Hansom shook his head. ‘I could see it coming all along… it isn’t news.’
‘You’ve got to admit it’s a sticky-looking prospect.’
‘I wouldn’t want to stand in his way… and we sort of owe him a case on account of the last one.’
The super nodded. ‘I think it’s a wise decision. The CC would be crying out for it anyway when he gets the report…’
He picked up the phone again and rattled on the rest.
‘Get me Central Office, CID,’ he said.
Inspector Hansom laughed mirthlessly from the gloomy depths of his soul.
CHAPTER TWO
Two figures emerged from the sanctified dimness of the Norchester City Police HQ and paused, blinking, in the sudden stab of June sunlight. One of them was a tall, bulky, middle-aged man in a baggy tweed jacket. He carried a raincoat over his arm and wore a battered trilby on his head. The other figure, not so tall though no less bulky, was carrying a pair of suitcases which he dropped gratefully on the top step.
‘And here we are again, sir,’ he observed aggrievedly. ‘Whisked away from the Sunday joint — and me going to take the nippers to the fair, too. I ask you, who’d be a flipping copper?’
Chief Inspector Gently smiled distantly at the empty street.
‘The call of duty, Dutt. People never consider the police when they’re planning a homicide.’
‘I know, sir… but this lot here might’ve waited till Monday before running to the Yard. It wouldn’t’ve hurt them to do a bit more of the donkey work.’
Gently shrugged and felt in his pocket for his pipe. He was feeling much the same himself. It was glamorous weather for a fishing expedition and he had sat up the previous evening greasing a new-pattern line he had just bought…
‘Anyway, Dutt, it’s a case that bristles with leads. We shan’t be groping around for them.’
‘That’s one blessing, sir.’
‘You might even say there’s too many, from one point of view…’
A police Wolseley came shooting round the corner from the garage and pulled up with the merest squeal of tyres. Out of it jumped Hansom.
‘We’ve got you some digs, though they aren’t very grand… everything’s taken out there at this time of the year.’
‘They’ll do,’ said Gently philosophically. ‘Where are they?’
‘It’s a bungalow at Upper Wrackstead Dyke, about a mile and a half from the village.’
‘Same side as Lammas’ place?’
‘Good Lord no! Only the toffs live that side.’
Dutt lugged the suitcases into the car and they set off through the Sunday-still streets. It was about eight miles to Wrackstead, eight miles of gently undulating, partly wooded country, where fields of tall wheat and barley shimmered in the sun and dog-roses prinked the hedges. Hansom indicated a beech avenue leading off to the right.
‘You go down there to the Lammas’ place.’
‘It’s a good way from the village?’
‘Hell, yes. Right at the end, with a frontage on the broad. There are several other places down there with river frontages, but Lammas’ is the only one on the broad. I reckon he had the most money.’
‘Who lives in the other places?’
‘All Norchester people who’ve made a pile.’
‘And Ollby Dyke — where would that be from here?’
‘Oh, that’s five or six miles downstream. The trading wherries used to use it before the road killed them. It’s been neglected for years and all grown up with alder carrs — you couldn’t pick a better spot for some homicide.’
They came to the river, a long reach flanked with wooden boat-sheds, irregular quays and backed by tall trees. The sun flashed off the water like liquid gold. There were crowds of limp-sailed yachts and lazy-moving motor cruisers. A humpback bridge of ancient brick and stone switchbacked them straight into the village and Gently called a halt while he investigated the possibilities of the local tobacconist.
‘He’s gunning for the chauffeur, is he?’ jerked Hansom jealously to Dutt, in the great man’s absence.
‘The Chief Inspector never jumps to conclusions,’ replied Dutt guardedly.
‘Well, if it isn’t the chauffeur, Lammas must have committed suicide… I can’t see how the family ties in, apart from being liars.’
Gently returned with his haul of Navy Cut and they continued through the village. It was an unfortunate place, grown up round the boat-letting industry: it comprised the worst styles of the twenties and thirties in a surprising variety. But it was small — it had that to recommend it. At the railway station it was knifed off sharply and the road proceeded to Upper Wrackstead in rural purity.
Arriving there, it was met by what seemed like a cart track and the Wolseley rocked violently as it nosed down between high hedges to the river-bank below.
‘Here we are,’ sneered Hansom. ‘The Grand Hotel of Upper Wrackstead… I told you you ought to stop in town.’
Gently viewed the solitary brick-and-pantile cottage without concern.
‘I like to be at the centre of things if possible…’
‘You’ll be at the centre here — and how!’
But Gently was already pushing up the path to the cottage.
It was primitive, but there were compensations. One of them was the late lunch which Mrs Grey, their hostess, had been thoughtful enough to lay on. And she didn’t ask questions, Gently noticed; that was a point in any landlady’s favour. One might do worse than to come down here for a spot of fishing sometime.
But if Mrs Grey wasn’t curious, the rest of Upper Wrackstead made up for her. There was a houseboat colony in the Dyke alongside and the arrival of a police car stirred it up like an ant-heap tickled with a stick.
‘Lot of loafers!’ grumbled Hansom, scowling at them through the window as he stood drinking a country-size cup of tea. ‘Look as though they’ve never seen a policeman before!’
Gently surveyed them more mildly.
‘I suppose they all come off the boats?’
‘If they don’t they’re living in holes in the ground… there’s nothing else at Upper Wrackstead!’
‘Just at the moment, I’m rather interested in people who live here on boats.’
Interested or not, they were due to run the gauntlet. An admiring audience of nondescripts were collected about the car and as the three policemen came out they were the cynosure of at least twenty pairs of eyes.
‘Coo — they’ve come to ’rest ole mother Grey!’ exclaimed a ragged urchin, half-jeering, half-serious.
‘No they ha’nt — they’ve come to take your mother away ’cause her old man’s a burglar!’ cried another.
‘Johnny, you keep your trap shut!’ shouted a tall slatternly woman, making a grab at him. But Johnny eluded the grab and dodged round the back of a plump, shiny-faced virago, whose face was turning an angry red.
‘Here she is, mister!’ he shouted to Gently. ‘She’s the one you’re looking for’ — and then, continuing in a sing-song — ‘My ole man’s a burglar — my ole man’s a burglar — my ole man — !’
At which point a clout on the ear from the red-faced one sent him howling to his mother’s skirts.
‘Hold it!’ exclaimed Gently, seeing that the quarrel was about to continue at a higher level. ‘This isn’t the way to behave on Sunday!’
‘Vicious!’ screamed the slattern. ‘She nee’nt have give him one like that!’
‘I’ll give you one, much less him!’ riposted the fat woman, brandishing her fist.
‘And your ole man is a burglar!’
‘You ha’nt got an ole man — kids an all!’
‘Say that again!’
‘I’ll say it twice-times over!’
