Free Gently Go Man by Alan Hunter

broke the match into a tray.
    It doesn’t add up,’ Setters repeated. ‘But I can’t get the idea out of my head. If I’m right, then it’s suicide, and that could hardly go undiscovered. I don’t know, I’m a pushover for hunches. But I wish we could find that kid.’
    ‘You’ve checked on his pals?’ Gently asked.
    ‘Yes,’ Setters said. ‘We’ve checked twice over. Latchford’s a small place, it’s isolated. I’ll swear on oath that he’s not in Latchford.’
    ‘How about outside it?’ Gently asked.
    ‘Take a look at the map,’ Setters said. ‘It’s open country for ten miles round, except the Chase, which the rangers watch. The rest we’ve tackled, every cottage and farmyard – and there’s precious few of either. No, he’s out of the Latchford area. Unless he’s pushing up daisies somewhere.’
    ‘He’ll turn up,’ Gently said. He pushed back his chair, rose, and stretched. ‘I think I’ll talk to that milk bar,’ he said. ‘What was the name and address again?’
    ‘The Ten Spot Milk Bar,’ Setters said. ‘In Prince’s Road. Not far from the station.’
    ‘In the meantime,’ Gently said, ‘we might take a search warrant to Elton’s house. His sister has probably cleaned up the traces, but we can look. There’ll be no harm in that.’
     
    He drove out of the Sun yard, where the stagecoaches had wheeled in, across the bridge over the River Latch and past a dull straggle of flint-built dwellings. A fingerpost pointed to Castlebridge, twenty-four miles, then he was out on the wide brecks with a reef of the Chase spreading in from the right.
    It was a heavy October day, the sun hazy in a white sky. He swept by still-leaved, wiry birches, and later past coppery oaks and yellow horse-chestnuts. At Oldmarket , thirteen miles from Latchford, a string of race-horses trotted on the heath. Their coats looked liquid in the soft-filtered sun and two of their riders were wearing pink and blue shirts. Through the town the grandstands appeared on the right, heavy-shadowed,lonely, far-distant from the road. A few miles further on lay a military aerodrome with planes standing shaggy in dew-drenched covers.
    Castlebridge was coming to life as he drove through the out-streets. Vans were busy, there were reckless droves of starved undergraduates on bicycles. Buses, filled with gown workers, were sedately threading their way to the centre, and people were hurrying along the street which led from the station. Gently swung into Prince’s Road, drove slowly down it. It was a wide road lined with a mixture of residential and commercial properties. He noticed a Victorian Gothic church, a red-brick Veterinary Institute, a garage and a tyre-store interspersed among rooming houses and small hotels. The Ten Spot Milk Bar was nearer the town end of the road. It lay between a surplus store on one side and a furniture store on the other. Across the road from it was a free car park which stretched over to a street on the far side. Gently drove into it and parked, got out, crossed the street.
    He paused to take in the front of the milk bar, which was only then opening. It ranged the width of two shop-fronts and consisted of down-to-the-pavement windows. The windows were framed with thin fluted pillars that spread into arches at the top and the glass was misted inside so that the lights behind it shone through blurredly. Over the windows was a neon name-sign and a large painted ten of spades card. In the windows hung plastic menu-holders and neon signs reading ‘snacks’, ‘lunches’. There was also a large poster advertising a ‘Weekly Jazz Stampede’, given alternately by the Castle Cats and the Academic City Stompers.
    He went in.
    Behind the windows was the usual plastic- and-chromium bar, high stools, range of counters, section of tables for served meals. A pale blonde woman in a pink overall-coat was wiping the bar with a dishcloth. A coffee machine was steaming near her and charging the air with