Gently Where the Roads Go (6 page)

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 & 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.

S
TILL IN THE
garage.

Madsen had gone, stumbling over the threshold in his eagerness. Gently stood staring at the greasy bottle. Felling, scowling, eased from foot to foot. They could hear Madsen cross the yard and go up his stairs: the slam of his door. Then only the noises of the sparrows scratching down through the tight air.

Felling said: ‘It won’t have prints, sir – too much oil on it to take them.’

Gently nodded. He held up the bottle between himself and the light. He unscrewed the cap, sniffed, screwed the cap back on. Felling watched. He kept scowling. There was sweat on both their foreheads.

‘So,’ Gently said, ‘what do you make of it, Felling?’

Felling shifted, inclined his head. ‘I think they were running a racket sir, between them. And that’s why Madsen burned the papers.’

‘You saw something suspicious when you looked at them?’

‘. . . No, sir. I can’t say that I did. Only I didn’t look at them very carefully, I didn’t know that it mattered, then.’

‘What sort of a racket?’ Gently asked.

Felling gave his shoulder a twist. ‘Pinching stuff, sir, it could be. Loading a bit more than the docs show, then flogging it off before making delivery.’

Gently said, ‘It could have been that.’

‘That’s one of the rackets,’ Felling said. ‘Or they might have been knocking off other trucks, sir. There’s no saying what they were up to.’

‘It could have been that too,’ Gently said. ‘But where does this mysterious visitor fit into it?’

‘Maybe they’re two separate things, sir.’

Gently said, ‘Yes. Maybe.’

He said: ‘Teodowicz’s life would seem to have been a busy one, what with running rackets and being an agent. He couldn’t have had a lot of time left over. Not for driving loads, things like that.’

Felling grinned. ‘I see your point, sir. I was just trying to explain Madsen’s behaviour.’

‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘it interests me too.’

‘There could’ve been something that needed covering up, sir’.

Gently kept on looking at the bottle. His fingers were covered with oil from it. The creases of his face had no expression. He looked at the bottle, turning it slowly.

Felling said: ‘I still think that Kasimir bloke is the only answer to the shooting, sir. I don’t reckon Teodowicz was a spy or anything, but there’s nobody else in the picture.’

Gently held up the bottle. ‘Have you an explanation for this?’ he asked.

‘Oh, I don’t know sir,’ Felling said. ‘Perhaps it belonged to Teodowicz, like Madsen says.’

‘Then one or other of them had a gun.’

‘It might just have been used for something else, sir.’

Gently’s head shook slowly. ‘Not what’s in this bottle. The Rangoon oil might. But not this stuff.’

Felling hesitated. ‘But isn’t it Rangoon oil, sir?’

Gently shook his head again. ‘You can see. It’s bluish. Rangoon oil has a yellow tint – and it doesn’t smell of citronella.’

Felling stared at the bottle too.

‘Then what do you reckon this stuff is, sir?’

Gently said, ‘It’s gun-cleaning fluid. From a service source. Perhaps the aerodrome you mentioned.’

The noise of the sparrows; the bottle held up; the trucks brutal in their size. The perfectly still hot air with its lading of petrol and stale oil. The submarine light on the two faces. One expressionless. One puckering.

Felling murmured: ‘It’s a coincidence, sir . . .’

‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘I was thinking the same. What was the name of that aerodrome again?’

‘Huxford, sir.’

‘Yes, Huxford,’ Gently said.

He lowered the bottle, looked about the bench, found a balled-up page of a newspaper. He wiped the bottle on a piece of rag, wrapped the bottle and slipped it into his pocket. He looked at Felling.

‘I’ll leave the dabs to you,’ he said. ‘And the check on those cafés, where Teodowicz ate his last meal. And I’d like a couple of men to search this area, all these yards and derelict buildings. Can you manage that?’

‘Yes sir,’ Felling said. ‘Freeman and Rice can do the search.’

‘Tell them to keep an eye on Madsen,’ Gently said.

‘You bet I will, sir. We’ll tab that chummie.’

Gently nodded, led the way to the side entry. Felling produced the keys. They went out into the sun.