‘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.
‘Is your mother a liar?’ Gently asked.
‘She — she’s a stupid so-and-so,’ Bixley said. ‘She got things mixed, that’s all it is.’
‘Percy Waters was arrested today.’
‘So what?’ Bixley said. ‘He’s another stupid.’
‘Leo Slavinovsky was arrested today.’
‘I tell you I don’t know nothing about him.’
‘Listen,’ Gently said. ‘I’m going to do some more thinking.’
‘I’ve had enough of this!’ Bixley yelped. ‘You bleeding let me out of here. I ain’t done nothing, you know I ain’t. I got alibis and you can’t touch me. I ain’t going to sit here having it shot at me, I bleeding ain’t. You let me out!’
‘But you aren’t going anywhere,’ Gently said.
‘I’ll get a lawyer!’ Bixley shouted.
‘You’ll be good business, too,’ Gently said. ‘Only right at this moment you’re going to listen to me.’
‘I bloody won’t listen!’
‘You’d better,’ Gently said. ‘Otherwise you won’t know what to tell your lawyer.’
Bixley swore.
‘Are we going too fast?’ Gently asked Baynes.
Baynes shook his head. ‘I can do a hundred and sixty, sir,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a special set of lettergrams for use with swear words. Very useful they are in this line of business.’
‘Stop me if you’re getting behind,’ Gently said.
‘Yes, sir. But I’ve had no trouble so far.’
Bixley sat trembling, worrying his thick lip. There was sweat on his cheeks, down each side of his chin.
‘Right,’ Gently said. ‘Are you listening to what I say to you, Bixley?’
‘I ought to have done you,’ Bixley muttered. ‘Christ, if I’d only done you, screw.’
‘You’re in trouble enough,’ Gently said. ‘Another thick lip wouldn’t have helped you. So let’s do some thinking about Leo and Cousin Perce.’
Bixley moaned, said nothing.
‘I think you heard from Perce,’ Gently said. ‘I think he told you he’d got something for you and that you’d better look him up. So you did, you went to Bethnal, you saw Perce and Leo. You heard that business was flourishing with Leo and that he was planning a little expansion. He was going to put Leach in Castlebridge to run a chocolate depot there — it was a good place for pushing chocolates, a university town. And Leo had remembered his old gang-boy who’d gone to live here in Latchford, and Leo thought that perhaps Latchford could absorb a few chocolates, too. So he proposed that you took care of that district for him, drawing your supplies from Leach on some weekly excursion to Castlebridge. And you liked that proposal, didn’t you, Bixley? It might have been made to measure for you. It meant a return to the easy money you’d been missing — and it flattered you, Leo choosing you for a job like that.’
Bixley croaked: It’s bloody lies, bloody lies, that’s what it is.’
‘Leo and Perce,’ Gently said, ‘haven’t got much left to lie about now.’
‘I only know what you tell me,’ Bixley said. ‘I know screws. Bloody liars. It’s all lies, every bit of it.’
‘I wouldn’t,’ Gently said, ‘back that horse, if I were you. We didn’t guess about Leo and his trade in chocolates. Suppose you start brightening up a little, give us a little cooperation. You’re on your own now, Bixley. All your pals are inside.’
‘They ain’t my pals. I didn’t never know them.’
‘Where did Lister come into it?’ Gently asked.
‘I don’t know about Lister.’
‘Why did he whip that box of chocolates?’
