by Alan Hunter
‘Cars,’ Deeming said. ‘You funny screw.’ He laughed again, stroked his throttle. ‘You haven’t cars enough,’ he said, ‘and they’re kind of slow, kind of heavy. You can’t get me with cars, screw. There isn’t enough in all Squaresville. You can’t touch me. I’m a free man. Better face it, screw. I’m free.’
‘You’ll get a fair trial,’ Gently said.
‘Surest thing,’ Deeming said. ‘It’s nice to give a fair trial to a guy you’re going to hang. Like then you can kind of rub it in, you can do the cat-and-mouse action. Squares love it, don’t they, screw? They go for it big, a state kill.’
‘You’re a killer yourself,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ Deeming said. ‘I’m a killer. But I don’t kill in cold blood. I’m not as low as the squares, screw.’
‘You knew the penalty,’ Gently said.
‘I know a lot about squares,’ Deeming said. ‘How come they don’t like me killing, when they pay a murderer themselves?’
Gently shrugged. ‘You’ll have time to argue that out in your cell,’ he said. ‘But you can’t get away, Deeming. We’re going to pick you up somewhere.’
Deeming shook his head. ‘Not you, screw. Not while I’m sitting on this bike. Take a look, screw. I’m a free man. Maybe you’ll never see one again.’
‘You aren’t free,’ Gently said.
Deeming chuckled. ‘I’m free,’ he said. ‘As of now I’ve washed my hands of all squares and the taint of them. I’m on the borders now, screw. I’m reaching out for the big touch. I’m the only free man. You haven’t got a weapon, screw.’
‘I see you as a killer,’ Gently said. ‘A killer who’s scared of the penalty.’
‘Keep watching,’ Deeming said. ‘You’ve something left to learn yet.’
‘You can’t face it,’ Gently said.
‘Like I choose not to,’ Deeming grinned. ‘Free choice — you know? It’s in my power to do either.’
There was a rush of feet behind Gently. Deeming hit his clutch, paddled away. Setters and Brewer, running like maniacs, tried to catch up with him and grab him. Deeming didn’t put on speed. He let the two policemen stick close behind him. He rode a circle round the Wolseley, waited till first Setters, then Brewer, fell away. He continued riding back to Gently.
‘See how it bounces?’ he drawled. ‘Like I’ve got the squares where I want them, tagging along in the rear.’
‘So now what?’ Gently said.
‘Keep watching,’ Deeming drawled. ‘I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. Just keep your eyes stashed on Dicky.’
He curved off again, rode deliberately close to the advancing Setters, didn’t swerve for an instant when Setters made a hopeful spring at him. Then he rode on to the track and pointed in the direction of the Chase. He kept going, very steady, at about fifteen miles an hour.
‘Get into the car,’ Gently said. ‘There’s nothing we can do except follow him.’
Setters flung himself in, breathing heavily and saying nothing. In the back of the car Shepherd was dabbing Elton’s head with antiseptic. Elton had got his eyes closed. He was moaning and snivelling. He gave a wailing cry when the car started, made a fluttery, pushing motion with his hand. Gently pressed the R.T. switch.
‘X2 calling control,’ he said.
‘Control receiving X2,’ control said. ‘Your patrols are on their stations.’
‘We have Deeming under observation,’ Gently said. ‘He’s proceeding along the track to Five Mile Drove. I want the two cars in that area to form a roadblock where the track goes through the Chase. Tell them to pick their spot carefully and to make sure it’s completely blocked. Read it back. Over.’
Control read the message back.
‘Further instruction,’ Gently said. ‘Tell them not to sit in the cars.’
They followed Deeming. He increased his speed when he found he had them behind him, established a distance of a quarter of a mile, settled down in the fours. Brewer made unobtrusive attempts to cut down on the distance, but they failed. Deeming was watching them closely in his mirror.
‘What do we do when we come to the block, sir?’ Brewer asked Gently.
Gently grunted. ‘I’m wondering about that myself,’ he said.
‘We ram the louse,’ Setters growled. ‘Don’t dare to let him come past you. If you fix him that’s too bad. I’ll cry all the way to the inquest.’
‘Do you want him rammed, sir?’ Brewer asked Gently.
‘No,’ Gently said. ‘I want him in dock.’ Brewer frowned, held the speed steady, never let his eye stray from Deeming.
‘He was going to kill me,’ Elton moaned. ‘He came there to kill me.’
Shepherd was flaking a bandage on him over a pad of moistened lint.
‘They brought me food,’ Elton said. ‘I thought he’d come with my food. Then he hit my head. He was going to kill me.’
‘We’ll get him,’ Setters said. ‘Don’t you worry, Elton.’
‘I wouldn’t have said nothing,’ Elton said. ‘I wouldn’t never have said nothing. Then he hit my head. He pulled out a spanner and hit it. I fell down, he tripped over my feet. I got up the ladder and ran. I wouldn’t have said nothing at all. But he was going to kill me.’
‘Yeah,’ Setters said. ‘We know. Don’t you worry about it, Elton.’
‘He was nice to me,’ Elton snivelled. ‘Then he hit my head.’
Gently looked over his shoulder. ‘Is that where the sticks are kept?’ he asked.
‘Yuh,’ Elton blubbered. ‘I never knew. That’s where they kept them, down there.’
‘Whose idea was it for you to hide there?’
‘Sid Bixley’s,’ Elton said. ‘He told me I was going to be arrested, I’d have to stop there till they fixed it.’
‘Don’t you worry,’ Setters said. ‘You’re in the clear now, Elton.’
They began to see the Chase stretching sombrely across the skyline. Deeming hadn’t changed his pace, was riding easily, relaxedly. A couple of times he’d looked back, given a derisive wave of his hand, but most of the time he just rode as though he were out for his pleasure.
Control called them up.
‘Your block is in position, X2. About a mile from the main road, the track is closed off as instructed. Any further instructions?’
‘Give me a supporting patrol,’ Gently told them. ‘Put it in Five Mile Drove, stationed at the junction with the track.’
‘Willco,’ control said. ‘We’ll try to send you another patrol.’
They came to the nursery, the fire-signs. A forest-ranger watched them go by. In the trees they lost sight of Deeming and Brewer promptly lifted his speed. Deeming let them come up closer. He wasn’t trying to get away. He held them back at a hundred yards and Brewer settled down again. Setters was back holding the seat.
‘Remember what I said,’ he snapped at Brewer. ‘You’ll only be cheating the hangman, and we don’t all like hangmen.’
‘I’ll try to stop him,’ Brewer clipped.
‘Better than that,’ Setters said.
‘Just stop him,’ Gently said. ‘If you can,’ he added.
They cornered on a rise, went sweeping down a long straight. The block was just past the end of the straight. It was a very efficient block. The two cars were spread across the track, each bumper nested against a tree. The track was narrow and they more than filled it. Behind the cars stood their crews, watching.
Brewer stepped on the gas. They raced to close the gap on Deeming. He was trapped, he was slowing down. The men were running round to grab him. Brewer’s lips were bundled tight, he was set to ram if necessary. But Deeming kept riding straight, didn’t offer to break and double back.
Then his engine roared, he slanted right, dived headlong into the trees: slalomed crazily among the trunks of the tall, close-set pines. His rear wheel showered up dead pine needles, he was belting at full throttle. He jerked and twisted like a maddened animal, crashed through brushwood, reared back on the track. And then h
e was away, beyond the roadblock, shaking off a couple of pursuers. He cut his throttle, looked over his shoulder, made a mocking salute with five fingers.
The Wolseley skidded to a stop.
‘Get these cars out of the way!’ Gently shouted.
There was a rush for them and some awkward man?uvring before the block could be disentangled. There was no room to pass: Gently switched cars, taking Brewer and Setters with him. Up the track Deeming sat on his bike, lit a cigarette, and grinningly waited.
They got away. So did Deeming: he performed a little victory roll. Brewer was pale and chewed his lip, made a hash of coming up through his gears.
‘Oughtn’t I to go after him?’ he muttered to Gently.
Gently shook his head. ‘It’s a waste of time. Hold your speed in reserve. You’ll never catch him in a straight run.’
Now only the support patrol waited ahead to try its luck with Deeming. If that failed, and he gained the road, they’d have to start planning afresh. Which way would he point if he reached the road? Away from Latchford, almost certainly. He would need to make for a town like Castlebridge, where he could lose himself in a maze of streets. Gently called control again.
‘Deeming’s got through the block,’ he told them. ‘We’re observing him, but we can’t catch him. I think he’ll make towards Castlebridge.’
‘Any instructions?’ control came back.
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘We’ll have to try another block. There’s a country house with park walls just this side of Oldmarket and I want the block at the Oldmarket end of the walls. From wall to wall, you understand? Don’t leave the ditches uncovered. We’ll have three or four cars behind him and should be able to stop him doubling.’
‘Willco,’ control said. ‘We’ll put Oldmarket on this one.’
From the back Setters rasped: ‘You think that’s going to get him?’
Gently grunted. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But you have to go through the motions.’
The junction showed ahead, and there a fresh comedy was played. The support patrol saw Deeming, took off, drove steadily towards him. Brewer dutifully launched the Wolseley and the two cars rapidly converged on Deeming. Deeming feinted, sent the support car left, slid through right without raising his speed. Once more the track was blocked. For everyone except Deeming.
‘All right!’ Gently bellowed. ‘Don’t talk, just back out.’
The flustered driver of the support car lost his head, stalled his engine. He had to back a hundred yards to unbottle the other cars. It was ludicrous. Deeming might have been several miles on his way. Instead he sat jauntily watching from a position across the main road. If it was any comfort, he was pointed to Castlebridge. It didn’t seem much comfort.
‘Like you’ve got a good driver?’ he shouted to Gently. ‘You reckon he’ll stay with me up here? You better climb on the pillion, screw, you better waltz with Matilda!’
‘Give yourself up!’ Gently shouted.
‘Like I’m too valuable,’ Deeming replied. ‘But I’m sorry you can’t be here behind me. Do your best, screw. Keep close.’
He pushed off, smoothed his throttle, began to sail away fast. Brewer didn’t need telling. He was itching to let the Wolseley go. Gently sat deep in his seat, his eyes narrow, gone blank. Setters was leaning forward between them. He was breathing like a bloodhound. Still Deeming was going away from them.
‘It’s no good, sir,’ Brewer clipped. ‘He must have twenty miles an hour on us.’
‘Keep at him,’ Gently snapped.
The speedometer needle was pushing three figures.
There was traffic on the road. Deeming didn’t care about traffic. He arrowed through it with little sways, kept near the centre of the road. Brewer had to notice the traffic. It pulled him down several times. Deeming got smaller and smaller ahead, a black atom of ferocious energy.
‘Christ, to lose him like this!’ Setters swore, dragging down on the seat backs. ‘Playing with us all that time, then getting away like this. I could kick myself for it, I could bash my head on the wall.’
‘Yes,’ Gently muttered. ‘We’ve lost him. He’s beaten us.’
‘He’ll turn off,’ Setters groaned. ‘There’s side-turns, plenty of them.’
‘He won’t turn off,’ Gently said. ‘He isn’t going as far as a side-turn.’
Setters chewed on it for a moment. They were hitting the slight incline to the ridge. Brewer was hanging on to three figures though his engine laboured and shook.
‘Come again with that?’ Setters said.
‘He’s going to hit the tree,’ Gently said. ‘That’s why he hasn’t bothered to ditch us. We’re going to be there to see it.’
‘Hell,’ Setters said. He stopped dragging, sank back on his seat. Brewer had heard what Gently said, his mouth thinned to a tight seam.
Setters came back, angling his face.
‘You’re serious about that?’ he said.
Gently nodded. ‘He’s going to do it. He’s had it in mind from the start.’
‘But crying hell!’ Setters said.
Gently said: ‘I had the preview. He showed me just what he was going to do. He wanted to make sure I understood it.’
‘Hell,’ Setters said a third time.
‘And we can’t stop him,’ Gently said. ‘There he goes. A free man. He’s beaten us all along the line.’
He was a long way off now, just a speck high up the road, weaving slightly and disappearing behind crawling, flashing cars. But the Gallows Tree was growing higher, was spreading its bare raven branches. The sky showed silver-white behind it, left it stark, hard, etched.
‘He doesn’t have to do it,’ Setters said hoarsely. ‘He’s clear away. He could dodge us.’
Gently didn’t say anything. Brewer kept murdering the engine.
‘Maybe there’s a case,’ Setters said. ‘He isn’t normal. You can’t call him normal.’
The tree stretched out massively, a dark, upward-rising torch.
It wasn’t sensational. It was as though someone had thrown a bag of sweets at the tree. The sweets scattered, a few large ones, but most of them small. Only there’d been a firework in the bag and it shot up a yellowish pillar of flame, and off the top of the pillar lifted black smoke, going up straight in the still air.
He’d been half a minute ahead of them, enough to collect a jam of traffic. Brewer drove in hooting frenziedly, squealed the Wolseley to a stop. They jumped out, ran across. A white-faced man was using an extinguisher. Another was lugging at a riding-boot. It came away. He collapsed in a faint. The body was tangled with the frame of the bike, it was being burned. The tree was burning.
‘Get away, all of you!’ Gently ordered. ‘You can’t do any good here. Leave the rest of this to us — on your way, on your way!’
‘He was laughing,’ said the man with the extinguisher. ‘That’s my car… I saw him do it. I could see his teeth. He was laughing. You won’t believe me. But he was laughing.’
‘Drive on a bit,’ Gently said. ‘We’ll talk to you later, drive on a bit.’
‘I saw him laughing,’ the man said. ‘I know that nobody’s going to believe me.’
The tree was catching all the way up, it was useless attacking it with extinguishers. Brewer was back with the R.T. summoning an ambulance and a fire engine. There was no dispersing the gapers. Even the smell wasn’t shifting them. The smoke had puffed up to a great height, it must have been visible for many miles.
‘What a way to do it,’ Setters was babbling. ‘Oh, my God, what a way to do it.’
The flames were snarling and becoming redder, smuts dropped out of the noisome smoke.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
It wasn’t their job to pick up the pieces. They left when the firemen had doused the flames. The tree was still standing, though badly charred; it was obviously a danger and would have to come down. But just now it continued to stand there, spectre-like, laced with foam. From the end of the Drove it had a piebald look as though it we
re stricken with a leprous disease.
They ate at H.Q., another scrappy sandwich meal. Setters got some wheels turning and fixed the inquest for the morrow. Elton had been taken to the hospital — one more casualty; but he had only bruises and a scalp contusion and he wasn’t detained. He came back to make a short statement. The statement was confirmatory. He told them how Deeming had searched Lister’s wrecked bike for the box of reefers. Sergeant Ralphs had revisited Shuck’s Graves, had removed from them eight thousand reefers. He brought back the spanner Deeming had dropped. It had blood and some hairs adhering to it.
‘So nobody gets hung,’ Setters said, weighing the spanner in his hand. ‘Bixley can wriggle out of this one, less a few years in Norwich clink.’
‘They’re experimenting at Norwich,’ Gently said. ‘They’re trying to rehabilitate their prisoners.’
‘Fine,’ Setters said, ‘fine. They’ve got some bonza material coming.’
He studied the spanner for some moments, solemnly, before he locked it away in his desk; lit his umpteenth cigarette and let it hang on his lip.
‘I feel I’ve been through it,’ he said. ‘You ever get that feeling?’
Gently nodded. ‘Violence isn’t very funny,’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Setters said. ‘That’s it. Violence isn’t very funny. It reads well, doesn’t act. You can’t play it for a laugh. And what makes you so sick is you can’t get rid of it. It’s there, we’ve all got it. That’s what makes you so sick.’
‘Don’t look at me,’ Gently said. ‘I don’t have any answer. You can’t hang it, you can’t flog it, and you can’t lock it up.’
‘You just live with it,’ Setters said. ‘It goes on, and you live with it. You can’t preach it away neither. We don’t know a damn thing.’
‘Perhaps we’re misusing it,’ Gently suggested. ‘Perhaps there’s a channel for it somewhere. It’s a bit of nature we’ve inherited and don’t understand.’
‘I don’t understand it,’ Setters said. ‘I thought I did up till now. But I get pretty close to Bixley. I could bust out too.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets.
