Gently Where the Roads Go (7 page)

Four p.m. on the Thursday, and Offingham very nearly asleep. Gently’s car shimmered the air over it and opened its door like a broached kiln. He got in, drove down the High Street, across the Market, over the bridge; past two lines of greyed yellow-brick council houses, a couple of pubs, a filling station. Finally a third pub, standing thwartwise at the slovenly road junction, shouldered hard on the beaten passage of the A1 itself.

He halted there to choose his moment, then slid out into the stream. One car, two, went thrusting by him before the Rover picked up its stride. A tall articulated panted ahead of him, dark smoke puffing from its side. It was making fifty and the Rover needed all its guns to overtake. And so on southwards. Under a pale hazed sky.

Everham appeared, a slight congealing of the patchy drab ribbons. A chaffy triangle with a back road, a shop blazing with Dayglo posters. A blind red-brick church flat among dusty dark trees, a phone-box, an indistinct pub, a track worn in the bald verge. And then, for once, the ribbons faltered and gave way completely to grubby hedges; with behind them straw-coloured fields, folding slightly, weighted with hedge oaks. In the hazy distance, travelling like giants with their feet below the middle horizon, peered the three pink churns of Bintly power station, self-contemplative and aloof.

Another mile. An RAC box. A belt of sloe bushes to the right. To the left, southwards, the changing plane of the shallow roof of a hangar. Then the sign: Lay-By 100 yards, painted freshly black and white; and the ribbed concrete morosity of the lay-by beyond.

Gently slowed, picked a gap, pulled over and parked on the lay-by. It was a small one, designed for no more than two or three vehicles. Because the verge there was narrow the lay-by was pushed back into the hedge; the hedge was thin and had several gaps, and behind it ranged the thicket of sloe bushes. Gently got out. Underfoot the concrete was stained with plentiful oil-marks. Near the south end was a lighter area which had been recently washed off with a broom. Owing to the set-back a small vehicle parked there would be largely concealed from approaching traffic, but an observer stationed there would be able to spot headlights for about half a mile. Wrappers, paper, were strewn on the verge. In the ditch, a rusted bike frame.

He approached the hedge, the gaps in which showed signs of recent and frequent use. He stepped through it. Behind the hedge lay human faeces and paper. Into the sloe thicket, which was dense, went several tunnels or passages, as though a wild beast had made its lair there in the close gloom of the thorns. One of the tunnels opened opposite to the washed-off concrete. He ducked his head and went into it. Its underfoot soil was compact and unimpressionable. A few feet into the bushes it expanded into a little chamber, and here also lay faeces, paper rubbish, an old saucepan. He turned about and peered through the twigs. He was looking through the gap to the washed-off concrete. Several of the twigs were smashed and singed and hung withered from bleached fibrous stumps. He turned again, went on following the tunnel. From here it had not been used very often. The ground was still hard, but it had grown a little moss, and new twigs projected to obstruct his passage. Some of these new twigs were snapped and withered and some of the moss was slightly compressed. He went on following. He came out of the sloe bushes. Beyond them was a stubble field, hedges, more fields. Far away southwards, peeking just above low trees, was a roof painted dull red. No other building was in sight.

He returned slowly through the tunnel, examining the walls of it more carefully. The sloe-twigs ended each in a spike and not all the outstanding spikes had been broken. Some yards down the tunnel he paused: a spike low down showed a wisp of snagged wool. It had been caught from a garment moving in a direction away from the road and was of a darkish grey-blue, the colour of certain service uniforms. He felt in his pocket, found an old envelope, stroked the wool off the spike into it. Then he searched for some while longer, but the single wisp was all he found.

Sweating, for it was hot among the sloe bushes, he returned to the lay-by and the car.

‘Have you a pass, sir?’

The SP from the guardroom was wearing his shirtsleeves rolled and had a white armband. Both his arms and his face were sunburned as though he spent his off-duty hours working for a farmer. Gently pulled out his wallet, showed the warrant card. The SP looked at him sharply, knowingly.

‘Yes sir, I see,’ he said, after a slight pause. ‘I didn’t know sir. We weren’t advised in the guardroom.’

‘Weren’t advised about what?’

‘About the civvie police being called, sir. I thought our own blokes were going to handle it.’

Gently shrugged. ‘Could be two other people, but I’ve come here on my own business,’ he said. ‘I want to talk to your commanding officer. Perhaps you’ll ring and let him know.’

‘The commanding officer . . . oh, I see, sir!’ The SP coloured, looked embarrassed. ‘Wing-Commander Thompson is on leave, sir, and the acting CO is visiting Cardington.’

‘Then who do you suggest I should see?’

‘The Adjutant, sir. Flight-Lieutenant Withers.’

‘Where do I find him?’

In HQ, sir. Straight ahead and first right.’

The SP stood back a pace and saluted, elbow angled, hand vibrating. Gently grinned a little sombrely, eased in the clutch, let the Rover drift. The wheels bumbled on the concrete roadway, much cracked and much repaired. On either hand, Nissen buildings; ahead the bleached levels of the airfield. He made the right turn. HQ was also a Nissen building. On one side of its doors was bolted a noticeboard, on the other an out-of-bounds notice. He parked, went in through the doors. Ahead stretched a dim corridor laid with blue linoleum. The linoleum was very highly polished and the smell of the polish hung in the air. On the doors off the corridor were affixed signboards: Central Registry, Pay Accounts, Orderly Room; and at the end of the corridor, Adjutant’s Office: F/Lt. Withers (
PLEASE KNOCK
). Gently knocked and went in. There were two men in the room. One sat at a desk and had shoulder ribbon. One sat at a table. Both looked up.

‘Flight-Lieutenant Withers?’ Gently asked.

The man at the desk looked annoyed. ‘I’m Flight-Lieutenant Withers,’ he said. ‘And who exactly are you?’

‘Superintendent Gently, Central Office.’

‘Central Office?’ Withers still looked annoyed. ‘I didn’t know we’d applied to the Central Office,’ he said. ‘I was under the impression that the affair was domestic.’

‘I haven’t been applied for,’ Gently said. ‘Not applied for?’

‘Not by you. I’m here entirely under my own steam. To make some inquiries you might help me with.’

‘And you’re not interested in our little flap?’

‘Not’, Gently said, ‘as far as I know.’

‘Well, I’m blowed,’ Withers said, easing backwards. He repeated that: ‘Well, I’m blowed.’ He looked less annoyed. ‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ he said. ‘We tend to think in terms only of Huxford. Right at the moment we’ve got a flap going which is quite absorbing, in its small way.’

‘So I gathered,’ Gently said.

‘Quite absorbing,’ Withers said. ‘But I doubt whether you’d find it in your class, so we’d better stick to official business. What are these inquiries you’ve come about?’

‘They’re to do with sten guns,’ Gently said.

‘Sten guns. Ah.’ Withers looked intelligent. ‘Yes indeed. Now I see where we are. Jonesie,’ he said to the man at the table, ‘run along and rustle up some char, Jonesie.’

‘Jonesie can stay,’ Gently said.

‘Cancel order,’ Withers said. ‘In fact, we’d better have Jonesie with us. He probably knows more about it than I do. How long have you been at Huxford, Jonesie?’

The man at the table considered this. He was a short man with scanty hair and a solemn face and a turned up chin. He looked some years older than the service limit and had a long grill of red Vs on his tunic sleeve. In a Welsh accent he said:

‘About ’forty-two, sir. I came here along with the Admin advance party. Flaming winter it was, too, and not a blind bit of coke.’

‘Ah, but there was a war on, Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘You couldn’t expect luxuries in those days. What were they flying – Maurice Farmans?’

‘Cabbage Whites, sir. The Farmans were secret.’

‘You’re a Welsh liar,’ Withers said. ‘They were flying Montgolfiers in your day.’

‘No, they were grounded, sir,’ Jonesie said. ‘It was like I told you, we couldn’t get the coke.’

‘He always caps me,’ Withers said. ‘I don’t know why I put up with Jonesie. The trouble is he runs Huxford, I’d post him tomorrow but the place would collapse. So what do we know about Sten guns, Jonesie?’

Jonesie considered again, then shook his head. ‘They were withdrawn in June of forty-eight, sir. Don’t think we’ve held any Stens since then.’

‘Not even of any kind?’

‘No sir. Not official. There’d been a flap about them the year before. Some of the lads had been cutting down pheasants with them and the local gentry got a bit cheesed. So they were withdrawn, sir, by a special AMO, and now they go poaching with the Lee Enfields.’

‘And the gentry are happy with that?’ Withers asked.

‘Oh yes sir. I haven’t heard any complaints.’

‘Keep your ear to the ground, Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘I wouldn’t like to hear of them using Bofors.’ He turned to Gently. ‘The oracle has spoken. We’re not holding Sten guns, not even of any kind.’

‘Not officially,’ Gently said. ‘But mightn’t there be a few strays about?’

‘Over to Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘What’s the strays situation, Jonesie?’

‘I couldn’t be precise, sir,’ Jonesie said.

‘Jonesie,’ Withers said, ‘be imprecise.’

‘Well sir, you know the lads aren’t particular when it comes to Air Force property. There’s a little quiet flogging goes on, unbeknown to the authorities. And I daresay a Sten will fetch its price if it’s taken to the right people. And returns are only figures, you know, which is very abstract information.’

‘Yes,’ Withers said. ‘I’m receiving you, Jonesie.’

‘So there may be strays,’ Jonesie said. ‘And to tell you the blind horrible truth, sir, it would be a miracle if there weren’t any.’

‘And do you know of any?’ Withers asked. ‘We want the hard facts here, Jonesie.’

Jonesie looked down his nose. ‘I wouldn’t like to swear to it on oath, sir. Perhaps the armourers can tell you, they may have some knocking about there. And maybe there were some left in stores. Though you’ll be lucky to trace them there.’

‘Loud and clear,’ Withers said. ‘Strength niner, over and out.’ He, too, looked down his nose. ‘Absorbing,’ he said. ‘Quite absorbing.’ He rose from the desk, a tall, thin man. ‘We’d better adjourn to the armoury,’ he said.

‘Does this connect with your flap?’ Gently asked.

‘I think its going to collide with it,’ Withers said. ‘But first things first. We’ll try the armoury. Jonesie, you’d better come along too.’

He strode away from the administrative block with long, rangy, stooping steps, Jonesie trotting along by his side, Gently following behind them. Across on the airfield a Proctor aircraft stood with its engine nested in trestles, from a distant dispersal came the tormented bellow of a piston engine being test-run.

‘Looks just like life,’ Withers said over his shoulder. ‘But we were due to close six years ago. Now they’ve grounded the last Spitfire there’s damn all left for us to do.’

‘What is your job here?’ Gently asked.

‘Special maintenance,’ Withers said. ‘We keep the museum stuff in the air. You want a Wimpey? We’ve got one.’

He crossed the approach road and inclined left. Jonesie neatly inclined with him. Ahead was an alley of Nissen buildings in which were parked a Hillman van and a box-like truck. The doors of the buildings had identifications painted on them like the doors in HQ. The buildings housed Radio Mechs, Instrument Reps, Armourers and Electricians.

‘The ancillary trades,’ Withers said. ‘But never mention it in their hearing. The word means a female slave, you know, and there’d be a riot if someone told them.’

He pushed on into the armoury. It consisted of a long, concrete-floored workshop. On the far side, under the windows, ran a wide bench topped with zinc. On the bench lay a couple of Brownings, one of them with its mechanism dismantled; the floor-space was occupied partly by bicycles and partly by stacks of electrically operated bomb racks. An airman in overalls was mending a puncture at the bench. Two others sat smoking, one on the bench, one on a tool-box. The armoury smelt of thin oil. The smell had a peculiar edge to it.

‘Don’t get up,’ Withers said, whisking straight through the workshop. The three men were staring guiltily and the cigarettes had suddenly vanished. At the end of the workshop two walls of grey slab enclosed a small inner room, by the door of which, mounted on hardboard, was a leave rosta and sheaf of DRO’s. The identification said: Flt. Sergeant Podmore. Withers went in without tapping. A beefy man sitting at a table whisked a duplicated sheet over a football coupon. He got up noisily.

‘Ah,’ Withers said. ‘Flight-Sergeant Podmore, Superintendent. He’s the man who’ll know most about the subject you’re interested in.’

Podmore looked at Gently unhappily, gave the sheet an extra twitch.

‘The subject is Sten guns,’ Gently said. ‘I’d like to know if you keep any here.’

Podmore cleared his throat. ‘Sten guns,’ he said. ‘Don’t know about that, sir. We haven’t held any since I’ve been here. There might be an odd one floating around.’

‘Have you seen one?’

Podmore hesitated. ‘Miller!’ he called through the door. The airman who had been mending a puncture came forward, halted, snapped his heels clumsily.

‘Dusty,’ Podmore said, ‘where’s that Mark II Sten got to – the one that’s always hung around here. See if you can find it up for me.’

‘It’s in the junk box, Sarge,’ Miller said.

‘Fetch it here,’ Podmore said.

Miller went to a box pushed under the bench, poked around it, took something out. He brought it into the office. It was the frame of a stirrup-pump butted Sten. The barrel and cocking pin were missing and the breech block slid harmlessly in its chamber. Podmore took it, exhibited it to Gently.