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?’
‘Yessir, don’t mind it. I worked in a warehouse before I come in.’
‘How did you get on with Warrant Officer Sawney?’
‘Oh, all right sir. He was all right.’
‘Pals, were you?’
‘Well… I don’t know, sir.’ Timmins stiffened his arms, relaxed them again. ‘I wouldn’t say we was pals, not like that. He’d got his Tate and Lyle, sir. But he was all right, he was one of the lads. You used to know where you was with him. He took us on the booze now and then.’
‘Where did he take you on the booze?’
‘Oh, Baddesley, sir… Offingham, sometimes. Once we had a do in Bedford, but we didn’t go there much.’
‘Did he have any friends at these places?’
‘Not like friends I don’t think, sir. He knew the blokes behind the bar and that sort of thing.’
‘Did he talk to the civilians?’
‘Well, he passed the time, sir. Like what the Spurs would do to Leicester, and such like. He liked to talk.’
‘Did he talk to the transport drivers?’
‘Could’ve done, sir. I can’t say.’
‘Did he use to go to the Blue Bowl Cafe in Offingham?’
‘Yessir, we’d go in there for a snack.’
‘You often went there?’
‘Well, now and then, sir. When we wanted something to soak up the beer.’
‘Would you say he went there habitually?’
‘I wouldn’t know about that, sir. We went there with him… well, maybe half a dozen times.’
‘Did he know the waitresses in there?’
‘He knew one of them by her name, like.’
‘Did he talk to any civilians in there?’
‘He may have done sir. I just can’t remember.’
‘Did he talk to any foreigners?’
‘Not that I know of, sir, he didn’t.’
‘Did he use to go to The Raven roadhouse?’
Timmins relaxed his arms, which had been steadily stiffening.
‘Yessir,’ he said. ‘He used to go there, but he didn’t take us along with him.’
‘Why was that?’
‘Well, sir.’ Timmins tried to grin. ‘There’s a bint in there, it was like that.’
‘A woman?’
‘Yessir. Wanda, her name is. He was a regular one in there.’
‘He used to spend nights with her?’
‘I reckon so, sir. Leastways, he was up there a lot of evenings. Let on she was a tidy bit of stuff, and that sort of thing.’
‘How often did he go there?’
‘Pretty often, sir. Twice a week, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘Do you know who he used to meet there?’
‘No sir, I was never there with him.’
‘Have you been there yourself?’
‘A couple of times, sir. Just for a cup of char, that’s all.’
‘Who did you see there?’
‘Well… mostly drivers…’
‘Anyone you knew?’
‘No sir. Nobody at all.’
Gently nodded very slowly, struck a match for his pipe. Timmins strained his arms once or twice, ventured a look towards Gently. Withers sat sideways away from them, nursing his knees and sucking. Campling kept staring at the desk where the wisp of wool lay on the paper. The stores, the sites around them were silent. The office was hot and full of smoke.
Gently said: ‘I’m not going to ask you how much you know about what was going on here. I’ll put it this way. Could you give me a guess who was in this business with Sawney?’
‘None of us wasn’t in it, sir,’ Timmins mumbled. ‘We never had no part in it.’
‘You had eyes,’ Gently said. ‘I’m not asking you to incriminate yourself.’
‘No sir,’ Timmins said. He pulled on his arms another time. ‘It was someone outside, sir,’ he said. ‘You’re right if that’s what you’re thinking.’
‘Who?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘Have you seen him?’
‘Not proper I haven’t,’ Timmins said. ‘But he’s got a truck, I know that. It wasn’t one of our jobs.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Gently said.
‘It was once when I was on guard,’ Timmins said. He stopped. He looked halfway towards Withers.
‘Oh, carry on,’ Withers said. ‘I shan’t be listening to this bit, Timmins.’
‘Yessir,’ Timmins said. ‘When I was on guard, sir. We use the dispersal hut by number three hangar. There wasn’t no night flying or anything, everybody had packed up. So I thought I might as well drop round to the mess — there’s a Wraf I know who works there, sir. So I borrowed one of the erks’ bikes-’
‘What time would that be?’ Gently asked.
‘Be about one,’ Timmins said. ‘I hung on in case the duty officer showed up.’
‘Wasn’t me,’ Withers said to his pipe.
‘No sir,’ Timmins said. ‘I don’t remember who it was, sir.’
‘I should keep it like that,’ Withers said, ‘were I you.’
‘Yessir,’ Timmins said. ‘I don’t remember. But when I got down here there was a light in the store — not all of them on, just one, I reckon — and there was a truck standing out in the yard, and a couple of blokes were loading stuff into it.’
‘And you were on guard?’ Campling inquired sourly.
‘I did go and look, sir,’ Timmins said. ‘I wasn’t to know it wasn’t something proper, we have had calls for stuff during the night.’
‘So what else did you see?’ Gently said.
‘I saw that one of the men was the WO, sir. And I reckoned it must have been on the up-and-up, though it did strike me as a bit queer at the time.’
‘What about the other man?’
‘I didn’t recognize him, sir. There was only the light coming through the door. But he was a big bloke, like the WO, and he’d got on one of those khaki jackets.’
‘Did you see the truck clearly?’
‘It was one of those big jobs, painted a dark colour. Not one of ours.’
‘Did you notice the make?’
