Last Respects Part 12

Horace Boiler had bent to the oars with practised ease and was rowing in a silence designed to save his breath. Then...

"You're going out to sea," observed Sloan sharply. "I thought you'd found him ferther up river."

"Got to get round Billy's Finger, haven't I?" responded Boiler resentfully.

"I see..." began Sloan.

"And pick up the tide." n.o.body could be surlier than Boiler when he wanted to be.

"Of course."

"I'm an old man now," said Boiler, hunching his shoulders and allowing a whine to creep into his voice. "I can't go up river like I used to do."

"Naturally," said Sloan, crisply, nevertheless taking a good look at his watch. "Let me see now-what time was it exactly when we left?"

"I go by St. Peter's clock myself," snapped Boiler. "Always keeps good time, does St. Peter's."

"Splendid," said Sloan warmly. "That'll make everything easier..." He settled back onto his hard seat. A warning shot fired across the bows never came amiss...

Presently the rowing boat did turn up river. Rowing against the eddies was not such hard work for Horace Boiler as it would have been for most other men because he came of river people and knew every stretch of quiet water that there was. This did not stop him giving an artful pant as he eventually shipped his oars and caught a patch of slack water.

" 'Bout here it was, gentlemen," he said, histrionically drooping himself over the oars as if at the end of a fast trip from Putney to Mortlake against another crew.

Detective Inspector Sloan was concentrating on the water. "How far does the tide come up the estuary?"

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 sh.o.r.e 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 cuc.u.mber," 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 Queen Elizabeth, you know, but she was good enough for a day on the river with a rod."

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 Tugboat Annie that's gone."

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. "Tugboat Annie, did you say, sir?"

"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 encompa.s.s the boathouse and the fishing rods, "but I'm sure you know what I mean, Inspector."

"I do indeed, sir," agreed Sloan warmly. "s.p.a.cious, I think you could call them." As he had first entered Collerton House the stained gla.s.s 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."

"Well, sir, now that you come to mention it..."

"An architect is something of an artist certainly but he's something of an engineer too."

A policeman, thought Sloan, was something of a diplomat.

"As well as being a craftsman and a draughtsman, of course."

A policeman was something of a martinet, of course. He had to be.

"And, Inspector, if he's any good as an architect he's something of a visionary, too."

If a policeman was any good as a policeman he was something of a philosopher too. It didn't do not to be in the police force.

Mundill waved a tapered hand. "However..."

Then it came to Sloan where it was that he had seen the man's face before. "Your photograph was in the local paper last week, sir, wasn't it?"

The architect squinted modestly down his nose. "You saw it, Inspector, did you?"

"I did indeed," said Sloan handsomely. "The opening of the new fire station, wasn't it?"

"A very ordinary job, I'm afraid," said Mundill deprecatingly.

In the police force very ordinary jobs had a lot to be said for them. Out of the ordinary ones usually came up nasty.

"It is difficult," continued the architect easily, "to be other than strictly utilitarian when you're designing a hose tower."

"Quite so," said Sloan.

"We had site problems, of course," continued Frank Mundill smoothly, "it being right in the middle of the town."

Sloan nodded. Site problems would be to architects what ident.i.ty problems were to the police, obstacles to be overcome.

"Mind you, Inspector, I have designed buildings in Berebury where there's been a little more scope than down at the fire station."

Munic.i.p.al buildings being what they were Sloan was glad to hear it.

"There was the junior school," said Mundill.

"Split level," said Sloan, who had been there.

"Petty crime," added Crosby professionally. He had been there too.

"Plenty of site leeway in that case," said Mundill.

There was precious little leeway with an unknown body. Where did you start if "Missing Persons" didn't come up with anyone fitting the description of the body you had? The architect was warming to his theme. "There's more freedom with a school than there is with some domestic stuff."

Sloan looked up. "You do ordinary house plans, too, sir, do you?"

"Oh, yes, Inspector." He smiled thinly. "I do my share of the domestic side, all right."

All policemen did their share of the domestic side. "Domestics" were what new constables on the beat cut their wisdom teeth on. It aged them more quickly than anything else.

Sloan took a final look round the boathouse, and said formally, "I'll be in touch with you again, sir, about this break-in. In due course. Come along, Crosby..."

He turned to go but as he did so his ear caught the inimitable sound of the splash of oars. Sloan leaned out over the path and looked downstream as far as he could. He recognised Horace Boiler and his boat quite easily. He had to screw up his eyes to see who his pa.s.senger was. And then he recognised him too. It was Mr. Basil Jensen, the curator of the Calleford Museum...

"Terry?" Miss Blandford pursed her lips. "Terry, did you say?"

"I did." Police Constable Brian Ridgeford had begun his search for a boy named Terry at the village school at Edsway.