Alan Hunter: Gently where the roads go

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 It was a street of withdrawn yellow-brick houses, their walls flush to the pavement.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.