by Alan Hunter
‘Flight-Lieutenant Withers?’ Gently asked.
The man at the desk looked annoyed. ‘I’m Flight-Lieutenant Withers,’ he said. ‘And who exactly are you?’
‘Superintendent Gently, Central Office.’
‘Central Office?’ Withers still looked annoyed. ‘I didn’t know we’d applied to the Central Office,’ he said. ‘I was under the impression that the affair was domestic.’
‘I haven’t been applied for,’ Gently said. ‘Not applied for?’
‘Not by you. I’m here entirely under my own steam. To make some inquiries you might help me with.’
‘And you’re not interested in our little flap?’
‘Not’, Gently said, ‘as far as I know.’
‘Well, I’m blowed,’ Withers said, easing backwards. He repeated that: ‘Well, I’m blowed.’ He looked less annoyed. ‘You’ll have to excuse us,’ he said. ‘We tend to think in terms only of Huxford. Right at the moment we’ve got a flap going which is quite absorbing, in its small way.’
‘So I gathered,’ Gently said.
‘Quite absorbing,’ Withers said. ‘But I doubt whether you’d find it in your class, so we’d better stick to official business. What are these inquiries you’ve come about?’
‘They’re to do with sten guns,’ Gently said.
‘Sten guns. Ah.’ Withers looked intelligent. ‘Yes indeed. Now I see where we are. Jonesie,’ he said to the man at the table, ‘run along and rustle up some char, Jonesie.’
‘Jonesie can stay,’ Gently said.
‘Cancel order,’ Withers said. ‘In fact, we’d better have Jonesie with us. He probably knows more about it than I do. How long have you been at Huxford, Jonesie?’
The man at the table considered this. He was a short man with scanty hair and a solemn face and a turned up chin. He looked some years older than the service limit and had a long grill of red Vs on his tunic sleeve. In a Welsh accent he said:
‘About ’forty-two, sir. I came here along with the Admin advance party. Flaming winter it was, too, and not a blind bit of coke.’
‘Ah, but there was a war on, Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘You couldn’t expect luxuries in those days. What were they flying – Maurice Farmans?’
‘Cabbage Whites, sir. The Farmans were secret.’
‘You’re a Welsh liar,’ Withers said. ‘They were flying Montgolfiers in your day.’
‘No, they were grounded, sir,’ Jonesie said. ‘It was like I told you, we couldn’t get the coke.’
‘He always caps me,’ Withers said. ‘I don’t know why I put up with Jonesie. The trouble is he runs Huxford, I’d post him tomorrow but the place would collapse. So what do we know about Sten guns, Jonesie?’
Jonesie considered again, then shook his head. ‘They were withdrawn in June of forty-eight, sir. Don’t think we’ve held any Stens since then.’
‘Not even of any kind?’
‘No sir. Not official. There’d been a flap about them the year before. Some of the lads had been cutting down pheasants with them and the local gentry got a bit cheesed. So they were withdrawn, sir, by a special AMO, and now they go poaching with the Lee Enfields.’
‘And the gentry are happy with that?’ Withers asked.
‘Oh yes sir. I haven’t heard any complaints.’
‘Keep your ear to the ground, Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘I wouldn’t like to hear of them using Bofors.’ He turned to Gently. ‘The oracle has spoken. We’re not holding Sten guns, not even of any kind.’
‘Not officially,’ Gently said. ‘But mightn’t there be a few strays about?’
‘Over to Jonesie,’ Withers said. ‘What’s the strays situation, Jonesie?’
‘I couldn’t be precise, sir,’ Jonesie said.
‘Jonesie,’ Withers said, ‘be imprecise.’
‘Well sir, you know the lads aren’t particular when it comes to Air Force property. There’s a little quiet flogging goes on, unbeknown to the authorities. And I daresay a Sten will fetch its price if it’s taken to the right people. And returns are only figures, you know, which is very abstract information.’
‘Yes,’ Withers said. ‘I’m receiving you, Jonesie.’
‘So there may be strays,’ Jonesie said. ‘And to tell you the blind horrible truth, sir, it would be a miracle if there weren’t any.’
‘And do you know of any?’ Withers asked. ‘We want the hard facts here, Jonesie.’
Jonesie looked down his nose. ‘I wouldn’t like to swear to it on oath, sir. Perhaps the armourers can tell you, they may have some knocking about there. And maybe there were some left in stores. Though you’ll be lucky to trace them there.’
‘Loud and clear,’ Withers said. ‘Strength niner, over and out.’ He, too, looked down his nose. ‘Absorbing,’ he said. ‘Quite absorbing.’ He rose from the desk, a tall, thin man. ‘We’d better adjourn to the armoury,’ he said.
‘Does this connect with your flap?’ Gently asked.
‘I think its going to collide with it,’ Withers said. ‘But first things first. We’ll try the armoury. Jonesie, you’d better come along too.’
He strode away from the administrative block with long, rangy, stooping steps, Jonesie trotting along by his side, Gently following behind them. Across on the airfield a Proctor aircraft stood with its engine nested in trestles, from a distant dispersal came the tormented bellow of a piston engine being test-run.
‘Looks just like life,’ Withers said over his shoulder. ‘But we were due to close six years ago. Now they’ve grounded the last Spitfire there’s damn all left for us to do.’
‘What is your job here?’ Gently asked.
‘Special maintenance,’ Withers said. ‘We keep the museum stuff in the air. You want a Wimpey? We’ve got one.’
He crossed the approach road and inclined left. Jonesie neatly inclined with him. Ahead was an alley of Nissen buildings in which were parked a Hillman van and a box-like truck. The doors of the buildings had identifications painted on them like the doors in HQ. The buildings housed Radio Mechs, Instrument Reps, Armourers and Electricians.
‘The ancillary trades,’ Withers said. ‘But never mention it in their hearing. The word means a female slave, you know, and there’d be a riot if someone told them.’
He pushed on into the armoury. It consisted of a long, concrete-floored workshop. On the far side, under the windows, ran a wide bench topped with zinc. On the bench lay a couple of Brownings, one of them with its mechanism dismantled; the floor-space was occupied partly by bicycles and partly by stacks of electrically operated bomb racks. An airman in overalls was mending a puncture at the bench. Two others sat smoking, one on the bench, one on a tool-box. The armoury smelt of thin oil. The smell had a peculiar edge to it.
‘Don’t get up,’ Withers said, whisking straight through the workshop. The three men were staring guiltily and the cigarettes had suddenly vanished. At the end of the workshop two walls of grey slab enclosed a small inner room, by the door of which, mounted on hardboard, was a leave rosta and sheaf of DRO’s. The identification said: Flt. Sergeant Podmore. Withers went in without tapping. A beefy man sitting at a table whisked a duplicated sheet over a football coupon. He got up noisily.
‘Ah,’ Withers said. ‘Flight-Sergeant Podmore, Superintendent. He’s the man who’ll know most about the subject you’re interested in.’
Podmore looked at Gently unhappily, gave the sheet an extra twitch.
‘The subject is Sten guns,’ Gently said. ‘I’d like to know if you keep any here.’
Podmore cleared his throat. ‘Sten guns,’ he said. ‘Don’t know about that, sir. We haven’t held any since I’ve been here. There might be an odd one floating around.’
‘Have you seen one?’
Podmore hesitated. ‘Miller!’ he called through the door. The airman who had been mending a puncture came forward, halted, snapped his heels clumsily.
‘Dusty,’ Podmore said, ‘where’s that Mark II Sten got to – the one that’s a
lways hung around here. See if you can find it up for me.’
‘It’s in the junk box, Sarge,’ Miller said.
‘Fetch it here,’ Podmore said.
Miller went to a box pushed under the bench, poked around it, took something out. He brought it into the office. It was the frame of a stirrup-pump butted Sten. The barrel and cocking pin were missing and the breech block slid harmlessly in its chamber. Podmore took it, exhibited it to Gently.
‘That’s the only Sten we’ve got in the place, sir. Don’t ask me when and how it got here – part of the furniture, that’s what it is.’
Gently only glanced at it. ‘Has it never had a barrel?’
‘No sir. Not that I can ever remember.’
‘Have you heard of any buckshee Stens about the station?’
‘No sir. Unless they’ve got some at stores.’
‘Yes,’ Withers said. ‘Never mind the stores, Sergeant, that’s an angle we’re coming to in a couple of minutes.’
‘Well, you never know what they’ve got stuck away there, sir,’ Podmore said.
‘Or alternatively,’ Withers said, ‘what they haven’t. Message received.’
Gently felt in his pocket, brought out the bottle, unwrapped it, stood it on the table.
‘Take a look at that, Sergeant,’ he said. ‘Tell me what it means to you.’
Podmore picked it up, turned it, stared with cautious rounded eyes.
‘Just what I think about it, sir?’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘Just what you think about it.’
‘Well sir, I’d say the bloke it belonged to had owned a gun for some time. A bottle like this goes a long way, and he’d emptied the bottle at least once. Then he got it filled with this stuff, which you can’t buy in the shops, so I’d say he was either a serviceman or had a pal who was one. Probably had a pal, sir. Or he’d have been using gun-cleaning fluid in the first place. And I’d like to know,’ Podmore said, ‘who’s been dishing this out to the civvies.’
‘So would I,’ Gently said. ‘You hold supplies of it, do you?’
‘Technical stores do,’ Podmore said. ‘We only draw it as we need it. But there’s plenty here. We’d never miss a little bottlefull like that.’ He looked suddenly through the door. ‘Dusty,’ he said. ‘Come here, Dusty.’
Miller had been shrinking out of the doorway. Now he came back, stood looking shamefaced.
‘Dusty,’ Podmore said. ‘You wouldn’t know anything about this, would you?’
Miller swallowed. ‘I think that’s the bottle the WO had,’ he said.
‘Warrant-Officer Sawney?’ Podmore said.
‘I think it’s the one,’ Miller said. ‘He asked me to fill it with fluid for him. Said he’d bought himself a four-ten.’
‘Sawney,’ Podmore repeated. ‘Warrant-Officer Sawney.’
Withers sighed. ‘I’m afraid this is where our dirty washing becomes public,’ he said.
He dismissed Miller from the office, closed the door and bolted it. He looked wry-faced at Gently. He had a creased face, like a harassed schoolmaster’s.
‘We’ve got the peelers in,’ he said. ‘The service CID from Headquarters. They’re trying to figure out the size of the racket that’s been going on in the stores. They’re trying to find the stores chiefie too. Somebody squeaked and he took off. They reckon he’s flogged off enough stores to set up a brand-new station.’
‘Warrant-Officer Sawney?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes, Sawney,’ Withers said. ‘A cockney fellow, comes from Chiswick. Only had a couple of years to do. A pal of yours, wasn’t he, Jonesie?’
‘No pal of mine,’ Jonesie said. ‘But him and me came here together, we’re two of the old originals, like. But don’t go calling us pals, sir. It will give the Superintendent the wrong impression.’
‘Well, anyway, you knew him,’ Withers said. ‘He always seemed a bit of a spiv – store-bashers do, as a matter of interest, but there was something especially spivvy about Sawney. He’d got a big nose and a wide grin, you always felt he was trying to have you. And long arms, like a gorilla. Used to be a boxing man at one time.’
‘How did you get on to him?’ Gently asked.
‘Somebody squeaked, as I said. They rang the guardroom last Monday night and told us that Sawney was on the flog.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Around twelve thirty a.m. We haven’t been able to trace the call. The corporal who took it says the voice sounded foreign – you know, very correct, but un-English.’ He stopped. He looked hard at Gently. ‘That’s rather absorbing don’t you think?’
‘Very absorbing,’ Gently said. ‘What did the corporal do about it?’
‘Nothing just then,’ Withers said. ‘He thought maybe it was a joke or somebody being malicious. But then, in the morning, he passed it on to me, and I passed it on to the acting CO. And the CO thought he’d better look into it, so he buzzed the stores for Sawney to report to him. And that was where the balloon went up. Sawney wasn’t at the stores, wasn’t at his billet. We called him on the tannoy, asked people to report on him, but no Sawney. He’d taken a powder.’
‘When was he last seen?’ Gently asked.
‘On the Monday night, in the Sergeants’ Mess. He was having his usual beery session, didn’t seem to have anything on his mind. But this is what you might call the pay-off – he had a telephone call, too. According to witnesses it was around twenty-past twelve, and whatever it was it seemed to sober him. He left the mess, drove off in the store’s Hillman, and that’s positively the last we’ve seen of him.’
‘Have you found the van?’
‘Yes,’ Withers said. ‘It was parked in the yard at Baddesley station. Euston one way, Glasgow the other. They remember several airmen, but they can’t pinpoint Sawney.’
‘Is his house covered?’
Withers nodded. ‘Our police can stumble along pretty effectively. His house has been covered since Tuesday afternoon, and we’re reasonably certain he hasn’t contacted his wife. But that telephone call . . . the two telephone calls. In my humble opinion, they add together rather neatly. I think he was warned that we were going to be tipped. I don’t like to surmise any further than that.’
‘Holy St David,’ Jonesie said. ‘You don’t think it was him who duffed up the Pole, sir?’
‘You’re being prematurely conclusive,’ Withers said. ‘You’d better leave that line of thought to the Superintendent.’
‘Yes sir, but I’ve just remembered something,’ Jonesie said. ‘We used to have Poles here in ’forty-three, sir. Flying Whitleys and Halibashers they were in those days, and throwing them around like old prams. And Sawney was thick with some of those Poles, he used to go around and booze with them. It may not mean a bloody blind thing, sir, but I thought the Superintendent might like to know.’
‘Well, fancy,’ Withers said. ‘You could be right, too, Jonesie.’
‘Would you remember any names?’ Gently asked.
‘Gracious no,’ Jonesie said. ‘There’s no remembering Polish names. It takes a Russian to pronounce them.’
‘Nothing like Teodowicz or Kasimir?’
‘Nothing half so simple, sir. But you could get on to Records at Ruislip, sir, they’ll probably still have the documents.’
‘They will indeed,’ Withers said. ‘This is becoming ultra-absorbing. I think you should talk to our peelers, Superintendent. I feel you’re going to have a lot in common.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘where shall I find them?’
‘In the stores, where else,’ Withers said. ‘I’ll take you over to them now. Before they go to tea, or something.’
CHAPTER FIVE
THURSDAY, FIVE-FORTY-FIVE P.M. A faint breeze across Huxford airfield. A breeze smelling of sun-dried grass, tansies, one hundred octane and glycol. An arid breeze, spreading the heat collected over the plane geometry of the runways, scarcely lifting the flaps of engine covers or moving the vane above flying-control. Around the perimeter, cyclin
g figures in oil-stained working-dress uniform, soiled webbing side-packs slung over their shoulders, dope-painted mugs clinking on their lamp-brackets; cycling wearily round the great circumference, all proceeding in one direction; converging into groups and a steady stream past the guardroom, towards the domestic sites. Two NCOs stepping briskly. An officer, keeping his eyes to himself. A clay-daubed Works & Bricks truck with navvies sitting on a plank in the back. The tea-time exodous at Huxford, draining personnel from A to B, leaving here a clerk, there a duty man, whose chits had been honoured by the mess earlier. And in the guardroom four SPs. And in the stores, two other men.
The stores was a long, wide Nissen building with khaki-washed plastered ends; having in each end green-painted double doors and at one end a yard enclosed with steel mesh netting. There were notices pinned to one of the doors announcing a clothing parade and details of boot repairs, signed: A. L. W. Sawney, WO, i/c Stores, and incorporating a warning about sabotaged garments. The name appeared again painted on the door opposite, and once more, on a board, on the office door inside. The store interior smelled of concrete dust and leather. Apart from the slab-walled office it was open down its length. Facing the door was a wide counter, beyond it tall ranges of metal rack-shelves, against each wall steel lockers, open crates and bins. The smell of leather came from piles of boots which lay strewn on the floor, a ticket tied to each pair.
Withers led in, and into the office. It was a small room cluttered with metal filing cabinets. At a desk sat a bold-faced man in rank uniform noting details from some forms on to a sheet of paper. Beside him, on his knees at a filing cabinet drawer, a flight-sergeant was staring at some forms out of a file.
