PAUL TEMPLE leaned over the parapet and looked down into the murky water. It was a fine morning and the sun was shining across the Thames; but the water was brown. Paul gestured to the police launch below. A uniformed sergeant and two plain-clothes men were ready. Paul glanced at his watch. Ten minutes to eleven.
Eight boys came rowing round the river bend. They were being yelled at through a megaphone: ‘in-out-in-out, Bunter, in-out,’ by an insane schoolmaster riding along the towpath on a bicycle. Paul watched in fascination to see whether the schoolmaster would ride into the river, but he didn’t. He whisked up onto the bridge, rode past Paul and down onto the towpath on the opposite bank. ‘In-out-in-out.’
Paul wondered uneasily which direction the killer would come from. It would be unthinkable, he thought ironically, to be killed without ever knowing it. He walked to the south end of the bridge and stared down the road from Henley. Of course, the killer might have been waiting the past two hours in the hotel by the river. The Compleat Angler. That would be the wisest place, to ensure that no ambush was set up. Paul strolled back to the north side. A Ford Zephyr police car was parked in the private entrance to a boatyard a few yards downstream. Then the clock struck eleven.
He had never established whether Gladys had been stabbed in the back, or whether the knife had been thrown by an expert at twenty yards. Paul braced his shoulders and turned round. The protection seemed an awful long way away. He felt rather conspicuous alone on the bridge.
A Rover 2000 was coming along the road from Henley. When it reached The Compleat Angler it turned off into the car park. Paul waited, and a few moments later Scott Reed came from the car park. He was scurrying towards the bridge like a nervous crab. The police had not moved.
Suddenly Scott Reed saw Paul on the bridge. His hand twitched involuntarily in the beginnings of a wave, then he stopped. He glanced backwards and forwards before hurrying down the steps to the towpath.
‘Scott!’ Paul shouted.
Paul ran to the stairs and called down to the publisher.
‘Scott! What the hell are you doing here?’
Scott came up the stairs as four policemen converged on him from the nearby boathouse and the hotel. He smiled ingratiatingly.
‘Oh, hello, Paul. I just came to see—’
‘You damned fool,’ Paul snapped. ‘Don’t you realise that you’ve upset the whole operation?’
‘I was worried after what you told me yesterday. I just had to come—’
‘Temple, look out!’ someone shouted.
Paul swung round in time to see a man racing towards him from the opposite end of the bridge. Two more policemen were pursuing Leo Ashwood in Paul’s direction. Leo stopped and drew a gun from his pocket. He fired a couple of shots, one at Paul and the second behind him at the police. When Paul peered cautiously round the side of the stone stairs a policeman was lying in a pool of blood, and Leo Ashwood was standing on the parapet. Nothing seemed to be happening.
‘Leo,’ Paul called, ‘don’t be silly. You’re making things worse.’
‘I’ll shoot! Leave me alone!’
The stolid manservant was flourishing his gun with a wildness entirely due to panic. Paul hoped that the desperation would make his aim inaccurate.
‘You can’t escape,’ Paul called. ‘So let’s be sensible. I’ll come and collect the gun from you, and then the police will look after you. All right? I’m coming out!’
Paul stepped onto the bridge. He walked slowly along the pavement towards the centre. He felt extraordinarily relaxed, interested to find himself behaving like this and coldly rational about the even money that Leo might shoot. He felt slightly sorry for Leo. The man was terrified and trapped.
‘I’ll shoot,’ Leo shouted. ‘Don’t think I won’t kill you! You tricked me with that telephone call! Keep away, you bastard! You tricked me!’
Paul continued his walk towards him. He thought disinterestedly that Leo was talking in clichés. People under stress always fall back on clichés. Paul decided that if he lived to write his serious study of murder he would have to remember that. No elegant dialogue during the death throes. Whilst he was thinking this he was simultaneously aware of a car moving behind him. The fools, he thought to himself, they’ll ruin everything!
‘I’ll shoot,’ Leo shouted, a pleading tone adding to his desperation. ‘Don’t think I won’t. I’ll shoot!’
The Ford Zephyr had roared onto the bridge and it screeched to a halt beside the shot policeman. Its four doors flew open and three uniformed policemen sprang into the open. The fourth door had been opened by Charlie Vosper, but he didn’t offer himself as a target. He waited until Leo had fired two more shots before emerging.
Leo was as surprised at the explosion of the gun as the policeman whose arm was splintered by a bullet. He staggered sideways and lost his balance. Paul ran forward to grab his legs, but Leo was waving his arms about as he toppled from the bridge. The gun went off again, harmlessly into the stonework of the bridge, while Paul tried to hang on to the ankle. Charlie Vosper grabbed the other leg, but Leo was too heavy. He fell with a scream into the river below.
‘You’re a bloody hero, aren’t you?’ Vosper snarled.
‘It would have worked,’ Paul said calmly.
Leo was swimming against the current now, swimming towards the bank as the police launch roared into action. It swung out into the centre of the river and headed for the same spot on the bank. But Leo was clearly not a strong swimmer and his clothes were hindering him. He disappeared underwater once, then reappeared splashing and spluttering. The police launch changed course and went straight for him.
‘In-out-in-out! Come along there, Bunter, pull your weight. In-out!’
The insane schoolmaster whisked across the bridge, skidded past the shot policeman, and came to a halt in a heap by the Ford Zephyr. His megaphone landed at Paul’s feet.
The eight schoolboys lost their rhythm and drifted chaotically into the path of the police launch. The sixteen oars began clicking against each other and the boat swung sideways onto the current before tipping onto its side.
Leo screamed for help as he came up for the second time.
But the police launch had hit the rowing boat. An awful crack of splintering wood was followed by schoolboy shouts of dismay. While the three policemen concentrated on rescuing the boys Leo Ashwood drowned.