‘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.
