by Alan Hunter
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 pa
y 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.
CHAPTER TWELVE
IT 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?’
‘Well . . .’ Gissing took refuge in blankness.
‘Perhaps he hadn’t made his mind up, sir,’ Scoles suggested. ‘He was just raising the cash, ready for a flit. Then maybe he realized we’d hear about the coin, so he decided to keep moving.’
‘He could realize that without going to Norchester.’
‘I don’t know, sir. He isn’t very bright.’
‘Then how did he come to realize it at all?’
Scoles coloured and shut up.
The point was that none of this was fitting Colkett! Gently stared from one to another of the little group. They were seeing it too simply, too narrowly, determined to abide by the main fact . . .
‘Look – let’s face up to what we’re implying! We’re saying that Colkett is a sadist and a killer – that he carried a cosh, and that when old Peachment caught him he beat Peachment up before he killed him. And all we know to date about Colkett is that he’s a rogue with no record of violence – and a local fellow. Not a man, you’d think, who’d run off to hide in London. But that’s what we’re saying, and what we’ll have to make good to the Director of Public Prosecutions.’
Gissing shifted uneasily. ‘But that’s how it is.’
‘You’re happy to go along with that?’
‘Now we’ve found the cosh—’
‘You haven’t tied it to him. He may have picked it up when they found the body.’
Gissing shook his head, looking round at the others. They were staring silently, indignant almost.
‘I don’t know . . . yes, we’ll go along with it. I reckon we’ve got our case now . . .’
Gently shrugged. At least, he’d tried! And all that really mattered was catching Colkett . . . He gave them an account of his visit to Norchester, and the details of the truck-driver he’d got at the Wagon Wheel. Gissing seemed cheered.
‘I’ll get on to Norchester . . . perhaps they can trace him right away. Do you reckon chummie made it to London?’
Gently shrugged again, meaning nothing.
It was the next morning when Norchester CID interviewed a blond truck-driver named Frederick Hall, who had picked up a passenger at the Wagon Wheel on the afternoon of the big snow-up. The description of the passenger fitted Colkett. He’d asked Hall if he were going towards London. Hall told him he was turning off at Beeston Corner, and the man replied that it would do. Hall had set out at half-past four, and reached Beeston Corner about five-fifteen. It was snowing heavily, and Hall offered to take the man on with him to his destination at Elmham Market. The man, however, refused, saying he wanted to be getting on, and the last Hall saw of him was walking down the road in the London direction.
Gissing showed the message to Gently.
‘Not much doubt now where he was heading.’
But a good deal of doubt about whether he’d got there, at such a time, on such a night.
‘Let’s look at a map.’
Gissing produced a one-inch ordnance map from his desk. Beeston Corner was only a mile up the A.140 from Broome.
‘It would do – that’s what he said.’
‘Well . . . it was getting him on towards London.’
Gently tapped the map. ‘At Beeston Corner he was exactly two miles from home! If he were heading there, it would do – but scarcely if he were heading for London. In that case he’d have hung on at the road-house, looking for transport going straight through.’
‘You mean . . . he came this way?’ Gissing stared.
‘Isn’t that what the message is saying? Hall ‘‘last saw him walking down the road’’. You can bet he wasn’t walking to London.
’
‘But he didn’t turn up here!’
‘Do we know that?’
‘We—’ Gissing broke off, his look woeful.
‘All we know is he didn’t come home – or if he did, he spotted your watchdog.’
‘But then, where would he have gone?’
‘One place we know of.’
Gissing started. ‘Not the warehouse!’
‘Why not? He had the key, and he needed to get a night’s shelter somewhere.’
Gissing got up agitatedly from his chair and went to stare out of the window. He didn’t want to believe that! It was upsetting all his preconceptions. If Colkett had come lamb-like home it was giving a knock to the image of guilt: Gissing wanted Colkett skulking about the London back-streets – where, in fact, the Metropolitan Police were now watching for him.
‘Did you notice any traces at the warehouse yesterday?’
‘No.’
‘Wait a moment! Give it some thought.’
Gissing came back unhappily from the window and sat down lumpishly in his chair.
‘I wasn’t noticing—’
‘Think – when you got there. Did you see any tracks leading from the warehouse?’
Gissing miserably tried to get a picture in focus, but had to end up shaking his head.
‘I don’t know . . . I was tired. Perhaps one of the others can remember. You see, I was only thinking . . . I believe there was snow drifted against the door.’
‘Let’s go inside.’
Gissing frowned, tried.
‘Was the door of the office open or closed?’
‘Closed . . . locked.’
‘When you unlocked the door, did the office seem warmer than the warehouse outside?’
But he didn’t know, couldn’t be sure. Gissing had gone there for one purpose only. Flogging his tired body, he’d achieved that purpose; the rest was just a great blankness.
‘But if he came back . . . where is he now?’
The sixty-four-dollar question! He might even have resumed his broken journey, and be now indeed roaming London. Yet . . . Colkett?
‘I think he’s here. Probably hiding with some acquaintance.’
