Gently Where the Roads Go (5 page)

‘Where was he in the morning?’

‘Madsen doesn’t know, sir. He was lying in to get his sleep up. He was driving on the night Friday–Saturday and was out on the booze Saturday night. He went round to the Blue Bowl to have his lunch, and when he came back, Teodowicz was in the garage.’

‘And Monday?’

Felling turned over his hand. ‘A blank, till he went into the Blue Bowl. I can’t even find where he had that meal. He only had coffee at the Blue Bowl.’

‘Yes . . . coffee. What was that meal again?’

‘Egg and chips. And perhaps some sort of gateaux.’

‘A café meal,’ Gently said.

‘But not from any café in Offingham, sir.’

Gently drank some of his coffee, his eye wandering to St Lawrence’s. ‘According to the medical report,’ he said, ‘the meal was eaten at eight p.m. at the earliest. Probably later, say nine p.m. And at nine-thirty he’s in the Blue Bowl drinking coffee. He would have eaten that meal not far away . . . it sounds like a transport café meal.’

‘Yes sir, it does,’ Felling said.

‘Which suggests a journey,’ Gently said. ‘He may have been some distance away from Offingham – he may have left on the Sunday evening. That would account for his absence on Monday, why you can’t find trace of him here.’

‘Yes sir . . . could be,’ Felling said.

‘You’re thinking otherwise?’ Gently asked.

‘No sir.’ Felling’s head shook again. ‘I was still trying to place that café, sir.’

‘It’ll probably be on the A1.’

‘Yes sir. Could be on the Bedford road. But if it’s only half-an-hour’s drive, sir, that doesn’t leave much of a choice. Going north there’s a place at Syleham, and south there’s The Raven, near where he was killed. But Rice has checked The Raven for me, sir. Teodowicz hadn’t been seen there since last Thursday.’

‘It might be further off,’ Gently said. ‘An hour and a half is the outside limit. Perhaps you’d care to continue the check.’

‘Yes sir, I’ll do that,’ Felling said.

‘Also,’ Gently said, ‘there’s the matter of the gun.’

Felling looked blank. ‘That’s a dead end, sir. We’ve checked around until we’re dizzy. I reckon the chummie imported it, sir.’

‘From service sources, the report says. Have you got any barracks near here?’

‘Not nearer than Bedford,’ Felling said.

‘An aerodrome?’

Felling hesitated. ‘There’s Great Grimston and Barton Novers. And Huxford, that’s still being used.’

‘Which is the nearest?’

‘Well . . . Huxford. But it’s only a maintenance unit, sir. It was an airfield they ran up during the war. They’ve been talking of closing it for years.’

‘Where does it lie?’

‘Nearer Baddesley, sir.’

‘How far away from the A1?’

‘A couple of miles . . .’

‘How far from the lay-by where Teodowicz was killed?’

‘Maybe three,’ Felling said. ‘Across the fields, that is.’

‘Mmn,’ Gently said. ‘That’s interesting. It might bear looking into. Or have you checked there already?’

Felling chewed his lip. ‘No.’ he said.

The shops opened again and once more the streets were nearly empty. A few housewives with baskets and prams, some pensioners loitering, a little through traffic. A mile away the A1 rolled its ceaseless pageant of commerce. Under four of its bridge’s twelve arches the weedy Ound stole greenly along. The air was warm and quite still. The sky was hazy, greyish-white.

Felling led Gently across the Market Place and into a street which left it at the corner. It was a street of withdrawn yellow-brick houses, their walls flush to the pavement. Halfway along was a Methodist chapel with polished, liver-coloured columns, reminding the passerby from its notice board that God was not Mocked. The street was a cul-de-sac. Felling branched to the left into a more dilapidated street. It was bordered by a scrap yard, a carpenter’s shop, a shambles exhaling disinfectant, a garage and warehouse of a wholesale fruiterer, some lock-up garages and tarred brick walls. This was also a cul-de-sac but a lane led off by the garages. The lane was enclosed by the same tarred walls, from over which peered nettles and willow-herb. The lane twisted to the left, broadened out into a small court, continued beyond it by ramshackle buildings to an unexpected glimpse of pollard willows. Felling stopped when they came to the court.

‘This is Teodowicz’s place,’ he said.

At the side of the court was an old building of yellow brick into the front of which had been let folding doors. There were small sash windows above the doors and on the right a gateway leading into a yard. From the yard a wooden stairway slanted up the wall to a landing and door on the first floor. On the opposite side of the yard was a two-storey outbuilding with a similar stairway. The yard was filled with junk and nettles and there was no sign-board. The place looked faceless.

‘Teodowicz lived over the garage,’ Felling said. ‘Madsen lives across the yard. There’s nobody else in Shorters Lane. That’s what made it so difficult to check his movements.’

‘Quite a hideout,’ Gently said.

‘Yes sir.’ Felling shot him a look.

‘Where does the lane go, away from here?’

‘It joins the road by the river, sir.’

‘Are there any other ways in and out?’

‘Yes sir. There’s an alley at the rear of the building. And there are plenty of bolt-holes through these old yards – you can work through to Skinner Street and the market.’

‘Very convenient,’ Gently said. ‘Mr Teodowicz had a provident nature.’

Felling crossed to the folding doors, in which was included an entry, produced a tagged bunch of keys and unlocked the latter. He peered inside, stepped over the threshold. Gently followed him in. The tall radiator of a Leyland truck rose in the sweet-smelling gloom inside the entry. Some light leaked in through two high small windows, but the splash from the entry seemed to dazzle it. Felling moved to his right and found some switches. Three cobwebbed bulbs turned yellow above them.

Two trucks, both Leylands, of slightly differing models. They were each painted dark green and bore no form of trade lettering. They stood gigantically in the small garage and left little room either side, but behind them ran an oil-soaked bench with a vice and tools on racks above it. Under the bench lay old tyres and tubes and a variety of oil-stained rubbish. To the left of the bench stood a tall metal cabinet, green and oily, its door sagging open. A drip-tray and pails stood about, all containing drained oil. On the bench were two oil-stained mugs. One of them contained tea-dregs.

‘He kept the van out in the yard,’ Felling said, pointing to a side-door. ‘That’ll be the plastic cover for it. I’ve seen it parked out there.’

‘You’ve been after him before?’ Gently asked.

‘Once,’ Felling said. ‘It was nothing. He’d been on a trip up to Fraserburgh and forgot to punch the clock with us.’

Gently moved over to the cabinet, pushed the door open wider. Its shelves were stuffed with a medley of spares, plugs, gaskets, lamps, tape. On the bottom shelf was an old box-file lying with some manufacturers’ literature. Gently pushed the flap open. It contained a list of tyre prices.

‘Where’s his office?’

Felling stared. ‘Don’t think he had an office, sir.’

‘He had to keep records and accounts. You took a look at them, didn’t you?’

‘Yes sir, of course,’ Felling said. ‘They’re in the drawer of a table upstairs. A bit sketchy, they were, sir. I couldn’t get anything out of them.’

Gently grunted, left the cabinet, went round to the cabs of the trucks.

‘Which is his?’

Felling pointed to the older one. Gently put his foot on the step and hoisted himself up. Inside the cab was roomy and bare with the engine casing between the two seats. On the driving seat lay a raw slab of Dunlopillo, on the other a black PVC jacket. In the panel-locker were a couple of old
Reveilles
and a paperback novel by Hank Jansen. A khaki-coloured canvas bag hung between the two seats. It contained an unwashed Thermos, an empty aluminium sandwich tin.

‘Where’s his logbook?’ Gently asked.

‘I took it upstairs, sir,’ Felling said. ‘I thought it had better be with the other stuff than knocking about down here.’

‘When did he make his last trip?’

Felling hesitated. ‘It would be midweek, sir. He spent the Friday night with one of the pros, and he was seen at The Raven with his truck at six p.m. on Thursday. I reckon he’d have been coming back off a trip.’

‘You haven’t checked with the logbook entry?’

‘No sir, I haven’t.’ Felling looked hard at the truck. ‘It didn’t occur to me to do that, sir.’

‘Mmn,’ Gently said. ‘I think we’ll do that now. An analysis of that logbook may be interesting.’

‘Yes sir,’ Felling said flatly. ‘I’m sorry, sir. This business took us all a bit by surprise.’

Gently climbed down again and Felling went to unlock the side-door. In the yard opposite to it was a bare patch where the van used to stand. The upper door of the outbuilding stood ajar and the two windows were open, and at one Madsen’s face appeared momentarily, staring down at the two policemen. It vanished quickly. As they mounted the stairway the door opposite slowly closed. Felling unlocked the door on their side. He stood back. Gently entered.

The door opened directly into a scullery with a sink, a dresser and an old gas stove; very bare and neglected and smelling of grease and gas. From it a door led through to a second room containing a bed and some furniture, and beyond it was a third room, empty, but with a corner panelled off and containing a water-closet. The bed was an army pattern iron bedstead made up with blankets and a soiled pillow. The chairs were of the folding varnished-wood sort used in messes and canteens. A green metal locker, resembling the garage cabinet, took the place of a wardrobe. The table was a plain kitchen table. On the walls were taped pin-up pictures.

‘Not much of a dive, sir,’ Felling said, coming into the room behind Gently. ‘More like a war-time billet. He was used to rough-living, I reckon.’

‘Yet he was making money,’ Gently said.

‘Yes sir. His current account showed that. And the tax people let on he was showing a fair-size return.’

‘So what was he spending it on?’

Felling shrugged. ‘Wouldn’t know, sir,’ he said. ‘Perhaps he’s got a hoard somewhere – putting it away for his old age. He used to draw cash from the bank, except for bills on the truck. He’d got about twenty nicker in his pocket. As far as we could put the bits together.’

‘Let’s take a look at those accounts.’

Felling went to the table. He opened the drawer, looked in. He stood still staring into it.

‘Well,’ Gently said.

Felling was reddening. ‘The bloody devil!’ he said. ‘They’ve gone.’

He pulled the drawer right out. It contained a pin-up and an old safety-razor.

‘One of your men wouldn’t have removed them?’

Felling shook his head angrily. ‘Not without telling me they wouldn’t. I’m damned certain they haven’t been here.’

‘When were you here last?’ Gently asked.

‘Yesterday morning – and the stuff was here then. That’s when I fetched the logbook up. And I’ve had the keys all the time!’

He still kept glaring at the drawer as though unable to believe it vacant. The face in the pin-up wore a broad smile; the edges of the sheet showed signs of taping.

‘Was that picture in there yesterday?’

‘Picture . . . ? No, it ruddy well wasn’t!’

‘Does that suggest anything to you?’

‘Only that somebody’s taking the mike.’

Gently shrugged, turned to look at the walls. There were twenty-four of the pin-up pictures. They were arranged without method round the room, but a space marked by tape showed where a twenty-fifth had been. And the twenty-four on the walls differed from the one in the drawer. They stared down passionately, coyly, but they did not have smiles.

‘Had Madsen a key?’

‘Madsen . . . of course!’

‘But had he a key?’

‘He said he hadn’t. The liar.’

‘Was that paper ash in the grate the last time you were here?’

‘Paper ash . . . ?’

Felling turned to scowl at the grate. It contained a pile of stirred grey-black ash, much of which had fallen through into the pan. A few scorched corners of sheets appeared amongst it, also a piece of cardboard bearing a shrivelled grey deposit. Felling swooped on the latter.

‘That’s the logbook cover. It had one of those bindings which they tell you are weather-proof.’

‘And these’ll be the accounts that have gone up with it.’

‘The devil!’ Felling said. ‘What sort of game is he playing?’

‘I think we’d better ask him,’ Gently said.

‘I’d like to kick his behind for him,’ Felling said. ‘There’s just no reason for burning this stuff.’

‘Fetch him up,’ Gently said. ‘We’ll see.’

Felling went. Gently stared at the grate, at the poker which stood there. He picked up a piece of kindling, stirred the ashes afresh. The burning had been carried out thoroughly and he could find no significant fragments. The ashes were cold. The burning had taken place probably about twelve hours earlier. The only fragment of any size was the piece of the logbook cover. He left the grate and went to the door and examined the lock and the door jamb; then to the sash windows, each of which were bolted, unbolting them and inspecting them outside and in. He found no marks that were suggestive. He stood looking about the rooms. Along with the smells of grease and gas was the grubby smell of dry rot. He looked in the locker. Some seedy clothes. He entered the toilet. A Sunday newspaper. In the dresser in the scullery were some scraps of food, crockery, cutlery, utensils, a clean towel. Under a cup an unpaid electricity bill. It was the only document in the place.

A scuffling and tramping on the stairway: Felling had returned, shoving Madsen in front of him. The Norwegian looked flustered, his colour coming and going, his smiles chasing each other as though he had a nervous complaint.

‘Here he is, sir,’ Felling said grimly. ‘And he admits it was him who burned that stuff.’

‘I didn’t know,’ Madsen said. ‘I’m ver’ sorry.’ He smiled unceasingly and writhed his hands.

‘You’d better sit down,’ Gently said.