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to?’ Parfitt said.
    ‘I’d like to stand on the bridge,’ Gently said.
    ‘We’ll probably get knocked down,’ Parfitt said. ‘The bridge doesn’t cater for being stood on.’
    They went on to the bridge, stood facing downstream, pressing close to the grey parapet. The reach downstream was a short one and was fenced at the bend by shanty bungalows. On the left was a stretch of bare rond with a capped timber quay-heading, on the right the quays, sheds and cuttings of Harry French’s yard. On the tallest flat-topped building, in blue letters, stood: HARRY FRENCH & SON, YACHTS.
    ‘So,’ Gently said.
    ‘Down there,’ Parfitt said, ‘where the cut goes into the yacht basin. Where
Caress 2
is moored. He was tied up on that corner.’
    ‘Where’s the office?’ Gently said.
    ‘In the tall building with the name on it,’ Parfitt said. ‘You come across by the toilets and a couple of store-sheds and over two bridges over slipways and along the quay.’
    ‘There are no buildings on the quay,’ Gently said.
    ‘No,’ Parfitt said. ‘It’d be dark.’
    ‘There’d be a certain amount of light from the fair,’ Gently said. ‘You’d see anybody on the quay with you.’
    ‘It dazzles a bit,’ Parfitt said. ‘French was going towards it. It was in his eyes. I think it’s possible for chummie to have nipped up behind him. If he was wearing yacht shoes, too.’
    ‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘Who lives in that bungalow?’
    ‘It’s let,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’re mostly let. I talked to the people, they didn’t hear anything. They were watching television. They come from Bradford.’
    Gently looked along the quays, down into the water. The evening flood rippled softly under the arch. The water was yellowish-brown when separated from its reflections, carried small flotsam below its surface. Two cars went by a few inches behind them. Gently said:
    ‘You wouldn’t linger here after dark. Not to notice a launch without lights going below. With all this noise and light beside you.’
    ‘But people going along the bank,’ Parfitt said. ‘They’d have the light behind them, they might have noticed.’
    ‘They might have noticed him being killed too,’ Gently said. ‘Only they didn’t, or there’d surely have been a disturbance. Look, even with this row going you’d hear the splash of a body going in, perhaps even up here. When someone falls in there’s a thumping splash, people stick their heads out to see if help’s needed. And there was this yacht moored next door to the launch, but the statements say they didn’t hear a splash. So there wasn’t a splash. He must have fallen in without one. And he was a very large man to do that.’
    ‘Chummie might have eased him in,’ Parfitt said.
    ‘Try it some day,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s have a look over the other side.’
    They crossed to the other parapet. The upstream reach was longer than the downstream. Adjacent to the bridge, on the left, was a wet boathouse, in which were moored five half-deckers with their masts lowered on crutches. Next came a run of shallow boat-sheds with five gables facing the river, beneath each gable sliding doors and slipways slanted into the water. Red lettering across the gables said: SPELTON BROS. YACHTS – HALF-DECKERS – ROWBOATS . Beyond these, rough rond, some small sheds, then the bungalows to infinity. On the right bank stood the Bridge Inn. It was an Edwardian brick-and-timber building. It had a quay-headed lawn to which hire launches were moored and on which stood metal tables and chairs where yachters sat with glasses and tankards before them. Next, small boat-sheds, cuttings. Next, quay-headed rond moored to capacity. Next, some store-sheds, a bit of rond with a houseboat; and the bungalows to infinity. The infinity of the bungalows curved to the right where it could be seen again, receding into the marshes.
    ‘French’s,’ Parfitt said, pointing to the wet boathouse.
    ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Straight