Gently Where the Roads Go (18 page)

He came to the toilets, listened, slid into them, came to the back door. It was unbolted. The kitten was following him. It went to the door and looked up at it. He moved across to the door, listened again, eased the bolts home. The kitten still looked at the door. There was no sound from outside it. He moved back into the corridor, looked along the doors of the bedrooms. They were closed. He returned to the kitchen. The café was empty. The parlour was empty. The kitten ran ahead into the narrow room, stopped, looked back at Gently. It didn’t look about the narrow room. Gently went in. The kitten proceeded. It entered the bedroom, stood switching its tail. Gently approached the door of the bedroom. He looked into the bedroom.

The bedroom was not as he had last seen it. The bed had been moved to one side. The lino from under the bed was rolled up and a section of the floorboards had been lifted. There was a cavity below the floorboards which was about four feet deep. Its walls were supported by rough timber baulks and the floor was covered with dirty floorcloth. On the floorcloth stood a camp bed and on the bed lay an electric lantern, and beside the bed was a jug of lemonade and a glass and a stuffed ashtray. A section of six-inch drainpipe projected from one of the walls and a faint light showed in it. The removed floorboards lay on Wanda’s bed. They were a section which matched the existing cross-fit of the floor.

He didn’t go into the room but stood looking. The kitten moved around, sniffed at the cavity. The yellow curtains of the square window were drawn back. The window was part open. There was a faint draught from it. Then the window darkened a little and Gently looked at the window. The face of a man was squinting through it. Their eyes met. The man was a stranger. He began to fire through the wall as Gently leaped backwards. The gun kept firing, raking splinters off the doorframe. Gently wasn’t hit. He ran back into the parlour. Wanda was screaming ‘This way, this way.’ He ran out into the park. The gun had stopped firing. Wanda had the 105’s door open. She was screaming. He jumped into the car. She crashed home the clutch, bucked the car away.

‘Not too far!’ Gently shouted at her. ‘The gun doesn’t have any range.’

‘He’ll kill the pair of us. He’ll kill us.’

‘Don’t go further than the bend!’

She was driving madly, her foot down, swerving the 105 dangerously. He reached for the key, turned it, withdrew it. The car slowed, came to a rest, finished partly on the verge. She was sobbing and screaming. ‘No – no!’ He slapped her face. It had no effect. ‘He’ll kill us – he will – he’ll kill us, he’ll kill us!’

‘Shut up,’ Gently said. ‘He’s still back there behind the building.’ She tried to open the door. He knocked her hands away from it. She screamed piercingly in her fear.

‘Who is it?’ Gently said. His eyes were hard on the building, isolating it. Nobody had come round either end of it, or through the door, still sagging open.

‘He won’t stop at you. He’ll kill both of us.’

‘What’s his name – who is he?’

‘Oh God let’s go, let’s go.’

‘Tell me who he is,’ Gently said.

She struggled again. He pinned her down. She tried to strike him. She was too weak. She sobbed and cried in frantic panic, making efforts to get the door handle. The moments passed, became minutes. Still nobody came round the building. The kitten appeared for a moment at the door, turned round deliberately, marched in again. Wanda’s struggles became less continuous. Her sobs declined into a moaning.

‘He’s a Pole, isn’t he?’ Gently said.

She whined. She went for the handle again.

‘Is he someone who was here during the war – one of the Poles who were at Huxford?’

‘Find out, you bugger,’ she whined.

‘How long has he been hiding at The Raven?’

‘Find out,’ she said. ‘Find out. I tried to stop him going after you.’

‘How were you going to get away?’

‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Because you weren’t going to leave with him,’ Gently said. ‘He’s a psychopath. He’d kill anyone.’

She moaned, struck at him. Her eyes hated him.

‘You too,’ Gently said. ‘You’d like me to think that you’re man-proof. But he got round you. And he’s a killer.’

‘He’ll kill you,’ Wanda said.

‘Is he your husband?’ Gently asked.

She tugged savagely. ‘Talk bloody sense.’

‘We’ll find out,’ Gently said. ‘He’s shot his bolt.’

Two minutes. Three minutes. Wanda was quiet but breathing heavily. There was a big gap in the traffic coming along, the northbound traffic: the block was operating. The southbound traffic continued to flow. Nothing moved up at The Raven. The door was hanging on one of its hinges, caved inwards, hanging still. Gently looked steadily at Wanda. He put the key back in the switch.

‘I’m going back there,’ he said. ‘If he comes this way, don’t wait for him.’

‘No!’ she cried. ‘You can’t do that. He won’t give in, he’d sooner shoot you.’

‘I’m not relying on it,’ Gently said. ‘Don’t take the car except to avoid him. The road is blocked in both directions. Wait here. Unless he comes.’

‘No.’ She clung to him. ‘Don’t go after him. You can’t do anything. He’s got the gun.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘He’s got the gun.’ He pulled loose from her, got out of the car.

There was a gate in the hedge, into the field. He went to the gate and looked through it. The field was a small crop of turnips and had a cross hedge near to the gate. He climbed the gate, approached the cross hedge, found a gap through which to spy. Through the gap he could see The Raven at about a hundred yards distance. The garden was fenced with wire netting. He could see most of it. At the end of the garden were the fruit trees and from it a hedge extended to the hedge he stood by. He worked up the field to the line of this hedge. It bounded also the field of turnips. He passed through it near a small field oak, proceeded along it till he came to the garden. He looked along it and saw the yard. He saw where the man had stood when he was shooting. A scatter of shells lay about the spot, a few splinters of pinkish wood. Nothing moved. Between the yard and the fruit trees stood a poultry house with a sagged roof. He crept through the hedge, through the trees, came to the poultry house, stopped to observe. Nothing again. He moved rapidly into the yard, tried the door. It was still bolted.

He spent ten seconds listening, then came out of the yard and went to the bedroom window. Beneath it was chewed a savage rent through the wall timber and the hardboard lining. The rent was about the size of a dinner plate. He looked through it. He saw the kitten. The kitten was by the door and stretching its neck to sniff at a scar in the door frame. The room had no other occupant and the only sound was made by the kitten. He looked through the window into the cavity. There was nobody in the cavity. He looked along the wall towards the road, along the strip of ground between the wall and the fence. It was a part of the property not often trodden and was dripped on from the eaves and had a sandy surface. He trod on the surface. It gave a print. There were no other prints towards the road. He moved along it very quietly, came to the end of the short stroke where the gable faced the road. He looked up the road. Wanda was staring at him. There was now no traffic on the road. He picked up a stone, smashed the parlour window, ran quickly into the park, stood listening near the door. No sound. No movement. The kitten ran to meet him. He bent to stroke the kitten. He went in through the door.

Empty. Silent. The man had never entered the building. Gently checked through it quickly, no longer cautious. Since the shooting ten or twelve minutes had passed. The man had retreated through the fields after the shooting. The man wasn’t obsessed by his intention to kill Gently. The man was acting intelligently to retrieve his rashness. His retreat had perhaps taken him clear of the cordon which would be a local one concentrated on The Raven. Gently went to the phone, dialled, waited.

‘Superintendent Gently. Is the cordon in position?’

‘Yes sir,’ the station sergeant replied. ‘They should’ve set it up by now, sir.’

‘Are you in contact?’

‘Yes sir.’

‘I want the cordon set wider. The chummie has taken off from The Raven and is somewhere in the area north of it. He’s been gone over ten minutes. I want a cordon with a radius of two miles.’

‘Yes sir. I’ve got that, sir. But I don’t know if we’ve got the men, sir.’

‘Get on to the next county. We’re after a killer. Contact the army if that’ll be quicker.’

He put down the phone, turning suddenly. A man was standing in the kitchen doorway. The man had a gun pointed at Gently. The man was Felling. His eyes were squinting.

‘All right,’ Gently snapped. ‘Drop the gun. Our man has gone.’

Felling swayed a little. He was trembling. Then he relaxed. He lowered the gun.

Whitaker came in with Rice and Freeman. The two detective constables were carrying guns.

‘We’ve just caught your message on the radio,’ Whitaker said. ‘What’s been going on out here?’

Gently hunched. ‘It’s the way you heard it. The chummie has legged it across the fields. He came out of his hole to take a pot at me and I managed to get between him and the hole. He did some more shooting and I had to draw off. He didn’t wait. That’s the story.’

‘Who is it – Sawney?’ Whitaker asked.

‘No, not Sawney,’ Gently said.

‘Not Sawney?’

Gently shook his head. ‘A stranger. A Pole, I think he is.’

‘Did you get a look at him?’

‘In a sort of way.’ Gently’s eyebrows lifted, slanted. ‘He showed his face at a window for a moment, then he started shooting. I had to leave.’

‘So what’s he like?’ Whitaker said.

‘About fifty, tallish,’ Gently said. ‘High cheekbones, big chin, mid-brown hair, flattish nose, eyes paleish, deep lines. He can use a Sten but he isn’t an expert.’

‘He was using a Sten?’

‘He was using a Sten.’

‘You’ve got a guardian angel,’ Whitaker said. ‘I’d still have been running if he’d fired at me. Even one bullet makes me nervous. But this is a turn-up,’ he said. ‘If he isn’t Sawney, who the devil is he?’

‘Mrs Lane knows,’ Gently said. ‘But Mrs Lane isn’t telling.’

‘And he was hiding here?’

‘Under her bedroom. And the hideout wasn’t thought up in a hurry. I think there was a good deal of planning in this, I think it dates back further than Saturday.’

‘Hah,’ Whitaker said. ‘Sounds like Empton.’

‘No,’ Gently said. ‘Non-political. This is the crime of an individual. A crime of revenge. But not Sawney’s. Perhaps if we get those Polish records from Huxford we’ll be able to spot what’s happened. Or maybe it’s a job for Interpol, perhaps they can tell us more about Teodowicz.’

‘Or perhaps chummie will talk,’ Whitaker said. ‘He won’t get far. I’ve got the dogs coming.’

‘He’s got the gun,’ Gently said.

‘Yes,’ Whitaker said. ‘But he’s one man.’

The dogs arrived in a van. Two Alsatians with bloody eyes. They yelped and whined and heaved on their leads as they dragged their handlers into Wanda’s bedroom. Wanda was sitting in the parlour under the supervision of Rice. Her small mouth was very small, she didn’t have any smile in her eyes. The dogs yelped around the cavity. Freeman got in, handed up the mattress. The dogs fell on the mattress, tread on it, snuffing it, dragging out the smell of the man who had the gun. Their tails swept busily, they quivered, trembled. Their black muzzles poked everywhere. They stood off, gave voice.

One of the handlers said: ‘Where shall we start them, sir?’

‘Bring them round to the back,’ Gently said.

The dogs were brought there. They whined and snuffled, followed trails and cross-trails in and out of the yard. Then one of them lifted its wedge-shaped head and bayed wolf-like from the depth of its throat. It started forward: it went straight down the garden. The second dog yelped and struggled after it. Beyond the gap they were baffled temporarily, but then picked up the fresher scent and pointed out over the field. Gently, Whitaker, Felling followed after the handlers. Freeman came last, wearing a walkie-talkie set. The field was a stubble field about two hundred yards deep. The trail led towards a gate beside which was a stile.

Whitaker said: ‘These dogs will sort him out. I’d sooner have a dog than a gun any day. How far are we behind?’

‘Half an hour,’ Gently said.

‘But there’s the cordon,’ Whitaker said. ‘He’s got to beat that, don’t forget.’

Gently didn’t say anything.

‘Don’t you think the cordon will hold him?’ Whitaker said.

Gently hunched. ‘This fellow is a planner.’

‘But he didn’t plan for this kind of thing,’ Whitaker said. ‘Not being hunted by dogs across open country. He couldn’t have seen that coming off.’

‘He was planning to leave somehow,’ Gently said.

‘No,’ Whitaker said. ‘We’ve busted his plan for him.’

Felling was walking along silently. He had his gun holster unbuttoned.

They came to the field gate. The dogs barked at it. The gate was opened for them. They went ahead. Snuffling, gasping, heaving, whimpering, they dragged across a plot on which kale had been grown. Part of the kale crop was uncut and stood on the right in a green reef. The trail passed close along the line of the standing kale, turned round the far side of it, entered a spinney of tall elms.

‘Spread out here,’ Whitaker ordered. ‘We don’t want to run into him in a bunch.’

The men spread out among the elms. They trampled the underbrush noisily. Felling stayed on the track hard behind the two handlers. The trail followed the track. The track had been rutted by cartwheels. It bore left, passed an empty cart lodge, ran out of the trees, became a lane. In the lane a uniformed man was standing. He wore a gun. He had his hand on the gun.

‘Anderson!’ Whitaker bawled. ‘Seen any signs of him yet?’

Anderson’s hand went to his helmet. ‘No sir,’ he said. ‘Haven’t seen a soul, sir.’

‘What are you doing this way, man?’

‘I thought I’d close up, sir,’ Anderson said. ‘The army are putting down a cordon behind us. Thought I’d close up towards The Raven.’

‘Well, you can drop that idea, man,’ Whitaker said. ‘Tag along with the dogs, we can probably use you.’