Dead in the Water

The woman behind the till in the next shop recognised the photo immediately. “Yes, a very polite man,” she said. “Always asked me how I was. Not like most people who are in far too much of a hurry.”

“So he was a bit of a regular, was he?”

“Maybe two or three times a week.”

“And did he ever buy alcohol?”

Furrows creased her flawless brown skin as she considered the question. “No, not from me. Mind you, I am not on the till all the time.”

Mullen found himself warming to her: she didn’t want to mislead or pretend certainty if there was any suggestion of doubt — a perfect witness. “Did he ever come into the shop smelling of alcohol?”

She pursed her mouth, but her reply was unequivocal: “No, definitely not.”

Mullen picked up a bar of chocolate from the shelves immediately to his right. “I’ll have this,” he said. It wasn’t exactly a chocolate day; the temperature was mid-seventies at least. But he felt he needed to thank her by buying something.

“He had a very nice voice too,” she said, handing Mullen his change. “Proper Queen’s English.”

The encampment which the rotund Ronnie Corbett-Barker had talked about, before being bullied into silence by the Hells Angel, proved to be easy to find. Once Mullen had reached Folly Bridge, he turned left down the footpath and followed the Thames up-river, winding past modern flats and Victorian terraces, college accommodation and sheltered housing and then suddenly there were grass and trees and bushes on his left. Mullen followed the meandering course of the river, passing under a black iron bridge and soon after that beneath the railway. It was then that he saw the settlement, a ragged line of tents stretching away from the main river alongside a meagre tributary.

Mullen paused. He was feeling queasy. He had already devoured the unnecessarily large chocolate bar, conscious that in this heat, it would cause a mess if he didn’t. But now he was regretting it. He would have been much better off buying a nice wholemeal sandwich from the delicatessen he had passed. He took a swig of water and advanced. As he got closer, he realised the site was much tidier than he had expected. He imagined most of them either kept their belongings inside their tents or carried them with them. It was also pretty much deserted, excepted for a couple of men sitting together in the shade of a bush. They were playing cards.

When they saw him, they both jumped up.

“What do you want?” one demanded.

“Who are you?” the other added.

Mullen stopped some five metres away from them, conscious of their nervousness and hostility. “Did you know Chris? The guy who drowned in the river, down near Sandford.”

“You haven’t answered our questions,” the first man said. He had a pinched face and a pinched body; his eyes flickered uncertainly on Mullen and on the track to his right, as if weighing up the options of fight or flight. Mullen fiddled in his jacket and located two of the three remaining packets of cigarettes.

“I understand he lived here.”

“Do you?” He was giving nothing away. His colleague, shorter and fatter and wearing tartan trousers, was silent, twisting his hands together as if they held a dishcloth that needed wringing out.

“There’s a packet of fags each if you just show me which was his tent.” He held out his hands but then tucked the cigarettes away back in his pocket.

They both turned and walked further up the tributary, past half a dozen other tents and a couple of bundles. They continued for another thirty-odd metres before they came to a flattened area of grass. A circle of stones around grey ashes showed where a fire had once burned. There was a saucepan, cigarette butts, a filthy red scarf and an empty tin of baked beans. A sing

le mauve sock decorated the ground.

“Didn’t he have a tent?” Mullen felt the frustration bubbling up.

“Yeah, sure he did. But someone took it.” The man with the pinched face was looking nervous, his eyes searching again for an escape route.

“Don’t take the piss, matey. Who took it?” Mullen took a step closer. He wasn’t going to be messed about again.

“Some guy.”

“What sort of guy?”

“Dunno. I didn’t ask him for his name and number. It was early. I wouldn’t have seen him except that I needed a pee. He just pulled Chris’s tent down and then went through all his stuff. He put most of it in a plastic bag and walked off.”

“So he took the tent with him?”

He didn’t reply immediately. There was the slightest of pauses. Then: “Yeah.”

The other man, who hadn’t said a single word, giggled. Mullen looked at him and then back to the pinched one.