In Gently’s nostrils was the smell of diesel fumes. Clutching week-end luggage and brief-case, he jumped down on the near-empty platform.
Other than the porter, who was unloading cartons, there was only one other man on the platform; hesitantly, he came forward to enquire:
‘Chief Superintendent Gently . . . ?’
‘Hush!’ Gently murmured. ‘Not so loud!’
‘I’m Detective-Inspector Ives, sir.’
The porter had paused briefly to eye the two men; then he’d continued to load his trolley.
Overhead, a luminous overcast seemed to seal in the low landscape. Wide, flat marshes stretched beyond the forlorn station. Groups of cattle, black and white, dotted the fawny-green levels, while a couple of small sails marked the windings of a river.
In fact, virtually the same landscape that Gently had been travelling with from Norchester – but here wider, more ominous, having something of the character of a frontier.
At Hulverbridge the line divided to cross the marshes to Starmouth and Lothing, but the road ended. From here, you could proceed only by rail or water.
‘Who knows I’m here?’
‘Just the old man, sir.’
Ives’s voice had the hard, local accent. His hair was reddish, worn in a style. He had freckled, heavyish good looks.
About forty, he was dressed in light tweed, a fawn fleck in quiet taste. He hardly seemed to know what to say to Gently who, for that matter, was looking stern.
‘We don’t want to start an unnecessary scandal.’
‘No, sir. We were surprised . . .’
In a small place like this . . .
Ives stared at the cracked platform, from which grass and scarlet-weed were growing.
A door slammed; diesels rumbled. The two blue coaches accelerated away. Now, across the tracks, one could see the station buildings of red brick, neglected and slovenly. A latticed footbridge crossed the line and, further along, a triple-arched roadbridge.
Then there was a pub with its name, The Railway, incised in the wall in Victorian lettering. Also of red brick, it had quoinings of yellow: a style reflected in a nearby terrace.
Gently sighed to himself. So this was Hulverbridge . . . at the moment, unknown to the Sunday papers!
‘Where can we talk?’
‘I’ve booked at The Steampacket, sir. That’s at the quiet end of the waterfront.’
‘Have you a car?’
‘This way, sir . . . it’s across in the yard.’
Ives grabbed Gently’s cases. They followed the porter, who was trundling his trolley across the lines. Now that the train had left, the station had an air of complete desertion.
Posters made a thin display, but the refreshment-room was boarded-up: so was the ticket-office. In the yard stood the porter’s bike: and Ives’s car.
Leaving the station, they passed a few houses, then struck a vacant road between hedges. Through gaps one could see the marshes stretching to distances where trees were minute.
A sea of land . . . ! And strangely, a trading vessel was moving across it, its orange hull standing up improbably above the low ronds and cattle.
Then there were flat, moving platforms which were the superstructures of holiday craft, and just the two sails, which seemed not to move at all.
‘There’s Raynes-Marine, sir . . .’
They’d turned a corner. A cluster of big sheds rose out of the marsh. Asbestos-roofed, with wide spans, they stood out brashly, grey and sharp-angled.
Beside them rose gantries and the jib of a crane and several blank, white hulls on cradles. Also, on the trailer of an articulated truck, a completed motor-yacht with stylish coamings.
Raynes-Marine . . . !
The installation passed distantly, was quickly lost behind trees, cottages.
Gently was conscious of Ives’s sidelong look, but said nothing. Ives kept driving.
A right fork dropped them down to the waterfront, quite a different face of Hulverbridge. Here, along quarter of a mile of quays, were moored the hire-boats, their hulls bruised and muddy.
Across the river, marsh-rond; facing it, pantiled cottages and houses; then, at the bottom of the reach, the great steel span of a railway swing-bridge, with a signal-box and flagstaff.
Cars were parked along the quays and people from the boats strolled in the roadway. Dressed in shorts and holiday gear, they clustered about the waterfront’s shop and pub. Outside the latter, a mock-Tudor conversion, customers sat at painted metal tables.
Then came The Steampacket, a modest two-storey building that resembled a slice from an Edwardian terrace. At the end of the waterfront, it had a riverside lawn and closely neighboured the giant swing-bridge.
‘You’re a “Mr Scott”, sir . . .’
Gently signed in. He was shown to a room overlooking the river. Ives, meanwhile, was ordering pints and sandwiches to be served in the private lounge.
For a while after rejoining him Gently sat nibbling and staring out at the river. At last he said:
‘Now! Give me your opinion. Was Ronald Best poisoned, or did he commit suicide?’
Ives didn’t immediately reply; he too was staring broodily out of the window.
Across the river in the signal-box, a figure in black waistcoat and rolled sleeves had come to a window.
A frame was attached to the wall of the box; the man made some motion within; a black board slid out into the frame with the message: Bridge Will Open In 20 Mins.
Then, in the distance of the marshes, looking like a toy, a tiny two-coach train appeared, heading for the bridge.
‘Could you tell me one thing, sir?’
Gently twitched a shoulder. Ives was regarding him with careful eyes; from the first Gently had noticed reserve, even coolness, in the local man’s attitude.
‘You want to know why I’m here in the first place?’
‘Well . . . yes, sir! If you put it like that . . .’
‘Because, to begin with, Raynes came to you, and you decided he’d nothing to go on.’
‘Well actually . . . yes, sir!’
Ives took a quick swig – really, he hadn’t meant it to sound disrespectful! Yet, as clearly as their difference in rank would allow, he wanted to impress his resentment on Gently.
‘But he must have had something.’
‘Nothing at all, sir – unless he told you what he didn’t tell us. If you ask me it’s just plain bloody-mindedness. After all, nothing comic came up at the inquest.’
‘It was quite straightforward.’
‘It went by the book. I daresay you’ve read the Coroner’s report. Cause of death was an overdose of aspirin, with the evidence showing it was self-administered.’
‘Which Raynes is questioning.’
‘But he’s got no grounds, sir! And he draws enough water to make sure we’d listen to him. What he wanted was quite unreasonable . . . yet he gets on to you people . . . and straight away . . . !’
His face was hot. Snatching up a sandwich, he took a quick bite, washing it down with a gulp of beer.
‘I’m sorry, sir . . .’
Gently hunched, took a slow swig from his own glass. ‘Perhaps I’d better clear it up, then . . .’
Approaching the bridge, the train had slowed to a crawl. Leaning from his box, the signalman waved a salute to the driver, who raised a hand.
Below, just as the train rumbled on to the bridge, a hire-boat appeared, thrusting over the ebb.
‘Walter Raynes draws a gallon or two more than you know . . . and not only because he sells motor-yachts to sheiks.
‘Last summer he built one for a certain minister, and got to know him well enough to ask a favour.
‘So pressure was applied. The minister knows my boss, my boss arranged the present visit. Also for this.’ He drew out an envelope. ‘To be used at my discretion – an exhumation order.’
Ives stared at the envelope with shocked eyes.
‘But sir . . . you’re never going to use that!’
‘Why not?’
The local man shook his head; nervously, he bolted a mouthful of sandwich.
Gently drank.
‘I’ve read the Coroner’s report, along with that of the district pathologist. A point arises there, but what I want now is the general picture.
‘For example: is there any doubt that Best was Walter Raynes’s natural son?’
Ives was still gazing haplessly, his full-lipped mouth agape. Taking breath, he said:
‘Not as far as I’m concerned, sir.’
‘There was a family likeness.’
‘Very much, sir. More with him than with the sons of the marriage.’
‘They being Clive and Noel Raynes – the former at present general manager of Raynes-Marine?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘And the latter a painter . . .’
‘So he gives himself out.’
Gently unbuckled his brief-case and took out a folder. Ives watched him uneasily, as though expecting fresh dynamite.
From upstream a siren sounded twice, but evoked no action in the signal-box.
‘Here’s what we’ve dug out about Best . . .
‘Born in Southampton in ’45, putative father a marine draughtsman at that time serving in the Navy Reserve.
‘Raynes was down there on an Admiralty contract from ’44 to ’45 . . . lodged with Mrs Best . . . left before the birth of her son.
‘Best trained in his father’s profession and worked for a while in the same firm . . . left to start his own business, which failed for lack of capital.
‘Married ’69, son born ’71, divorced ’74, wife remarried. Parents now dead, married sister lives in Southampton.
‘Best came to Hulverbridge in ’75 and was taken on by Walter Raynes . . . promoted rapidly . . . became chief designer with a brief for market analysis. Raynes satisfied that Best was his son, said to be a partnership in the offing.’
Gently put down the folder.
‘There’s more, but the source is Walter Raynes. I’d sooner have an account from the investigating officer.’
But at last something was happening in the box across the river!
Gently, who’d pulled out his pipe, checked himself in the act of lighting it.
A lever had been moved; one heard a soft bump; directly, the centre span of the bridge became alive. Seeming to raise itself a little, it paused; then with a low rumble, began to swing.
An irresistible spectacle . . . !
For the moment, neither Gently nor Ives could take their eyes from it.
At each instant the huge, geometric section changed its shape against the pearly sky.
Slowly, like titanic sculpture, with steel garlands drooped from the central kingpost, it moved silkily on its fulcrum until a faint tremor brought it to rest.
At once the room was filled with throbbing: the spectacle wasn’t over yet! Tall enough to cast shade, the raked orange stem of the trader from upstream passed by the window.
Mast, derricks, hatches, bridge, deckhouse throbbed toweringly along in a swell of water, with the note of the engines becoming a batter as the vessel passed between the bridge’s brick piers.
‘A Dutchman!’ Ives muttered. ‘And look, sir . . . here comes one of Raynes’s boats.’
Quietly dogging the wake of the trader, a handsome white motor-yacht stole towards the bridge.
A forty-five-footer, she had a strongly raked hull, chromium-flashed coamings and a lofted aft bridge-deck. A dinghy hung from davits over her stern; antenna masts rose from the bridge-coamings.
At her big, skeleton wheel sat a bronzed young man clad only in shorts and Magisters.
A careless flick of his hand, and she was squared to the bridge as effortlessly as a car.
‘Another one on delivery, sir . . .’
Finally, Gently struck the match he’d been holding. But still his eyes followed the luxurious craft with her trailing house-flag and ensign.
‘What would she cost . . . ?’
Ives made a face. ‘Wouldn’t be less than two hundred thou.’
‘And they’re turning out how many?’
Ives simply shrugged and tipped up the last of his beer.
‘So . . . that’s what we’re tangling with!’
Gently puffed hard. Nothing more was happening outside. The bridge, in open position, seemed to have gone to sleep, while the signalman had vanished into his box.
‘Bearing that in mind . . . just tell me what happened a fortnight ago, up at Raynes’s.’
Ives’s mouth had a slight pout; his gaze was fixed on the table and beer-mugs.
‘A family row, sir, in short.’
‘Something to do with the proposed partnership.’
‘No doubt of that, sir. Old man Raynes had them up to dinner specially to announce it.’
‘Run through the names for me.’
Ives pulled out a notebook and hastily turned pages. One had the impression that it was a friend of which, just now, he felt in need.
‘There was the eldest son, Clive of course—’
‘The general manager. Is he a partner?’
Positively, Ives shook his head. ‘The old man has always run the show, sir.’
‘Carry on.’
‘His wife Florence was there – she’s a bit of a firebrand, sir – and the two daughters, Greta and Carole, and their husbands, who’re both in the firm.
‘The eldest is married to the sales manager, Arthur Swafield, and the other to the accountant, John Meeson.
‘Then there was the younger son Noel, who isn’t married, Bes. . .
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