Free Gently with the Innocents by Alan Hunter

pause, dead-batted that one.
    ‘I don’t know, sir . . . it’s asking a lot. If someone spotted him in Thingoe Road, they’d see he was only going to the shop. Of course, we could do a house-to-house . . .’
    He let it linger in the air gloomily.
    Gently shrugged. ‘It may come to that.’
    Gissing just let it die.
    And so, of necessity, they were back with Colkett, their only glimmer of a suspect. Gissing had put a Detective Constable, Scole, on the chore of rechecking Colkett’s alibi.
    ‘He’ll be in the Grapes now, chatting up a few of the regulars. I’m going round to the Marquis myself. If you’d care to come out for a jar, sir?’
    Gently thanked him but declined – there was pheasant on the George’s menu. From Gissing’s manner you couldn’t tell if he were disappointed or relieved.
    ‘One other thing.’
    ‘Yes, sir?’
    ‘I’d like a chat with those kids some time.’
    ‘Yes, sir. I’ll round one or two of them up.’
    Gently made a face.
    ‘Not like that!’

    But then, after all, he didn’t get his pheasant peacefully, like a private citizen on his honest occasions. First there were reporters laying ambush in the George’s foyer, and Gently knew better than to brush them aside without a statement.
    ‘Mostly a routine check . . . nobody likes open verdicts. One of the relatives was in touch with the Yard, so they sent me along to make some motions.’
    They listened carefully, with hard eyes, trying to catch him in a revealing phrase. No crime reporter worth his salt could quite believe that Gently was routine . . .
    ‘Who was the relative?’
    ‘Peachment’s nephew.’
    Rule one: always tell them what they’d find out anyway.
    ‘Can you give us his address?’
    Gently obliged. With luck, they’d go haring off to an empty flat in Grout Street, Kensington.
    ‘You’re treating this as murder?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Have you a lead, sir?’ (Politeness with that one!)
    ‘No. We’re treating it as murder for the purpose of the check, but it could equally well turn out to have been an accident. I’m here to make certain.’
    Some jiffling and staring.
    ‘What about this rumour that Peachment had found a hoard of gold?’
    Gently shrugged smilingly. ‘Put it in your story. But just between us, it hasn’t turned up yet.’
    An effective performance: they went away to the phones half convinced there wasn’t a big one here. The odds were they’d just leave a stringer hanging around, unless Adrian Peachment set their noses twitching again.
    He washed and went down to dinner complacently, his office door mentally closed. But alack, when he’d barely begun on his minestrone, in walked Sir Daynes Broke.
    ‘Hullo, you old war-horse!’
    Who would have expected him, forty snowy miles from Merely? In fact, he’d been to a Regional Crime Squad conference at Eastwich and was taking in Gently on his way home.
    ‘There’s a good cross-route, y’know . . . don’t have to bother going through Norchester. I called at the station to have a look at the medal. Oh, glory. My fingers are still itching.’
    And of course he stayed to dinner, exerting all the consequence of a Chief Constable. The head waiter, wine-waiter and waitress hovered around him in a sort of ecstasy.
    ‘This pheasant now . . . fresh, is it?’
    ‘Oh no, sir. We hang them at least a week.’
    ‘Ah, so you know what’s what.’
    They loved him. They couldn’t have enough of him.
    Through dinner he chatted gossip to Gently, who would sooner have concentrated on his food; then, hand on his elbow, he steered him into the lounge and to the best seats by the log fire.
    ‘Now . . . how is it going?’
    The George, you felt, had become Merely Manor when Sir Daynes walked in. Outside, in the very centre of the cobbled courtyard, would be standing his B1 Bentley with its discreet flag.
    Gently gave him a résumé. He listened intently, interrupting only at the mention of Bressingham.
    ‘Know the fellow. Bought a George III guinea