couple of wetsuits, one orange, one fluorescent green, were hanging like flattened corpses from the roof-rack of the police personnel-carrier.
The products of their search lay straggled along the crumbling path. Two ancient prams, five bicycles, and the motorbike. I walked across to inspect it. Three kids who had been spitefully twisting at its levers gave way very grudgingly. Its spokes were as thick as sausages with green slime. Banners of weed trailed from the handlebars. On the saddle the slime was drying and cracking and lifting already, in the bleak sunlight and sharp March wind. Some reluctant hand had smarmed the slime away from the petrol tank to expose the insignia. Probably my woman.
It was a Scott Flying Squirrel all right. And more nineteen-twenties than nineteen-thirties. I gave it sharp pokes, in places where I would have expected it to rust away. I’ll never forget the smell of it: deep, dark, vegetable and oddly alive.
‘Hardly seems to have rusted at all, does it, sir?’ The voice of authority came over my shoulder. I straightened up. It was the Inspector in charge of the diving team. He wore one of their yellow waterproof jackets, with badges of rank, but he didn’t look much like a policeman otherwise, with his thick grey polo-neck sweater and muddy wellies. There was a yellow water-proof stop-watch round his neck on a cord. He had steady calm grey eyes, with a possibility of a grin in them, and a brown weathered face. You could have taken him for a tugboat skipper.
‘No, no rust. Odd!’ I agreed.
‘Probably lack of oxygen in the water. Nasty pond, this. Never like coming here. Slime must be God knows how many feet thick, down there. I shall be glad to get my lads out of it.’
‘You’re not . . . going on, then?’ I looked down into the dark water and could hardly repress a shudder.
‘No point. They’ve done the preliminary autopsy. No external signs of violence. Another suicide, they reckon. That’s seven here, in the five years I’ve been doing this. Though why they choose this place . . .’ It was his turn to repress a shudder.
‘What happens to all this stuff?’ I asked, to change the subject, indicating the motorbike.
‘Awkward.’ He sighed. ‘We’re a scratch team, drawn from all over the Met. All these lads’ll be back on their own beats tomorrow. All we want is to get our gear stowed and get home. By rights this stuff should go down to the local nick, as lost property; but who wants the paperwork? Who wants the stuff, come to that? We had them look up the bike’s registration on the Swansea computer. No sign of it. Reckon the thing’s been here since the twenties. You wouldn’t care to take charge of it, sir? You seem to know something about bikes.’
He looked at me hopefully, and added, ‘We usually just leave the stuff, and it vanishes by the next morning. You know what people are. But it’s usually smaller stuff . . . this could cause trouble if the kids get to it . . . I think there’s still petrol in the tank . . . petrol or water.’
‘I could cope with it,’ I said. ‘But it’s a matter of proving provenance – I’m an antique dealer.’
His face brightened. ‘You could always put people on to me, sir. I’ll tell them where it came from. Here’s my card . . . I’ll put my home number on the back . . .’
‘I’ll fetch my Volvo estate . . . I could do with a hand . . . loading.’
‘We’ll be here ten minutes yet . . . hey, steady with that bottle, Harrison. Any bottles you don’t want, throw back in the lake. We don’t want broken glass.’ He turned back to me. ‘Very keen on old bottles, the lads are. Got wonderful collections in the lounge at home, some of them. I think it’s the only reason they volunteer for the work.’
I was back in five minutes with the Volvo. They helped me load up willingly enough. I took two of the old push-bikes as well – ladies’ models with curved crossbars and twenty-eight-inch wheels, and baskets fore and aft. There’s a growing market for really old bikes now.
I gave them a twenty quid note for their trouble saying, ‘Police Benevolent Fund, if you can’t find a better use for it.’ From their grins, I reckon it vanished down the till of their favourite pub. And who’s