Gently Sahib (13 page)

‘People see it from the outside – what they read in the papers.

‘That way, it’s easy to condemn . . . or you, hearing just an outline . . .’

‘So this village . . . ?’

Cockfield shook his head vigorously.

‘What connection can there be? They’re two separate things, they don’t cancel out – nothing ever cancels out.

‘Though if I dared, I tell you this, I’d call it the Clifford Amies Village . . . but what the devil good would it do? What good would it do Jenny Morris?

‘No! You just can’t cancel things out. You can accept them, that’s about all. If you can learn a bit . . . not to condemn . . . that’s about it. That’s the size.’

‘Yet someone condemned Peter Shimpling.’

‘He—’

Cockfield bit his lip.

‘He was a rat, you were going to say, a predatory animal. He didn’t deserve to have his life.’

‘I wasn’t going to say that! My God, that’s the sort of thing I fight against. You don’t understand. I didn’t condemn him. But now it’s done, can’t be undone.’

‘So we should forget it?’

‘I know you can’t. But how are you ever going to understand it? You see, the essence of it . . . the basic facts . . . you’re barking up the wrong tree. Yes, somebody did condemn Shimpling, somebody loosed the tiger on him. Those are facts, but you’re letting them blind you – say you’ve stumbled on them from the wrong angle.’

‘What’s the right angle?’

‘How should I know?’

‘You’re pretty certain I’ve got the wrong one.’

‘I am. I live here, I know the people, know the feel of it. You don’t know that.’

‘Is that all you know?’

‘I’m trying to help you! If only I could put you on the right track . . . However much you know, you’re bound to be wrong, and you might make a mess for which you’d be sorry. Why do you think I grabbed you this morning?’

‘Frankly . . . ?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’d like to square me.’

‘Call it that – I’m not squeamish! Perhaps you think I’ve done it before?’

Gently shrugged. ‘It wouldn’t have been necessary, not if I heard the story right. But you may have got hold of the impression, locally, that the police’ll swallow a good cover-up.’

Cockfield was dragging on the wheel again. Now he thumped it with his palms.

‘All right – I deserve that, very probably. I don’t care – throw it at me! But it’s not the reason, the whole reason. I brought you out here to give you a hint. Oh, I know how you’re working things out, making two and two equal four – and you’re right, you’re getting at the facts – but you’re wrong too. That’s my point!

‘No, listen. You’re full of sharp questions – was there ever a policeman who wasn’t? – you sort out a case like a box of tricks while the locals here just fumble. But are they wrong and you right? Isn’t it better to fumble sometimes? To let a weed wither away instead of trampling on the corn? Especially – this is worth considering – if you have any doubt about the weed?

‘You’ve seen Abbotsham. You think it’s slow. We don’t know what makes London tick. But do you know what makes us tick – the sort of people we are here? Because that’s important, more important than the facts you’re following up – a perspective, you understand – an elevation, as well as the plans.

‘Have you checked the crime figures for Abbotsham? No? You didn’t think to do that?

‘A manslaughter, a burglary and a bigamy – they were the highspots of 62.

‘And that’s Abbotsham. A good place to live, where people have time to like each other – a place where nothing ever happens because we’re too damn busy living our lives! Plenty of money, no slums, a little culture, a lot of decency. And small enough – we know each other, aren’t just ants in a heap.

‘Whoever heard of blackmailing in Abbotsham before this fast boy came down from London?’

Gently shifted a little. ‘What are you trying to say?’

‘Nothing! Just giving you the perspective – no more than that. Shimpling comes here, ferrets about, finds he’s on virgin soil, begins to put the bite on people, to spread his poison through Abbotsham. And some devil loses his head and that’s the lot for Shimpling – wrong, perhaps, but it happened – and the pity was it didn’t end there.

‘The question is, how wrong?’

Gently shook his head. ‘Not a question for me.’

Cockfield turned, looked at him. ‘But it is,’ he said. ‘Believe me, the whole business turns on that. Suppose it wasn’t murder?’

Gently said nothing.

‘Suppose it was . . .’ Cockfield hesitated. ‘If it were . . . in some way . . . less than murder, would it be worthwhile blowing the lid off ?’

‘Less than murder in what way?’

Cockfield patted the wheel. ‘I don’t know! More like . . . manslaughter, something of that sort.’

‘Can you suggest how it could have been manslaughter?’

Cockfield twisted. ‘Well . . . it might have been an accident. Perhaps they only meant to scare the fellow.’

‘They?’

‘Him, her, who you like! It’s as reasonable an assumption as another.’

Gently shook his head again. ‘I wouldn’t hang my hopes on that. The way it was done wasn’t to throw a scare, and throwing a scare wouldn’t have solved any problems. If Shimpling had survived he’d have had another sting, would maybe have taken his revenge. The tiger was put in there to kill him. Nothing else will stand up.’

‘But if there was any question . . . ?’

‘I can’t make bargains.’

‘But you can suppose—’

‘I’d rather stick to the facts! How much had you drunk on the night you killed Amies?’

Cockfield clung to the wheel, said nothing.

Gently said: ‘You were being blackmailed. Ashfield and Hastings were being blackmailed. You claim to have spent that night together and your alibis cancel out. Groton was also being blackmailed and so was Sayers and a certain lady. Put it into any perspective you like, and what’s a policeman going to think?’

‘I don’t know about the others—’

‘Don’t give me the parrot cry again! We’re combing the country for Shimpling’s girlfriend, and she’ll talk, and that’ll be that.’

‘As a witness in court—’

‘How did Shimpling get on to you?’

‘I never set eyes on the damn fellow!’

‘I think he was clever enough to bluff you. He probably had nothing on you at all.’

‘I tell you I never met him!’

‘This is the way I’d say it happened. Straight after you were charged at the magistrates’ court you received a letter marked “Private and Confidential”. It said the writer had information about where you’d been before the accident, and that if you didn’t want him to go to the police you’d pass him a small sum in notes. What did you do – pay up?’

‘I didn’t—’

‘You hadn’t much option, had you? A squeak of that sort would have finished you – Mayor, bigwig, public benefactor! And the fellow wasn’t asking so much, or so you thought at the time – oh yes, you slipped him the money quick. You were even glad that he was crooked.

‘Then after the case, what happened? Another one of those damned letters! But this time you thought it safe to defy him and you didn’t pass the money. So, he cracked the whip with an anonymous letter that sent Amies’s father on the rampage, and before you knew how it happened you were coughing up a regular monthly payment.

‘And my guess is it was pure bluff. He didn’t know anything – except human nature.’

‘Listen, Superintendent—’

‘Isn’t that how it was?’

Cockfield’s knuckles were pale on the wheel.

‘I don’t say it was, don’t say it wasn’t – but I still say you might make a fool of yourself!’

‘That’s a risk I’ll take. Now tell me – where’s Sayers?’

‘Sayers . . . ?’

‘Yes – and don’t say Bournemouth! My bet is he’s not far away – could be here, in one of your houses.’

‘No – not here.’

‘But you know where he is?’

Suddenly not only Cockfield’s knuckles were pale.

‘Sayers . . . he retired.’

‘Oh yes, I dare say. And oddly enough, soon after the murder.’

‘I – I don’t know.’

He’d gone quite still, staring ahead at the crescents of houses. As with Hastings yesterday, the mention of Sayers seemed to touch a button . . . and wasn’t this one fear? Sweat was misting on his slanted forehead.

‘You’d have known him, of course?’

‘Oh yes, I knew him. In my line of business . . . well, we had several deals.’

‘In fact, you’d known him for a number of years?’

‘Well yes . . . we both belong here.’

‘Yet you’ve not a notion where he’s retired to – he didn’t as much as send you a card?’

Cockfield squirmed. ‘Dave had letters from him – Dave Hastings who bought him out! Dave says he went to Bournemouth. I don’t know any more than that.
I
wasn’t bosom friends with the man, he didn’t have to tell me anything. If you want him, why not look for him?’

Gently nodded. ‘We’re doing just that.’

The tip-lorry backed out of the site and came up the road towards them. The beefy, blond-haired man who drove it leaned out grinning and made a V-sign. Cockfield lifted a big hand in acknowledgement. The lorry went on towards Abbotsham. A smell of sand, of mortar, drifted momentarily in through the Daimler’s window.

‘They’ll have those houses finished,’ Cockfield said, then, without a change of tone: ‘You’re a bloody devil!’

Gently shrugged. ‘I’m a trier,’ he said. ‘And I don’t like any sort of murderer.’

‘And you’ll go by the book,’ Cockfield said.

Gently nodded. ‘By the book. Though it blasts your crime-free town wide open, I’ll have the man who killed Shimpling.’

‘Even . . . though it does more harm than good?’

Gently looked at him. Cockfield avoided the look.

C
OCKFIELD DROPPED GENTLY
outside Headquarters without having said very much on the return journey. His rather fish-like face had a droop in it, as though that hangover had at last caught up with him. Finally he said, as Gently slammed the door:

‘Will you be around if someone wants to get in touch with you . . . ?’

But somehow it didn’t come out like a question, and when Gently didn’t answer Cockfield drove off immediately.

Obviously, he was going hot-foot to consult someone – which would perhaps take him into Dutt’s sphere of observation! Gently smiled to himself: he hadn’t been wasting his time. He had a comfortable feeling that things were on the move . . .

Two of the reporters’ cars were parked opposite Headquarters and when Gently went in a head popped out of the waiting-room.

‘Anything for the evenings, chiefie?’

Gently strolled over and looked through the door. Three other pressmen sat round a table, each holding a hand of cards. Cigarettes hung angled from their mouths and the air in the room was a haze of smoke. On the table was a kitty of cash which they hadn’t bothered to hide.

‘You’re a cheeky lot of so-and-so’s, aren’t you?’

‘Aw, chiefie – it’s a dog’s life!’

‘At least you could have a paper ready to plonk down on that lolly.’

One of the card-players reached wearily behind him to where his jacket hung over a chair, took out a paper, unfolded it, spread it over the pile of money.

‘OK, chiefie?’

‘Make it show the sports page.’

‘That’s hamming it, chiefie!’

‘Anyway, what are you blokes doing here – why aren’t you setting the cops an example?’

A thin-faced man sucked in air but blew smoke through his nostrils.

‘We’re overhanded,’ he said. ‘There’s half the Street sculling around here. Some of the boys are out digging. Some are out dating blondes. Some are playing peep-bo with Groton. We’re just here waiting for handouts. What have you got, chiefie?’

‘Yes – what have you got?’

‘I’ve a good mind to walk off with the kitty.’

‘Don’t be like that, chiefie!’

Gently sighed. ‘Couldn’t you open just one of those windows?’

He sucked a moment on his dead pipe, then said:

‘So you’re still watching Groton.’

The thin-faced man narrowed his eyes.

‘We’re manning the fox-holes,’ he said.

‘Any more shooting?’

‘Just routine. He likes to fire off a gun. One of the boys picked a shot out of his trousers, but that’d be a richochet. We’re not scoring it.’

‘Anyone know where he went last night?’

‘We were hoping you could tell us. He bashed a headlamp, knocked some glass out. But maybe he didn’t get to reporting it.’

‘Who saw that?’

‘One of the bimbos who was prowling round early this morning. Charlie Slater. Takes pics for the
Sun.
Then Groton started blasting, Slater started running. Would it be something?’

‘Not unless Charlie Slater got perforated. Did he get a photograph?’

‘Uhuh. We get anything on Groton?’

Gently looked at the thin-faced man curiously.

‘Why are you so set on Groton?’ he asked.

The man nostrilled smoke.

‘Instinct,’ he said. ‘Come rain, come snow, we know he did it. Have you busted his alibi?’

Gently shook his head.

‘One of these days you’ll have to bust it.’

‘It won’t bust.’

‘It has to bust. This job has Groton written all over it.’

Gently hunched a shoulder. ‘I’ll give you that, but don’t let it raise any hopes. Unless the entire Safari Club is underwriting him, Groton was in London when Shimpling bought it. You know the Safari Club?’

‘What do you think?’

‘Groton was attending their committee meeting on that night. With two peers, a cabinet minister and the MP for Kemptown West.’

‘We still like Groton.’

‘Facts are facts – those things that editors scream for.’

‘So why not give us some facts?’

Gently hunched again. ‘All right. We’re looking for a man called Samuel Sayers . . .’

He grinned at the thin-faced man, who said automatically:

‘You got any pics?’

‘A pic. I’ll swap it with you – for Slater’s pic of the bashed headlamp.’

But when Gently entered Perkins’s office he found the local man at his most lugubrious and was greeted with:

‘Sayers has skipped! He’s cleared his account and gone abroad.’

Gently sighed, sat himself, made a business of filling his pipe. How had Perkins ever got into that habit of expressing vast dismay with his chubby features? Relaxed, they were naturally cheerful, had a rounded, child-like optimism. But at the first sign of a check . . .