Gently with the Innocents

by Alan Hunter

  But then Colkett’s hands relaxed a little, his taut breathing became easier.

  ‘All right, gents – you’re cops. I know you have to put the boot in. It’s all in the way of business, isn’t it? Way you blokes make a living.’

  ‘Did you know about the door?’ Gently said.

  ‘Go on – ask me! No offence.’

  ‘So I’m asking.’

  ‘Yes,’ Colkett said. ‘The nevvy asked me to keep an eye on it.’

  He brewed the tea. He didn’t seem to notice the steady silence in the little office. He smirked as he poured out in chipped cups to which dashes of tinned milk had been added.

  ‘I reckon I’m auntie every day – never got married, you with me? Don’t fancy settling down with a mawther. They’re all right on the other side of the fence. You gents take sugar?’

  He stirred it in himself. The result was strong, camp-fire tea. From a drawer in the table he took a snap-tin which contained sandwiches and a slice of cake.

  ‘Cheers – and I hope you catches him!’

  Was he somewhow trying to put them in their place? He began on a sandwich with a noisy nonchalance, as though sure they knew better than to interrupt him.

  Gently sipped a little tea, then put the cup by.

  ‘So you kept an eye on the house,’ he said.

  ‘That’s right,’ Colkett said, through sandwich. ‘You keep asking. I’ve nothing to hide.’

  ‘You’d know Peachment’s movements.’

  ‘Of course I’d know them. He went up town every day. Mornings mostly, about eleven o’clock time. Sometimes in the afternoon.’

  ‘And in the evening?’

  ‘Wouldn’t know, would I?’

  Was that answer rather hurried?

  ‘I close up here at five-thirty. You don’t catch me hanging around after that.’

  ‘You’re never here later?’

  ‘No. Never.’

  ‘You never have a load arrive here late?’

  ‘Well . . . no, not really late, I haven’t. Not so’s I’m kept here all hours of the night.’

  ‘But that does happen – you’re sometimes here later?’

  ‘All right then, it does – once in a blue moon. But not the night they did old Peachey . . . look, I got time-sheets round here somewhere.’

  ‘Not October 27th.’

  ‘No. I’m telling you.’ He was fumbling through a folder of dockets and receipts. ‘Here – this is it. One load that day. Warmingers. Come in during the morning.’

  ‘Let me see.’

  Gently took the sheet.’

  ‘And . . . on October 26th?’

  ‘So what about October 26th? Didn’t I say I was kept late sometimes?’

  He snatched up a sandwich and bit a huge lump from it, his eyes glinting indignantly at Gently. Then he washed down the mouthful with a gulp of tea, making a deliberate sucking sound.

  ‘You think I’m telling you lies, then?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘Did you see Peachment on the night of the 26th?’

  ‘No, I didn’t. I was too busy. They bust open a great big case of nuts and bolts.’

  ‘You saw his light?’ Gently stared through the window.

  ‘Do you think I’m always gaping over there?’

  ‘You’d have to see it,’ Gently said. ‘You’re looking straight across at the house.’

  ‘So maybe I did see it and didn’t notice.’

  ‘Did you?’

  Colkett hung on for a moment.

  ‘All right . . . I don’t know! Will that suit you? It’s a month ago since all this happened.’

  ‘I think you did see it,’ Gently said. ‘It was up in that window. The little window.’

  Colkett breathed quickly, the fear back in his eyes. His slack mouth hung a little open. He gulped suddenly: ‘Look . . . stop trying to get at me! I didn’t have nothing to do with old Peachey.’

  ‘You’ve been in that house.’

  ‘No – yes!’

  ‘You know what’s behind that particular window.’

  ‘Yes – all right—’

  ‘When were you in there?’

  ‘The next day—’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When Brinded found him!’

  Gissing cleared his throat apologetically. ‘He did tell us that at the time, sir,’ he said. ‘Brinded came over here to use the phone, and Colkett went to take a look.’

  ‘A look – that’s all!’

  Gently sucked on his pipe. ‘Interesting. And you went up the stairs to the room.’

  ‘So if I did—’

  ‘Was the hurricane lamp there?’

  Colkett stared at him. He was sweating.

  ‘There wasn’t no hurricane lamp in that room.’

  It took Colkett some moments to decide on his answer. All the while his big hands were clenching and his dragging mouth on the twitch.

  ‘I didn’t shift nothing – I know better! I left everything how it was. Just having a look, that’s all I was doing, and I tells Mr Gissing all about it.’

  ‘And no sign of the hurricane lamp.’

  ‘No! How many times do I have to say it? I don’t know about Brinded, whether he moved it. But there wasn’t no lamp when I got there.’

  ‘Even more interesting,’ Gently said. He looked at Gissing. ‘Where was the lamp when you arrived?’

  ‘Where it was just now, sir,’ Gissing said. ‘On that old drainer in the kitchen.’

  ‘Did you test it for dabs?’

  Gissing shrugged.

  ‘You won’t find none of mine on it!’ Colkett burst out. ‘I’m not saying I didn’t touch nothing, but not the lamp. I never went near it.’

  ‘Did Brinded mention it?’

  ‘No, sir,’ Gissing said. ‘He said he didn’t go up the stairs.’

  Gently puffed a few times. ‘Well . . . it may not be important.’

  Colkett’s hand jerked across his brow.

  ‘But getting back to the 26th . . .’

  Immediately, Colkett tensed again.

  ‘You were here at this table, perhaps signing for delivery . . . wouldn’t you have glanced across at the house?’

  ‘Suppose I did . . .’

  ‘Wasn’t there a light?’

  ‘Why should I notice if there was a light?’

  ‘You couldn’t miss it. The big dark house. Even a candle would show up.’

  ‘Look, I’ve told you—’

  ‘Yes or no?’

  Colkett rocked his shoulders tormentedly.

  ‘So I say yes – is that a crime?’

  Gently shook his head. ‘Not that I’m aware of.’

  ‘So?’ Colkett dashed at his brow again. ‘What do you want to keep nagging me for? I’m trying to help you, that’s what, you don’t have to treat me like a criminal. I did see a light, now I think of it. Up in one of those far windows. And it’s no good asking me which one, because you can’t see that in the dark.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘Who else saw it?’

  ‘What do you mean – who else?’

  ‘Who else was in the yard that night – besides you and a couple of vanmen?’

  For a moment he seemed to have struck oil again. Colkett hesitated, eyes frightened. But then he pulled himself round once more and gave a nervous little chuckle.

  ‘You’re trying to catch me out, aren’t you? There wasn’t nobody here but us. Just me and Bill Charlish and his mate – Norkett Transport. You ask them.’

  Gently grunted. They were back on safe ground! But he made a note of the names of the two vanmen.

  Colkett, after rallying his nerves with a second cup of strong tea, returned quickly to his ingratiating manner of earlier. He saw the two policemen to the warehouse door almost as though they were old friends.

  ‘Coo! You certainly know how to put a bloke through it. I wouldn’t want you gents on my barrow.’

  ‘No doubt we’ll see you again,’ Gently told him mildly.

  ‘Any time
,’ Colkett smirked. ‘Any time.’

  Out in the yard again, Gently halted. By the wall of Harrisons were standing two old packing-cases. He walked across to them and hoisted himself up: he found himself staring at the west-wing windows.

  ‘Noticed these before?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Gissing said. ‘They were standing there the morning we found Peachment.’

  From the warehouse door Colkett was watching. But he wasn’t smirking now.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE KIDS WERE clustered round Gently’s car, trying to read the speedo and the rev-counter. There were nine of them, aged around ten or eleven, dressed in the slightly passé clothes of country children.

  Their leader, who might have been twelve, wore a shabby claret windcheater. He stood arguing arrogantly about the speed of the Sceptre – one hundred and twenty at least: hadn’t he read it somewhere?

  When the others caught sight of Gently and Gissing they scattered suddenly towards the sale-ground, but the older boy stood pat, swaggering defiantly, hands in pockets.

  His followers called him.

  ‘Dinno . . . come on!’ Dinno wasn’t going to budge. He dug his hands deeper in his pockets and stared fixedly at Gently as the latter came up.

  ‘Your car, mister?’ he jerked.

  ‘My car,’ Gently agreed.

  ‘Tell us it’ll do a hundred and twenty.’

  ‘It might,’ Gently said. ‘With the wind behind it.’

  ‘There y’are – I told them it would! That’s a good car, that one.’

  ‘I find it satisfactory,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yuh, a Humber. They’re good cars.’

  Feeling authorized now, Dinno swaggered round the Sceptre, his dark eyes appraising its lines and decorations. He was a good-looking youngster with a smooth, sallow face, and short-trimmed hair drab with grease.

  Over by the cattle-pens his mates stood hesitant, alarmed by this bold encounter with policemen. Then they began stealing silently closer, as though feeling the protection of Dinno’s audacity.

  ‘Seen your picture in the papers, mister.’

  Dinno came back to stand stiffly beside Gently.

  ‘You’re one of the big ones from Scotland Yard. You’re going to find out who killed old Peachey.’

  ‘You knew him?’ Gently said.

  ‘Course I knew him! Come past here to school every day. He’d got a hoard of gold in there, mister. That’s why someone done him in.’

  ‘What makes you think he had a hoard of gold?’

  Behind the Sceptre were horrified faces. Dinno was really going too far – swanking like that to a couple of coppers!

  ‘Stands to reason. Everyone knows it. There’s a lot of gold hid in that old house. They wouldn’t just kill old Peachey for nothing. He was a miser, that’s what he was.’

  ‘Did he show you any gold?’

  ‘What, old Peachey?’

  ‘A coin, perhaps?’

  Dinno shook his head. ‘Misers don’t let on they’ve got any money. They just gloat over it when no one’s looking.’

  ‘Anyone here?’

  Gently glanced at the others. They shook their heads and murmured negatively. A thoroughly blank-looking bunch of kids, some with mouths gaping stupidly.

  ‘You want to know who we think done it?’

  Dinno himself dropped his voice now.

  ‘Who?’

  Dinno came closer. ‘Old Cokey,’ he said. ‘You mark my words. He’s a bad ’un.’

  ‘You mean Mr Colkett?’

  Dinno nodded, big-eyed. ‘Always after us lot, he is. A real bad ’un. Mark my words. You’ll find out he’s the one who done it.’

  Gissing cleared his throat. ‘That’s enough, young Rix.’

  ‘It’s true,’ Dinno said. ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘It’s true I’ll be pinching you,’ Gissing said, ‘if I hear you’ve been spreading tales like that. Now run off to school.’

  ‘But it’s true.’

  Gissing took a threatening stride forward.

  ‘Dinno, come on!’ called a pudding-faced boy, and there was a general rush for the safety of the sale-ground.

  Dinno alone departed with dignity. Hands deep in his pockets, he stalked across Frenze Street. Then a distant whistle spoiled the act and sent him sprinting after his henchmen.

  Gently grinned at Gissing. ‘Colkett’s character won’t save him. I gather you know our young friend?’

  ‘Rix,’ Gissing said. ‘His father’s a dustman. We’ve had him on a drunk-and-disorderly.’

  ‘What about Dinno?’

  ‘Caught him scrumping apples. I laid into his backside.’

  ‘Don’t you have a juvenile court at Cross?’

  Gissing looked blank.

  ‘Well . . .’ he said.

  Gently took Gissing to lunch with him. The locals had booked him in at the George, a severally recommended hotel with a back view over the Mere. It was a comfortable, eighteenth-century inn built around a coach-yard paved with cobbles. Its public rooms were oak-panelled and had voluptuous moulded ceilings.

  The food was solid. Gently ordered a roast, and it was served with dumplings in place of Yorkshire-pudding. The fruit salad was off, so he took the apple tart, and was appalled by the helping placed before him.

  Gissing, undismayed, ate firmly and steadily through his choices. A solid man. The George’s menu was doubtless devised for such as he.

  ‘That should keep the damp out a bit!’

  He wiped his mouth carefully when he’d finished. He accepted a Cognac with his coffee, probably under the impression that it was customary with moguls like Gently.

  ‘You know, the more I think about this business . . .’

  They’d carried the coffee into the lounge. A somnolent room, it looked through tall windows down a slope of lawn to the pewter lake. At one end the manager’s wife and a maid were struggling to pin up Christmas hangings, for the rest it was empty: the town clock had boomed three some minutes back.

  ‘Unless it’s the nephew – and that’s a big if—

  ‘You’re beginning to think like friend Dinno?’

  ‘No. Colkett has an alibi – at least, I’m sure – but anybody using that footway at night . . .’

  ‘You mean, they could see into those windows?’

  ‘Well . . . there are no curtains at the back. And anybody curious could get on the packing-cases, and take a look over the wall.’

  Gently clipped a cigar and put a match to it.

  ‘And what do you think they’d have seen?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s that medal . . .’

  ‘He must have held it up for them!’

  ‘Well . . . I don’t know. He could have done that.’

  Gently puffed some big rings. ‘Chummie sees the glint of gold, perhaps knows he has only the old man to deal with. So chummie breaks in, murders the old man, hides the medal in a drawer, calls it a night. Am I making sense?’

  Gissing used his blank look. ‘But if Peachment was beaten up . . . perhaps he’d hidden the medal.’

  ‘Let’s say that happened – Chummie beats up Peachment, who then falls down the stairs and is fatally injured. Chummie rushes out, too scared to make a search – but not too scared to return the hurricane to the kitchen! Also, he pauses to put out the flame, unless somebody refilled the lamp later.’

  Gissing shook his head. ‘Suppose the hurricane wasn’t used . . .’

  ‘Could you beat a man up in pitch darkness?’

  ‘No . . . but some other light . . . say chummie had a torch.’

  ‘What was Peachment doing in the dark in the first place?’

  Gissing kept on shaking his head.

  ‘We’ve got it the wrong way round,’ Gently said. ‘Chummie didn’t break in and attack Peachment. When chummie broke in Peachment was out – that’s why the hurricane was found in the kitchen.’

  Gissing stared a moment. ‘Yes . . . that fits.’

  ‘It makes more sense. C
hummie didn’t plan a murder. He was after the medal, or whatever the attraction was, and slipped in there while Peachment was out. Then Peachment came back and caught him at it . . .’ Gently hesitated, nostrilling cigar-smoke. ‘But what happened then isn’t quite so clear. All those queer bruises . . . how did he get them?’

  ‘Some sort of struggle?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘More as though he’d just stood there, letting someone beat him. So many bruises . . . it must have taken time. And apparently no sign that he grappled with an assailant.’

  Gissing gave a little shudder. ‘A bit spookish, sir.’

  Gently grinned. ‘Poltergeists. They’d be an answer.’

  ‘There was a case—’ Gissing said.

  Gently waved his cigar. ‘Not yet. We’ll come back to poltergeists when we’ve drawn a blank with the chummies. Now what have we got?’ He puffed several times. ‘We’ve a chummie who knows there’s something worth pinching. Either he’s the nephew, or he’s an outsider who spotted that something through a window. He watches the house. On the evening of the 27th he sees Peachment leave the house. Chummie breaks in, presumably knowing about the door having no fastening. He doesn’t search, because you found no sign of it, so he knows where to go for what he’s after. And where he does go is a curious little room which we find empty except for a table and a chair. And yet he doesn’t leave immediately with his loot. There’s time for Peachment to come back and catch him. And he doesn’t push Peachment aside and run for it – he beats Peachment up leisurely, eventually murdering him. Then he goes, we assume with the loot, leaving behind the medal which he apparently didn’t know about.

  ‘Plainly, chummie is someone who knew Peachment, and who had spent some time watching him.’

  ‘Colkett, sir – when you put it like that.’

  Gently nodded among his smoke-wreaths. ‘Colkett is the man who stands out . . . but didn’t you say he had an alibi?’

  ‘Well, sir . . . I . . . I’m certain . . .’

  Gissing stared unhappily at his empty coffee-cup. At times he gave the impression of dodging down inside himself, as though to consult some private notebook.

  ‘What was his alibi?’

  ‘Well . . . pubs mostly. He’s got a couple of rooms over Hallet’s, the greengrocers. He had tea with the Hallets – he meals with them – and went off out at half-past six. He was in the Grapes straight after that, and later on he went to the Marquis. The Marquis is my pub. I saw him there. I can vouch for him myself from about eight-fifteen.’