by Alan Hunter
‘We ought to have had Cullis here today … he’d’ve shown them where the goal was. Alfie wants to have everything laid on for him.’
‘Lord knows how Noel missed that last one.’
‘I reckon Ken is standing in the goal there, laughing at them.’
A particularly glaring miss was acknowledged by a slow hand-clap from one section of the crowd. When the final whistle went there was very little ovation for either side. Immediately the spectators turned and began their shuffle towards the exits, dissatisfied, feeling it might have been much better than it was.
‘Well,’ said one pundit to his mate, ‘at least it was a clean game … they weren’t like that lot we had here last week. I reckon Robson is still feeling the effects of that foul.’
‘Anyway, it got us a goal.’
Gently pushed his way past them grimly, intent now only on getting out. He hadn’t found it. He was going away empty-handed. And he had been so sure, so completely positive …! His whole instinct, buoyed on the pattern of the case, had told him that the trail would end that afternoon at Railway Road.
He felt, as Hansom had phrased it, like a kid who’d got his sums wrong. And it was a bitter pill for Gently to swallow. ‘Yesterday, the thing had begun to move, it was on its way. It had only needed one more stroke … this one, and every nerve in his body had told him that he would find it that afternoon at Railway Road. But he’d been wrong, and he hadn’t found it … the instinct that had carried him through so many cases had failed him.
Despairingly he thrust his way through the tight-packed crowd, looking at no one, caring for no one. He couldn’t quite believe it had happened to him. Always before the luck that smiles on good detectives had smiled on him at the crucial moment … he felt suddenly that he must be getting old and past it. He was falling down on a case.
At the city end of Queen Street was a small, cheap café, nearly on the corner of Prince’s Street. Gently went in, bought himself a cup of tea and some rolls, then sat down with them at a marble-topped table. He’d got to get himself straightened out, to get his thoughts in order. At the moment they were tumbling over each other in a wild commotion, refusing to come together in a coherent picture: while through them all wound the insidious echo – it was there, if you could have found it.
He bit the end off a roll that wasn’t fresh and washed it down with some over-brewed tea. His mind was balking, it wouldn’t settle down. Stupidly he began to fight his way back into the afternoon, beginning with his walk down Queen Street and adding to it, piece by piece, the people who went in front, the people who went behind, the cars that hooted, the programme-sellers using a sand-hopper for a stall. There was the bridge and the bridge-keeper, who wouldn’t have noticed his own brother going by, and the bedlam of the car park with its entrance almost flush opposite the artery of Riverside.
Slowly the picture came into focus, the turnstile, the crowd running loose round the backs, the shove down into the terraces, the music of the loud-speakers. And the game with its end-of-the-season looseness, and the comments of the crowd round about. It came back now, sharp and incisive, even tiny details like the worn paint and patches of rust on the crush-rail. Gently munched on down the roll, the distant look came back into his eye. What had they said about the goalkeeper? Ken was standing in the goal and laughing at them. Well, he looked as though he might have been, up there, watching his team-mates make one glaring miss after another – ‘Lord knows how Noel missed that last one.’ But the championship was virtually settled: it was time to laugh at one’s mistakes. ‘At least it was a clean game … not like the lot last week.’ That was true, there had been very few fouls. ‘I reckon Robson is still feeling the effects of that foul.’ ‘Anyway, it got us a goal.’
Gently paused, the tail-end of the roll halfway between his plate and his mouth. The words echoed back through his mind: Robson … foul … goal. What was it there that struck a chord, that reached out towards some mental pigeon-hole with a faint, but definite persistence? He took a deep breath and put down the end of the roll. ‘Have you got a phone I can use?’ he asked the woman who was serving.
‘You can use the one in the hall,’ she replied, reluctantly.
Gently dialled and waited impatiently. ‘Chief Inspector Gently … Is the super there?’ They put him through to the super’s office, but it was Hansom who answered the phone. Gently said: ‘Look, Hansom, are the reports of those interrogations where you can lay hands on them?’ Hansom snorted down the phone. ‘Haven’t you turned that job in yet …?’ Gently said: ‘This is important. I want you to read me over the first few questions and answers of the report on Leaming.’
There was a long pause while the phone recorded nothing but vague noises and shifts of sound. Then came the sound of Hansom picking up the instrument again. ‘I’ve got the report here,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Just start reading it.’
‘It starts with some junk about football.’
‘That’s what I’m after … don’t miss out a word.’
Hansom read in a sing-song voice: ‘Chief Inspector Gently you’ll be able to tell me who got the City’s first goal yesterday was it Robson. Leaming it was Smethick actually he scored from a free kick after a foul on Jones S. Chief Inspector Gently ah yes in the twenty-second—’
‘Wait!’ interrupted Gently, ‘let’s have that bit again.’
‘What – all of it?’
‘The Leaming bit.’
Hansom repeated: Leaming it was Smethick actually he scored from a free kick after a foul on Jones S.’
‘Ah!’ murmured Gently, ‘Jones S.!’
There came an impatient rustle from the other end. ‘Say!’ bawled Hansom, ‘what the hell is this?’
Gently smiled cherubically. ‘Never mind now … just keep that record where it won’t get lost. Oh, and Hansom—’
‘I’m still connected.’
‘You might get on to the super and warn him that things could get exciting later on.’
‘How do you mean – exciting?’
‘Oh … you know … just exciting.’ Gently pressed the instrument firmly down in its cradle, then lifted it and dialled again. ‘Press office? I want the sports editor … no, I don’t care if he is busy getting out the football – this is the police.’ There was a short, busy pause, then a brisk hand seized the other instrument. ‘Sports editor – who’s that?’
‘Chief Inspector Gently. I want some information about the report printed last week of the match at Railway Road.’
‘Well … what is it?’
‘Your account said that the City’s first goal was scored by Smethick after a foul on Jones S., whereas I understand that the foul was on Robson. Can you corroborate that?’
‘Yes – it was on Robson. Our reporter misread his notes when he was telephoning … we have to work at considerable speed to make the deadline.’
‘That’s all right,’ said Gently genially, ‘there’s no need to apologize. A slip like that won’t worry many people.’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
LEAMING’S CAR STOOD stood in the corner of the timber-yard, a crouched glowing presence in the gathering dusk. One of the sliding doors of the machine shop stood ajar, sufficient to show a gleam of light in the office at the far end, and Gently, who was long-sighted, could make out the dark figure of the manager bent over his desk. Gently was in no hurry. He ambled over to the car and examined the doors, which were locked. Then he quietly raised the bonnet and removed a small item from the engine.
Leaming was so intent on his work that he failed to notice Gently’s approach until warned by the creak of an opening door. But then he spun round and to his feet in one crisp movement. ‘You!’ he exclaimed, his dark eyes sharp and thrusting, ‘what do you want?’
Gently shrugged and closed the glass-panelled door behind him. ‘I’ve been to the football match,’ he said, ‘I thought you might like to hear about it.’ He moved round from the door to Leaming’s desk
and peered disinterestedly at the open ledger. Leaming watched him closely. Gently felt in his pocket and produced two peppermint creams, which he placed on the desk, pushing one towards Leaming with a stubby finger. ‘Have one,’ he said.
Leaming remained tense, watching.
Gently pulled up a little chair and sat down weightily. ‘It wasn’t a very good match. It was a bit end-of-the-season. And the people! I think it must have been near the ground record … forty-two thousand, isn’t it?’ His green eyes rose questioningly.
‘A little more than that.’
‘A little more?’ Gently looked disappointed. ‘I thought you would have been able to give me the exact figure … I know how precise you are about football matters.’
Leaming bit his lip. ‘What does it matter, anyhow?’
‘Oh, it doesn’t, not really … but I thought you would have known.’
‘It’s forty-three thousand one hundred and twenty-one.’
‘Ah!’ Gently beamed at him. ‘I was sure you could tell me. And wasn’t that at the cup-tie with Pompey a couple of seasons ago … when Pompey won two-nought?’
Leaming came a step forward. ‘See here,’ he snapped, ‘I don’t know what you’re after, and I don’t care. But I’ve got work to do … we’ve got the accountants coming on Monday.’
‘And you’ve got the “Straight Grain” books to prepare and make plausible before then … haven’t you?’
Leaming seized the ledger on the desk, jerked it round and shoved it across to Gently. ‘There!’ he jeered. ‘Have a look at it – see what you can find out.’
Gently shook his head. ‘It isn’t my job. We’ll get a fraud man down to go through it.’
‘A fraud man? Who’s charging me with fraud?’
‘Nobody … and as a matter of fact, I don’t think anybody will.’
‘Then what’s this talk of getting a fraud man down?’
Gently continued to shake his head, slowly, woodenly. ‘They’ll want to know all about it in court, you know … the prosecution for the Crown will go into it with great thoroughness.’
There was a dead silence. Leaming stood immobile, his handsome face drained of all colour. Against the unnatural paleness his dark eyes seemed larger, darker, more penetrating than ever. ‘What do you mean by that?’ he asked huskily.
Gently turned away and said, speaking quickly: ‘I’ve got the last piece of evidence I needed against you. There was a mistake in the account of the match which appeared in the Football News last Saturday. The same mistake appears in an answer you gave to one of my questions on Sunday … a record of it is in the files at police headquarters.’
‘You found that out … today?’
‘A short time ago. I overheard a scrap of conversation at the match this afternoon which led me to check with the Press office. I also checked your account in the police files.’
Leaming went back a pace, his hands grasping involuntarily. ‘You’re not lying?’ he demanded suddenly.
‘No, I’m not lying … why should I?’
‘Suppose I said I wasn’t at the match, but I was somewhere else?’
‘No.’ Gently shook his head again. ‘It won’t do. You’d have to prove it … and you can’t prove it.’
‘But you can’t base a murder charge on that alone!’
Gently reached out for his peppermint cream, slow and deliberate. ‘I can show that you had the motive,’ he said. ‘I can show that you could have hidden in the summer-house while Peter and his father were quarrelling. I can show that Fisher was watching what took place. I can show that Fisher blackmailed you first for Susan and then for the money. I can show that Fisher was murdered and he was murdered just when I had got sufficient evidence to make him speak – which you had grounds to suspect. I can show points of similarity between the two murders. I can show that you can prove no alibi at the time of Fisher’s murder. I can show you were seen at the scene of the crime carrying a bag which subsequently became blood-stained and was destroyed here, where it is logical to suppose you would destroy it. I can show that the key which locked the door of Fisher’s flat after the murder was found with it. And finally, I can now show that the alibi you gave for the time of the Huysmann murder was deliberately fabricated and completely false.’
‘It’s not enough – I’ll get a defence to tear it to tatters!’
Gently bit into the peppermint cream. ‘You might have done before today,’ he said smoothly.
‘It can’t make all that difference … I won’t believe it!’
‘It was the one thing necessary.’
Leaming came forward again and leaned on the desk with both hands. ‘Listen, Gently, listen – you can’t go through with this. I’m talking to you now as a man, not as a police officer. All right, I admit it – I killed them both, Huysmann and Fisher, and you’ll say I should be punished for it. But think a minute – there’s a difference! Huysmann died, never knowing what had happened, and so did Fisher, instantaneously. They were both killed in hot blood, Gently. They were killed in the way of life, by their enemy, one man killing another to survive, Huysmann a vicious old man, Fisher a rat who asked for what he got. But you are after something different with me. If you go through with this, I shan’t be killed that way. I’ll be taken in cold blood, taken bound, taken with every man’s hand against me, not a fight, not a chance, just taken and slaughtered in that death-pit of yours. That’s the difference – that’s what it amounts to! And I say to you as a man that you can’t do it. You wouldn’t match a killing of that sort with a killing of my sort, and clear your conscience by calling it justice!’
Gently stirred uneasily in his chair. ‘I didn’t make the laws – you knew the penalty that went with killing.’
‘But it only goes with killing when a man’s convicted – and I’m not convicted, and except for you I never would be!’
‘I’m sorry, Leaming … it doesn’t rest with me.’
‘But it does rest with you – the local police are satisfied to let it go at the inquest verdict. They must know what you know … you work together. And they’re satisfied, so why aren’t you?’
‘They don’t know I’ve broken your alibi yet.’
‘But they know the rest – and they’re doing nothing about it.’
Gently turned away from him, his face looking tired. ‘It’s no good, Leaming … I’ve got to do it. When a man begins to kill it gets easier and easier for him, and it has to be stopped. I’m the person whose duty it is to stop him. And I’ve got to stop you.’
‘Even if you have to deliver me to a state killing party?’
‘I’m a policeman, not a lawgiver.’
‘But you’re a man as well!’
‘Not while I’m a policeman … we’re not permitted to have thoughts like that. The law allows me only one way to stop killing … it’s not my way, but it’s the only way.’
‘Then you’re going through with it?’
‘Yes, I’m going through with it.’
Leaming drew back from the desk, as far as the closed door. ‘Then you leave me no option but to kill you too, Gently,’ he said.
Gently looked up at him with unmoved green eyes. ‘I realized it would come to that, of course … but it won’t be easy for you.’
Leaming felt casually in his pocket and produced a small automatic. ‘It will be as easy as this,’ he said. The colour had come back into his cheeks now and something of the old jauntiness to his manner. ‘I’m sorry it’s come to this, Gently. I didn’t want to do any more killing … whatever you may think about killing getting easier, I assure you it’s something one would rather not do. And I don’t want to kill you, because I admire you. But I have a duty to myself, just as you have a duty to the state.’
Gently said: ‘It won’t help you to kill me. They’ll come straight to you for it.’
Leaming said: ‘But they won’t find anything … and I don’t care what they suspect. I shall tip your body into the incinerator at Hellston Tofts and
the gun after you. It isn’t traceable … I bought it on the black market.’
‘What about the noise of the shot?’
Leaming smiled frostily. ‘Nobody’s going to hear that. I shall shoot you here, in the shop.’
‘But it’s perfectly quiet?’
‘It won’t be when I shoot you. I shall have all the saws running – the people round here are used to hearing that. We sometimes run them after hours for test purposes.’
Gently reached out for the second peppermint cream. ‘When I’m missing they’ll come straight to you,’ he repeated. ‘Hansom knows there’s something vital in that answer of yours in the records. He doesn’t know what it is, but he’ll find out, and the fact that I’m missing will clinch the case for him. Suppose you stop killing and start thinking about your defence?’
Leaming shook his head briefly. ‘I’ll risk that,’ he said, ‘now come along with me while I switch the saws on.’ He made a movement with his gun.
Gently hung on, mechanically chewing at the peppermint cream. If he refused to go, Leaming was faced with the prospect of shooting him where he sat and thus rousing the neighbourhood. But the rousing of the neighbourhood would be ill-appreciated by a dead Gently. He got up and shambled over to the door.
Leaming switched on the lights as they passed them, flooding the huge, wide sheds with fluorescent glare. He kept Gently walking three paces ahead. The first of the saws broke into life with a snatching whirr, quickly rising, becoming a loud, shuddering drone. Leaming said: ‘We must find one with a piece of timber in the feed … if I put that through at the appropriate moment I should be all right.’ Saw by saw they worked round the shop. The still air became virulent with the high, pulsating drone, throbbing and writhing in waves of vicious power, naked and potential. It made Gently feel sick. It was as though a vast, anti-human power were building up, as though it were rising towards a peak at which his organism would disintegrate, would tear apart, smashed into its component atoms. Leaming set off some band-saws. Their whining shriek imposed itself on the roar of the circulars like a theme of madness twisting through chaos, a sharp, demonic ecstasy of destruction. ‘How’s that?’ bawled Leaming. ‘Do you think they’ll hear a shot through this lot?’ Gently said nothing, would not look back at him.
