Gently with the Innocents Read Free Page A

regardless of yellow lines. At the top he pulled in beside a fishmonger’s. The man at the slab was grinning with cold.
    ‘Where’s the police station?’
    ‘Keep a-goin’. Take the second on the left.’
    He stared curiously for a moment, then turned and began jigging and chafing his fingers.
    The police station was a worn-out building with a date on a plaque, 1905. It was built of dark red brick and an inferior freestone which was flaking off round doors and windows. Gently parked in a slot near the steps. He entered a dank hall with a tiled floor. A huge, bulging, green-painted radiator stood clear of the wall and wheezed unhappily.
    ‘I’d like to speak to Chief Inspector Boyland.’
    The young constable at the desk was slow to attend to him. Then, learning his name, he blushed childishly and collided with a chair as he came round the desk.
    ‘This way, sir. I’ll just . . .’
    They went down a corridor laid with balding blue lino. The constable tapped hastily at the door at the end, opened it a little to hiss, ‘Sir . . . he’s arrived, sir!’
    Gently went in.
    ‘Inspector Gissing. He’s in charge of the case.’
    Gently shook hands with a heavy-faced, benevolent-looking man. Boyland himself was plump and jowled and had a thin moustache which looked out of place.
    ‘This business about a medal . . .’
    They’d both been drinking beer, though the glasses had been hurriedly pushed to one side. A plate with crumbs on it lay on the desk. Presumably Gently had disturbed their elevenses.
    ‘It’s a bit out of character, don’t you think? I mean, old Peachment wasn’t worth a bean. There’s only the house, and that’s falling down.’
    He was plainly embarrassed and trying to talk his way out of it.
    ‘Any more of that beer?’
    ‘What . . . what . . . ?’
    ‘I’m feeling a bit dry after my drive.’
    Boyland stared at him round-eyed a moment, then chuckled and pulled open a drawer of his desk.
    ‘Sorry . . . didn’t know . . . you being such a nob.’
    ‘And a couple of sandwiches would go down.’
    In the end he was sitting in Boyland’s chair with a glass of nut-brown and a full plate beside him, while Boyland sprawled fatly on the edge of the desk and Gissing leant comfortably against a radiator.
    ‘Let me put you in the picture. I’ve had another long chat with young Peachment. I can’t shake his story about finding the medal. I think we’ll just have to accept it.’
    ‘Well, I don’t know,’ Boyland said dubiously.
    ‘Naturally, I’ve done some checking on Peachment. He seems to be a fairly clean-living young man. No trouble with us. No doubtful acquaintances.’
    ‘Have you checked on his alibi, sir?’ Gissing asked.
    ‘Yes. He was back in his flat by ten p.m.’
    Gissing’s eyes were blank. ‘He could have done it,’ he said. ‘It’s running it close . . . but he could have.’
    Gently drank a mouthful of nut-brown.
    ‘Just for the moment, let’s leave him in the clear. He’s telling a straight story about his movements, about finding the medal in his uncle’s book-room. Now, if the theory’s right, someone knew about that medal, and that’s why Peachment was beaten up. What I want is a list of people who were friends or associates of the dead man.’
    Boyland shook his head. ‘Won’t be easy. Peachment didn’t have any chums.’
    ‘People he talked to.’
    ‘That’s just it. He never gave time of day to anyone.’
    ‘He was a rum ’un, sir,’ Gissing put in. ‘After his wife died he sort of closed up. You’d see him ambling around and muttering to himself; but he’d never speak a word to you.’
    ‘What about tradesmen?’
    ‘There’s the milkman,’ Gissing said. ‘It was him who went in and found the body. But he was in bed asleep when Peachment was killed – I checked him out. His family vouch for him.’
    ‘Other tradesmen?’
    ‘Nobody delivered. He’d buy his bits and pieces out.’
    ‘Doctor?’
    ‘He was on Doctor Paley’s list, but