Alan Hunter: Gently where the roads go

' Right,’ Superintendent Empton said. ‘Tell me how you know it was Teodowicz. I’m sorry to be bloody-minded, old fellow, but our line of customers tend to be slippery.’

Thursday, August 15th. Four of them sitting in Whitaker’s office. Three of them heavyweights, Superintendents, and Sergeant Felling, who’d done the field work. Whitaker, the local man, was nervous of the metropolitan talent he’d been sent. He was a large faced, bronzed and tidy man, mildly paternal, perhaps a little vain. He’d taken to Gently, who sat beside him, and who so far had said very little; but Empton was strictly a foreign type, and obviously made Whitaker feel uneasy. Empton was lean, athletic-looking, vulturine, with eyes like cold blue lamps; in spite of his near-Guards manner he had a predatory air about him. Felling was a hard-eyed CID man. He was perspiring, but he was not abashed.

‘You mean how we knew in the first place, sir — or how we identified the remains?’

‘Both, old fellow,’ Empton said. ‘The one isn’t much good without the other.’

Felling opened the file on his knees. ‘Here’s the Home Office advice note, sir. They informed us that Teodowicz had applied to reside here, March twenty-fifth, fifty-six. We didn’t know of any objections and he took up residence, April seventeenth.’

‘Let me have it.’

Empton took the buff sheet and held it up to the light from the window. Then he scrutinized the printed heading, the typing, the signature and the rubber stamp. Finally he dropped it on the desk.

‘Probably genuine,’ he said.

‘We sent a reply which was acknowledged, sir.’

‘No doubt it was.’ Empton sounded bored. ‘But that hardly means anything. Carry on, Sergeant.’

‘Well, sir, he registered with us on April seventeenth, and all his docs checked with the advice. We made up a card for our RA file — this is it, sir. I took his dabs myself. And since then he’s reported regularly and never been in any trouble.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ Empton said. ‘I’ll have the card too, please.’ He examined it coldly but perfunctorily, let it drop on the Home Office note. ‘And now we come to the interesting part. I’ve been reading the medical report, old fellow. I notice that the deceased’s skull was collapsed and that his right arm was severed. Any comment you care to make?’

Felling was scowling under his sweat. ‘The head — that was certainly in a mess, sir — but there was a bit of his face left, on the one side. I’ve got the photographs here.’

‘Thank you.’ Empton spread them on the desk. ‘Yes… you have a good photographer. He brings the point out well.’

‘It’s the bones, sir,’ Felling said thickly. ‘The big jawbone and the cheekbone. If you’d seen the chummie you’d know what I mean. Then there’s that skin. Porous and lined.’

‘Hmn,’ Empton said. ‘I see. And this small matter of the arm?’

‘It’s his all right,’ Felling said. ‘It matches the other, same all round. Then there’s the dabs.’

‘Ah yes,’ Empton said. He shuffled the photographs together. ‘They never lie, do they, old fellow? But we’ll just look into them, if you don’t mind.’

Felling dived into the file again and produced the card bearing the dead man’s prints. Empton tossed it on the pile in front of him, then reached for the briefcase he had stood beside him. It was a beautiful case in natural pigskin. It had a combination lock which he flickered carelessly. From it he took a file marked SECURITY XX and a morocco-covered box containing a nest of magnifiers. From the file he drew another print record-card, and this he placed by the other two; then, having focused Whitaker’s desk-lamp on them, he proceeded with the magnifiers to make a comparison. Felling used the interval to wipe his face, Whitaker watched Empton with concern. Gently was looking mournfully out of the window, where lay the peaceful High Street of Offingham.

‘Ah,’ said Empton at last, folding the magnifiers. ‘I think we’re dealing with the one person. You take clear prints, old fellow, both sets are a credit to you.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Felling said.

‘He’s my best man,’ Whitaker put in.

‘Yes,’ Empton said absently. ‘I think we can proceed from here.’

He sat back and looked round at them with narrowed, deprecating eyes. Gently turned his gaze from the window. Felling got rid of his handkerchief.

‘Perhaps it will help,’ Empton continued, ‘if I laid some of our cards on the table. Most of this is Top Security, naturally, but I think a run-over can do no harm. If I give you the background it will help you to distinguish some of the nuances you may have overlooked. But I must make it crystal clear that none of this is to go any further.’

‘Of course, of course,’ Whitaker said.

‘Yes,’ Empton said. ‘Then here are some facts. Timoshenko Teodowicz is a political refugee who arrived in this country in 1947. He was born in Grodz, in eastern Poland, in or about 1910. During the last war he was a petty black marketeer and kept on the windy side of the Germans. He was denominated a war criminal by the Russians and was obliged to disappear, and he eventually turned up in the British Zone of Germany in January 1947. His case was investigated and appeared genuine, as far as the particulars went. He was probably a rogue, but not a war criminal within our meaning of the term. So he was admitted as an RA in November 1947, and to the best of our knowledge he has not abused the privilege. He resided in Leeds, Birmingham and Leicester before he applied to live here. He was a builder’s labourer for two years, drove a truck for Great Universal for three years. This would appear to be what we know about Timoshenko Teodowicz.’

Whitaker shuffled. ‘Appears to be?’

‘I wouldn’t’, said Empton, ‘put it higher.’

‘But didn’t you say his case was investigated?’

‘I did say that,’ Empton said. ‘It was investigated, it bore out his story. Teodowicz of Grodz was a real person. But I’m afraid it means very little, old man — we take these things with a grain of salt.’

‘Then who do you think he was?’

Empton’s teeth showed briefly. ‘Almost anyone. One of theirs, a freelance, perhaps the veritable Teodowicz. The refugee traffic is much favoured for the planting of agents. When we find one we buy him or use him — only an occasional amateur makes the headlines.’

‘But what use would an agent be in Offingham?’

‘None at all, I should imagine. But Teodowicz wasn’t tied to Offingham. His trucking took him wherever he chose.’

A pause. Gently had taken out his pipe and was sucking it, cold and empty. The sound appeared to irritate Empton, who threw him a quick, chill glance. Whitaker’s expression was unconvinced; his eyes wandered about the documents on the desk. Empton dipped into his file again and came out with a quarter-plate photograph.

‘Now. We come to the aspect which to us is the key factor. You have evidence to show that Teodowicz was visited a short time before his death. This is a classic pattern with us, one which occurs in case after case. A man is visited by a foreign-spoken stranger, and shortly afterwards, he dies. The newspaper gentry, of course, jump to certain conclusions, but between you and me they are usually wide of the mark. Refugees are certainly pressured to return to their own country, but we know of no clear instance of assassination following a refusal. What the pattern usually indicates is a flagrant double-cross. The victim is an agent who is playing double and who refuses to toe the line. His visitor brings him an ultimatum — the terms are naturally a little harsh — and the agent is reluctant; it may then be necessary to liquidate him.’