Chapter One

September 7th that year fell on a Tuesday. On that day, three things happened, none of them of any apparent importance. Later they were to combine, as certain chemicals, harmless in themselves, may do, to produce violent results.

Michael Drake-Pelley, aged fourteen, and his younger cousin, Frank, planned an early morning bathe, to mark the last day of an enjoyable summer holiday on the river.

Detective Inspector William Mercer received by first post confirmation of his promotion to Chief Inspector and of his appointment in charge of the C.I.D. at Stoneferry-on-Thames, which is one of the larger up-river stations of Q. Division of the Metropolitan Police.

Later that morning in No. 1 Court at the Old Bailey, Mr. Justice Arbuthnot sentenced Samuel Lewis, Daniel Evans and Raymond Oxley to fifteen years imprisonment each for robbery with violence. “This was a brutal and greedy crime,” he said. “In the course of it you beat to the ground a young girl and smashed in the face of a man who sought to prevent you snatching the money which belonged to their firm. You can count yourselves fortunate that neither of them died. Had they done so I should have sentenced you to imprisonment for life and made a recommendation to the Home Secretary that the sentence was not to be reviewed for at least twenty-five years.”

The three men received the homily and the sentence without a flicker of interest.

When Scotland Yard moved to Petty France, the police retained a block of offices next door to their old headquarters. They found them useful for informal meetings, since there is a subway entrance from Cannon Row Police Station. The block belongs to the Statistics Department of the Board of Trade and they actually occupy the ground and the first floor, but if you wander, by mistake, into the upper storeys you will be politely sent about your business by a uniformed policeman.

In the front room, overlooking the Thames, three men discussed the Lewis case.

At the head of the table was Deputy Commander Laidlaw, thin, dedicated, and already showing the signs of the disease which was to destroy him. It was Laidlaw who had conceived the idea of the Regional Crime Squads and he was now in charge of all twelve of them. On his right was the C.I.D. boss of No. 1 District, Chief Superintendent Morrissey, a large, white-faced, Cockney Jew who looked as formidable now as when, twenty years before, he had climbed into the ring to box for the Metropolitan Police. The third man, who would have pass unnoticed in any bowler-hatted crowd of commuters, was, in his own way, the most distinguished of the three. He was Sir Henry Hatfield, seconded from the Home Office as standing adviser to the Clearing House Banks. He said, “You can congratulate yourselves, I think, on getting rid of that little lot.”

“We’d congratulate ourselves,” said Laidlaw, “if we thought they were the last of their kind.”

“Or the worst,” said Morrissey.

“You’ve put away three major gangs in the last two years.”

“All due to Dibox,” said Morrissey, adding, “That sounds like a T.V. commercial dunnit?”

“The Dibox system has certainly proved its worth,” agreed Sir Henry. “Do you think the opposition might be beginning to tumble to it?”

“I imagine they must be starting to put two and two together,” said Laidlaw. “They’re not fools. They must wonder how we got onto Oxley, within twenty-four hours. Particularly since he was only driving the getaway car and no one identified him on the job and he had very little form. They must guess it was something to do with the notes themselves, even if they weren’t able to work out the answer.”

“Suppose they did work it out,” said Sir Henry. “What could they do about it? You can’t remove the mark. You can’t even decipher it, except with proper apparatus.”

“What they’d do,” said Morrissey, “they wouldn’t be in any hurry to spend the money. They’d set up a stocking. The stuff from today’s job goes into the top of the stocking. The pay out for it comes from the bottom. From a job done maybe two years before.”

“Or a mixed lot of notes from a number of different jobs,” said Laidlaw.

“If they operated on that scale there’d be a lot of money involved. It’s curiously bulky stuff. Where do you suggest they’d keep it?”

Morrissey said, with a grin which exposed two gold-capped teeth, “When we put out the buzz that the big boys might be stocking up, you’d be surprised at the ideas our favourite little grasses came in with. Everything from a blasted oak in Epping Forest, to the third lavatory cistern from the left at Waterloo.”

“Neither of those sounds very promising,” said Sir Henry primly. “More likely they keep it in a safe, in a private house, or some legitimate-looking business. Or maybe in a strong-room or a safe deposit.”

“Agreed,” said Morrissey. “The trouble is, our informers don’t move in such select circles. They hang round in pubs, picking up gossip. Most of it’s untrue, and what isn’t dead lies is twisted.”

“It’s a fact,” said Laidlaw, “we’ve never been able to get a man on the inside of any of the really important outfits. They’re too careful. They pick their own recruits, from prison or Borstal mostly. And they vet them, and their families and backgrounds very thoroughly before they even approach them. Then they’re given small jobs to start with, to try them out. It might be years before they graduate to a real operation. And they know that if they do get caught, their families will be looked after. There’s not much inducement to split.”

“And plenty of bloody good reasons not to,” said Morrissey. “Anyone who gets ambitious in that direction gets reminded about Cobbet, and then he thinks again.”

“Cobbet?”

“It was the Crows. They’re just about the biggest outfit left. They’ll be bigger still, now that Sam Lewis has gone, because they’ll pick up the minor characters from his lot. Cobbet was a fringer. He did small jobs for them. He was never on the inside. He got the idea he wasn’t being treated right. Then there was some trouble about a girl. What with one thing and another, he offered to squeak. We handled him dead careful, I can tell you. Outside telephones, third party contacts, different meeting-places each time. But they found out.”

Sir Henry said, as if he hardly liked to ask the question, “What did they do to him?”

“They had a full-scale trial, judge and counsel for the prosecution and counsel for the defence and ‘Yes, me lud,’ and ‘No, me lud,’ and they found him guilty and executed him. What they actually did was they popped him head first into a barrel, alive I gather, and filled it up with wet cement. You could just see the tops of his legs sticking out. It was stood, like that, in a garage workshop the gang used, with a canary in a cage hung on the left foot. The only one who thought that touch real fun was the canary. He chirruped away like anything, for forty-eight hours, I’m told.”

“You mean they kept it there, openly, for two days.”

“That’s right, and all the boys were brought in to see it, in turn. Then it was put into a van, driven down to Grays in Essex, and dropped into the river.”

“How did you find all this out?”

“Find it out? We didn’t have to find it out. The story was round the whole of South London. They meant it to be. They didn’t even mind people knowing where they’d dumped the barrel. It went into thirty foot of water with a tidal scour running at five knots. It’ll have rolled somewhere out into the North Sea by now.”

“They’ve learned two lessons from America,” said Laidlaw. “The power of money, and the power of fear. A man who knows how to handle those two weapons can become very powerful. He can laugh at the law for a long time.”

“But not for ever,” said Sir Henry.

“I hope not. Although there have been times and places when crime has got on top. It goes in waves. And it can’t last for ever. But it’s very unpleasant while it does last.”

A slight and quickly controlled tightening of the lips signalled the pain which had unexpectedly reached out and gripped him.

“And things are happening here, under our noses, that I don’t like. I don’t only mean the crime figures, though they’re frightening enough. I mean the sort of general breaking loose and kicking over the traces that’s going on in all classes. It may sound an odd thing for a policeman to say, but I believe the real reason is the breakdown of religion. If people aren’t afraid of going to hell in the next world, they don’t see any reason why they shouldn’t have the best time possible in this one. And if your idea of a good time is drink or drugs or girls or boys, and they cost money, and you haven’t got any money—the answer’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“There’s a difference,” said Sir Henry, “between a lowering of moral standards, and a breakdown in law and order.”

“One leads to the other,” said Morrissey. “I don’t suppose you heard what happened at King’s Cross Station just before Easter. It was kept under hatches. This was the Crows too. They’d joined up for the occasion with two local outfits. There were more than thirty of them involved, and they were most of them armed. They were aiming to lift a very big consignment of used notes that was coming up for pulping. It was guarded, of course. Two of the boys from the Birmingham force came up with it and there were two railway policemen to meet it. We got a last minute tip-off, realised it was going to be a nasty party, put in six car-loads of our own, and called out the heavy mob from Wellington Barracks. In a way, we overdid it, because they saw what was coming and scarpered. Total casualties, one of our men with shotgun pellets in his leg, and one getaway car caught in a side street. And all we could charge him with was obstruction. All right. But just suppose for a moment that we hadn’t been tipped off. What do you think the score would’ve been then? Four dead policemen, plus any outsiders who happened to get in the way.”

“All the same,” said Sir Henry, and he said it in the tones of a man who needs reassurance, “you are not suggesting a total breakdown of law and order. The men would have been caught and punished eventually.”

“If the police all did their job,” said Laidlaw.

“Are you questioning the morale of the police?”

“I’m not questioning their morale. I think it’s pretty high at the moment. But policemen are human. Their training makes them less susceptible to bribery and fear. But there must be one or two of them who can still be bought—or frightened.”

Outside, a police launch was coming down against the flood tide. The man in the bows held a boat hook. He signalled with his free hand, and the boat sidled across towards a long black bundle which was drifting upstream. He reached over, drew the flotsam towards the boat, then lost interest and pushed it away. The boat shot off downstream, the bundle continued to drift, bobbing slightly in a ruffle of wind as it passed under Westminster Bridge.

Morrissey said, “Even one bent policeman can give criminals a lot of help. The higher he is, the more he can give them.”

Detective Chief Inspector Mercer was finishing his packing. He was a man in his late twenties or early thirties, with a lot of dark hair, worn rather long and a thick sensual face. His appearance was not improved by a puckered white scar which started at the cheekbone and gathered up the corner of the left eye so that it seemed permanently half closed. He had thick shoulders, a barrel of a chest, and legs disproportionately long for such a body.

The furnished room in Southwark which had been his home for the last two years held a bed, an armchair, a wardrobe and a chest of drawers and not much else. Emptying one of the small drawers, he pulled out a battered diary and thumbed through the pages. In the section headed ‘Useful Notes’ there were half a dozen entries, each containing a girl’s name followed by a telephone number. Mercer tore out the pages, dropped them into an ashtray, set fire to them and watched them burn. They had all been useful to him, and some of them had been fun too. He hoped he would be as lucky in Stoneferry, but he rather doubted it.

That evening, as they did every Tuesday, business permitting, Superintendent Bob Clark, the head of the uniformed branch at Stoneferry, and his wife, Pat, drove round after dinner to play bridge with Murray Talbot, and his wife, Margaret. Murray Talbot was a J.P. and chairman of the local bench, and before the game started, whilst Margaret was cutting sandwiches and Pat was helping her with the coffee, the two men sometimes talked business.

Bob Clark said, “The new man starts tomorrow. Name of Mercer. Youngish, I’m told. Probably a bit of a new broom.”

“No harm in that,” said Talbot. “I liked Watkyn well enough. We all did. But he was a sick man towards the end. He may have slipped a bit.”

“If he did,” said Bob Clark, “it wasn’t reflected in the crime statistics. Do you realise that this station has the highest average in the Division for indictable crimes cleared up?”

“Good show. I expect you’ll get a medal when you retire next year. If they decide to give you a gold watch, I’ll open the subscription list.”

The words were spoken flippantly, but the sincerity behind them pleased the Superintendent. He was saved the trouble of answering by the return of the ladies.

It was half-past six and the sun, which showed blood-red through the early morning mist, had no warmth in it. Michael Drake-Pelley and Frank, naked as the day they were born, hauled themselves out of the black and smoking waters of the Thames by means of an overhanging bough, and stood on the narrow strip of shingle which formed the up-river point of Westhaugh Island.

“That was fun,” said Michael.

“L—l—l—Lovely,” said Frank.

Their towels were in the punt which was hitched to a willow. As they went to fetch them Michael caught his foot in something, tumbled forward onto his knees and uttered a word which, at fourteen, should not have been in his vocabulary.

“What is it?” said Frank.

“Some bloody picnicker has buried a—” He stopped.

“B—buried w—what? Do come on. I’m freezing.”

But Michael took no notice. Kneeling on the shingle, he scraped with his hands. It was a layer of stones which the river had been eating into. The wash of the current had nibbled away the lower stones and now the top covering had fallen in.

From the edge something white was sticking out. Michael, who had touched it, got up, went across and washed his hands in the river. It was a ritual gesture.

He said, “I think we’d better tell someone about this, don’t you?”

Chapter Two

“It’s a quiet town,” said Superintendent Clark, “and I’m aiming to keep it that way.”

“I hope so,” said Mercer.

The two men were in the Superintendent’s office, overlooking the roundabout at the east end of the town where the first feeder from the by-pass came in. Mercer had reported his arrival at nine o’clock that morning and the two men were taking stock of each other.

“I hope your digs are all right. We fixed you up temporarily in Cray Avenue. It’s a fair step from the station, but I imagine you’ll be getting a car.”

“The bed’s a bit hard,” said Mercer. “No other complaints so far.”

“Mrs. Marchant will look after you all right. She’s a good soul. When you’ve been here a week or so, if you find something you like better, we can fix it up for you. Now the summer’s nearly over there’ll be plenty of places to choose from.”

“Seasonal population?”

“Mixed bag. A hard core of commuters. And a lot of retired folk. But we do get a bit of a population explosion in the summer, when people crowd down here and fill up the bungalows and houseboats and barges—or just pitch tents alongside the river. They don’t give a lot of trouble, particularly if the weather’s hot. They spend all their time in and on the water.”

“Compared with Southwark,” said Mercer, “it sounds like a rest cure.”

“We’ve got a few problems. There was a bit of trouble with a gang of boys who used to hang round the public lavatory under the railway arch. We got the council to shut it down, and open another one in the Square. That’s more in the public eye. It cleared the trouble. Lately we’ve had a run of shop-breaking. Transistors, tape-recorders, typewriters. Tom Rye thinks it’s the same man. You’ll find Tom very sound. Towards the end he was really holding up Watkyn.”

“How is Watkyn?”

“In Slough Infirmary.” The Superintendent made a face. “Exploratory surgery. He thinks it’s ulcers. Oh, come in, Tom. Have you two met?”

“We arrived at the same moment and nodded to each other,” said Rye. “And I’ll wager you’ve been telling him what you told me when I first came here. That it’s a nice quiet manor where nothing ever happens.”

“Near enough.”

“Well it’s happened. Two boys found a body on Westhaugh Island this morning.”

There was a moment of silence. Then the Superintendent said, “That’s just below the weir. Could have been an accident.”

“Not unless the corpse buried itself.”

“Oh, I see.”

“One of the boys – name of Michael Drake-Pelley – is a smart kid. He and his friend have been bathing off the island a lot this last two months. He says they noticed that when the new sluice was opened a lot more water came through on that side, and it’s been steadily eating away the island. The body was a good three feet down. If it hadn’t been for that sluice being opened it’d be there still.”

“Drake-Pelley,” said Mercer. “It’s an uncommon name. He isn’t by any chance—?”

“Yes,” said Rye. “That’s just it. He is.”

“What are you talking about?” said Clark.

“Michael’s father is Sir Richard Drake-Pelley, the Director of Public Prosecutions. And, like I said, Michael’s a smart boy. As soon as he’d finished telephoning us, he got on to the Daily Mirror. Gave them an exclusive. Just the sort of thing which would appeal to them. ‘Headache for the Director. Unearthed by his own son.’ “

“Damn,” said the Superintendent. “Better get the place sealed off before Central get there. They won’t be pleased if a lot of sightseers have been trampling over it.”

“I’ve sent Sergeant Gwilliam down there,” said Rye. “I’m not sure we’re going to get anyone from Central.”

Both men stared.

“I had a word with Superintendent Wakefield at Division. I thought we’d better alert him straightaway. He said he didn’t think C.I. had anyone on tap. They’ve got two men in Pakistan on this forged passport lark, one in Jamaica and one in Lagos. The rest are already booked. Greig was the last, and he went up to Cumberland on that child murder, last week.”

“I’ll have a word with Division myself,” said Clark.

He was back in five minutes, looking grim. He said, “I had Morrissey on the phone. He wants us to do it ourselves. He said we can have a sergeant from Central to help if we want him.”

Mercer and Rye looked at each other. Their reactions were identical.

“We don’t want to be lumbered with him if we don’t have to,” said Rye. “I know these boys from Central. He’ll be round our necks whilst we do the real work, and he’ll grab all the credit at the end.”

“What about facilities?” said Mercer. “Forensic Laboratory, Central Teletype, C.R.O.”

“They’ll give you any help you need on the technical side. Morrissey promised that.”

“Then we’d better get moving, hadn’t we,” said Mercer. “Who takes photographs round here?”

“Len Prothero.”

“Put him in the back of your car, and you can drive us both out.”

When the Romans came they found a crossing place on the bend of the river, where the water ran deep and slow, and used it to transport stones across, from Brittlesham quarry, to make up the start of their great road to the north. They called it, in their own language, the Ferry of the Stones, and the name has remained in Anglicised form to this day. There is not much of the old town left. A group of rather nice Georgian houses round the church. An outer ring of standard commuter residences, and a belt of riverside bungalows, barges, boathouses and pubs.

As the car squeezed its way between the market stalls which were already blocking either side of the High Street, Mercer said, “The old man didn’t seem very pleased at the high compliment which was being paid to the efficiency of his force.”

“He’s a year off retirement,” said Rye. “If this case makes a splash and it isn’t tidied up quick and neat, he’d like someone else to blame.”

“Reasonable,” said Mercer. “Wouldn’t the traffic get up this street a bit easier if you shifted the market somewhere else?”

“We tried to. Couldn’t do it. Six-hundred-year-old charter. Would have needed an Act of Parliament. Mind you, it’s not so bad now they’ve built the by-pass. When I first came here it really was a mess.”

At the head of the High Street the road divided. The left turn went over the high humped bridge which had been built in the year of Agincourt, and joined the by-pass road to Staines at the roundabout on the other side. They took the minor road to the right, turning left again down a small road which was signposted ‘Westhaugh Weir. No Through Road’. The built-up area was behind them now. There was a scattering of smaller houses, and market gardens, then open country.

After half a mile the car slowed, and turned into a track which led gently downhill, winding between a fuzz of alders, thorn trees and scrub oak. When Tom Rye stopped the car and said, “Now we walk,” Mercer thought how quiet it was. The dominating sound was the lazy roar of the waters pouring through the half-open sluices of the weir.

A footpath between high nettles took them to a plank bridge which spanned the arm of the backwater. As they crossed it, the burly figure of Sergeant Gwilliam rose out of the bushes which crowned the backbone of the island. It was no more than a spit of sand and gravel a hundred yards long and nowhere more than twenty yards wide thrown up in times past by a freak of the river.

“Any visitors yet?” said Rye.

“Only swans,” said Gwilliam. He was a big Welshman, with the build of a lock forward. “A pair of them. Very inhospitable. They didn’t like me being here at all. Hissed at me, they did.”

“There’s probably a nest on the island somewhere. Lucky the cygnets are hatched, or they would have gone for you. Introduce the new skipper.”

“Pleased to meet you, I’m sure,” said Gwilliam.

Mercer nodded briefly. He was staring down into the excavation which Gwilliam had started. He said, “We’ll have some photographs before you do any more. When the pathologist has had a look at it, finish the digging carefully down each side. Disturb things as little as possible. You’ll have to scrape away the last of the earth by hand. We’ll have another set of photographs when you’ve got that far. Right?”

Detective Leonard Prothero nodded, and started to unstrap the stand for his camera. He was thin, and sad-looking; in fact, a noted mimic, and much in demand at police concerts for his impersonations of senior officers.

Mercer said to Rye, “There was a small house opposite where we turned. We’ll see if we can borrow some planks. When the pathologist’s finished he’ll want to get that body up with as little disturbance as possible. And put a police notice at the end of the lane – No Entrance.”

“It’s a public footpath,” said Rye doubtfully. “This is about the favourite snogging place in Stoneferry, we’ll have to give some reason.”

“Suspected foot and mouth disease,” said Mercer.

Dr. Champion, the County Pathologist, was an old man. He was also a tired man. He had spent a large part of his professional life looking at bodies and pieces of bodies and in the first flush of youth had written a treatise on bruises which had brought him professional kudos. Now he was looking forward to a peaceful retirement when the only dead body he would have to cut up would be the Sunday joint.

“Judging by the pelvis,” he said, “it was a woman. And not a very old one. She’s been dead at least a year, maybe two.”

“As little as that?” said Mercer staring down at the assembly of clean white bones which had now been laid out on the mortuary table.

“Quick work, I agree. Three reasons for it. First, she was buried in loose sand and shingle, not packed down in loam or clay. Second, in winter the grave would have been near enough the river for the water to seep through it. Under those conditions it wouldn’t take long to sieve away the hair and flesh and tissue. There’s some gristle left—” He poked a long forefinger into the space between the hip bones. “It takes a long time to dissolve gristle. But everything else has gone.”

“You said three reasons.”

“Yes,” said the doctor. “And the third reason’s the most important. She was stripped before she was buried. She went into the grave naked.”

“You’re sure of that?”

“Quite certain. Clothing doesn’t disappear as quickly as that. There’s metal in most clothing. And leather and plastic. They last longer than human tissues. I’ve known even a cotton sheet come out after three years, with an identifiable laundry mark on it.”

“Any idea how she died?”

“I can give a good guess. Come and look at this.” He picked up a pencil torch and shone it into the cavity under the jaw. “You see that small bone.”

“The one shaped like a ‘U’?”

“That’s the one. Called the hyoid bone. Touch it with the tip of your finger. Very gently.”

Mercer did so. He felt the bone give under the light pressure.

“It’s been snapped,” he said. “So what does that prove?”

“If you find the hyoid bone with a clean fracture, it’s odds-on the deceased was strangled. Manually strangled. Probably from in front. That way you naturally put your thumbs on the carotid artery.” He demonstrated, and Mercer felt two surprisingly strong thumbs dig into the top of his windpipe.

“All right, all right,” he said. “No need to snap my hyoid bone. I take your point. Can you give us anything to help with identity?”

Dr. Champion consulted the notes he had made. He said, “Age, I should guess, anywhere between eighteen and twenty-five, give or take a year either end. The height we can check two ways. By measuring the cadaver – but that can be quite inaccurate, particularly after it’s been disturbed. But since we have all the major bones intact, the humerus, the radius and the femur, we can use Trotter and Gleser’s tables or Rollet’s formula—” Dr. Champion peered at his notes again. “Both of which confirm a height of between five foot three and five foot four.”

“That’s something, I suppose.”

“I can’t invent facts to suit you, Inspector. Science is no man’s handmaid. But I’ve noticed one unusual thing about the young lady. She’s got no fillings in her teeth. None at all.”

He shut his notebook with a snap. He thought he might just manage to get home in time for lunch.

“Wouldn’t that be a bit unusual if she was as much as twenty-five. Most people have been to the dentist by that time.”

“If we looked after our teeth properly,” said Dr. Champion, “if we abandoned the foolish habit of brushing them first thing in the morning and last thing at night and brushed them after every meal, and ate the right sort of foods, there’d be no need for us to trouble dentists at all.”

It was a favourite fad of his.

Back at the police station Mercer made his first report to the Superintendent. He said, “We can’t keep that island sealed off indefinitely. There was quite a crowd there already when I went back. Gwilliam’s going to need help.”

“I’ll send a man down from the afternoon off-duty squad.”

“We shan’t need one man. We shall need six.”

“Six?”

“I want them to go through the whole island – inch by inch – to see what they can pick up. And they ought to do it before anyone else gets onto it.”

“I admire your zeal,” said Clark. “But don’t you think you’re overdoing it. You tell me the body’s been there a year, maybe two. There are times in the winter when the whole island’s under water. Isn’t it a bit late to start looking for clues?”

“It seems to me something that ought to be done,” said Mercer. “If you authorise me to skip it, O.K.—”

“Certainly not. You’re in charge. You said six men—”

“With sticks or spikes. And a couple of scythes. They’re to clear the island first. Then walk up and down it prodding.”

“I take it you’ll be there? You can give them their instructions.”

“At my last station,” said Mercer, “if a plain-clothes man gave a man in uniform a suggestion, let alone an instruction, all he got was a dirty look.”

The Superintendent said, “You’ll find that discipline is better here.”

The opening moves in a murder investigation have been as carefully thought out and are as stereotyped as the Sicilian defence in chess. At nine o’clock that evening, as the light was beginning to go, Mercer sat in the C.I.D. room wondering what he had forgotten.

Area sealed off. Coroner’s office alerted. Statement for the Press, cleared on the telephone with the Press Office at Scotland Yard. Copies of the pathologist’s report to the coroner and to Division. Two sets of photographs from the scene of the crime and one from the mortuary. Provisional description circulated to Missing Persons. Arrangements made for custody of the body.

What had he left out? The Forensic Science Laboratory. But he had absolutely nothing to send them. Not a hair, not a stain, not a scrap of tissue or rag of clothing. Just a parcel of bones, picked clean by the industrious ants, scoured by sand and water. All the same, they should have a copy of the pathologist’s report; and since he had been given freedom of choice, it should go to Guy’s, who had given him much friendly assistance when he was in Southwark.

Tom Rye and Gwilliam came in. They were carrying a wicker basket between them, and dumped it on the table.

“One island, contents of,” said Rye. “Five hundred fascinating relics. Would you like to list them now, or shall we do it tomorrow?”

“Anything interesting?”

“It depends what you call interesting. How many French letters did we find?”

“Twenty-five,” said Gwilliam.

“I don’t believe it,” said Mercer. “There isn’t a square foot of that island that’s level, and most of it’s covered with nettles.”

“The youth of Stoneferry are a hardy lot,” said Rye. He started to extract articles from the basket. “One sardine tin, recent, with remnants of fish still adhering. One shoe, decrepit—”

Mercer got up abruptly. He said, “That girl’s been there for a year or more. Another twelve hours won’t make any difference. Let’s knock off. I need a drink. What’s the best place round here for picking up form?”

Tom Rye considered. He said, “There’s The Chough, over there on the other side of the Square, but that’s really a lunch-time pub. At this time of night your best bet would be The Angler’s Rest. Signboard, a gent holding his arms wide apart. Locally known as The Tall Story. Down the steps by the war memorial, along the towpath, and it’s on your left just before you come to the railway bridge.”

The Angler’s Rest was an old, dark place. It smelled of stale beer, varnish, and what might have been fish but was probably dry-rot. It had uneven brick floors, yellowing ceilings, and walls covered with cases containing glassy-eyed pike and barbel, who glared down at the drinkers, like the oldest members of the club disapproving of the rising generation.

When Mercer went into the saloon bar he attracted as much, and as little, attention as any stranger does when he goes into a pub. That is to say nobody looked at him, and everyone wondered who he was. He ordered a pint of bitter, and retired to an uncomfortable oak settee in the corner. The beer was all right. It was a good brand, and had been carefully looked after.

About ten minutes later an inner door opened, and a barrel of a man with a sun-reddened face and close-cropped hair came out and rolled across to the bar. He ordered a light ale, a brandy and ginger ale and two Scotch-and-sodas. As he paid for them, Mercer noticed that he only had one arm.

The barman said, “All right, Mr. Bull. I’ll bring them in for you,” and his eyes flickered very briefly in Mercer’s direction. The newcomer moved over and perched on the arm of the settee beside Mercer. He said, “You the new skipper?”

“The local intelligence system must be very good.”

“We all knew Watkyn was going, poor old sod. Soon as we saw you in a car with Tom Rye we had a good guess. My name’s Bull—Jack Bull. That’s my garage in the High Street. I used to look after Watkyn’s car for him. Do the same for you if you like.”

“When I get one.”

“You looking for one?”

“About two years old,” said Mercer. “Guaranteed to stand up to hard use. And must have a big boot.”

“To bring bodies back in?”

Mercer looked up, studied Bull for a few moments, and then said, “That’s right. Bodies, and other things. Does everybody know all about that, too?”

“There’s a bit in the Standard.”

Bull handed him the folded paper which was sticking out of his right-hand jacket pocket. It occurred to Mercer that people with only one arm must quickly get into the habit of arranging things like that. It was only a short paragraph, mentioning that two boys had discovered a body whilst bathing. There were no names or details. Presumably the real story would be in the Mirror in the morning.

The landlord came past with the four drinks on a tray. Bull said, “Why don’t you join us? It’s quieter in the small bar. Put a pint of bitter with these, Bob.”

The small bar was just large enough to hold two tables and six chairs. Three of them were occupied. A small, monkeylike man who was addressed as Johnno was given one of the glasses of Scotch. The brandy and ginger ale went to a grey-faced character wearing heavy horn-rimmed glasses, with untidy hair and untidy clothes, whose hand trembled very slightly as he picked up the drink.

The light ale was for the girl. She had a head of blonde hair which could have been natural, blue and green shadow over the eyes and an impertinent nose. Mercer was not in the least surprised to be told that her name was Vikki. She looked every inch a Vikki, down to her last pink-tinted toe-nail.

“What you see in front of you,” said Bull, “is what you might call the brains of my establishment. The brawn is off drinking beer and playing darts somewhere else. Johnno looks after petrol sales, and tries not to swindle the customers too noticeably. Mr. Rainey looks after our accounts, and Vikki looks after me.”

“You haven’t introduced your friend,” said Vikki.

“Detective Chief Inspector—?”

“Bill Mercer.”

“You do pick up the oddest people,” said Vikki.

The smile that went with it just prevented the words from being rude.

“You mind your manners, Vikki,” said Johnno. “He looks as though he could eat you for dinner, and two more like you.”

“I’m sure I hope he’d enjoy the taste,” said Vikki. Her light blue eyes were weighing and measuring him.

“I’ll tell you what,” said Mercer. “They’ll be throwing us out soon. Why don’t I order another round whilst the going’s good?”

theyisn’t

“I think you men are horrible,” said Vikki.

Two drinks later Mr. Rainey got up and drifted off. He hadn’t opened his mouth except to say “Cheers” each time a drink was put into his hand.

“Suffers from ulcers,” said Bull.

“I thought if you had ulcers you weren’t supposed to drink,” said Vikki.

“You think too much,” said Bull.

Mercer said, “There’s only one thing wrong with your petrol station that I could see. It’s in the wrong place. Bang in the middle of the High Street. If we’d wanted to stop for a refill this morning we’d have caused a traffic block just trying to turn in.”

“That’s because it was market day. Other days it’s not so bad.”

“Not so long ago,” said Johnno, “there were three bloody great garages in the High Street.”

“It’s time you ordered a drink,” said Bull.

Whilst he was out of the room, Mercer nodded at the flap of sleeve stuck into Bull’s left pocket and said, “War?”

“Arnhem. And that was a bloody shambles, if you like.”

“So I’d heard. Not one of our brighter bits of planning.”

“If some of those characters in scarlet hats who were running the war had been put in charge of a launderette they’d have been bankrupt inside the year.”

“Well!” said Vikki. “That wasn’t what you told me.”

“About what?”

“About how you lost your arm. You said you ran off with a Frenchman’s wife, and he challenged you to a duel, and cut it off with his sword.”

They were still laughing when Johnno came back with the drinks.

“Bob says this definitely is the last round.”

“That means we shan’t get more than two more,” said Bull.

“Not tonight,” said Mercer. “Can’t break the law on my first night.”

As he walked home, along the towpath, he was wondering about them. Rainey was clearly an alcoholic. Not a very safe man to have keeping your accounts. Johnno was sharp. He had the look and build of a jockey. Mercer thought that he would enjoy swindling his enemies but would probably be loyal to his friends. Bull was in a different class altogether. A capable dangerous man. Someone you might find yourself liking very much though.

But it wasn’t the men themselves that he was really thinking about. Mercer was a man whose trade had taught him to be interested in small things. It was the moment when Johnno had said, “Not so long ago there were three garages.” When he said it, Mercer had been admiring the nine-pound trout in the glass case over the fireplace. And, mirrored in that glass, he had seen, so fleetingly that it might have been his imagination, only he knew that it wasn’t, the look which Bull had given his subordinate. It was a look which said, in clear black print, “Shut your mouth, you bloody fool.” And he had packed him off to order a round of drinks before he could say any more.

Mercer stowed it away in the ragbag of odds and ends, pieces of information and impressions which he had picked up in his first twenty-four hours at Stoneferry.

Somewhere below him, in the dimness, a punt was moored to a landing stage. Mercer could see the two figures, a man and a girl, stretched full length on the cushions. He heard the girl laugh. He wished he was down in the boat with a girl who could laugh like that, instead of going home to a bed like a rockery, in Cray Avenue.