Alan Hunter - Gently through the Mill

‘Listen — I want a search warrant for these two addresses. I’ll be in to collect it as soon as it’s signed.’

Outside a green Bentley had just stormed past into town — Pershore going to blow up the super, without doubt. Between the doors of the engine-room one could barely make out a face. As it felt Gently’s eye on it, it shrank into the shadows.

Through the rain and early darkness the shop windows sparkled with a particular invitation and cheerfulness, though, when you looked through them, you discovered that the shops were nearly deserted. Some, in fact, had already begun to put up their shutters. It was only the larger shops and chain-store branches which were persisting in wearing out a fruitless day.

Blacker, seated beside Gently, had become silent and brooding. His earlier protests and asseverations had died away in occasional mutterings.

Of course Fuller had been lying! Wasn’t Gently up to that? Those fivers had come via his wage packet and a bonus on his promotion…

‘It’s only his word against mine — don’t know why you’re making all the fuss! And he’s got plenty to hide. If some of us saw fit to open our mouths…’

But Gently wasn’t buying anything. He’d spoken only ten words to Blacker. Shepherding him through the rain to the Wolseley he’d said:

‘You’re coming with me. I’m going to search your house.’

After which he couldn’t be teased into adding another syllable. So Blacker had stopped wasting his sweetness on the desert air.

The market square was a faintly gleaming vacuum, its shadows dappled by parsimonious street lighting. The green Bentley parked challengingly outside headquarters confirmed an earlier guess of Gently’s.

‘Superintendent Press engaged?’

The desk sergeant made a face and raised his eyes to the ceiling. Blessedly muted, one could hear the voice of the mayor-elect laying down the law on the floor above.

‘I’ll take my warrants… put me through to the St George.’

Dutt, looking drier, joined him at the car. Surprisingly enough, the rain was beginning to slacken. As they drove round the square it eased to an intensity which was almost commonplace.

‘I give the desk a ring, sir.’

Dutt always liked to keep up with the latest developments.

‘Other things being equal, sir, it looks like these geezers was on a burgling stunt. That Steinie bloke must have learned how to tickle peters.’

‘Hmp!’ Gently didn’t sound very enthusiastic. ‘And then he goes and banks his first split of stolen notes…’

‘It could have been legit, sir. They might have cleaned up some mugs at Newmarket. Then they gets to hear of this Lynton nob with a safe-full of ackers — he was there at the time, sir. He might have shot his mouth to someone about what he was going to do.’

‘Which transformed Taylor into a peterman?’

‘Unless they figured how to get the key, sir.’

‘And then they quarrelled amongst themselves?’

‘I can’t think of nothink else, sir.’

Gently drove on silently for some moments. In the back of the car, Blacker was listening avidly to their conversation. Gently could see him in the mirror leaning forward to catch every word.

‘Let’s hope Griffin is being his conscientious self… I shall be interested to hear details of his findings at Prideaux.’

Spooner Street, where Blacker lived, was part of the dismal nineteenth-century development of the north of the town. Cramped terraces of slate-roofed brick extended identically on either side. A handful of street lights, sparkling through the rain, seemed overawed by the implicit gloom of the thoroughfare.

‘This is his, sir. Number one-one-four.’

It was no different from the others, about twelve feet of frontage. Beside it a party-passage led into the backyards. Many years ago all Spooner Street had been decorated in reddish-brown.

‘Here’s the warrant — take a look at it!’

Blacker scowled at it summarily.

‘I can tell you right now you won’t find nothing…’

‘Just open the door, if you don’t mind.’

Reluctantly the foreman brought a key out of his pocket. As they entered the small front room they were met by the close, seedy smell of dry rot. Lit by a single clear-glass bulb of low wattage, the box-like compartment had an air of neglect and despair.

‘Start in here, Dutt.’

‘Yessir.’

‘I’ll take a look at the back.’

Blacker threw himself into a shoddy fireside chair, something like a grin twisting his weak mouth. Gently shoved open a door which led past stairs into the back parlour. From there one entered a scullery with access to the yard.

Switching on a torch, he played it round the shining walls and concrete outside the back door. As Dutt had informed him, there was no back way out of No. 114 — though, to be strict, if somebody had had the patience to scale a couple of dozen party-walls…

The floor of the yard was completely concreted and contained nothing but the dustbin and an old dog-kennel. From over the wall came the smell of kippers being grilled and the voice of a woman scolding children. The earth closet yielded nothing, neither did the coalshed, from the walls of which bunches of onions were hung.

‘There’s a loose board in here, sir!’

He went back into the front room. Dutt, that paragon of painstaking, had already rolled back the threadbare carpet. One of the planks underneath it was innocent of fastenings; it creaked invitingly when you put a foot on it.

‘Go on — have it up!’

Blacker had lit a cigarette. His greyish eyes were watching them with contemptuous malice.

‘If you ask me it was the gas people what had that board up, but nobody around here is going to ask me!’

They had it out. He was right. There was nothing under it except dirt and a gas pipe with a repair done to it. The foreman blew triumphant lungfuls of smoke towards the ceiling.

‘Coming in here… doing what they like — never as much as “by your leave”! That’s a fine way to treat an honest man, I must say! And isn’t it us what pays their screw for them?’

‘Get out of that chair.’

‘What — are you going to have that to bits?’

Poker-faced, Gently removed the seat and prodded the upholstery. He was drawing a blank, he knew. Blacker’s attitude was eloquent of what they were going to find there. Growing more insolent every moment, he followed them about with jeering remarks. He even went as far as to point out another loose board to Dutt.

‘Now — do I get an apology?’

In a different way there was something almost like Pershore about him.

‘You’ve pulled all my things around and you was wrong, wasn’t you? So I reckon I ought to get an apology, don’t you?’

Gently studied him mildly for perhaps ten seconds. Involuntarily the foreman’s eyes sank before this harmless-seeming scrutiny.

‘Come on, Mr Blacker — we’d better be going.’

‘Eh?’ Blacker reared up. ‘Where are we going to?’

‘Where did you expect?’ Gently shrugged indifferently. ‘To the next obvious place. And your lady-friend may be out unless we get round there sharpish.’

With infinite slowness the rain was fretting itself to a standstill, becoming first a drizzle and then a fine mist. An uncanny silence seemed to follow in its wake, a silence belonging to the streets and buildings. It was as though they were emerging from a prudent retirement into which, animal-like, they had been driven by the hours of downpour. Now they were stirring and reaffirming their identities.

‘She’s nothing to do with me — how many more times-!’

Couldn’t Gently afford that ironic little smile? Dutt was in the back keeping the panicky foreman company; his hand rested on the man’s arm by way of an official reminder for him to watch his manners. And Blacker, he was sitting on needles; there wasn’t any insolence about him now.