullets sliced by as the dydle wavered in mid-air. Then it fell with a thump, a white flake carved from the haft… and wonder of wonders, Dutt’s jacket had come down on top of it! Gently hooked it up with his toe. Yes… the Webley was still in the pocket. He slipped off the safety-catch and spun the magazine.

‘To the left of that tree, sir — I see the rushes twitching!’

Gently had seen them too, but it wasn’t at the rushes that he aimed. When the healthy crash of the. 38 rang out a bough shivered in the solitary alder… and there followed the splashes of hastily retreating footsteps.

‘Let me get after him, sir!’ Dutt was on his feet in a moment. ‘Just give me that gun — I’ll teach him the way to shoot at people!’

Gently signified a negative and rose more leisuredly.

‘You’d be easy meat, Dutt. He couldn’t ask anything better than for you to follow him in there.’

‘But we can’t let him go, sir — he’s the bloke what we’re after! And if he’s in that marsh we can stow him up with a cordon-!’

Gently shook his head again and clicked the safety back on the Webley.

‘No cordons, Dutt, and no following… there’s been enough bloodshed round here already. And I want him alive when I get him. I doubt whether I should, if we stowed him up with a cordon.’

‘But you can’t just let him go!’ It outraged all Dutt’s police-instincts. ‘If we don’t get him now we may never have another chance, sir. And don’t forget we never see him — we can’t swear to who he was if we don’t catch him!’

Gently smiled a frosty smile. He weighed the Webley in his hand.

‘But we know who he was, Dutt… we knew from the very first bullet. And we know where to find him — because he doesn’t know we know! Now let’s forget about the drama and do some routine work on this denture. When it comes to the fun and games, you’ll get your share along with the rest!’

There was a little more animation about Upper Wrackstead in the middle of the afternoon. For one thing it was early closing in the village and some of the river-dwellers worked there. For another, it was the hour of gossip, when all the chores ought to have been done. And then there were freelances like Pedro, who couldn’t make up their minds to work in the afternoon and others like Thatcher, who didn’t work anyway.

Quite a number were there to witness Gently drive up alone in the police Wolseley.

He locked the doors casually and took his time about getting off the dydle. A couple of kids stopped chasing each other to stand and drink in the spectacle.

‘When are y’going t’lock up Mrs Grey, mister?’

Gently grinned at them amiably.

‘She did for old Annie — she did, din’t she?’

‘Sid — Teddy!’

It was the slattern screeching from her companion hatch.

‘Just yew come away from there an stop cheekin’ the pleeceman!’

Reluctantly the youngsters heeded the voice of fate.

Gently shouldered the dydle and humped it over to Thatcher’s houseboat. The gentleman in question lay snoring on his cabin-top, his hands clasped sedately over his shapely paunch. Not far away sat Pedro. He was playing sadly on his concertina. The nostalgic Italian music seemed somehow to harmonize with Thatcher’s magnificent snore.

‘Oi!’

Thatcher broke off in mid-thunder.

‘I’ve brought your dydle back.’

The recumbent figure sat up slowly and scratched its ear.

‘Yew din’t have to wake me up… I was havin’ a lovela sleep! An what ha’y’ been dewin’ with my dydle — tha’s got a lump took outta the handle!’

Gently shrugged and handed it up to him.

‘It’s fair wear-and-tear.’

‘Not a lump like that i’nt! I suppose yew’ll tell me a pike bit it?’

‘You wouldn’t be so far out.’

Gently moved a few steps towards Cheerful Annie’s wherry and Pedro, his legs dangling over the bows, stopped playing a moment. But Gently seemed to change his mind. He turned back to where Thatcher was tenderly replacing the dydle with his other junk.

‘Ah well… just one more bit of business! I want the dinghy again.’

‘What arter the way yew messed her up this mornin?’

‘I shan’t mess her up this afternoon.’

Thatcher hesitated doubtfully. The nick out of the dydle seemed to have dropped his opinion of policemen by a few points.

‘That i’nt them carrs again, I s’pose?’

‘No — it’s that old mill across on the other bank.’

‘Yew can mess a boot up there, dew yew’re got a mind to.’

‘You come with me and keep me out of mischief.’

Thatcher fingered the obnoxious bullet-score pointedly. It was almost humorous to watch his mind working…

‘Verra well, my man! Five bob — take it or leave it.’

‘It’s too much, you old sinner. But I’ll take it — if you row!’

Thatcher climbed down from the cabin-top and drew in the dinghy. Everyone was watching as Gently stepped aboard. Thatcher winked at them ponderously over the policeman’s shoulder… he’d got his head screwed on, the wink seemed to say.

‘Are yew all set, ole partna?’

Gently was arranging his feet.

‘Then here w’go, an’ the best of luck!’

On the bows of the wherry Pedro continued to play his sentimental tune. It followed them for quite a distance as the dinghy turned downstream.

‘I’ve just about finished, ole partna.’

Gently could slip easily into an imitation of Thatcher’s vernacular.

‘We’ll ha done by s’arternoon, an leave yew all t’get on with it, together.’

Thatcher wasn’t going to be hurried. He rowed with a slow, steady, waterman’s stroke which made even a dinghy seem monumental. And Gently wasn’t in a hurry. He trailed stubby fingers in the sun-warm water. Two middle-aged men, one comfortably disreputable, the other comfortably respectable, you expected them to pull into the bank at any moment and to get out their rods. Why else would they be sauntering downstream in that antedeluvian dinghy?

‘I reckon yew b’long here somehow, bor… yew don’t pick our natter up that easa.’

‘W’blast, there’s nothin tew it. I onla got to listen t’soma yew carryin’ on.’

Thatcher gave a little chuckle and twisted his head appreciatively. Not many foreigners could master the sly, dry North-shire tongue with its pace and familiar lilt and abundance of glottal stops.

‘Well then, who was’t, arter all?’ he inquired, lifting an oar to accommodate a patch of floating weed.

Gently hunched his shoulders lazily.

‘We’ll know in a bit… my sergeant is going to pick him up.’

‘I’ll have a quid on that was Joe Hicks.’

‘I’d take you, too, if I was a betting man.’

Thatcher chuckled again and rowed on methodically. He wasn’t doing so badly out of Gently, when you came to weigh it up. Fifteen bob in the morning, five in the afternoon.

‘But what about all that monna?’

The thought of cash had recalled the box of notes.

‘Aren’t the kids goin to ha’ that now, when yew’ve got the bloke yew want?’

Gently fed himself a peppermint cream. ‘It’s still stolen property.’

‘But blast — yew can stretch a point! Yew know their ole man’s dewin’ time.’

‘They’ll be taken care of… don’t worry about that.’

‘But that monna was theirs. That say so on the box!’

‘The person who was being so lavish would have to prove his title.’