The Blood-Dimmed Tide

by Rennie Airth

  But he could see there was no help for it and had already decided to adjust his afternoon’s itinerary when a new factor had arisen.

  ‘I do apologize for ringing you so early, Mr Watkin - I found your number in the book - but we’re a little worried about your friend Mr Noyes. Do you happen to know where he is?’

  If Sam had been surprised to hear Mrs Ramsay’s voice on the telephone that morning, what she had to say during the next ten minutes had left him scratching his head in bafflement. It seemed Eddie had disappeared. What’s more he’d gone off without saying a word to anyone.

  ‘We were expecting to see him on Friday evening, but he never came, and that was strange because he knew we might have some good news for him. You see, Mr Ramsay has mentioned his name to a company he does business with in Chichester and he heard himself on Friday that they were interested in meeting Eddie and might even be able to offer him a job. We were so puzzled by his not appearing, Nell and I, that we walked up to Coyne’s Farm on Sunday. There was no sign of him there, and when Nell came back from school yesterday he wasn’t with the other men working on the road, so she walked back from the bus stop and spoke to the foreman, a Mr Harrigan, and he said Eddie hadn’t appeared for work that day and he didn’t know where he was.’

  Mrs Ramsay had hardly drawn breath as she’d poured out her story, and Sam had been touched by her concern for his old pal. He did wonder, though, if she wasn’t making too much of the situation. It didn’t sound that serious to him.

  ‘The only explanation I can think of is that he went home for the weekend - to Hove, I mean - and the fact that he hasn’t come back suggests it might be because of some family emergency. Don’t you think that’s possible? But I want him to know about Chichester. It would mean so much to him if he could find a proper job. I was hoping you might know how to get in touch with him.’

  Sam’s thoughts had been moving along similiar lines while she was speaking. But first he’d had to explain that he only had an address for Eddie in Hove. The Noyeses had had their telephone disconnected a while back to save money.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do, though. I’ll send them a telegram. If Eddie’s there he’ll ring me at home. If not, then either his mother or sister might be able to help.’

  He told her he was coming over to Coyne’s Farm later - after he’d finished with the Tillington job - and would let her know what he’d found out.

  ‘Would you, Mr Watkin? I’d be so grateful. I just feel worried about him, I don’t know why. I have to play bridge this afternoon, unfortunately, but Bess will be at the house. You could leave any message for me with her.’

  Mrs Ramsay’s call had come just as Sam was leaving and he’d driven the extra mile or so into Petworth in order to send the telegram from the post office there. If Eddie, or his sister or mum, rang in the course of the morning, Ada would take the call.

  The more he thought about it, though, the more it seemed likely that Mrs Ramsay was right. Eddie had gone home for some reason and been delayed there. While it was strange he hadn’t let the Ramsays know in advance, particularly in view of this Chichester business, he might well have had to leave in a hurry. To catch a bus or train, say.

  What troubled Sam more was to hear that Eddie hadn’t bothered to inform Harrigan that he might not be turning up for work on Monday. That didn’t sound like him. It was clear he was going to have some explaining to do.

  ‘There might be a spot of bother over this,’ he advised Sal, who was lying behind him in the van on her bit of blanket. ‘But there’s not much we can do about it until we know what Eddie’s been up to.’

  They were parked outside the gate leading into the farm so that he could keep an eye out for the client when he arrived. Last night had been chilly and thick fog had greeted him when he’d set out from home that morning. This Hitchens bloke would most likely be delayed himself coming over from Horsham and in this kind of weather might easily miss the gateway into the farm and go sailing past.

  Sam blew on his fingers. He was wishing he’d come out with something warmer than the old corduroy jacket he was wearing. But then he cheered up at the thought that he’d be looking in at home on his way back to Midhurst later in case Ada had heard from Hove and could collect his overcoat before he went out again.

  It was a cold day, and unless the fog cleared later, it would stay that way.

  25

  OUT OF TOUCH since the previous day, Billy rang the Yard after breakfast to report his whereabouts only to discover that Sinclair was not at his desk and that all calls concerning the Lang case were being referred to Chief Superintendent Holly.

  ‘Mr Sinclair went down to Sussex yesterday to see the chief constable. They have to decide how long it’s worthwhile going on with this search. He was caught by the fog and decided to spend the night in Chichester. You’d better tell me what your movements will be today, Sergeant. He may want to get in touch with you.’

  Billy explained that he was not yet sure.

  ‘My car broke down yesterday, sir. Mr Madden was kind enough to put me up for the night. I’m having it fixed now.’

  Summoned by telephone, the village mechanic, a man called Pritchard, had appeared at the house soon after dawn and departed shortly thereafter at the wheel of Billy’s Morris, lurching down the drive in bottom gear, promising to report back once he knew the extent of the problem.

  Word of Fred Bridger’s suicide had already reached London and the chief superintendent spoke feelingly of the tragedy. ‘Poor fellow. I hope to God he didn’t think we’d failed him. At the very least he must have hoped to see justice done.’

  He asked Billy for the Maddens’ telephone number. ‘I’ll ring you there if anything crops up. Oh, and give my regards to John, would you? It’s been many years. Thank him for all his help. I dare say he wants to see this devil caught as much as we do.’

  Of that there was little doubt. Madden’s preoccupation with the case was self-evident and the previous night he had given the sergeant an insight into the foreboding that gripped him.

  ‘There’s no point in deceiving ourselves. It’s quite possible this man will never be caught. We tend to assume killers like Lang give themselves away. That they can’t remain at large in society for any length of time. But he’s not like the rest. He would have learned long ago how to cover his tracks. His profession must have taught him that.’

  It was Billy’s first intimation that his old chief was aware of their quarry’s true identity.

  ‘If he disappears now it could be years before the police catch up with him again. He’s had all the time he needs to plan a new future. And now he’s got the world to wander in.’

  It was not until late, when the two men were sitting alone by the dying fire in the drawing room, with the house quiet about them, that Madden had unburdened himself. Earlier, he had seemed only too ready to seek relief from his anxiety in the high spirits which Billy’s unexpected arrival had produced in his children, who’d contrived, in the absence of any firm parental word to the contrary, to stay up well past their usual bedtimes.

  Just as her father had predicted, it had been Lucy who had taken special delight in the sergeant’s presence. Unswerving in her devotion to her chosen friend, she had kept him at her side throughout the prolonged and noisy supper shared by all at the kitchen table, and when it was over had insisted that he accompany her upstairs for the last solemn rituals of her day.

  He had stood by while she washed her face and brushed her teeth and before tucking her into bed he had listened to her prayers and heard his own name included among those for whom a blessing was sought.

  Looking down at her small, kneeling figure, golden-haired like her mother, and possessing something of the same intensity he had always sensed in Helen, that capacity for fierce attachment, he had recalled the sight of Madden’s face not long before as he’d regarded his daughter at the supper table, the tenderness of his expression clouded by another emotion which Billy had recognized as grief
, and which had puzzled him until he’d realized that it was not the bright countenance lifted towards his that the older man was seeing at that moment, but the now-empty cottage at Brookham and the lives it had once contained, so savagely destroyed.

  From his bedroom upstairs Billy could hear the phone ringing and he wondered if it was Pritchard calling about his motor car. The mechanic had rung an hour before with the discouraging news that not only was there a fault with the Morris’s clutch - something the sergeant had guessed for himself - but there was trouble with the gearbox, too.

  ‘I can’t see her being ready before this afternoon at the earliest, sir. And even then I wouldn’t go too far, not without a proper overhaul.’

  Forcibly immobilized, Billy had spent the morning on paperwork, drafting brief accounts of the series of interviews he had conducted among the birdwatching fraternity for the Yard’s records. It was a dispiriting exercise. The hunt for Gaston Lang had yielded no dividends to date, and sitting at the window gazing out over the garden the sergeant had found his mood of pessimism mirrored in the drab scene that met his eye outside where lingering fog hid all trace of the wooded ridge beyond the stream and the sky was hidden by a blanket of low cloud.

  Nor had his spirits been raised by another phone call earlier, one to which he’d been summoned by Mary, who had come upstairs to knock on his door. Helen Madden, ringing from London to let the staff know her movements, had discovered his presence in the house, and with Madden absent - he was taking both children to school - it had fallen to Billy to break the news of Bridger’s suicide to her.

  ‘Oh, how dreadful! That poor family ...

  Distressed though she was, Helen’s first thought had been for her husband.

  ‘This will upset John terribly. He’ll feel he should have done more. You must talk to him, Billy. Make him see it’s not his responsibility.’

  She had told him she would be back by lunchtime, fog permitting, and hoped he would not have departed by then.

  The phone had stopped ringing below and presently Billy heard the sound of hurried footsteps in the passage outside. There was a knock on the door, which opened to reveal the figure of the Maddens’ maid, flushed and out of breath.

  ‘You want to watch it, Mary.’ The sergeant grinned. They were old friends. ‘You’ll give yourself a heart attack running up those stairs. Is that call for me?’

  ‘Yes ...’ Panting, she nodded. ‘And you’re the one who’d better run. It’s a Mr Holly ringing from Scotland Yard. He says it won’t wait a moment.’

  The telephone was kept in the study. Billy hurried downstairs. As he picked up the receiver he heard the sound of a car in the driveway outside and saw through the window that Madden had just returned.

  ‘Styles here, sir?’

  ‘Ah, Sergeant!’ Holly’s deep voice rang in his ear. ‘Thank God I’ve caught you. Lang’s been spotted.’

  ‘Spotted! Where, sir?’

  ‘In Midhurst. He was treated by a doctor there yesterday. Some injury to his back. It meant he had to take his shirt off and the nurse saw his birthmark. She rang the police this morning and they sent someone round to show her that photograph. She identified Lang beyond question.’ The chief super’s customary calm had deserted him. His voice boomed down the line. ‘I’ve just spoken to Mr Sinclair in Chichester. He’s on his way to Midhurst now and he wants you to join him there.’

  While Holly was speaking Billy’s eye had fallen on a framed map hanging on the wall beside the desk. It showed Surrey and the adjoining counties. He could see Midhurst marked. It wasn’t far, just across the border in Sussex. He became aware that Madden was standing in the doorway, watching him.

  ‘Sir, my car’s still out of action.’ Billy spoke into the phone, but he caught Madden’s eye and gestured with his clenched fist. ‘I’ll have to go by train.’

  ‘Do whatever’s best, Sergeant. But get yourself there.’

  The line went dead. Billy jumped up. His heart was thumping.

  ‘That was Mr Holly, sir. Lang’s been seen in Midhurst. It was that birthmark of yours.’ Billy grinned. ‘I’ve got to get down there right away. Do you know if there’s a train—’

  He broke off, silenced by the look on Madden’s face.

  ‘Midhurst, you say?’

  The sergeant nodded. He was transfixed by the other’s expression: the intensity of his gaze.

  ‘Was he recognized?’ Madden spoke quietly.

  ‘So Mr Holly says. It was a doctor’s nurse picked him out. They showed her his photograph.’

  ‘Damn the train, then.’ The growled words made Billy’s hair stand on end. ‘I’ll take you there myself.’

  26

  LEAVING HIS van in the otherwise empty parking area by Wood Way, Sam walked briskly down the empty road to where the men were working. Driving past he’d hoped to see Eddie’s figure among them. There was always the chance his friend had returned overnight. But it had been Harrigan’s eye that he’d caught, and the foreman was waiting for him, brawny forearms folded, his brow knotted in a scowl.

  ‘Well, where is he, then? Have you had any word?’ The Irishman didn’t bother to explain who he was talking about. Behind him the other members of his crew drew nearer so as to hear what was being said. They had just finished surfacing a strip of road and the air was sharp with the reek of hot tar.

  ‘I’ve no news, if that’s what you mean.’ Sam saw no point in beating about the bush. ‘But I’ve sent a telegram to his family, in case he’s had to go home for some reason. I’m still waiting for a reply.’

  He had got back from Tillington a little after noon to discover there’d been no response from Eddie as yet, no message from Hove, and had paused only long enough to bolt down a sandwich and split a piece of cheese with Sal.

  ‘What can have happened?’ Now it was Ada who was starting to fret. She’d come out to the van with him when he left, her forehead creased with worry. ‘It’s such a strange thing to do. Going off like that without a word.’

  She was right, of course, Sam could see that. But wasn’t it a fact that these apparent mysteries of life usually had simple explanations? Not forgetting, too, that people sometimes behaved in peculiar ways for peculiar reasons. Both possibilities had occurred to him in the course of the morning and he was prepared to take either into consideration.

  What he wouldn’t accept, though, would have no part of, was the suggestion he could hear coming from Harrigan’s lips now.

  ‘I took him for a dependable fellow, someone I could trust.’ Burly, and with a moustache that matched his dark eyebrows, the foreman stood glowering. ‘Not the sort who’d let you down.’

  ‘Now you’ve got no cause to say that.’ Sam faced him squarely. ‘Not till you know the facts.’ He was pleased by the murmur of approbation his challenge evoked from the men around.

  Harrigan grunted. ‘We’ll see.’ His glance stayed hostile. He seemed unconvinced.

  ‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Sam kept his own gaze steadily on the other.

  The foreman shrugged. ‘Friday evening, knocking-off time, same as usual.’

  ‘Did he mention he had any plans for the weekend?’

  Harrigan jerked his head in the direction of one of the men standing nearby, a youngish chap with fair, curly hair and stubbled cheeks. Sam recognized him as a pal of Eddie’s. A bloke called Pat McCarthy.

  ‘Nothin’ special.’ Pat shrugged. ‘He said he might join us for a drink Saturday night. There’s a pub down in Elsted we go to. But he never turned up.’

  ‘I sent Pat over to that barn Eddie sleeps in when he didn’t show up for work yesterday.’ Harrigan gestured towards the wooded ridge that ran alongside the road. ‘The doors were locked. There was no one around. Isn’t that so?’ He looked at the younger man, who nodded.

  ‘I hammered on them, and all.’

  ‘Well, that’s where I’m headed now.’ Sam gathered himself. ‘I’ve a key to the barn.’ He tapped his coat pocket. ‘I’m going to hav
e a look inside. Then I want to go over to Oak Green. There’s a lady there who knows Eddie. She’s worried about him, too.’

  ‘Would that be Nell’s mother?’ Harrigan’s face had lost its grudging scowl. Sam saw that his belligerence was only a mask; he was as concerned as the others. ‘The lass was here yesterday, asking about him.’

  ‘Yes, it’s Mrs Ramsay.’ Sam looked around the ring of men. ‘I’ll be back later,’ he promised them. ‘We’re still waiting to hear from Hove. With any luck I’ll have something to tell you.’

  He saw the doubt in their eyes.

  ‘Listen, there’s bound to be an explanation,’ he insisted. ‘People don’t just disappear. He’ll turn up. You mark my words.’

  ‘Come on, old girl, don’t dawdle ...’

  Sam called back to Sally from the crest of the ridge. She was still some way behind, plodding her way up the path. Poor old thing, she was starting to feel the cold; it was getting into her joints. But for once his patience was short.

  ‘Come on ...’

  Not waiting for her to catch up, he set off down the long slope, his gaze turning automatically in the direction of Coyne’s Farm, visible now in spite of the mist that still clung to the ground, blurring the contours of the landscape and bringing a hush to the woods, usually loud with birdsong, through which he had just passed. There was no break in the cloud cover as yet and Sam doubted they’d see the sun that day.

  When he came to the gap in the hedge he paused once more, but it was obvious Sal was coming at her own pace. He could see her some distance back up the path, her nose buried in a bank of leaves. Delaying no longer, he slipped through the hedge and crossed the walled garden into the farmyard beyond.

  It had come as a shock, talking to Harrigan and the others, to realize what they were thinking. That this bloke who they liked and had counted on, who they’d treated as one of them, had upped and walked off without a word, leaving them to wonder what had become of him. Sam told himself they were wrong - he knew Eddie too well, knew he’d never behave in such a way - but as he strode across the yard to where the barn was he could feel a nervous flutter in his stomach. There was no telling what he might find inside.