‘We’ve been asking him questions,’ Gently said. ‘And we’ve been going through some of his records. Did you know that Leach kept records?’
‘He wouldn’t have said nothing,’ Bixley said.
‘He,’ Gently said, ‘couldn’t help it. And he wasn’t quite quick enough hiding his records. I got hold of a notebook I shouldn’t have seen.’
‘He’s a stupid git,’ Bixley said.
‘He knew quite a lot about Tuesday.’
‘He didn’t know-’ Bixley began. He stopped, tried to pierce the haze beside the lamp.
‘What didn’t he know?’ Gently asked. ‘That some of his chocolates had gone astray?’
‘Like I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Bixley said. ‘What’s this jazz about chocolates?’
Gently turned in Baynes’s direction. Baynes’s pencil scuttered, halted with a dab.
‘Yuh, what’s it about?’ Bixley demanded. ‘I don’t know nothing about his chocolates. Like he used to give chocolates for prizes, he did. Put a spot on someone, that sort of action.’
‘And you used to win them,’ Gently said.
‘Yuh,’ Bixley said. ‘I sometimes won one.’
‘Every Tuesday,’ Gently said. ‘Including the Tuesday of last week. Only last Tuesday you had some trouble with them. Maybe Lister thought it was his turn for a prize.’
Bixley was silent. He kept blinking in the lamp-glare. His eyes had puckers round them. The puckers were twitching. At first his hands had been clenched into fists but now they lay hot and thick-looking on his knees. He opened his mouth and closed it again.
‘You’d been a little careless,’ Gently said. ‘You put those chocolates on a table for a moment. Then when you looked for them they weren’t there. And Lister wasn’t there. They’d gone off together. And you’re telling me Leach didn’t know about that?’
‘He didn’t know nothing about-’ Bixley jerked.
‘Not about Lister being the culprit?’
‘He was bleeding guessing!’ Bixley said.
‘If he said that Lister had taken the chocolates?’
‘Yuh — no!’ Bixley said. ‘I keep telling you I don’t know nothing about it. I didn’t have no chocolates pinched, nor nothing like that happened at all.’
‘You collected a box on Tuesday, didn’t you?’
‘No,’ Bixley said. ‘I never did.’
‘So nobody could have seen you with a box?’
‘It ain’t a crime, is it?’ Bixley said. ‘Being given a box of chocolates?’
‘But you had one?’
‘All right!’ he said. ‘So Leachy give me a box of chocolates.’
‘And you gave Leachy forty quid.’
‘No!’ Bixley shouted. ‘I never.’
‘Even though he says you did?’
‘The bloody rat!’ Bixley said.
‘Verbatim,’ Gently said to Baynes. ‘I don’t want any of this lost.’
He sat back in the chair, a dark presence, concealedly studying the sweating Bixley. Bixley was breathing very heavily, he’d stopped trying to see Gently through the light.
‘Of course,’ Gently said smoothly, ‘you’d want those chocolates back again, wouldn’t you? After you’d spent forty quid on them and had a chocolate-monopoly here in Latchford. You could afford the forty quid, but not Lister muscling in on your racket. So you had to get that box back from him. I can see how important that was.’
‘I didn’t go after him,’ Bixley said. ‘I got an alibi, I have.’
‘Don’t interrupt,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s do some thinking about this, shall we? There’s Elton, he left soon after Lister, he could have caught him up easily. And no doubt Elton had his reasons for doing what you might ask of him. When you’ve acquired a taste for chocolates you have to toe the line, don’t you? So you might have sent Elton after Lister. It seems a reasonable assumption.’
‘I tell you I never-!’ Bixley howled.
No,’ Gently said. ‘I’m coming to that. You didn’t send Elton after Lister because you couldn’t trust him to do the job. He’d have to stop Lister as well as catch him, and after stopping him he’d have to get the chocolates. But Elton wasn’t an expert rider, nor was he a very formidable person. Not like you yourself, Bixley. You fit the bill much better.’
Bixley was halfway to his feet. Gently crashed his fist on the desk.
‘Keep your seat, please,’ he said mildly. ‘We’re coming to the interesting part now.’
‘But it’s a bleeding lie!’ Bixley shouted.
‘You’ll kindly sit down, all the same.’
‘I got my alibi!’ Bixley shouted.
‘You had fifteen minutes,’ Gently said.
Bixley sank on the chair again, his cheeks flushed, his eyes staring. He leaned forward towards the desk as though he’d got a stitch in his stomach.
‘Fifteen minutes,’ Gently continued. ‘That sounds a lot on a fast motorcycle. But you can ride a motorcycle fast or slowly, you aren’t compelled to go at full throttle. Then sometimes you stop to pick up petrol, or maybe to buy some fish and chips. Or you might have a girlfriend on the back who wasn’t so keen on mad driving. There’s one or a number of possible reasons why fifteen minutes wasn’t a safe margin — not for Lister, that is. It might have looked safe enough as an alibi. So, you gave him that fifteen minutes. The way you ride, you could make it up. Then, if as was likely, you had trouble with him, you had your alibi ready to hand.’
‘I tell you it’s crazy!’ Bixley bawled. ‘I never thought nothing like that at all. You’re making it up, that’s what you’re doing. I couldn’t never catch him after quarter of an hour.’
‘You ride a new Matchless six-fifty,’ Gently said.
‘So what if I do!’ Bixley shouted.
‘Lister’s bike was an Aerial five hundred, two years old. And he was carrying a passenger.’
‘But I didn’t go after him!’ Bixley shouted.
‘I think you did,’ Gently said. ‘And I think you caught him at Five Mile Drove and you didn’t care how you stopped him. Elton was there. You passed Elton. Elton was the witness and Elton’s missing. He saw you ride those two off the road, and stop, and take that box from the wreckage. And you made Elton swear to keep his mouth shut, or he’d finish up like Lister. And when it looked as though we’d pin it on Elton, you put Elton in a place where he couldn’t talk.’
Bixley rocked back in the chair, his face greyish. His eyes were straining at their sockets.
‘I never,’ he croaked, ‘I never! You’ll never hang that one on me, screw.’
Gently’s fist smashed the desk again.
‘What happened to Elton, Bixley?’ he said.
‘He’s gone, cleared out,’ Bixley gabbled. ‘I don’t know nothing. I didn’t do it.’
‘Where’s he gone?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bixley said.
‘I think you do.’
‘No,’ Bixley said, ‘no.’
‘He’s not very far from here, is he, Bixley?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bixley said. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’
‘He’s not very far, but he’s very quiet.’
‘I don’t know nothing,’ Bixley said. ‘I don’t know nothing.’
‘It’ll come to you later,’ Gently said. ‘Now we’ll get on to Leo. Leo Slavinovsky.’
Baynes scribbled away industriously, dabbed, and stopped. After the scratching of his pencil one heard nothing but Bixley’s breathing. The room seemed heavy round the directed light, a place of infinite insulation. Bixley sat in the light under the weight of the room like an illuminated object on a slide. From the shadows eyes examined him, applied a stimulus, made a note.
‘When did you last see Leo?’ Gently asked.
‘Who — what Leo?’ Bixley said hoarsely.
‘Little Leo back in Bethnal. The big brain,’ Gently said.
‘I don’t know any Leo,’ Bixley said.
‘He’d be hurt,’ Gently said. ‘I’m sure he had big hopes for you, Bixley. You were an up-an-coming gang-boy.’
‘I ain’t had nothing to do with him,’ Bixley said. ‘I never had. I don’t know him. That job I was pulled for I did on me own, I don’t know no Leo.’
‘Your cousin knows him,’ Gently said.
‘I ain’t seen my cousin, not since I come here.’
‘Once,’ Gently said, ‘you saw him. About the time when work was getting too heavy for you.’
‘That’s a bloody lie,’ Bixley said.