Gently Go Man csg-8

by Alan Hunter

  ‘Magnificent!’ Deeming whispered to Gently. ‘Like she’s the soul and bowels of Christ-ish hypocrisy. Man, the accused was a wild one when he piddled in front of her.’

  ‘Was she what brought you here?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Like she’s the bonus,’ Deeming said. ‘I’ve come to find out what you’ve got on Sidney. But keep it down, man, keep it down.’

  He lowered his chin on the partition and continued to absorb the witness’s testimony. Beyond him the bulk of Mrs Bixley shifted uneasily on the hard bench. She, too, was dressed in black, and she had artificial violets pinned to her lapel. She didn’t pay any attention to Deeming, the Bench engaged her whole interest.

  The case ended with a fine and some stiffish words from the magistrate. After some consultations, enterings, and exitings, a parking offence was heard.

  ‘These are a drag,’ Deeming said to Gently. ‘Like thy ruin a morning at the court. If it wasn’t for Sid coming on I’d duck out and leave it with them. What’s Sid done — pitched a screw?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘You’ll hear,’ he said.

  ‘I’m anxious about him,’ Deeming said. ‘I come here like a probation officer. Give me the action.’

  ‘I think you know it,’ Gently said.

  ‘You mean like my pad being frisked?’ Deeming asked. ‘You were way off the beam there, screw. Nobody stashes their dope with me.’

  ‘Somebody stashes it somewhere,’ Gently said.

  ‘Sure,’ Deeming said. ‘That stands to reason. But not in their own backyard they stash it. And not in my backyard, neither.’

  ‘Where would you stash it?’ Gently asked.

  ‘Right under your nose,’ Deeming grinned. ‘Some place so obvious the screws wouldn’t see it, like because they’re seeing it every day. What do you say to the bridge near your hotel?’

  ‘You’d need a boat,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yes,’ Deeming said. ‘That’s a drawback, but I still think the bridge is good. Then there’s the market cross outside here. You could stash some dope in the roof. Or maybe that sand-hopper outside the screw-shop. You had a look in your sand-hopper lately?’

  ‘I’ll make a point of it,’ Gently said. ‘Anywhere else you can think of?’

  ‘Down in the forest,’ Deeming said. ‘Something might stir there.’

  He grinned again, ran fingers through his short brown hair.

  ‘Like stop fishing,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t help you if I could, screw. You make it a crime for these kids to get a touch out of smoking. That’s Squaresville from Squaresville. It’s no crime east of Suez.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know,’ Gently said. ‘It’s outside our jurisdiction.’

  Wit,’ Deeming said, ‘wit. I like your sense of humour, screw. Big deadpan stuff. I always go for it crazy. But it wasn’t very bright to go hanging Sid up, not because he smokes a little. Sid’s been keeping it pretty cool.’

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yeah, pretty cool,’ said Deeming. ‘Considering what he used to be and all the action he’s been through. You oughtn’t to jump on a kid like that, you ought to lay on him light. Let him feel he’s being something, don’t sit on his ego. That way he’ll cool some more. But if you push him, he’ll keep flipping his lid. Man, even screws were young once, they ought to remember the way it is.’

  ‘I can remember,’ Gently said. ‘Though I never stood in one of those.’

  ‘Yeah, but you could have done,’ Deeming said. ‘That’s the point, you could have done. You’re fighting it out when you’re a kid. You don’t quite see the margins plain. You’ll like as not step over the side and then you’ll wonder why they’re shouting. And all of a sudden you’re getting shot at, you’re a delinquent, you’re branded. Like there isn’t a couple of worlds between a criminal and his neighbour, and when you’re young there’s next to nothing. You could have stood there in that dock.’

  ‘Say I was lucky.’ Gently said.

  Deeming caught him with a smile. ‘Lucky it is,’ he said. ‘You take a point well, screw.’

  ‘And Bixley’s just misunderstood?’ Gently said.

  ‘Misunderstood,’ Deeming said. ‘Like you can give that “just” the air, it didn’t sound very bright.’

  ‘I was working late, this isn’t my morning for being bright,’ Gently said.

  ‘Wit,’ Deeming said. ‘It sends me. Play Sid for a fine and let him loose.’

  Setters came down the aisle for Gently. He didn’t manage to see Deeming sitting there. Deeming grinned, gave a little bow. Setters kept not managing to see him.

  ‘Bixley next,’ he said to Gently. ‘I’ve had a word with the Bench about it.’

  Gently followed him back to the side-stall, took a seat beside Setters and Baynes.

  Bixley was called and brought in from some subterranean region. He stalked defiantly into the cage and stood lounging against it. But there was a peakiness about him, he was continually jiffling, moving his hands. He looked sullenly about the court, he saw Deeming. Their eyes met. Mrs Bixley was standing up, but Bixley didn’t look at her.

  The preliminaries were gone through and Bixley represented. The Clerk of the Court addressed the magistrate. Gently was called. He gave sparse details of the charge, referring to the episode at Castlebridge; asked the Court for a remand in custody pending further investigation. Bixley’s solicitor rose, made a formal objection. Gently answered it. The remand was granted. It all took exactly five minutes. And during that elapse of time Deeming hadn’t taken his eyes off Bixley.

  ‘So far, so good,’ Setters said, as they went down the steps from the courtroom. ‘Me, I’m still a bit surprised it’s gone off so quietly. I thought we’d have seen his pals around, but no, only friend Dicky. What was he saying up there that pleased him so much?’

  Gently shrugged. ‘He was trying to sell me a line about Bixley.’

  ‘It’s his aim in life,’ Setters said. ‘He was selling me some last night. I was praying I’d find that dope there all the time we were searching. I don’t live clean, that’s my trouble. But I’d love to see Dicky in the dock.’

  He went with Baynes back to the Wolseley which had brought Bixley to the court. Gently returned to his Rover, prepared to follow the police car. When it came out of the side lane he could see Bixley in the back between Baynes and another detective constable. Gently fitted in behind it. They drove out of the square and into Tungate Street.

  And in Tungate Street they saw the motorcycles, six, spread out and charging towards them.

  From then on it went too fast to make a coherent picture.

  Gently braked, nearly hit the Wolseley, and finished up with one wheel on the kerb. Other motorcycles were coming from behind them, they jam-packed the narrow street. Black-clad figures locked machines together and ran shouting towards the Wolseley. A brick crashed through one of its windows. A door was pulled open, a man dragged out. Setters, a flailing fury, came jack-in- a-boxing into the fight. Baynes was struggling in the back with Bixley, he was trying to get some cuffs on to him. Gently launched out of the Rover. He downed a couple of assailants who set on him. As he got to the Wolseley he heard a cry from Baynes and saw Bixley come out holding a bloodied flick-knife. He saw Gently. He came at him. His mouth was dragged down at one corner. His eyes were flinching and small, the brows knotted, twitching. He didn’t say anything. He came at Gently. He held the blade pointing at Gently’s stomach. He lunged. Gently struck down the blade. Then he nearly decapitated Bixley with the side of his hand.

  Bixley folded with a choking shriek and the knife went shimmying along the tarmac. Gently kicked it under the car, began hauling attackers from the man who was down. Baynes staggered out of the car, his arm bloody, stood with his back to the car and kicked. Setters was chopping away near the bonnet. He was shouting something about the radio. The man down got to his feet. There were several attackers on the floor. Suddenly, it seemed, the fighting wavered, the shouting stopped, there was a hush. The bl
ack-leathered gang drew off in a group, stood panting together, staring at the policemen. They saw the blood rippling down Baynes’s arm. They saw Bixley writhing and choking. They looked surprised and at a loss, couldn’t determine what to do.

  ‘Yuh, get Sid,’ one of them said. The voice sounded like Hallman’s. All of them were wearing black stocking-masks with leather helmets and goggles. ‘Yuh, get Sid and let’s get out of here.’ But a curious paralysis seemed to have come over them. They kept panting, standing close, some of them crouching as though expecting an attack. Gently picked up Bixley, slung him into the back of the car. Nobody moved to prevent him. They merely watched with rounded eyes. He went to the nearest pair of motorcycles, ripped the leads from the plugs. Still they watched him, motionless. And they watched Baynes’s arm.

  Then Baynes collapsed. He did it so quietly that it looked like a slow-motion film shot. He swayed forward a little, then his knees went, then he flopped lazily to the street. It acted as a trigger. There was a commotion. They rushed in a panic for the bikes. Setters burst at them with a roar, kicking down bikes and clumping heads. In a moment they were fighting again, but now it was a disorganized, divided fighting, with the attackers on the run and trying to get their bikes started. At the same time reinforcements arrived. A patrol car came squealing in from the square. From the other direction a whistle was sounding, a uniform man pounded earnestly up the street.

  ‘Stop them — stop them!’ Setters was bawling. ‘Use force — don’t let them go!’

  One of them had got a motorcycle going but he swerved round the constable and came off. Others were abandoning their machines, they were trying to dodge away up a side-turn. Four uniform men jumped out of the patrol car, came running in an extended line. One of the fugitives tried to break through it and was felled for his pains. Setters commanded the side-turn, Gently and the other two completed the cordon. They’d trapped eight of them out of twelve, and all the bikes had been left behind. Eight scared, gasping, gang-boys, three of them down on the ground. They huddled together sheep-like. Blood was showing through some of their masks.

  ‘Right!’ Setters panted. ‘We’ll have them handcuffed in pairs. Simpson, you see to Baynes, the poor swine has been knifed.’

  The cordon closed in. It shouldered the fugitives into a tight circle. Hallman ducked and started to bolt for it, but Gently’s hand settled on his collar. He was hoiked back whimpering, the cold steel snapped on his wrist. The others didn’t give any trouble. One of them could scarcely stand.

  In the back of the Wolseley Bixley still lay gagging and groaning.

  Beside the Wolseley Simpson was slitting Baynes’s sleeve to reveal an ugly, gashed wound.

  Setters hissed. He was trembling.

  ‘Christ,’ he muttered, ‘that chummie’s lucky. I’d have hit him, I would. I’d have bloody well killed him.’

  ‘Keep an eye on my car,’ Gently said. ‘There’s a call I want to pay.’

  ‘I’d have killed him,’ Setters muttered. ‘I’d have beat his brains out on the kerb.’

  Gently hurried back up Tungate Street, across the market square to the guildhall. The uniform man on the door was kicking his heels, but he clicked them together when he saw Gently.

  ‘Has Deeming left?’ Gently demanded.

  ‘Deeming…? No, sir,’ the man said.

  Gently hurried on up.

  In the courtroom they were fining a housewife for having a defective rear light on her bicycle. Mrs Bixley had left the public gallery, Deeming was sitting there alone. He turned to give Gently a grin.

  ‘Come out here,’ Gently said to him.

  ‘Like that’s an order?’ Deeming grinned.

  ‘It’s an order,’ Gently said.

  Deeming rose, stretching himself leisuredly. ‘It’s getting tame, anyway,’ he said. ‘Sid and the gent who was indecent were like the star turns this morning.’

  ‘Come out here on the landing.’

  ‘Sure, sure,’ Deeming said. ‘I always like to oblige a screw. But you’re sweating, man. What’s the action?’

  The courtroom door closed behind them. Gently shepherded Deeming along to the end of the landing. He stood him under one of the bulbs, gave him a long, silent look.

  ‘Mysteriouser,’ Deeming grinned, ‘and mysteriouser, this gets. What’s all the steam and puff about? Like perhaps you thought I wouldn’t be here?’

  ‘We’ve still got Sid,’ Gently said.

  ‘Congratulations,’ Deeming said.

  ‘And eight of the others,’ Gently said. ‘And all twelve of their bikes.’

  ‘I’ll catch on,’ Deeming said. ‘Don’t tell me, just keep on talking.’

  ‘Sid had a knife,’ Gently said. ‘He put it into one of Setters’s men.’

  The grin went off Deeming’s face. ‘I don’t like that bit,’ he said. ‘Where would Sid get a blade from?’

  ‘I’d like to know,’ Gently said.

  Deeming’s face was right blank. ‘Jeebies don’t use blades,’ he said.

  ‘Sid had a blade,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yeah,’ Deeming said. ‘You keep giving it to me. But where did he get it from, then — like you searched him when he was pinched?’

  ‘He was searched,’ Gently said. ‘He didn’t have a blade then.’

  Deeming’s slate eyes smiled. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s the curve? You think I slipped Sid a knife from up in the gallery this morning?’

  ‘I think he was slipped a knife,’ Gently said. ‘And I think I know when it was slipped. And I’ve been asking myself why — what was the reason for slipping him a knife?’

  ‘Like to give him a weapon,’ Deeming said.

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘To give him a weapon. And right at the psychological moment when he might be tempted to use it.’

  ‘You think that?’ Deeming asked.

  Gently nodded. ‘I think that. So he might have killed a man. So he might have been going to swing anyway.’

  ‘Subtle,’ Deeming said.

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘subtle.’

  ‘Like someone had got it in for Sid,’ Deeming said.

  ‘Just like that,’ Gently said.

  ‘And you know why?’ Deeming said. ‘Don’t be a square and leave me hanging.’

  ‘I thought you could give me the reason,’ Gently said. ‘Why someone should make us a present of Sid.’

  Deeming chuckled. ‘You’re a crazy screw. I get a wild kick out of you, man. Like what should I know about this action, sitting up here and minding my business? Like when did Sid start carving up the screws?’

  ‘And that’s your answer?’ Gently said.

  ‘Yuh,’ Deeming said. ‘That’s about my answer. I don’t go for mixing in screw-fights, screw.’

  ‘We’ve taken them in,’ Gently said. ‘There’ll be twelve interrogations.’

  ‘Sounds like work,’ Deeming said. ‘I hope it’s worth what you put into it.’

  ‘Then there’s Bixley,’ Gently said. ‘He hasn’t smoked for fourteen hours.’

  ‘Tough,’ Deeming said, ‘tough. Like I hope you’re treating him right otherwise.’

  ‘He could talk,’ Gently said.

  ‘Yuh,’ Deeming said, ‘Sid can talk. Maybe not now so’s a jury could believe him, but you can’t expect it, after carving screws. Leaves a bad taste in people’s mouths. Like they think you’re maybe lying your head off.’

  ‘Still, we can listen,’ Gently said.

  ‘It’s what screws are for,’ Deeming said. ‘And its sad, all this about Sid. I’m really grieved, in my way.’

  He slid up his sleeve, looked at his watch, dropped his hand again.

  ‘You finished with me, screw,’ he said, ‘or like you’re going to sound off some more?’

  ‘I haven’t finished with you,’ Gently said. ‘But you can get to hell out of it.’

  ‘Subtle,’ Deeming said. ‘I take a hint. You’re too suspicious screw. By half.’

  He lounged away, down the sta
irs, gave the man on the door a cheery good morning. Gently spent a second staring after him, then he whisked along to the courtroom again.

  ‘Where’s the phone?’ he demanded.

  ‘In the office, sir,’ the constable told him.

  He showed Gently into an icy room which had a roll-top desk and an old safe in it. On the back of the desk stood an upright instrument. Gently unhooked it and asked for Police H.Q.

  ‘Has Inspector Setters got back yet?’

  ‘Yes, sir… he’s just come in.’

  ‘Put him on.’

  In a couple of moments Setters snarled ‘Yeah?’ into his instrument.

  Gently said: ‘I want a couple of men with a car to tail Deeming. He’s just now left the guildhall and is probably walking back to his rooms. They needn’t be clever about tailing him, in fact I’d like him to know they’re there, but they’ve got to stick with him, on or off his bike, and keep in R.T. contact with H.Q. If he gets away from them on his bike they’re to alert the patrols to intercept him. And it’s urgent. I want your men to pick him up right away.’

  Setters hesitated. ‘For how long,’ he asked, ‘am I losing these two men and a car?’

  ‘Not very long,’ Gently replied. ‘Not very long is the way I see it.’

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  During the whole of the incident in Tungate Street the street had been completely deserted, but now, when Gently went back for his car, the place was crowded with sightseers. The bikes had not yet been taken away and were being guarded by two uniform men, and on the spot where Baynes had lain bleeding some sawdust had been hastily strewn. The two reporters from the courtroom had got there and had been joined by a photographer. His flashbulb hissed as Gently came up and the two reporters jumped in eagerly.

  ‘Can you give us a statement, Superintendent?’

  ‘Try Inspector Setters,’ Gently said.

  ‘But this is your car — you were here when it happened?’

  ‘No comment,’ Gently said.

  ‘What was the name of the wounded man?’

  ‘No comment,’ Gently said.

  ‘Is it true that this connects with the Lister case?’