Gently Floating (19 page)

‘Do I look the same as I did this morning?’

‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Much the same.’

‘Well I’m not,’ Parfitt said, ‘not at all the same. I’m a grinning idiot. Take a look at me.’

‘It’s been a warm day,’ Gently said.

‘Not,’ Parfitt said, ‘only warm. We’ve had a session, and man what a session. As from tomorrow I’m chucking police work.’

Gently grinned at Parfitt. ‘Snap,’ he said. ‘Did you soften Lidney for me?’

‘Yeah,’ Parfitt said. ‘Somebody softened somebody, off the cuff I wouldn’t like to say who.’ He poured more tea, drank more tea. ‘I’ve been brainwashed, threatened and insulted,’ he said. ‘I’m to be sued for slander, breaking and entering, rape, assault and hell knows what else. Maybe I bashed Harry French myself, I haven’t an alibi for Tuesday evening. If you said I did it I wouldn’t contradict you. I’ve got just the hammer in my toolshed.’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘No phoney confessions.’

‘You wouldn’t spot the difference,’ Parfitt said. ‘I’ve got the details too pat. Let me confess and get it over.’

‘I’ve been out with young French,’ Gently said.

‘We’ll both confess,’ Parfitt said. ‘I want to get back to the sneak-thieves and double-parkers. I’ll murder the next murderer.’

He ate toast, sipped tea. The waitress came with Gently’s order. It was the pretty waitress. Parfitt looked at her. Detective Constable Joyce looked at her. Gently poured his tea. The waitress retired. Parfitt sliced a piece of toast.

‘Yes,’ Parfitt said. ‘I don’t know who’s the chummie, who’s the policeman any longer. If they lie like Lidney lies you wind up believing them in the long run. I had to get out of that place. He was breaking me down, him and his missus. I’m not kidding, that’s a fact. I was starting to think we’d got it all wrong.’

‘That’s interesting,’ Gently said.

‘Oh very interesting,’ Parfitt said.

‘What were your impressions?’ Gently said to Detective Constable Joyce.

‘I don’t know, sir,’ Detective Constable Joyce said. ‘He’s a queer nut is Sid Lidney. There isn’t much I’d put past him. At times I thought we’d got him rocking, other times he seemed quite sure of himself. You’ll hardly get him to confess, sir.’

‘Don’t be funny, Joyce,’ Parfitt said.

‘Well that’s my impression, sir,’ Joyce said. ‘If he’s the chummie he won’t confess.’

‘He didn’t make any admissions,’ Gently said, ‘nothing about young French, about money.’

‘Nix,’ Parfitt said. ‘Nix again. I couldn’t shake them about either.’

‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘What do you know of his relatives?’

‘I’d say they’ll have disowned him,’ Parfitt said. ‘I believe he’s got cousins in the next village, farming people, name of Jimpson.’

‘Do they own the dance hall here?’ Gently said.

Parfitt shook his head.

‘Yes, sir,’ Joyce said. ‘It belonged to their father. It’s been closed since he died. I knew the old man, I used to go there.’

‘Well, well,’ Gently said. ‘Have you finished your tea, Joyce?’

‘Yes, sir,’ Joyce said, ‘just finishing.’

‘Take the car,’ Gently said, ‘go and interview the Jimpsons. Find out what they’re intending to do with the dance hall, whether Lidney holds any sort of option on it, whether John French is connected with the deal, whether they’re proposing to withdraw the option. Whether there was a date on which Lidney promised payment but defaulted from paying. Just the information, we’ll get statements later, don’t waste time, bring it back here.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Joyce said, gulping down toast. ‘Details of an option granted to Lidney.’

‘With special reference to John French as a backer,’ Gently said.

‘Yes, sir,’ Joyce said, ‘I’m with you.’ He drank tea, stood up, went.

Parfitt held his toast-knife vertical, took a sight over the tip of the blade. ‘Is this what I think it is?’ he said. ‘You’ve got chapter and verse for the motive?’

Gently shrugged. ‘Joyce is going to find out for me,’ he said.

‘You screwed this out of young French,’ Parfitt said.

Gently said: ‘John French came clean, then he withdrew all he’d told me. But he was telling the truth, I had him rubber-legged, he could only hold out on the odd lie. He gave himself and Mrs Lidney an alibi, left Lidney holding the hammer.’

‘For that I’ll love him,’ Parfitt said. ‘After that I’ll be his elder brother.’

‘Only I’m not sure,’ Gently said, ‘what were the lies he was holding out on. He denies either doing it himself or knowing who did do it, those are the critical lies of the bunch. Which makes you look closer at Mrs Lidney.’

‘I still love him,’ Parfitt said. ‘I’ll accept Mrs Lidney and still love him. If I met Mrs Lidney with a hammer in her hand I’d blow a whistle and run like a bastard.’

‘French was left alone with Mrs Lidney,’ Gently said. ‘By John French’s account she’s the last person to have been with him. Except that John French says different she could have followed him from the bungalow and she was in a murderous mood when he left. She’d let out something he didn’t know, what John French was aiming to do with his money. That was a false step. He’d have made her understand that. There was only one way for her to retrieve the situation. And if he knew she’d done it you’d expect John French to cover for her, even to throw Lidney to the wolves if it became a choice. The woman who makes a man of you is a special woman. She may be a Rhoda Lidney, but you wouldn’t give her away.’

‘So she’s the chummie,’ Parfitt said.

‘No,’ Gently said, ‘I just don’t know. There’s so much truth in what John French told me that I can only speculate, starting with the lies. Because there’s Dave Spelton too, John French is tender about him. Dave Spelton is what John French would like to be, a man who designs and builds yachts. He’s a symbol. French would cover for him. It was my bearing down on Spelton that made French recant. He’d got to the end when I suggested Spelton, all he could do then was retreat to his first alibi.’

‘Oh, the devil,’ Parfitt said, ‘there’s no dragging in Spelton at this stage. We’re lined up, we’re set to go, the Speltons are out, I never did like them for it.’

‘But we aren’t lined up,’ Gently said. ‘We’re still playing with three or four suspects. They’re covering for each other. They know who did it. That’s the situation. We haven’t cracked it.’

‘But not Spelton,’ Parfitt said, ‘not in this world, not Spelton. At one time the Speltons were right in the picture, but hell they aren’t there any longer. Their grudge is an old one, goes too far back. There’s nothing in that angle about French abusing the sister. The Lidneys and the son, that boiled up on Tuesday. It’s between those three, doesn’t touch the Speltons.’

Gently looked at Parfitt. ‘You too?’ he said.

‘All right, me too,’ Parfitt said. ‘I’m a local man, I was bred at the riverside, I know how young French would feel about the Speltons. Besides it’s common sense to eliminate the Speltons. They were outside of what was going on that night.’

Gently drank tea, cut toast. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s common sense.’

‘So what’s wrong with common sense?’ Parfitt said.

‘The Speltons weren’t outside it,’ Gently said. ‘Vera Spelton wasn’t outside it. Some part of the time she was acting the spy. I talked to her this morning. She saw the comings and goings, perhaps more than that. She may have been involved, may have involved Dave Spelton. Dave Spelton has a temper, is violent, uses hammers.’

‘But Vera Spelton’s a nut, you can’t believe her,’ Parfitt said.

‘Her story checks,’ Gently said. ‘It checks with John French’s story, where it touches. Vera Spelton would like me to arrest John French. She fingered him for me this morning. She may have been an eyewitness to the murder, but it doesn’t follow that she saw John French do it.’

Parfitt’s eyes were round. He said nothing.

‘She isn’t a fool,’ Gently said, ‘She’s an M.D. but she knows a hawk from a harnser. You liked John French. She fingered him for me.’

‘Oh to hell with it,’ Parfitt said.

Gently ate some of his toast.

‘I still don’t go with it,’ Parfitt said. ‘I don’t care. I’ll be bloody biased.’

‘I’m biased too,’ Gently said, ‘but mine’s a bias towards the facts.’

‘Lidney is a fact,’ Parfitt said. ‘He’ll do. He’s my bias. He’s my fact.’

Gently went on eating, drinking. Parfitt smoked cigarettes. They didn’t look at each other. Cars kept arriving, parking outside. Fresh people, fresh luggage spilled out on the parks. The wedge of river they could see was boiling with the wash of outgoing cruisers. A windless sail rocked, flapped, at last was lowered from a jerking mast. More cars arrived, more people. The mast kept jerking. The wash kept boiling. The waitress came, called Gently to the phone. Parfitt smoked. Gently came back. Parfitt said:

‘What’s the latest in facts?’

Gently shrugged. ‘All confirmed,’ he said. ‘Lidney had the option. It falls in today. He was to have paid up Tuesday, then yesterday. John French was backing him.’

Parfitt stubbed out a cigarette.

‘So,’ Gently said, ‘we’ll take him in. Let him cool his heels. Hear what he has to say.’

The humpty man came into Superintendent Glaskell’s office at eight p.m. on Saturday August 8th and he was still dressed in dungarees and a khaki shirt but he wore also an old jacket sagged at the pockets. He was brought into the office by a uniform man who had a hand on the humpty man’s arm and the roll or shamble in the humpty man’s gait seemed accentuated as he came into the office. All the lights in the office were switched on but especially a floodlight behind the desk. The office was warm, the floodlight was warm, it was also extremely bright. At the desk sat Superintendent Gently. On Gently’s right sat Inspector Parfitt. On Gently’s left sat Detective Constable Joyce. At a separate table sat a uniformed shorthand writer. In front of the desk stood a low wooden chair which had been fetched into the office from a detention cell. It was a scrubbed unvarnished chair and it stood alone in front of the desk. The uniform man ushered the humpty man to this chair but the humpty man ignored it and remained standing. The floodlight was nevertheless very bright on the humpty man. The uniform man closed the door, stood at ease with his back to it. Gently said:

‘You can sit down Lidney.’

‘Can I?’ the humpty man said. ‘Thanks very much.’

He continued to stand. His eyes glittered, small. He was sweating. He smelled of sweat. Gently said:

‘You’ve been brought here, Lidney, to sign a statement about Tuesday evening. You’re going to give us your account of Tuesday evening and that account will be taken down in shorthand. But first I’m going to tell you that your account to date doesn’t square with certain evidence we’ve collected. And secondly I have to warn you that you’re not obliged to say anything. What you do say will be taken down, may be used in evidence. This is all the warning I’m going to give you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

The shorthand man scribbled. Lidney looked at the pencil looked at Gently. His big mouth twisted, he said:

‘Are you charging me with doing him in?’

‘I’ll tell you that when I’ve heard your statement,’ Gently said.

‘Yes,’ Lidney said, ‘yes. You’re a nice bugger, aren’t you?’

Gently didn’t say anything. Lidney stood, sweated. The pencil stopped scribbling shorthand. The floodlight buzzed, hissed a little. Lidney said:

‘What’s this evidence?’

‘You’ll hear later,’ Gently said.

‘Oh yes, so you can trap me,’ Lidney said.

‘I can only trap you in telling a lie,’ Gently said.

‘And suppose I don’t make any statement?’ Lidney said.

‘That’s up to you,’ Gently said.

‘If someone’s accusing me I’ve a right to know,’ Lidney said.

‘When they do you will know,’ Gently said. ‘All we’re asking for at the moment is your statement.’

‘Why don’t you come out with it?’ Lidney said. ‘Why all this rigmarole if you’re going to charge me?’

‘Just give your statement,’ Gently said.

‘Just bloody hang yourself,’ Lidney said.

He came up closer to the desk.

‘You’re going to fix me, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘You’ve had that stuff out of my bungalow, you can show it in court, that’s good enough. So you keep coming at me and coming at me. You think I’ll bloody break down and weep. You get me here, pretend to know things, think I’ll spew my guts up to you. But you’re wrong, I’m the wrong bloke. I was brought up in a different school. If you’re going to arrest me, just get on with it. Then we’ll see where it gets you.’

‘Meanwhile,’ Gently said, ‘we’d like your statement.’

‘No doubt you would,’ Lidney said.

‘In case it explains our new evidence,’ Gently said.

Lidney looked at him, sweated.

‘Let’s put it this way,’ Gently said. ‘You’ve a chance now to tell the truth. You’ve lied before. We’ll forget about that. I wouldn’t blame you for lying if you were innocent. But now we know too much about it, I’m not pretending about the evidence. So this is your chance to clear it up, and you’ll take it. If you’re innocent.’

‘You lousy ferret,’ Lidney said. ‘You’re on that tack, are you?’

‘If you won’t make a statement,’ Gently said, ‘that way we’ll know where we stand too.’

Lidney’s mouth twisted, he puckered his eyes, there was sweat on the bald part of his head. The uniform man at the door shifted his feet, looked at his feet, looked at Lidney. Lidney shuffled further towards the desk. He stooped. His humped back looked humptier. He said:

‘You’ve been getting lies out of young French, haven’t you?’

‘I’ve been making inquiries,’ Gently said.

‘Yes, out of young French,’ Lidney said. ‘I thought he wouldn’t stand up to you long. Clever buggers aren’t you, going after the kid. As though he didn’t have enough to put up with anyway. Blinking heroes, that’s what you are, nagging at the kid till you got something out of him.’

Gently didn’t say anything.

‘Heroes,’ Lidney said. ‘Only you aren’t dealing with a kid any longer. And if I don’t know what you drove him to say, I don’t know what you think I’m going to tell you. Does he say I did it?’

‘Did you do it?’ Gently said.

‘If he does that’s one lie,’ Lidney said. ‘I wasn’t far off, I’ve admitted that, but it wasn’t me, nor he couldn’t have seen who it was.’