The Sunken Sailor

CHAPTER ONE

IT IS OFTEN INTERESTING, in retrospect, to consider the trifling causes that lead to great events. A chance encounter, a thoughtless remark—and the tortuous chain reaction of coincidence is set in motion, leading with devious inevitability to some resounding climax.

For instance, it is virtually certain that if Emmy Tibbett had not broken her shoulder strap in a small, smoky restaurant just off King’s Road, Chelsea, one spring evening, the Berrybridge murderer would have got clean away. For if Emmy had not snapped that slender pink ribbon, she would never have spoken to Rosemary Benson in the ladies’ room, and accepted the loan of a safety pin; the friendship between the Bensons and the Tibbetts would never have sprung up; and Henry and Emmy Tibbett would never have found themselves, some months later, crammed first into new, tight, unyielding blue jeans and subsequently into an overloaded station wagon, en route for a fortnight’s sailing holiday at Berrybridge Haven with the Bensons.

Henry felt miserably conspicuous in the teen-age uniform upon which Rosemary and Alastair had insisted. It was hardly fitting, he thought, as he regarded himself morosely in the mirror, for a Chief Inspector of the C.I.D. to inflict himself upon the world in such a rakish outfit. It was not as though he had the brawny, swashbuckling physique which he associated with the lordly ocean-racing characters whose pictures he had often secretly admired in glossy magazines: he could not pretend that his unremarkable, middle-aged figure lent itself to the casual heartiness of navy denim; while his pale face, with its mild blue eyes and sandy eyebrows, looked little short of ludicrous emerging from the white turtleneck of an enormous fisherman’s sweater. However, these reflections did not trouble Henry for long, because he was one of those rare people who have no objection to making fools of themselves in a good cause.

Emmy, on the other hand, looked marvellously right in her sailing clothes. Admittedly, her plumpish, fortyish hips looked plumper still in jeans, but her short, curly black hair and strong, merry face gave her the air of one whose natural element is the sea, whose natural line of vision the horizon. Unlike Henry, she looked supremely comfortable.

This enviable state she shared with their hosts. When the slightly battered station wagon drew up in the narrow street outside the Tibbetts’ Chelsea flat, Henry was amazed to observe from his window the transformation which had taken place in the Bensons. Rosemary—tall, blonde and willowy—had always displayed an exquisite flair for simple, elegant clothes. Henry had seen heads turn as she walked into a Mayfair restaurant in a straight black sheath of a dress, shimmering with an extravagance of pale blue and green beads at the neck, which echoed the magnificently artificial splendour of her eyelids. Now he saw a disarmingly gawky schoolgirl, her face free of make-up and scrubbed like an apple, in well-worn jeans faded to threadbare grey and a shapeless canvas overblouse which had once been orange, but which seemed to be encrusted with salt. Alastair, dark and impeccable in the City, was tousle-headed and entirely happy. He gave the impression of a man who has lost his razor, and doesn’t care.

Henry and Emmy settled themselves on the back seat, disposing round their feet two bulging picnic-baskets and a huge flask of Chianti. The space behind them was crammed with bright red blankets, two green sleeping bags (“You’re lucky,” Rosemary remarked, “they no longer smell. Just back from the cleaners”), an outboard motor and a reeking two-gallon tin of paraffin.

Conscientious office-workers who had stayed until seven o’clock to finish up Friday’s backlog of work glanced briefly and disinterestedly at the bizarre equipage as it sped through fast-emptying City streets. Soon London was left behind, as the white ribbon of Eastern Avenue unwound ahead of the car. The flat, fertile fields of Essex flashed past: the ancient garrison town of Colchester faded into the deepening dusk.

“We’ll have a good hour in the Bush before closing time,” said Alastair, with deep content.

Berrybridge Haven is, to its devotees, a closely guarded secret about which they cannot resist telling their friends. Inevitably, their eulogies have reached the ears of sharp-witted journalists, who descend on the place every so often, and come out a few days later with a lyrical piece devoted to “this unspoilt corner of the East Coast.” Fortunately, in spite of their efforts, Berrybridge had contrived to remain just that. This happy fact is due in part to its distance from London—just far enough to discourage casual sightseers—but mainly to the relentless attitude of the public transport authorities, who have contrived to make the place virtually inaccessible except by car. Anybody who has ever tried to reach Berrybridge Haven from Liverpool Street Station will endorse this. Connecting trains (you change three times) are carefully timed to miss each other by one minute. The bus that is advertised turns out to run on alternate Sundays only, and the whereabouts of the bus stop is a closely guarded secret. The intrepid traveller who manages to get farther than Ipswich in the course of a week-end does so only at the price of such anguish and frustration that he resolves never to go near the godforsaken place again, which affords no little satisfaction to the local inhabitants.

It would be flattering to call Berrybridge a village. A huddle of cottages, a tiny grey church, a couple of shops selling everything from butter to rope, two boatyards and a pub are all it has to offer. Of these buildings, the pub is by far the largest. Nevertheless, Berrybridge has a spirit of civic pride which might be the envy of a great industrial city. It elects (unofficially) its own mayor every year, and his inauguration is an occasion of much merriment, solemnity and ritual consumption of beer at The Berry Bush. You are now entering the Borough of Berrybridge Haven proclaims a notice, shakily inscribed in

white paint on an ancient, black-tarred board, as you drive down the twisting lane from the main Ipswich road: and another sign, affixed to two planks placed haphazardly across a stream, informs the visitor that This Bridge was erected for the convenience of the citizens of Berrybridge Haven and formally opened by the Mayor, His Honourable Ephraim Sykes. This, adds the notice, darkly, is OUR bridge. The visitor may be tempted to wonder why the builders of this particular bridge should be so sensitive to the threat of competition. There is no other bridge.

There is, however, the River Berry. It is no longer an important river. It begins nowhere in particular, and meanders through mud flats and sandbanks to the inhospitable vastness of the North Sea. At Berrybridge, four miles from the river mouth, it is half a mile wide at high tide, and less than a quarter when the tide is low. On either bank, pale green fields and massed, deeper green trees sweep down to the water. The river gives the landscape a constantly changing fascination.

To those who love it best, Berrybridge Haven is probably at its most beautiful as Henry and Emmy first saw it, at half past nine on a summer night, when the last red-gold blaze of sunset is just disappearing behind the hills, and the moon is already up, touching the mud flats with a cold, silver gleam. On the black water, barely broken by the glittering ripples of the evening breeze, the boats ride in slender silhouette, their spindle masts scraping the sky. Nothing breaks the cold, damp stillness except the distant barking of a dog, or the sudden wave of warm, conversing voices as the bar door of The Berry Bush swings momentarily open, splashing orange lamplight onto the grey foreshore. This is the peace which justifies the clamour of a working week. The peace for which many Englishmen have been content to die.

“I hope,” said Alastair, “that Bob has tapped a new barrel of bitter. The last one was lousy.”

They all clambered stiffly out of the car, and walked over to the pub.

The Berry Bush is an ancient inn, frequented by mariners since the days when Berrybridge Haven was an important shipbuilding centre, and wooden-walled men-o’-war and merchant vessels stood on the slipways. Generations of shipwrights, bargees and fishermen have polished its black wooden benches with the seats of their trousers, and blackened its heavy beams with their pungent tobacco fumes. Today, only a handful of fishermen remain, and the big bar is monopolized by yachtsmen. The Berry Bush welcomes these newcomers kindly, and is glad of their custom: but always it dreams of a past which was more commercial, more real, rougher and more honest. Still, beer must be sold, and these Londoners aren’t bad chaps, taken by and large. Let them in. They pay, don’t they?

Henry and Emmy pushed their way into the crowded bar in the wake of Alastair and Rosemary, who seemed to know everybody, which made progress slow. Suddenly Henry felt vastly relieved to be wearing the uniform. Down here, anything other than jeans and a sweater would have seemed eccentric in the extreme. They installed themselves at a table in an inglenook, and Alastair took their orders for four pints of bitter. To ask for anything else would have smacked of heresy.

Almost at once, a very old man dressed entirely in nondescript navy blue made his way over to the table. His white hair made a brief appearance from beneath a venerable and oily yachting cap, which he touched perfunctorily as he approached. He came very close to Rosemary, drew himself up as if to deliver an important message, and said, “Ar.”

Rosemary beamed. “How are you, Herbert?” she said.

“Heard about your boat?” asked the newcomer in a thick Suffolk accent.

“No. What about it?”

“Sunk. Six foot under.” Herbert cackled thinly.

“I don’t believe you,” said Rosemary calmly.

“Hay?” said Herbert, putting a hand to his ear. Rosemary repeated her remark louder. Herbert chuckled.

“No more do I, but if she was, I’d know ’oo to blame.”

“These are our friends, Henry and Emmy Tibbett,” said Rosemary. “This is Herbert Hole. A very great friend of ours. He’s the Harbour Master.”

“Pleased to meet you,” said Herbert, with a touch of gloom.

“What,” added Rosemary quietly, “are you drinking, Herbert?”

Herbert brightened visibly. “I’ll take a small gin, since you ask,” he said graciously.

“And a large gin for Herbert, darling,” said Rosemary to Alastair’s retreating back. Herbert sat down.

“I got the new mooring you was after,” he said confidentially. He dug Rosemary in the ribs with a skinny elbow. “Nice and snug she is now, just off the hard. Had to bale her out, of course.”

“Had she made a lot of water?” Rosemary asked solicitously.

“Not more ’un you’d expect. ’Bout enough to sink the Harwich ferry.” Herbert laughed again, with macabre glee.

“How’s Mrs. Hole?” said Rosemary.

Herbert became plunged in melancholy again. “Poorly,” he said. “Proper poorly. It’s her feet.” He nodded several times. “Still,” he added, more buoyantly, “mustn’t grumble, I suppose.” There was a short pause. “Sir Simon’s in again,” Herbert went on. He jerked his head significantly towards the bar. Henry saw an athletic, florid-faced man in his sixties talking to Alastair. “Took a glass of wine with him earlier on. There’s a gentleman for you,” said Herbert. After a moment he added cryptically, “I could tell you a thing or two.”

At that moment, Alastair arrived with the drinks, accompanied by an enormous young man in regulation sailing kit.

“Hamish,” said Alastair, “meet Henry and Emmy. Hamish Rawnsley,” he added, in explanation. “Friend of ours. Lives here, lucky sod. Has a four-tonner, name of Tideway.”

“All present an’ correct, Cap’n Benson,” said Herbert, raising his large gin and winking prodigiously.

“And the same to you, you old rogue,” said Alastair. “What have you been doing to Ariadne? Stopped that leak in the port-hand garboard yet?”

As the beer flowed freely, Rosemary, Alastair and Herbert became engrossed in a technical discussion in which the terms caulking, tingles and hanging knees were bandied shamelessly. Hamish lowered his well-distributed thirteen stone onto the bench beside Henry and said, “Got a boat down here?”

“No,” said Henry. “We’re sailing with Rosemary and Alastair on Ariadne. It’s our first time.”

Hamish looked at him with something like disbelief. Then he said, “I envy you.”

“I’m longing to see Ariadne,” said Emmy.

“I meant,” said Hamish solemnly, “I envy you because it’s your first sail. That’s something nobody can do twice.”

“We’ve had grave doubts about doing it once,” said Henry.

“Then you’re fools,” said Hamish shortly. “The only sport in the world,” he went on. “Sorts people out. Either they like it, or they don’t. If they don’t...” He broke off, and then added, “D’you enjoy this pub?”

“Enormously,” said Emmy with enthusiasm.

“Then you’ll enjoy sailing. Not,” said Hamish, “yachting. Don’t ever use that word with us. It’s dirty. Sailing. Boating. That’s what we do. Uncle Pete always used to say—did you know Uncle Pete?”

“No,” said Henry.

“Pity,” said Hamish. “One of the best. Terrible thing he should have died like that. Still, it was the way he would have wanted to go. With his boat.”

“Was he lost in a storm?” Henry asked tentatively.

Hamish looked surprised. “Good God, no,” he said. “Didn’t Alastair tell you? Oh, well, he will.”

Across the table, the technical talk had languished, and Herbert said to Hamish, “Got a buyer for the Blue Gull yet, then, Mr. Rawnsley?” There was a touch of malice in his voice.

“No,” said Hamish briefly.

“Ah, well, no point in rushing into a sale,” remarked Herbert. “Thank you, Cap’n Benson. Same again. No, as I was sayin’, best wait for the right buyer. After all, you’ve no lack of money now Mr. Pete’s gone, have you?” As an afterthought

he added, “Sir.”

Hamish stood up abruptly, with a clatter of glasses. “I’m off now,” he said to Henry and Emmy. “Good night. Good sailing.” And he strode out of the bar, banging the door behind him.

Herbert watched him go, reflectively, his head cocked to one side like a shrewd sea bird. “I wouldn’t feel too happy about Blue Gull for all that, if I were Mr. Rawnsley,” he said provocatively.

Alastair winked at Rosemary.

“Unlucky boat,” Herbert went on, in a voice vibrating with rustic wisdom. “Drowned her owner. Unlucky. And unlucky in more ways than one, if you ask me.”

“I understand Bill Hawkes is looking after her, and acting as agent for selling her,” said Alastair, in a voice of exaggerated innocence. Rosemary gave him a reproachful look, and suppressed a giggle. Herbert’s face darkened.

“Looking after her—that’s what some people might call it,” he said, with a sardonic snort. “Others might call it wrecking her, if they’d a mind to. I’m not making accusations, mind, but I know. No use pretending I don’t.”

“Now, look here, Herbert—”

“Remember Dulcibella?” Herbert asked darkly. “Sunk at her moorings for want of a bit of caulking. Remember Miranda? Mast snapped. Remember—”

“Hey, Herbert! Come and have a drink!” The big, florid man who had been talking to Alastair at the bar bellowed resoundingly across the room. Herbert, with a mumbled apology, got up and went to join him.

“Who’s that?” Emmy asked.

“Sir Simon Trigg-Willoughby,” said Alastair. “Local squire. Lives in Berry Hall, the big house on the point. Bit of an old bore, actually.”

“But the house is beautiful,” Rosemary put in. “We’ll try to take you over there one day this week.”

“The person who fascinates me is this Bill Hawkes,” said Henry. “Which is he? Does he really go round sinking boats deliberately?”

Alastair and Rosemary both grinned broadly, and Rosemary said, “That’s Bill over there by the door. The stout chap in sea boots.”

“He looks inoffensive enough,” said Emmy.

“So he is,” said Rosemary, “but he’s Herbert’s deadly enemy. The two of them are in a permanent state of feud.”

“Good heavens,” said Henry. “What about?”

“Boats,” said Alastair. “You see, they each run a boatyard, and everyone down here employs one or other of them to do repairs, keep the boat baled out in the summer, lay her up in the winter, and so on. Bill only opened up a couple of years ago, and before that Herbert had everything his own way. But Bill’s a young man, and a very efficient boatman. So more and more of Herbert’s clients are going over to the other camp. Of course, Herbert has one enormous advantage.”

“What’s that?” Henry asked.

“He’s the Harbour Master,” said Alastair, “and the Harbour Master controls most of the moorings in the river, which are Council property. So if you entrust your boat to Herbert, you’ve a much better chance of getting a decent position. Poor old Herbert—if he ever lost that job, he’d be done for.”

“I shouldn’t think there’s any fear of that,” said Rosemary. “Old Harbour Masters go on till they drop dead. He’d have to do something really frightful before Trinity House fired him.”

The bar door swung open, and a tall, lanky man with fair hair and a weather-beaten face came in. Alastair and Rosemary jumped up.

“David! So you’ve made it! Why are you so late?”

“Beastly car broke down outside Chelmsford. Petrol pump. Had to mend it.”

“Have a beer, David,” said Alastair. “Oh, by the way, meet our crew—Henry and Emmy Tibbett. This is David Crowther.”

“Sorry I can’t shake hands,” said David, with an attractive smile. He held out a pair of grimy paws. “Covered in oil from the car. Thanks, Alastair. I’ll come and help you.”

The two men pushed their way to the bar, and Rosemary said, “You’ll adore David. He’s one of the Fleet.”

“What does that mean?” Emmy asked.

“Oh, it’s just what we call ourselves,” said Rosemary. “There are five boats”—she checked herself, and amended—“there were five, I mean. Only four now. Ariadne, Tideway, Pocahontas—that’s David’s boat—and Mary Jane. We’re all friends, and we tend to sail in company and meet up for drinks in the evening. Then we all get together for a Laying-Up Dinner in London at the end of the season and make speeches and pretend to be a proper club. It all sounds very silly, I suppose,” she ended, lamely, “but we enjoy ourselves.”

David came back with three brimming pint mugs.

“Signal from Mary Jane,” he said. “Anne has to work in the morning, so she and Colin won’t be down till the afternoon. They wanted us to go on to Walton without them, but I said we’d just have a day sail tomorrow and meet them here in the evening. Hope that’s O.K. with you.”

“Fine,” said Rosemary.

“Actually,” David added, “I probably won’t go out tomorrow. Lots of odd jobs to do on board.”

“Lazy devil,” remarked Alastair, coming up behind him with the remaining beers. “Oh, well, we’ll just have to stooge around and show Henry and Emmy the finer points of sailing. When’s the tide?”

David gave him a severe look. “What have you been doing all the week—working?” he asked scornfully. “Too busy to look up your tide tables? High water 6.41 A.M. And I trust you’ll be up to catch it.”

David stayed for only one drink. “I’m dead tired and filthy,” he remarked, “and the tide’s going out fast. You may enjoy lugging your dinghy half a mile over the mud, but I don’t. See you tomorrow.”

It was some time and several beers later when the barman broke into one of Herbert’s lengthier reminiscences with his pessimistic chant of “Time, Gentlemen—if you please!” Herbert departed with alacrity, consulting a massive watch on a gold chain, and announcing that he never stayed until closing time because he had some consideration for Mrs. Hole, the poor soul, and her with her feet. Henry and Emmy finished their beer, and walked out into the cold, fresh night, feeling that life as they knew it was a million miles away, and that they were now and for ever involved in the small, slow, beautiful events of Berrybridge Haven. The beer lent a warming, sentimental glow, and the stars were shining in a black velvet sky.

“Now for getting aboard,” said Alastair briskly. “You drive the car down the hard, Rosemary love, while Henry and I get the dinghy.”

The tide was very low now, and Rosemary was able to drive the station wagon down the hard almost to the water’s edge, where she and Emmy unloaded it. Henry, his lyrical mood rapidly evaporating, found himself padding about on the damp mud with Alastair, searching for Ariadne’s dinghy by the light of the moon, augmented by a small torch. It was very cold. They found the dinghy eventually—a small, varnished rowing boat lying forlornly on the shore.

“Right,” said Alastair. “I’ll take the bows if you take the stern.”

“Where to?” Henry asked.

“Down to the water, of course,” said Alastair. He nodded towards the ink-black river, a quarter of a mile away across the silvery mud. “I should take your shoes off, if I were you,” he added, “and roll your trousers up. You’ll only get them soaked.”

Henry found it difficult to believe that a small boat could weigh so much. As he staggered through the chilly, oozing, ankle-deep mud, his alcoholic-sentimental mood suffered an abrupt sea change, and his thoughts turned longingly to hotwater bottles and centrally heated London flats. Soon, however, the satisfaction of manual labour asserted itself, and with it the realization of the true beauty of his surroundings. Panting from exertion, he stood with Alastair on the end of the hard, straining his eyes to follow the fast-vanishing shape of the dinghy on the dark water as Rosemary and Emmy rowed out with the first load of gear, and savouring the salty, nostalgic smell of the river and the quiet glory of the stars. Then Rosemary returned, the two men and the remaining picnic-baskets were loaded into the dinghy.

Soon a dark hull loomed above them, with lamplight glowing reassuringly from her open hatch. They scrambled on board into the snug warmth of the cabin, where coffee was already brewing on a hissing Primus stove. Tired and content, Henry and Emmy drank coffee and brandy, and were nodding drowsily even before the two green sleeping bags had been stretched out for them on the hard floor of the fo’c’sle. As their heads touched the rolled-up sweaters which served as pillows, they were both engulfed in a dreamless, utterly satisfying sleep.