The boatman wrinkled his eyes. “The sparling—they turn back half-way between Collerton and Edsway no matter what.”
“They do, do they?” responded Sloan vigorously. The habits of sparling were no sort of an answer for a superintendent sitting at a desk in Berebury Police Station.
“Always go to the limit of the salt water, do sparling,” said Boiler.
“Ah,” said Sloan. That was better. Sparling must be biological indicators too.
“Only see them in the summer, of course,” said the boatman.
“Been this year then, have they?” asked Sloan, unconsciously lapsing into the vernacular himself.
“Not yet.” Horace Boiler unshipped an oar to stop the boat drifting too far.
“It’s summer now,” remarked Detective Constable Crosby from the stern.
“Not afore Collerton Fair,” said Horace Boiler flatly. “Sparling come at fair time.”
Detective Inspector Sloan turned his head and regarded the southern shore of the river mouth with close attention. Not far away a heron rose and with an almost contemptuous idleness put the tips of his wing feathers out as spoilers. They’d left Edsway and the open sea well behind but they could now see Collerton Church clearly up river of them. Far inland were urban Berebury and ancient Calleford and what townspeople chose to call civilisation…
“Do smell of cucumber,” rasped the boatman unexpectedly.
“What does?” asked Sloan. They were a long way from land.
“Sparling.”
“An,” said Sloan again, his mind on other things. “Pull the boat round a bit, will you? I want to see the other way.”
The view down river was unrevealing. Edsway itself, though, was clearly visible, as was the headland beyond. Kinnisport and the cliffs at Cranberry Point were just a smudge in the distance.
“That headland behind Marby stands out, doesn’t it?” observed Sloan, surprised. Seen from nearer to, the rise in the land wasn’t quite so apparent.
“That’s the Cat’s Back,” said Boiler. “Proper seamark, that is.”
“Funny,” said Crosby ingenuously, “I never thought you had seamarks like you had landmarks.”
Somewhere not very far away a gull screamed.
“Take us up river now,” commanded Sloan abruptly.
Horace Boiler bent to his oars once more. He rowed purposefully and without comment out of the narrowing estuary and into the river proper. Detective Inspector Sloan, sitting at the bow, was almost as immobile as a carved figurehead at the prow. He did turn once to begin to say something to Detective Constable Crosby, but that worthy officer was settled in the stern of the boat, letting his hand dangle in the water and regarding the consequent and subsequent wake with the close attention that should have been devoted to the duties of detection.
Sloan turned back and looked ahead. Speech would have been wasted. Instead he turned his mind to studying the river banks. That was when, presently, he too saw the doors of the boathouse belonging to Collerton House. Even from midstream he could see where a crowbar had been used to prise open the lock.
11
This is a downright deep tragedy.
« ^ »
Frank Mundill was soon back at the riverside. This time he had Detective Inspector Sloan and Detective Constable Crosby with him, not Elizabeth Busby. Sloan had a distinct feeling that he had seen the man from Collerton House before but he couldn’t immediately remember where.
Mundill indicated the boathouse doors very willingly to the two policemen and then pointed to the empty stretch of water inside the boathouse.
“Our dinghy’s gone, Inspector,” he said.
“And this, I take it, sir, is where she was kept, is it?” said Sloan, giving the inside of the boathouse a swift looking-over.
“It was.” Mundill tightened his lips wryly. “She wasn’t exactly the
Sloan examined the broken lock and loose hasp as best he could without getting his feet wet. There was a scar on the woodwork where something had rested to give leverage to a crowbar. Every picture told a story and this one seemed clear enough…
“Prised open all right, sir,” he agreed presently. “Have you any idea when?”
Frank Mundill shook his head and explained that the damage would only have been visible from the path along the river bank and from the river itself. “I haven’t been this way much myself recently, Inspector. My wife was ill from Easter onwards and I just didn’t have the time.” He gave a weary shrug of his shoulders. “And now that she’s gone I haven’t got the inclination.”
Sloan pointed to the fishing rods on the boathouse wall. They looked quite valuable to him. “Are they all present and correct, sir?”
Mundill’s face came up in a quick affirmative response, reinforcing Sloan’s impression that he’d seen it before somewhere. “Oh, yes, Inspector. We think it’s just the boat that’s gone.”
“We?” queried Sloan. The list of riparian owners had dealt in surnames. It hadn’t gone into household detail.
“My late wife’s niece is still with me. She came to nurse my wife and she’s staying on until her parents get back from South America next week.”
“I see, sir.”
“She was out here with me earlier and we both agreed it was just
Detective Inspector Sloan reached for his notebook in much the same way as Police Constable Brian Ridgeford had reached for his. A name put a different complexion on a police search for anything. A name on the unfortunate young man at Dr. Dabbe’s forensic laboratory would be a great step forward. “
“It won’t help, I’m afraid, Inspector.” Frank Mundill was apologetic. “That was just what we called her in the family.”
The dead young man would have been called something in the family too. Sloan would have dearly liked to have known what it was.
“The name,” expanded Frank Mundill, “wasn’t actually written on her or anything like that.”
“I see, sir,” Sloan said, disappointed.
“She was only a fishing boat, you see, Inspector.” He added, “And not a very modern fishing boat, at that. She was one of the relics of my father-in-law’s day.”
Sloan nodded, unsurprised. His own first impression had been of how very dated everything about Collerton House was. There was something very pre-Great War about the whole setup—house, boathouse, grounds and all.
“I mustn’t say, ‘Those were the days,’ ” said Mundill drily, waving an arm to encompass the boathouse and the fishing rods, “but I’m sure you know what I mean, Inspector.”
“I do indeed, sir,” agreed Sloan warmly. “Spacious, I think you could call them.” As he had first entered Collerton House the stained glass of the inner front door and the wide sweep of the staircase had told him all he needed to know about the age of the house. It was Edwardian to a degree. Similarly the white polo-necked jersey of Frank Mundill had told him quite a lot about the man before him. He could have been a writer…
“Unfortunately,” Mundill was saying, “the boathouse is very carefully screened from the house so I couldn’t have seen anyone breaking in even though my studio faces north.”
“An artist…” To his own surprise Sloan found he had said the words aloud.
“I’m an architect, Inspector,” he said, adding astringently, “There are those of my professional brethren who would have said ‘yes’ to the word artist though.”
