River of Darkness (6 page)

'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 drily. '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, unprompted, and the detective interviewing her had let the remark stand. Such a lovely lady. Tom Cooper, the Fletchers' gardener, had been 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. The last part of Dr Blackwell's statement, an account of her urgent summons to the house on Monday morning, was given in cold medical language. She had examined each of the victims in turn and pronounced them dead. Rigor was starting to recede and she had estimated the time of death at a little over twelve hours earlier. She said 'something' had made her look under the bed in the nursery. She employed the same phrase as she had used with Madden to describe Sophy's condition when she found her. 'Profound shock.' The question of strangers in the village over the weekend was dealt with in several of the statements. Frederick Poole, the landlord of the Rose and Crown, reported a busload of passengers in a Samuelson motor coach stopping at the pub for lunch on Saturday. The company had alerted him ahead of time. As far as he knew, all those who alighted from the bus had boarded the vehicle again later. Apart from that, there had been upward of a score of motorists and cyclists who had called in at the pub on Saturday and Sunday. None had stuck in his mind. All had continued their journeys. Freda Birney, the wife of the owner of the village shop, Alf Birney, reported seeing two hikers picnicking by the stream between the outskirts of the village and Melling Lodge on Sunday just before twelve

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o'clock. She had been taking the dog for a walk before preparing lunch for her family. Madden made a note to have the hikers traced and questioned. Running his eye over the next statement in the pile, he paused, went back and reread it carefully, checked the name of the interviewing officer, and then put it to one side.

Billy Styles pushed the form across the table, watched the man sign it, said, 'Thank you, sir, that'll be all for now,' then leaned back in his chair and stretched. His tenth interview of the day. Harold Toombs, the village sexton. Billy had had to fight to keep a straight face as he wrote it down. Toombs had spent the weekend working in his garden. He had neither seen nor heard anything out of the ordinary. It was a matter of amazement to Billy that he was still part of the investigation. After his experiences of the day before he had expected to find himself back in the CID pool at Scotland Yard. Detective Sergeant Hollingsworth, who'd brought him the news, seemed equally surprised. A stocky, nut-faced man with twenty years on the force, he affected to find Billy's presence among them a source of wonder. 'Can't think what the guv'nor has in mind. No bloodhounds in your family tree, are there, Detective Constable Styles? No hidden talents we're not apprised of?' On receiving word, Billy had experienced a moment of elation, quickly followed by one of foreboding as he contemplated the prospect of spending another day under the dark glance of Inspector Madden. But thus far, beyond a polite, 'Good morning, sir,' from Billy, and a distracted nod in response from the inspector, they hadn't exchanged a word, and Billy had found himself mildly bored as he recorded the villagers' bald accounts of the long, sun-drenched weekend. Now he saw Madden, sitting in the corner of the hall, beckon to him. He rose from the table and went over. 'Sir?' Madden held out a statement form. 'Yours, I think?' Billy glanced at it. 'Yes, sir. May Birney. Her father owns the village store.' The inspector eyed him. 'Well, did she, or didn't she, Constable?' he asked. 'Sir, she wasn't sure.' Billy shuffled nervously. 'First she said she did, then she changed her mind. Said she must have been mistaken.' 'Why did she do that? Change her mind?' 'Sir . . . sir, I don't know.' Madden stood up so abruptly Billy had to spring backwards. 'Let's see if we can find out, shall we?' With a nod to Boyce he strode from the hall. Billy hurried after him. The village store, a few minutes' walk away down Highfield's only paved road, was situated between the pub and the post office. Alf Birney, plump, with a fringe of grey hair like a monk's tonsure, came from behind the counter to show them into a curtained-off toom at the back of the shop. 'It's not right this should have happened,' he muttered. 'Not to a lady like Mrs Fletcher. Not to any of them.' He shifted a carton of custard powder off a chair to make room for Madden. 'I can remember when she was a child. She used to come to the shop every Saturday to buy her sweets. Little Lucy He left them there, and a minute later his daughter came in. May Birney was no more than sixteen. She was dressed in a dun-coloured work smock, her bobbed hair cut in a fringe across her pale forehead. 'Get it straight in your mind now, girl.' Her father's voice came from beyond the curtain. 'Tell the inspector exactly what you heard.' Miss Birney stood before them, nervously twisting her fingers. Madden looked at Billy and nodded. Taken by surprise - he'd assumed the inspector would handle the questioning -- Billy cleared his throat. 'It's about this business of the whistle you say you heard. Or didn't hear.' He spoke loudly, and watched her flush and steal a glance at Madden, who was seated at a table in the middle of the room. 'You were out walking the dog, you said,' Billy prompted her. May Birney stared at her feet. 'Tell us again what happened.' The girl said something inaudible. 'What?' Billy heard himself almost shouting. 'I didn't hear. What did you say?' 'I said I told you before but you said I was imagining it.' She spoke very quickly looking down. 'I never said that--' Billy checked himself. 'I asked you if you were sure you'd heard a police whistle and you said, no, you weren't--' 'I said like a police whistle.' 'All right, like a police whistle, but then you said perhaps you'd been mistaken and you hadn't heard it at all. Do you remember saying that?' The girl fell silent again. Billy stepped nearer. He felt Madden's eyes on him. 'Now listen to me, May Birney. This is a serious matter. I don't need to remind you what happened at Melling Lodge on Sunday night. Stop saying you're not sure or you don't remember. Either you heard something or you didn't. And if you're making all this up . . .!' The girl turned bright red. Madden spoke. 'Would you like to sit down, May?' He drew up another chair for her. After a moment's hesitation, the girl complied. 'Now let's see, I'm a little puzzled, what time did this happen?' 'Around nine o'clock, sir. Might have been a little later.' 'Was it still light?' 'Just getting dark.' 'You were walking the dog?' 'Yes, sir, Bessie. She's getting old, you see, and needs to be taken, but if you put her outside, she just flops down, so Mum and me, we take her down to the stream and make her walk a bit.' She kept her eyes on Madden's face. 'Then you heard what sounded like a police whistle?' 'Yes, sir, like that. The same sort of sound.' 'Just once?' May Birney hesitated, her brow creased in concentration. 'Well, sir, it was like I said' - she shot a glance at Billy - 'first it was there, then it sort of faded away, and then it came back just for a moment.' Madden's brow creased. 'Was there a breeze blowing?' he asked. The girl's face lit up. 'Yes, sir, that was it. That's what happened. It came and went on the wind. I heard it twice. But it was so faint. . .' 'You wondered if you'd heard it at all?' She nodded vigorously. Shooting another defiant glance at Billy, she said, 'I just wasn't sure.' 'But you are now?' Madden leaned forward. 'Take your time, May. Think about it.' But she paused for only a moment. 'Yes, sir,' she said. 'Now I'm sure. Positive.' On their way back to the church hall, Madden paused outside the Rose and Crown. A low brick wall enclosed the cobbled yard in front of the pub and he sat down on it and took out his packet of cigarettes. 'I believe you smoke, Constable?' 'Thank you, sir.' Surprised and pleased, Billy fumbled with his matches. Madden accepted a light. He sat for a while in silence. Then he spoke. 'This job we have,' he drew on his cigarette, 'it gives us a lot of power in small ways.' 'Sir?' Billy didn't understand. 'It's tempting to use it, particularly with people who . . . who don't know how to defend themselves.' Billy was silent. 'Do you understand what I'm saying, Constable?' He shook his head. 'Don't take the easy way, son.' Madden looked at him now. 'Don't become a bully.' The cigarette in Billy's mouth had turned to gall.

'Now go and see if Mr Boyce has something for you to do.'

The following morning the inspector went from cottage to cottage on the Melling Lodge side of Highfield, inquiring whether any of the occupants had heard a whistle on Sunday evening. The third door he knocked on was opened by Stackpole. The village bobby, still in his shirtsleeves, carried a small curly-haired girl in the crook of his arm whom he introduced as 'our Amy'. 'Can't help you, sir,' he told Madden. 'It wasn't me that whistled, that's for certain. Sunday evening the wife and I were over having supper with her parents. They live on the other side of the green.' A tow-haired boy peered out of a doorway behind him. Madden heard a baby's wail. 'Pardon me for saying so, sir, but young May Birney isn't what I'd call a reliable witness. Got her head in the clouds half the time, that young lady. She's sweet on a lad who works for one of Lord Stratton's tenants, but her parents are dead set against him. I've seen her down by the stream, mooning about.' Madden smiled. Like all good village bobbies, Stackpole made everyone else's business his own. 'In the end, she seemed quite sure she'd heard it,' he said. 'Could have been something else,' the constable suggested. 'Jimmy Wiggins whistling up his bitch. Or one of his lordship's keepers.' 'Perhaps.' The inspector gave an account of his visit to Oakley the day before. 'I didn't take to Wellings. He didn't strike me as being truthful.' 'I'm not surprised,' Stackpole observed. 'Lies as he breathes, that one.' 'Gates said he handles stolen goods.' 'You weren't thinking . . .?' The constable raised an eyebrow. 'The stuff taken from Melling Lodge?' Madden shrugged. 'It did cross my mind. What's your view?' Stackpole shifted the little girl to his other arm. 'I'd say if someone offered Sid Wellings a set of silver candlesticks, or a piece of jewellery, he'd snap it up. But by the time you talked to him he must have known what happened at the Lodge and if he had any connection with it, even by chance, he'd have been wetting himself.' Madden nodded. 'All the same, next time you're over there, speak to him. Ask him the same questions. What was he doing over the weekend? Who did he see passing through the village? Let him know we're not satisfied with his answers.' Stackpole looked at the inspector curiously. 'Do you still think he came through Oakley, sir?' And then, after a pause: 'It is "he" we're looking for, isn't it? Not some gang?' 'We believe it's one man,' Madden confirmed. 'But keep that to yourself for now. About Oakley, I'm not sure. He had to have some kind of transport. We think he was carrying a rifle, and when he left he must have had what he took from the Lodge. I don't think he could have come into the area on foot, even through the fields, without someone spotting him.' 'A rifle, sir?' 'He killed them with a rifle and bayonet - we're fairly sure of that. All except Mrs Fletcher.' 'Is he a soldier then?' Stackpole scowled. 'I doubt it. There's no military camp anywhere near. An ex-soldier, more like it.' 'Plenty of them about.' The constable pressed Madden to come in for a cup of tea, but he declined the offer. Stackpole himself was due at Melling Lodge to join the party searching the woods. 'Between you and me, sir, it's a waste of time. Even with Lord Stratton's keepers helping. Most of these lads are town-bred. They'll more likely step on something than see it.' An hour later Madden was back at the church hall. He had found no one to confirm May Birney's story of the whistle. Sergeant Hollingsworth was seated at the table where Boyce had been the day before. The Guildford inspector was supervising a check of all boots in the village. 'He's got a fingerprint team with him, too, sir. They'll take the prints of anyone who called regularly at the Lodge.' 'Anything else?' Madden began leafing through the pile of statements on the table. 'Only the lady doctor, sir. She came by, asking for you. It's to do with the little girl.' 'What about her?' Madden looked up quickly. 'Is something the matter?' Not that I know of, sir.' Hollingsworth scratched his head. 'Dr Blackwell just wants a word with you. But she said it was important.'