by Alan Hunter
Leaming went back again, slowly, thoughtfully, the smile grown thin on his face. ‘There’s that, of course …’ he admitted softly, ‘there’s always a possibility of an alibi being cracked.’
Gently rose to his feet and beckoned to a waiter. ‘It’s getting late … I suppose you’re just going?’
Leaming looked up at him lazily. ‘I may go – I may stay on.’
‘I’ll pay my bill at all events … then I’ll be ready, whichever you decide to do.’
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GENTLY HAD RARELY felt so checkmated as he did during the next two days. It was true that the super’s interest had been well and truly roused by the discovery of the key and the handle-frame, but cautious as ever, he had scented all the difficulties that still remained before a credible case could be made out. The main weakness, he pointed out, was Gently’s inability to prove a motive. He could produce no evidence to show that Fisher had been blackmailing Leaming. Without such evidence, there was no logical connection between the handle-frame and Fisher’s death, and hence with Leaming. He agreed that Gently was being very convincing and that he appeared to be on a trail. But Gently had to remember that their own medico ruled out the possibility of murder and he, the super, still felt most inclined to support that viewpoint.
In other words, he thought that Gently had a bee in his bonnet.
Glumly Gently went back over the trail, checking and re-checking, asking the same questions again and getting substantially the same answers. He cornered the tug-skipper in Charlie’s and gave him a grilling, but he would scarcely open his mouth. The ‘Straight Grain’ people had packed up, he said, they weren’t taking any more deliveries. No, he didn’t know where their place had been. No, they didn’t own the quay … it was derelict. Anybody could use it.
Pursuing this line, Gently went down to the quay itself. There was no doubt about its dereliction. Sited between tumble-down warehouses, its rotting piles formed just enough staithe to moor a single barge. Once there had been a shallow pent roof over it, but of this there remained only a couple of beams, dangerous, decorated with willow-herb, and on each side of the run-in to the quay nettles and ragwort cropped hectically. The place was deserted. Gently hailed an old fellow who was tinkering with a hauled-out rowing boat further down the bank. ‘Hi! … do you know who owns this place?’
The old man put down a can of varnish and came limping along to the dividing fence. He looked Gently over without interest. ‘There int nobody what own it,’ he said.
Gently pointed to the piling. ‘Somebody must have owned it at some time.’
‘Well, there was old Thrower had it … thirty odd year ago. But he never owned it neither. He just come and built that there staithe, and nobody said nothin’ to him, but he never rightly owned it.’
‘And where is Thrower now?’
‘Dead … thirty odd year ago.’
Gently sighed. ‘I suppose you don’t know anything about the people who’ve been using it lately?’
‘No, I don’t know nothin’ about them.’
Of course, if the super would put a fraud man on the books and use his resources for a general check-up, thought Gently bitterly … but then again, suppose they could bring it home to Leaming – there was still nothing to tie Leaming to the main issue. Works managers have feathered their nests before today without necessarily bumping off the proprietor. No: it was no use chasing side-issues. Once a charge was laid, the details would be ferreted out by routine work. And if the charge wasn’t laid, then the details might just as well be forgotten.
Leaving nothing to chance, he plodded across to the Railway Road Football Ground. The car park was as Leaming had described it, between the south end of the ground and the river. There was no direct entry from the park to the ground. One had to return to the road and enter by the turnstiles or by the stand. The surface of the park was cinder-dirt, worn rather thin – dry now, but with plenty of clayey depressions where puddles had been not so long since. Gently came out and went into the ground through the main stand entrance. Nobody enquired his business. Two groundsmen were working in one of the goal-mouths, a third was driving a motor-roller, while three or four City players in tracksuits jog-trotted round the running track. Gently strolled out on to the pitch to where the groundsmen were working. ‘Do you know where I can find the car park attendants?’ he asked.
One of the groundsmen straightened up and surveyed him coolly. ‘Who wants to know?’ he countered.
‘Police.’
‘Why – what’s wrong now?’
Gently shook his head sadly. ‘I just want some information … that’s all.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Are you one of the attendants?’
The groundsman twisted his mouth and spat. ‘I could be,’ he said.
‘Were you on the park last Saturday?’
‘Suppose I was?’
Gently held out his hand in a gesture of non-aggression. ‘I’m not trying to pinch anyone … I just want to know something. Do you remember a red Pashley sports with an aeroplane mascot being parked there?’
‘You mean Mr Leaming’s car?’
‘That’s right – do you know him?’
‘I should do. He’s there often enough.’
‘And his car was there?’
‘Yep.’
Gently paused, comfortably. ‘Whenabouts did it check in?’ he proceeded.
‘I dunno … just before the match.’
‘Did Mr Leaming say or do anything that he didn’t usually say or do?’
‘Well …’ The groundsman looked puzzledly at Gently, trying to decide what was behind it all. ‘He talked to me about the team changes and such-like. He don’t do that as a rule, I suppose, and then again, it was just on kick-off.’
‘Did you see him enter the ground?’
‘I’d got other things to do besides watch him.’
‘Were you there when he collected his car?’
‘Yep.’
‘About when was that?’
‘Same time as all the others.’
‘He wasn’t there a little early, by any chance?’
‘Not so’s you’d notice it … he may’ve been ahead of the rush.’
‘Thank you,’ said Gently, ‘that seems to be everything.’
Outside in Railway Road he stood looking back at the ground. There lay the secret, the missing link … if only he could get his hands on it. Someone in there, or someone who had been in there on Saturday, could supply it. Someone who knew Leaming. Someone who could testify that he hadn’t been at the match … even someone who had seen him double back over Railway Bridge. But how did one separate that someone from the other twenty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine?
His eye fell on the little glass box perched on the side of Railway Bridge. The bridge-keeper! A gleam came into Gently’s eye. Was it his lucky day … was his detective’s guardian angel keeping this one up his sleeve for him?
‘Police,’ he said simply. ‘Were you on duty here last Saturday afternoon?’
The bridge-keeper stared at him. ‘W’yes …’ he said.
‘Do you know Huysmann’s manager, Leaming, by sight?’
‘Mr Leaming? Yes, I know him.’
‘Did you see him crossing the bridge in this direction just about the time the match started on Saturday?’
The bridge-keeper frowned and rubbed the side of his chin. ‘There was a powerful crowd of people going over the bridge about then … I don’t suppose I’d have seen him anyway.’
‘Later on … between four and five … did you see him come back again?’
The bridge-keeper brightened up. ‘Oh no, sir – I couldn’t have done. We close down here at half-past three on a Saturday … the bridge don’t open again till Monday morning.’
It was the same wherever he went. There was plenty of fuel for his moral certainty, but the cold, hard proof eluded every enquiry. Grudgingly, he had to admire the manager of Huysma
nn’s for his crisp, sure performance. It had needed luck, and Leaming had had luck … but, with Sempronius, he had deserved it.
Dispirited, Gently made his way down Queen Street to Charlie’s. He had no real purpose in going there. It was rather a piece of conditioned behaviour – Charlie’s had been useful before, so he turned to it now when he was at a loose end. Outside stood the usual trucks and vans, and from the yard across the way came the familiar accompaniment of screaming and whining. Leaming’s world, going full tilt.
But Leaming himself was in Charlie’s. He was standing at the bar eating a sandwich, nonchalant, aware of himself as being of a different creation from his surroundings. He smiled brightly as Gently entered.
‘Still busy?’ he remarked, tentatively.
Gently glanced at him and grunted. Then he pushed to the bar, ignoring him, and called for a cup of tea. The ghost of a frown appeared on Leaming’s brow. He turned towards Gently confidentially, as though expecting a conversation to start. But Gently, having received his tea, went away to a table and began sipping it as though Leaming didn’t exist. Charlie watched this little by-play with interest; leant across, and whispered: ‘He’s on to something – you mark my words!’
Leaming lifted a patronizing eyebrow. ‘How do you know?’
‘I seen him like that before … and you know what happened that time.’
Leaming shrugged contemptuously. ‘Don’t judge strangers so hastily … the Inspector is merely feeling tired.’ He went over to where Gently sat. ‘You look fed up,’ he said, ‘haven’t things turned out as well as you hoped for?’
Still Gently refused to look at him. The slight, lacing edge of anxiety in Leaming’s tone was like music. It reassured Gently. It told him that Leaming was getting worried, that the strain was beginning to tell on him. The heat should have been off by now … and it wasn’t. Gently was still after him. And though he could tell himself that he held the trump cards, yet always there must be that little element of doubt, that tiny risk of something turning up … Even the fed-up look of Gently’s was suspect. It might be assumed to lull Leaming into a deceptive sense of security.
Gently sensed this, and smiled inwardly. His labours had not been completely in vain. Leaming was tough and cool and clever, but there was a limit to him: Gently could feel the initiative beginning to pass into his hands.
‘I’ve just come from the football ground,’ he said to his tea-cup.
Leaming laughed, but his laugh betrayed no nervousness. ‘I hope they’re getting into good trim for the match tomorrow.’
‘I was talking to the car park attendant.’
‘Which one – the red-haired fellow?’
‘This one had brown hair and grey eyes and small ears that stuck out.’
‘Oh, you mean Dusty.’ Leaming grinned, as though to excuse his familiarity. ‘He’s quite knowledgeable on football matters – I had a chat with him myself the other day.’
‘So he was telling me.’
‘Indeed?’
‘Just as the match was starting, too. I think it surprised him that you should stop to talk football, when you were already late.’ Gently turned slowly and fixed his green eyes on Leaming’s.
‘Oh, he’s probably exaggerating. On Saturday, I only had a couple of words with him.’
‘It sounded like more than that, the way he told it.’
‘Well … with a policeman chivvying him and putting ideas into his head … but it’s quite true that I chatted to him as he was sticking a chit under my windscreen-wiper.’
Gently nodded with a sort of vague satisfaction, as though the answer was just what he wished. ‘And as I was coming over the bridge I spoke to the bridge-keeper.’
‘You mean … Railway Bridge?’
‘That’s right. I don’t know which one, but he knows you … by sight.’
The tenseness now was visible in Leaming’s face. He stared into Gently’s eyes as though he would reach down and pluck out the knowledge that might be lurking there. ‘You mean the one with glasses,’ he said quickly, ‘he’s so short-sighted that he can scarcely read his time-sheets … he ought not to be on that job at all.’
‘He didn’t complain of short-sightedness to me.’
‘Naturally – he doesn’t want to lose his post.’
‘I don’t even remember the glasses.’
‘He tries not to wear them when there’s anybody about.’
Gently picked up his cup and took a long, reflective sip. ‘What makes you think it was the short-sighted one I was talking to?’ he enquired affably.
Leaming hesitated. ‘I noticed he was on as I came by after lunch … in any case, he’s the only one who knows me.’
‘Would you say he was the one who was on duty last Saturday?’
‘God knows – didn’t you ask him?’
Gently shrugged and said nothing.
‘Did he tell you that they packed up at half-past three on Saturdays?’
‘He might have done.’
Leaming leaned back, away from the table. Gently could see one brown hand tighten till there was whiteness about the knuckles. Then slowly it relaxed, the long, sensitive fingers uncurling, the thumb pointing outwards as Leaming forced calmness on himself. ‘You should be on that bridge when a match is on … there can be several hundred people a minute going over it.’
‘That’s a lot of people … all going one way.’
‘And the boys selling programmes and football publications, all crowded round with their customers … just in front of the bridge-keeper’s box.’
‘You’re making it sound quite busy.’
‘If you don’t believe me – tomorrow’s Saturday – go and look for yourself.’
Gently puckered his mouth ruminatively. ‘I may do that,’ he said, ‘yes … I may do that. I hear it’s going to be a good match, against the Cobblers.’
* * *
Norchester on a football Saturday woke up from the even tenor of its week-days. Soon after eleven o’clock the coaches began to stream into the city, coaches from the distantmost parts of Northshire – for the City had a big county following – and even from further afield. Out of the brooding depths of Thorne Station poured crowds of supporters with their rattles and gay favours of yellow and green, and the streets were thronged at lunch-time with factory-workers. The little cheap cafés and snack-bars did a roaring trade. Charlie’s, for instance, took on two extra hands for football Saturdays.
Riverside and Queen Street were the two main arteries from the city. Riverside, wide, tree-lined, with a long, broad flank between itself and the river, took the coach traffic: it had brightly painted vehicles parked three or four deep, so close to the edge of the quay that passengers were obliged to dismount from one side only. Queen Street, narrow and close-set, took the crowds from the city centre. Also it took the cyclists – for whom, at the far end, an insistent body of Queen Streeters touted their cycle-parks. At Railway Bridge the seething current from the city was joined by the rushing stream from Brackendale and together they poured over the bridge, a bridge that trembled beneath their thousand feet. Small wonder that Leaming was sceptical about being seen by the bridge-keeper, thought Gently.
He himself passed over quite close to the little glass box, staring hard at its inmate as he went by. But the bridge-keeper was apparently bored by football crowds. He sat with his back to them, reading the midday paper.
On the other side of the bridge the crush was again augmented by the disemboguing of Riverside. Gently was hustled down like a cork. He barely had time to glance across at the car park with its tangle of moving and stationary vehicles when he was swept past and left high and dry on the end of a turnstile queue. How could one man be singled out in all that turmoil …? One had enough to do looking after oneself. If this had been last Saturday, would he, Gently, have noticed which way Leaming had gone when he left the car park … or even if Leaming was there at all?
The queue behind thrust him through the absurdly narrow
little turnstile like a pip coming out of an orange, his one-and-nine snatched from his hand. He found himself amongst the loose, running crowd at the back of the terraces. Already the terraces seemed full, thronged with a dark, mass of humanity, a strange livid weal. But they were not full yet, because the armies still marched over Railway Bridge, still hurried down Queen Street, Riverside, and at the far end, down Railway Road. Thirty thousand people, perhaps more. Gently made his way round to the far side, the popular side, and forgetting he was no longer a uniform man, shouldered his way pretty well to the front.
Opposite him stretched the grandstand, all the length of the pitch, in front the packed enclosure, behind the close-banked tiers of seats, rising into the interior gloom, fully fledged with their human freight. On his right reared the Barclay stand, not seated, airier and less boxed-in than the other. Ice-cream boys marched along the naming-track. They caught sixpences with unerring hands and hurled their wares far up into the murmuring crowd. In the centre of the pitch tossed a bunch of balloons in the opposing colours … the City’s flag hung palely after nearly a season’s rains.
Gently leaned on the corner of a crush-rail and took it in, section by section. It was here, if he could find it, there was something here that would give Leaming’s alibi the lie … something. But what was it, that something? How could he abstract it from a pattern so large and overwhelming? The loud-speaker music broke out in a strident, remorseless march, overriding his thought and concentration, compelling him to accept it, to accept the occasion, to accept the mood of the crowd … he shook his head and went on searching. It was here, he repeated to himself, almost like a spell.
The match went well for the City. Not always immaculate before their own crowd, they took command of the game from the kick-off and rarely let it out of their grasp till the final whistle. Yet there was very little excitement. The score, two-one, indicated a hard-fought battle, whereas if the City had taken all their chances they might have gone near double figures. The crowd was correspondingly apathetic, seeing their team so near a resounding victory and still unable to force it home.