by Alan Hunter
‘Squadron-Leader Campling,’ Withers said. ‘This is Superintendent Gently of Scotland Yard. He’s making inquiries about the death of that Pole, and it seems likely that they may coincide with your inquiries.’
Campling looked at both of them without saying anything for a moment. He had brown eyes under thick brows, a straight thick nose, a dimpled chin. ‘Oh,’ he said. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ He rose and stuck out his hand. ‘I heard you were down here on the Teodowicz case. I didn’t think I was going to meet you.’
Gently shrugged. ‘Teodowicz was killed with a Sten gun,’ he said. ‘We naturally want to know where it came from, and Huxford is nearest and handiest.’
‘Yes, it is,’ Campling said. ‘Are you having any luck?’
‘Not as yet. But I’ve a feeling that I’m getting quite warm.’
Campling said: ‘Hah,’ and exchanged looks with the flight-sergeant. ‘I think you’re more than warm,’ he said. ‘I think you’re smack on the target. Brennan,’ he said to the flight-sergeant, ‘show the Superintendent what we found. It did flit through my mind that there might be a connection.’
Brennan got up off his knees. ‘Out in the store, sir,’ he said. He opened the counter-flap, turned right, went down the aisle next to the outer wall. A bored-looking corporal lounged in the aisle, a cigarette concealed under his hand. He winced slightly and vanished among the rack-shelves, leaving the smell of cigarette smoke behind him. From across the store came the gulping sound of someone pouring liquid from a Thermos.
‘This is it, sir,’ Brennan said, stopping at a gap between two lockers. ‘You’ll notice how the curve of the Nissen wall leaves a space behind these fixtures. There was a dump of obsolete gas equipment in this gap, stuff that ought to have been returned to Central Stores, and we just happened to move it, out of curiosity, and this is what we spotted behind a locker.’
He pointed to a small, stout wooden case which stood on the floor between the lockers. It was about twenty inches by twelve, had two rope handles, was painted with a green wood preservative. On the lid was roughly stencilled: STEN MK II 6 AM.
‘What’s inside it?’ Gently said.
Brennan reached down, lifted the lid. The lid had originally been nailed into place but it had been prized up and stood loose on the nail points. The case contained five guns, two above, three below; a number of long, narrow magazines; and the space for a sixth gun.
‘Any ammunition?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes sir.’
Brennan opened the door of a locker. He removed a number of empty cartons from the lowest shelf, and finally an unpainted wooden box. In the wooden box were three cardboard boxes and in each cardboard box two fibre cartons. The cartons each contained 250 rounds of 9 mm rimless (Sten) ammunition. There was a fourth box. This was empty.
‘Are these shown on the inventory?’ Gently asked.
‘Not on any inventory we’ve found,’ Brennan said. ‘But they’re not alone when it comes to that. About half this stuff isn’t on the inventory.’
‘What have the stores people got to say about it?’
‘They’re pleading ignorance.’ Brennan made a grimace. ‘They’re blaming the whole thing on Sawney. But we’ve hardly got started on them. Yet.’
Gently nodded. ‘Take charge of this stuff. Try not to handle it more than you have to.’
‘Yes,’ Brennan said. ‘Don’t worry about that, sir. I’ve done some training down at Ryton.’
Gently returned to the office. Campling sat toying with a retractable ball pen.
‘Well?’ he said, snapping the pen. ‘Is it homicide as from now?’
Gently shrugged, looked round for a seat, settled for a toolbox stood on end. Withers was squatting on another box and puffing evenly at a Lovat-pattern briar.
‘Tell me about this business,’ Gently said. ‘What’s the extent of it? How long has it gone on? What were the channels Sawney was using? Who do you think was in it with him?’
Campling grinned, snapped the pen. ‘Easy questions, difficult answers. We haven’t got to the bottom of this thing yet, but I’ll give you a run-down as far as we’ve gone. The racket was a pretty steady racket. It’d been going on for at least two years. During that time . . . these are very rough figures . . . I’d say that Sawney netted around fifteen thousand pounds. It may have been a good deal less than that, it depends on what he got for the stuff. And it wouldn’t all be going into his pocket. There had to be someone else in the deal.’
‘How did he work it?’
Campling clicked his tongue. ‘By the oldest and hoariest dodge we know of. Really, it makes you blush with shame, just going through these old indent forms. Take a look at one.’
He picked a form off the desk and handed it to Gently. It was printed to facilitate the ordering of stores and to ensure that a fixed procedure was complied with. Beneath a detailed identification was a ruled-off compartment for the insertion of the items, and beneath this spaces for signatures and stamps without which the order would not be authorized. The form had been made out. Station, unit, section were entered. A list of items filled the first ten lines of the compartment. Under these was drawn a line and two other lines, to close the compartment; stamps, signatures were in place, and a cancelling stamp from Central Stores.
‘Impressive, isn’t it?’ Campling said. ‘Can you spot where he worked the fast one?’
‘Hmn,’ Gently said. ‘This last item looks a little bit screwed up.
‘You see?’ Campling said. ‘You’re not a fraud man, but even you can spot that. Yet for two solid years that fellow’s been getting away with the trick. Instead of drawing his line on the rule he’s drawn it in the space underneath, leaving enough room for an extra entry after the form had been authorized. In this case, five portable charging sets, worth about a hundred and fifty quid. And these indents were going in every day. No wonder the defence estimates are up.’
‘And all tax-free,’ Withers said. ‘That’s the truly criminal part. You can’t admire his ingenuity while he’s dodging his responsibilities.’
Gently returned the form. ‘Has he been specializing in anything?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Campling said. ‘He’d got catholic tastes. All was grist that came to Sawney’s mill. Tyres, clothes, technical stores, flying-suits, instruments, the lot. It went into the street markets as like as not. We’re trying to get a line on that.’
‘What are your ideas about the stores staff ?’
‘The store-bashers?’ Campling snapped the ball pen. ‘There’s a corporal, a couple of storekeepers, two GDs and occasional janker-wallahs. The janker-wallahs are purely casual, and the GDs rarely stay on one job. I haven’t made up my mind about the other three, but my feeling is that they’re outside it. We’ve checked a little. We haven’t found any signs of them living above their income. Of course, they knew something was going on, with the stuff that passed through here, but I doubt if they had their fingers in it. Sawney would know how to keep them sweet.’
‘So,’ Gently said, ‘the goods were ordered. The order was dispatched from Central Stores. How did it arrive here?’
‘By rail,’ Campling said. ‘To Baddesley station. Then on to here by the camp transport.’
‘And where were they unloaded?’
‘In the stores yard behind here – with Sawney doing the checking, of course.’
‘And after that?’
Campling snapped the ball pen. ‘Perhaps you’ve got some ideas about that,’ he said. ‘I don’t mind telling you that we’ve drawn a blank. He couldn’t have been using a service vehicle.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘Pretty sure,’ Campling said. ‘Unless half the camp’s involved in the racket. The transport section is at the back of the guardroom, everything is checked in and out.’
‘What about the vans belonging to the sections?’
‘They’re parked in a compound on the domestic site. It’s at the back of the messes, where they have a night
staff, and nobody will admit noticing anything suspicious. But I don’t go much on the van idea – the stores van is only five hundredweight, you know.’
‘Would a vehicle coming in have to pass the guardroom?’
‘Yes,’ Campling said.
‘No,’ Withers contradicted.
They looked at him.
‘I hate to have to admit it,’ he said, ‘but this airfield is as open as Hampstead Heath. Ask any of the drivers. There’s a back way in. It’s across on the other side of the drome. There’s an old dispersal pan, back in some trees, and you simply drive off it on to a byroad.’
Campling looked bitter. ‘Don’t you have dispersal guards?’
‘As promulgated,’ Withers said, ‘on SROs. That is, a couple of sleepy erks patrolling a four-mile perimeter, dotted with comfy kites to doss in, and the duty officer minding his own business. Oh yes, we have our dispersal guard.’
‘Where does the byroad lead to?’ Gently asked.
‘To a farm in one direction,’ Withers said. ‘And to the A1 in the other.’
‘Handy,’ Campling said crisply.
‘I believe the drivers find it so,’ Withers said.
Campling snapped the ball pen twice. Withers puffed, glanced at his wristwatch.
Gently said: ‘Getting back to the site here – who is on duty here at nights?’
‘It depends on whether there’s night flying,’ Withers said. ‘But we don’t see much of that these days. There’ll be flying-control up in the tower, and the duty orderly room clerk, and the duty driver, and the SPs, and the duty electrician in the charging room. That’s the lot.’
‘Anyone near the stores?’
‘Nobody nearer than the charging room.’
‘Do the SPs do any roaming about?’
‘Not unless they’re called out to something.’
‘So it’s pretty quiet here in the small hours?’
‘Very quiet,’ Withers said.
‘You could bring a truck in by the back way, and spend an hour loading it up?’
Withers nodded. ‘You could do that. If you knew a man. Who had a truck.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘A man with a truck. But who, one day, might quarrel with you.’
Campling finally dropped the ball pen. He took a cigarette case out of his pocket. He opened the case, took a cigarette himself, threw one to Brennan, who stood in the doorway. Gently had meanwhile brought out his sand-blast, and now all four men were smoking. The bicycles and footsteps outside had ceased. A motor horn sounded far away, near the gates.
Campling said to his cigarette: ‘It’s a case. I don’t think Sawney’s going to be court-martialled. If you want those boxes and cartons dusted, we can do it. Brennan’s got his equipment in the guardroom.’
‘Have you got Sawney’s dabs?’ Gently asked.
‘Naturally. We took a set off his shaving mirror. And I’ve got his photograph and full description and all the particulars you’ll want.’
‘I’d like the stuff printed,’ Gently said.
Campling nodded to Brennan. Brennan left. Campling drew in heavily on the cigarette, let the smoke trickle out of his nostrils.
‘The bloody fool,’ he said. ‘Why did he have to do a thing like that? We’d got him for certain on the flogging charge, but that’s a technicality in the services.’
‘You don’t know Sawney,’ Withers said. ‘Sawney was the type to blow his top.’
‘But with a Sten gun?’ Campling said. ‘Hell and all, man, he must have been bonkers.’
‘He was the type,’ Withers said. ‘Sawney had a nasty bit of a temper. I can imagine him getting the tip-off he was going to be shopped and then taking off with that gun. It’s just too bad he had access to one. He could have clobbered the Pole with his bare fists.’
‘He must have been insane,’ Campling said. ‘It was savage what he did. He’ll have to plead insanity.’
‘Are any murderers sane?’ Withers asked, puffing.
‘This one isn’t,’ Campling said. ‘I’ll stake my discharge on it.’ He looked at Gently. ‘What are your views?’ he said. ‘Or is it against protocol for me to inquire?’
Gently stared at the smoke from his pipe. ‘I haven’t got any views,’ he said. ‘I’m simply fact-finding.’
Campling laughed. ‘If you want it that way,’ he said. ‘Perhaps the whole discussion is sub judice and incompetent. But it’s a clear case, I’m afraid. Sawney is for the high jump. And I’m sorry for it. I got the impression he was more of a knave than a criminal.’
‘Thank you,’ Gently said. ‘The reaction of the man on the job is also a fact. And I’m puzzled, that’s another fact.’ He puffed once or twice. ‘Because there’s another case against another man which another investigator finds logical. And there seems no connection between the two. Except the shooting of Teodowicz.’
Both of them stared at him.
‘This is getting too devious for me,’ Campling said. ‘What do you want us to do?’
‘Just carry on,’ Gently said. ‘You’re better placed than we are to handle this end of the business. Go on clarifying the picture of Sawney’s racket and its connections. We’ll put out an all-stations for him, and give you a hand tracing his outlets.’
‘You mean you’re not convinced that Sawney’s the man?’
‘I’m not convinced or unconvinced.’
Campling shook his head. ‘You’re a queer lot, up at the Yard,’ he said. ‘I’d go to court with half this case. But you know your own business best. We’ll do what you say, of course. We’d continue to clear up this mess in any case.’
‘Have you those particulars for me?’
Campling stared at him for a second. Then he reached up a briefcase, opened it, took out some documents.
‘These are from Records and consequently sacred.’
‘I’ll see they’re returned in due course.’
‘Do,’ Campling said. ‘Or they’ll serve up my head on crossed prop blades.’
The first document was an identity card. It bore a photograph of Sawney. It showed a large-faced man with a slightly squashed nose and a wide-lipped mouth and small eyes. The eyes were not looking straight at the camera and appeared glazed and absent. The mouth was tilted between a grin and a smile. The flesh under the eyes was puffy. Beneath the photograph was a printed form with typed-out details. Date of Birth: 15.3.19. Height: 6 ft. 0½ ins. Weight: 13 st. 10 lbs. Colouring: brown hair, blue eyes. Scars: 2″ scar, left knee. Distinguishing Marks: broken nose. Married or Single: married. The card was headed, Full Name: Sawney, Albert Leonard Wilfred. Subsequent forms recorded that he was born at Fulham, had an elementary education, entered the service as an apprentice in 1934, was a service heavyweight boxing champion in 1940, 1941, rose progressively to the rank of Warrant Officer (Stores), had been stationed at Tern Hill, Leuchars, Hornchurch, Compton Bassett, Padgate, Matlaske and Huxford, was married in 1947, was presently in receipt of allowances for three children, had been punished for several petty offences including AWOL and being drunk and disorderly, and was regarded by a succession of commanding officers as Efficient, Conscientious, Skilled in his Trade, Unstable but Conscientious, Conscientious, Conscientious and Efficient, and Conscientious. He had been on several ground defence courses. He was graded as a marksman.
‘Ground defence?’ Gently queried.
‘But of course,’ Withers said. ‘As though you hadn’t enough against him anyway, he’s an expert at handling weapons. Rifle, revolver, automatic weapons, and a dab hand with a grenade. I know. I’m a shooting man myself. He was a regular at the range.’
‘What else does ground defence consist of ?’
‘Oh, gas lectures. Field tactics. Crawling for miles on one’s stomach. Anything strenuous and unpleasant.’
‘And he was good at these things?’
‘Yes. He was that sort of bloke.’
‘Handy,’ Campling said. ‘Very handy. And now he’s on the run with a Sten.’
Gently nodded at nothing. ‘You had Poles stationed here,’ he said. ‘We don’t think Teodowicz was in England during the war, but it’s an angle we can’t overlook. Could you have the record checked – for a Timoshenko Teodowicz?’
‘I’ll get on the blower.’ Campling made a note.
‘Also for a Jan Kasimir. Spelt with a K.’ He felt in his pocket. ‘Then there’s this.’ He took out the envelope with its wisp of wool. He went to the desk, shook the wool on to a sheet of paper, put the sheet in front of Campling. ‘What would you say it was?’
Campling poked at the wisp. ‘It’s been snagged off an Air Force uniform,’ he said. He was silent a moment. ‘That’s important,’ he said, ‘isn’t it? It’s something that’s going to hang Sawney.’
‘It’s a piece of evidence,’ Gently said. ‘I want its identification made steam-proof.’
‘We can do that for you,’ Campling said. He sighed. ‘The bloody fool,’ he said.
‘Now I’d like to talk to that Corporal out there.’
‘The bloody fool,’ Campling repeated.
The Corporal came in. He was a thin, pale-faced man. He had nicotine-stained fingers. His hands trembled all the time. He was about thirty-five years old. His name was Corporal Timmins. He had to stand up because there was no seating.
‘This is Superintendent Gently of the Yard, Corporal,’ Campling told him. ‘He wants to ask you some questions.’
Timmins flashed a nervous look at Gently, dropped his eyes, mumbled, ‘Yessir.’
‘You can stand easy,’ Gently said.
Timmins tried to stand easy. His feet dragged apart a little, his hands crept round behind him.
Gently said: ‘How long have you been stationed at Huxford, Corporal?’
‘About . . . a couple of years, sir,’ Timmins mumbled. ‘I come here in March fifty-nine.’
‘Were you a corporal then?’
‘Yessir, I was. I was made up a corporal when I come here.’
‘You like store work?’
