JM01 - River of Darkness

by Rennie Airth

“No one outside this building.”

  Madden was aware that Bennett’s eyes were fixed on him. He stared straight ahead over the deputy’s shoulder.

  “And you thought all this up yourself?”

  “It’s no more than a long shot, sir. I don’t mind admitting we’re clutching at straws.”

  Bennett cleared his throat. “So we’d like them to check the provost marshal’s files. I see no harm in that. I’ll get in touch with the War Office again. Gentlemen . . .” He rose from the table.

  “Well, that was close,” Sinclair remarked, when they were back in his office. He thumbed tobacco into his pipe. “For a moment there I thought he had the scent.”

  “Sorry to put you in that position, sir.” Madden was feeling remorse. “He was only guessing.”

  “I’m happy to hear it.” The chief inspector struck a match. “I wouldn’t like to think I’d had to do with two mind-readers in one day.”

  9

  Having first extinguished the paraffin lamp, Amos Pike opened the double doors at the end of the garden shed and stepped out into the cool night air. He wore a belted leather jacket over a khaki shirt, grey flannel trousers and boots. A flat woollen cap fitted snugly on his close-cropped head.

  He looked about him. He could see no lights burning in any of the cottages. It was after midnight.

  He went back into the shed, released the brake on his motorcycle and pushed the machine to the doorway. There was a slight ramp running down from the floor to the dirt road outside and Pike mounted sidesaddle and freewheeled for a few yards until the vehicle came to rest. He set the brake and returned to the shed to close and padlock the doors.

  A long canvas bag filled with a variety of objects was wedged in the sidecar. It had once belonged to an angler who had used it for transporting his tackle. Pike had bought it at a street-market in Brighton, the same day he had stolen the motorcycle from an alleyway behind a pub. One end of the bag was pushed into the front of the sidecar, the other protruded above the rim of the compartment. He checked now to see that it was secure, then lit the carbide lamp which served as a headlight, fiddling with the gas jet until he was satisfied with the size of the flame. Then he climbed into the saddle and kicked the engine into life, cutting the throttle quickly as the loud pop-pop-pop noise shattered the silence of the night. Settling himself on the broad leather seat, he released the brake and set the machine in motion.

  He travelled at a steady pace, never exceeding thirty miles an hour. Given the route he had chosen, a snaking tangle of back roads and country lanes, he had the better part of eighty miles to cover in order to reach his destination. Once there, he planned to spend the first part of the day sleeping—it would be Saturday—and then rise and attend to his business. On Sunday he would follow the same routine: first sleep, then work. In the evening he would ready himself for the long ride back. Mondays were his most difficult time. Although short of sleep he would have to carry out his normal duties without giving in to fatigue. Fortunately it was something he was accustomed to doing. He had passed many sleepless nights during the war, lying for hours under artillery bombardments, leading patrols and raiding parties into no man’s land. Yet he had never failed to present himself, rifle in hand, ready on the firestep to repel an enemy attack, at the ritual stand-to just before dawn.

  A little after four o’clock he entered the outskirts of Ashdown Forest and turned off the paved road on to a rough track. The ancient woodland was scored with forgotten tracks and footpaths, some of them old before the first Roman had set foot in the land, and the way Pike took followed a winding course through forest and field, sometimes almost petering out, but then reappearing in the bobbing beam of his headlight. He rode slowly. He had been this route only once before.

  Dawn found him deep in the forest. He drew up beside a great red oak, which spread an umbrella of thickly leaved branches over a clearing fringed with bush and fern. Turning off the track, he steered the motorcycle into a thicket, forcing the branches aside, and stopped in a small dell overhung with holly. He switched off the engine and climbed stiffly from the saddle. From the seat beneath the canvas bag he retrieved a groundsheet, and having spread it on the grass he lay down and fell asleep almost at once.

  By five o’clock on Sunday afternoon he had completed the first stage of his self-appointed task. Using an entrenching tool—a short-handled pick with a broad-bladed head opposite—he had constructed a dugout similar to the one he had built in the woods above Highfield. There were some differences. He had no sheet of corrugated iron—that had been a chance find—but he planned to fashion a roof of plaited willow and osier on his next visit. Branches cut to measure would serve as rough corduroying to protect the floor from damp.

  The dugout was situated in an area of dense brush a mile from where he had parked his motorcycle. He had scouted the area some months before and marked the spot where he meant to dig. After that he had left it untouched while other matters occupied his attention. The task he was engaged on took considerable time, but rather than becoming impatient he found his satisfaction—or, rather, his sense of imminent satisfaction—growing almost daily. He felt like a vessel waiting to be filled. Soon he would overflow . . .

  He had discovered this deliberate approach after his attack on the farmhouse at Bentham, which had proved to be a disappointment. He had observed the house and the woman for only a few hours before racing down the slope in a frenzy of excitement. His relief then had been fleeting.

  At Highfield he had spent five weekends spread over three months preparing himself. He had observed his prey for many hours. The long period of waiting had given him pleasure of a kind he had never known before. A sense of expectation, slowly ripening, yet indefinitely postponed. Up till the very last moment he had been undecided, and although his physical relief and satisfaction at the climax had been intense, he still felt a sweet regret when he thought of those days.

  Having made a complete circuit of the bushes surrounding the dugout to ensure it was not visible from any quarter, he struck out in a north-westerly direction, walking for more than two miles through a mixture of woodland and open pasture. His goal was a low hill planted with oak and beech, which he climbed on reaching it.

  Searching for a vantage-point, he spent some time moving from one spot to another before settling on a leaf-strewn bank made hard by the exposed roots of a giant beech. Beneath him, at the foot of the hill, a water-meadow stretched for a hundred yards to a moss-covered wall. On the other side of the wall lay a handsome stone-built manor house and garden.

  From where he sat Pike could trace the outline of a path that crossed the water-meadow, bending in a semi-circle to accommodate the margins of a pond, and then straightening until it reached the house where it met another path running along the outside of the wall. This second footway led to a wrought-iron gate, which opened on to the garden.

  Pike’s cold eye picked out a route from the gate through a shrubbery to an alleyway that ran between high yew hedges and ended at a lawn in front of the house. A pair of tall glassed doors, similar to the ones at Melling Lodge, gave access to the house. Pike saw himself running up the yew alley at dusk. As he played and replayed the scene in his mind he began to get an erection.

  On his only previous visit he had watched the family who lived in the house eating Sunday lunch at a table, shaded by a trellised vine, that stood on a stone-paved patio at the side of the lawn. The leisurely meal had taken nearly two hours to complete, and Pike had sat motionless throughout, tantalized by the flickering cinematographic quality of the scene as sunlight and shadow played on the figures seated beneath the vine. The children had been allowed down from the table before the end of the meal and ran shrieking into the yew alley, one chasing the other. Pike had ignored them. He had eyes only for the woman.

  He sat for an hour, smoking four cigarettes, without seeing any sign of life. Then one of the glassed doors opened and a maid appeared carrying a heavily laden tray. She began to lay the table. Pike
glanced at the sky. Sunset wasn’t far off. He wondered how the woman’s hair would look by candlelight.

  His attention was momentarily distracted by two boys wearing shorts who appeared below him walking barefoot along the path through the water-meadow. They carried rods and lines and they paused for several minutes beside the pond as though debating the merits of fishing it. Eventually they continued on their way and vanished from sight around the corner of the garden wall. Pike knew there was a village less than a mile away. He had driven through it once.

  When he looked at the house again he became aware of fresh activity. The door opened and a grey-haired woman in a long skirt stood on the threshold looking out into the garden. A spaniel put its head out of the door beside her knee. Pike frowned. Dogs were troublesome, an unwanted distraction. The woman remained in the doorway for only a few moments, then went back inside the house. The sound of a motor-car engine reached him faintly. The garage and main gate lay on the other side of the house, out of sight.

  Pike extinguished his cigarette. Reaching into the deep pocket of his leather jacket he took out a pair of binoculars.

  The door opened for a third time. A younger woman wearing a light cotton dress trimmed with red braid stepped out on to the lawn. Pike caught his breath. She was carrying a broadbrimmed straw hat with a trail of red ribbons. He put the field-glasses to his eyes and watched as she shook her head, freeing the hair that clung to her neck.

  His mouth had gone dry.

  The woman looked up at the sky. Then she glanced over her shoulder and spoke to someone inside the house. Her skin was very fair and Pike imagined it might carry a light dusting of freckles.

  A man came out of the house on to the lawn. He said something to the woman and she smiled and moved closer to him. He put his arm around her waist.

  The sight brought a low growl from Pike’s lips. She belonged to him now.

  Several hours later he retraced his steps to the hole he had dug and collected his canvas bag. He had already removed some of its contents, including tinned food and a primus stove. On his next visit he planned to complete the dugout and make it habitable. Then it would be a matter of waiting until the moment was ripe.

  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.

  10

  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 Étaples 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 cock-fighting 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 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 desk top. “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.”