Gently Go Man by Alan Hunter Page B

in the boxes of chocolates.
    The local inspector, Cartwright, was dubiously cordial towards Gently, at times was plainly miffed by this discovery in his area. When he elicited that Gently had wasted no time in talking to the Yard about the matter he became respectfully frigid and held himself at a distance.
    Gently’s call had been to Pagram, his opposite number in the Central Office, giving him the telephone number he had found in Leach’s notebook.
    ‘Is this helping your case?’ Pagram had asked him.
    Gently didn’t know himself. ‘If it takes you Bethnal way,’ he’d said, ‘I shall like to know about that. A lot of the overspill population has come to Latchford from Bethnal. You know we’ve got Sid Bixley here. Keep his name where you can see it.’
    Pagram’d chuckled. ‘Is he your bunnie?’
    ‘I’m interested,’ Gently had said. ‘He’s got an alibi that seems to cover him, but it’s only sixty per cent proof.’
    The trouble was there was no way of bringing Bixley’s alibi to proof. That he’d left the milk bar fifteen minutes after Lister had been established by fairly reliable witnesses. Some Castlebridge acquaintances who knew them both had seen Lister leaving early, they’d invited him to have one for the road and had been surprised by his abrupt refusal. Then fifteen minutes had elapsed while they drank that last shake, and when they left they had been accompanied by Bixley and Anne Wicks. In between Elton had left. He’d been seen leaving soon after Lister. Yet it was possible that this order had been changed over the twenty or so miles to the scene of the crash. Lister might have ridden the first part slowly, Elton might have lost some time, say, at Oldmarket. The alibi was a good one but it didn’t completely exclude Bixley.
    In a quiet corner of the milk bar Gently had interrogated the pensioner. His name was Edwin Jukes. He badly wanted to be helpful. He recounted carefully how he’d met the ‘young man’ as he was skirting along the car park, and how he’d been saluted as ‘Dad’ and offered the ten shillings to fetch the chocolates.
    ‘How old would this young man be?’ Gently asked.
    ‘That I couldn’t say,’ Jukes quavered.
    ‘Twenty? Thirty?’ Gently suggested.
    ‘Oh, he was a youngster all right,’ Jukes said.
    ‘What colour were his hair and eyes?’ asked Gently.
    ‘Well,’ Jukes said, ‘he was wearing a hat thing. I didn’t notice his eyes. I don’t see very grand. I’m nigh on eighty if I live to see Christmas.’
    ‘Was he tall?’ Gently asked.
    ‘He was taller than I am,’ Jukes said. ‘And I’m five foot seven, if that’s any help.’
    ‘Did he speak like a local boy?’
    Jukes was baffled by that one. ‘I can’t,’ he said, ‘say he did, nor I can’t say he didn’t.’
    He was able however to confirm Gently’s impression that the youth was dressed all in black: black helmet, black leathers, black boots, and black gloves. He’d produced the envelope from a breast pocket without removing the gloves and had promised to pay the ten shillings when Jukes returned with the chocolates. The person he wished to avoid, he said, was the blonde at the counter.
    ‘There’s nothing else at all you can tell me about him?’ Gently asked.
    ‘Why yes,’ said Jukes. ‘He was a very familiar young man.’
    ‘You mean you’ve seen him before?’ Gently asked. ‘Oh, no, no,’ Jukes said. ‘But he called me Dad, and I’m not partial to that.’
    Gently had lunch at the Copper Kettle, then called back at the Castlebridge H.Q., but the prints on theenvelope, which he’d asked to have processed, were only those of Jukes and the blonde. Inspector Cartwright was obsequious.
    ‘I’m sorry we can’t be more helpful,’ he said. ‘Perhaps you’ll have better luck with the Yard.’
    ‘Yeah,’ Gently said. ‘And thanks.’
     
    After lunch it had turned cloudy. He was stuck with traffic as far as Oldmarket. An R.A.F. trailer carrying a bomber