Gently 18 - Gently at a Gallop by Alan Hunter

Author:Alan Hunter
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781472104649
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE SUN WAS sloping as the Lotus fizzed its way back to Low Hale and Gently, driving towards it, was glad to pull down his vizor. Cars and cyclists were heading out of town and girls were clustering at a bus-stop. An icecream van, pulled in near the police station, was doing brisk trade with home-going workers.

Docking took Gently to his own office, a small room facing the M/T yard. Waters, one of the Detective Constables, sat at a table typing his report.

‘Don’t get up,’ Gently said.

Waters, half-up, sank on his chair again. He was a red-faced, thick-featured young man with a benignly innocent expression.

‘Haven’t had a lot of luck, sir,’ he said. ‘Don’t think the others have either.’ He pointed to a couple of report sheets which were lying on Docking’s desk.

‘Where’s Bayfield now?’ Docking asked.

‘He’s gone out to Hanworth, sir. The chummies have been on the church roof – stripped it clean, so the local man says.’

Docking humphed. He unlocked a filing-cabinet and produced three squat brown bottles. He looked around. Waters dived into his pocket, handed Docking a knife that comprised a bottle-opener.

Gently sat down at Docking’s desk and glanced over the two report sheets. They were scantly filled. Dr Pleasants now had the perfect alibi of a difficult confinement. Bayfield, who must have travelled many hot miles, had added three more horses to the list, but they were stabled rather distant from High Hale heath and their security was sworn to by their owners. No horsebox or cattle-float had been noticed in the village on Tuesday, and nobody except Mrs Bircham had seen a rider on the heath.

Waters’s stint had been Starmouth, and he had succeeded in filling two minor gaps. About five miles out of the town, on the coast road, he had found the café that had supplied Berney with coffee and sandwiches. It was the car which the café-proprietor chiefly remembered – Berney had driven a puce Jaguar XJ6 – but he recalled that the customer had been wearing a lightweight grey linen jacket; and so had Berney when he died.

‘Could he fix the time?’ Gently asked.

‘Reckoned it was soon after ten, sir,’ Waters said. ‘That would square with Berney’s driving straight back there. He left the Britannic in Starmouth at about ten.’

‘Did he seem in a hurry?’

‘I asked that, sir, but my man didn’t particularly notice.’

‘He was alone, was he?’

‘Yes, sir. The man had his eye on the car.’

Waters’s other contribution was a sighting of the car at a coast-road village ten miles from High Hale. His informant there was a filling-station attendant who had also been struck by the distinctive mark and colour. Also the car had been travelling fast: it had hit the bend near the filling-station with squealing tyres. The informant was uncertain about the time, putting it somewhere about mid-morning.

‘Sounds as though he did come straight back, sir,’ Docking said. ‘He wanted to get into cover before he was spotted.’

Gently brooded over his pipe. ‘But why?’ he said.

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