Alan Hunter - Gently Go Man

‘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 cafe, 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.’

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.’