The Reckoning Read Online Free PDF Page B

Gibson’s features in the youthful image. ‘We’re wondering if the two were connected – the caller and the letter.’
    In response Gibson had turned his hands palm upwards, showing them to be empty. ‘I wish I could help,’ he had said. ‘But I’m as much at a loss as you are.’
    The station clock at Waterloo was showing ten minutes past five when Billy got back to London. A journey that was supposed to have taken less than two hours had taken three instead. Along with the other passengers he had endured the delay philosophically, there being not much else one could do these days. The optimism felt in the country at large when the war had ended two years earlier had all but evaporated; the expectation that life would soon be back to normal now seemed a distant dream. Food was still rationed, clothing hard to come by, housing in short supply and petrol all but unobtainable. It seemed hardly reasonable in the circumstances to expect the trains to run on time; and they didn’t.
    â€˜Grey hairs, Billy. Grey hairs . . .’
    Vic Chivers’s parting words as he had waved his colleague off were still echoing in Billy’s mind as he left the station in a taxi. Although Gibson’s murder remained a Sussex case, the two detectives had agreed to keep in touch and Vic had promised to let Billy know if the possible leads they had uncovered earlier that day led anywhere.
    â€˜We’re going to have to talk to everyone in the village,’ he had said. ‘Maybe one of them caught a glimpse of Gibson’s visitor. In a small place like that strangers are noticed. It’d be useful to get a description. And then there’s that letter. Just who was he writing to? I wonder. At least we know it wasn’t brother Edward.’
    On the off-chance that the address on the envelope might have been noted, Vic had decided to return to Kingston to ask in the village shop, which also served as a post office. When Billy wondered aloud whether it was worth the trouble, his colleague had chuckled.
    â€˜You city lads don’t know about village life. You wouldn’t believe how nosy people are. I’d lay odds they’ll be able to tell me whether or not Gibson posted a letter last week. The only question is: did someone take a peek at the address?’
    But he’d been under no illusions.
    â€˜Odds-on it’ll turn out to be a wild goose chase,’ he’d predicted, pessimistically, as they waited on the platform together. ‘Whatever the problem with this caller was – and just because it got Oswald in a state doesn’t mean it was serious – we’ve no reason to think it had anything to do with him getting topped a week later. Same goes for the letter. The inquest’s tomorrow and, as things stand, I’ve got sweet fanny to tell the coroner, and not much prospect of any improvement in that department. Grey hairs, Billy. Grey hairs . . .’
    Given the hour, Billy would have liked to call it a day and go straight home to Clapham, where he lived. But he was carrying the bullet used to kill Oswald Gibson in an envelope in his pocket and he went instead to the Yard, so that he could leave it with the ballistics lab. The one recovered by the police in Scotland was on its way south and would arrive the following day. Before departing he looked in at his office and found a message on his desk to ring Detective-Inspector Chivers in Lewes.
    â€˜You won’t believe what I’ve got to tell you . . .’ By the sound of it, Vic’s gloom had lifted at a stroke. ‘Ozzie never posted that letter, never finished it even. His brother found it among the stuff in his desk, dated last Tuesday. He’d started writing it on a pad and it was still there: he hadn’t torn the page out. He must have begun the letter, then changed his mind. But he didn’t destroy it.’
    Billy listened as Vic recounted how he’d gone first to