JM01 - River of Darkness

by Rennie Airth

  “I’m meeting them at noon. Just for now, and between us, I’ll not discourage the notion of a gang, if anyone brings it up. One man on his own—now that’s a disturbing thought.”

  They moved aside as the first group of villagers who had come to be interviewed gathered at the foot of the steps. Dressed as though for church, Sinclair noted. Suits and ties for the men, hats for the women. He made his own silent prayer: Let just one of them remember something, anything, a face, a description . . .

  A young woman knelt to tie on a toddler’s bonnet. The sight caused Sinclair’s face to harden.

  “I’ll be seeing Dr. Blackwell later,” he said. “I’m not happy about that little girl staying in her house. She ought to be in hospital. It’s something the doctor should understand. Can’t she be persuaded to see reason?”

  “Not an easily persuadable woman, sir.” Madden’s face was a mask.

  “Is she not?” The chief inspector’s eye lit up. “We’ll see about that. I intend to have words with this dragon.”

  7

  The car was parked in the cobbled courtyard of the village pub, where Madden had left his bag with the landlord earlier that morning. It was a well-worn Humber with a dent in the rear mudguard. Lord Stratton himself, bareheaded, stood talking to two of the villagers. When he saw Madden he came over.

  “Inspector, I must apologize for what happened yesterday.” His thin, seamed face showed the ravages of a sleepless night. “Raikes had no business taking me into that house, and I had no business accepting. Well, I’ve paid for it.”

  “Sir?”

  “I can’t get it out of mind. The sight of the bodies . . . poor Lucy Fletcher, laid out like a sacrifice. What kind of man would do a thing like that? Then I find myself thinking perhaps there were more than one . . .”

  “We don’t know yet that she was raped, sir.”

  “No . . . no . . . of course.” He thrust his hands into the pockets of his tweed jacket and stared at the ground. “The villagers keep asking me . . . there are some things one doesn’t want to know.”

  “How are they taking it?”

  “Badly.”

  Madden sought and obtained directions to Oakley. He drove along the same road he had travelled the day before, past Melling Lodge, where two uniformed policemen stood on duty at the closed gates and a man lugging a heavy press camera leaned against a car parked on the grassed verge. A mile or so further on he came on another set of gates and another uniformed constable. He stopped the car and got out.

  “Is this where Dr. Blackwell lives?” Madden could see the house at the end of an avenue of limes. He only knew it from the other side.

  “Yes, sir. We’ve got a man inside, but Mr. Boyce sent me over to watch the gates. The doctor was bothered by the press this morning, they wanted to know about the little girl.”

  A mile further on he came to a signpost for Oakley, turned left and followed a road that led through a saddle in the wooded ridge down to the broad open plain he had seen the day before from the top of Upton Hanger. Another signpost directed him on to a dirt road and he drove through fields where the corn had already turned golden from the long, rainless summer.

  The hamlet of Oakley comprised no more than a dozen houses grouped around the church tower. Madden brought the car to a stop beside a whitewashed building with the picture of a stage coach and the name “Coachman’s Arms” painted in faded lettering on the wall. As he was setting the handbrake a police sergeant stepped out of the doorway of a cottage across the road. He looked at Madden inquiringly. The inspector got out of the car and produced his warrant card.

  “Gates, sir. From Godalming.” The sergeant touched his helmet. “It’s this Highfield business. I’ve been sent over here to talk to the locals. They don’t rate a village bobby.”

  “You’ll ask them if they’ve seen any strangers?” Madden drew him into the shade of a chestnut tree growing in front of the church.

  “Yes, sir. And anything out of the ordinary they might have noticed these past few days.”

  “We’re specially interested in any cars that might have passed through the village.”

  “Shouldn’t be too many of those, sir. Mind you, it was a bank holiday.”

  “Also cars parked at the roadside. Perhaps even off the road where they mightn’t be noticed.” Madden became aware that Gates was looking over his shoulder. His glance had turned to a flat, hard stare. The inspector turned his head and saw a man standing in the doorway of the Coach-man’s Arms with his hands in his pockets watching them.

  He faced the sergeant again. “I’m going to take a walk through the fields, but I’d like a word with you before you leave. How long will you be here?”

  “An hour should do it, sir. Then I’ve got to go to Craydon—that’s a few miles away—and ask the same questions there.”

  “Have you any transport?”

  “Just a bicycle.”

  “Wait for me here. I’ll give you a lift over.”

  Madden walked back the way he had come, on the dirt road, and continued along it until he found an even rougher track, which branched off through the fields towards the wooded ridge. The deep treads of tractor tyres were graven in mud that had dried and set like marble. Ditches a foot wide criss-crossed the rutted surface. At one point the track petered out entirely and the tractor marks continued across ploughed furrows until they picked up the path again. Stackpole had been right. No car could have passed this way.

  Feeling the sun like a weight on his back, Madden took off his jacket and walked steadily towards the ridge. Passing a small spinney he heard a jay call, and another answer. He was tempted to stop for a cigarette—the wood looked cool and inviting—but instead he pressed on and arrived at the foot of the ridge.

  He saw that it was steeper on this flank than on the Highfield side and also less densely wooded. Standing in the shade of an oak tree he marked the upward zigzag line of a footpath as it traversed the slope above. He looked left and right along the hillside, but could see no sign of any other pathway in the vicinity.

  The inspector began a careful examination of the area where he stood, scanning the ground in a gradually widening circle, and then extending his search along the base of the ridge at the woodline, looking for the telltale sign of a cigarette stub. He found several, but none of them were of the Three Castles brand.

  The footpath up the slope proved equally bare of clues. The dusty surface bore the marks of blurred footprints—it looked like a well-used way—but none showed the distinctive damaged heel outline discovered in the stream bed. It took him twenty minutes to scale the ridge, and half that time to make the return journey.

  He sat down then in the shade of the oak tree and took out his cigarettes. The green leaves overhead seemed to remind him of something: the image of Helen Blackwell in her patterned blouse came into his mind with a pleasant jolt. He lit a cigarette.

  Far away, beyond the golden fields, a faint blur on the horizon showed where the downs began. He watched a hawk circling in the air above. Etched clear against the brilliant blue sky, it wheeled and wheeled in ever tightening turns. Wheeled . . . and dropped! Wheatstalks shivered and were still. The hunter had its prey.

  Madden extinguished his cigarette. He’d yet to catch the scent of his.

  In Oakley, the door of the Coachman’s Arms stood open. Sergeant Gates was seated at one of the tables in the taproom. Smoke-blackened beams supported the grubby ceiling. The smell of stale beer and tobacco soured the air. The man Madden had seen standing in the doorway earlier lounged over the bar, his elbows resting on the stained surface. He was in his early thirties with black slicked-back hair and a knowing smile.

  “This is Inspector Madden,” Gates said tonelessly. “Sir, this is Mr. Wellings, the landlord. I was about to question him.”

  “Go ahead, Sergeant. Don’t mind me.” Madden sat down.

  Wellings directed his smile at the inspector. “Still half an hour to opening time, I’m afraid. But if Serge
ant Gates is prepared to turn a blind eye, I dare say I could draw you a pint.”

  “No, thank you, Mr. Wellings.” Madden didn’t return the smile.

  “We’re interested in any customers you might have had over the weekend,” Gates began. “Visitors, not locals.”

  “Starting when?”

  “Saturday.”

  “I had the Farnham Wheelers Club through here at midday. About a dozen of them. They parked their bikes outside and came in for a drink. And there was a party of four in a motor-car. Two men and their wives, I reckon. They had the ploughman’s lunch.”

  “Was that all?” Gates looked up.

  “No, there was another couple in the evening. Bloke on motorbike with his girlfriend on the pillion. Took me aside, he did, and asked me if I had a room for them. I told him I didn’t run that kind of establishment. I did say he could try his luck in Tup’s Spinney.” Wellings smirked.

  Madden waited to be enlightened, but Gates went on: “Sunday, then?”

  “There were more. Quite a few. Four parties in cars between midday and two o’clock. Six men and four ladies, as I recall. Two of the parties were travelling together, heading for the coast. And then in the evening there was one other car with a man and his wife and their son. But all they wanted was directions. They’d lost their way.”

  “Did you see any other cars during the day? Travelling through the village, but not stopping?”

  “Or motorcycles?” Madden said.

  Wellings paused, frowning with exaggerated concentration. He shook his head. “No, I can’t say that I did. But then I’m stuck in here during opening hours. Don’t see too much of what’s going on outside.” The smile was back.

  Sergeant Gates looked at Madden, who nodded.

  “Thank you, Mr. Wellings.” He closed his notebook.

  “What did you think, sir?” he asked Madden outside.

  “I thought he was lying.”

  “I agree, but about what?” The sergeant wrinkled his nose. “He’s a right sow, if you’ll pardon the expression. The last two landlords quit because they couldn’t make the place pay. But somehow he manages to, and you have to ask yourself how.”

  “After hours’ drinks?”

  “That, and he’ll sell you a carton of fags at below market price, or so I’ve been told. We think he handles stolen goods, but we haven’t been able to lay a finger on him thus far.”

  “There’s a list out of items taken from Melling Lodge. If any of them turn up locally, pull him in. Never mind if there’s a connection or not. Put him through it.”

  “It’ll be a pleasure, sir.”

  Madden donned his jacket. “What was that he said about the man with the motorbike and his girl?”

  “He should try his luck in Tup’s Spinney.” Gates gestured. “That’s over in the fields. Well known to the local lads and lasses, if you take my meaning.” He grunted. “Wellings has an eye for the ladies himself, they say. Especially if it’s someone else’s wife. Nasty piece of work.”

  They loaded the sergeant’s bicycle into the back of the Humber and Madden drove him the few miles to Craydon. Returning by the same road, and passing through Oakley, he saw Wellings on the pavement outside the village shop talking to a young woman with bobbed hair. He paused in his conversation and watched Madden’s car as it went by.

  8

  Madden parked the Humber where he had found it, in the courtyard off the Rose and Crown in Highfield. As he climbed out of the car, the door of the pub opened and a lanky man in a city suit came out. He had his tie loosened and his hat tipped back on his head.

  “Mr. Madden, is it? Reg Ferris. Daily Express.”

  He held out his hand. Madden shook it briefly. They hadn’t met before, but he knew Ferris’s name and recalled that he was no friend of the chief inspector’s.

  “Bad business.” The reporter’s darting eyes went from Madden to the car and back as though he hoped to glean some information from putting the two together. “I’m told it was like an abattoir in there.”

  Madden reached into the car for his jacket.

  “We’re waiting for Mr. Sinclair. He’s said he’ll meet us.”

  “Then I dare say he will.”

  Ferris leaned against the car. He put his hands in his pockets. “This is different, isn’t it?” He watched to see how Madden would react.

  “Different?”

  “You’ve not had a case like this before—admit it. Slaughtering a whole household, and for what? A few bits of silverware? It doesn’t make sense.”

  The inspector put on his jacket. “Goodbye, Mr. Ferris.” He walked away.

  The reporter called after him: “From what I hear you don’t know where to start.”

  Madden found the chief inspector on the church hall steps talking to Helen Blackwell. The doctor was wearing a man’s white linen jacket with the cuffs rolled up over a light summer dress. She greeted Madden with a smile.

  “Dr. Blackwell has been giving us a statement.” Sinclair’s grey eyes held a hint of wry amusement. “She has also explained to me her reasons for wanting to keep Sophy Fletcher at her house, rather than send her to hospital. I found her arguments . . . persuasive. The child will stay here.”

  “Thank you again, Chief Inspector.” The doctor shook his hand warmly. Her eyes brushed Madden’s. “Good morning to you both.”

  Sinclair’s nod was approving as he watched her walk away. “A fine-looking lassie.” He gave Madden a sideways glance. “Dragon indeed! You might have warned me, John.”

  “Nothing from Oakley, I’m afraid, sir.” Madden was smiling.

  “The press is waiting for you at the pub. I bumped into Ferris.”

  “Is that rodent here?” The chief inspector’s face darkened. “It must be the smell of blood.”

  “He’s already guessed we’ve got problems.”

  “He doesn’t know the half of it. Come with me. There’s something I want to show you.”

  Inside the hall a low hum of voices sounded from a line of tables where detectives were taking statements. Madden saw Styles, bent over a pad, sitting opposite an elderly woman in a black coat and hat. Inspector Boyce was at another table before a growing pile of statement forms. With a nod to him, Sinclair picked up his file and led Madden to one side, out of earshot. He removed two typewritten sheets of paper clipped together from the folder and handed them to the inspector. “Have a look at that.”

  It was the post-mortem report on Lucy Fletcher. Madden spent several minutes studying it. Sinclair waited until he had finished.

  “So he never touched her.” Eyes narrowed, the chief inspector stood with folded arms. “Ransom looked everywhere. Vaginal swabs. Anal swabs. He even tested the poor woman’s mouth. Not a trace of semen.”

  “He grabbed her, though, just as we thought,” Madden said. “‘Bruises on the upper arms . . . ’” he quoted.

  “He grabbed her and dragged her up the stairs to the bedroom and cut her throat. Why didn’t he rape her? There was nothing to stop him. She was naked under that robe. What was he doing there? Why was he in that house?”

  Madden was silent.

  “He killed her with a razor, Ransom thinks. But it wasn’t the colonel’s—that was with his shaving things in the bathroom. We found no trace of blood on it. He brought his own.”

  Madden put the report back in the file. “Did you show this to Dr. Blackwell?” he asked.

  “Yes. Why?”

  “They were childhood friends. She needed to know.”

  Sinclair sighed. He pointed to the pile of forms in front of Boyce. “Go through those, John. See if you can find anything. I must talk to the press. When I come back we’ll sit down together. The assistant commissioner’s called a meeting for tomorrow morning. The Yard is making its concern clear,” he added dryly. “I expect to be told they want an early result.”

  “I doubt they’ll get one this time.” Madden weighed the file in his hand.

  “Spare a thought for me tomorrow
when I’m telling them that.”

  The tea urn had appeared again; it was sitting on a table by the door. Madden poured himself a mug and took a sandwich from the heaped plate beside it. He collected the pile of forms from Boyce and settled down in a quiet corner.

  The statements, short for the most part, were mainly testaments to the unchanging nature of village life. Most of those questioned had seen the Fletchers at church on Sunday morning—for the last time, tragically. Several of them had spoken to Lucy Fletcher afterwards. “Such a lovely lady,” Mrs. Arthur Skipps, the butcher’s wife had said, un-prompted, and the detective interviewing her had let the remark stand.

  Such a lovely lady.

  Tom Cooper, the Fletchers’ gardener, was one of the last to see them alive. Although he was free on Sunday, he had gone over to Melling Lodge in the late afternoon to water the roses growing beside the kitchen-garden wall. The long drought had made it a difficult summer for him and he was determined not to see his labours go for nothing. Colonel Fletcher had found him busy with a watering-can and chided him in a friendly way for working on his day off. The colonel had been in his “usual good spirits.” Later, Mrs. Fletcher and her daughter Sophy had walked by and Cooper had waved to them. They were talking about the puppy the Fletchers were planning to buy for Sophy and her brother when they returned from Scotland at the end of the summer.

  Lord Stratton, in his statement, said he had taken the Lord Lieutenant and his wife to dine with the Fletchers on Saturday evening. It had been “a pleasant occasion.” The Fletchers had talked about their plans to drive through France later that summer to visit friends in Biarritz.

  Helen Blackwell, who had also been at the dinner, was more forthcoming. Sophy Fletcher was to have spent the whole summer with her uncle and aunt—Colonel Fletcher’s brother and his wife—at their home outside Edinburgh. An attack of measles had kept her in Highfield, however, and her brother James had been sent on ahead. She was due to have travelled to Scotland by train the following week in the company of her nanny, Alice Crookes. Shortly thereafter the Fletchers had planned to leave for France.