Gently Floating (13 page)

‘What’s the lark now?’

‘Superintendent Gently,’ Gently said. ‘Mrs Lidney.’

‘Who did you think,’ she said. ‘Marilyn Monroe’s kicked the bucket.’

‘Is your husband in?’ Gently said.

‘What do you want him for?’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘I’ve some questions to ask him,’ Gently said. ‘You too. About Tuesday night.’

‘Well Sid isn’t in,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘So your questions had better wait till the morning hadn’t they.’

‘Where is Sid?’ Gently said.

‘Ask me another,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘Gone out for a drink maybe.’

She had a masculine voice which was gritty. She was taller than average. Her big breasts pushed the dressing gown apart and the nipples were spreading and livid and warted. The dressing gown was held together with a tie but below the tie her thighs showed. The thighs were large and blanched and veined and the knees smallish and the calves full.

‘You wanna come in?’ Mrs. Lidney said.

‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘I’d like to come in.’

‘Taking a risk aren’t you?’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘I thought you always went after the women in pairs.’

‘I can talk to you out here,’ Gently said. ‘It isn’t private but it’ll do.’

‘Do you think I’m going to eat you?’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘I don’t give a frig. You can come in.’

She moved away from the door. Gently went in. She closed the door. They stood in a hallway running through the bungalow to a door with coloured glass panes in the front of the bungalow. The hallway was papered with rust flower-pattern paper and the paper was not new. The hallway was lit by a single bulb and had two doors leading off it on each side. By the wall near the door with the coloured glass panes stood an iron doorstop which was shaped like an anchor.

‘Up there on the left,’ Mrs Lidney said.

Gently went up the hallway, she came behind him. He stopped. He looked at the doorstop. The clove smell of the woman was close beside him.

‘Your doorstop is bent,’ Gently said.

‘Damn near everything’s bent here,’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘Looks as though it might have been thrown at something,’ Gently said.

‘Well it wouldn’t have been the first time,’ Mrs Lidney said.

Gently stooped, picked up the doorstop. It weighed about seven pounds. The anchor it represented was a fisherman’s anchor but with the stock on the same plane as the arms. The crown was nested in a display of seashells which formed the heavy base of the stop and a twisted cable descended from the ring to form a letter S about the shank. The stock had balls at each end. The extremity of each ball was flattened. The left-hand arm of the stock was bent and the flat surface of its ball showed a silvery graze. There were smaller grazes on other parts of the stop which was painted black and showed grazes clearly.

‘So what was it thrown at?’ Gently said.

‘How the hell should I know,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘Maybe the cat from next door, it’s a ginger tom, Sid can’t stick it.’

‘Is Sid usually so violent?’ Gently said.

‘Who says he’s violent?’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘If a dirty thieving cat came poohing in your yard wouldn’t you chuck something at it, wouldn’t you?’

‘I didn’t know you had resident neighbours,’ Gently said.

‘All right we haven’t then,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘I don’t know where the bloody cat comes from, and another thing hangs to it. I don’t care.’

Gently said nothing. He looked along the hallway. The hallway was laid with buff boat’s lino. The lino was old and darkened and scuffed and had dust and fluff lying on it. Near one of the further doors the lino was bruised with a heavy bruise and a lighter bruise and the heavy bruise was circular and fractured the surface to show fresh raw cork. Gently took the doorstop to the bruising. He laid a flattened ball in the heavy bruise. The flattened ball fitted. In the bruise was light dust and a piece of trapped fluff. All about the bruising and higher up the hallway were deep scratches and fresh scuff-marks and on the wallpaper near the scuff-marks were five kick-marks showing black. The woman hadn’t moved from the hallway. She stood still. She watched Gently.

‘Quite a cat,’ Gently said.

‘Oh to hell with cats,’ Mrs Lidney said.

Gently came back to her. ‘Who was fighting?’ he said. ‘Who threw this doorstop? Who was he throwing it at?’

‘Don’t know what you mean,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘What fighting? There hasn’t been no fighting. It’s a lot of balls about the fighting. Nobody’s done any fighting here.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘they were doing some fighting. On Tuesday night they were doing some fighting. Harry French’s body has got marks on it. There’s a graze on the shoulder where he was hit with something heavy. The graze was inflicted shortly before his death. It was inflicted by something like this doorstop. And there’s a hole in Harry French’s skull. It was inflicted by something like one of these balls. And Harry French came through the bridge on Tuesday and he moored on the rond a hundred yards below here.’

‘So what, so what,’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘So he came here,’ Gently said, ‘and there was a fight with your husband.’

‘Cross my heart it’s a bloody lie,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘He never came here at all nor didn’t nobody that night.’

‘Then who was fighting?’ Gently said. ‘Who threw this doorstop? Who was he throwing it at?’

The woman stared at him. Her lids were widened. Her spidery mouth-lines were drawn deep. Along with the smell of cloves that came from her was the smell of perspiration. Her body was slightly thrown back from her hips and her elbows were bent and her fingers crooked.

‘All right you prying sod,’ she said. ‘Then I did have a fight with my old man. Now you know perhaps you’re happy. And I did throw the bloody stopper at him. Pity I didn’t hit him too. He’d have laughed on the other side of his face. And what the hell’s it got to do with you or Harry French or any other bugger?’

‘Do you have a telephone?’ Gently said.

‘No I don’t have a telephone,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘I don’t have a coffee-shop with a flush either, anything else you want to know?’

Gently set down the doorstop, took out a notebook. He drew a sketch-plan of the hallway of the bungalow. On the sketch-plan he marked the bruises and indicated the areas of the scratches and scuff-marks and kick-marks. The woman watched him with big eyes. Gently added notes to the sketch-plan. The woman’s breathing which had been fast began to subside while Gently was writing. Gently put the notebook away, picked up the doorstop, hefted it.

‘You don’t bloody well believe me do you?’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘If I swore it on a Bible you wouldn’t believe what I told you. I can’t help it, that’s your lookout. You’re going to shift the blame on to someone. Perhaps you think we’ve got a bad name, you can shift it on to us easy.’

‘How long has John French been visiting you?’ Gently said.

‘Didn’t know he had been visiting me,’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘He admits he’s been here,’ Gently said.

‘Oh and very nice too,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘So he admits he’s been here does he? I’ll have something to say to him about that. Dragging my name in the mud, bringing the police snooping round here. What else does he say?’

‘How much did he pay you?’ Gently said.

‘The damn little liar,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘He’s never paid me anything, I’ve never had a penny off him.’

‘Never?’ Gently said.

‘Never,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘Cross my heart I never asked him for it. What do you think I am anyway?’

‘What did his father think you were?’ Gently said.

‘Oh go and jump in the river,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘You’re all alike the last one of you. It’s a different thing when you want your under. If he did come round here whose business is that, what’s it got to do with you lot? It didn’t do him any harm I can tell you that. He needed someone to take him in hand.’

‘And his father knew?’ Gently said.

‘Why don’t you go down to the mortuary and ask him?’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘And knew about the money angle,’ Gently said.

‘Oh Christalmighty,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘It was bloody free. Can’t I get it across to you. Free, for nothing, I throw it in. I like a kid to cut some off with.’

‘But money came into it,’ Gently said.

‘Money didn’t come into it,’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘Sid was getting money out of it,’ Gently said.

‘Fall under a bus,’ Mrs Lidney said. ‘Fall under a bus.’

‘Sid was putting the screw on tonight,’ Gently said.

Mrs Lidney looked at him, didn’t say anything.

‘Quite a big screw,’ Gently said. ‘What could it be, now the father is dead?’

The back-door latch lifted softly. The woman’s eyes jerked towards it. Gently turned towards the door. The door opened. The humpty man entered. He stood squinting towards them, his eyes tiny, sharpened. His eyes fell on the doorstop. He closed the door slowly behind him. He said:

‘Hullo Rhoda. I could hear you’d got company.’

He took some steps up the hallway, stopped, peered at Gently.

‘Yes,’ the humpty man said to Gently, ‘I know who you are. Got a nerve haven’t you, coming here talking to Rhoda at this time of night. I could report you for that mate. You could get yourself into trouble. I dunno what you’ve been up to, visiting my wife this late.’

‘You’re Lidney,’ Gently said.

‘Yes, I’m Lidney,’ the man said.

‘It isn’t so late,’ Gently said. ‘It’s about the time Harry French got here on Tuesday.’

The humpty man looked at Gently, puckered eyes, squashed nose. His head was back in his humpty shoulders, his long body weaved a little on the short splayed legs.

‘What do you mean,’ the humpty man said, ‘come here talking to me like this? Harry French has never been near this place. You’d better watch what you’re saying, hadn’t you.’

‘Harry French came here on Tuesday,’ Gently said. ‘Some time after ten p.m. he came here. He came here looking for his son who was with you. He didn’t like his son associating with you. Also his son was coming into some money and Harry French had suspicions about where it might go to. Tuesday was the day his son should have got the money. He didn’t get it. I don’t think he was going to get it. Harry French came here that night to blow the set-up apart. He wound up in the river with a hole in his skull about the size of the knob on the bent arm of this doorstop.’

The humpty man came a step closer. ‘Say it,’ he said, ‘say it mate. I’ll bloody sue you for defamation that’s what I’ll do about you. I wasn’t trying to pinch young French’s money nor Harry French didn’t come up this way. Nor nobody didn’t kill him with our doorstopper, that got bent being hulled about.’

‘Yes, it was hulled about,’ Gently said. ‘There’s marks of that on the lino. There’s also marks of a struggle and they haven’t been there very long.’

‘Didn’t I tell you why?’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘You gave me an explanation,’ Gently said. ‘I shall have underestimated your husband if he didn’t hear it through the keyhole.’

‘You lousy sod,’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘You’re a nice bugger aren’t you?’ the humpty man said.

‘What I want to know,’ Gently said, ‘is how you’re putting pressure on young French now.’

The humpty man weaved, crouched his head lower in his shoulders, pushed it up close towards Gently.

‘Don’t speak to me like that mate,’ he said, ‘or I’ll down you, cop or no cop. You come here insulting my wife, now you’re insulting me. You’d just better watch your trap, you had, we’re not scared of your sort in these parts.’

‘But I’ve got the doorstop tonight,’ Gently said.

‘What’s that,’ the humpty man said. ‘What’s that about a doorstopper?’

‘You threw it at French,’ Gently said. ‘It grazed his shoulder, didn’t down him. He was facing you then. Later on he had his back turned.’

The humpty man’s eyes were like needles. He twisted his body, his arms swinging. The smell of Mrs Lidney’s cloves and perspiration came strongly. The Cakewalk thumped downriver, it was the only sound from outside. The humpty man’s lips were turned in so that his mouth was a seam.

‘John French won’t be bringing the money,’ Gently said. ‘That’s finished. You won’t be touching any money of his. I know he was here, that’s the hold you had on him. I don’t think he killed his father. I spend my life meeting killers.’

‘You filthy pig,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

‘You do what, you do what?’ the humpty man said.

‘I meet killers,’ Gently said. ‘All shapes and sizes of killers. That’s why I’m on this job, I’ve got a nose for them. Their lies, their threats, their silly mistakes. They make a pattern, an unoriginal pattern, you get to learn it after a time. It doesn’t vary, the motive’s the same. A killer’s alone and he’s afraid.’

‘Shut up, shut up,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

‘Alone and afraid,’ Gently said. ‘He’s playing at innocence and he daren’t relax because there’s nobody who won’t betray him.’

‘If you say I did it,’ the humpty man said.

‘Just throw the sod out, Sid,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

‘If you call me a killer,’ the humpty man said.

‘Yes, if I call you one,’ Gently said.

‘Throw him out, throw him out,’ Mrs Lidney shouted.

The humpty man drew back a little from Gently. His pointed eyes stared at Gently’s chest. He kept lifting and dropping his hands like a wrestler shaping to take a hold.

‘You lousy bugger,’ he said, ‘lousy bugger.’

‘I’ll rip his bloody eyes out,’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘I’ve never killed anyone,’ the humpty man said. ‘Come in here, telling me that. You’re another one thinks he can do what he likes with me. Kick me about. Say what you like. Well nobody can do that to me I tell you, I don’t give a frig who they are.’

‘Not me or Harry French either,’ Gently said.

‘I don’t care who they are,’ the humpty man said.

‘Calling you a swindler maybe, a pimp,’ Gently said. ‘In front of your wife and John French. Giving you the sack.’

‘Why don’t you bash him one Sid?’ Mrs Lidney said.

‘I’ll bash him one yet,’ the humpty man said.

‘The way you bashed Harry French,’ Gently said. ‘On Tuesday night. Right where we’re standing.’

‘He wasn’t here,’ Mrs Lidney screamed. ‘How many more times, it’s a load of bull.’

The humpty man stared at Gently’s chest, swung his hands, didn’t say anything.