Free The Grail Tree by Jonathan Gash Page A

pathetic. But a crumpled boat is somehow so tragic that even to look is almost unbearable. The crackled windows, the ruptured cabin. The crumpled metal sides, sort of owning up that the gaunt sea-creature is actually a thing put together and made of iron plates and logs. The paint already blistering from an unseen fire at one end. Piteous.
    It had been creased downwards, broken as if smashed from above. Both ends were sticking out of the water, and as I stared a fireman clambered on to thefront bit and ran nimbly through the smoke unwinding some trailing hose along its length. He managed it without falling into the river, jumping over the ruined sunken middle fold and hauling himself up into the smoke. Fishes floated white-bellied in the water.
    I crossed to the ambulance, stepping over the steel hawser cut clean through on the grass and pathetically still warped to the angled bow. The weird medical ritual always looks the same, doesn’t it? Whether it does any good or not nobody seems to know. I hope somebody is adding it up somewhere.
    The long bundle was being stretchered into the slots. A nurse gave me the elbow to reach past. The constable was helped up, still holding the inverted bottle. One white coat was bloodstained to the sleeve elbow now, the other still spotless. Car tyres spun mud against my legs. A voice spoke from an intercom, horribly distorted. I realized I was coughing because the smoke was blowing over the lawn now. Whatever the firemen were doing was making the smoke worse.
    A police sergeant was ordering the grounds cleared. Somebody else was taking names and addresses. Somebody spoke to me. I said sod off. The man put his hand on my arm and said, ‘Cool down, friend. I’m Maslow, CID. We have to take a few details, that’s all.’
    Doors slammed and the ambulance rolled away towards the drive. A motorcycle kicked into deep sound. A voice called to clear the gateway.
    ‘He’s a family friend,’ Sandy said to somebody. He was ashen. ‘We’re with him.’
    ‘The old chap,’ I managed to get out.
    ‘That was him in the blood wagon.’ Maslow nodded at the drive.
    I turned to see the ambulance leaving the garden.Mel was in difficulties. A constable was making him do a bad-tempered three-point turn. More sulks were on the way.
    My mind registered again. The long blood-soaked bundle under the tattered old car blanket was therefore the Reverend Henry Swan. The person of, the expiring person of, or remains of?
    ‘What are his chances?’
    ‘None, I’m afraid.’ The CID man was a benign elderly square-shaped man, neat and tidily arranged in a crisp suit. He had a clean handkerchief in his top pocket. I’d thought the nonuniformed branch were all fashionably sloppy and soiled. ‘You know him, then?’
    ‘A bit.’ I walked back to the river. The smoke was as bad as ever. They’d got a punt from somewhere and two firemen were poling along the shattered boat. River water was shooting into the fire from three hoses. Why did the engines have to make that piercing whine? Probably something to do with pumping. How pathetic to bring such massive ladders for nothing. Then I apologized mentally when I saw the far tender’s ladder was stretched sideways over the river, with a fireman stuck on the end of it spraying his jet into the split barge.
    There was an explosion.’ Maslow had followed me. Sandy went back to rescue Mel.
    I thought a bit. ‘How can a boat burn when it’s made of tin?’
    ‘Steel,’ Maslow pointed out. ‘And wood. There’s all its fuel.’
    ‘It hadn’t any.’
    ‘Oil generator.’
    ‘It had electricity from the house.’ I nodded tothe grass. ‘There’s a conduit cable under there to Mrs Cookson’s.’
    ‘Gas, then.’
    ‘He’d none.’
    There was a long pause. We both watched the oily smoke. Oily.
    I decided he’d need prompting. ‘Isn’t this where you’re supposed to tell me who did it?’
    ‘What’s your name?’ Maslow asked. He seemed angry.
    ‘Find