‘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 the envelope, 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 fuselage was holding his line of traffic in check. At the top of Oldmarket High it turned right and brought everything to a standstill, spreading itself in little jerks till it was clear across both lanes. Past Oldmarket things improved and he was able to cruise in the sixes. People were still at lunch, maybe, they weren’t yet cluttering up the roads. He was beyond Barford Mills and watching for a sight of the Gallows Tree when he first noticed in his mirror the two motorcycles behind him.
Side by side they were riding, around a quarter of a mile behind him, linked together so closely that for a moment he took them for a small car. He watched them corner. It was a precision movement, the two bikes leaning over in concert. And even at the distance of a quarter of a mile he could see that the riders were clad in black.
He gave the 75 some gas, let her press up into the eights. For a while he lost his twin pursuers behind a truck and a double bend. Then he saw them again, closing in slightly, cutting the distance by a hundred yards. They settled down at that distance. They were obviously stalking him.
Gently shrugged, kept the 75 skimming along at eight and a half. They could chase him if they wanted to, but there was no percentage in that. It would take more than motorcyclists to stop him, if they had any such intention, and on a frequented main road it would be foolish to attempt it in any case. All the same he was very curious about those two black-leathered riders. He found himself wishing he was in a squad car with radio contact with the local patrols.
The Gallows Tree rose on his left and he crested the ridge into Five Mile Drove. The road lay dully stretching ahead under the grey cloak of October wrack. There was little on it. He pressed the 75 harder. She began to labour at the top of her compass. With the slope assisting she drifted into the nines and held it there, several short of the century. He glanced in his mirror. They were still coming. More, they were closing the distance again. They were bettering his speed by a sizable margin, ten, maybe fifteen miles an hour. And this time they weren’t settling behind him: they were coming up to pass.
He eased the 75 slightly to give himself a margin of acceleration, watched them leaping now towards him, their handlebars pretty well touching. They wore goggles and black scarves which covered the bottom halves of their faces, their bikes appeared to be sheeted in some way: he could see the black plastic flapping. And still they came, straight behind him, making no move to pull out. It was as though they intended to ride flush into the rear of the 75.
He took his eyes off the mirror — very well, it was their funeral! — and kept the 75 very straight down the empty stretch ahead. He refused to look at the mirror. He knew instinctively when they were up with him. He was checking his breath, waiting for the crash, certain that a crash was going to occur. Then he heard a roar above the boom of his engine. The two bikes appeared. They’d come up one on each side of him. For a couple of seconds the inside bike was bucking the bald, worn, verge: then they were through, closing up, streaking away glove by glove. He stared intently at the diminishing machines, but their plates were shrouded in the drumming black plastic.
He found himself biting hard on his pipe. It was a pretty man?uvre, that one! If he’d chanced to swerve a couple of inches there’d have been a fresh body in Five Mile Drove. He dropped his speed down to the sixes, let them go right away from him, saw them dwindle into dots in the misty aisle of the Chase. But the dots did not quite dwindle. Instead, they separated in drunken curves. For a moment he was at a loss to interpret what it was they were doing. Then he realized: they had turned. They were coming back for another attempt.
It was too crazy for anything. He guessed directly what was intended. He glanced quickly at his mirror, then moved out towards the crown of the road. He would have to cooperate, there was no alternative. To try to avoid them would bring disaster. He had to play along, as crazy as they were, and pray to high heaven they could bring it off. He held the 75 poised, kept her steady at six and a half. He said his prayer to high heaven and braced himself for what was coming.
This time their combined speeds must have been well over a hundred and fifty. The two machines hurtled towards him like missiles fired from a gun. He fought the instinct to close his eyes, to jam at the brakes, to swerve away. For a moment it seemed to him physically impossible to go on driving straight at them. Then the moment passed and he felt an icy detachment. The break came, they flicked apart, scythed howling by his two wings. A spark of elation glowed in him. He hadn’t diverged by a hairsbreadth. Only, he noticed with some surprise, his foot was hard down on the accelerator.
They turned and caught him again before the end of the Drove, but the slow overtake from behind now seemed comparatively tame. They were weaving slightly after they passed him, a victory roll it might have been. He pulled the stops out, trying to hold them, but they surged effortlessly away from the 75. Was there any chance of intercepting them? He made a mental check of the road ahead. It passed no phone box, no houses, up to the outskirts of Latchford. All they needed in the meantime were a few seconds to strip off that sheeting. After that they were unidentifiable, merely another pair of motorcyclists…
He eased down to a more reasonable speed and drew resignedly at his cold pipe. They’d got away with it for the moment, there was no point in flogging along on their tails. Better to start thinking out what was the significance of that incident, which he was sure had been planned with a deal of thoroughness and knowledge. He drove thoughtfully back into Latchford. He passed the Sun and kept going. He turned right into the Norwich Road, parked at the First and Last cafe.
Outside the First and Last cafe were standing six motorcycles and each motorcycle of the six had black plastic sheeting laced over it. The sheeting was cut so that it covered the tank and made a triangle with the pillion and back axle, thus concealing, except to an expert, the brand make of the machine.
Gently got out and walked over to them. It was very quiet inside the cafe. He walked along the row of motorcycles, stooping to place a hand near each engine. They were cool though not cold. They hadn’t been run for some time. The plastic sheetings had no mud on them. The number plates were stark and legal. He dusted his hand, nodded his head, walked into the cafe.
The six owners of the bikes sat at a table near the door, in front of each a milkshake and a sandwich on a plate. They were all dressed in black leathers and wore silk scarves round their necks. Their black gauntlets and black helmets were placed by the side of their plates. They sat silently and without moving. Only their eyes turned to Gently. In the background, his cheek twitching, Tony was doing something with a teapot.