Gently Where the Roads Go

by Alan Hunter

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  FRIDAY, AUGUST 16TH, the day of the inquest on Teodowicz; beginning heavily, dewily, and with the first sun gold. Nothing to mark the day particularly except an incursion of pressmen, and they were barely noticed in the initial bustle of Offingham’s High. A number were quartered at the Star. These had noticed Gently’s late return. One of the younger ones had sought to question him and had gained experience by doing so. The air was stiller even than yesterday, soft, suspended; the light full of bright glare, penetrating shadows, flattening recessions. The warmth of yesterday lay in the bricks to supplement the warmth of today.

  Gently left his car at the Star and walked the two hundred yards to Headquarters. He found Felling in Whitaker’s office, and Whitaker absorbing yesterday’s developments. A number of leads had come to nothing. Madsen’s prints had been found about Teodowicz’s flat. Freeman and Rice’s search had been abortive. Felling had not found the café where Teodowicz had eaten. The Mini-Minor belonged to Offingham Hire Cars Ltd and had been returned to them before the police had traced it. The hirer had given the name of Johnson, had not been remembered as wearing dungarees; he was described vaguely as well-spoken, perhaps with an accent, possibly foreign. Felling, after dusting some parts of the car, had concluded that the hirer had worn gloves. Sawney had not been apprehended. There was no word from Empton.

  Whitaker got up when Gently entered. ‘I’m going to have to congratulate you,’ he said. ‘Yesterday I was telling you this case hadn’t an angle, today you lay the chummie flat on my plate. That’s a smart piece of police work, if you don’t mind me saying so. That service connection just didn’t dawn on us.’

  ‘It would have done,’ Gently said, glancing at Felling.

  ‘I’m not sure it would, sir,’ Felling said. ‘That bottle of cleaning fluid didn’t tell me anything. I was out of my depth, so I might as well admit it.’

  ‘But you’d have made inquiries about the gun,’ Gently said. ‘You’d have got round to Huxford at last. It’s too close and handy to overlook. You can see one of the hangars from the lay-by.’

  Felling shrugged, stared at nothing.

  ‘We don’t mind admitting it,’ Whitaker said. ‘This is a job where you need a specialist. We haven’t had a murder here in living memory. Do you reckon Madsen was in on the racket?’

  Gently sat down. ‘It seems to follow. We have to accept that he destroyed those records. Though why Teodowicz should keep any records of the racket is one of those curious little points.’

  ‘Well, I got his dabs, sir,’ Felling said. ‘They were on the poker and on that pin-up.’

  ‘Another curious point,’ Gently said. ‘I could have sworn Madsen lied to us about that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Felling said. ‘He was shaky, sir. But there were his dabs, as plain as you could wish.’

  ‘So,’ Gently said, ‘even a specialist can fall down. I didn’t think he had a sense of humour, either.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ Whitaker said. He was looking pleased. ‘We’ll see if we can catch up with Madsen later. He couldn’t have had anything to do with the killing. If he’s a rogue we’ll be on to him soon enough. But that bottle was puzzling us. What do you make of the bottle?’

  Gently hunched his shoulders. ‘That’s the third curious point. Sawney obtains fluid for cleaning a gun, and the fluid turns up in Teodowicz’s garage.’

  ‘Perhaps there’s nothing to it after all, sir,’ Felling said. ‘Perhaps Teodowicz got it off him for something else.’

  ‘Or perhaps it was Madsen’s,’ Whitaker said. ‘He may have had a firearm, and got rid of it after the killing.’

  ‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘That would be more likely. You wouldn’t bother to obtain it unless you had a gun. A pity we couldn’t print it.’

  ‘Yes, it was, sir,’ Felling said. ‘And I reckoned that Madsen knew more about it than he was saying.’

  The Town Hall clock chimed a quarter. Felling looked at his wristwatch.

  ‘I’d better be getting down there, sir,’ he said to Whitaker. ‘I’ll need to see one or two people.’ To Gently he said: ‘Will you be looking in at the inquest, sir? It’ll only be the evidence of identification.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘I’ll be looking in. What time is it set for?’

  ‘Eleven hundred hours,’ Felling said.

  He rose, took his hat. When the door closed Whitaker chuckled.

  ‘Felling’s a little peeved by it all,’ he said. ‘But he’s a good fellow. He takes it well. I wonder how his highness from MI5 will take it.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s been told.’ Gently had no expression. ‘I didn’t ask them to pass a message when I was ringing the Yard.’

  Whitaker laughed outright. ‘You’re a bit of a devil. He’ll still be chasing this Kasimir fellow. And that must be a frost. You can’t have it both ways. With Sawney in the picture, Kasimir is out.’

  ‘I wonder,’ Gently said.

  Whitaker looked at him. ‘Oho,’ he said.

  ‘I want to talk to Kasimir,’ Gently said. ‘I don’t mind Empton chasing him down.’

  Whitaker was silent for a moment. ‘You still think there’s a connection?’ he asked.

  ‘I want to talk to him,’ Gently said. ‘I don’t think he’s clear from this at all. And I don’t think he’s very far away. But I was being slow last night. I’d got the Sawney angle uppermost, I wasn’t seeing the picture as a whole. I’ve been trying to see it since. And I want to talk to Kasimir.’

  ‘Last night,’ Whitaker said, puckering his eyes. ‘Would that be the fellow whose car you had checked?’

  Gently nodded. ‘Wearing new dungarees. And hiring a car to go and sit in The Raven. I didn’t get a good look at his face and he was gone while I was still trying to place him. But what I saw of him tallied with Empton’s photograph. I’m pretty certain he was the man.’

  ‘But what was his interest in The Raven?’

  ‘He probably thinks the same as I do.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Whitaker said.

  Gently hunched. ‘It’s not far from the lay-by. And it lies between that and the aerodrome, which is an interesting situation. And the proprietress knew Teodowicz, knows Madsen, knows Sawney. And she knows me. And she’s a liar. And she’s a very clever woman.’

  Whitaker raised his eyebrows. ‘What am I to understand by that.’

  ‘It’s just for the record,’ Gently said. ‘I don’t want Wanda Lane scared.’

  ‘You want a man there?’

  ‘No. No man. You couldn’t do it without her knowing. But you can have a man in the streets looking for Kasimir, and check the hotels and lodging houses.’

  ‘I’ll have Freeman do that,’ Whitaker said. ‘Is there anything else that ought to go on the record?’

  Gently looked at him, seemed about to say something, changed his mind, made a slight gesture with his hand. ‘There’s something really does puzzle me, and that’s how the killer got away with it. The appearances are that he ambushed Teodowicz, that is to say, he was waiting hidden in the bushes. Now if he was in the bushes he couldn’t see the road, apart from that segment immediately in front of him, yet he seems to have let fly with a prolonged burst as though he were certain there was no other traffic in earshot. This was between one and three a.m. when there is still a trickle of traffic. He couldn’t have reckoned on being lucky to such an unlikely extent.’

  ‘Yy-es,’ Whitaker said. ‘That does seem peculiar. But he certainly used the gun there, we picked up God knows how many shells and bullets. What do you make of it?’

  ‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘He could have had an assistant to watch the traffic.’

  ‘You think he did?’

  ‘No. It would have been too difficult. They could watch the traffic, but they couldn’t forecast Teodowicz’s arrival. I think it was something else . . . I think we may have underestimated the cunning of this chummie.’

  ‘In what way?’

  Gently said: ‘Informa
tion. Would you know Baddesley pretty well?’

  ‘I was born and brought up there,’ Whitaker said. ‘How does Baddesley come into it?’

  ‘Is the station in the middle of the town?’

  ‘No, about half a mile outside it. Baddesley is only a town by courtesy title – not important enough to bend the main line for.’

  ‘Where is the car park with reference to the station?’

  ‘It’s round at the back. You go under a bridge.’

  ‘Any lights there? Any attendant?’

  Whitaker shook his head. ‘It’s just the corner of a field.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘That fits in. Sawney’s van was found there, remember. And the service police elicited that some airmen were catching early trains, though they couldn’t get Sawney identified – there are several RAF stations in the district. But his van was there, that’s hard fact. Sawney went there that night.’

  He frowned at Whitaker. Whitaker watched him.

  ‘Let’s try it this way,’ he said. ‘Sawney drives to Baddesley Station. He has a way to make Teodowicz meet him there – proof that he was in the racket with him, perhaps: anyway, he gets him there. And when he arrives Sawney contrives to attack him and either kills him or knocks him out, then he puts the body in the back of Teodowicz’s van and drives it along to the lay-by. Now the problem is much simpler. Sawney can bide his time for a break in the traffic. Then he fires his burst into Teodowicz, part of it from the bushes to suggest an ambush, and escapes over the fields, leaving a trail of misdirection behind him. Very roughly, that fits the facts.’

  ‘Yes,’ Whitaker said. ‘Nothing overlooks the car park. But if it’s as you say, why did Sawney bother to use the Sten gun – if Teodowicz was dead, where was the point?’

  ‘He might not have been dead,’ Gently said. ‘Sawney wouldn’t have risked a shot near the station. And then when he did open up, all his lust for vengeance went into it.’ He grinned at Whitaker. ‘Or something,’ he said. ‘I was never much good at spinning a theory. I’m just trying to get a shape that fits the facts where it touches.’

  ‘Oh yes, it fits,’ Whitaker said.

  ‘If one could only believe in it. But it calls for a surprising amount of calculation from a man whose first object is to kill. He learns he’s betrayed, he grabs a gun, he rushes off to exact vengeance, and then he embarks on a curious plan of cool-headed misdirection. And yet it worked something like that, because the facts require it. The facts we know, that is. It could be we’re lacking a key part.’

  ‘Such as Kasimir,’ Whitaker said.

  Gently nodded. ‘He could be that factor. Until we know where he fits, there’s a blur in the focus.’

  ‘You’re thinking he maybe took a hand in it.’

  ‘I think he’s still playing his cards. But what his game is I can’t fathom. And maybe Empton can tell us that.’

  ‘Empton,’ Whitaker said. ‘I can’t get over him. I didn’t know blokes like him existed.’

  ‘Complete with Jaguar,’ Gently said.

  The Town Hall clock struck another quarter.

  He walked down the High to the Coroner’s Court, which was situated across a small public garden at the back of the Town Hall. The public garden was enclosed by the high walls of surrounding buildings and had a mean, sunless look, with moss growing in the lozenges of thin grass. The Coroner’s Court filled one side of it, a single-storey building of damp brick. A mortuary was attached to it on the left and both bore the date: 1887. People stood about the garden. One or two were wearing mourning. A spruce, plump man moved among them with a subdued, wistful smile. He had a supply of cards which he was discreetly offering. At the door of the court stood two uniformed constables. They touched their helmets as Gently approached. One of them said:

  ‘I think you’re a bit late, sir.’

  Gently checked. ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘The inquest, sir. It’ll be about over. It’s been going on for half an hour.’

  ‘Isn’t it at eleven?’

  ‘Half-past ten, sir.’ The constable looked mildly wondering.

  ‘I was told eleven.’

  ‘No sir. Half-past ten. They naturally put it at the top of the list.’

  As he was speaking a door near them opened and a number of the pressmen began to push out. They were not in a hurry, began lighting cigarettes, seemed only to wake up when they spotted Gently.

  ‘Any statement for us yet?’

  ‘No statement.’

  ‘Is Sawney in this?’

  ‘Who’s Sawney?’

  ‘The bloke whose picture we’re running.’

  ‘You’ll get a statement from HQ.’

  He shoved in at the door against the current of people who were trying to get out. He found himself at the public end of the court, which was long, low and badly lit. Only the local man remained at the press tables and the public gallery was on its feet. Madsen, wearing a cheap but neat blue suit, stood at the bench saying something to the coroner. Felling stood not far behind him, looking sullen. The coroner was scribbling on a piece of paper. He nodded twice and handed the paper to Madsen, Madsen glanced fearfully at Felling, left the court. Felling saw Gently, came down to meet him.

  ‘There’s been some funny business, sir,’ he muttered. ‘It’s lucky I came down here early. The inquest wasn’t at eleven at all.’

  ‘What made you think it was at eleven?’

  ‘That’s where the funny business comes in, sir. Somebody rang my flat during breakfast this morning to say the inquest had been put back till eleven. Said he was calling from the Coroner’s office.’

  ‘Did he identify himself ?’

  ‘Yes sir. Said he was the Coroner’s clerk. And his voice didn’t sound unlike Mr Jimpson’s.’

  ‘Which is Mr Jimpson?’

  ‘That gentleman there, sir.’

  ‘Have you asked him about it?’

  ‘I was just going to tackle him, sir.’

  Gently went up to Jimpson, who was now going over a typewritten sheet with the Coroner; a small-featured man with aggressive eyes and close-cropped silver grey hair. He turned sharply at Gently’s approach.

  ‘Mr Jimpson?’

  ‘That’s me, sir.’

  ‘Did you ring Sergeant Felling’s flat this morning to tell him that the inquest had been put back till eleven?’

  Jimpson stared frostily at Gently.

  ‘No sir. I did not.’

  ‘Would any of your staff have done that?’

  ‘They would not. Why should they?’

  ‘Has the time set for the inquest been changed at any point?’

  ‘No sir. At no point.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Jimpson,’ Gently said.

  Jimpson said nothing, turned back to the Coroner.

  Felling shook his head, looked stupid. ‘I just don’t get this at all, sir,’ he said.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Gently said. ‘There doesn’t seem to have been any object in it. Where would you have been, if you hadn’t arrived here?’

  ‘Up at Headquarters, sir, preparing to come.’

  ‘Which would have meant a delay of five minutes when you were inquired for, and nothing more.’ Gently shrugged. ‘Could it have been a joke?’

  Felling looked ugly. ‘It better hadn’t have been, sir.’

  ‘Was there anything familiar about the voice?’

  ‘Not that I remember, sir. I took it for Mr Jimpson’s.’

  ‘No foreign intonation.’

  ‘No sir,’ Felling said. ‘Just short and sharp, just the way he always speaks.’

  Gently nodded slowly. ‘Well . . . you were here on time, whatever the object might have been. Everything went smoothly, did it – nothing unexpected turned up?’

  ‘Nothing at all, sir,’ Felling said. ‘It was just identification and a postponement.’

  ‘What was Madsen saying to the Coroner?’

  ‘Madsen . . . ?’

  ‘Just now. As I came in.’

 
‘Oh that – it was about the burial certificate,’ Felling said. ‘Madsen wants to bury him out of town. He’s getting worried, sir, about the publicity. The reporters have been giving him a rough passage. He asked if he could have the funeral at the Westlow Chapel, which is a couple of miles out of Offingham. I didn’t think we had any objection.’

  ‘He won’t fool anybody,’ Gently said. ‘When is this funeral?’

  ‘I think it’s later today, sir, if Madsen can put the arrangements through.’

  ‘It’ll be his best chance,’ Gently said. Suddenly he turned to look down the court. From the dimness of the public gallery at the other end something had faintly, briefly flashed. There was a small commotion in the gallery. A man was squeezing his way towards the door. He wore a dark suit and carried a black trilby and moved sideways, with his back to the court. Gently grabbed Felling’s arm.

  ‘Come on! I want that man detained.’

  ‘Who . . . which . . . ?’ Felling gabbled.

  The man reached the door. He had begun to run.

  Outside the bright sun put Gently at fault for a moment. He stood blinking, looking about the garden, while Felling rushed up behind him.

  ‘Who is it sir?’

  ‘Bring those constables!’

  Felling shouted instructions to the two men.

  Gently caught a quick movement across the garden and set off running towards one of the gates. The street outside was Bullock Street, leading from the Market Place towards the river; a narrow street of slovenly houses with many lane-turnings and yards. The man had gone towards the river. He had disappeared from the street when Gently reached it. There were parked cars in the street, but in that direction, few people. Gently ran on to the first turning. It was a long, empty service lane. He ran to the second. It was a cul-de-sac. An errand boy was cycling slowly down it.

  ‘Has a man come this way?’ Gently bawled.

  ‘There’s a bloke ran across the road.’

  ‘Which way?’

  ‘Down Boulting Lane.’

  A plate over a turning opposite read: Boulting Lane.

  Gently crossed over, ran into the lane. Felling and the constables followed after him. The lane slanted downhill between irregular tarred walls of old house-ends, warehouses, scrapyards. Halfway down it a turn revealed a parked truck on to which two men were loading baled waste paper. They stared at Gently, stopped loading the truck.