River of Darkness (10 page)

She seated him in the arbour on the terrace with a glass of beer. 'I'll be back in a minute.' Madden looked out over the sunlit garden at the woods beyond, rising like a green wave. The heat of the day was still building. He sipped his beer. It was a moment of peace, rare in his life, and he wanted to arrest it and clasp it to him: to stop time in its tracks. He heard a noise and looked round, expecting to see her. But it was Mary, the maid. She was carrying a wicker hamper and a plaid blanket. 'Good afternoon, sir.' 'Hullo, Mary.' She smiled at him and put down the basket with the blanket on top of it, then went back inside the house, but returned in a moment with a pair of cushions. 'I thought we'd have a picnic' Helen Blackwell stepped from the doorway on to the terrace. She had shed her skirt and blouse of the morning and was wearing a cool chemise-type dress of white cotton. Her hair, freed from the ribbon she used to tie it back, lay on her shoulders. Madden saw that her legs were bare. 'Thank you, Mary,' she said to the maid. 'That will be all.' She picked up the cushions and the blanket. Madden assumed the burden of the hamper. Together they went down the steps from the terrace. As they started across the lawn the black pointer he remembered from his first visit rose from a pool of shadow beneath a walnut tree and joined in the procession behind them. They reached the orchard at the bottom of the lawn and passed beneath plum trees heavy with sun-ripened fruit. The buzz of wasps sounded loud in the dappled shade. A stone wall marked the boundary of the garden. She opened the gate and let him through, then closed it quickly before the dog could follow them. 'Not you, Molly.' The animal whined in disappointment. 'Stay!' she commanded, without explanation. She smiled at him. 'You can't come on a picnic dressed like that. At least take your jacket off.' He did as she said, then stripped off his tie as well and draped both garments over the green wooden gate. They were close to the edge of the shallow stream. On the other side, the woods came down almost to the water, but where they were a carpet of meadow grass extended for a short distance downstream. He followed her until their way was blocked by a thicket of holly bushes. 'This is the tricky bit,' she said. She slipped off her shoes and stepped down from the bank into the stream. 'Be careful, the stones are slippery.' She moved slowly through the ankle-deep water, holding the cushions and blanket in a bundle above her head. When she was past the bushes she climbed up on the bank again. Madden took off his shoes and socks and put them on top of the hamper. He rolled up his trousers and stepped down into the cool water. She was waiting on the bank, hand outstretched, to take the basket from him. 'I used to come here with my brother, Peter, when we were children. It was our secret place.' They were on a small patch of grass enclosed by bushes. Close to the bank, water-lilies tugged weakly at their stems in the faint current of the stream. 'He was the pilot, wasn't he?' 'You remembered . . .' Her deep blue gaze brushed his. 'That was such a terrible night. All I could think of was how we'd been young together - Lucy and Peter and David and I - and now they were all dead. And then I looked into your eyes and saw that you must have been in the war, too, and I couldn't stop thinking about all those dead ... the ghosts we live with.' He wanted to speak, but could find no words, and he looked away. She studied his face for a moment, then began to spread the blanket and cushions on the grass. Madden retrieved his shoes and socks. About to put them on, he was arrested by the sight of her sitting beside him. She was leaning on one hand, her legs tucked to the side, looking down, her face hidden by the fall of thick, honey-coloured hair. In the stillness that enveloped them the whirr of a pigeon's wings sounded loud overhead. Not knowing what to do or say, he unfastened the sleeve of his shirt and began to roll it up. 'Shrapnel.' She spoke, and he felt the touch of her fingers on his forearm where the scars were spread like strewn coins. 'I worked in an Army hospital for a year. I know all the wounds.' Her fingers stayed on his skin. Her touch went through him like fire. 'And that scar on your forehead . . .' She took her hand off his arm and raised it to his head, sliding her fingers under the lock of hair that fell across his brow and running them gently across the skin. 'That's most likely a shell fragment, too.' Madden began to tremble. Her face was close, but their eyes didn't meet. Her glance was fixed on his forehead. He saw a faint line of sweat on her upper lip and the golden hairs on her forearm. He put his arm around her waist, clumsy, unsure of what he was doing, but when he bent to kiss her, her hand went from his forehead to the back of his neck and she pressed her lips to his, meeting his tongue with hers, kissing him deeply. She drew him down and in a moment they were lying stretched on the blanket, side by side. He could feel his heart racing, the blood drumming in his ears. Then she moved again, pulling him over her until she was on her back and he was above her. They continued to kiss. When he put his hand on her hip she caught it with hers and held it and then brought it to her stomach and pressed it there. He began to fumble with her dress, but she reached down herself and drew it up and then took his hand again and brought it to her bare stomach at the top of her pants and guided it down inside them. He felt the stiff curly hair and then the wetness. She reached for him, and he broke their kiss to tear open his trousers. When she took him in her hand he groaned. She let go of him to push at her pants and he joined his hand with hers and together they stripped them off her. She spread her legs to receive him and cried out when he entered her. He never knew how long they were together. To him, it seemed only moments, and then his body was shaken by spasms and he felt her bucking and reaching for him. She cried out again. They lay together, unmoving. In the silence he heard a blackbird call in the woods across the stream. Her breathing, hot in his ear, slowly abated. His weight lay on her, crushing her, he thought, but when he sought to shift it she held him imprisoned in her arms. 'Stay with me,' she pleaded, and they lay together. Her thighs held him fast, both slippery with sweat. Finally she relaxed, sinking under him, and he moved and lay alongside her. She turned her head so that her face was close to his and when he kissed her she responded, bringing her hand up to his cheek, stroking him. He looked down at her body. Her long legs, one bent over the other, were flushed in the sunlight. Moisture shone in her dark golden bush. He could smell his semen mixed with their sweat. He was close to tears. 'John . . .?' Her eyes were open, she was smiling at him. 'Your name is John, isn't it?' Her soft laughter in his ear gave him the release he needed and his laughter joined with hers. 'Oh, God! I wasn't sure I had the nerve . . . and you wouldn't speak.' 'Speak?' At first he didn't understand. And then, when he did, he couldn't tell her that he had never imagined such a scene. Had never pictured himself lying in her arms, lying between her legs. That he no longer thought of his life as holding such possibilities. 'I knew it that first night. It was awful, I suddenly found myself wondering what it would be like to . . . make love with you. And then I remembered poor Lucy lying there with her throat cut and Charles and the others and I couldn't believe I was thinking that.' She was silent, looking away. Then she turned her head and smiled into his eyes. 'They talk about the demon rum, but I think it should be the demon sex.' He put his arms around her. She rested her head on his chest. A light breeze stirred the bushes around them, bringing relief from the heat. 'After the war, after Guy was killed, I had an affair with a man. I needed someone. But I found it didn't work, I didn't really care for him, and I had to stop it. . .' Madden thought of his own barren life. But he couldn't bring himself to speak of it. Instead, he asked, 'There's been no one since?' She laughed softly against his chest. 'How did St Paul put it? Marry or burn?' Then her brow creased and she looked up at him. 'Oh dear, I never even asked, I just took it for granted - you're not married, are you?' He shook his head. 'I was. But it was years ago.' He needed to tell her. 'We had a child, a little girl. They both died of influenza. It was before the war.' She held him in her steady gaze. 'I saw that when you looked at Sophy. I didn't know what it meant. She knew . . . she felt something. The way she went with you . . .' She kissed him and then released herself from his arms, sitting up and covering her legs as she did so. She ran her fingers through her hair. 'I must pull myself together. My new locum will be here in an hour and I have to get him settled in. Then Lord Stratton's giving me a lift to London. I'm spending the night with my aunt and catching the train to Yorkshire tomorrow morning.' She smiled down at him. 'You were laughing earlier because the other one fell off his horse,' Madden said. 'Why?' 'If he hadn't, you and I wouldn't be here now.' 'But that was before . . .' He was amazed. 'Yes, but I knew this was going to happen.' Her eyes held his. 'Are you shocked?' He drew her down to him. She said, 'I never even gave you any lunch. There's still time.' He felt her breath on his lips. 'Or we could make love again. Though I don't know . . . can we?' Smiling, she slipped her hand between his legs and took him gently, like a bird, in her folded palm. 'Oh, yes . . .'

They left the hamper with the blanket and cushions by the garden gate. 'I'll get Mary to collect them later. I haven't the strength now.' She watched, smiling, as he put on his tie and jacket, and then they walked arm in arm through the dappled shade of the orchard until they came in sight of the house, when he started to pull away from her. She kept his arm in hers and drew him into the shade of the weeping beech, near the side gate. 'I'll be away for a fortnight.' She kissed his cheek. 'When I get back I'll find some excuse and come up to London.' He watched her turn and leave, the pain of loss already sharp in him. He was afraid she would soon start to regret what she had done. That the next time he saw her it would be only to hear excuses and embarrassed explanations. As though she had read his mind, she turned and came back to him. 'Hold me for a moment.' He wrapped his arms about her and they stood like that. Then she drew back and kissed him full on the mouth. 'In two weeks,' she said.

Madden awoke in terror, thinking he was under shellfire, and then lay sweating in the darkness as the rumble of approaching thunder grew louder. His sleep had been tormented by a familiar nightmare, a racking image that dated from the first time he had been wounded when he had lain in a casualty clearing station and watched an Army surgeon, his white smock drenched with blood, saw off the leg of an anaesthetized soldier. Awake, Madden could recall the surgeon completing the operation and tossing the shattered limb into a corner of the tent with other amputated fragments. In his dream the bloodstained figure kept sawing and sawing while the soldier's mouth stretched wide in a soundless scream. Peace returned to his mind with the memory of Helen Blackwell's kisses and the feel of her body pressed to his. Along with the throb of renewed desire came a yearning for the anchor of her calm, steady glance.

The room where he awoke was the same one he had used before in the Rose and Crown. He had returned to the village intending to catch a train to London. Instead, either on a whim or because he could not tear himself away, he had spoken to the landlord, Mr Poole, and fixed to spend the night there. During his hours of sleeplessness an idea had come to him -- he'd been thinking of his childhood, and days spent in the woods with his friends -- and after breakfast he walked up the road from the pub to the village shop, where Alf Birney, tonsured and aproned, greeted him from behind the counter. 'We thought you'd all gone back to London, sir.' His voice held a hint of reproach. 'We'll be back and forth, I expect.' 'You haven't caught any of them yet, have you, sir?' 'Not yet, Mr Birney.' Madden bought half a loaf of bread, a tin of sardines and a packet of biscuits. Coming out of the store he was hailed by Stackpole, who was walking by. 'I didn't know you'd stayed on, sir.' 'It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Mr Sinclair gave me the weekend off. There's something I want to do.' He looked at the constable, bronzed and smiling under his helmet. He felt a warmth for this man who had kissed Helen Blackwell. 'Are you busy today?' Stackpole shook his head. 'Saturdays are usually quiet. We've got the wife's sister and her brood coming over at lunchtime. Now, if I could find a good excuse to get away . . .' He grinned. 'Let's walk along,' Madden suggested. 'I'll tell you what I have in mind.' Stackpole listened carefully while he explained. 'I see what you mean, sir -- he didn't care about tossing his cigarette stubs around so if he'd eaten anything there we ought to have found some traces. Maybe a tin or a crust or an empty packet.' 'More than that,' Madden admitted. 'We haven't put this about, but we're fairly sure he kept coming back to the woods over a long period so that he could watch the Fletchers.' 'And I never knew it!' The constable looked grim. 'No fault of yours,' Madden hastened to assure him. 'He must have taken good care not to be seen. I think Wiggins only came on him by chance.' 'Still, I see what you mean, sir. He might have had some other spot up there. A hide, or a lair.' 'How well did the police search the woods?' 'Search?' Stackpole's snort was contemptuous. 'They just tramped around, flattening things. They gave up after four days, and none too soon, if you ask my opinion.' He raised his hand in greeting to a pair of men sitting on a bench in the forecourt of the pub. 'Tell you what, sir. If you wouldn't mind, I'd like to get out of my jacket - you could do the same - then we could go up there and take a look around.' They walked on until they reached the Stackpoles' cottage near the end of the village. While the constable got ready, his wife sat with Madden in the small parlour. A plump, curly-haired young woman with a deep dimple, she seemed unawed at finding herself in the presence of a Scotland Yard inspector. 'Just you see you get home in good time, Will Stackpole,' she called through the doorway. 'There's the lawn needs mowing, and the baby's chair's broken

again.' To Madden, she said, 'You've got to keep after them.' The constable came in in his shirtsleeves carrying a brown-paper packet. 'I see you bought some things at the shop, sir. I've got a few bits myself. We'll have enough for a bite of lunch.' 'What's this, then?' his wife inquired of the ceiling. 'A picnic in the woods?' She missed the inspector's deep blush.