Gently with the Innocents (16 page)

Could he have been involved accidentally? That would square better with Colkett’s character – was, in fact, the supposition which Gently had been favouring all along. Colkett, hearing about the coins, would doubtless be eager to see them for himself, and going along there at the critical time, might well have been witness to the crime. But this presupposed that the criminals had been tipped off from some other quarter, which was even more improbable than Colkett tipping them off himself. Young Peachment? Hardly! He’d nothing to gain: if he knew of the coins he’d keep it dark. And a casual observer from Thingoe Road was as unlikely as Colkett to have connections. The kids? No . . . the more you looked at it, the less credible did it seem.

Then Gently hesitated. Because . . . yes, there was one way that tip could have gone. He bit on his pipe scowlingly, trying to dispose of the treacherous thought. But it had to be dealt with. Slowly, unwillingly, he began checking off the score . . . Phil Bressingham was one of the kids: and Phil could have told his father.

The answer?

He sat a long while, the coffee gone cold in the cup beside him. It fitted, he knew it fitted – all the way down the line. If Bressingham were bent, he could have used that information. Bressingham had his connections in town. He was in the trade, he knew the channels. Worse, he was in town on the day of the crime. That was his alibi, oh yes! – but it could be his downfall too. It gave him opportunity to pass on his tip, to set up the job for when he was absent . . .

Gently got up and strode down to the windows, stood gazing out at the snowbound Mere. Bressingham was a dealer, a professional sprucer . . . not beyond him to put on such an act. And hadn’t he given a little flick at Colkett, after seeing where Gently’s suspicions were tending – perhaps then to report to his associates in town, with the suggestion that Colkett be taken care of?

No – it was too ugly! He kicked at the carpet. It fell together, but he couldn’t believe it. Good Lord, if he’d given Colkett the benefit of exclusion-by-character, couldn’t he do the same for Bressingham? And again, what interest could Bressingham have, if guilty, in drawing Gently’s attention to the existence of the collection? The notion was mad! It’d be all the other way – he’d pooh-pooh everything to do with the coins.

So you were left again with the improbability of a gang crime, and doubts about whether the collection did exist. And nothing to indicate Colkett’s whereabouts, or why he had suddenly decided to go missing. Gently scowled some more at the Mere. However you looked at it, Colkett was a witness. And if Colkett wasn’t going to come to them, then it was time somebody went after Colkett.

He got his coat again and went out to the courtyard. The snow had been shovelled against the walls in heaps. With a lot of wheel-slip he extricated the Sceptre, and nursed it cautiously into the street.

It was irrational: he knew that. He didn’t have a hope of finding Colkett. It wasn’t even fair to say he had a hunch, or the ghost of a lead that might have paid off. What he was feeling now was a vague irritation, a sense of having failed somewhere. Failed who? When you came down to it . . . perhaps a feeling he’d failed Colkett. Ridiculous? Yes: but he couldn’t get rid of it. Perhaps just Gently’s presence had been Colkett’s undoing. And Gently should have seen that, should have sensed the pattern, played his cards a little differently. Instead, he’d been bearing down on Colkett, making it evident he thought him important. And now, like Bressingham, he was feeling responsible. He’d got Colkett into this – he must get him out!

The expedition nearly ended a hundred yards from the town limits. Only a single track had been ploughed along the twisty link with the A.140. Backing to let a mail-van by, Gently dropped a rear wheel into a gully: it wasn’t deep, but it was enough. Fortunately, the postmen were there to shove him. He drove on swearing, his rear-end skewing at the slightest pressure on the gas. The road had been salted, but because of the low temperature the salt was failing to take effect.

At Broome he sought the local constable, a heavy-bodied countryman named Money. Money gratefully sat in the Sceptre for a spell and smoked the cigarette Gently offered him.

‘Would you know Colkett by sight?’

‘No, sir, but they gave me a very plain description.’

‘When did the traffic stop coming through yesterday?’

‘Reckon about six, sir. There wasn’t much after that.’

‘When did you start watching for a bus?’

‘Well, sir’ – Money took a long puff – ‘there was one due in here at half seven. I didn’t come out very long before that.’

‘So you weren’t actually watching for Colkett?’

‘Well . . . no, sir. That wasn’t the message. I’d to meet the bus, but it never turned up—’

‘That’s all right,’ Gently shrugged. ‘As long as we know.’

Thus in effect there’d been no watch for Colkett: the net was wide open at the Cross end. He could have dropped off a truck or gone sailing through, and nobody have been any the wiser.

‘Were any vehicles stuck in the village last night?’

‘Two, sir. But they came from the other direction.’

‘How are the buses now?’

‘There’s the main-road service. They’re dropping passengers here for Cross.’

Gently drove on. The main road was packed snow, stained and crumbling, running between piles made by the ploughs and between steep, wind-sculptured drifts. Beyond were snow-deep fields with their hedges drifted under, and black field-oaks with frosted beards, standing dwarfish in the blank whiteness. He passed numerous abandoned cars. The road-teams had shunted them on to the verges. A truck, lettered
Eastwich Tar and Gravel Co.
, had left the road and canted into a drift. You got the impression that something frightening had happened out here on the road, in the dark night: more than just a blizzard of snow. As though the Valkyries had ridden by.

And Colkett, caught up in this lot? Perhaps left in the middle, thumbing a lift? Maybe they wouldn’t see Colkett again till the bruised earth showed through the rotting snow.

He reached Tattishall Crossroads and turned down to the village. At the Police House he found the constable’s wife. She’d helped to organize arrangements at the school, but she could only confirm her husband’s report.

‘Here’s the list of names and addresses – only two of them came from Cross. They were mostly girls who work in Norchester. We had to let their parents know.’

Both of the Cross passengers had been girls. Gently noted their names and addresses. The constable’s wife, an efficient young lady, quickly brewed him a cup of tea.

‘It was pretty bad out this way last night?’

The constable’s wife sucked breath through her teeth. It had been the devil: she’d almost got lost just going down to the school from the Police House.

‘It was the snow and the wind together . . . and the cold. It sort of confused you. Some of the girls looked knocked out. I don’t think they’d have stuck a night in the bus.’

‘Better that than out in the open.’

‘They’d have been dead,’ she said decidedly.

He left her warm kitchen reluctantly and slithered the Sceptre back to the A.140. About a hundred yards past the crossroads he noticed a crater, from which doubtless the stranded bus had been dug. A desolate spot! No stitch of shelter: just the wide sweep of the fields.

Thirty minutes later he was coasting into Norchester over loose sanded snow, like brown sugar. The Wagon Wheel, the roadhouse where Colkett had been seen, was on the outskirts, near the ring-road. Gently parked and went in. He was met by soft music. Two girls were lounging at a brightly lit counter; behind them, through a hatch that opened over a hotplate, he could see a man in white overalls, frying eggs. He beckoned one of the girls.

‘Police . . . I’m inquiring about the man who was seen here yesterday.’

The girl gazed starrily for a moment, then put her head through the hatch.

‘Lew!’

Lew came. It was he who’d noticed Colkett, while he’d been serving during the girls’ lunch-break. A short, thick-faced man, he kept wiping his hands as he went over his story with Gently. Yes, the bloke answered to Gently’s description of him. He’d come in there about half-past two. He’d ordered a meal and paid with a fiver (this was an unexpected bonus!). Then he’d sat eating and reading a paper until a couple of truckers came in, when he’d struck up a conversation and asked them if they were heading for London.

‘Do you know the drivers?’

‘Not their names. I’ve seen them in here a few times before.’

‘Do you know who they drive for?’

Lew shook his head. ‘But I reckon they’re local, the way they speak.’

The starry-eyed girl giggled. ‘The fair one’s local. I’ve seen him dancing up at the Samson.’

His name was Fred, and he was a bit cheeky – but that was the limit of her information.

‘Do you know if our man got a lift?’

‘No . . . I didn’t pay much attention,’ Lew said. ‘When did the drivers leave?’

‘I think they hung on a bit, waiting to see if the snow would ease.’

He put more questions, but that was the gist of it, and perhaps he was lucky to get so much. Yesterday afternoon there’d been plenty of drivers hanging about there like Fred and his mate. Then, some time after four, the snow had cleared for a spell, and a few of the bold ones had started out . . . along with them Colkett, beyond doubt: into the snow, vaguely Londonwards.

And that was all: he’d known as much when he’d skewed the Sceptre out of the George’s yard. Only now he’d seen what the snow had been like, could make a sombre guess or two.

He left Lew with instructions to watch out for Fred and to ask him to contact the City Police; then he pointed the Sceptre south again and began his gloomy return to Cross.

It was dark when he arrived. He drove direct to the Police Station. Outside, he noticed Gissing’s Wolseley with misted windows, recently parked.

‘The Inspector’s just come in, sir,’ the desk sergeant told him. ‘He asked me to try to contact you.’

‘What’s new?’

‘I think he’s found something, sir. He was carrying a package wrapped with newspaper.’

Gently hastened to the office, knocked, went in. He found Gissing and his team grouped round the desk. On the desk was an opened-out sheet of newspaper with a green object lying on it. As Gently approached, Gissing looked up at him – the face of a weary martyr triumphant.

‘Reckon this time we
have
nailed him, sir,’ he said huskily.

The object on the paper was a bloodstained cosh.

I
T WAS A
crude, childish weapon, made from a length of plastic hose, weighted at one end with a carriage-bolt and whipped with common brown string. It was dirty, and the string was scuffed, suggesting it had been carried in someone’s pocket. The smears on the weighted end were brown, but Gently had no doubt they were blood.

‘Where did you find it?’

‘Right at the back. Behind that stack of old furniture.’

In the very place, in fact, which Gently had suggested they needn’t search.

‘How long had it been there?’

‘Not very long. It was lying in some fluff, but it wasn’t dusty. He’ll have chucked it over there to get rid of it . . . he couldn’t know we’d shift all that furniture.’

No – he couldn’t! Gently shrugged a little guiltily. That cosh might have lain there till Kingdom-come. It had taken the massive faith of a Gissing to sift the warehouse to its ultimate fluff.

‘Looks like he carted it around with him, sir . . . had it for quite a while, I reckon. Never quite got round to using it. Not until old Peachment caught him.’

‘Is that how you read it?’

‘Well – yes, sir.’ Gissing gave him the blank look. ‘This is the weapon, I’d say that’s certain. It’d account for all that bruising.’

‘And Colkett carried it?’

‘Must have done, sir. That cosh has been in someone’s pocket.’

‘He didn’t strike me as that sort.’

Gissing shook his head – you lived and learned about chummies!

Gently picked up the cosh – there would be no dabs on the ribbed surface of the hose – and twisted it slowly between his fingers, noting details of its fashioning. Crude: that must be the word. The product of skill-less, impatient fingers. The whipping put on awry and knotted, the hose sawn off with an inept knife. Colkett’s work? Not characteristic: he, with so much time on his hands. He’d have neatly severed that hose with a hacksaw and whipped it correctly, perhaps with marlin.

Yet this was the weapon . . . found where it was found. Who but Colkett could have tossed it there?

He laid the cosh down.

‘Better get it to your lab.’

‘Yes, sir. And step up the hunt for Colkett.’

Gently nodded. It was a murder-hunt now. No longer a matter of bobbies meeting buses.

‘I reckon he did skip, sir,’ Gissing said musingly. ‘He must have guessed we were getting close to him. He never intended to come back here . . . he just cashed the coin, and hopped it.’

‘But why go to Norchester to do that?’

‘Why?’ Gissing stared. ‘It’s where he would go.’

‘Even though he were planning to skip to London?’