Gently with the Innocents (13 page)

A waste of time! Yet he continued stubbornly, up one side of the road and down the other. He wanted the feel of the bleak thoroughfare, of the people who lived there, who used that short cut. Council tenants, some near the breadline, a few already known to the police, going daily past the house where, according to the kids . . .

But the snow beat him at last. Numbed, he turned back towards the footway. In two lengths of Thingoe Road he had met scarcely a dozen pedestrians. Now it was truly dark, in place of the twilight of the snow-gloom, with flakes pitching down in sackfuls so that you couldn’t see past the next street-light. He entered the footway. A shape moved ahead of him, going towards the warehouse door. Gently sprinted. The figure turned suddenly, flashing a torch. It was D.C. Scoles.

‘Oh . . . you sir!’

‘Me,’ Gently said. ‘You won’t find Colkett in there.’

‘Do you know where he is, sir?’

‘Hasn’t he come home yet?’

‘No, sir. That’s where I’ve just come from.’

‘What’s the flap then?’

Scoles hesitated. ‘I thought you’d have been informed, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve had a message from Norchester. A man like Colkett sold a coin there today.’

Gissing was on the phone when they entered the office, his face as empty of expression as ever.

‘Yes, sir . . . we’d like them today.’

He was arranging search-warrants for Colkett’s and the warehouse. He hung up.

‘You didn’t find him?’

‘No, sir,’ Scoles said. ‘He isn’t back yet.’

‘We can wait,’ Gissing said. He looked at Gently. ‘Reckon we’ve nailed him now, sir,’ he said flatly.

It had begun to look like it. The jeweller in Norchester had given a good description of his customer: around forty, about five feet seven, grey eyes, lined face, strong local accent. The jeweller, named Deacon, hadn’t been too suspicious when the man offered him the coin: since collecting coins had become a vogue all sorts of people brought him valuable pieces. His suspicions had been further set at rest because the man dickered about the price, and had spent half an hour nudging Deacon towards his ultimate bid of forty-five pounds. Only after he’d gone did Deacon consult his police bulletin.

And the coin? An Edward IV angel, wrapped in crumpled blue paper.

‘It’s on its way here,’ Gissing said. ‘Deacon paid for it in fivers. We just pick Colkett up with the fivers on him and I reckon that’ll be that.’

‘Do we know how he’s travelling?’ Gently asked.

‘No,’ Gissing said. ‘But he doesn’t own a car. I’ve checked with the station. They don’t remember him buying a ticket. I’ve put D.C. Abbots on meeting the train.’

‘What about buses?’

‘I’ve rung Broome. The local constable will board the bus there.’

‘And if he’s hitched a lift?’

Gissing nodded comfortably. ‘P.C. Metcalfe is waiting at Hallet’s.’

All earths blocked. And at the other end, Norchester, the CID would be covering too. Unless Colkett faded into the snow en route they’d have to have him before much longer. The break had come. The case was made – Colkett had been panicked into doing something stupid.

Or was it going to be quite so simple . . . ?

‘Why did he sell that particular coin?’

Gissing stared, considering the question. ‘I don’t know . . . perhaps it was handy.’

‘But just that coin – the one we know about – if he had a lot to choose from? And why just one? Why not several? He could have sold them to different dealers.’

‘Perhaps he has done, sir,’ Scoles said. ‘Perhaps the other dealers haven’t come clean.’

‘Then we have to swallow that the one honest dealer was the one who bought the identifiable coin.’

Scoles shook his head, abashed.

‘Perhaps he only had that one coin,’ Gissing said heavily.

Gently nodded. ‘And suppose he came by it honestly – or at least, without murdering Peachment to get it?’

‘I don’t see how—’

‘Look,’ Gently said. ‘Peachment had been carrying that coin in his pocket. In his waistcoat pocket, Bressingham says, just loose, wrapped up in the piece of paper. So it could have shaken out when Peachment fell, and being wrapped in blue paper, it wouldn’t show up. So the murderer could have missed it. And the milkman could have missed it. It could have been there for Colkett to find.’

Gissing stared unhappily. ‘So what you’re saying—’

‘I’m saying Colkett probably wasn’t the murderer. But if he was, then all he stole was the one coin off Peachment’s body.’

It was perverse! Gissing gazed at his desk with the injured look of a sick goldfish. The very clincher that should have ‘nailed’ Colkett was being twisted into a defence! You could almost see Gissing’s mind wrestling as he grappled with this naughty argument. Scoles, too, gone suddenly stiff, was clearly trying to find a counter.

‘But it doesn’t follow—’

‘If it wasn’t Colkett, sir—’

The two of them came in together. Colkett was chummie, and Cross CID wasn’t letting him go without a struggle.

‘Wait,’ Gently said. He gave them a résumé of his talk with Dinno and the kids. They listened impatiently. A couple of times Gissing’s lips shaped to interrupt. At last he exclaimed, ‘But that’s plain proof, sir! It proves Colkett knew what Peachment had got.’

Gently grinned. ‘If we believe the kids.’

Gissing gaped. ‘They couldn’t’ve made all that up.’

‘I put in some check questions,’ Gently admitted. ‘I think maybe sometimes Dinno was leading me. But if it’s true, then there was more than one coin – and it’s long odds that one coin is all Colkett had.’

‘But that’s still surmise, sir!’ Scoles broke in.

Gently shrugged. ‘It’s all surmise. We’ll know a bit more when we pull in Colkett. One thing’s sure – he’ll have to talk now.’

Gissing was shaking his head bereftly, his eyes miserable and unseeing.

‘I don’t know . . .’

He had to believe! Within was pure certainty that Colkett was guilty.

‘We’ll search, then.’ He rose blunderingly. ‘Those warrants’ll be across any minute. If we can just find the rest of those coins . . . they’ve got to be there. We’ll find them.’

‘And if they aren’t?’

Gissing made a gesture, as though warning Gently to get behind him. He grabbed the phone and raked off a number.

Gently shrugged again, and pulled out his pipe.

The warrants came. In a stone-cold Wolseley they bumbled through the snows to Playford Road. Hallet’s was shuttered, but a window down the yard spilled dim light on the foot of the stairs. Half a snowman, walking out of a doorway, proved to be Police Constable Metcalfe. He had nothing to tell them. After he’d told it he moved stiffly back into the doorway. Then a door opened cautiously in the yard and a thick-set, sweatered man peered out.

‘Who are you lot then?’

It was Mr Hallet, with his plump wife peering spitefully over his shoulder.

‘You got a warrant, have you?’

Gissing flashed it at him. Hallet made him hold it closer to the light.

‘These are my premises . . . what’s up with old Cokey? You fare to want him rare bad.’

‘When did you see him last?’

‘Breakfast, I reckon . . . what’s the trouble?’

Gissing didn’t answer.

They clumped and kicked their way up the stairs. Scoles brought out a bunch of keys. The second one did it. They entered a chill atmosphere of bacon-grease and gas. Gissing, flicking a torch around, could find no light-switch, only a gas-bracket with a round, dirty glass. He hesitated, then struck a match. The lamp lit with a pop. Gissing seemed surprised.

‘Mod cons, sir,’ Scoles ventured.

Gissing grunted, staring around him. It was a smallish room with dadoed walls, cream above, dark green below. It contained an obsolete gas-stove and a chipped sink, a table, chairs and kitchen cabinet. At one end stood a painted cupboard. Pin-ups were taped along the walls.

Not much of a place to call home . . . yet it had a sort of sluttish cosiness. A gas-fire was fitted, and near it was wedged an old easy-chair, a newspaper lying on it. No TV, but a cheap radio, and a pile of paperback pornography on the cupboard.

Sometimes, you felt, Colkett put his feet up and gave the pubs a miss for the evening.

Did he bring a woman back?

Gently shoved open the door that led from the kitchen to the room behind. Another gas-bracket! Gently lit it. It revealed a room that was a twin of the other. A double bed, none too clean, and with a solitary, soiled pillow. A big, old-fashioned wardrobe. Painted chest-of-drawers. A varnished dressing-table jammed across the window. More pin-ups were plastered over the walls and, facing the bed, an obscene drawing. The room smelt doggy. If women came here they were rough ones, soused with drink.

A lonely man, that was Colkett. His job at the warehouse would exactly suit him. Aloof, probably friendless, inviting nobody up to his grubby retreat. A bit of pub company, some inept fumbling, then back to the sanctuary over Hallet’s. Then, with pop music blaring, the sexual fantasies that stayed a dream.

A killer? Possibly . . . but it’d be a woman. In a panic, he’d try to talk his way out.

Gently went back into the kitchen.

‘Having any luck?’

Gissing and Scoles were exploring the cupboard. Out of it had come a medley of rubbish but also a stack of small orange-and-black cartons. They contained car light-bulbs.

‘Pinched,’ Gissing said. ‘He’s been knocking these off from the warehouse.’

Gently shrugged. Every trade had its perks. Colkett probably wasn’t getting very fat out of those.

He moved around the kitchen carefully. Really, it offered very little concealment. The cupboard, the cabinet, the easy chair, the cooker and possibly the case of the radio. He tried the chair. It had a loose seat-cushion. He felt around in the fluff beneath it. Two halfpennies, sixpence, a bent nailfile and evidence of addiction to liquorice allsorts. The rest of the chair was honest stuffing. The radio and cooker were equally innocent. Scoles, foraging in the cabinet, found a box of tyre-levers, but they were obviously loot and not tools of a trade.

‘How about the floor, sir?’

They stared at the floor. It was covered with lino which had been tacked down. Gissing stooped and fumbled half-heartedly at a join, then suddenly seemed to remember they hadn’t dealt with the bedroom.

Gently stood by the door watching, sure now that the search would be a frost. Colkett was a thief, that’s all they were learning – a thief who perhaps stole for quasi-sexual thrills. A little man . . . a little thief. If he’d known about the gold, would he have dared to steal it? No . . . that single coin was more Colkett’s mark, grabbed up off the floor when no eye was on him.

In the wardrobe Gissing found a new steelyard, and beneath the bed a case of spanners. Under the pillow was hidden a notebook. Scoles opened it and blushed.
Eskimo Nell
. . .

Hallet was lurking in his doorway when they came down the steps again. He looked sharply to see if they were carrying anything. Then he whistled a bar of Colonel Bogey. Gissing stopped.

‘Where’s the bog?’

‘The bog?’ Hallet gaped. ‘Can’t you wait, then?’

‘The bog that Colkett uses,’ Gissing said patiently. Hallet leered and pointed across the yard.

Scoles was assigned to search the bog: Gently and Gissing returned to the Wolseley. Gissing lumped down heavily in the driving-seat, shoved a fag in his mouth and lit it. He breathed smoke wearily.

‘So it’ll be the warehouse.’

‘You’ll need more men,’ Gently shrugged.

Already, he noticed, he was opting out of an exercise he judged to be futile. He wanted Colkett . . . oh yes! – but he was no longer reckoning him as a possible killer. Vital now was what Colkett knew, not what they might turn up at the warehouse.

‘There’s D.C. Abbots . . .’

‘You can’t spare him. Grabbing Colkett is first priority.’

‘Colkett’s got to come back here.’

‘He could spot the constable. And don’t forget he’s flush with cash.’

Gissing breathed more smoke, slow, tired, no doubt with the warehouse before his eyes. One might strike lucky, say in the office, but other than that . . . it would need an army.

‘It’s this bloody snow . . .’

‘Leave it till morning.’

‘I don’t know . . . I still think . . .’

‘Let’s talk to Colkett. That’s what matters.’

Gissing sat silent, just the smoke going.

T
HE SNOW WON.
They drove back to the office along streets as empty as streets of a ghost-town. In effect the snow had eased, but it was lying now so thick that the Wolseley’s wheels were continually spinning. Above, a black sky pressed heavily, suggesting the break was only temporary. Plenty more up there! By morning, Cross would probably be beleaguered.

At the office two messages were waiting. They came from D.C. Abbotts and the Broome constable – Colkett wasn’t on the evening train, and the Norchester bus had failed to arrive. The Broome constable had done some phoning and had located the bus at Tattishall Crossroads. It was stuck in a drift. Its twenty-one passengers were being given shakedowns in Tattishall school. The constable had talked to his colleague at Tattishall and had passed on a description of Colkett.

Gissing rang Tattishall. No go – they didn’t have a passenger resembling Colkett. He rang the railway station. There was one more train. As far as they knew, the line was clear.

Gissing hung up and gloomed for some moments.

‘Reckon he’s painting the town,’ Scoles said. ‘All that dough. It’s burning his pocket. Reckon he’ll come back juiced, on the eleven.’

‘Suppose he picked up a tart . . .’

‘Not him,’ Scoles said. ‘He’s one of those blokes who’d be scared of a Judy.’

‘If he knows we’re after him . . .’

‘How could he know, sir?’

Gissing shook his head. ‘But I wish we’d got him.’

Gently hung on for another hour, then hunger drove him back to the George. Colkett would turn up. He wasn’t a professional who knew how to vanish into the scenery. He could have thumbed a lift and got stuck, or merely have decided to stay in Norchester. Some transport doss-house . . . perhaps, at that moment, he was stuffing himself with egg and chips.