by Alan Hunter
Gently nodded.
‘Take another instance,’ Deeming said. ‘You’re coming through a big belt of mountains. All day you’ve had these peaks around you, you’re getting dragged by so many peaks. Then you come over a pass and see a great plain beneath you, and the peaks are standing over the plain, and the plain is wide under the peaks. And that hits you, the plain and the peaks, coming together like that, though you’re dragged with the peaks and the plain is just nothing. But where they meet like that it pulls you up and sends you. You get the on-off-on like I’ve just been giving you.’
Gently nodded.
‘Take the instance right here,’ Deeming said. ‘Go and dig one of these neighbourhoods with all its contemporary style action. It’s nowhere, man. It’s a drag. Like you’d throw stones at the windows. Then dig it here, where it joins the old town, and you get the on-off-on again. Like it’s the same with the old town where it doesn’t meet the new.’
‘Is that the reason,’ Gently asked, ‘why you’re living just here?’
‘Too right it is,’ Deeming said. ‘I picked this spot out of a million. Like it doesn’t come older than this anywhere in Europe. The Abos were mining flints here, this was big Abo country. Then the Romans, then the kings, then the Danes and that jazz. And Tom Paine, you dig him? Like I wanted to see his country. Like the States would have been South Canada if it hadn’t been for Tom Paine. And right here, man, you’ve got the collision, where that wire fence runs. And that’s the jazz I’m trying to sound: that the real is timeless, and it’s at the borders. Like you want to keep touching you have to live along the borders.’
He smiled at Gently, lifted a finger.
‘Listen to this,’ he said.
The Grieg had swirled into a crescendo, was fading a moment into soft strings. Then a single flute sounded, filling in a trill like cascaded water, spreading out and losing itself in the heavy rocks of the cellos. Some bars later the piano caught it and made it a crashing torrent, then it lost itself in a thousand echoes of its brief, perfect poignancy.
‘Like that,’ Deeming said, ‘that was Grieg touching the real. You wanted it back, but he wouldn’t give it to you. He kept it timeless, along the borders.’
‘And Lister,’ said Gently, ‘was along the borders when he rode over the verge?’
‘Crazy,’ said Deeming. ‘You’re getting it, man. Like I didn’t think I could put it over.’
Gently put down his glass, watched it, let the Grieg clamour its finale. The gear clicked, raised the pick-up, dropped it on its stud and killed the motor.
‘And Betty Turner,’ he said. ‘Lister would ignore her, of course.’
‘He’d forget her,’ Deeming said. ‘He wouldn’t remember she was with him.’
‘Too bad,’ Gently said.
‘Sure, too bad,’ said Deeming. ‘But that’s the way of it, screw. You’re kidding yourself if you think it wasn’t.’
‘I don’t think I’m kidded,’ Gently said.
‘A square self-kidded,’ said Deeming. ‘Man, we’ll put this bottle out of its misery, then I’ll make with something really cool.’
‘Not for me,’ Gently said.
‘Come off it, screw,’ said Deeming, grinning.
CHAPTER FIVE
Setters was back at the hotel at breakfast-time carrying a worn, empty-gutted briefcase, and he was shown into the dining-room where Gently was still eating breakfast.
‘We traced the serviette,’ he said, unbuckling the briefcase on his knee. ‘I had Ralphs type his report so you could have it first thing. He ran the serviette down in the Kummin Kafe, in the neighbourhood centre in Dane’s Green. That’s half a mile from Ford Road but only a step from Spalding and Skinner’s. The Turner girl worked there. We think he met her in the Kummin Kafe.’
Gently grunted, not overpleased to be disturbed so early. But Setters was ferreting in the briefcase and eventually handed across the report.
‘The man at the cafe, name of Greenstone, remembered Lister from the published photograph. Said he was regular there at the tea-break and used to meet a girl there.’
‘Did he remember the girl?’ Gently asked.
‘Not to be positive,’ Setters said. ‘They get a lot of them in there from the offices, there’s more girls than men work there. But Ralphs got some other stuff from him, as you’ll see in the report. It looks as though the sticks were passed to the girl and then she passed them on to Lister.’
Gently hung the sheet over his teapot, went on lading some toast with marmalade. He hadn’t slept any too well, he’d caught a headache from Deeming’s Sauternes. Then, arriving downstairs, he’d seen with surprise that his interview with Deeming had ‘made’ a morning paper. More, it was Deeming himself who had reported it and whose name was given in the byline.
SUPT. GENTLY’S NIGHT OUT WITH THE JEEBIES
For a little review contributor, Deeming had a nice journalistic touch. The story that followed was slightly mocking, showed Gently as a bumbling father-figure: not explicitly, of course, but by a number of subtle, overt touches. The piece had also been made a vehicle to give some of Deeming’s ideas an airing. He must have wasted no time on the effort, but gone at his typewriter the moment Gently left.
‘I saw the write-up,’ Setters said, his glance moving to Gently’s paper. ‘I should have warned you about Dicky Deeming; he’s never slow to place a story.’
‘I’m used to it,’ Gently grunted.
‘But I should have warned you,’ Setters said. ‘The way he writes it he was stringing you along, he asked you up to clinch his story.’
‘What else did Ralphs get?’ Gently asked.
‘That was most of it,’ Setters said. ‘The rest is down there in the report. I’d say that the girl didn’t want to pass the sticks.’
Gently ate and read. The report was lengthy and detailed. Ralphs had started near the Ford Road site and worked conscientiously back into the town. He came to the Kummin Kafe, where the serviette was matched: there’d been a container of them on the counter near a plastic sandwich-case. Ralphs had seen Greenstone in a private room, had got an account from him of the Tuesday tea-break. As usual, Greenstone had been rushed off his feet, so he hadn’t had much leisure to observe specific goings-on. Yes, there were some girls from Spalding and Skinner’s, and also from a dozen other offices; some fellows, too, clerks and assistants, he didn’t particularly remember whom. He remembered Lister, however, because he came in regularly, and then his picture had been in the paper when ‘all this was going on’. Lister had been wearing overalls with a jacket thrown over them, he’d gone straight to a corner table where a girl was sitting with a fellow. The fellow had also been wearing overalls. Greenstone thought he’d left when Lister arrived. Lister remained some minutes talking to the girl, and Greenstone’s impression was that there was some sort of an argument. Anyway, Lister took something from a tub-bag which was stood on the table, and the girl said: ‘No Johnny, they’re mine,’ or something similar. Later Lister had bought a cup of tea and had taken a serviette from the container, and that was all Greenstone had noticed. He didn’t see if they left together. Ralphs had shown him a photograph of Elton and asked him if that was the other fellow. Greenstone wasn’t certain, nor could he identify a photograph of Betty Turner. Why was he certain it was the Tuesday? There was a delivery from Mowbray’s, the pie people. Greenstone had been putting pies in the case when Lister bought his tea and took the serviette.
Gently checked through it twice before handing it back to Setters.
‘You think it was Elton?’ Setters asked. ‘Would he be the one who passed her the reefers?’
Gently shrugged. ‘She seemed only just to have got them,’ he said. ‘A pity Greenstone can’t remember what went on between her and the other fellow.’
‘If it was Elton,’ Setters said, ‘it helps the way I’ve been seeing it. The sticks may or may not come into it, but that meeting and argument are significant. Let’s say that Elton went to meet her there, t
hat he knows she’s cooling off from Lister. He tries to talk her round to ditching Lister and maybe into going with him, Elton, to the jazz session. But Betty won’t have it, she’s still sticking to Lister, then Lister arrives and Elton goes off in a paddy. Lister doesn’t like it either, he has an argument about it with Betty, and in the end he grabs her sticks — maybe because she should have had some for him. That way we’ve got some background to what happened outside the milk bar in Castlebridge. Elton is bitter, he tries to quarrel with Lister, and later he rides him off the road.’
‘It hangs together,’ Gently admitted. ‘But it might have been two other people in the cafe.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Setters said. ‘It fits together too neatly. We wanted a bit more to build on than just that incident outside the milk bar, and this gives it to us. We’ll get the truth of it when the girl can talk again.’
‘If she’ll talk about it,’ Gently said. ‘She sounded as though she wanted to protect Elton.’
‘She’ll see it differently,’ Setters said, ‘when I can show her the case against Elton.’
Gently poured a last cup, began to stoke his pipe.
‘Any news about Elton come in?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Setters said, frowning. ‘It’s beginning to bother me, that is. He’s been adrift for nearly a week now, and it’s not as though he was a professional. I rang London like you told me and had another talk with them this morning. They’ve had a check-up in Bethnal, but Elton’s not been seen there. A kid on the run with no money, I don’t like that one little bit.’
‘Meaning,’ Gently said.
‘Well…’ Setters opened his hands. ‘You get hunches that don’t add up. I keep starting to think that Elton’s dead.’
‘Mmn.’ Gently lit the pipe. He broke the match into a tray.
It doesn’t add up,’ Setters repeated. ‘But I can’t get the idea out of my head. If I’m right, then it’s suicide, and that could hardly go undiscovered. I don’t know, I’m a pushover for hunches. But I wish we could find that kid.’
‘You’ve checked on his pals?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes,’ Setters said. ‘We’ve checked twice over. Latchford’s a small place, it’s isolated. I’ll swear on oath that he’s not in Latchford.’
‘How about outside it?’ Gently asked.
‘Take a look at the map,’ Setters said. ‘It’s open country for ten miles round, except the Chase, which the rangers watch. The rest we’ve tackled, every cottage and farmyard — and there’s precious few of either. No, he’s out of the Latchford area. Unless he’s pushing up daisies somewhere.’
‘He’ll turn up,’ Gently said. He pushed back his chair, rose, and stretched. ‘I think I’ll talk to that milk bar,’ he said. ‘What was the name and address again?’
‘The Ten Spot Milk Bar,’ Setters said. ‘In Prince’s Road. Not far from the station.’
‘In the meantime,’ Gently said, ‘we might take a search warrant to Elton’s house. His sister has probably cleaned up the traces, but we can look. There’ll be no harm in that.’
He drove out of the Sun yard, where the stagecoaches had wheeled in, across the bridge over the River Latch and past a dull straggle of flint-built dwellings. A fingerpost pointed to Castlebridge, twenty-four miles, then he was out on the wide brecks with a reef of the Chase spreading in from the right.
It was a heavy October day, the sun hazy in a white sky. He swept by still-leaved, wiry birches, and later past coppery oaks and yellow horse-chestnuts. At Oldmarket, thirteen miles from Latchford, a string of race-horses trotted on the heath. Their coats looked liquid in the soft-filtered sun and two of their riders were wearing pink and blue shirts. Through the town the grandstands appeared on the right, heavy-shadowed, lonely, far-distant from the road. A few miles further on lay a military aerodrome with planes standing shaggy in dew-drenched covers.
Castlebridge was coming to life as he drove through the out-streets. Vans were busy, there were reckless droves of starved undergraduates on bicycles. Buses, filled with gown workers, were sedately threading their way to the centre, and people were hurrying along the street which led from the station. Gently swung into Prince’s Road, drove slowly down it. It was a wide road lined with a mixture of residential and commercial properties. He noticed a Victorian Gothic church, a red-brick Veterinary Institute, a garage and a tyre-store interspersed among rooming houses and small hotels. The Ten Spot Milk Bar was nearer the town end of the road. It lay between a surplus store on one side and a furniture store on the other. Across the road from it was a free car park which stretched over to a street on the far side. Gently drove into it and parked, got out, crossed the street.
He paused to take in the front of the milk bar, which was only then opening. It ranged the width of two shop-fronts and consisted of down-to-the-pavement windows. The windows were framed with thin fluted pillars that spread into arches at the top and the glass was misted inside so that the lights behind it shone through blurredly. Over the windows was a neon name-sign and a large painted ten of spades card. In the windows hung plastic menu-holders and neon signs reading ‘snacks’, ‘lunches’. There was also a large poster advertising a ‘Weekly Jazz Stampede’, given alternately by the Castle Cats and the Academic City Stompers.
He went in.
Behind the windows was the usual plastic- and-chromium bar, high stools, range of counters, section of tables for served meals. A pale blonde woman in a pink overall-coat was wiping the bar with a dishcloth. A coffee machine was steaming near her and charging the air with warm coffee smell.
‘Yays?’ she said to Gently.
‘Is the boss in?’ Gently asked.
‘Are you a traveller?’ said the pale blonde.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Gently said.
The pale blonde looked him over, didn’t seem to like him much. She flicked the dishcloth over the chrome, dropped it in a bowl under the counter.
‘Down there,’ she said. ‘Mr Leach is in the cellar.’
‘Thank you,’ Gently said.
The pale blonde made no comment.
What she had indicated was a gloomy stair-entrance under a small mezzanine floor at the end of the bar: from which, however, carpeted steps descended, and over which was an illuminated arrow. Gently went down the steps. They turned left at a half-landing. They gave into a long, windowless room lit at present by a single bulb at the other end. Along the walls some chairs were stacked and in a corner a few tables. The floor at the sides and back was carpeted but was polished wood in the centre and at the lit end. There, under the bulb, stood an orchestra dais, painted black with silver trimmings. A man was sitting on the orchestra dais. He had some boxes of chocolates on the rostrum beside him. One of the boxes was open and had apparently been spilt: the man was dusting the spilt chocolates and carefully replacing them. He heard Gently and came to his feet.
‘You,’ he said. ‘What do you want down here?’
‘Are you Mr Leach?’ Gently asked.
‘Yeah,’ the man said, ‘Joe Leach. So what?’
‘I want to talk to you,’ Gently said. ‘About last Tuesday evening.’
The man stood scowling at him, one of the chocolates in his hand. He was around fifty, about five-eight, stockily built with powerful shoulders. He had a round head and a short neck and the thickened nose of an ex-boxer. His mouth was small but thick-lipped. His eyes were muddy-coloured and squinting. He wore a long jacket in silver grey with silver streaks woven into it, a cream shirt with embossed stars and a pale blue bow-tie. His trousers were pale blue to match the tie. His shoes were white-and-tan and had pointed toes.
‘What are you?’ he said. ‘Another screw, are you?’
Gently mentioned his credentials.
‘Yeah,’ said Leach. ‘I thought you was one. Funny that, how you can tell a screw.’ He put the chocolate back in the box, nudging it along into place. He picked up another one and examined it. ‘So what are you after now?’ he said.
&nb
sp; ‘I told you,’ Gently said. ‘I want to talk about Tuesday evening.’
‘You know about it,’ Leach said. ‘A couple of hours I was with the screws.’
‘We know some more now,’ Gently said.
Leach polished the chocolate. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Just a few more details,’ Gently said. ‘So I thought I’d pay you another visit.’
He went up the steps on to the dais and sat down on a low rostrum beside Leach. Leach kept on his feet, polishing the chocolate. Then he niched that one back into place, too.
‘Prizes,’ he said. ‘Spot prizes. They go down big, a box of chocolates.’
‘You had an accident with that box?’ Gently asked.
‘Yeah,’ Leach said. ‘I dropped the bleeder. Lucky none of the chocs were bust. What more do I have to tell you about Tuesday?’
‘Did you know Lister by sight?’ Gently asked.
‘I’d seen him around here,’ Leach said.
‘Deeming, Elton?’ Gently said. ‘Salmon, Knights, Sidney Bixley?’
‘I knew Elton,’ Leach said. ‘Maybe the others, I wouldn’t know.’
‘Deeming’s about thirty,’ Gently said.
‘So he don’t come here,’ Leach said. ‘They’re all of them youngsters that come to the jazz nights, not above twenty, any one of them.’
‘Bixley’s twenty-two,’ Gently said. ‘About your build, good-looking, wide mouth.’
‘We get above a hundred here on a jazz night. I can’t remember all that lot, can I?’ Leach said.
‘But you remember Lister and Elton,’ Gently said.
‘Do me a favour,’ Leach said, ‘will you? I’ve had those two crammed down my throat, I ain’t never likely to forget them. The screws describe them. They show me photographs. They make it like a crime if I don’t know them. Maybe I’d remember some of the others if you kept telling me who they were.’
He grabbed up some chocolates, neglected to polish them, shoved them roughly into the box.
