Alan Hunter - Gently Go Man

‘Mummy. Mummy. Mummy. Mummy.’

He buried his face in her stomach. She held him to her with both hands.

‘Peter,’ she said. ‘Peter.’

‘Mummy, mummy,’ he wailed.

‘Peter.’

He twisted round. He stared at Gently. There was a flinching pucker in his face.

‘Go away policeman,’ he said. ‘Go away from my mummy.’

‘No, Peter,’ said Mrs Lister. ‘He’s a kind man, Peter.’

‘Go away,’ Peter said. ‘Policeman go away.’

Gently made a sign to Setters.

They took the reefers and went.

‘Progress,’ Setters said as they drove away from Chase Drive. ‘And me the dumbest screw in the force not to have looked for those sticks sooner. Do you think she really didn’t know?’

‘She didn’t know,’ Gently said. ‘She had suspicions, maybe, but she didn’t want to believe them.’

‘So he was smoking,’ Setters said. ‘That alters the picture just a bit. They were both of them smoking. Might have been high when they crashed.’

‘Yet he leaves the sticks at home,’ Gently said. ‘Why was that?’

‘Just his home supply,’ Setters said. ‘You can maybe buy them in Castlebridge.’

‘Did you find any at the crash?’ Gently asked.

‘No,’ Setters said. ‘But that proves nothing.’

‘You’d have thought they’d have had a spare one about them,’ Gently said.

Setters rubbed his cheek. ‘The girl didn’t have any at home,’ he said. ‘When the medic told us we sent round, but we found nothing there. And it’s right, she ought to have had some. She had a case in her bag. It just wouldn’t be that chummie Elton whipped those reefers, you think?’

‘You’ve met him,’ Gently said.

‘Yeah,’ Setters said slowly. ‘Pass back. He isn’t the type. He’s next to human. He wouldn’t have gone through her bag.’

‘I’ll want to talk to her,’ Gently said. ‘Is there a chance of me doing it?’

‘I’ll ring the blood-house,’ Setters said. ‘But she hasn’t been conscious again since.’

They parked at H.Q. and went through to Setters’ office. He rang the hospital. Betty Turner was still in a coma. Gently had spread out the reefers and the serviette on a sheet of paper on Setter’s desk. He sat looking at them while Setters phoned, pushing them about with the tip of a pen-holder.

Setters hung up.

‘You’ll have heard,’ he said.

Gently shrugged, put down the pen-holder.

‘What do we know about them?’ Setters asked.

‘They’re a common make,’ Gently said. ‘We’ve picked up scores of this type in Soho and points west. They’ve been a headache for some time. You’d better dust them and send them to Narcotics.’

Setters nodded. ‘And the serviette?’

‘Dust that too,’ Gently said. ‘Then put a man on tracing its origin. He can start on the cafes in the Ford Road area.’

‘Yes,’ Setters said. ‘That’s probably where Lister got those sticks on the Tuesday morning. He wasn’t late home so it’d be in the tea-break, and he wouldn’t go far from the site for that.’

‘One other thing,’ Gently said. ‘Suppose you wanted to pull a jeebie. Where’s the most likely place to lay hands on one?’

Setters thought about it. ‘Try the First and Last cafe,’ he said. ‘You’ll find it just out of town on the Norwich Road.’

‘Is it cool, man?’ Gently asked.

‘Bloody arctic,’ said Setters.

‘Like I may make the scene after a meal,’ Gently said.

At the sun Gently ordered a high tea and while he ate it read the evening paper. Two reporters had been waiting at H.Q. when he first arrived there and after the conference he had given them a short non-committal statement. He had been photographed. The photograph appeared on the front page. It showed him stooping to enter the Rover, on the whole a flattering shot. It was recognizable also. His waitress had recognized it. She now addressed him as Mr Gently and had a conversation about him with another waitress. The manager, who’d known about him all along, nodded to him with superior deference.

Setters looked in again after tea with the results of the print-taking, but the prints on the reefers had been few and partial and those on the serviette were Lister’s. He’d sent out Ralphs with the serviette and expected a report from him during the evening. Ralphs had been on the case from the beginning: he was keen not to be dropped now.

‘Will you want me with you this evening?’ Setters had asked.

Gently had grinned. ‘Am I likely to need you?’

‘Not in this town you shouldn’t,’ Setters had replied. ‘But you might not be popular where you are going.’

He’d borrowed the paper and gone out looking at it. But only his arm had shown in the picture.

At half-past seven Gently left, after studying a plan of Latchford which hung in the hotel hall. He drove up the High Street, turned right at the top, drove some distance through a residential street. The street ended abruptly. There was open country beyond it. The lights were cut off quite sharply and beyond them was blackness. A little further right was a pull-up backed by a low, dim-lit building, and on the building was a red neon sign which read: First And Last. He drove in and parked between a truck and a small van. Next to the van, parked in a square, were six or seven motorcycles. When he got out from the car he could hear canned jazz music, somebody beating out the rhythm, a girl’s voice raised in a squeal. He went over and through the door. Opposite the door was an espresso bar. The building was L-shaped, furnished with tables and chairs, underlit and overheated. He crossed to the bar.

‘I’ll have a cup of coffee,’ he said.

The man at the bar looked like an Italian, he had thin features and a twitch. At a table near the bar a truck-driver was eating. The rest of the tables near the bar were empty. It was round the corner where the noise was coming from. There one could partly see the illuminated bulk of a jukebox.

‘I fix you some eats?’ the Italian said.

‘No,’ Gently said. He paid for his coffee.

‘Some sandwiches, fruit?’ the Italian said.

Gently shrugged, walked away, the Italian watching him.

Round the corner they’d pushed the tables back and were sitting in a group. There were ten youths and six girls and, in the centre, an older man. Most of the youths wore black riding leathers, black sweaters, black boots. The others wore short, patterned jackets, black sweaters, black jeans. The girls wore various sweaters, black jeans, black ballerinas. They all wore ban-the-bomb badges. They sat on chairs and on the floor.

Gently walked up to the group. He stood drinking his coffee. They didn’t stop beating out rhythm but all their eyes were fixed on him. One of the girls was Maureen Elton. She squealed something to her neighbour. The jukebox was turned up very loud, it was thumping out New Orleans Blues. The Italian came round the end of the bar, kept making gestures with his head to someone. The eyes that watched Gently didn’t have expression, they were just watchful, continuedly.

The jazz stopped, leaving a humming. The Italian went very still. From down by the counter came the clatter of the truck-driver’s cutlery. Three of the youths got to their feet, one of them strutted towards Gently. He had a handsome, fresh-complexioned face but with a wide mouth and a receding brow. He stood before Gently, hands on hips. Gently finished his coffee, put down the cup.

‘Like what gives?’ the youth said.

Gently didn’t say anything.

‘Like I’m asking you, square,’ the youth said.

Gently felt in his pocket for his pipe.

‘You want I clue you?’ the youth said. ‘Like you’re dumb or some jazz? We don’t go for squares in this scene. Like you’re smart you’ll blow pronto.’