Gently Where the Roads Go (12 page)

She went straight on into the second room, which was smaller and squarer than the first. It contained a single iron bedstead, a wardrobe, a dressing-table and a chair. Under the bed was a rectangle of linoleum but the boards surrounding it were bare. There was a brush and some cosmetics on the dressing-table, and that was all the room contained. A high small window was ajar. It was curtainless. There was a faint smell of cigarette smoke.

‘Do you mind if we have a light on?’

‘I don’t use a light in here.’

She pointed to an empty socket over the bed. The only light came from the dim bulb next door. He felt in his pocket.

‘Cigarette?’

‘No, thank you. I don’t smoke much.’

She glanced quickly at an ashtray which stood on the dressing-table. It was empty. She looked away.

‘All right, then. Give me one.’

‘Sorry . . . I seem to have come out without them.’

She didn’t look at him. ‘Oh, never mind. I had one here when I was doing my hair.’ Then she looked at him. ‘Are you through questioning? I didn’t really bring you here to smoke.’

Gently puffed, took the chair and reversed it, seated himself on the chair.

‘How did you know that Sawney was missing,’ he asked, ‘if Sawney hasn’t been in touch with you?’

‘Oh hell,’ she said. ‘I’m tired of this. Can’t you give it a miss for tonight? I want a man, not a policeman. Give me a break, for Christ’s sake.’

She breathed hard. She pulled off the dress. She was wearing a pair of drawers under it. She sat on the edge of the bed, leaning towards him, her breasts swelling between her arms.

‘Look it over,’ she said. ‘I’m not voluptuous, but the men go for me. Close the hangar doors for a moment. We can always pick it up later.’

Gently looked. She was not voluptuous. She had narrow thighs and thickish calves. Her forearms, too, had a heavy appearance, and the breasts in repose would have been flattened. She looked a little like an athlete, spare, but cast with heavy bone. There was no tenderness about her. Her eroticism was not physical. They stared at each other.

‘Well . . . ?’ she said. ‘Are we going to be friends? I’m not a kid, you understand, I’m well up in the business.’

‘You could say that Johnny told you.’

‘Blast Johnny. He did, as it happens.’

‘Sometimes you don’t think very quickly.’

‘Put that pipe away,’ she said.

Gently puffed.

‘You’re a bastard,’ she said.

They went on staring at each other.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘All right, suspect me. I don’t know why or what about. You’re a cop, and that’s your business. But I’m a woman. And this is mine. I might have had Johnny, you know that, but I froze him off because of you.’

‘What was the sweet you gave Tim?’

‘Damn Tim and damn all of them.’

‘He had egg and chips on Monday night, and some sort of a sweet – trifle, was it?’

‘How the hell should I know what he had?’

‘Isn’t this where he had his meal?’

‘He’s had meals here, but not on Monday.’

‘What time did he get here?’

‘Go to hell,’ she said.

She let herself go backwards across the bed, pulling down the pillow to make her head comfortable. Now her breasts were obviously flat though the nipples were prominently tumescent. She let her feet remain close together. She gave a kick with her hips to settle her position.

‘Can’t you forget about it?’ she asked. ‘I’m not holding anything back from you. Tim didn’t eat here on the Monday night, I don’t know where you got that idea. You’re simply on the wrong track altogether. Just because Tim got shot near here. It’s a political thing, isn’t it? – they wanted Tim to go back to Poland. For Christ’s sake be your age, lover. I’m ready for any damned thing at all.’

She stared at him from back on the bed, her eyes closing, her teeth showing. She squared her arms each side of her head and moved her feet a few inches apart. Gently formed a ring of smoke.

‘Where’s Sawney?’ he asked.

She gave a moan. ‘Look for the sod.’

‘We’re doing that,’ Gently said.

‘So keep on looking for him,’ she said.

‘We’ll do that too,’ Gently said. ‘But it would save us a lot of sweat if we knew where to look.’

‘Ask around, you bastard,’ she said. ‘You’re so damned good at asking questions. I don’t know where he’d have gone.’

‘This is one likely place.’

She sat up again. ‘You lousy slop! Haven’t you just been searching everywhere? Nobody lives here with me – I wouldn’t have Sawney if he came on his knees. I didn’t like him, can’t you understand? He was a crude, snidy type. I had him in here when I was stuck for a bloke but that was all – I didn’t like him!’

‘But he might have come here.’

‘He didn’t come here!’

‘Somebody came in this direction.’

‘Oh hell,’ she said. ‘Hell. Hell. Why did I ever ask you in?’

‘That’s a question,’ he said.

She lay back, moaning. She turned on her side and kicked her legs.

‘Get out,’ she said from behind her teeth. ‘And I hope the next one gives you the pox.’

He rose. He went to look at the ashtray. He replaced the chair. He went out.

F
RIDAY, 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: ‘Information. 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.’