River of Darkness jm-1

by Rennie Airth

  It was unlikely he would ever be asked to explain why he had built the dugouts, and in any case would have found it impossible to give a coherent reply.

  Originally, in the woods above Highfield, he had set out simply to construct some kind of shelter for himself. The dugout had taken shape almost without conscious intention on his part. Once it was completed, however, he saw that it was right. Sitting in the womb-like darkness he had experienced moments of peace and contentment so foreign to his nature he had wondered at first if they were signs of illness.

  Thereafter, he had allowed instinct to guide his actions, and it was just such an unconsidered impulse that had taken him back to Highfield only a fortnight after he had broken into Melling Lodge. He had felt a strong need to return and had hesitated only to the extent of remaining close to his motorcycle throughout the night, waiting until dawn came to assure himself that the police were no longer searching the woods.

  His subsequent discovery that two men were tracking him — one he had recognized as the village constable — had caused him to react in momentary panic. Up till then he had felt himself to be invulnerable, almost invisible as he went about his business unseen and unsuspected. Now he knew better.

  Even so, it never occurred to him to stop. It was beyond his power to do so. The need released in him had come to govern his life, filling his thoughts and forming the sole purpose of his existence. It would die when he did, not before.

  But his experience in the woods had induced him to be more cautious. He had altered his appearance by shaving off his moustache and repainted the bodywork of the sidecar. The changes made him feel more secure.

  He also believed that his decision to travel late at night, and by little-used roads, was a wise one, and was not unduly alarmed when, sometime after midnight, having crossed the main road to Hastings, he was waved down by a helmeted policeman on a narrow country lane bordered by hedgerows.

  The constable was carrying a lamp, which he swung from side to side as he stood planted in the middle of the road. Pike, who was travelling at less than twenty miles an hour, pulled up on the verge. The policeman ordered him to switch off his engine. Pike obeyed.

  The lamp's beam was bright in his eyes.

  'Where might you be heading, sir?' The voice was a young man's. Pike couldn't see his face against the light.

  'Folkestone,' he replied.

  'Would you give me your name, please?'

  'Carver,' Pike said. 'George Carver.'

  'Occupation?'

  'Gardener.'

  'And what would a gardener be doing riding around this time of night?'

  'I was spending the weekend with my sister in Tunbridge Wells. My bike broke down and I couldn't get it fixed till late. I've got to get back before tomorrow morning.' The man was beginning to irritate Pike with his questions.

  'This isn't the road to Folkestone.'

  The fact was incontrovertible. Pike said nothing.

  The constable moved the light off his face and shone it on the sidecar. 'What's in the bag?' he asked.

  'Tools.'

  'Open it, please.'

  Pike climbed off the saddle. He took the canvas bag out of the sidecar and laid it on the ground. It was held shut by two leather straps. He began to undo them. As he was working on the second one the light shifted off his hands. He looked up to see the policeman directing his lamp at the sidecar. Pike's eyes followed the beam. He saw the new red paintwork had been scratched, probably when he rode into the thicket. In one spot a broad flake of paint had been removed, revealing the original black surface beneath.

  Pike went on undoing the strap. The light was back in his face.

  'I'd like to see some identification.' The constable's voice had hardened. 'Also proof of ownership of this vehicle.'

  'I've got it here,' Pike said, reaching into the bag.

  He stood up, turning towards the constable, and drove his clenched hand into the pit of the man's stomach.

  The policeman dropped the lamp. He arched his body.

  A retching sound came from his lips. Pike withdrew the bayonet and the man clutched at his stomach, lips working. He stepped back and stabbed him a second time, in the chest. The constable fell to the ground.

  He groaned once and lay still.

  Pike picked up the lamp and shone it on the side of the road. A few feet away he saw a gap in the hedgerow. Placing the lamp on the sidecar, he gathered the constable's body in his arms and carried it to the spot. With some difficulty he thrust it through the gap in the hedge into a ditch on the other side.

  He returned to the sidecar for the lamp and spent some minutes examining the ground nearby. He found two small pools of blood which he covered with handfuls of dirt taken from the side of the road.

  Satisfied, he switched off the lamp, wiped it down with a handkerchief and then threw it as far as he could over the hedge into the field beyond.

  9

  Sinclair returned from lunch to find Madden bent over a map spread out on the top of his desk.

  Hollingsworth stood beside him.

  'I've got the Ordnance Survey map here, sir.' The sergeant was speaking. 'It's marked. Elmhurst.'

  Madden looked up and saw Sinclair. 'We've a constable down in Sussex, sir. Murdered. He was killed on a back road on Sunday night.'

  'Sunday?' The chief inspector joined them, shedding his jacket. 'Why didn't we hear before?' It was Thursday.

  'They only found his body yesterday. I've been talking to the CID in Tunbridge Wells. The body was taken there. They could see he'd been stabbed, but it was only when their pathologist examined the corpse that he discovered they were bayonet wounds.'

  'He's sure about that? The pathologist?'

  'Seems to be. He was an Army doctor at Etaples for two years.'

  Sinclair stood at Madden's shoulder. 'Show me.'

  Madden checked the Ordnance chart Hollingsworth had brought against his own smaller-scale map.

  He pointed. 'About there. Say twenty miles south of Tunbridge Wells. Very near the main road to Hastings. The constable — his name was Harris — was stationed at a village called Hythe. There it is, it's marked.'

  Sinclair squinted at the Ordnance map. 'Bit off his beat, wasn't he?'

  'That's why it took a while to find the body.

  Elmhurst's four miles away. Apparently there've been reports of organized cockfighting in the district. The detective I spoke to said they think Harris went over there on Sunday night to see if he could catch them at it. He must have been on his way back to Hythe when he ran into trouble.'

  'Where was his body?'

  'In a ditch by the road. They found traces of blood someone had tried to cover up. Nothing else, I'm afraid.'

  The chief inspector bent over the map. 'What do you think? Did he try to stop him? Damn it, I told them to exercise caution.'

  'We don't know that it was him.' Madden scowled.

  'Yes, but let's suppose it was.' Sinclair drummed his fingertips on the desktop. 'It was late on a Sunday night. He was heading home, back to his job or whatever it is he does. But where did he spend the weekend?' He pored over the map.

  'You'd have to know which way he was going.'

  Hollingsworth offered his opinion. 'Which direction.'

  'He was near the Hastings road,' Madden said. 'But he doesn't travel on main roads. So either he'd just crossed it, or was about to. He was going east or west.'

  They studied the map in silence.

  'Nothing much to the east.' Hollingsworth spoke again. 'Not till you get to Romney Marsh.'

  The chief inspector's forefinger came to rest. Madden grunted an acknowledgement. 'Ashdown Forest.'

  'How far is it?' Sinclair checked the scale. 'Less than twenty miles. If he was coming from there…' He clicked his tongue in frustration. 'Damn and blast!

  There's ten thousand acres of that. More. We couldn't begin to search it.'

  Hollingsworth cleared his throat.

  'What is it, Sergeant?'
>
  'A lot of people use those woods, sir. Ramblers, botanists, Scout troops. They could be a help.'

  'What we would do well to avoid at this juncture,' the chief inspector enunciated clearly, 'is a massacre of Boy Scouts.'

  'Yes, sir, but we could ask them to keep an eye open. Through local police stations. Any sign of fresh digging. All they need do is report it.'

  Sinclair looked at Madden, who nodded.

  'Good idea, Sergeant. We'll get word out.'

  Sinclair waited until Hollingsworth had left the office. Then he spoke: 'I had lunch with Bennett.

  Nothing from the War Office as yet. He's tried to give them a nudge, but they move at their own speed over there.'

  Madden remained bent over the map. Sinclair studied him benignly. 'Take this Sunday off, John. I'll be at home.'

  'Are you sure, sir?' Madden looked up. They had agreed that one or other should be within reach of a telephone during the weekends.

  'I am. Consult Mrs Sinclair, if you have any doubts.

  She will assure you that the garden requires my urgent attention.'

  The chief inspector had noted an alteration in his colleague's appearance of late, a lightening of the shadows. There seemed to him at least one possible explanation for it. 'If I were you I'd get out of London,' he suggested, with guileless innocence. 'Treat yourself to some country air.'

  She was waiting for him at the station. The red Wolseley two-seater was parked where he remembered it, in the shade under the plane tree. Her tanned forearms resting on the steering-wheel reminded him of the moment beside the stream when they had kissed.

  'Father's off shooting pheasants.' She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek. 'We've got the whole day to ourselves.'

  The tables outside the Rose and Crown were crowded with lunch-time customers. Heads turned as they drove by.

  Helen laughed. 'That'll set tongues wagging.'

  But her smile faded as they passed the locked gates of Melling Lodge. 'I get so angry whenever I think about it. There was no reason why it should have happened. The vicar saw fit to preach to us last Sunday on the mysterious workings of Divine Providence. I asked him afterwards if he thought the murders were an Act of God. He hasn't spoken to me since.'

  Madden put his hand on hers. 'No reason, perhaps.

  But there might be an explanation. Have you seen Dr Weiss again?' It felt strange to play the role of comforter.

  'Franz came down for lunch the day before he went home. He said you'd met, but he didn't say what you'd talked about.'

  'I asked him to be discreet. I was breaking the rules by going to him as it was.'

  Later, when they reached the house, he gave her an account of his conversation with the psychiatrist, speaking freely, as he always did when they discussed his work, shedding the reserve he would normally have shown with an outsider. He had never felt the need to keep any knowledge from her; he could think of no fact from which she might shrink.

  'It's not what I imagined,' she admitted. 'I thought it was blind chance that brought him to that house. If Franz is right, he must have seen Lucy earlier. Does that mean he was in Highfield?'

  'Most probably. But we don't know when. Or why he came here.'

  They ate lunch in the arbour on the terrace, looking out over the sun-bruised lawn. The green leaves of the weeping beech were changing to russet, and beyond the orchard the rising wave of Upton Hanger showed tints of red and gold.

  Later, she suggested going for a walk. 'I want to see the place where you and Will were shot at. I asked him to show me, but he refused. He didn't dare say it was no business of a woman's, but I could see he was longing to.'

  She waited until the maid had finished clearing the table and taken the tray inside. 'I've given Mary the afternoon off. We'll have the house to ourselves when we get back.'

  Her eyes bore an unmistakable invitation and Madden felt the blood stir within him. He had never known a woman like her. One so open in her desire, so free of shame or pretence. When they set off down the lawn, she called to the dog. 'It's all right, Molly.

  You can come this time.' Laughing when she caught his eye.

  They went through the orchard to the gate at the bottom of the garden. He paused, crossing the stream, to sniff the air. 'We'll have rain later.'

  'Why, John Madden! I didn't know you were a country man.' She grasped his hand and let him draw her up on to the bank.

  'I grew up on a farm. I didn't move to London until after my father died.' He realized how little he had told her of himself. How much she had taken on trust.

  'After Alice and the baby died I left the force. I couldn't continue with the same life. I had an idea of going back to the land.'

  'Why didn't you?'

  'The war came instead.'

  'And afterwards…?'

  'It didn't seem to matter any more.'

  Nothing had, he might truthfully have said, until he had met her.

  When they reached the circle of beeches with its bowl of dead leaves — deeper now with the fresh falls of autumn — he recalled the image that had come to him before, of treading on a mattress of dead bodies.

  At their last meeting she had urged him not to block out his memories of the war. 'That's why your dreams are so intense. You must try to bring all that back into your conscious mind.'

  He thought she hadn't understood and had tried to explain. All he wanted to do was put the past behind him.

  'I know how you feel. It's like Sophy not speaking about that night. She wants to pretend it never happened. But our minds won't let us do that. We have to remember before we can forget.'

  He owed her so much already. The anguish of the past was receding, the abyss no longer yawned at his feet. He didn't know how the miracle had occurred, only that he had found it lying in her arms, and in the assurance of her measured glance. He wanted to tell her these things, but could find no words that would not make some fresh claim on her, a claim to which he felt he had no right. He still thought of himself as damaged. Not a whole man.

  He showed her the spot on the path where he and Stackpole had been standing when the first shots were fired and pointed out the thicket on the slope above.

  'I think he recognized Will and knew he was a policeman. I was just bending down to look at the footprint when I heard him draw back the bolt of his rifle.'

  'What was he doing up there?' She shaded her eyes, scanning the dark line of ilexes.

  'We're not sure. He might have returned to collect what he stole from the house. He'd already started digging.'

  'He was mad to come back. He could so easily have been caught.'

  'According to Dr Weiss, that wouldn't have stopped him. He says he acts from compulsion.'

  She looked at the beech tree where Madden had taken cover, sliding her fingers into the jagged hole gouged in the side of the trunk. When he asked if she wanted to climb up to where the dugout was, she shook her head quickly. 'No, let's get away from here.'

  The rain he'd predicted arrived in a blustery squall and they turned for home. By the time they reached the bottom of the ridge and crossed the stream it had become a downpour. The orchard offered no cover and they ran hand in hand to the shelter of the weeping beech. Madden saw that the lights were switched on in the house. Helen had seen them, too.

  'Oh, no! Father's back already!'

  Laughing, she clung to him under the drooping branches. They were both wet through. When he began to kiss her she responded at once, wrapping her arms about his neck, drawing him deeper into the semi-darkness. 'Can you manage? Tell me what to do…'

  The sound of their breathing was lost in the drumming of the rain on the leaves.

  She was happy afterwards, laughing still, when they stood out of sight of the house and tried to bring some order to their clothing. The rain had stopped.

  'I don't know what Father will think.'

  He made her stand still while he picked the leaves and twigs from her hair. She stood in front of him with he
r head bowed.

  'Do you remember doing this for Sophy?' she asked.

  'I was watching you from the terrace. You looked so solemn, so purposeful. I think I knew then we'd be lovers.'

  He smiled in reply, but her words pierced his heart.

  The tie that bound them seemed fragile to him. Lovers they might be now; they could not be for ever. Only chance had brought them together, and he feared a time would come when he would lose her.

  During the war Madden had come to think of his existence as something that would not continue. He had learned to live a day, sometimes even an hour, at a time.

  Now, once more, he feared to look ahead.

  He could not imagine a future without her.

  Part Three

  O Love, be fed with apples while you may,

  And feel the sun and go in royal array,

  A smiling innocent on the heavenly causeway,

  Though in what listening horror for the cry

  That soars in outer blackness dismally,

  The dumb blind beast, the paranoiac fury…

  Robert Graves, 'Sick Love'

  10

  White-haired and frail, but with a curiosity undimmed by age and failing health, Harriet Merrick paused by the pond to count the puffballs of yellow feathers paddling behind their broad-beamed mother.

  Six. Only the other day there had been eight. Either a fox had been busy, or one of the village cats was finding the water-meadow a happy hunting ground.

  The afternoon darkened as a cloud moved across the sun. Thunder rumbled close by.

  Mrs Merrick glanced at the sky. She debated whether to return to the house. The thought of the scolding awaiting her there brought a smile to her lips. Her habit of taking solitary walks was a matter of concern to her son and daughter-in-law. It had reached the point where she was obliged to slip out when they weren't looking. Mrs Merrick maintained her independence serenely.

  She decided to walk on. She was wearing a cardigan over her dress and a sensible straw hat. When she felt the first drops of rain she quickened her pace, then checked and deliberately slowed. Dr Fellows had advised her to take exercise in moderation. 'Don't overdo it,' had been his considered judgement, delivered after a lengthy study of her chart. He told her her heart was 'good for years', though he did not say how many. Harriet Merrick, who had little faith in doctors, thought she was in reasonably good health and might expect to live for a while yet. Unless Providence decreed otherwise.