Offingham, OFFGMS. (A.S. Offa and ham, home). 16,129. Map 12 C5. Mkt. Sat. E.C. Weds. London 52, Northampton 37, Bedford 19, Leicester 57. 1 mile E. of A1. On R. Ound, crossed here by Med. bridge of 12 arches. Church St Lawrence Perp., carved oak roof; also St Olaf, Dec., traces of fan vaulting, painted screen. Traces of 12th c. priory near R. Med. house in Mkt. Pl. Inds: printing, furniture mfg., light elec. products. Centre of a considerable Agri. area and county town of Offgms.
Gently took Felling to lunch with him at Fullton’s Restaurant in the Market Place. The dining-room was on the first floor and looked across market stalls to St Lawrence’s. At lunchtime Offingham came out of its trance; in its small-town way it looked crowded. The pavements were busy. In the Market Place people stood eating fish-and-chips out of newspapers. Clerks, shopkeepers, businessmen crowded the tables in the restaurants. There was little motion of traffic. All the shops had their doors locked. A communal atmosphere pervaded the town; everyone turned out for lunch.
Gently ordered a mixed grill, Felling a modestly priced chop. At a word from Felling they had been found a secluded table at the very end of the range of windows. Gently said nothing until he had eaten and the sergeant took his cue from Gently. Felling was around forty. He was dark, had a ruddy complexion and humourless good-looks. He watched Gently as they ate. Gently looked out of the window. They had both ordered iced lager and it went down very well.
At the coffee Gently said: ‘Have you any ideas you haven’t put on record?’
Felling looked up sharply from his coffee, then back to it again.
‘What makes you say that, sir?’ he asked.
‘You’ve done the field work,’ Gently said. ‘You put into a report what you’re sure of. But you get hunches, too. It’s hunches I’m after.’
‘Don’t know if I’ve got any,’ Felling said. ‘It’s like the Super put it, it’s all shuttered up. There’s only Madsen you could really suspect, and he just wasn’t here. You can’t get round it.’
‘He couldn’t have worked it?’ Gently asked.
Felling shook his head positively. ‘Not unless he’s got a double sir. I gave the Clydebank lot a minute description. Then there’s the woman at the lodgings, sir — Madsen was a regular when he was that way. And they knew him at Mackenzie’s and the Govan Mills. He was the only prospect. I chased him hard.’
‘What was Teodowicz doing over the weekend?’
Felling twisted his mouth. ‘I wish I knew, sir. According to Madsen he was in the garage part of Sunday, messing about with his van or something. Madsen saw him last at tea-time. He was gone when Madsen came for his truck.’
‘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 cafe meal,’ Gently said.
‘But not from any cafe 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 cafe 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 cafe, 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.
Madsen sat. Felling folded his arms, stared at Madsen thunderously. Gently sat too. He took his pipe out and filled it. He lit the pipe. He looked at Madsen.
‘Go on,’ he said. ‘Tell me about it.’
‘I don’ know,’ Madsen said. ‘I just did it.’
‘When did you do it?’
‘Oh… yesterday I do it.’
‘When yesterday?’
‘I… it was in the evening.’
‘What time in the evening?’
‘Oh… it was late. When I come in from the pub… you know?’
‘Eleven? Twelve?’
‘Maybe about then.’
‘About when?’
‘About eleven… say a half past eleven.’
‘Not half-past twelve?’
‘No… I don’ know. It is earlier maybe… perhaps later.’
‘Why did you break in when you had a key?’
‘I…’ Madsen stumbled. He threw a smile at Felling. ‘I think, perhaps, possibly…’
‘He had a key!’ Felling snapped. ‘He told me he hadn’t, but he had. Now he say’s he’s thrown it away.’
‘Did you have a key?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes,’ Madsen said, ‘a key, yes. I forget it when I am asked… then I think I’d better throw it away.’
‘Why?’
Madsen’s smile was freezing. ‘It is… because I say I haven’ one.’
‘Couldn’t you have hidden it?’
‘Yes… perhaps…’
‘Yet you threw it away?’
Madsen said nothing.
‘Right,’ Gently said. ‘You had a key. You could get into this flat at any time. Why did you come here late last night instead of earlier on — say the afternoon?’
‘But I am not here then,’ Madsen said.
‘We had him till six,’ Felling said. ‘Making a statement.’
‘But yes,’ Madsen said. ‘Making the statement. Then I go for a meal, go to the pub.’
‘You spent the evening in a pub?’
‘Oh, yes. At the Marquis of Gransby.’
‘When you’d just had the shock of hearing about your partner?’
‘Drinking it off,’ Felling put in scornfully.
Madsen smiled and trembled. ‘Yes, that is it. I have the shock, I go for a drink. I am just come back from driving all night when I hear this thing. I go for the drink.’
‘Let’s get this straight,’ Gently said. ‘You were tired with driving. You’d had a shock. You’d been questioned for some hours by the police. Then you go to a pub to be questioned over again. Or were you a stranger in the Marquis of Gransby?’
‘No,’ Madsen said. ‘I was not a stranger.’
‘Wouldn’t you have wanted to be on your own?’
‘I don’ know,’ Madsen said. ‘It is the shock.’
‘So you spend the evening being questioned by your friends.’
‘I don’ know,’ Madsen said. ‘That is how it is.’
Gently puffed. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Let’s carry it on from there. The pub turned out, you came back here. Tell me what you did next.’
‘I come up here next,’ Madsen said.
‘Why?’
‘These things… I am going to burn them.’
‘Why did you want to burn them?’
‘Because… perhaps…’ Madsen licked his lips, moved his hands. ‘It is hard to tell. I am ver’ upset… the head in a whirl, you know? I think that Tim would like this done. I think he will want me to do it.’
‘Why would Tim want it done?’
‘I don’ know… this is what I think. I am ver’ tired,
I have been drinking. I think that Tim is there with me…’
‘Go on.’
‘Yes, I come up the stairs, and go in and burn those papers. It seems the right thing, you know? I burn them up in the grate.’
‘Where were the papers you burned?’
‘In here… in this drawer.’
‘Why didn’t you burn Tim’s logbook, too?’
‘The logbook…? That would be… I don’t know.’
‘You don’t know if you burned the logbook?’
‘Yes… my head, it is not ver’ clear…’
‘Did you burn it?’
‘I burn everything… all there is in the drawer.’
‘His memory’s failing,’ Felling said. ‘He told me he’d burned the logbook.’
‘Yes, the logbook,’ Madsen said. ‘The account-book, the logbook.’
‘So,’ Gently said, ‘you burned them. You put a match to them, and they burned.’
‘Yes, I wait while they burn. I think Tim is telling me to do this.’
‘What else did he tell you?’
Madsen’s smile was a grimace.
‘What did he tell you about the poker?’
Madsen moved his hands about.
‘About his pictures?’
The hands fluttered. ‘I tell you all I remember… I am so tired and in the whirl… you know? Perhaps I forget things…’
‘Perhaps you do,’ Gently said.
‘I am still ver’ tired. I don’ sleep well.’
‘You remembered to lose the key,’ Gently said.
Madsen just shifted his hands.
Gently puffed. ‘You do well,’ he said. ‘You give a good performance, Madsen. Where are the gloves you’re always wearing?’
Madsen opened his eyes. ‘I am not wearing gloves.’
‘Good,’ Gently said. ‘So we’ll print the poker, the drawer, the picture and the door. Was there anything else you handled, Madsen?’
Madsen swallowed. ‘I don’ remember…’
‘If you’re lying we’ll know it,’ Felling said.
‘Yes,’ Madsen said. ‘Yes. You’ll know.’
They went down the stairs to the garage, Felling locking the door behind them with care; into the still, closed-up atmosphere of petrol, oil and oily metals. With the lamps switched on there was a half-light. It had a submarine quality. The garage resembled a grimy tank into which at intervals rubbish had been thrown. The two trucks, heavy and cold, lay on the bottom like sunken ships. From a long way above, from the surface, came the chirping of sparrows in a gutter. Gently entered, then Madsen. Madsen was flushed and had his head drooping. Felling came behind jingling his keys. The door creaked slowly over the sunlight.
‘Where’s your logbook?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes, in my cab,’ Madsen said.
‘Fetch it down.’
Madsen hoisted himself up, reached for the book, jumped down. Gently took it, riffled the pages. They were scribbled in pencil in a child-like hand. They gave dates, loadings, places, the names of consigners and consignees.
‘Were you legal partners or just associates?’
‘Yes, legal partners,’ Madsen said. ‘I have a deed in my tin box. Legal partners, everything common.’
‘But it was Teodowicz who kept the record?’
‘Yes, I do not well understand that. Tim was ver’ clever, knew all about things. My tax, too: he do that.’
‘So now the record has gone up the spout?’
Madsen’s head drooped further. ‘I’m ver’ sorry.’
‘You’ll be sorrier still when the tax people hear of it.’
‘It is wrong, I know. I am sorry.’
Gently riffled some more pages. The scribblings recorded a far-reaching odyssey. Cardiff, Glasgow, Inverness, Yarmouth, Chatham, Bristol, Plymouth. Week after week the Leyland had roamed its vast tally of grey miles, spanning the country as of course, linking margin with margin; occasionally halted by a wheel-change, a snow-blizzard, a broken part, but always rolling again soon, thrusting forth on its appointed way.
‘Teodowicz did similar journeys to this?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Madsen said. ‘It is all the same. We do not do the short-haul trips — do not pay so well, you know?’
‘Was there any trip he always made — rather than let you make it?’
‘Oh, no. It is as it comes. The one who is free takes the load.’
‘So you know everything that goes on?’
‘There is nothing goes on,’ Madsen said.
‘There better hadn’t be,’ Felling said. ‘Don’t think burning that stuff fools us.’
‘I tell you it is honest,’ Madsen said. ‘I don’ have nothing I want to hide. It is ver’ foolish what I do, but not to hide nothing. Just being a fool.’
Gently snapped the book shut, handed it to Felling. ‘Take care of that for the moment,’ he said. He looked at Madsen. ‘You’re a mechanic?’ he asked. ‘You do your own servicing here?’
‘Oh yes, our own servicing, yes.’
‘You know what these tools and materials are used for?’
‘Yes, I’m a ver’ skilled mechanic.’
‘What use do you have for Rangoon oil?’
‘Rangoon oil…?’ Madsen faltered.
‘Yes, Rangoon oil,’ Gently said. ‘There’s a half full bottle on the back of the bench.’
He moved across, reached over the bench, picked out a bottle from a collection of rubbish. It was one of the size of a small medicine bottle and carried a crudely printed, oil-soaked label. The label said: Finest Quality RANGOON OIL* Semmence, Jackson amp; Co. Ltd. (Mfgs.) Coventry.
‘What’s this for?’ Gently asked.
Madsen’s head began to shake. ‘I do not know… is Tim’s, perhaps. I don’ know nothing about that.’
‘You’re a mechanic — and don’t know?’
‘Yes — perhaps to stop tools from rusting.’
‘Tools already covered in grease?’
‘That is what I think.’ Madsen’s flush had left him.
‘It’s used for tools all right,’ Gently said.
‘Yes, as I say. Is used for tools.’
‘But the tools are guns,’ Gently said.
Madsen’s hands moved. He didn’t speak.
‘Well?’ Gently said.
Madsen swayed. ‘I tell you… is something of Tim’s,’ he said.
‘Tim had a gun?’
‘I… do not know.’
‘He was certainly killed with one,’ Gently said.
‘I do not know about a gun.’
‘Nor about this bottle?’
Madsen’s head shook.
‘Never saw it there — or Tim using it?’
Madsen kept on shaking his head.
‘You’re very unobservant,’ Gently said. ‘I saw the bottle soon after I came in here.’
‘I tell you I know nothing about it,’ Madsen said. ‘I don’ never have a gun. You have searched. There is not one.’
‘We haven’t dragged the river yet,’ Gently said. ‘We may get round to it if people keep lying.’
‘It is right, I never have one,’ Madsen said.
Gently stared at Madsen. Felling sucked in breath.