“Well, now,” Miss Hewson said, “I just don’t get this Commonwealth. It’s the British Commonwealth but you’re not a Britisher and you got the British Queen but you don’t go around saying you’re a monarchy. I guess the distinctions are too refined for my crass American appreciation. What do you say, dear?” she asked Mr Hewson.
“Pardon me, dear?”
Miss Hewson articulated carefully into her brother’s hearing-aid and he began to look honest-to-God and dryly humorous. Miss Rickerby-Carrick broke into the conversation with confused cries of regret for the loss of Empire and of admiration for the Monarchy. “I know one’s not meant to talk like this,” she said with conspiratorial glances at Troy, Mr Pollock and Mr Bard. “But sometimes one can’t help it. I mean I’m absolutely all for freedom and civil rights and integ—” she broke of with an air of someone whose conversation has bolted with her, turned very red and madly leant towards Dr Natouche.
“Do forgive me,” she gabbled. “I mean, of course, I don’t know. I mean, am I right in supposing—?”
Dr Natouche folded his hands, waited a moment and then said: “Are you wondering if I am a British subject? I am. As you see, I belong to a minority group. I practise in Liverpool.” His voice was superbly tranquil and his manner entirely withdrawn.
The silence that followed his little speech was broken by the Skipper who came crabwise down the companionway.
“Well, ladies and gentlemen,” he said. “I hope you are comfortably settled. We’ll be on our way in a few minutes. You will find a certain amount of information in the brochures supplied. We don’t go in for mikes and loudspeakers in the Zodiac but I’m very much at your service to answer questions if I can. The weather forecast is good although at this time of year we sometimes get the Creeper, which is a local name for River fog. It usually comes up at night and can be heavy. During the afternoon we follow the upper reaches of The River through low-lying country to Ramsdyke Lock. We wind about and about quite a lot which some people find confusing. You may have noticed, by the way, that in these parts we don’t talk about The River by name. To the locals it’s always just The River. It was over this country that Archbishop Langton chased King John. But long before that the Romans made the Ramsdyke canal as an addition to The River itself. The waterways were busy in Roman times. We take a little while going through the lock at Ramsdyke and you might fancy a stroll up the field and a look at a hollow alongside the Dyke Way. The wapentake courts were held there in Plantagenet times. Forerunners of our Judges’ Circuits. You can’t miss the wapentake hollow. Matter of five minutes’ walk. Thank you.”
He gave a crisp little nod and returned to the upper deck. An appreciative murmur broke out among the passengers.
“Come,” Mr Bard exclaimed. “Here’s a sensible and heartening start. A handful of nice little facts and a fillip to the imagination. Splendid. Mrs Alleyn, you have finished your luncheon. Do come on deck and witness the departure.”
“I think we should all go up,” Troy said.
“Oh ra-ther!” cried Miss Rickerby-Carrick. “Come on, chaps!”
She blew her nose vigorously and made a dash for the companionway. There was a printed warning at the top: “Please note deeper step” but she disregarded it, plunged headlong through the half-door at the top and could be heard floundering about with startled cries on the other side. Troy overheard Mr Hewson say to Miss Hewson: “To me she seems kind of fabulous,” and Miss Hewson reply: “Maybe she’s one of the Queen’s Beasts’ and they both looked dryly humorous.
Illogically Troy felt irritated with them and exasperated by Miss Rickerby-Carrick who was clearly going to get on everybody’s nerves. Mr Pollock for instance, after contemplating her precipitate exit, muttered: “Isn’t it marvellous!” and Mr Bard, for Troy’s benefit, briefly cast up his eyes and followed the others to the upper deck. Mr Lazenby, who was still at his luncheon, waved his fork to indicate that he would follow later.
Dr Natouche rose and looked out of the saloon windows at the wharf. Troy thought: “How very tall he is.” Taller, she decided, than her husband, who was over six feet. “He’s waiting,” she thought, “for all of us to go up first,” and she found herself standing by him.
“Have you ever done this before, Dr Natouche?” she asked. “Taken a waterways cruise?”
“No,” he said. “Never before. It is a new experience.”
“For me too. I came on an impulse.”
“Indeed? You felt the need of a break perhaps after the strain of your public activities.”
“Yes,” Troy agreed, unaccountably pleased that he did, after all, know of her show and had recognised her. Without so much as noticing that she felt none of her usual awkwardness she said: “They are a bit of a hurdle, these solemn affairs.”
Dr Natouche said: “Some of your works are very beautiful. It gave me great pleasure in London to see them.”
“Did it? I’m glad.”
“They are casting off, if that is the right phrase. Would you like to go up?”
Troy went up on deck. Tom, the boy, had loosed the mooring lines and laid them out smartly. The Skipper was at the wheel. The Zodiac’s engines throbbed. She moved astern, away from her wharf and out into the main stream.
The motor-cyclists were still in the lane. Troy saw young Tom signal, not very openly, to them and they slightly raised their hands in return. The girl straddled her seat, the boy kicked and their engine broke out in pandemonium. The machine, curved, belched and racketed up the lane out of sight.
Dr Natouche appeared and then Mr Lazenby. The eight passengers stood along the rails and watched the riverbanks take on a new perspective and become remote. Spires and waffle-irons, glass boxes, mansard roofs and the squat cupola of the Norminster Town Hall were now merely there to be stared at with detachment. They shifted about, very slowly, and looked over one another’s shoulders and grew smaller. The Zodiac, now in mid-stream, set her course for Ramsdyke Lock.
Chapter 2 – The Wapentake
“He had been operating,” Alleyn said, “in a very big way in the Middle East. All among the drug barons with one of whom he fell out and who is thought to have grassed on him. From drugs he turned to the Old Master racket and was certainly behind several very big jobs in Paris. Getting certificates for good fakes from galleries and the widows of celebrated painters. He then crossed to New York where he worked off the fruits of this ploy until Interpol began to make interested noises. By the way, it may be noted that at this juncture he had not got beyond a Blue Circular which means of course—”
The boots of the intelligent-looking sandy man in the second row scraped the floor. He made a slight gesture and looked eager.