‘Trying to pick up some trace of him, sir.’
‘Tell them to come in, we need a car with R.T. And warn the patrols. They’re to arrest Deeming on sight.’
‘Yes, sir.’
The sergeant turned on his heel and went out. Gently pushed through the semicircle to Bixley, grabbed his collar and jerked him upright.
‘You heard that, Bixley?’ he said. ‘Deeming’s shaken off his tail. He’s after Elton, Bixley — and Elton’s your witness now.’
‘I don’t know nothing-!’ Bixley squealed. The squeal was cut off by a violent shake.
‘Listen!’ Gently thundered at him. ‘If Elton dies, you die. He’s the only person who can save you. He can testify who killed Lister. And Deeming’s after him, Bixley, Deeming wants you to hang. He’s going to stop Elton talking the way he stopped Lister talking. Or is it that Elton’s dead already?’
‘He’s alive!’ Bixley screamed.
‘Then where is he?’ Gently roared. ‘Where have you hidden him, Bixley?’
Bixley gurgled. Gently shook him and went on shaking him. Bixley let his muscles go limp and his head rolled about.
‘Shuck’s Graves!’ he gasped at last. ‘That’s where, Shuck’s Graves-!’
‘Where?’ Gently bawled in his ear.
‘Shuck’s Graves… Shuck’s Graves!’
Gently dropped him, turned to Setters.
‘Do you know where that is?’ he asked him.
‘Yeah,’ Setters said, ‘I know it. It’s the place where Dicky took you on his bike.’
Gently stared. ‘I’m a fool,’ he said. ‘Lock this one up, and let’s get out there.’
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Brewer drove. He was a good driver, as Setters had said of him. He drove a safe nine on the Norwich road, had a steady touch, wasn’t showy. When they turned off left into the side road he kept nibbling sixes in short stabs. He angled corners like a racing driver, straight in, straight out.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ he’d said to Gently, who’d taken the seat beside him.
Gently had shrugged. ‘You couldn’t help it. And you didn’t waste any time.’
Then, on purpose, he’d asked Brewer to drive, and Brewer was driving like a rally-winner. Shepherd was sitting intently behind them, Setters grimly in the other corner.
They came to the farm and its bumpy yard. Gently touched Brewer’s arm. He slowed to a walking pace beside a run where a girl in breeches was cleaning a henhouse. Gently wound down his window.
‘Has a motorcyclist passed this way, Miss?’ he called.
She nodded, staring, scraper in hand. ‘About ten minutes ago,’ she called back.
‘Thank you, miss.’
They bumbled away, struck the lane into the brecks. Over the dark swells, very far off, Gently caught sight of the two fir trees. All of them were eyeing the crests of those swells for a glimpse of a moving black speck. The light was silvery, flattening detail, dulling the contrast of the distance.
‘You know this track?’ Gently asked Brewer.
‘Yes, sir, pretty well,’ Brewer replied.
‘Have you driven it to the main road at Five Mile Drove?’
‘Yes, sir, a couple of times,’ Brewer said.
Gently flicked the R.T. switch.
‘X2 calling control,’ he said. ‘I want a car to intercept on the heath road running from Five Mile Drove to Shuck’s Graves. Hold it a moment,’ He returned to Brewer. ‘Is there any other track to the Graves?’ he asked.
‘There’s one from the north,’ Brewer said. ‘Comes in from Mundham and that way.’
‘Could he use it?’
Brewer drove a moment. ‘No,’ he said. ‘He couldn’t get through. There’s a mere out that way that floods in wet summers. We’ve had double the average. He couldn’t get through.’
‘Calling control,’ Gently said. ‘Put another car in Five Mile Drove. And cover Breck Farm Turn on the Norwich Road in case our man doubles back past us.’
‘Received and understood,’ control said. ‘Willco. Out.’
The two fir trees got larger. There was no sign of Deeming. Brewer hesitated once or twice where the track became uncertain. Sometimes it ran over a gravelly plateau from which departed several apparent alternatives, at other places heath grew over it, scars of pebbles offered themselves. Deeming had known the track better than did Brewer. He’d never hesitated once.
‘We shan’t be in time,’ Setters bit out, goaded at last into breaking his silence. ‘It won’t take Deeming ten minutes. Elton’s a kid, a lightweight.’
‘Don’t shoot the pianist,’ Gently said.
‘Yeah,’ Setters said. ‘Yeah, I know.’
He was holding the back of Gently’s seat, trying to will the Wolseley to go faster.
They came at last to the top of the ridge where they could see the depression and the two hummocks. It looked deserted at first glance, and was quickly hidden as they ducked off the ridge. Then it came into sight again as the track approached the first hummock. There it was spread out in front of them, still, apparently, deserted.
‘Where’s the entrance?’ Gently asked.
‘Over in that far hillocky bit,’ Setters said. ‘It’s been shut up since before the war. Since the archaeologists dug it.’
‘Could anyone live in a place like that?’
‘We’ll soon see,’ Setters snapped. ‘For Chrissake, man,’ he said to Brewer, ‘keep driving — keep driving!’
Brewer turned off the track and bucked crazily towards the hummock. The surface of the depression was ribbed with gullies that sent the Wolseley pitching and porpoising. They’d covered a hundred yards of this and had another hundred to go when a couple of figures broke out of the hummock, seemed to rise out of the ground. One was Elton. He’d got blood on his head. The other was Deeming. He carried a spanner. Elton was screaming, running blindly, he didn’t see the approaching Wolseley.
‘Step on it, step on it!’ Setters shrieked, standing up in the plunging car.
But Deeming had seen them, he’d dropped the spanner, was racing back towards the hummock. Elton saw them too, now, and seemed to be caught in two minds. He paused, wavered, began running towards the hummock with the fir trees.
‘Go after Elton!’ Gently shouted.
Brewer hung on the wheel, threw the Wolseley round. As he straightened it there came a roar from behind them and Deeming reappeared in the saddle of his motorcycle. Rising up on his rests, he floated past them over the broken ground, his machine bounding and jarring under him, himself steady, his knees springing. Elton heard him coming, turned, stood holding his hand out and screaming. Deeming went straight at him. Elton faltered sideways, was hit, went down.
He got up, ran a few paces, screaming piercingly all the while. He was holding his arm where he’d been hit. Deeming had turned and was going after him again.
‘This way!’ Gently roared. ‘Make for us, Elton, make for the car!’
But Elton was confused, he was running chicken-like, this way and that.
Brewer stabbed down the accelerator in a violent attempt to intercept Deeming. The Wolseley rose up like a tank, crashed hard on its axles, bounded forward. Deeming avoided it easily. He rode at Elton standing high. Elton threw out his hands, dodged feebly, was hit on the shoulder, spun several yards.
Once more he got up, his face disfigured with pain and terror. Now it seemed he couldn’t move, he stood swaying, wailing, crying. Deeming turned on him again.
‘Stop the car!’ Gently bawled.
But Setters was out before it stopped, went haring across to the paralysed Elton. He caught him up by the waist, snatched him aside from the oncoming bike. Brewer sent the Wolseley at Deeming. Deeming swerved, bore away. Setters dragged Elton towards the car, Shepherd jumped out, they lugged him in.
‘He’s going to kill me!’ Elton was screaming. ‘He’s going to kill me, going to kill me!’
‘He’ll do some killing!’ Setters panted. ‘We’ll string him up to that bloody fir tree.’
Deeming came round in a long curve, eased to a stop about thirty yards from the Wolseley. Gently opened his door, slid out. He began to walk towards Deeming.