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 cafes 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.