by Alan Hunter
‘Not about Lister being the culprit?’
‘He was bleeding guessing!’ Bixley said.
‘If he said that Lister had taken the chocolates?’
‘Yuh — no!’ Bixley said. ‘I keep telling you I don’t know nothing about it. I didn’t have no chocolates pinched, nor nothing like that happened at all.’
‘You collected a box on Tuesday, didn’t you?’
‘No,’ Bixley said. ‘I never did.’
‘So nobody could have seen you with a box?’
‘It ain’t a crime, is it?’ Bixley said. ‘Being given a box of chocolates?’
‘But you had one?’
‘All right!’ he said. ‘So Leachy give me a box of chocolates.’
‘And you gave Leachy forty quid.’
‘No!’ Bixley shouted. ‘I never.’
‘Even though he says you did?’
‘The bloody rat!’ Bixley said.
‘Verbatim,’ Gently said to Baynes. ‘I don’t want any of this lost.’
He sat back in the chair, a dark presence, concealedly studying the sweating Bixley. Bixley was breathing very heavily, he’d stopped trying to see Gently through the light.
‘Of course,’ Gently said smoothly, ‘you’d want those chocolates back again, wouldn’t you? After you’d spent forty quid on them and had a chocolate-monopoly here in Latchford. You could afford the forty quid, but not Lister muscling in on your racket. So you had to get that box back from him. I can see how important that was.’
‘I didn’t go after him,’ Bixley said. ‘I got an alibi, I have.’
‘Don’t interrupt,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s do some thinking about this, shall we? There’s Elton, he left soon after Lister, he could have caught him up easily. And no doubt Elton had his reasons for doing what you might ask of him. When you’ve acquired a taste for chocolates you have to toe the line, don’t you? So you might have sent Elton after Lister. It seems a reasonable assumption.’
‘I tell you I never-!’ Bixley howled.
No,’ Gently said. ‘I’m coming to that. You didn’t send Elton after Lister because you couldn’t trust him to do the job. He’d have to stop Lister as well as catch him, and after stopping him he’d have to get the chocolates. But Elton wasn’t an expert rider, nor was he a very formidable person. Not like you yourself, Bixley. You fit the bill much better.’
Bixley was halfway to his feet. Gently crashed his fist on the desk.
‘Keep your seat, please,’ he said mildly. ‘We’re coming to the interesting part now.’
‘But it’s a bleeding lie!’ Bixley shouted.
‘You’ll kindly sit down, all the same.’
‘I got my alibi!’ Bixley shouted.
‘You had fifteen minutes,’ Gently said.
Bixley sank on the chair again, his cheeks flushed, his eyes staring. He leaned forward towards the desk as though he’d got a stitch in his stomach.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ Gently continued. ‘That sounds a lot on a fast motorcycle. But you can ride a motorcycle fast or slowly, you aren’t compelled to go at full throttle. Then sometimes you stop to pick up petrol, or maybe to buy some fish and chips. Or you might have a girlfriend on the back who wasn’t so keen on mad driving. There’s one or a number of possible reasons why fifteen minutes wasn’t a safe margin — not for Lister, that is. It might have looked safe enough as an alibi. So, you gave him that fifteen minutes. The way you ride, you could make it up. Then, if as was likely, you had trouble with him, you had your alibi ready to hand.’
‘I tell you it’s crazy!’ Bixley bawled. ‘I never thought nothing like that at all. You’re making it up, that’s what you’re doing. I couldn’t never catch him after quarter of an hour.’
‘You ride a new Matchless six-fifty,’ Gently said.
‘So what if I do!’ Bixley shouted.
‘Lister’s bike was an Aerial five hundred, two years old. And he was carrying a passenger.’
‘But I didn’t go after him!’ Bixley shouted.
‘I think you did,’ Gently said. ‘And I think you caught him at Five Mile Drove and you didn’t care how you stopped him. Elton was there. You passed Elton. Elton was the witness and Elton’s missing. He saw you ride those two off the road, and stop, and take that box from the wreckage. And you made Elton swear to keep his mouth shut, or he’d finish up like Lister. And when it looked as though we’d pin it on Elton, you put Elton in a place where he couldn’t talk.’
Bixley rocked back in the chair, his face greyish. His eyes were straining at their sockets.
‘I never,’ he croaked, ‘I never! You’ll never hang that one on me, screw.’
Gently’s fist smashed the desk again.
‘What happened to Elton, Bixley?’ he said.
‘He’s gone, cleared out,’ Bixley gabbled. ‘I don’t know nothing. I didn’t do it.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bixley said.
‘I think you do.’
‘No,’ Bixley said, ‘no.’
‘He’s not very far from here, is he, Bixley?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bixley said. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘He’s not very far, but he’s very quiet.’
‘I don’t know nothing,’ Bixley said. ‘I don’t know nothing.’
‘It’ll come to you later,’ Gently said. ‘Now we’ll get on to Leo. Leo Slavinovsky.’
Baynes scribbled away industriously, dabbed, and stopped. After the scratching of his pencil one heard nothing but Bixley’s breathing. The room seemed heavy round the directed light, a place of infinite insulation. Bixley sat in the light under the weight of the room like an illuminated object on a slide. From the shadows eyes examined him, applied a stimulus, made a note.
‘When did you last see Leo?’ Gently asked.
‘Who — what Leo?’ Bixley said hoarsely.
‘Little Leo back in Bethnal. The big brain,’ Gently said.
‘I don’t know any Leo,’ Bixley said.
‘He’d be hurt,’ Gently said. ‘I’m sure he had big hopes for you, Bixley. You were an up-an-coming gang-boy.’
‘I ain’t had nothing to do with him,’ Bixley said. ‘I never had. I don’t know him. That job I was pulled for I did on me own, I don’t know no Leo.’
‘Your cousin knows him,’ Gently said.
‘I ain’t seen my cousin, not since I come here.’
‘Once,’ Gently said, ‘you saw him. About the time when work was getting too heavy for you.’
‘That’s a bloody lie,’ Bixley said.
‘Is your mother a liar?’ Gently asked.
‘She — she’s a stupid so-and-so,’ Bixley said. ‘She got things mixed, that’s all it is.’
‘Percy Waters was arrested today.’
‘So what?’ Bixley said. ‘He’s another stupid.’
‘Leo Slavinovsky was arrested today.’
‘I tell you I don’t know nothing about him.’
‘Listen,’ Gently said. ‘I’m going to do some more thinking.’
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ Bixley yelped. ‘You bleeding let me out of here. I ain’t done nothing, you know I ain’t. I got alibis and you can’t touch me. I ain’t going to sit here having it shot at me, I bleeding ain’t. You let me out!’
‘But you aren’t going anywhere,’ Gently said.
‘I’ll get a lawyer!’ Bixley shouted.
‘You’ll be good business, too,’ Gently said. ‘Only right at this moment you’re going to listen to me.’
‘I bloody won’t listen!’
‘You’d better,’ Gently said. ‘Otherwise you won’t know what to tell your lawyer.’
Bixley swore.
‘Are we going too fast?’ Gently asked Baynes.
Baynes shook his head. ‘I can do a hundred and sixty, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a special set of lettergrams for use with swear words. Very useful they are in this line of business.’
‘Sto
p me if you’re getting behind,’ Gently said.
‘Yes, sir. But I’ve had no trouble so far.’
Bixley sat trembling, worrying his thick lip. There was sweat on his cheeks, down each side of his chin.
‘Right,’ Gently said. ‘Are you listening to what I say to you, Bixley?’
‘I ought to have done you,’ Bixley muttered. ‘Christ, if I’d only done you, screw.’
‘You’re in trouble enough,’ Gently said. ‘Another thick lip wouldn’t have helped you. So let’s do some thinking about Leo and Cousin Perce.’
Bixley moaned, said nothing.
‘I think you heard from Perce,’ Gently said. ‘I think he told you he’d got something for you and that you’d better look him up. So you did, you went to Bethnal, you saw Perce and Leo. You heard that business was flourishing with Leo and that he was planning a little expansion. He was going to put Leach in Castlebridge to run a chocolate depot there — it was a good place for pushing chocolates, a university town. And Leo had remembered his old gang-boy who’d gone to live here in Latchford, and Leo thought that perhaps Latchford could absorb a few chocolates, too. So he proposed that you took care of that district for him, drawing your supplies from Leach on some weekly excursion to Castlebridge. And you liked that proposal, didn’t you, Bixley? It might have been made to measure for you. It meant a return to the easy money you’d been missing — and it flattered you, Leo choosing you for a job like that.’
Bixley croaked: It’s bloody lies, bloody lies, that’s what it is.’
‘Leo and Perce,’ Gently said, ‘haven’t got much left to lie about now.’
‘I only know what you tell me,’ Bixley said. ‘I know screws. Bloody liars. It’s all lies, every bit of it.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Gently said, ‘back that horse, if I were you. We didn’t guess about Leo and his trade in chocolates. Suppose you start brightening up a little, give us a little cooperation. You’re on your own now, Bixley. All your pals are inside.’
‘They ain’t my pals. I didn’t never know them.’
‘Where did Lister come into it?’ Gently asked.
‘I don’t know about Lister.’
‘Why did he whip that box of chocolates?’
‘I don’t know nothing about that,’ Bixley said. ‘It’s lies, all lies.’
‘We’re out looking for your chocolate-store, Bixley.’
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘Bloody look for it.’
‘We’ll find it, too,’ Gently said.
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘I ain’t got one.’
‘Not at Tony’s,’ Gently said.
‘I ain’t got one,’ Bixley repeated.
‘Not at Dicky’s,’ Gently said.
‘You’ve a bleeding hope.’ Bixley said.
‘How will you manage without chocolates?’ Gently said.
‘Crap on your chocolates,’ Bixley said.
‘You’ve smoked your last one,’ Gently said. ‘It’s going to be tough if you’ve been at them heavy.’
‘I don’t smoke sticks,’ Bixley said.
‘Oh, yes,’ Gently said. ‘I think you do.’
‘I ain’t never had nothing to do with them.’
‘We’ll see,’ Gently said. ‘Your pockets will tell us.’
Bixley got unsteadily to his feet. ‘They bloody won’t,’ he said. ‘They won’t, because I ain’t got none. So you can search as much as you like.’
‘You’ll let me search you?’ Gently asked.
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘You search me.’
‘You can sit down again,’ Gently said. ‘That’s all I want to know for the moment.’
‘I tell you you can search me,’ Bixley said.
Gently ignored him, turned to Baynes.
‘Go and look in the waiting room,’ he told him. ‘Bring back anything interesting you find there.’
Baynes nodded, got up, departed. Bixley came up to the desk, put his hands on it.
‘I’ll get you for this,’ he said. ‘If it’s the last bloody thing. I’ll get you, screw. I don’t care if I swing for it.’
‘You’ve been watching too much TV,’ Gently said.
‘I mean it,’ Bixley said. ‘I’m going to get you. I mean it.’
He kept standing there, leaning, glaring at Gently.
‘I mean it,’ he kept saying. ‘I mean it, I mean it.’
Baynes returned, carrying in his hand a cigarette case which combined a petrol-lighter. His hands were sooty and there was soot on the case.
‘It was stuffed up the chimney of the stove,’ he said. ‘He’d had the soot-door off. It’s a finger-screw job.’
Gently took the lighter. It was flamboyantly engraved: S.A.B. He sprang it open. It contained twenty-three of the reefers.
‘Somebody else’s?’ He asked Bixley.
‘I mean it,’ said Bixley. ‘I mean it.’
‘And I mean this,’ Gently said. ‘I’m charging you with having possession of prohibited drugs. You don’t need to say anything in answer to the charge.’
‘I ain’t saying anything,’ Bixley said. ‘Not nothing at all.’
Nobody was saying anything. Gently rang the Yard again and got in touch with the Chief Inspector in charge of the Slavinovsky interrogations. There they were having an all-night session, but it hadn’t got them much further. Slavinovsky himself, a Polish Jew, hadn’t breathed a word in five hours. Some of the smaller fry had squeaked and a few more arrests had been made. Two experts were working on the code in which Slavinovsky kept his records.
‘We’re getting the impression,’ the C.I. told Gently ‘that there were other depots like the one in Castlebridge. But we still haven’t got a clue as to how the stuff was coming in. It’s Cyprus hemp we seized in Bethnal, we’re checking all the known channels. I think Slavinovsky’s building his hopes on us not cracking the code.’
‘Has Percy Waters talked?’ Gently inquired.
‘Not as yet,’ the C.I. replied. ‘Pagram briefed me on your interest and I’m doing my best to get you something. The trouble is, we want everything quickly. You understand that, don’t you? Time’s against us, we have to keep plugging away at the main issues.’
‘I’ve got a murder at this end,’ Gently said.
‘We’re doing our best,’ said the C.I. ‘The moment Bixley’s name comes up I’ll give you a ring at Latchford.’
It was just after ten when Setters got back, dirtier than ever and looking bushed. He dropped on the visitor’s chair in the office, lit a cigarette, and took several deep drags.
‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just the fun.’
‘How did Deeming take it?’ Gently asked.
‘Dicky,’ said Setters, ‘played records, did some typing, made light conversation. I’ve had a basinful of Dicky. I was bloody polite to him. Bloody.’
‘And Tony?’ Gently asked.
‘He was throwing a fit the whole time. And we had the jeebies on our necks, though they were quiet, for a change.’
Gently nodded, told Setters how his interrogation had gone. Setters sat very quiet when he heard that Bixley had been charged.
‘Yep,’ he said at last. ‘That was good. Me, I’d have searched him and risked the rap. Or maybe I wouldn’t, I’d have fallen down on it. I don’t aspire to such class.’
Gently grinned. ‘I can take it,’ he said.
Setters grinned too. ‘I’m whacked,’ he said. ‘Just reprimand me and let me go home. I need a bath to set me up.’
But he got on the phone and made the arrangements for Bixley’s appearance in court in the morning.
Gently drove him home, to Ashgrove Road, drove to the Sun, parked, smoked a last pipe.
CHAPTER TEN
The courtroom at Latchford was in the medieval guildhall, and courts had been held there since 1452. Like all the oldest buildings in Latchford it was built of dressed flint and Caen stone. The Caen stone had been brought up the River Latch, which flowed into the Ouse, and so into the Wash. The flint was the
native stone of the country and had been the wealth of the aboriginal tribes. Thus the pale stone was a modern innovation in the time scheme of Latchford, a mere frame, beginning to crumble, for the panels of indestructible, purplish-dark flint. The flint had never been known to crumble or to make the least acknowledgement of multiplying aeons.
The guildhall stood in the small marketplace and was separated from Police H.Q. by three narrow streets. The marketplace was not now the centre of the town and had ceased to be so for one or two centuries. Its principal use was as a car park. It had only two small shops. In the middle of the morning it was usually deserted, and it was almost deserted when Gently parked there.
He locked his door, strolled over to the guildhall’s spill of worn stone steps. A uniform man stood by the porch. He straightened, touched his helmet to Gently. Inside the building was cold and meagre, its gloom helped out by a few naked bulbs. Some grey cement stairs led up to a landing and to a varnished door labelled Court Room. Beside this stood a second uniform man. He was rocking ponderously on his heels.
‘Your man isn’t here yet, sir,’ he told Gently. ‘They’re doing a bloke up for indecent exposure.’
‘That should be edifying,’ Gently said.
The man began to grin, thought better of it.
Gently went through the door. The courtroom was high-ceilinged and underlit. Its fixtures, sprouting over the whole floor space, were of brown wood and black iron. The dock on the left looked like a cattle-cage and the raked benches like pews. There were bad acoustics. The walls were grimy. The air was chill, damp, neglected.
He noticed Setters sitting on the right, staring boredly at the Counsels’ tables, and near these, at another table, sat two reporters, also bored. In the public gallery sat Mrs Bixley, her eyes fixed mournfully on the Bench. She was one of only two spectators. The other one was Deeming.
Gently went into the gallery, seated himself beside Deeming. Deeming turned to give him a smile, then held up a finger.
‘Listen a moment… this witness.’
He was leaning forward on the varnished partition. The voice of the witness was barely audible across the sound-deadening room. She was a dowdy, middle-aged woman in a rusty black coat. The tone of her voice was indignant and she held her chin tilted upwards.
