by Rennie Airth
His meal done, she had given him directions to their farm, with a note to her husband. Topper had stayed for a week, helping with the harvest and sleeping at night in a corner of the barn. On the morning of his departure Mrs Beck had found an old jam jar on the back steps outside the kitchen filled with pink campion and the yellow buds of St John’s Wort, picked from the hedgerows. Tucked beneath it was a scrap of paper bearing a roughly pencilled message: For the lady.
She had presented them to Helen at the breakfast table with a smile. ‘Looks like you’ve made a conquest, ma’am.’
‘What did Topper tell them?’ Helen asked Madden now.
‘He said he came into the wood from the same side we did - from the fields - and left the path to get to that camp site I told you about. Most of these old tramps have hidden spots tucked away, places where they can lie up for a while. They like to keep them secret, especially if they’re on private land. Capel Wood belongs to the farmer Bridger works for. Topper told the police he’d been using the site for years. When he got there yesterday he spotted the shoe lying on the bank across the stream. Then he saw the girl’s foot.’
‘It’s a wonder he didn’t run off at once.’
‘He easily might have,’ Madden agreed. ‘He must have felt terrified. But instead he collected it and brought it to Brookham. It was a brave thing to do.’ He smiled at his wife again.
‘How have the police reacted? Do they believe him?’
‘Oh, I think so. But they wanted to know more about this man Beezy. According to Topper they met at a dosshouse in London last winter. Beezy’s usual summer base is Kent - he finds hop-picking work there. But this year for some reason he decided to join up with Topper and come down to Surrey instead. They were moving in our direction: Topper told the police you were expecting him. “Mustn’t let Dr Madden down,” he said.’
‘Quite right, too.’ Helen nodded approvingly.
‘However, Beezy fell ill while they were doing some odd jobs on a farm near Dorking. He caught bronchitis and was laid up for a week in the barn there. The farmer’s wife took care of him. Topper moved on - he’d heard of some work going in Coldharbour - but they agreed to meet up again this weekend. Topper gave him directions to Capel Wood and told him how to find the camp site.’
‘But he never got there, did he? Beezy, I mean?’
‘Ah, but he did.’ Frowning, Madden put down his coffee cup. ‘I saw his sign at the camp site.’
‘His sign?’
‘A lot of these tramps have their individual marks. They carve them on trees at meeting spots.’
‘Oh, I know about those.’ She nodded. ‘Topper’s is a circled cross. Go on.’
‘I noticed several cut into the trunk of a birch tree by the camp site, but only one of them was fresh: a triangle with a line drawn through it. According to Topper, that’s Beezy’s mark.’
Helen absorbed this information in silence while she refilled their cups. ‘So if Beezy was there before Topper found the girl’s shoe, that must mean he’s a suspect,’ she said.
‘He’s bound to be, I’m afraid.’ Madden scowled at the tablecloth in front of him. He lifted a hand to his forehead where a faint, jagged scar, the souvenir of a shell blast from the war, showed white against his sunburned skin. Unaware that he was signalling his concern to his wife, he touched it with his fingertips. ‘Topper’s in the clear himself, you’ll be glad to hear,’ he went on. ‘He got a lift in a lorry from Coldharbour to Shamley Green yesterday afternoon - the police have already spoken to the driver - and couldn’t have reached Capel Wood before three o’clock at the earliest, which was hours after Alice Bridger disappeared.’
‘The very idea!’ Her tone of scornful dismissal brought the smile back to Madden’s lips. Nevertheless she saw there was still some unspoken worry on his mind and would have questioned him further if his glance hadn’t shifted just then to the open window behind her.
‘Look - there’s Rob.’ Madden gestured with his coffee cup. ‘Has he been up in the woods?’
‘He left the house when I did.’ Turning in her chair, Helen followed the direction of her husband’s gaze across the sunlit terrace, down the long lawn to the orchard at the foot of the garden, where their ten-year-old son, clad in shorts, was just then emerging from the trees, swinging a policeman’s lamp in his hand. ‘He told me Ted Stackpole was going to show him a badger’s sett he’d discovered. The boys thought if they got there before dawn they might see the cubs.’
Madden grunted. He watched as the small figure made its plodding way up the lawn. ‘They’ll have to stop doing that for the time being.’ He spoke regretfully. ‘We can’t have them wandering off into the woods alone. Not for the moment.’ He caught Helen’s eye. ‘I’ll tell Rob about the murder when he comes in. And Lucy, too. There’s bound to be talk in the village. Better they hear it first from me.’
5
ALTHOUGH BROOKHAM was only five miles distant, the drive along narrow country lanes busy with farm traffic was a slow one and it took Madden the best part of twenty-five minutes to reach his destination. An unmarked police car parked on the grassed verge by the line of cottages signalled the presence of detectives in the hamlet. They would likely be there for some time. Unless established procedures had changed much since his day, Madden knew that with a crime of this nature all the inhabitants would have to be questioned. The police would want to know their movements and to discover whether any strangers had been seen in the vicinity.
His own return to Brookham was unplanned; a surprise, even to himself. Although he had talked only briefly with the CID men sent from Guildford the day before, he had promised them a statement, and already that morning, before breakfast, had written out a full account of all he had seen and done from the moment he and Will Stackpole had set foot in Capel Wood. That completed, there was no reason for him to go back. The statement could have been forwarded to Surrey police headquarters.
But enough of the old policeman still dwelt in John Madden to ensure that he wouldn’t rest satisfied. A nagging sense of duty, the feeling of a job half done, had dogged him since leaving Brookham and he’d spent sleepless hours reviewing the facts surrounding the girl’s disappearance and recalling to memory every detail of the murder scene.
Morning had brought no relief and he’d risen saddled with a feeling of guilt which initially he’d put down to his failure to make proper sense of the evidence that had been presented to him at first hand. Some instinct, honed in past years, no doubt, but still lively, told him there was more to be learned from the murder site than he had so far managed to deduce. But troubling though this realization was, it did not measure up fully to the sense of unease he felt, which seemed to spring from deeper roots and was linked to the hideous image he bore of Alice Bridger’s ruined face.
Still, he’d had no plan to involve himself further in what was now a police matter, nor to alter his routine, and had meant to spend the morning at the farm, as he usually did. It was only after Helen had left the house to go to her surgery and he was setting out himself that a sudden impulse had prompted him to change direction and take the road that led across the long wooded ridge called Upton Hanger, beneath which Highfield nestled, and make his way by twisting, hedgerowed lanes to Brookham once again.
Watched by Madden, Galloway fished up a sizeable stone from the stream bed and examined it closely, peering over the top of his horn-rimmed spectacles. Portly, and now red-faced from his exertions, he stood shin-deep in the fast-moving current, wearing fisherman’s waders.
‘I thought myself he might have used a stone,’ Madden remarked from the bank above. ‘But then I wondered ...’
‘Wondered what, John?’ Peter Galloway glanced up quizzically. He was the senior pathologist attached to the hospital in Guildford. Madden knew him socially through Helen.
‘He did such a thorough job on her face I thought he might have used a tool of some kind. A hammer, perhaps?’ It was the first time Madden had put into words the thought
that had tormented him during the long night: the barely believable notion that the killer might actually have brought with him the means for demolishing a human face.
‘As it happens, I think you may be right.’ Breathing heavily, Galloway tossed aside the stone he was carrying and then bent down, searching the stream for another. His rumpled tweed suit looked as though it had been slept in. ‘I was up half the night trying to decide that very point, based on the available evidence, the pulped flesh, I mean. I could come to no conclusion. So, having first photographed it, I left an assistant with instructions to remove said flesh while I came out here. When I return I mean to examine the bone structure, or what’s left of it, to see if I can reach a more precise verdict. Such are the joys of a pathologist’s life. Would you mind?’ Wearied of his search, he reached out a hand and, with Madden’s help, hauled his heavy bulk up on to the bank, where he stood, swaying awkwardly in his hip-high boots, blowing hard. ‘I might add, it’s the worst case of its kind I’ve ever come across,’ he continued, having caught his breath. ‘There was nothing left of her features. Thank God, those injuries were post-mortem.’
‘I was told she was strangled. That’s so, is it?’ Madden needed to be reassured, and the other man nodded.
‘The cause of death was asphyxiation. Mind you, he broke her neck as well. At the same time, perhaps. Hard to be sure. Rigor was quite well advanced when the body reached me. I would estimate she died between twelve and two, but not later.’ Galloway controlled a yawn. ‘Since I was coming out here anyway, I thought I’d inspect a few rocks at the site. There appears to be a shape to some of the blows. But my instinct tells me that’s a blind alley. A hammer’s more likely.’
Madden looked about him. He had come back to Capel Wood to find Topper’s secluded camp site a scene of antlike activity with no fewer than four plain-clothes men scouring the small rectangle of sodden grass which he and Stackpole had attempted to cover the evening before and examining the far bank where the body had been concealed. Their labours, directed by Galloway, were overseen by a fifth detective, the senior CID man in charge of the case, who had hailed his arrival.
‘Mr Madden, sir! I was hoping you’d come by. Wright’s the name. Detective Inspector.’
The two shook hands. They hadn’t met before, but Madden’s name and face were well known to members of the Surrey force; the other men, too, had paused in their work to greet him, doffing their hats in respectful recognition. They included the two young detectives he’d encountered the previous evening and guided to the murder site.
‘There are some details I need to go over with you, sir.’ Wright had a confident, bustling air. He was in his early forties, a thin, wiry man with a receding hairline. ‘How the body was lying when you found it, for example. Before you and the constable had to shift it. Stuff I’ll need for my report and for the inquest. I expect you know what I mean.’
By way of reply Madden had handed him the written statement, which he’d brought with him. ‘It’s all in there, Inspector. I put down everything I saw before the storm hit us. It’ll save time if you read it first. Then, if you have any more questions, I’m at your disposal.’
‘Thank you, sir. I’ll do that now, if I may.’
Leaving him to read the statement, Madden turned his attention to the scene around him. He had left his car parked by the haystacks, where two police vehicles stood nose to tail, and made his way through the wood, quitting the path at the same place as he had the day before and following the now much-trampled trail through the undergrowth to the murder scene. He still felt there was more to be learned from this spot, though its appearance had changed strikingly in the space of only a few hours. Vanished were the foaming torrent and dark, rain-streaked sky of yesterday. Now the gurgle of the stream hardly reached his ears, drowned out by the joyous clamour of birdsong echoing from the woods all around. The bushes, too, were still, unmoved by the faint breeze that was stirring the tops of the trees.
His gaze came to rest on a leather case that lay open on the ground near his feet. It was half filled with labelled glass jars, the fruits of the detectives’ efforts that morning, he supposed. Galloway, catching the direction of his glance, gestured.
‘You did a good job with that piece of canvas, John. You and the bobby. Thanks to you both, we can say for certain the assault was carried out here, on this very spot. I’ve plenty of blood samples from the grass. They’ll have to be tested, of course, but I’ve no doubt they’re from the girl’s body. Pieces of bone, too. And I’ve had them collecting pocketfuls of soil’ - he pointed out several holes dug in the rectangle of turf - ‘they’ll go to the government chemist for analysis. She must have lost a lot of blood, and most of it probably soaked into the ground.’
Madden’s thoughts had been moving on a parallel course. ‘He’d have needed a spot like this, wouldn’t he? Secluded, I mean?’ For a moment he was distracted by the sudden appearance of a kingfisher which shot by like a blue streak, close to the water, leaving its characteristic chee-chee call echoing in its wake.
Galloway, meanwhile, seemed to find the image conjured up by the other man’s words distasteful. He grimaced. ‘Given what he had in mind, I’d have to agree,’ he said. ‘Rape. Murder. Plus what he did to her face afterwards. No, he wouldn’t have wanted an audience for that.’
‘I was thinking the same thing, sir.’ Wright glanced up from the statement he was reading. ‘He already knew about this spot, didn’t he?’
Madden looked at him inquiringly.
‘That tramp, sir. Beezy. We can place him here earlier, before the other one found the body ... what’s his name ... Topper? That mark on the tree ...’ He gestured towards the birch growing by the bank. ‘We’ve got you to thank for that, Mr Madden. I’m not sure any one of us would have spotted it. Or known what it meant if we had.’
Unmoved by the accolade, Madden frowned. ‘You’re treating Beezy as a suspect, then, are you?’
‘Well, yes, sir ... until otherwise demonstrated. He’s the obvious one. We’ve had no word yet of any other strangers seen in the area, just motorists driving through the village, the usual Sunday traffic. And though we can’t exclude it was someone local, I’m inclined to doubt that possibility. Being a Sunday, I think you’ll find most of them were at home, and able to prove it.’
‘So if there were any strangers about, it’s unlikely they were seen.’ Galloway made the point.
Wright shrugged. He seemed more interested in Madden’s opinion, which so far had not been offered.
Galloway persisted. ‘Don’t you find it peculiar that he’d try to conceal a body at a spot where he’d already left his mark?’
‘Yes, I do, sir.’ Wright turned to him. ‘And, what’s more, a place where he was expecting to meet another tramp later. But that’s looking at it rationally, and this sort of crime doesn’t happen that way.’ His eyes returned to Madden’s face. He seemed to be hoping for some response from that quarter. ‘I can tell you how it might have come about,’ he went on. ‘This Beezy turns up yesterday looking to meet Topper, finds he has time on his hands, cuts that mark to show he’s been here, then goes off exploring. Remember, he hadn’t been to these parts before. Now you can get to the Craydon road from here easy. There’s a way off the main path that runs through the wood to the road and it comes out not far from where Alice Bridger was last seen.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not saying that’s proof of anything, but it’s possible opportunity. He could have come on her there, lost his head maybe and attacked her, knocked her out or choked her and then brought her back up here. There’s evidence she was carried—’
‘Evidence?’ Madden had been staring at the ground while he listened. Now his head came up.
‘Yes, sir, that bit of thread you noticed caught on a bramble.’ Wright seemed relieved to have heard him speak at last. ‘It came from her skirt. We matched it. Now, if you recall, it was about waist high on the bush, and that suggests to me she was being carried at that point, since it came from t
he lower part of her clothing, from her skirt.’
Madden nodded his agreement with this interpretation, but made no further comment.
‘Now, as I was saying, he could have brought her back here from the road, this Beezy - back to where he knew they wouldn’t be seen. And if that’s what happened, then I don’t reckon he would have been thinking of any mark he’d made on a tree earlier. That would have been the last thing on his mind. Like I said, you can’t expect rational behaviour with a crime of this type. Look what he did to her face, for pity’s sake! Isn’t that so, sir? You must have come across cases like this in the past.’ The confidence had begun to seep out of the inspector’s manner as he went on speaking and there was a hint of desperation about the appeal he flung out to Madden, who had resumed his former attitude and was standing with arms folded, eyes fixed to the ground, still giving no indication of what was in his mind.
Observing the Surrey policeman, Peter Galloway drew a measure of grim amusement from the spectacle of his discomfiture. He had known John Madden for a number of years and considered him a rare bird. To an air of natural authority, striking enough in itself, another quality was added that was even more disconcerting: a capacity for silence bordering on the inhuman. Once sunk into meditation, or reflection, he gave every appearance of being deaf to reason or argument. Confronted now by these twin phenomena, Wright was descending into garrulousness.
‘And then there’s something else you can’t ignore, sir, the fact he took off in a hurry—’
‘Did he?’ Once again Madden’s head jerked up. ‘How do you know that, Inspector?’
‘Well, from that old clasp knife of his we found—’
‘Clasp knife?’
‘Yes, didn’t you hear, sir? We picked it up last evening by the stream, not far from here.’ Wright’s expression changed as he realized he had told Madden something he didn’t know. ‘It was lying on the ground, wrapped in an old bandana. Must have fallen out of his bundle, or his pocket. Now I can’t see that happening unless he was in a hurry and not taking proper care. We showed them both to Topper this morning, the knife and the bandana, and he confirmed they belonged to Beezy.’
