‘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.’
‘So,’ Gently said, ‘you burned them. You put a match to them, and they burned.’
‘Yes, I wait while they burn. I think Tim is telling me to do this.’
‘What else did he tell you?’
Madsen’s smile was a grimace.
‘What did he tell you about the poker?’
Madsen moved his hands about.
‘About his pictures?’
The hands fluttered. ‘I tell you all I remember… I am so tired and in the whirl… you know? Perhaps I forget things…’
‘Perhaps you do,’ Gently said.
‘I am still ver’ tired. I don’ sleep well.’
‘You remembered to lose the key,’ Gently said.
Madsen just shifted his hands.
Gently puffed. ‘You do well,’ he said. ‘You give a good performance, Madsen. Where are the gloves you’re always wearing?’
Madsen opened his eyes. ‘I am not wearing gloves.’
‘Good,’ Gently said. ‘So we’ll print the poker, the drawer, the picture and the door. Was there anything else you handled, Madsen?’
Madsen swallowed. ‘I don’ remember…’
‘If you’re lying we’ll know it,’ Felling said.
‘Yes,’ Madsen said. ‘Yes. You’ll know.’
They went down the stairs to the garage, Felling locking the door behind them with care; into the still, closed-up atmosphere of petrol, oil and oily metals. With the lamps switched on there was a half-light. It had a submarine quality. The garage resembled a grimy tank into which at intervals rubbish had been thrown. The two trucks, heavy and cold, lay on the bottom like sunken ships. From a long way above, from the surface, came the chirping of sparrows in a gutter. Gently entered, then Madsen. Madsen was flushed and had his head drooping. Felling came behind jingling his keys. The door creaked slowly over the sunlight.
‘Where’s your logbook?’ Gently asked.
‘Yes, in my cab,’ Madsen said.
‘Fetch it down.’
Madsen hoisted himself up, reached for the book, jumped down. Gently took it, riffled the pages. They were scribbled in pencil in a child-like hand. They gave dates, loadings, places, the names of consigners and consignees.
‘Were you legal partners or just associates?’
‘Yes, legal partners,’ Madsen said. ‘I have a deed in my tin box. Legal partners, everything common.’
‘But it was Teodowicz who kept the record?’
‘Yes, I do not well understand that. Tim was ver’ clever, knew all about things. My tax, too: he do that.’
‘So now the record has gone up the spout?’
Madsen’s head drooped further. ‘I’m ver’ sorry.’
‘You’ll be sorrier still when the tax people hear of it.’
‘It is wrong, I know. I am sorry.’
Gently riffled some more pages. The scribblings recorded a far-reaching odyssey. Cardiff, Glasgow, Inverness, Yarmouth, Chatham, Bristol, Plymouth. Week after week the Leyland had roamed its vast tally of grey miles, spanning the country as of course, linking margin with margin; occasionally halted by a wheel-change, a snow- blizzard, a broken part, but always rolling again soon, thrusting forth on its appointed way.
‘Teodowicz did similar journeys to this?’
‘Oh, yes,’ Madsen said. ‘It is all the same. We do not do the short-haul trips — do not pay so well, you know?’
‘Was there any trip he always made — rather than let you make it?’
‘Oh, no. It is as it comes. The one who is free takes the load.’
‘So you know everything that goes on?’
‘There is nothing goes on,’ Madsen said.
