Arnussen played with his pencil. “Such a story could easily be true.”
“Yes, it could, and his wife bears it out. It’s also the sort of thing that’s almost impossible to prove.”
“So do you think he’s our dragon?”
“No.” Hackney flipped over a few more pages. “But we have to sort him out. Hopefully he’ll have the wrong blood type. Then there’s the blacksmith, Sullivan Gilbert — ”
“You must be joking.”
“ — whose parents loved light opera and met on an amateur stage. He takes Home Guard and Civil Defense seriously, because he believes it’s past time to put these Germans in their place or we’ll still be fighting them a hundred years from now. He kept his mouth shut during the search Saturday night, unlike everyone else, he says, so it’s possible no one will remember he was there.”
Arnussen sighed, it seemed for both of them. “And on Tuesday?”
“He spent the entire day in his smithy. Pamela Alcock donated her car to the local Civil Defense and meant to buy a horse for making deliveries, but the wheels on the old buggy needed fixing. He worked on those all day and no one came calling, so he has no alibi, either.”
“Again, we’ll wait on his blood type.”
Hackney closed his notepad and tossed it onto the table. “What have you got?”
Arnussen turned the sketch pad about. The ruled columns were headed with their winnowing criteria — blood type, alibi, boot soles, hair color, body scratches, handkerchiefs. Beneath the headings, in tight cramped writing, the list of names straggled down the sheet. Hackney flipped deeper; the suspect list covered five sheets and fewer than a fifth of them contained any notations within the columns. He sighed. Although he could do this sort of detailed cross-referencing, it wasn’t the sort of investigation he handled best, and a tension headache started the slow climb up the back of his neck.
“This doesn’t include the Home Guard,” Arnussen said apologetically. “I’ll add them at the end. Kettering sent a dispatch rider with the first batch of his soldiers’ statements and blood types, and I’ve gotten this much organized. I’ve also done sketches of both crime scenes and a rough diagram of Margeaux Hall based upon what little we know of the place — ”
“We don’t want to know more about it.”
“ — showing where people were Saturday night.” Arnussen turned the pad back around and riffled the pages. “Kettering kept copies of the statements, and he’s got his engineering lieutenants drawing diagrams of their search lines from Saturday and Tuesday, with each soldier’s name in its proper place. He’s also got another company of his soldiers, one that’s not implicated in either murder, out searching the forest for Harriet Stoner’s yellow dress and possibly another handkerchief.” He flipped back a few pages and peered at a note. “The Two-Eleventh Engineer Park Company. He said they’ll take the forest apart and rebuild it if they have to, but if the dress is there, they’ll find it.”
Hackney laughed. “I feel for that man’s subordinates. How many training exercises of this sort will they put up with before they mutiny?”
“Probably more than you or I.” Arnussen dragged two typed reports from beneath his pad. “And Patchbourne sent the German prisoner’s boots back, as well as these.”
Hackney glanced over the first document as thunder rumbled in the distance. It was the serology report, stating the handkerchief found in Grace’s bedroom had been wetted with both saliva and blood from a person of type O positive, as well as sperm from a secretor of type A positive.
“He gagged her with it then cleaned himself afterward.” And the fingerprint report hadn’t even a partial anomalous print to offer from Grace’s bedroom, nothing at all on her bedstead or the window casings. “He wiped the room down, too.”
“Too much to ask for, that would be.” Arnussen replaced the reports beneath his pad, hiding the dark circular stains on the tabletop. “It would be too easy if all we had to do was fingerprint the suspects.”
“We wouldn’t even have to do that. We could finish the first round of elimination based on blood type and alibi, then print only the men we needed.” Hackney rubbed his eyes. Between the lowering electrical storm and the pressure inside him, the headache was full-blown. It would be a ruddy awful night, and he had over half the local Home Guardsmen to interview next day, with several days of cross referencing before they even knew where they stood, what additional evidence they’d need, boot sole casts or physical examinations or hair samples. “You know, Axel, I can’t help but wonder if there isn’t a quicker way of doing this.”
Arnussen cocked an eyebrow at him, then pulled the stack of papers closer and resumed working. “What are your famous instincts telling you?”
“I don’t know yet.” Hackney massaged his neck. “Why would a man rape and murder a little girl?”
“Harriet was seventeen and a young woman.” Arnussen wrote an entry, then pulled the top statement from beneath the empty tankard and set it upside down in another, smaller stack.
“Grace wasn’t.”
Arnussen inserted another notation into his table. “Let’s try it another way. We don’t know for certain Harriet was raped. What if she willingly snuck away from the dance with someone? Then say he accidentally hurt her and liked the feeling of power it gave him, and he forced that domination to the ultimate degree and killed her. So now he knows how it’s done, but when he goes looking for another victim, there isn’t a dance scheduled. So he takes whatever offers whether she suits him or not.”
Hackney shook his head. “That won’t wash, Axel. Whoever it was, he fancied Grace. Otherwise he’d have found a more isolated victim, rather than killing her right under her mother’s nose.”
“Hm.” Arnussen flipped over another report. “Well, it’s definitely a crime of power.”
“Perhaps he doesn’t feel he has any power in his life right now and he’s looking for it wherever he can.”
Arnussen froze. “A conscript, you mean? Conscription’s necessary, you know. As your light opera blacksmith said, if we’re going to defeat the Germans once and for all, we’ve got to mobilize our resources — ”
“Are you listening to yourself here?” The headache pounded as thunder stalked the village like a beast of prey. “You said mobilize resources. These are people, not things, but you’re talking about using them when they’re useful and throwing them away when they’re not, even getting them killed.”
“But for a necessary end.”
Hackney pursed his lips. “Dehumanizing people always comes at a price. And this might be part of the price. Besides, it doesn’t have to be a conscript. It could be someone evacuated from London, someone bombed out of their home and everything he’s known.”
Arnussen tapped his specs higher on his nose. “Perhaps someone whose family burned in the bombing.”
“Or someone older, whose son was killed fighting on the continent or left in France as a prisoner.” The thunder and headache were rising fast. “War’s an ugly thing and it does ugly things to people.”
Arnussen pulled his suspect list closer. “Until your instincts give us more information, you won’t mind if I keep plugging at this, surely?”
Wind whipped through the open windows. Arnussen grabbed papers and Hackney leaped for the casement handles. The first drops of rain pattered on the street outside. Homer Owen appeared from the kitchen, shrugging into an oilskin.
“Won’t be a lot of business tonight.” He crossed to the front door. “Let me put the blackout shutters up, gentlemen, then I’ll light the lamps for you.”
As Homer left, Hackney sat back with a sigh. “Axel, I need to get out.”
“I’ve been watching you massage your neck.” Arnussen glanced at the window, splattered with the first fat drops. “You didn’t bring a raincoat, did you?”
“Me?” Hackney shrugged. “I won’t melt. I’ll walk down to Margeaux Hall and give that poor man his boots back.”
Owen insisted Hackney wear his
greatcoat, so he was buttoned against the weather as he set out. Nevertheless, by the time he reached the chicken farm on the road to Margeaux Hall, the pounding rain dripped from his hat brim down inside the collar of the coat and onto his suit beneath, and when he reached the Dark, he shook himself like a drenched hound.
This was the true scene of the crimes.
He stopped beneath the trees atop the rise, where Sergeant Tanyon had stood guard and prevented Major Faust from crossing the road. If he had crossed, would he have surprised the killer in the forest, stopping the attack on Grace before it began? If Faust hadn’t been so disoriented Saturday night, would he have moved faster, interrupted the killer at work, and saved, if not Harriet’s body, then perhaps her life?
The dark and dripping branches met overhead, deepening the afternoon twilight almost to night. The beeches and oaks were a physical presence, as if they breathed and whispered secrets he couldn’t hear. They’d held their position along this ridge, running north and south like a border guard between Patchley Abbey and Margeaux Hall, for decades or centuries. Surely people had died here before now. Surely young women had been dragged into the forest’s depths during medieval or Elizabethan or Georgian days, violated and butchered for some man’s vanity.
Rain dripped into his eye. The trees swam together. Hackney blinked and glanced about, disoriented as if just awakened. But the trees kept moving. No, not the trees. Two Bedford trucks were parked just below the top of the rise on the road toward Margeaux Hall, sheltered beneath the overhanging branches. A lone sentry stood before them, watching him with expressionless eyes, rifle at the ready.
And soldiers moved among the trees, heads down in the rain, examining the ground, shifting fallen branches and leafy debris, plumbing the forest’s hidden soul. Major Kettering had said he’d send his best, most thorough men to take the forest apart and put it back together. He hadn’t exaggerated.
It couldn’t be Kettering. If the major was guilty, he’d have sent slackers, soldiers made careless or dispirited by the retreat from Dunkirk. These soldiers had certainly retreated — more than one white bandage flashed among the tree trunks — but they hadn’t surrendered.
Indeed, this was the true scene of the crimes. And some nebulous clue hovered on the edge of his thoughts, just beyond his reach. It wasn’t the trees, and perhaps it wasn’t here. But there was something, some connecting point, that drew all the elements together and would solve this case. Something else, besides the dress, that had to be found.
Hackney glanced down at the canvas grip in his hand, hefted its weight, and started walking as fast as he could for Margeaux Hall.
Chapter Forty-Six
early evening
Margeaux Hall
He ran along the beach with the Baltic stretching to his right, arms pumping in easy rhythm with his strides, shoes sinking into the white dunes and kicking sand into his socks, sweat running down his back and chest. It felt so good to be free again and out of that fragging cell, away from the English and especially Stoner, that he accelerated for the sheer joy of it, angled toward the water and ran through the tail end of the surf, cold northern water lapping over his ankles and sucking his feet down, slowing him until he realized some thing was chasing him, Stoner had set it on his trail, and it got closer and closer but he couldn’t escape the water and he slowed further, each step shorter and choppier than the last, until finally he —
— of course —
— awoke to find himself tangled in the grey blanket, his body awash with sweat. Thunder rumbled, no longer in the distance but overhead, as loud as artillery rounds shelling his position, and rain splashed against the glass behind the drawn blackout curtains. Again shadows invaded the guardroom, lurking in the corners and camouflaging the room’s hard edges. No way he’d let them fool him again.
“What in the world were you dreaming over there?” Pym said. “Tossing and turning like you was fighting something.”
He almost lifted his right hand to push his hair off his forehead, but remembered in time to use his left. “I dreamed I was running in the surf. There’s a place on the Baltic coast called Neukuhren, where I did part of my officer’s training, and we used to run and ride along this wide white-sand beach.” He sat up in bed and shook off the blanket. “I dream about it a lot, for some reason.”
“Huh.” Pym turned the page of his book, beneath the single lamp burning on the radio table. “I moved my mum from Brighton to stay with her sister, my Aunt Bertha, that is, at Holbeach on The Wash. It’s a weird place, lots of grey beaches that change shape with the tides, and flat as stale beer. Sometimes I dream about that, the landscape appearing different if I turn my back.” He pushed the book closer to the light. “I don’t like that dream.”
Faust climbed out of bed and stretched. His stomach seemed hollow, and rumbled in rhythm with the thunder. “Did I sleep through dinner?”
“Any minute now.” Pym moved a red ribbon into place and closed the book. “Will your friends invade through The Wash?”
He paused but didn’t glance over. “How should I know?”
“They think you do.”
“I’m not responsible for what they think.” He paced to the iron bars, then back to the cot. He wanted a cigarette, but he only had one left and he’d decided to save it for some after-dinner thinking. Maybe he should just go ahead and finish the pack. No, maybe he shouldn’t. “What are you reading?”
Pym chuckled. “I’m reading about you.”
It took a moment. Then Faust laughed, too. “Goethe or Marlowe?”
The lance corporal paused, as if confused. His eyes sharpened and he glanced at the cover of his book. “A chap called Christopher Marlowe.”
“That’s the best version of the Faust legend.” He ought to know; he’d read all of them so many times, he’d memorized chunks of each. “And don’t get the idea I’m anything like that guy or related to him. It’s a legend, like King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table.”
“Huh,” Pym said again. “So I don’t have to worry about you making a deal with the devil and him coming to break you out of here, do I?”
Something else he didn’t want to think about. But at least now he knew why Pym had gotten the lance corporal’s stripe rather than Peckham — Pym could use his head for more than a target. “Not likely.”
Those boots clumped in the corridor, then Tanyon entered the guardroom, his arms full of field-grey woolen cloth, as usual bundled into a heap like dirty laundry. He paused in the doorway and riveted a suspicious stare at Faust. “Not likely what?”
“Not likely I’m gonna last until dinner time,” Faust said. “What’s a guy supposed to do for entertainment around here?”
“We could talk about the invasion.”
Faust shook his head. “Not even for you, cutie pie.”
Pym chuckled. “I wish I could carry on the way you two do. That’s clever, that is.”
“It impresses the girls.” Faust made kissy sounds.
Tanyon didn’t smile. He strode to the cell and dumped the uniform between the bars and onto the table. “Get dressed.”
Faust didn’t move. “So you can get fresh with me again? Not interested.”
“Chief Inspector Hackney is here and wants to see you.” Tanyon leaned against the radio table and lit a cigarette. “Why, I can’t say. I don’t think you’re too pretty, myself. But since the man walked through the most unholy rainstorm to see you, then he’s going to see you.” The sergeant blew smoke toward the cell. “What you’re wearing when he sees you is your choice.”
Sod. Faust couldn’t stop his nostrils from twitching. But for once, he had no trouble keeping his mouth shut. His hands and feet tingled with nerves, as if the order to advance had been given and the enemy resistance would melt away at the approach of his panzers. There could only be one reason for Hackney to be here. To return his boots. And Stoner hadn’t confiscated them.
He sorted through his uniform and several possible responses. I
n the dim light, perhaps Tanyon hadn’t seen the exultation which must have shown on his face. But if he didn’t say something appropriately sarcastic, the sergeant would figure out he was up to no good.
“Then it’s time for my best party frock.” He held up his uniform tunic and poked his hand through the scorched tear over the right shoulder. “This is hardly upholding the honor of the Wehrmacht.” The drifting cigarette smoke was about to eat him alive.
Tanyon dragged again. “You should take better care of things.”
Pym chuckled.
“You’re easy to impress.” Faust pulled on his shirt and trousers, settling his suspenders on his shoulders and popping them at Tanyon. “You people should take better care of me. Then I might treat you better.”
“Anything’s possible.” Tanyon inhaled again, frag it. “But I think you’d still play hard to get.”
Pym laughed again.
“He’s not that funny.” Faust slid into his tunic with a now practiced motion which didn’t lift his right elbow from his side. He glanced at Tanyon. “Do you have a comb?”
“Not for you.”
Faust rolled his eyes and smoothed his hair with his fingers. “Do you ever change your standard come-back lines?”
Tanyon stubbed out the butt. “Not for you.”
“That’s funny,” Pym said.
“No, he’s not.” Faust paused long enough to slip his sling, his lone cigarette, and his dwindling book of matches into his inner pocket. “Fine, sergeant. I’m ready.”
The rain pounded on the skylight as they fumbled their way down the dark stairwell. It hammered against the row of windows in the grand ballroom, behind the garnet swags, audible even through the radio’s rendition of Bob Crosby’s Swingin’ on Nothin’ and the click of billiard balls as Cavanaugh and Carmichael played a game. Faust caught himself whistling the tune and stopped. Appalling, how quickly he’d grown accustomed to captivity. It was past time to get out of here.
Deal with the Devil Page 32
