JM01 - River of Darkness

by Rennie Airth

  “Thank you, sir, but . . .” Proudfoot struggled to find the words he wanted to say.

  “Go on now, man.” Drummond clapped him on the shoulder. “You’ve done more than your share. I’ll be here all night and if any crisis develops, well, I’ll know where to find you, won’t I?”

  Billy looked over their heads and saw that the crowd of villagers on the green was thinning. Across the road and on the far side of the turf lights burned in cottage windows. When he glanced at Proudfoot again he saw that the constable’s gaze was turned away and was pointing in the other direction, up the street. Billy looked that way and made out the figure of a man on a bicycle pedalling through the darkness towards them. The light on his bike wobbled as he lifted his hand and waved.

  “Who’s that?” Sinclair asked, in a tense voice.

  “Hobday, sir. He’s our local mechanic. Owns a garage.”

  The figure was closer now and they heard his voice. He was shouting something. Billy was suddenly aware of Madden standing at his shoulder.

  “. . . the manor . . . the manor . . .” it sounded like to Billy.

  The man was pedalling as hard as he could, drawing closer.

  A frown creased the chief inspector’s brow.

  “What’s he saying?”

  “Something about Croft Manor, I think . . .”

  Proudfoot stumbled down the steps. The others hurried after him. As the bicycle careened down the road he stepped out into the street and held up his hand like a traffic policeman. The rider braked and slid to a halt with his front wheel protruding between the constable’s spread legs. He was gasping for breath, half choking.

  “. . . murdered . . . bodies . . . all dead . . .”

  This time Billy heard every word clear. As he did the chief inspector’s response, softly spoken though it was.

  “Dear God!” Sinclair murmured, his voice breaking. “Dear God!”

  9

  It was not until later that Billy heard a full account of how the village mechanic had come to be at Croft Manor. Hollingsworth had taken his statement while Sinclair was ringing the Yard and he had told Billy about it while they were sitting on the front steps of the house after midnight, taking a quick smoke break, while the blue uniforms milled about in the darkness of the driveway.

  Hobday had returned that evening from Crowborough, where he was visiting a sick relative, to be told by his young son that Mr. Merrick was having trouble with the Lagonda again. He’d rung the manor but failed to reach anyone. According to Mrs. Gladly, who ran the village exchange, the phone was giving out an engaged signal. The receiver was off the hook, she told Hobday, but there was no one on the line.

  He’d eaten a bite of supper and then tried ringing the house again, with the same result, and had been inclined to leave it at that, except soon afterwards one of the maids who lived in the village, Rose Allen, had passed by his home and urged him to go out to the manor. She didn’t know whether or not the family had got away that afternoon, but if the car was still not working then Mr. Merrick would need help with it that night so as to be able to leave first thing in the morning. Rose didn’t know about any trouble with the telephone.

  Hobday’s own car was locked away in his garage. He decided to cycle out to the manor. Lights were burning in the house when he arrived, but he got no response by ringing the doorbell and so had walked around the house to the kitchen door which he knew would be unlocked, and gone inside.

  Pausing only to call out, “Anyone at home? Anyone there?” he had passed through the kitchen to the main passageway that led to the drawing-room.

  The door was open. Hobday looked in.

  The first thing he saw was the double doors to the garden smashed in with the glass of both panes lying strewn on the carpet.

  The second was the body of Agnes Bertram, the upstairs maid, sprawled on the hearth rug. He spied another body on the sofa by the fireplace, that of the elder Mrs. Merrick.

  At the far end of the drawing-room the door to the hall stood open and somehow Hobday’s shaking legs carried him across to it.

  He got no further. One glance through the door was enough. One look at the carnage there in the hall and he fled.

  The mechanic’s incoherent words had been cut short by the chief inspector, who ordered Madden to Croft Manor at once, taking Proudfoot and Styles with him.

  While their car was being whistled up from across the green Billy heard Sinclair issue an order to Drummond. The Sussex inspector was to ring his headquarters at Tunbridge Wells with an urgent request on the part of Scotland Yard to have all motorcyclists stopped and questioned throughout the night. The order should cover the entire county of Sussex and once that was done it should be extended, by request to other police authorities, in the adjoining counties.

  “You must absolutely stress to them the need to act with caution.” Sinclair’s consonants took on an added edge. “The very greatest degree of caution. This man is extremely dangerous. But he must be stopped.” And then, as though speaking to himself, the chief inspector had added, “God only knows when it happened. I fear we’re already too late.”

  To Madden, as the inspector was boarding the car, he said, “I must get hold of the police surgeon. Then the Yard and the chief constable. I’ll be with you as soon as I can.”

  Inside the car Proudfoot was muttering about “the children,” mumbling to himself, so tired—and now suffering from shock in addition—that he seemed unable to fix his mind on any one thing.

  “Whose children?” Madden was with the constable in the back. Billy sat up front with the driver, but screwed around in his seat so that he could listen.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Merrick’s . . . but they’re supposed to be off on holiday . . . meant to leave today . . . Hobday didn’t say . . . all dead he said . . . all dead . . .”

  “The Merricks are the family who live at Croft Manor?” Madden’s voice was patient, coaxing.

  “That’s right . . . always been Merricks at the manor . . . there’s old Mrs. Merrick and her son, that’s Mr. William, and his wife and their girl and boy . . . and there’s Annie . . . Annie McConnell . . . and the maids and the nanny . . . No, wait!” The constable’s brow knotted in pain as he strove to concentrate. “I heard all the staff had been given the time off . . .” He fell silent, nodding. Then he spoke again: “All dead he said . . . all dead . . .”

  They were driving down a dark tunnelled lane beneath overt hanging branches. The driver slowed as a pair of iron gates appeared in his headlights. Proudfoot jerked forward in his seat. “There it is,” he said. “That’s the manor.”

  Billy sprang out of the front. One of the gates was standing half open and he drew them both wide, then followed the car down a short driveway, which ended by turning back on itself around a circular flower-bed. Madden was already at the front door as he joined them.

  “Locked.”

  Proudfoot led them at a trot around to the side of the house where light fell through an open door on to a bricked yard and on to the wall of a kitchen garden beyond it. Madden halted them at the door. “Follow me. Don’t touch anything. Watch where you step.”

  He led them through the lighted kitchen to a door which gave on to a passageway. Billy tried to stay on his heels, but by the time he had stepped out of the kitchen the inspector was already turning into a doorway several paces down the passage. When Billy got there himself he stopped on the threshold.

  Madden was bending over a woman’s body in front of a fireplace, and Billy was overwhelmed by his earlier memory of the drawing-room at Melling Lodge.

  The body of the maid on the floor—the smashed French windows.

  Here it was again, like a scene of horror replayed in all its ghastly details.

  “Check the body on the couch. See if she’s alive.”

  The inspector’s peremptory tone jerked Billy back to the present.

  A sofa stood with its back to him. It wasn’t until he went around it that he saw the grey-haired woman who was st
retched out there. He fumbled for her wrist. Blue eyes stared at him unblinking. She wore a silk blouse stained in the centre with a circle of blood the size of a saucer. On the carpet at his feet Billy noticed several potatoes. Potatoes? He could find no pulse in her wrist.

  Madden was already moving. He had left the body on the hearth rug and was skirting the area of broken glass, heading for a door at the opposite end of the drawing-room. Billy followed him, but the inspector stopped in the doorway, blocking his view of what lay beyond. He stood there for several seconds, then turned around.

  “Constable!” He spoke past Billy’s shoulder.

  “Sir?”

  Billy glanced back and saw Proudfoot standing by the body of the grey-haired woman.

  “I want you to check all the rooms downstairs.” Madden’s voice carried a note of command. “Never mind what’s in the hall. Do you mark me?”

  Proudfoot stared at him for a moment. Then he nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  “Come along,” Madden said to Billy. He turned and went through the doorway and Billy saw they were entering a spacious hall with a double staircase to the left coming down from the upper floor. As Madden headed that way Billy glanced to his right and saw a wall splattered with blood. Blood lay in pools on the polished stone floor, too, and the carpet had been dragged aside and swept into an untidy heap. There was a body there.

  “Hurry up, Constable!” Madden spoke sharply. He was already half-way up the staircase. Billy ran up the steps behind him. When they reached the upper floor the inspector turned to him. “Check the servants’ rooms upstairs. Meet me down here.”

  Billy hastened along the passage to a narrow stairway. He went up to the floor above where he found two maids’ rooms and a bathroom, all empty. At the end of the corridor was a nursery decorated with flowered wallpaper containing two beds. A rocking-horse stood by the window. Billy gave the room only a glance and then hurried back downstairs.

  “Sir, there’s no one up there!” His shout echoed down the empty passageway.

  “In here, Constable.”

  Madden’s voice came from near the end of the corridor. Billy found him in a large room furnished with a double bed. Two paintings hung above the headboard, portraits of young children, a girl and a boy. The inspector stood at the foot of the bed, his gaze fixed on them.

  “Sir, they got away!” Billy couldn’t hide his elation.

  “So they did.” The smile on Madden’s lips lingered for only a moment, but the young constable savoured it. “Come on! We must get back.”

  They found Proudfoot in the hall below. He was standing some way from the body, his gaze fastened to it.

  “There’s no one else down here, sir.” He didn’t look up as they hurried down the staircase.

  “I take it the lady on the couch is old Mrs. Merrick?” Madden’s voice was loud in the stone-flagged hall.

  Proudfoot seemed to start at the sound. He looked up then. “Yes, sir. It is.”

  “And who is that?” The inspector pointed.

  The constable moistened his lips. “That would be Annie McConnell,” he replied. His voice shook. “She was once Mrs. Merrick’s maid, I believe, but now . . . I don’t know . . . they were more like friends . . .”

  Madden regarded him from the bottom of the staircase. “I have a question for you, Constable. How would you describe young Mrs. Merrick?”

  “Describe . . . ?” Proudfoot tilted on his feet. His glance had begun to glaze over.

  “Her appearance?” The inspector walked over to where he was standing. “Would you call her good-looking?”

  The constable swallowed. “Yes. sir. I would call her good-looking.”

  Madden said no more.

  Billy, moving closer, got his first clear sight of the body on the floor and couldn’t suppress a gasp of dismay. Although the long black skirt and ripped blouse indicated the remains were those of a woman, there was no way of telling from her face, which had been torn to pieces as though by a wild animal. The flap of one cheek hung loose and red. There was an eyeball lodged in it. Her nose had been smashed almost flat and beneath the bloody mess her teeth showed through shredded lips.

  Despite the wave of nausea that gripped his stomach the young man forced himself to absorb every detail. He saw a telephone with the receiver off the hook lying on the floor not far from the body. A table and chair had been upturned.

  Madden, meanwhile, stood with head bowed studying the scene. When he turned away finally, Billy expected to see that distanced look in his eyes, that “other world” gaze by which the inspector appeared to separate himself from all around him. But Madden’s glance held only pain and sadness. He put his hand on Billy’s shoulder.

  “Come away, son,” he said.

  10

  Shortly after one o’clock the following day Bennett arrived by car from London. The deputy assistant commissioner was surprised to find the leafy lane leading to Croft Manor empty of both press and rubberneckers. The constable on duty at the gates informed him that the chief inspector had had it cleared.

  “He’s told the reporters to wait for news in Stonehill, sir. And the villagers have been asked not to congregate.”

  The day had dawned grey and misty, as though signalling the arrival of autumn. Bennett, black-coated and black-hatted, paused before the front steps to look about him. He was surprised again—this time because he saw no sign of police activity. Sinclair explained that the gardens had already been searched.

  “Madden has the men out in the woods now. They’re looking for the dugout.”

  The chief inspector met Bennett at the door and escorted him to the morning room, which he had made his headquarters. The deputy took in the other man’s pale, unshaven cheeks. He reflected that it was the first time he had ever seen Angus Sinclair with a hair out of place.

  “You look exhausted, Chief Inspector. Have you had any sleep?”

  “A couple of hours here on the couch, thank you, sir.”

  “How about Madden?”

  Sinclair merely shrugged.

  Bennett wasted no time. He was already undoing the straps of his briefcase as they entered the morning room.

  “I’ve something for you. New pictures of Pike.”

  Tozer’s collaboration with the police artist had resulted in a pair of sketches, which the Yard’s photographic department had begun producing in poster form. In one of them, the face was as Tozer remembered it, complete with heavy moustache. In the other, the artist had reproduced the same features stripped of facial hair. Sinclair took copies of each over to the window to examine them in the light.

  “He’s caught something in the eyes, hasn’t he? But I wonder about the mouth—that can only be a guess.”

  “We’re getting them out to the newspapers today,” Bennett told him. “They should be in tomorrow’s editions.”

  He waited until Sinclair came back from the window and then sat down in an armchair, indicating to the chief inspector to do the same. “You wouldn’t mind having the press off your neck, I dare say.”

  Sinclair’s look was answer enough.

  “That’s what I thought. I’ll speak to them before I go back. What’s more, I’ll tell them all information from now on will come out of the Yard, in London.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now fill me in.” Bennett sat back. “I want to know everything. And so does the commissioner. I have to report to him when I get back. And you’ll have to come up to London on Wednesday, I’m afraid. It’s a command performance. You and I and Sir George as well. We’re all summoned to appear.”

  Sinclair sat silent for a few moments, ordering his thoughts. Bennett was used to seeing him with his file in front of him. Now he watched as the chief inspector drew from his mind a summary of the situation.

  “We have teams of detectives from London and Tunbridge Wells in place. Some of them are going through the house now, dusting for fingerprints and collecting other evidence. We’ll shortly be starting the same process
as we followed at Highfield, questioning the villagers as to who or what they might have seen in the past few days and weeks. We’ll be showing them these new pictures of Pike along with the earlier one.

  “Important items of physical evidence are already in our possession, notably a gas mask.”

  “By God!” Bennett sat up. “Pike’s, do you mean?”

  “We believe so.” Sinclair spoke in a monotone. “It was found in the drawing-room this morning under a cabinet. Flung there, perhaps. I’ll show it to you.”

  He rose and went to a table on which a cardboard box rested. He brought the box over to Bennett and took off the lid.

  “You can pick it up, sir. The eyepieces have been tested for prints.”

  Bennett held up the khaki canvas hood studded with round glassed eyeholes and a rubber nozzle for breathing.

  “Normally the nozzle would be attached to a box respirator,” Sinclair explained. “Either it was pulled free, or else he doesn’t bother with one. And you’ll see it’s torn behind.” He showed Bennett the ripped canvas. “There’s no doubt one of the victims struggled with him. Annie McConnell. The pathologist found traces of skin under her fingernails when he examined the body this morning. She must have marked him. I pray it was on his face.”

  “It was her body you found in the hall?”

  “It was. From some bloodstains detected on the carpet in the drawing-room it looks as though he may have bayoneted her there, as he did the other two, but failed to kill her outright. When he came down from upstairs—I’m speculating now—we think he found her trying to use the telephone in the hall.”

  Bennett winced, “Is that why he mutilated her body in that way?”

  “Possibly.” Sinclair shrugged. “But Madden has a different theory. I’ll tell you what he believes in a moment. May I continue, sir?”

  “Please do.”

  “We can’t be sure exactly when the attack occurred, except that it must have been after a quarter past five, which was when Mr. William Merrick and his family left by car for Chichester. That time’s been fixed by the gardener, who was here. Apparently Merrick had had trouble getting the car started and had all but decided to spend the night here—they were going away on holiday—but old Mrs. Merrick wanted them out of the house for some reason. She’d been on about it all day.” Sinclair shook his head wearily. “I can’t make that out, sir. But thank God they left.”