Setters was back at the hotel at breakfast-time carrying a worn, empty-gutted briefcase, and he was shown into the dining-room where Gently was still eating breakfast.
‘We traced the serviette,’ he said, unbuckling the briefcase on his knee. ‘I had Ralphs type his report so you could have it first thing. He ran the serviette down in the Kummin Kafe, in the neighbourhood centre in Dane’s Green. That’s half a mile from Ford Road but only a step from Spalding and Skinner’s. The Turner girl worked there. We think he met her in the Kummin Kafe.’
Gently grunted, not overpleased to be disturbed so early. But Setters was ferreting in the briefcase and eventually handed across the report.
‘The man at the cafe, name of Greenstone, remembered Lister from the published photograph. Said he was regular there at the tea-break and used to meet a girl there.’
‘Did he remember the girl?’ Gently asked.
‘Not to be positive,’ Setters said. ‘They get a lot of them in there from the offices, there’s more girls than men work there. But Ralphs got some other stuff from him, as you’ll see in the report. It looks as though the sticks were passed to the girl and then she passed them on to Lister.’
Gently hung the sheet over his teapot, went on lading some toast with marmalade. He hadn’t slept any too well, he’d caught a headache from Deeming’s Sauternes. Then, arriving downstairs, he’d seen with surprise that his interview with Deeming had ‘made’ a morning paper. More, it was Deeming himself who had reported it and whose name was given in the byline.
SUPT. GENTLY’S NIGHT OUT WITH THE JEEBIES
For a little review contributor, Deeming had a nice journalistic touch. The story that followed was slightly mocking, showed Gently as a bumbling father-figure: not explicitly, of course, but by a number of subtle, overt touches. The piece had also been made a vehicle to give some of Deeming’s ideas an airing. He must have wasted no time on the effort, but gone at his typewriter the moment Gently left.
‘I saw the write-up,’ Setters said, his glance moving to Gently’s paper. ‘I should have warned you about Dicky Deeming; he’s never slow to place a story.’
‘I’m used to it,’ Gently grunted.
‘But I should have warned you,’ Setters said. ‘The way he writes it he was stringing you along, he asked you up to clinch his story.’
‘What else did Ralphs get?’ Gently asked.
‘That was most of it,’ Setters said. ‘The rest is down there in the report. I’d say that the girl didn’t want to pass the sticks.’
Gently ate and read. The report was lengthy and detailed. Ralphs had started near the Ford Road site and worked conscientiously back into the town. He came to the Kummin Kafe, where the serviette was matched: there’d been a container of them on the counter near a plastic sandwich-case. Ralphs had seen Greenstone in a private room, had got an account from him of the Tuesday tea-break. As usual, Greenstone had been rushed off his feet, so he hadn’t had much leisure to observe specific goings-on. Yes, there were some girls from Spalding and Skinner’s, and also from a dozen other offices; some fellows, too, clerks and assistants, he didn’t particularly remember whom. He remembered Lister, however, because he came in regularly, and then his picture had been in the paper when ‘all this was going on’. Lister had been wearing overalls with a jacket thrown over them, he’d gone straight to a corner table where a girl was sitting with a fellow. The fellow had also been wearing overalls. Greenstone thought he’d left when Lister arrived. Lister remained some minutes talking to the girl, and Greenstone’s impression was that there was some sort of an argument. Anyway, Lister took something from a tub-bag which was stood on the table, and the girl said: ‘No Johnny, they’re mine,’ or something similar. Later Lister had bought a cup of tea and had taken a serviette from the container, and that was all Greenstone had noticed. He didn’t see if they left together. Ralphs had shown him a photograph of Elton and asked him if that was the other fellow. Greenstone wasn’t certain, nor could he identify a photograph of Betty Turner. Why was he certain it was the Tuesday? There was a delivery from Mowbray’s, the pie people. Greenstone had been putting pies in the case when Lister bought his tea and took the serviette.
Gently checked through it twice before handing it back to Setters.
‘You think it was Elton?’ Setters asked. ‘Would he be the one who passed her the reefers?’
Gently shrugged. ‘She seemed only just to have got them,’ he said. ‘A pity Greenstone can’t remember what went on between her and the other fellow.’
‘If it was Elton,’ Setters said, ‘it helps the way I’ve been seeing it. The sticks may or may not come into it, but that meeting and argument are significant. Let’s say that Elton went to meet her there, that he knows she’s cooling off from Lister. He tries to talk her round to ditching Lister and maybe into going with him, Elton, to the jazz session. But Betty won’t have it, she’s still sticking to Lister, then Lister arrives and Elton goes off in a paddy. Lister doesn’t like it either, he has an argument about it with Betty, and in the end he grabs her sticks — maybe because she should have had some for him. That way we’ve got some background to what happened outside the milk bar in Castlebridge. Elton is bitter, he tries to quarrel with Lister, and later he rides him off the road.’
‘It hangs together,’ Gently admitted. ‘But it might have been two other people in the cafe.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Setters said. ‘It fits together too neatly. We wanted a bit more to build on than just that incident outside the milk bar, and this gives it to us. We’ll get the truth of it when the girl can talk again.’
‘If she’ll talk about it,’ Gently said. ‘She sounded as though she wanted to protect Elton.’
‘She’ll see it differently,’ Setters said, ‘when I can show her the case against Elton.’
Gently poured a last cup, began to stoke his pipe.
‘Any news about Elton come in?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Setters said, frowning. ‘It’s beginning to bother me, that is. He’s been adrift for nearly a week now, and it’s not as though he was a professional. I rang London like you told me and had another talk with them this morning. They’ve had a check-up in Bethnal, but Elton’s not been seen there. A kid on the run with no money, I don’t like that one little bit.’
‘Meaning,’ Gently said.
‘Well…’ Setters opened his hands. ‘You get hunches that don’t add up. I keep starting to think that Elton’s dead.’
‘Mmn.’ Gently lit the pipe. He broke the match into a tray.
It doesn’t add up,’ Setters repeated. ‘But I can’t get the idea out of my head. If I’m right, then it’s suicide, and that could hardly go undiscovered. I don’t know, I’m a pushover for hunches. But I wish we could find that kid.’
‘You’ve checked on his pals?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes,’ Setters said. ‘We’ve checked twice over. Latchford’s a small place, it’s isolated. I’ll swear on oath that he’s not in Latchford.’
‘How about outside it?’ Gently asked.
‘Take a look at the map,’ Setters said. ‘It’s open country for ten miles round, except the Chase, which the rangers watch. The rest we’ve tackled, every cottage and farmyard — and there’s precious few of either. No, he’s out of the Latchford area. Unless he’s pushing up daisies somewhere.’
‘He’ll turn up,’ Gently said. He pushed back his chair, rose, and stretched. ‘I think I’ll talk to that milk bar,’ he said. ‘What was the name and address again?’
‘The Ten Spot Milk Bar,’ Setters said. ‘In Prince’s Road. Not far from the station.’
‘In the meantime,’ Gently said, ‘we might take a search warrant to Elton’s house. His sister has probably cleaned up the traces, but we can look. There’ll be no harm in that.’
He drove out of the Sun yard, where the stagecoaches had wheeled in, across the bridge over the River Latch and past a dull straggle of flint-built dwellings. A fingerpost pointed to Castlebridge, twenty-four miles, then he was out on the wide brecks with a reef of the Chase spreading in from the right.
It was a heavy October day, the sun hazy in a white sky. He swept by still-leaved, wiry birches, and later past coppery oaks and yellow horse-chestnuts. At Oldmarket, thirteen miles from Latchford, a string of race-horses trotted on the heath. Their coats looked liquid in the soft-filtered sun and two of their riders were wearing pink and blue shirts. Through the town the grandstands appeared on the right, heavy-shadowed, lonely, far-distant from the road. A few miles further on lay a military aerodrome with planes standing shaggy in dew-drenched covers.
Castlebridge was coming to life as he drove through the out-streets. Vans were busy, there were reckless droves of starved undergraduates on bicycles. Buses, filled with gown workers, were sedately threading their way to the centre, and people were hurrying along the street which led from the station. Gently swung into Prince’s Road, drove slowly down it. It was a wide road lined with a mixture of residential and commercial properties. He noticed a Victorian Gothic church, a red-brick Veterinary Institute, a garage and a tyre-store interspersed among rooming houses and small hotels. The Ten Spot Milk Bar was nearer the town end of the road. It lay between a surplus store on one side and a furniture store on the other. Across the road from it was a free car park which stretched over to a street on the far side. Gently drove into it and parked, got out, crossed the street.
He paused to take in the front of the milk bar, which was only then opening. It ranged the width of two shop-fronts and consisted of down-to-the-pavement windows. The windows were framed with thin fluted pillars that spread into arches at the top and the glass was misted inside so that the lights behind it shone through blurredly. Over the windows was a neon name-sign and a large painted ten of spades card. In the windows hung plastic menu-holders and neon signs reading ‘snacks’, ‘lunches’. There was also a large poster advertising a ‘Weekly Jazz Stampede’, given alternately by the Castle Cats and the Academic City Stompers.
He went in.
Behind the windows was the usual plastic- and-chromium bar, high stools, range of counters, section of tables for served meals. A pale blonde woman in a pink overall-coat was wiping the bar with a dishcloth. A coffee machine was steaming near her and charging the air with warm coffee smell.
‘Yays?’ she said to Gently.
‘Is the boss in?’ Gently asked.
‘Are you a traveller?’ said the pale blonde.
‘In a manner of speaking,’ Gently said.
The pale blonde looked him over, didn’t seem to like him much. She flicked the dishcloth over the chrome, dropped it in a bowl under the counter.
‘Down there,’ she said. ‘Mr Leach is in the cellar.’
‘Thank you,’ Gently said.
The pale blonde made no comment.
What she had indicated was a gloomy stair-entrance under a small mezzanine floor at the end of the bar: from which, however, carpeted steps descended, and over which was an illuminated arrow. Gently went down the steps. They turned left at a half-landing. They gave into a long, windowless room lit at present by a single bulb at the other end. Along the walls some chairs were stacked and in a corner a few tables. The floor at the sides and back was carpeted but was polished wood in the centre and at the lit end. There, under the bulb, stood an orchestra dais, painted black with silver trimmings. A man was sitting on the orchestra dais. He had some boxes of chocolates on the rostrum beside him. One of the boxes was open and had apparently been spilt: the man was dusting the spilt chocolates and carefully replacing them. He heard Gently and came to his feet.
‘You,’ he said. ‘What do you want down here?’
‘Are you Mr Leach?’ Gently asked.
‘Yeah,’ the man said, ‘Joe Leach. So what?’
‘I want to talk to you,’ Gently said. ‘About last Tuesday evening.’
The man stood scowling at him, one of the chocolates in his hand. He was around fifty, about five-eight, stockily built with powerful shoulders. He had a round head and a short neck and the thickened nose of an ex-boxer. His mouth was small but thick-lipped. His eyes were muddy-coloured and squinting. He wore a long jacket in silver grey with silver streaks woven into it, a cream shirt with embossed stars and a pale blue bow-tie. His trousers were pale blue to match the tie. His shoes were white-and-tan and had pointed toes.
‘What are you?’ he said. ‘Another screw, are you?’
Gently mentioned his credentials.
‘Yeah,’ said Leach. ‘I thought you was one. Funny that, how you can tell a screw.’ He put the chocolate back in the box, nudging it along into place. He picked up another one and examined it. ‘So what are you after now?’ he said.
‘I told you,’ Gently said. ‘I want to talk about Tuesday evening.’
‘You know about it,’ Leach said. ‘A couple of hours I was with the screws.’
‘We know some more now,’ Gently said.
Leach polished the chocolate. ‘What?’ he said.
‘Just a few more details,’ Gently said. ‘So I thought I’d pay you another visit.’
He went up the steps on to the dais and sat down on a low rostrum beside Leach. Leach kept on his feet, polishing the chocolate. Then he niched that one back into place, too.
‘Prizes,’ he said. ‘Spot prizes. They go down big, a box of chocolates.’
‘You had an accident with that box?’ Gently asked.
‘Yeah,’ Leach said. ‘I dropped the bleeder. Lucky none of the chocs were bust. What more do I have to tell you about Tuesday?’
‘Did you know Lister by sight?’ Gently asked.
‘I’d seen him around here,’ Leach said.
‘Deeming, Elton?’ Gently said. ‘Salmon, Knights, Sidney Bixley?’
‘I knew Elton,’ Leach said. ‘Maybe the others, I wouldn’t know.’
‘Deeming’s about thirty,’ Gently said.
‘So he don’t come here,’ Leach said. ‘They’re all of them youngsters that come to the jazz nights, not above twenty, any one of them.’
‘Bixley’s twenty-two,’ Gently said. ‘About your build, good-looking, wide mouth.’
‘We get above a hundred here on a jazz night. I can’t remember all that lot, can I?’ Leach said.
‘But you remember Lister and Elton,’ Gently said.
‘Do me a favour,’ Leach said, ‘will you? I’ve had those two crammed down my throat, I ain’t never likely to forget them. The screws describe them. They show me photographs. They make it like a crime if I don’t know them. Maybe I’d remember some of the others if you kept telling me who they were.’
He grabbed up some chocolates, neglected to polish them, shoved them roughly into the box.
‘Did you see them together,’ Gently asked, ‘any time during the evening?’
‘I run this show,’ Leach said. ‘Do you think I’ve got time to see who’s with who?’
‘Did you?’ Gently asked.
Leach leaned on the rostrum. ‘Whose been talking?’ he said.
‘People do talk,’ Gently said. ‘Did you see Lister and Elton together?’
Leach kept leaning. He was thoughtful. ‘Maybe I did see something,’ he said.
‘Something you didn’t tell us before?’
‘Yeah,’ Leach said. ‘Something I didn’t tell you.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Gently asked.
‘Reasons,’ Leach said. ‘I had my reasons. Maybe I could see it looked bad for Elton. I don’t like sicking the screws on a customer.’
‘Even though he might be a murderer?’ Gently asked.
‘Elton ain’t no murderer,’ Leach said. ‘But that was the way the screws were looking at it, that he’d got a grudge and knocked Lister off.’
‘What was it you didn’t tell us?’ Gently asked.
‘Well,’ Leach said, ‘I broke up a row they was having.’
He licked his lips, flashed a probing look at Gently. Gently wasn’t looking at Leach at all. He’d just noticed that the round mirror which hung on the half-landing of the stairs reflected another, higher, mirror, which gave a view down the bar. It was neat. He could see the blonde paying change into the till.
‘Here in the milk bar?’ he said.
‘Yeah,’ Leach said. ‘That’s right.’
‘Nobody else mentioned it,’ Gently said.
‘Well,’ Leach said, ‘it was in the toilet.’
‘Tell me what happened,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah, in the toilet,’ Leach said. ‘About ten o’clock, I think it was, the band was having its refreshments. So I went into the toilet and there were these charlies shouting the odds. Elton was going to knock Lister’s block off, he’d swiped his girlfriend or some caper. I could see he meant it too, he’d got an ugly look in his eye. So I broke it up. I give them the warning. Round about ten o’clock, that was.’
‘Nice of you to remember,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ Leach said. He put the lid on the box.
‘We might never have known about it,’ Gently said.
Leach tied on the ribbon, placed the box on the pile.
Another customer had come into the bar upstairs, a dingy old man with the appearance of a pensioner. He seemed to be having quite a conversation with the blonde whose doubtfulness was expressed by her attitude and gestures. Leach looked at the mirrors, then at Gently. He patted the box, rearranged the ribbon.
‘That’s just a dodge of mine,’ he said. ‘Got to keep an eye on the till when you’re down here.’
‘On your customers, too,’ Gently said.
‘Well,’ Leach said, ‘they don’t all come from Mayfair.’
Now the old man had produced an envelope and handed it to the blonde. The blonde turned her back to open it, then nodded, glancing at the cellar entrance. She reached underneath the bar.
‘Now see this mike-’ Leach began, moving.
‘Hold it.’ Gently pushed him aside.
What the blonde had handed over was a box of chocolates.
Gently was up on the instant, ran down the cellar and up the stairs. Leach came bolting after him shouting, trying to catch hold of his jacket. The old man was opening the door to go out. He stopped in surprise as the two men rushed in. Gently grabbed the box away from him, planted himself panting against the door. The blonde chose the moment to let go a scream. A customer knocked over a chair as he jumped to his feet.
‘You give that back to him!’ Leach was shouting. ‘You give that back to him, or I’ll do you!’
‘Get over there,’ Gently ordered him. ‘He’ll have the box after I’ve seen it.’
‘What’s going on?’ said the customer, a navvy.
‘Police,’ Gently said. ‘In pursuit of a felony.’
‘It’s a bloody lie!’ Leach shouted, white-faced. ‘It’s him committed felony — he’s pinched those chocolates!’
‘They’re not mine,’ the old man was quavering. ‘Please give them back to me, they belong to someone else.’
Gently motioned to the navvy. ‘Guard this door,’ he said. The navvy looked stupid, but he moved in front of the door. Gently took the box to a table, stripped the ribbon from it and lifted the lid. Under brown corrugated wrapping lay a neat layer of chocolates.
‘Look at them,’ Leach was beginning. ‘Bleeding chocolates, that’s all.’
But Gently had scooped the chocolates out and lifted the separator that was under them. He stood back.
‘Just chocolates?’
The second layer was of cigarettes. Slightly brownish, loosely made, there would be four to five hundred of them.
‘Gawd,’ Leach said, ‘gawd.’ His face was a greyish mess.
‘Any comment?’ Gently asked.
‘Yeah,’ Leach said. ‘I didn’t know about them.’
‘Save it,’ Gently said. He turned to the old man, who stood pop-eyed. ‘What do you know about it?’ he asked. ‘Where did you get the money for these?’
The old man swallowed, shook his head. ‘I was asked to come in and get them,’ he said. ‘A young man gave me ten shillings to collect them. He said there was someone here who he didn’t want to see.’
‘Where were you taking them?’ Gently rapped.
The old man winced. ‘Just over in the car park. I was out for my airing when this young man accosted me. He’s waiting there by his motorcycle for me to bring them back.’
Gently hesitated, picked up the box. ‘Take me to him,’ he said. He looked at the navvy. ‘See these people don’t leave,’ he ordered him. ‘They’re to stay right where they are, not to move from this room. If they try, put your head out and bawl for the police and assistance.’
He pushed the pensioner through the door, took his arm across the street. The park by now was pretty solid with cars and several people were moving amongst them.
‘How was he dressed?’ Gently muttered.
‘He was dressed for motorcycling,’ said the pensioner. ‘If we keep this side of the cars he shouldn’t see us till we’re nearly up to him.’
They kept to that side of the cars, the pensioner trotting along jerkily. When they were three-quarters of the way across he pulled hard on Gently’s arm.
‘He’s over there,’ he whispered, ‘by that fire-hydrant place.’
‘Keep with me,’ Gently said. He disengaged his arm.
But just then a motor roared on the other side of the hydrant station. Gently belted through the cars, hurled himself round the small building. He caught only a glimpse of a powerful bike cornering sharply into a back street, its black-leathered rider lying it close, its registration plate invisible. The pensioner came stuttering after Gently.
‘That’s him!’ he exclaimed, ‘That’s him!’
Gently stood clutching his box. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s him.’
He returned to the milk bar where the navvy remained dutifully guarding the entrance. Leach was sitting on one of the bar-stools, the blonde was snivelling into a handkerchief. Leach’s eyes glittered when he saw Gently come back with the pensioner only, but he didn’t say anything, kept his face sullenly averted. Gently confronted him.
‘Who was he?’ he asked.
‘How should I know?’ Leach said. ‘I don’t know nothing about this caper. I’m being used, that’s what it is.’
‘You,’ Gently said to the blonde. ‘Who were you expecting to pick that box up?’
‘She don’t know nothing,’ Leach put in quickly. ‘She wouldn’t be such a bloody fool as to know anything.’
‘That’s right,’ the blonde sobbed, ‘I don’t know nothing. I serve behind the bar, that’s all I do.’
‘Give me that envelope,’ Gently said.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ sobbed the blonde.
‘Just the envelope,’ Gently said. ‘The one this gentleman here handed you.’
‘He didn’t hand me no envelope.’
‘Let’s keep polite about it,’ Gently said. ‘He handed you a fat manilla envelope, after which you gave him the chocolates.’
‘It’s down the front of her dress,’ said the navvy unexpectedly. ‘I saw her shove it there while you were out.’
‘So?’ Gently said.
The blonde looked murderous. She felt in her bosom, tossed the envelope on the bar. Gently lifted it by one corner and let the contents slip out. They were a bundle of forty or so pound notes, old ones, held together with a rubber band.
‘That’s a lot of money for a box of chocolates.’
‘It was owed us,’ Leach snapped. ‘We don’t know nothing about what was in the chocolates.’
‘But you’ll know who owed you the money.’
Leach made a rude suggestion. ‘Bloody find out,’ he added. ‘We’ve said all we’re going to say.’
Gently sat amiably on another bar-stool. He slowly filled and lit his pipe. When it was alight he blew two rings, placing one of them in the other.
‘You’re in a bit of a jam, Leach,’ he said.
Leach was impolite again.
‘You’ll be going away,’ Gently continued. ‘You’ll be going away for quite a spell. This isn’t the only box, is it? You’ve been filling some more down in the cellar. You’ve got a stock of reefers here, you’re the local distributor for the top boys.’
‘I’m being used, I tell you,’ Leach said. ‘I’ve never seen them things before.’
Gently shook his head. ‘You won’t make it stand up, Joe. Look at it squarely. You’re due for a rest.’
‘I ought to have pitched you,’ Leach said, spitting.
‘We’ll let that pass,’ Gently said. ‘But you’re in a jam right up to your ears, and if you’re wise you’ll stop trying to buck it. Because a kind word could make a difference to you, Joe. And I’m the one who could put in the kind word.’
‘You think I can’t see it coming?’ Leach said.
‘Who was this box for?’ Gently asked.
‘I wouldn’t know, would I?’ Leach said, sneering. It don’t happen to have a name and address.’
‘Where are you getting the stuff from, Joe?’
‘Look for the trademark on it,’ said Leach.
‘It’ll be maybe worth a year to you, Joe.’
‘Yeah, but I value my health higher,’ Leach said.
‘I’ll tell you something else,’ the navvy said. ‘I keep my eyes about me, I do.’
‘You keep quiet, you bastard,’ Leach snapped.
‘You better look in that coffee machine,’ the navvy said.
Leach came off the stool in a whirlwind of fists. Gently caught him, heaved, sent him crashing among the tables. He went to the coffee machine, the lid of which was awry. He looked inside. In the bubbling black coffee floated a green-covered notebook. He fished it out with a fork.
‘Blimey!’ said the navvy, looking at Leach.
‘Nice work,’ Gently said. ‘We could use your sort in the Force.’
He separated some pages of the sodden notebook. It contained dates, figures, and some notes of money. And on the inside of the cover appeared a telephone number with a London code prefixed to it.
‘Well, well,’ he said. ‘You’ve been a little careless, Joe.’
Leach kept sitting on the floor. He said a number of things that were not nice.