Alan Hunter: Gently where the roads go

‘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.’