Gently Where the Roads Go (14 page)

‘Stop that bastard!’ Felling roared.

The constable at the top held out clutching hands. The man raced towards him till he was a dozen yards short, then seemed to give up the idea, checked, came to a stand. Felling and the constable closed in on him. Before they could touch him he was bolting again. But this time Felling managed to kick his heels together. He went to the ground. They grabbed him and held him.

‘You treacherous so-and-so!’ Felling was panting. ‘I’ll teach you to play that kind of trick.’

He was twisting the arm of the man behind him. The man had gone white. His eyes were closed and squinting.

‘Let him get up,’ Gently said.

‘The cunning bastard!’ Felling panted.

‘Let him get up all the same,’ Gently said.

Felling yanked the man to his feet. He and the constable held him. The man sagged against them, pale, breathing hard. He opened his eyes. He stared fearfully at Gently.

‘You value your liberty,’ Gently said.

The corners of the mouth pulled down, trembled.

‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘Let’s get him to the station.’

The constable picked up the man’s hat. They took him away.

W
HAT’S YOUR NAME?’

‘I am Campbell.’

‘Show me your wallet.’

The man produced it. A stiff, pigskin wallet, nearly new, very slim. It contained fourteen one pound notes and two ten shilling notes but nothing else. The notes were new notes with consecutive numbers, except the two ten shillings.

‘Where’s your driving licence?’

‘It is not with me.’

‘Where is it?’

He shook his head.

‘Put the contents of your pockets on the desk.’

He emptied his pockets. He made a neat pile.

The pile consisted of five half-crowns, a florin, two sixpences, two threepenny pieces, five pennies, three halfpennies, a cheap penknife, a ball pen, a clean handkerchief, a packet of Chesterfield cigarettes, a box of Swan matches, a Yale key on a ring, and a silver charm shaped like a rabbit’s foot, also attached to the ring.

‘What’s the key for?’

‘It is for my flat.’

‘What’s the address of it?’

He shook his head.

‘Don’t you know where you come from?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘Is it far from West Hampstead?’

He sat still.

‘What are your Christian names?’

‘I am Campbell.’

‘Jan Campbell?’

‘Yes, John.’

‘I said Jan.’

‘John,’ he said. ‘I am always called John.’

‘Not Jan?’

‘No. Not Jan.

‘Jan Campbell?’

The mouth drooped.

‘All right,’ Gently said. ‘You can smoke, Jan. Have a cigarette, Jan. Relax, Jan.’

‘I do not want to smoke now,’ the man said.

‘Just as you like, Jan.’

He sat still.

Felling, Whitaker sat in the office, Whitaker beside Gently and Felling near the door. Felling had his arms folded, looked through the window. Whitaker’s pale eyes went from Gently to the man. Whitaker was frowning as though trying and wanting to understand. He had a large face. His face looked childish. Behind it he was shrewd. Felling’s eyes looked vacant. The man sat tensely. His eyes never left Gently. Gently was removing the photograph of Jan Kasimir from its file. He propped it up. He looked at the man.

‘When did you shave your moustache, Jan?’

‘I have not a moustache.’

‘Not since when?’

He shook his head.

‘You had one there, Jan.’

‘My name is John.’

‘Jan. That’s what it says.’

‘I don’t know what it says.’

‘It says Jan Kasimir.’

‘I am Campbell.’

‘Jan Kasimir.’

‘Campbell.’

Gently shrugged. ‘It’s quite a good photograph of you, Jan,’ he said. ‘Don’t you like it?’

‘Is not of me.’

‘Perhaps you don’t like the moustache?’

‘I have not ever a moustache.’

‘Oh, I think it was a nice touch. When did you shave it?’

His knuckles were white.

‘Before you saw Teodowicz?’

‘Who is Teodowicz?’

‘The man whose inquest you went to, Jan.’

‘I do not know him.’

‘Your fellow countryman.’

‘I am Scotsman.’

‘Timoshenko Teodowicz.’

‘No,’ the man said. ‘I do not know him. I do not know anything about Teodowicz.’

‘Don’t you read the papers?’

He sat still. He bit his lips together very hard.

‘And Teodowicz is dead,’ Gently said. ‘And the way he died wasn’t pretty, Jan. There was nothing parsimoniously Scottish about the number of bullets that went into him. Over two hundred of them, did you know that? Somebody stood there pumping them into him. Not long after you’d been to see him. The man whose inquest you attended today.’

He sat still.

‘Unpleasant,’ Gently said. ‘Haven’t you any comment to make, Jan?’

The lips bit tighter.

‘A pity,’ Gently said. ‘Somebody is going to hang for Teodowic, Jan.’

The man was trembling. He leaned forward. His eyes stretched wide, showing rings of white. ‘
Hypocrite!
’ he screamed at Gently. He crumbled in the chair. He began to cry.

Well,’ Gently said. ‘A comment after all. Why am I a hypocrite, Jan?’

The man was sobbing to himself words not in English. He didn’t pay any more attention to Gently.

Whitaker flinched, looked unhappy, asked: ‘What are we going to do about him?’

Gently watched the man crying. He had covered his face with his hands. The hands were pale hands and the fingers were sensitive. They too had been bleeding. The blood had dried on the fingers.

Gently chucked his head. ‘We’ll have to unleash Empton. I’m afraid we’ve strayed into his department.’

‘Empton,’ Whitaker said.

Gently picked up the phone. The man continued to cry, Felling to stare through the window.

Friday August 16th in a small town, in a small country, in a small world, in a large universe, Friday August 16th. A certain point in space-time with a very local description, unaccepted as an event by the electronic expression containing it. Perhaps emotion, no more, an alien wanderer in the curvatures; the burden carried by those other lonely aliens, men. Giving them local habitation where they were strangers gone foreign, a detailed assurance of identification, a comfortable shadow on their blank chart. Friday August 16th in a small town, in a small country. A point negligible in space-time. A man crying. Other men.

The door opened to admit Empton. He didn’t come into the room immediately. He stood in the doorway, hand on the knob, peering at the man who sat drooped in his chair. Empton’s blue eyes didn’t flicker and he stood as still as the door. He didn’t look anywhere except at the man. Finally, his teeth began to show.

‘Little Jan!’ he said softly. ‘We wondered where you’d got to, little Jan.’

He closed the door without a sound, and reaching behind him, shot the snack.

The man twisted round at the sound of Empton’s voice, crouched a little, didn’t say anything. Whitaker rose, pushing his chair back clumsily. Empton came across the room.

‘Is he the – one?’ Whitaker asked.

‘But of course, old man,’ Empton said. ‘This is little Jan, the West Hampstead instrument maker. We’ve met before, haven’t we Jan?’

‘My name—’ the man began.

‘Oh, don’t let’s be formal, old fellow,’ said Empton. ‘You’re with friends, don’t you remember? My little visit and advice I gave you?’ He ran the tips of his fingers over his knuckles. Kasimir kept his eye on the knuckles. ‘I sometimes look in on these chaps,’ Empton said, ‘when they first arrive here. A purely courtesy call. What’s he been telling you?’

‘Nothing,’ Gently said.

Empton showed his teeth. ‘They don’t,’ he said. ‘That’s one of the oddities of the profession, old man. There’s really only two ways of getting anything out of them.’

‘What’s the other way?’ Gently said.

‘Money,’ Empton said. ‘And we’ll try that first. Purely out of deference to bourgeois prejudices. I don’t think it will work, not in the present company. I think he killed Teodowicz. I think your presence will be inhibiting.’

‘I think it probably will,’ Gently said. ‘So I’ll stay here.’

‘Just as you like,’ Empton said. ‘It doesn’t matter. If you took him to court you’d never get a conviction.’

He looked round the office, picked up the chair Felling had used, placed it so he sat opposite to Kasimir with their knees nearly touching. He flicked Kasimir’s chin. Kasimir jerked his head back. Empton leaned forward slightly, stared hard, flicked him again. Whitaker seated himself uneasily. He sent glances at Gently. Gently sat with half-closed eyes, hunching back in his chair.

‘Little Jan,’ Empton said.

Kasimir sat very straight.

‘Little Jan,’ Empton said, ‘you’ve got something we want. We’re going to have it, little Jan, and you know we’re going to have it. That’s the situation, little Jan. I think you appreciate it, don’t you?’

He flicked. Kasimir winced, didn’t try to avoid it.

‘Yes,’ Empton said. ‘You’re a man of intelligence, you appreciate the situation. We know too much to be played with, Jan, and I’m sure you won’t waste our time by trying it. You’re going to give us what we want, Jan, because there’s no other way out. You’re going to cooperate, Jan. You’re going to tell us everything, Jan.’

He flicked.

‘Now’, he said. ‘We’re going to be generous with you, Jan. We could hang you, Jan. You know that? We could put up a case that would hang you for certain. And you’ve come such a long way, Jan, you’ve been through so much, Jan, it would be a pity, wouldn’t it, Jan, if we had to hang you at the end of it. All strapped up with a hood over your face. Such a long way from Poland. It isn’t nice, Jan. Not being hung. You wouldn’t want us to do that, would you?’

He flicked twice at Kasimir’s throat. Kasimir gasped, didn’t move.

‘And we don’t want to do it, Jan,’ Empton said. ‘We’re soft-hearted. It would grieve us. And you’re a useful man in your way, Jan, it would be a waste to hang you. So we’re going to be generous with you, Jan. We’re not going to hang you, Jan, unless we have to. We’re going to be terribly nice and English, and hope that you’ll be nice to us. You’re in a free country, Jan, you know that?’

He flicked.

‘You know that?’ he repeated.

Kasimir swallowed, nodded his head.

‘Yes,’ Empton said. ‘A free country.’ He touched his knuckles with his fingers. ‘And we hope that you’ll be nice to us, just like one Englishman to another. And useful, Jan, to your new country. Cooperative, Jan. Patriotic, Jan. And not too bloody expensive, Jan. Remembering how easily we could hang you. The taxpayers pay their money grudgingly. We have to be sparing of it, Jan.’ He flicked Jan. ‘How much do you want?’

Kasimir didn’t move a muscle.

Empton flicked. ‘You heard me, Jan?’

Kasimir breathed hard, didn’t speak.

Empton laid his fist on Kasimir’s chin and pushed Kasimir’s head first one way, then the other.

‘Little Jan,’ he said. ‘How much?’

Kasimir stared at him. He said nothing.

‘Perhaps little Jan is afraid,’ Empton said. ‘Perhaps he doesn’t trust us with his secrets. Thinks if he told us how he killed Teodowicz we might write it down and use it as evidence. But that’s because little Jan is a wog. He doesn’t understand our English justice. He doesn’t know that a confession of murder obtained by a bribe is inadmissable. But he’s hearing it now, isn’t he, Jan?’ Empton gave Kasimir a double slap. ‘And he knows he can deal, doesn’t he, Jan?’ Empton feinted a slap, let his hand fall. ‘So what’s the price, little Jan?’

Kasimir closed his eyes, rocked a little.

‘A couple of thou?’ Empton said. ‘Don’t go to sleep, Jan. I might have to wake you.’

‘I did not kill him,’ Kasimir said huskily. ‘You know about that. It is not me.’

‘Eloquence,’ Empton said, slapping him. ‘Little Jan has got a tongue.’

‘I did not kill him,’ Kasimir said. ‘I will not confess. I did not kill him.’

‘I’ll make it three thousand,’ Empton said.

‘No,’ Kasimir said. ‘Was not me.’

Empton slapped him. ‘Don’t push your market.’ He slapped him again. ‘Three and a half.’

‘No. No.’

Empton paused. ‘Just what have you got to sell us?’ he asked. ‘Who was Teodowicz?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Four thou.’

‘Is no good,’ Kasimir said.

Empton slapped him. ‘Five thou.’

‘No,’ Kasimir said. ‘I will not confess.’

‘What’s the figure?’

Kasimir said nothing. Empton slapped him. Kasimir still said nothing.

‘So it’s something big,’ Empton said. ‘Or you think it is, little Jan. And you’re not going to muck it away because you think we can’t stick you with the killing. But you’re wrong there, little Jan. We can fix you up all right. And we don’t have to put in a confession which the judge would sling straight back at us.’ He eased away from Kasimir. ‘We’ve got you taped, little Jan,’ he said. ‘You received instructions to kill Teodowicz. We pay money. We get info.’

‘No!’ Kasimir said.

‘Oh yes,’ Empton said. ‘You’re a little green in the racket, aren’t you? There’s plenty of double-selling goes on among the ranks of Tuscany, you know. And you’ve been sold. Right up the Volga. You were sent here to kill him, little Jan. You took a week off from making instruments and you came here, and you killed Teodowicz.’

Empton leant forward casually, gave Kasimir a double slap.

‘Six thou,’ he said. ‘We’ll find a level of interest somewhere.’

Kasimir sat up even straighter. ‘That is a lie!’ he cried passionately.

Empton slapped him several times.

‘Naughty,’ he said. ‘Don’t call me a liar.’

‘But it is a lie. I was not sent to kill him!’

‘Seven thousand?’ Empton said.

‘And I shall never, never, confess it!’

Empton hit him in the mouth.

‘I don’t know why I bother,’ he said. ‘This is only to satisfy bourgeois prejudice. If we leak some info in the right direction,
you’ll
get no more letters out of Poland.’

Kasimir sprang up. ‘Swine!’ he screamed. Empton punched him in the stomach.