Too Much of Water

Contents

Cover

Titles by J. M. Gregson from Severn House

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lambert and Hook Mysteries

MORTAL TASTE

JUST DESSERTS

TOO MUCH OF WATER

CLOSE CALL

SOMETHING IS ROTTEN

A GOOD WALK SPOILED

DARKNESS VISIBLE

IN VINO VERITAS

DIE HAPPY

MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE

CRY OF THE CHILDREN

REST ASSURED

SKELETON PLOT

Detective Inspector Peach Mysteries

THE WAGES OF SIN

DUSTY DEATH

THE WITCHES SABBATH

REMAINS TO BE SEEN

PASTURES NEW

WILD JUSTICE

ONLY A GAME

MERELY PLAYERS

LEAST OF EVILS

BROTHERS' TEARS

A NECESSARY END

BACKHAND SMASH

 

 

 

 

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First published in Great Britain 2005 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

19 Cedar Road, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM2 5DA.

First published in the USA 2005 by

SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS INC of

110 East 59
^th
Street, 22
^nd
Fl., New York, NY 10022

This eBook first published in 2015 by Severn House Digital
an imprint of Severn House Publishers Ltd.

Copyright © 2005 by J M Gregson.

The right of J.M. Gregson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Gregson, J. M.

Too much of water

1. Lambert, John (Fictitious character) – Fiction

2. Hook, Bert (Fictitious character) – Fiction

3. Murder – Investigation – England – Gloucestershire – Fiction

4. Detective and mystery stories

I. Title

823.9'14 [F]

ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-6262-4 (cased)

ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0031-0 (ePUB)

Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

This ebook produced by

Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

To Ray and Margaret Smart,
who represent all that is best in New Zealand

Autism is touched on here, briefly and superficially, within the confines of a detective novel. For anyone anxious for further reading on the subject, an excellent lay person's introduction is
George and Sam
by Charlotte Moore, published by Viking Press.

‘Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears.'

Hamlet
, Act 4, scene 7

H
eat. An intolerably heavy, humid heat, hanging everywhere, like a tangible malign presence. The kind of heat which makes people do silly things, bad things, criminal things. Evil things.

A damp, oppressive, English heat, hanging in every cleft and hollow of the ancient English city of Gloucester. A heat oozing softly into every ancient crevice of the old stone buildings around the cathedral and every modern hollow of the pedestrianized city centre. A brooding, overwhelming heat, which will be rent by thunder before the night is out.

Mischief is abroad in the city. As midnight approaches on this, the longest and hottest day of the year, the binge drinkers tumble from the pubs and seek out devilment, a danger to themselves and others. The sweltering night is rent by cries of cruel laughter, cries of excitement, cries of alarm, cries of fear and cries of pain. And then rent anew by the crash of broken glass, the yells of drunken laughter, and the sudden, horrifying screams of agony.

And so the still, stifling night is suddenly full of noises. Police sirens, all too familiar to the citizens of the town at this hour on a Saturday night. The sober, experienced voices of authority, making arrests, curtailing a revel gone wrong. And then the suddenly subdued voices of those arrested, protesting their innocence as they are pushed into the police vans, whining in sudden sobriety as their deeds collect unexpected retribution.

A little below the centre of the ancient city lie the docks, where ships sailed up the tidal reaches of the Severn and brought treasures to the city from Roman times, long before the cathedral was built. There is trouble for a few minutes only. Then the police arrive here also, amidst a harshness of blaring sirens, and contrive to disperse the hordes with no more than a couple of arrests.

Yet despite all this noisy activity, the worst thing of all goes undetected. It does not happen in the city. It takes place a mile away. But through the stillness of this sweltering night, it is within earshot of the turbulence and violence which spills from the taverns.

But this evil is silent, purposeful, undetected. It is conducted under cover of a darkness which seems thicker amidst the all-pervading heat, in a silence which seems more profound against the sudden outbreak of noise from the city.

No one sees it, but any observer would see only the stealthy movement of shadows beneath the low cloud of a moonless, starless sky. He might be able to discern that the thing which was carried was heavy, from the laboured movements of its bearer. But he would not be able to see enough beneath the darkness of the beech trees to decide that the burden had once been a human, living thing.

The corpse slides softly into the tepid waters of the river, which are oily to the touch after three weeks of this intense heat. It moves sluggishly away from the bank, then catches the quicker current of the central stream and is gone.

The dark shape which has deposited it there stands motionless for several minutes beneath the trees, then moves softly away.

The silence and the crushing heat hang over the city and the river for two hours longer. Then the first white blaze of lightning forks the black sky, and heavy drops of rain spatter river and stone.

S
uperintendent John Lambert was not having a good Wednesday.

He had begun his day in court, standing erect in his best suit and tie and striving to remain both patient and alert as a sharp young counsel for the defence tried hard first to trip him and then to rile him. The loan shark had gone down for three years, in the end, but it had been a more closely run thing than it should have been, and if one of the villains he had employed to terrorize and beat up his customers had not slipped up when giving his evidence, the man might even have walked free. It all made for a tense opening to the day, and Lambert told himself, not for the first time, that he was getting too old for this sort of contest.

That was a thought which returned to him now, in the stifling confines of the small, square, windowless interview room. He did not trouble to disguise his distaste as he looked at the massive forearms which were folded and resting on the square table in front of him. The tattoos of Union Jacks on the right arm and the naked woman with the big bust on the left seemed at this moment to have been designed as a deliberate challenge to him.

Lambert forced himself into a calmness he did not feel as he said, ‘You were there, all right. We have witnesses to that.'

‘Never said I wasn't, did I? Going about my legitimate business, when I became a victim of police brutality.'

‘The brutality was on your side. The officers applied no more force than was necessary to make an arrest.'

A grin from the coarse-featured face with the plaster above the left eye. ‘Police brutality. I'll be discussing the matter with my brief. You'd better get ready to apologize, if you don't wish us to press charges. Superintendent.' He rolled out the rank with a sneer of relish, as if it was the greatest epithet of contempt imaginable.

Lambert wished he had his dependable detective sergeant, Bert Hook, at his side instead of the inexperienced, fearful young woman DC who was sitting just behind him to learn the CID ropes. As if she read her chief's thoughts, the girl said feistily, ‘You're the one who'll be facing charges, Benson. You and your friends were causing an affray.'

The thug looked her up and down. His wandering eyes came to rest appreciatively on the rounded chest beneath the uniform shirt; an insulting leer spread slowly over the coarse features. ‘I don't know where you get that idea from, love. I don't see how anyone as pretty as you could be deliberately telling such lies. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and say that it's mistaken identity.'

‘There was no mistaken identity, Mr Benson. You were kicking a defenceless man on the ground when we arrested you.'

‘Oh, I don't think so, love. You'll have to prove it, and you won't be able to do that.' He looked from the earnest young face to the older and graver one beside it and shrugged his contempt. Then he looked round the narrow confines of the square box of a room and said, ‘This is no place for a pretty young piece like you, girl. You should be out living life with us. I could do you a bit of good if—'

‘Racially motivated, was it, the violence you offered last night?' Lambert's cool voice cut through the bluster. His contempt was colder and more edged than that in his opponent's blundering lechery.

‘Man insulted the country's flag, didn't he?' The burly man in the torn and bloodstained shirt ignored the cautionary raised hand of the thin-faced lawyer at his side. ‘Refused to bow before the Union Jack, didn't he? Black bastard deserved all he got, if you ask me.'

‘They aren't asking you, Wayne,' said the lawyer, glancing nervously at the cassette turning silently on the table beside them. He resumed the neutral tone he had used in their previous exchanges. ‘My client has nothing to say about the incident at this stage.'

‘Except that the black bastard deserved all he got,' his client repeated, truculently and unwisely.

‘We shall certainly be charging you with grievous bodily harm,' said Lambert, forcing confidence into his voice. It was a decision he had only just taken, and it broke all the unwritten rules he had set down for himself over the years. You didn't let scum like this get under your skin; you didn't make decisions in a fit of animosity or personal pique; you didn't charge people until you were sure that the evidence was there to convict them, however sure you were of their guilt.