‘And then?’
‘W’ then he start his ingin and slide off again, an the last I see of him was goin up the Deek.’
Gently hesitated. ‘Did you know who he was?’
‘Blast no! Woont know him from Adam.’
‘Or the woman with him?’
‘He ha’nt got no woman.’
‘What was that?’
‘I say he ha’nt got no woman. That was jus him on his lonesome.’
There was a moment broken only by the throb of the idling motor and then Hansom exploded angrily:
‘Of course he had a bloody woman — we know all about it!’
‘I tell yew he ha’nt,’ retorted the little man obstinately.
‘You mean you didn’t see her — she was in the cabin.’
‘No she wa’nt. He was moored starn-on, an I could see down into the cabin. Sides, why di’nt she help him get the mast down? That wa’nt easa for him, on his own.’
‘She could have been in the WC!’ snarled Hansom.
‘Then she musta been wholla bound up, tha’s all I can say…’
He wasn’t to be shaken — there was only Lammas on the Harrier that evening. Neither Hansom’s bullying nor Gently’s more subtle methods would make him modify his statement.
‘What was he wearing?’ queried Gently at the end of it.
‘W’one of them sports shuts an some white trousers.’
‘You’re sure it was a sports shirt?’
‘I aren’t blind, ama? That was a red one.’
‘A tall, heavily built man, was he?’
‘No, that he wa’nt, jus midlin’ an a bit on the lean side.’
Gently nodded absently and signed to Rushm’quick to push off.
‘We may be back for another chat later on, Mr Noggins.’
‘The old fool’s got his lines mixed!’ grunted Hansom as they chugged back towards the Dyke. ‘The woman was out of sight and he’ll swear blind she wasn’t there.’
‘What about his description of Lammas?’
‘That tallies all right… the bits of trouser we recovered were white flannel.’
‘And his build?’
‘Like he said — medium height and spare.’
‘Which leaves the sports shirt, doesn’t it…?’
‘Sports shirt?’ Hansom stared.
‘Yes… didn’t you find the cuff-links with the body? It looks as though Lammas changed his shirt.’
‘Christ yes — he must have done!’ The divine light of ratiocination appeared in Hansom’s eye. ‘Yeh — there might be something in Noggins’s story at that. Suppose he put the female off somewhere down-river — he brings the yacht up here to hide it and kill the trail for a day or two — changes into his city clothes and rings his chauffeur, the chauffeur being paid to keep his mouth shut-’
‘You’re forgetting one thing, though…’
‘What’s that?’
‘He’d got his trail covered for the whole week. He might just as well have lit out on the previous Saturday, saying nothing to nobody.’
Hansom sniffed in a deprived sort of way. ‘We’ve got to make sense of the facts, haven’t we?’
They ducked as Rushm’quick sent the launch slicing through the drooping boughs and bushes that concealed the mouth of the Dyke. On the other side they seemed to be in a different world. Overhead the tangled twigs of blunt-leaved alder closed out the sky, on either hand the stretching rubbish reached out to brush the launch as it slid past. A green-lit tunnel it was, thrusting remotely into a forgotten land.
Hansom snatched a dead alder burr out of his hair.
‘Thirty years ago there were wherries up and down here every day of the year.’
It was only half a mile long, but there seemed no end to it. One hemmed-in reach followed another with bewildering monotony. And then, just as Gently’s sense of direction was irretrievably lost, the alders parted overhead and they swung out into blazing afternoon sunlight.
They were in a little pool, grown up and almost choked with reeds, water-lilies and a myriad-flowered water-plant. On the far side, against the rotted remnants of a quay, lay the fire-blasted yacht. And by the yacht sat a Police Constable smoking a cigarette, his tunic and helmet hung on a willow-snag.
‘Jackson!’ bawled Hansom, in a voice to wake the dead.
The Constable jumped as though he had been stung.
‘What the blue blazes do you think you’re supposed to be doing — having the day off?’
‘I–I wasn’t really expecting anyone…!’ blurted the Constable, struggling into his tunic.
‘Oh, you weren’t, eh?’ commented Hansom nastily. ‘Thought we’d come by car and you’d hear us in time, didn’t you…?’
Rushm’quick eased the bows of the launch against the rotten quay and they jumped down gingerly on to shaky green turf. The yacht lay well in under the trees, which bore silent witness to the fierceness of the blaze. It was completely gutted. From end to end the interior showed a blackened mass of ash, nothing remaining of cabin, deck or fitments. Only the engine jutted up near the stern and the charred ribs preserved a pathetic symmetry.
Gently sniffed at the acrid smell of burned varnish.
‘Was the body this side of the engine or the other?’
‘The other.’
‘Was the petrol-tank that side?’
‘Yes — you can see where it blew out.’
‘There must have been a lot of petrol used to do a job like this… is it safe to go aboard?’
He stepped cautiously on to the hulk and was directly up to his ankles in ashes, which still seemed warm. He kicked them away from the engine and stooped to examine it.
‘Did you find the carburettor?’
‘No, it was too bloody hot to look for carburettors the last time I was here!’
Gently poked about in the ash with his foot and was eventually rewarded.
‘Looks as though it was unscrewed. The cap’s off it, too.’
‘Reckon he took the cap off first,’ put in Rushm’quick knowingly, ‘then it wasn’t coming through fast enough, so he took the carb right off.’
Gently nodded and continued to probe with his foot. Towards the fore part of the hulk his shoe caught something which sounded hollow and metallic. The twisted remains of a jerrican came to light.
‘Is this part of the yacht’s equipment?’
Rushm’quick shook his head.
Gently handed it out and clambered back on to the bank.
‘Well… there’s a nasty job for someone, going through those ashes. We’d better have it towed back to the yard and gone over there. How do you get a car into an outpost like this?’
Hansom led the way along a doubtful track which plunged through the thick of the surrounding wilderness. But a few yards saw them on higher, drier ground and the track widened into a lane.
‘Here you are — you can still see the tracks where he turned the car.’
‘Where does the lane go?’
‘It joins the Lockford-Wrackstead road about a mile from Ollby. The phone-box is at the junction.’
‘No houses about there?’
‘There’s a bloke called Marsh lives in a house a quarter of a mile towards Panxford, but the house stands back amongst trees. He didn’t see anything… no bastard’s seen anything! All we’ve got is the village idiot.’
Gently tutted. ‘You can’t manufacture witnesses. Have you searched the area round here?’
‘We didn’t get time to be really clever.’
‘Then you mightn’t have noticed… that… for instance?’
He pointed to the bole of an alder a few yards off the track. A white flake was showing up against the dark, gnarled bark.
Hansom glared at it as though it were a personal insult. ‘And what’s that supposed to be — the answer to a detective’s prayer?’
But Dutt had already grasped the significance of the white flake and was making his way carefully through the rough grass. Gently waited patiently, Hansom impatiently, while the sergeant performed his operation. Eventually there was a little cluck of triumph from Dutt and he returned to drop something small in his superior’s hand. Gently examined it expressionlessly.