‘There better hadn’t be,’ Felling said. ‘Don’t think burning that stuff fools us.’
‘I tell you it is honest,’ Madsen said. ‘I don’ have nothing I want to hide. It is ver’ foolish what I do, but not to hide nothing. Just being a fool.’
Gently snapped the book shut, handed it to Felling. ‘Take care of that for the moment,’ he said. He looked at Madsen. ‘You’re a mechanic?’ he asked. ‘You do your own servicing here?’
‘Oh yes, our own servicing, yes.’
‘You know what these tools and materials are used for?’
‘Yes, I’m a ver’ skilled mechanic.’
‘What use do you have for Rangoon oil?’
‘Rangoon oil…?’ Madsen faltered.
‘Yes, Rangoon oil,’ Gently said. ‘There’s a half full bottle on the back of the bench.’
He moved across, reached over the bench, picked out a bottle from a collection of rubbish. It was one of the size of a small medicine bottle and carried a crudely printed, oil-soaked label. The label said: Finest Quality RANGOON OIL* Semmence, Jackson amp; Co. Ltd. (Mfgs.) Coventry.
‘What’s this for?’ Gently asked.
Madsen’s head began to shake. ‘I do not know… is Tim’s, perhaps. I don’ know nothing about that.’
‘You’re a mechanic — and don’t know?’
‘Yes — perhaps to stop tools from rusting.’
‘Tools already covered in grease?’
‘That is what I think.’ Madsen’s flush had left him.
‘It’s used for tools all right,’ Gently said.
‘Yes, as I say. Is used for tools.’
‘But the tools are guns,’ Gently said.
Madsen’s hands moved. He didn’t speak.
‘Well?’ Gently said.
Madsen swayed. ‘I tell you… is something of Tim’s,’ he said.
‘Tim had a gun?’
‘I… do not know.’
‘He was certainly killed with one,’ Gently said.
‘I do not know about a gun.’
‘Nor about this bottle?’
Madsen’s head shook.
‘Never saw it there — or Tim using it?’
Madsen kept on shaking his head.
‘You’re very unobservant,’ Gently said. ‘I saw the bottle soon after I came in here.’
‘I tell you I know nothing about it,’ Madsen said. ‘I don’ never have a gun. You have searched. There is not one.’
‘We haven’t dragged the river yet,’ Gently said. ‘We may get round to it if people keep lying.’
‘It is right, I never have one,’ Madsen said.
Gently stared at Madsen. Felling sucked in breath.
CHAPTER FOUR
Still in the garage.
Madsen had gone, stumbling over the threshold in his eagerness. Gently stood staring at the greasy bottle. Felling, scowling, eased from foot to foot. They could hear Madsen cross the yard and go up his stairs: the slam of his door. Then only the noises of the sparrows scratching down through the tight air.
Felling said: ‘It won’t have prints, sir — too much oil on it to take them.’
Gently nodded. He held up the bottle between himself and the light. He unscrewed the cap, sniffed, screwed the cap back on. Felling watched. He kept scowling. There was sweat on both their foreheads.
‘So,’ Gently said, ‘what do you make of it, Felling?’
Felling shifted, inclined his head. ‘I think they were running a racket sir, between them. And that’s why Madsen burned the papers.’
‘You saw something suspicious when you looked at them?’
‘… No, sir. I can’t say that I did. Only I didn’t look at them very carefully, I didn’t know that it mattered, then.’
‘What sort of a racket?’ Gently asked.
Felling gave his shoulder a twist. ‘Pinching stuff, sir, it could be. Loading a bit more than the docs show, then flogging it off before making delivery.’
Gently said, ‘It could have been that.’
‘That’s one of the rackets,’ Felling said. ‘Or they might have been knocking off other trucks, sir. There’s no saying what they were up to.’
‘It could have been that too,’ Gently said. ‘But where does this mysterious visitor fit into it?’
‘Maybe they’re two separate things, sir.’
Gently said, ‘Yes. Maybe.’
He said: ‘Teodowicz’s life would seem to have been a busy one, what with running rackets and being an agent. He couldn’t have had a lot of time left over. Not for driving loads, things like that.’
Felling grinned. ‘I see your point, sir. I was just trying to explain Madsen’s behaviour.’
‘Yes,’ Gently said, ‘it interests me too.’
‘There could’ve been something that needed covering up, sir’.
Gently kept on looking at the bottle. His fingers were covered with oil from it. The creases of his face had no expression. He looked at the bottle, turning it slowly.
Felling said: ‘I still think that Kasimir bloke is the only answer to the shooting, sir. I don’t reckon Teodowicz was a spy or anything, but there’s nobody else in the picture.’
Gently held up the bottle. ‘Have you an explanation for this?’ he asked.
‘Oh, I don’t know sir,’ Felling said. ‘Perhaps it belonged to Teodowicz, like Madsen says.’
‘Then one or other of them had a gun.’
‘It might just have been used for something else, sir.’
Gently’s head shook slowly. ‘Not what’s in this bottle. The Rangoon oil might. But not this stuff.’
Felling hesitated. ‘But isn’t it Rangoon oil, sir?’
Gently shook his head again. ‘You can see. It’s bluish. Rangoon oil has a yellow tint — and it doesn’t smell of citronella.’
Felling stared at the bottle too.
‘Then what do you reckon this stuff is, sir?’
Gently said, ‘It’s gun-cleaning fluid. From a service source. Perhaps the aerodrome you mentioned.’
The noise of the sparrows; the bottle held up; the trucks brutal in their size. The perfectly still hot air with its lading of petrol and stale oil. The submarine light on the two faces. One expressionless. One puckering.
Felling murmured: ‘It’s a coincidence, sir…’
‘Yes,’ Gently said. ‘I was thinking the same. What was the name of that aerodrome again?’
‘Huxford, sir.’
‘Yes, Huxford,’ Gently said.
He lowered the bottle, looked about the bench, found a balled-up page of a newspaper. He wiped the bottle on a piece of rag, wrapped the bottle and slipped it into his pocket. He looked at Felling.
‘I’ll leave the dabs to you,’ he said. ‘And the check on those cafes, where Teodowicz ate his last meal. And I’d like a couple of men to search this area, all these yards and derelict buildings. Can you manage that?’
‘Yes sir,’ Felling said. ‘Freeman and Rice can do the search.’
‘Tell them to keep an eye on Madsen,’ Gently said.
