Gently through the Mill (7 page)

‘You’re sure of those times?’

‘Yes, I was looking for a chance …’

‘He went out shortly before half past eleven?’

Jimpson nodded his head.

‘Where did he say he was going?’

‘He didn’t say nothing.’

But he had gone out into the yard, Jimpson thought, because there had been no squeak from the broken hinge on the door to the shop. After waiting a few minutes he had ventured into the yard, and not seeing Blythely, had hurried out to meet Jessie.

‘Was he in the habit of going out like that?’

‘No, he wouldn’t never leave the bakehouse as a rule. Once you’ve got the dough rising …’

‘What did he say when he came back?’

‘Nothing, he didn’t.’ Jimpson looked sideways.

‘Go on, Ted!’ urged Jessie. ‘You said you was going to tell him everything.’

‘Well …’ Jimpson hesitated. ‘He was something upset, that’s all I can say. First off he was quiet, then afterwards he let me have it. I didn’t know whether I was coming or going.’

‘Had he seen you go out?’

‘Not him, or I’d have heard about it.’

‘What was he angry about?’

‘Every mortal thing I did.’

Gently slowly nodded, still watching his sugar bowl. This had to be true in substance … unless there was a conspiracy against Blythely! But there might be an explanation, sufficient if not innocent: Blythely might have had the misfortune to go out on business he wanted to keep quiet.

‘You corroborate this?’

Jessie’s pretty flush came back. ‘Of course I do – it’s every word the truth!’

‘What’s your father’s job?’

‘He’s a gardener with the Corporation.’

‘Up late last Thursday, wasn’t he?’

‘He
always
waits up when I’m on the late shift.’

‘Where did he become acquainted with Mr Blythely?’

‘He hasn’t never met him that I ever heard of.’

‘A betting man, is he?’

‘No fear! He’s very strict about everything like that.’

He would be, naturally, if he was employed by the Lynton Corporation …

Out of the corner of his eye Gently saw Fuller’s Consul draw up, hesitate, and then turn carefully into the mill-yard gate. The miller climbed out, reaching after him a leather briefcase. As he closed the door his eye fell on the café window: for a moment he stood quite still, an expression of blankness on his
bold-featured
face.

‘Just before Mr Blythely went out … what happened then?’

‘We were getting up the dough …’

‘Did you hear the hinge squeak, for instance?’

‘I wasn’t listening for it.’

‘What was Mr Blythely doing?’

‘He was kneading the …’

‘Which trough was he using?’

‘The one near the door.’

Fuller came suddenly out of his trance and flung angrily into his office. Even in the café one could hear the slam of the door. His face appeared a few seconds later, peering over the screen, along with it that of his not-unattractive clerk.

‘Who else was around that night?’

‘Who …? Nobody!’

‘Who was in the yard when you got back?’

‘I tell you—!’

‘You didn’t go straight into the bakehouse, did you?’

‘Yes, I did!’

‘What’s the quarrel between Mr Blythely and Mr Fuller?’

‘There isn’t no quarrel – they get on all right together!’

Gently shrugged and drank off the rest of his coffee. He was giving poor Jimpson a rough sort of a passage, but then he shouldn’t have been such a silly young …

‘What else haven’t you told the police?’

‘Nothing, I tell you!’

‘Why did you come to me just now?’

‘Jessie and me … she thought I ought to!’

‘What have you got against Mr Blythely?’

‘Nothing I haven’t! He’s all right to me …’

‘You’d better think carefully if there’s anything else you want to tell me.’

The café now was practically empty; Gently’s waitress stood at a distance by a sideboard, pretending not to be interested. A sunny West Indian voice from the radio was unfortunately spoiling her chances of
eavesdropping
.

Only one customer was left, but he, as it happened, was sitting at the table immediately behind Gently.

‘You can add nothing, Miss Mason?’

‘Only that Ted’s telling you the God’s truth.’

‘You must have passed the junction of Cosford Street
with Fenway Road – did you notice anyone making use of the back passage to the drying-ground?’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Or anyone about there?’

‘No.’

‘A parked car, perhaps?’

She shook her head and then stopped herself. ‘There was a car there, come to think of it. I noticed one standing off the road just down Cosford Street.’

‘What sort of car, Miss Mason?’

‘I don’t know – I just saw it. It hadn’t got no lights on.’

‘A saloon car, was it?’

‘I suppose so. I just saw it standing there.’

Gently sighed to himself. If only women paid more attention to cars …! But there it was, another tiny fact, to fit, it might be, a final pattern.

‘Righto … that’s all for just now, though I shall probably need a statement from both of you later.’

A bit shakily they rose from the table – it had been a good deal worse than either of them had expected! Jessie stuck her hand defiantly into Ted’s, and wordlessly they passed out through the doorway.

Young love …

Wouldn’t she make him a very good wife?

‘Waitress – I think I’ll have some tea this time!’

Gently turned about and tapped the shoulder of the customer behind him.

‘Don’t be shy, Mr Blacker … come and sit at my table. I feel we could profitably discuss the situation.’

W
HY HAD GENTLY’S
mood changed, out of all proportion to the progress he was making? He couldn’t have given the answer himself, certainly not in the cold terms of an official report.

Nothing else had changed in the small café or the street outside. Over in his office Fuller was still peering across his screen, further along Mrs Blythely had lifted the latch of the shop door and now leant, elbows asprawl, scanning a lunchtime paper at her counter. From the loudspeaker above the serving-hatch the calypso singer continued to celebrate the deeds of ‘those little pals of mine’:

Yet his mood had changed radically. He had a tingling feeling of suppressed excitement. Something, surely, was on the move … he was beginning to get hold of the end of the stick in his hand!

‘Never mind your cup – the waitress won’t mind seeing to it.’

Blacker had somehow overturned the cup containing the dregs of his coffee, and was now trying to mop them up with a paper serviette.

‘You might have given us a warning …’

‘I didn’t know you were sensitive.’

‘Anyway, I got to get back.’

‘I feel certain that Mr Fuller can spare you for a bit.’

The foreman, recovered from his violent start, didn’t seem unduly discomposed. He lounged untidily into the chair beside Gently and lit a cigarette taken from an old tobacco tin.

‘So what do you want to know, then?’

If anything, his tone sounded complacent.

‘Whatever you can tell me.’

‘P’raps you think I could tell you a lot, eh?’

‘Perhaps.’

Blacker puffed deliberately at the cigarette, holding it between his finger and thumb with an air of clumsy affectation. Then he gestured with it towards the window.

‘See who’s watching us over there?’

Gently nodded.

‘Don’t think he likes seeing us two together – what are you going to make out of that?’

The green-grey eyes met Gently’s cunningly and a smirk twisted the weak mouth. There was nothing prepossessing about Blacker – even his ears seemed stuck on as an afterthought.

‘How long have you worked at the mill?’

‘Six years I reckon – six years too long.’

‘There must have been others who’ve worked there longer.’

‘Ah, but then I’ve got influence, you see!’

Gently nodded again, but made no further comment. If Blacker wanted to be clever, he was prepared to give him scope. Meanwhile there was Fuller, frozen behind his screen; at the distance one couldn’t read the expression, but one could see the unnatural pallor …

‘The boss and me, we’re like two brothers – in each other’s pockets, as you might say. When it happened he wanted a foreman, why, there I was. “Sam,” he said, “you’d better take over.” Just you ask him if that wasn’t the way of it.’

‘And that was on Good Friday?’

‘W’yes, why shouldn’t it be?’

‘I understood that Mr Fuller was without a foreman before that date.’

‘Ah, but he couldn’t carry on like that – it was too much for him, he had to give in.’

Blacker was quite happy now, puffing away at his cigarette. His whole clumsy attitude was one of complacency – of patronage, almost. He was conferring favours on Gently.

As he smoked he tilted back his chair with his heels. His big-boned frame, all knobs, showed up through the dusty drill trousers and jacket he was wearing.

‘The boss, now, he’s one of the best … when you get to know him! Some people says he’s got a temper,
but don’t you believe it. Nervous he is sometimes – aren’t we all now and then? – but underneath it there’s a heart of gold. I reckon they don’t come better than Harry Fuller, there …’

‘What about Mr Blythely?’

‘Huh?’

Blacker was unprepared for the change of subject.

‘I was asking what was your opinion of Mr Blythely.’

‘Oh,
him
! Well, that’s another kettle of fish entirely.’

The smirk came back to the foreman’s lips, but this time it wasn’t directed at Gently. A private joke it seemed to be, a secret amusement of Blacker’s
maliciousness
…

‘Now
he’
s a queer bird if you like, with his hymn-singing and Bible-thumping. Don’t drink, don’t swear – you’d hardly believe he did the other thing! Wouldn’t surprise me if he couldn’t, neither, judging by results. Been married twenty years, they have … do you reckon the bakehouse has anything to do with it?’

Gently merely shrugged and stared absently through the window. Unaware of being observed, the buxom Mrs Blythely was wrapping loaves in tissue for a customer.

‘Well, he’s a bloke I’d keep an eye on if I was a policeman. You never can tell where these holy-boys are going to finish up. They keep it all bottled in – don’t tell me that’s natural! – then one of these days … Yes, I’d keep an eye on him!’

‘Why did he quarrel with Mr Fuller?’

‘Huh?’

Blacker was brought up short again, letting his chair come halfway forward.

‘Didn’t know they had quarrelled – not yet, anyhow. Daresay they will do, though, before they’ve finished with each other.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Blacker looked suddenly wary.

‘Why, it stands to reason … old Blythely’s got a nasty tongue. One day he’ll say something that Harry won’t take from him. Harry ain’t no saint, you know, he don’t go round preaching sermons.’

‘Likes his pint and his fun, does he?’

‘Yes – one of the lads, he is.’

‘Might raise a bit of scandal.’

‘Well, there you are … that woman who does the letters for him. Though, mind you, she’s a
toffee-nosed
bitch. Wouldn’t look at the likes of me and the rest of them. But you can take my word’ – Blacker winked knowingly – ‘she wouldn’t say no if the right person asked her. You can always tell about bits of stuff, eh?’

He rocked the chair, watching Gently closely. The man from the Central Office appeared to be studying infinite distances. Blacker ran his tongue over
tobacco-stained
lips.

‘Not that I want to say a word against Harry – see? He’s a good pal to me, you can say what you like about him. So I know how to hold my tongue. If I sees anything I just keep my eyes shut. And Harry, he appreciates it – he knows that he can trust me! Which is
why he made me his foreman when he found he couldn’t get on without one.’

‘Is he trusting you now, sitting here talking to me?’

Blacker tried to smirk, but a wryness had got into it. He darted a glance through the window at the spectral face of his employer.

‘I didn’t mean nothing by that, just pulling your leg! Blast, this business is enough to make anybody get edgy.’

‘Where does the stable come into it?’

‘The stable …?’

Blacker’s chair fell forward.

‘The stable at the back there … don’t tell me you don’t know about it!’

This time he had got home with a vengeance. There was no complacency in Blacker’s manner now. He stared stupidly at Gently, his long face longer still; for two whole seconds he could only open his mouth and gape helplessly.

Mrs Blythely, from her shop door, looked a moment in their direction. But then she seemed to shrug and went back to poring over her newspaper.

‘What about it … that there stable?’

‘That’s what I’m asking you.’

‘Don’t know what you mean … the stable! What’s it got to do with me?’

‘Not only with you, but also with Messrs Fuller and Blythely.’

‘It’s their stable, isn’t it? What am I supposed to know about it?’

They were calling each other’s bluff, and both of them were aware of the fact. Gently had touched a chord which threw Blacker on the defensive, but he was giving nothing away until he could see what cards were being held …

‘Harry keeps some hay up there – that’s all
I
can tell you! If you want to know anything else, then I reckon you’d better ask him.’

‘I’ve asked him already and now I’m asking you.’

‘Well, I don’t know nothing, and that’s the fact of the matter.’

Gently brooded a second over his empty teacup, then he produced a ten-shilling note and tossed it down on the table.

‘Come on!’ he said. ‘Let’s go and look it over. The sight of the place may improve your memory …’

Protesting, Blacker allowed himself to be led out of the café. At least a dozen pairs of eyes were on them – even Blythely was watching from a window high up above the bakehouse.

Just as they went past it the side door of the office opened, but Gently was looking neither to the right hand or the left.

‘In you go – it isn’t locked. We’ll take a look at this side first.’

The stable was a double one with the loft over the inward compartment. Lit by no windows it was gloomy enough, but Blacker pushed in as though he knew his way about. He came to a sullen standstill amongst a raffle of packing-cases and broken chairs.

‘What happens now?’

‘Pull that rubbish to one side.’

‘There’s nothing behind that …’

‘Never mind – pull it aside!’

Blacker was right, there was nothing behind it, with the exception of spiders and a great deal of litter. The floor beneath was of corrugated black tiles, sunk a little at the centre for the purpose of drainage.

‘Satisfied now?’

‘Shift the rubbish on the other side.’

‘I tell you it’s a waste of time …!’

But the rubbish was duly removed, yielding the same result as before.

‘How do you get into the loft?’

Blacker indicated a wooden fodder-trough at the end of the compartment. A packing-case stood by it by way of a step, and above, in a wooden dividing wall, two planks had been left out to provide a means of ingress.

‘Right – up you go!’

Blacker swung himself up with ungainly grace. The loft smelt fragrant with the scent of clover hay, several bales of which lay stacked by the loading door. In addition to this there was a pile of barley straw; it was making a lot of itself and covering much of the floor-space.

‘Move those bales, will you? I’ll turn over the straw.’

There was a pitchfork standing by the wall, and Gently showed that he knew how to use it. Blacker, resigned to the futility of protest, quickly tumbled apart the heap of wire-bound hay bales.

Nothing, and again nothing.

The smirk was creeping back to the foreman’s lips.

‘What did you expect to find – somebody else strangled? I reckon there was only that one …’

‘What’s this – a new sort of horse-brass?’

Gently bent down and picked out something from the tousled straw. It was a tiny gold cross, measuring not more than an inch in length. He held it up so that Blacker could see it.

‘Something you know about or something you don’t?’

‘What, me! What should I know about it? I aren’t never up here.’

‘All right … don’t labour it!’ Gently shrugged and dropped the cross into his pocket. ‘We’ll get on to our next port of call – perhaps it will be a little more productive.’

Blacker scowled at him suspiciously. ‘I’m not going nowhere else.’

‘Oh yes.’ Gently nodded. ‘You’ve begun to rouse my interest. I think we ought to check on that woman of yours … don’t you?’

Coming out of the stable they had run into Fuller. The miller had followed them along the passage and now stood, a picture of desperate indecision, some yards from the stable door. Blacker tried to catch his eye and failed absolutely. Gently, who might have had better luck, appeared to be unaware of Fuller’s existence …

The unhappy man followed them with his eyes until they turned out of the upper passage into Cosford Street.

‘There’s a lot of work on this afternoon …’

Blacker’s anxiety was increasing by leaps and bounds.

‘I don’t care if you see Maisie – I haven’t got nothing to hide! But why can’t I just tell you where to find her, and you let me get on with my job …?’

Gently, however, seemed to have added deafness to his visual affliction.

Lynton was dead on that chilly afternoon. The east wind had swept the streets as cleanly as a corporation road-sweeper. Looking in the shops, you saw the assistants talking together or leaning bored at their counters; you marvelled that it was worth anyone’s while to pretend to have a business there.

In the square the stallholders looked perished and miserable, and even the pigeons had retired to fluff their feathers somewhere else.

An east wind in Lynton … what lower depths could one plumb?

‘What time did you visit this woman?’

Gently broke a long silence as they drew opposite the police station.

‘I met her in The Fighting Cock – you know what I told them! We went round to her place when the pub closed at half ten.’

‘What had you done before that?’

‘Before that …? What I always do! I went home and got my tea, then had a wash and got into my pub-crawling outfit.’

‘Is she a regular of yours?’

‘Off and on, as you might say.’

‘How long have you known her?’

‘I don’t know – ten years, p’raps.’

‘Local, is she?’

‘You wouldn’t think so when she opens her mouth.’

‘Has she been in trouble with the police?’

‘No, she haven’t, or she’d have told me.’

‘Has Mr Fuller ever met her?’

‘How should I know who he’s met?’

Out of the square they took a street leading into the dock area. It was an ugly district of narrow thoroughfares and rows of houses built of dirty yellow brick. Aspidistras flourished in the windows, filling the gap between draped lace curtains. Now and again, as they passed, a curtain would be twitched by an anonymous hand.

‘How long have you been interested in horses?’

‘I don’t know – who said I was interested?’

‘You bet on them, don’t you?’

‘You can’t pinch me for that!’

‘Did this woman go with you to Newmarket that day?’

‘I never went to Newmarket – haven’t been there in my life.’

‘With whom do you lay your bets?’

‘Nobody ever said I laid any.’

To the left lay the warehouses with the quays behind them – small, unextensive, but adequate to handle the few small tramps touching in with timber and coal.