by Alan Hunter
‘Can you spare half a dozen uniform men?’ he asked.
‘What to do?’ Setters countered.
‘To sit in here,’ Gently said.
Setters shrugged. ‘Window-dressing?’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Window-dressing.’
‘Huh,’ Setters said. ‘Well, I’ll rustle you some up,’
The six men were found, instructed, and arranged in a semicircle in front of the desk. In the middle of the semicircle was placed a chair. On the desk was placed the flick-knife. Gently took the chair behind the desk. Setters sat to his right. Bixley was brought in, told to sit. The policemen drew their chairs up round him.
‘So,’ Gently said to him, ‘you’re back here again, Bixley.’
Bixley’s mouth was tight, his cheeks flushed, his eyes frightened and unsteady. He threw a look at the policemen. They were all staring at him. He edged his chair towards the desk, saw the knife, went still.
Gently hit the desk hard.
Bixley jumped clear of the chair.
‘You’re nervous, Bixley,’ Gently said. ‘You’ve been eighteen hours without a smoke.’
Bixley shrank back on the chair. ‘You can’t do this, screw,’ he croaked. ‘I been charged, you can’t touch me. It’s the bleeding law, that is.’
‘I didn’t think the law mattered so much to you,’ Gently said.
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘You can’t do it. None of you can’t lay a finger on me.’
‘Are you scared of something?’ Gently asked.
‘No,’ Bixley said. ‘I ain’t scared.’
‘You look scared,’ Gently said.
‘I ain’t scared. Not of bleeding coppers.’
‘I could understand it,’ Gently said. ‘There’s a copper lying in the hospital. There’s a girl lying there too. And there’s one of your mates in the mortuary.’
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘You don’t scare me, screw.’
‘You don’t scare easily,’ Gently said. ‘I’d be scared if I were you.’
Bixley swallowed, touched the black bruise on the right side of his throat. Somebody behind him moved their chair. Bixley swung round, cringing. He met the hard stare of policemen.
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘You’re scared, Bixley.’
‘You can’t do it!’ Bixley screamed. ‘I want my rights. I want a lawyer!’
‘Calm yourself,’ Gently said.
‘I been charged. I want a lawyer!’
‘You haven’t been charged,’ Gently said. ‘Not with murder. Not yet.’
‘I ain’t done no murder!’ Bixley screamed. ‘I ain’t, you bleeding know I ain’t.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ Gently said. ‘We’ll see about a lot of things, won’t we, Bixley?’
‘You daren’t touch me!’ Bixley sobbed. ‘You daren’t do it. You bloody daren’t.’
Setters turned his head over his shoulder and spat on the floor. ‘Are you listening to me?’ Gently asked.
‘I never done it!’ Bixley sobbed.
‘Listen carefully,’ Gently said. ‘You’re going to tell me all about that jazz session. And you’re going to tell me the truth, because I’ll know when you’re lying, Bixley. And if you tell any more lies, fifty lawyers won’t help you. So get it stuck in your head. Only the truth is any good.’
‘I ain’t done nothing,’ Bixley sobbed. ‘I ain’t done nothing at all.’
‘Sit up straight,’ Gently said.
‘I ain’t, I ain’t,’ Bixley sobbed.
‘Now, the truth,’ Gently said.
‘I ain’t never killed nobody.’
‘You’ll have to prove it,’ Gently said. ‘Sit up straight and tell the truth.’
Bixley snivelled, propped himself up, began to stammer out his account. It didn’t differ from earlier versions, he even left out the chocolates. Gently picked up the flick-knife, began stabbing at the paper with it. He let Bixley stumble on unquestioned till he’d faltered to a stop. Then he slammed the knife on the desk.
‘Just run through it again,’ he said.
Bixley gaped, didn’t seem to hear him.
‘Come on, come on,’ Gently said.
‘But I now told you—’ Bixley began.
‘Now tell me again,’ Gently said.
One of the policemen shifted his feet. Bixley gulped, began to talk.
‘That,’ Gently said, ‘didn’t sound right either.’
‘But it’s the bleeding truth!’ Bixley croaked. ‘It is, I tell you.’
‘You’ve left some things out.’
‘No, I ain’t!’ Bixley said.
‘Things,’ Gently said, ‘like how the counter-assistant told you who’d taken your box of chocolates.’
‘It was Leach who told me!’ Bixley screamed.
‘My mistake,’ Gently said. ‘Now we’ll run through it again, putting that bit in.’
They went through it again, putting that bit in. Bixley’s lips were very dry, he slurred and tripped over his words. Setters was hammering a tattoo on the desk with his fingers. Bixley didn’t like the sound. He didn’t like Setters’ eyes.
‘So you knew,’ Gently said, ‘who’d gone off with your chocolates?’
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘Yuh, yuh, I knew.’
‘Yet you didn’t go after him. You left a quarter of an hour later.’
‘I thought I’d see him,’ Bixley said. ‘Yuh, I thought I’d see him around.’
‘You thought you’d leave it like that – after just having paid forty quid for the chocolates?’
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘Like that’s what I did.’
‘Though you knew he was going to shop you – that he was only waiting for the chance?’
‘I didn’t know nothing about that!’ Bixley shouted. ‘It’s bleeding lies, all that is.’
‘We’ve been talking to Betty Turner, Bixley.’
‘I don’t care. She’s a bleeding liar.’
‘Hallman too.’
‘The bloody rat.’
‘And there’s a lot of others who knew about Lister.’
Bixley strained forward in the chair.
‘All bloody right,’ he croaked. ‘All right. So Lister was going to put the squeal on me. Like I say, all bloody right!’
‘And you didn’t try to stop him,’ Gently said.
‘No, I didn’t try to stop him!’
‘You just let him go off with the box of reefers.’
‘Yuh, yuh, I just let him go.’
‘And Leach was lying if he said you telephoned.’
‘I never telephoned!’ Bixley screamed.
‘Not to Tony’s place?’ Gently asked.
‘I bleeding didn’t. I bleeding didn’t!’
‘So there wouldn’t be a record of such a call?’
Bixley gabbled out swear words.
‘Deeming wants you hung,’ Gently said. ‘You know where you stand with Deeming, don’t you?’
Bixley folded, began howling, stuck his palms in his eyes. He rocked his shoulders from side to side, gasping out paroxysms like a kid.
‘It ain’t true!’ he kept howling. ‘It ain’t true, you bloody swines!’
‘It’s true,’ Gently said. ‘You’d better take a look at where you stand, Bixley. We haven’t got a thing on Deeming. We’ve got everything on you. You’re scum. You’re murderous scum. We’d sooner hang you than hang him. And you’ll hang, Bixley, make no doubt of it, unless you can squirm out of it by ratting. So you’d better rat. It’s your only chance. And you’d better pray that we believe you.’
‘You’re bloody lying!’ Bixley howled. ‘It ain’t true, you dirty swine.’
‘You’ll hang,’ Gently said. ‘You’ve had your last chance, Bixley.’
He went on howling and screaming. Setters got up and walked about. The uniform men in their semicircle stared about them, looked uncomfortable. Only Gently never moved. He was leaning on his elbows on the desk. He watched the crumpled, hysterical, gang-boy with eyes completely empty of
expression. His stillness was terrible. It was that which made Setters walk about.
Bixley half straightened, his eyes streaming. He clutched at the desk, held on to it. He crouched, his chin between his hands, his mouth open, gasping sobs.
‘I didn’t!’ he sobbed, ‘I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t.’
‘Deeming did,’ Gently said. ‘You phoned him. He did it.’
‘Nobody did it,’ Bixley sobbed. ‘It was an accident, nobody did it.’
‘Deeming did it,’ Gently said. ‘At your suggestion. You’re in it with him.’
‘No!’ Bixley cried. ‘I never suggested it. I didn’t!’
‘What did you suggest?’ Gently asked.
‘Not doing that,’ Bixley sobbed.
‘What else could you suggest?’ Gently asked. ‘Nothing else would have stopped Lister.’
‘I didn’t, I tell you,’ Bixley sobbed. ‘I never suggested anything at all.’
‘What did you think Deeming would do?’
‘I didn’t think!’ Bixley wailed.
‘You must have thought,’ Gently said.
Bixley went on howling.
The door was tapped. Setters strode over to it. The desk-sergeant stood there. He held a message slip in his hand, looked dubiously towards Gently.
‘What is it?’ Gently asked.
‘It’s a message from Brewer, sir,’ the sergeant said. ‘The bloke they were tailing has given them the slip. Brewer said to let you know directly.’
Gently sat silent for a moment, then he rose and took the slip. It was brief. Deeming had got clear in the café, he’d gone into the toilet and hadn’t come out. After five minutes Brewer had gone after him and had found only an open toilet window. The window gave on a yard from which was access to Eastgate Street. Brewer had followed, found Deeming’s motorcycle gone.
‘Where are Brewer and Shepherd now?’
‘Trying to pick up some trace of him, sir.’
‘Tell them to come in, we need a car with R.T. And warn the patrols. They’re to arrest Deeming on sight.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sergeant turned on his heel and went out. Gently pushed through the semicircle to Bixley, grabbed his collar and jerked him upright.
‘You heard that, Bixley?’ he said. ‘Deeming’s shaken off his tail. He’s after Elton, Bixley – and Elton’s your witness now.’
‘I don’t know nothing—!’ Bixley squealed. The squeal was cut off by a violent shake.
‘Listen!’ Gently thundered at him. ‘If Elton dies, you die. He’s the only person who can save you. He can testify who killed Lister. And Deeming’s after him, Bixley, Deeming wants you to hang. He’s going to stop Elton talking the way he stopped Lister talking. Or is it that Elton’s dead already?’
‘He’s alive!’ Bixley screamed.
‘Then where is he?’ Gently roared. ‘Where have you hidden him, Bixley?’
Bixley gurgled. Gently shook him and went on shaking him. Bixley let his muscles go limp and his head rolled about.
‘Shuck’s Graves!’ he gasped at last. ‘That’s where, Shuck’s Graves—!’
‘Where?’ Gently bawled in his ear.
‘Shuck’s Graves … Shuck’s Graves!’
Gently dropped him, turned to Setters.
‘Do you know where that is?’ he asked him.
‘Yeah,’ Setters said, ‘I know it. It’s the place where Dicky took you on his bike.’
Gently stared. ‘I’m a fool,’ he said. ‘Lock this one up, and let’s get out there.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BREWER DROVE. HE was a good driver, as Setters had said of him. He drove a safe nine on the Norwich road, had a steady touch, wasn’t showy. When they turned off left into the side road he kept nibbling sixes in short stabs. He angled corners like a racing driver, straight in, straight out.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he’d said to Gently, who’d taken the seat beside him.
Gently had shrugged. ‘You couldn’t help it. And you didn’t waste any time.’
Then, on purpose, he’d asked Brewer to drive, and Brewer was driving like a rally-winner. Shepherd was sitting intently behind them, Setters grimly in the other corner.
They came to the farm and its bumpy yard. Gently touched Brewer’s arm. He slowed to a walking pace beside a run where a girl in breeches was cleaning a henhouse. Gently wound down his window.
‘Has a motorcyclist passed this way, Miss?’ he called.
She nodded, staring, scraper in hand. ‘About ten minutes ago,’ she called back.
‘Thank you, miss.’
They bumbled away, struck the lane into the brecks. Over the dark swells, very far off, Gently caught sight of the two fir trees. All of them were eyeing the crests of those swells for a glimpse of a moving black speck. The light was silvery, flattening detail, dulling the contrast of the distance.
‘You know this track?’ Gently asked Brewer.
‘Yes, sir, pretty well,’ Brewer replied.
‘Have you driven it to the main road at Five Mile Drove?’
‘Yes, sir, a couple of times,’ Brewer said.
Gently flicked the R.T. switch.
‘X2 calling control,’ he said. ‘I want a car to intercept on the heath road running from Five Mile Drove to Shuck’s Graves. Hold it a moment,’ He returned to Brewer. ‘Is there any other track to the Graves?’ he asked.
‘There’s one from the north,’ Brewer said. ‘Comes in from Mundham and that way.’
‘Could he use it?’
Brewer drove a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t get through. There’s a mere out that way that floods in wet summers. We’ve had double the average. He couldn’t get through.’
‘Calling control,’ Gently said. ‘Put another car in Five Mile Drove. And cover Breck Farm Turn on the Norwich Road in case our man doubles back past us.’
‘Received and understood,’ control said. ‘Willco. Out.’
The two fir trees got larger. There was no sign of Deeming. Brewer hesitated once or twice where the track became uncertain. Sometimes it ran over a gravelly plateau from which departed several apparent alternatives, at other places heath grew over it, scars of pebbles offered themselves. Deeming had known the track better than did Brewer. He’d never hesitated once.
‘We shan’t be in time,’ Setters bit out, goaded at last into breaking his silence. ‘It won’t take Deeming ten minutes. Elton’s a kid, a lightweight.’
‘Don’t shoot the pianist,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ Setters said. ‘Yeah, I know.’
He was holding the back of Gently’s seat, trying to will the Wolseley to go faster.
They came at last to the top of the ridge where they could see the depression and the two hummocks. It looked deserted at first glance, and was quickly hidden as they ducked off the ridge. Then it came into sight again as the track approached the first hummock. There it was spread out in front of them, still, apparently, deserted.
‘Where’s the entrance?’ Gently asked.
‘Over in that far hillocky bit,’ Setters said. ‘It’s been shut up since before the war. Since the archaeologists dug it.’
‘Could anyone live in a place like that?’
‘We’ll soon see,’ Setters snapped. ‘For Chrissake, man,’ he said to Brewer, ‘keep driving – keep driving!’
Brewer turned off the track and bucked crazily towards the hummock. The surface of the depression was ribbed with gullies that sent the Wolseley pitching and porpoising. They’d covered a hundred yards of this and had another hundred to go when a couple of figures broke out of the hummock, seemed to rise out of the ground. One was Elton. He’d got blood on his head. The other was Deeming. He carried a spanner. Elton was screaming, running blindly, he didn’t see the approaching Wolseley.
‘Step on it, step on it!’ Setters shrieked, standing up in the plunging car.
But Deeming had seen them, he’d dropped the spanner, was racing back towards the hummock.
Elton saw them too, now, and seemed to be caught in two minds. He paused, wavered, began running towards the hummock with the fir trees.
‘Go after Elton!’ Gently shouted.
Brewer hung on the wheel, threw the Wolseley round. As he straightened it there came a roar from behind them and Deeming reappeared in the saddle of his motorcycle. Rising up on his rests, he floated past them over the broken ground, his machine bounding and jarring under him, himself steady, his knees springing. Elton heard him coming, turned, stood holding his hand out and screaming. Deeming went straight at him. Elton faltered sideways, was hit, went down.
He got up, ran a few paces, screaming piercingly all the while. He was holding his arm where he’d been hit. Deeming had turned and was going after him again.
‘This way!’ Gently roared. ‘Make for us, Elton, make for the car!’
But Elton was confused, he was running chicken-like, this way and that.
Brewer stabbed down the accelerator in a violent attempt to intercept Deeming. The Wolseley rose up like a tank, crashed hard on its axles, bounded forward. Deeming avoided it easily. He rode at Elton standing high. Elton threw out his hands, dodged feebly, was hit on the shoulder, spun several yards.
Once more he got up, his face disfigured with pain and terror. Now it seemed he couldn’t move, he stood swaying, wailing, crying. Deeming turned on him again.
‘Stop the car!’ Gently bawled.
But Setters was out before it stopped, went haring across to the paralysed Elton. He caught him up by the waist, snatched him aside from the oncoming bike. Brewer sent the Wolseley at Deeming. Deeming swerved, bore away. Setters dragged Elton towards the car, Shepherd jumped out, they lugged him in.
‘He’s going to kill me!’ Elton was screaming. ‘He’s going to kill me, going to kill me!’
‘He’ll do some killing!’ Setters panted. ‘We’ll string him up to that bloody fir tree.’
Deeming came round in a long curve, eased to a stop about thirty yards from the Wolseley. Gently opened his door, slid out. He began to walk towards Deeming.
‘That’s far enough, screw,’ Deeming said when Gently was halfway towards him. He gave his throttle a touch, showed his teeth in a grin.
