Free Gently Where the Roads Go by Alan Hunter

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
    T HURSDAY, 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