Masters and Green set out before Garner arrived. For half a mile they walked along made-up road, which came to an end in a turning circle for the buses. After that there was the embankment. A wall, faced on the seaward side with grey limestone rock roughly set in cement, and sloping down at about forty-five degrees to the shore. Here the sand was covered in a ridge of weed with all manner of flotsam sticking up from it. At one spot several whole grapefruit—perhaps jettisoned by some idle ship’s cook—stood out round and yellow. Baulks of timber of all sizes, laced with black-green bladder wrack; small pieces of wood, their ends rounded by the abrasive action of sand and water, and the soft wood worn out from between the heavy grain, lay thrown up by the waves. Rounded knobs of coal; areas of coal slack, washed bright and free of dust. Shells, mostly white, with the dark blue of mussels here and there. Broken bottles, boxes, paper, rag. It was a rubbish dump, but Masters thought it interesting. The harvest of the sea. The contents of gash chutes washed ashore, cleansed by contact with angry water and no longer malodorous. Between this line of debris and the water’s edge was an expanse of wet sand nearly half a mile wide. Sand ridged by the waves into a perfectly symmetrical pattern, with hollows deep enough to hold small elongated pools that glittered like beaten pewter under a floodlight. Green said: ‘What’s happened to the water? They’ve pulled the plug out.’
Masters said, absently: ‘Spring tides. Very high at full tide, very low at ebbs. We’re now between times.’
‘How do you know?’
‘At four o’clock yesterday afternoon the tide was full. You get two tides a day on the east coast, at about twelve and a half hour intervals. That means there was another tide this morning that would be full about four thirty. This afternoon it will be full at five. If we’re here many days we’ll find the water up at this time in the morning.’
Green grunted and said nothing. He walked along whistling at gulls that were wheeling low overhead and making sudden glides down to snatch at debris in the seaweed. Masters was thinking of patterns. Of his conversation with Swaine. Of a half-remembered dream. Of this sand figured like intricately cut glass. All patterns. And he could make nothing of them as yet.
The top of the embankment was tarmac. Thin enough to show the underlying sand where a pot hole had broken the surface. On the landward side was winter plough. Sandy, but with a pattern still clearly visible and not obliterated by rain and wind. He guessed the two had militated against each other. The rain had bound the soil too strongly for the wind to dislodge. Drainage ditches, without hedges, but with a narrow band of coarse green growth on each bank, cut across the area and drained through a sluice in the embankment to the foreshore. A discoloured torrent that cut a course for itself for twenty yards in the sand and then petered out, spreading in a shallow pool over the ridges.
They walked in silence for some minutes. The wind was still fresh enough to reveal itself in patterns where there was any grass exposed to it. It could still make the cheeks tingle. The grey day started to brighten in a watery sort of way. Two or three miles out a couple of trawlers were fighting their way into the estuary. The cry of the gulls was raucous but unobtrusive in this great open space.
Green said: ‘There’s the car.’ He pointed. A track, as yet invisible, and delineated only by the movement of the car, curved round from half a mile inland to meet the embankment. Masters saw a small square notice-board on a pole a quarter of a mile ahead and guessed it indicated the end of the sea wall and the junction with the track. He was right. Inside five minutes they had joined the three in the car. Before them stretched a line of dunes four or five feet high and behind these, the bungalow village, built haphazardly, with no semblance of order. The huts were painted many colours, faced in all directions, were of different sizes and of varying pretentiousness. Each had a wired-in garden area—sand, with the uprights for children’s swings and clothes-line poles standing dotted about.
Green said: ‘I see they’ve all got an Elsan Hall.’ At the end of each garden was a tiny hut. Brant said: ‘D’you know, I thought they were tool sheds,’ and laughed at himself.
Masters said to Garner: ‘Do you happen to know where the graves are?’
Garner was in civilian clothes. He was wearing a belted mackintosh and gumboots. His head was bare, and the remains of his skimpy grey hair were blowing in the wind, straggling over his bald patch and his ears. He had high colouring, underlined by a pallor still remaining from his recent illness. But his eyes were bright and smiling. He said: ‘They’ve all got hessian screens round, sir. But the wind could have blown them over.’
‘Was there no guard out here?’
‘Yes, sir. In a Panda car stationed just where we are now until eight o’clock. Superintendent Bullimore asked me to tell you he couldn’t spare the car any more. But the exact places where the bodies were lying are marked by two sticks. White at the head and black at the foot.’
‘Right,’ Masters said. ‘Are we ready? There should be one grave between the dunes and the water line. That should be easy to find, so we’ll start there.’
The hessian was wet and soggy. The four corner poles of the screen had all bent inwards under the weight and the force of the wind. The grave was still there, and in spite of it being sand, there was water in the bottom. Masters gingerly moved the screen and went inside. He said to Green: ‘What d’you think? Three feet deep?’
‘Hardly. What’s been dug out has been piled round the sides. It’s got flattened a bit, but I wouldn’t put it at much more than two feet.’
‘And six feet across?’
‘About that.’
‘How long would it take to dig?’
‘It’s amazing how fast you can go in this sort of stuff when you’re in a hurry. I suppose he had a shovel? Yes, he must have had. In my day I reckon I could have done it in less than twenty minutes.’
‘You should know. Alamein and all that.’ He opened the big scale map. ‘Now, here’s the cross marking this one. How do we know it’s right? Measure from the nearest bungalow, I suppose.’
Surprisingly, Green took over. He said: ‘We’ll have to do a resection. I’ll have the compass first.’
Hill handed over the heavy prismatic. Green said: ‘The trouble with these big plans is they don’t cover enough space to get really decent rays.’
‘This is all Greek to me.’
Green said: ‘Never mind. You’ll learn. Now, is that sewage outfall tower marked? Right. All metal out of the way?’ He put the compass to his eye and took the bearing of the conical lattice tower standing out of the water a mile away. He murmured: ‘Two nine seven. Take away a hundred and eighty. Gives us a hundred and seventeen. Make a note of that, somebody.’
Brant scribbled the figure down. Green said: ‘Now I want something as near at right angles as possible to get a good, clean cut.’ He pointed back along the track the car had used. He said: ‘What’s that low, brick building yonder?’
Garner said: ‘The Golf Club, sir.’
‘Is it on the map?’
Masters said: ‘It’s here.’ He was trying to follow Green’s manœuvres. Up to now he hadn’t succeeded. Green took another shot with the compass. ‘Two four eight,’ he said. ‘Take off a hundred and eighty. Gives us sixty-eight. Got that?’
Brant nodded.
Green took the map from Masters and the protractor from Hill. He said: ‘I need a table. We’ll have to go back to the car and use the bonnet.’
While the others held down the map corners, Green drew lines at the back bearings he had given Brant from the sewage tower and the Golf Club House. They crossed almost at right angles an eighth of an inch away from Bullimore’s original cross. He turned to Masters. ‘Six inches to a mile. That means an inch is roughly three hundred yards. An eighth of an inch would be what? Between thirty-five and forty yards? That’s about how far out the first grave is.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘No. But I can test by taking a third ray and getting a triangle of error
if you like.’ Green was enjoying himself. Masters wondered where he had learned this particular skill. Green gave him the answer without being asked. He said: ‘Of course, when we did survey in the Gunners we used directors, and they’re more accurate than compasses. But I put the magnetic deflection on, so I shouldn’t be more than half a degree out in my bearings.’
He returned to the grave and took a shot at a church tower, nearly four miles away, and just inside the bounds of the map. He had some difficulty in seeing, with one eye closed, and the other squinting through the hair-line slit. The tower was the same grey as the sky behind it, and it was some minutes—after resting his arm twice—before he was satisfied where the three lines on the map crossed. Green said: ‘Make a dot in the middle of that, and you’ll be bang on.’
Masters said: ‘So Bullimore was about thirty yards out. Not bad for by guess and by God.’
Green said, amiably enough for him: ‘Not bad at all. But I bet he wasn’t so hot on the others. This was easy. Right on the shore line. He could only make a mistake east and west. The north-south line was fixed for him.’
‘Can we plot the others?’
‘We can. But why the hell should we? What’s the use of knowing to within a yard where they were dumped?’
‘Can you tell me why the murderer lugged his victims’ bodies in all directions before burying them? Say he came by car. He would be obliged to park where our wagon is now. Yet the graves he dug are dotted about. Why not put them all together? As close to the car as possible? And save transporting dead weight over soft sand—which is difficult to walk on at the best of times.’
Green replied: ‘How d’you know they were dead when they arrived? He could have walked them off into the dunes and killed them where they stopped. They just didn’t happen to go in the same direction each time.’
Masters could see the force of this argument, and agreed that Green had every possibility of being right. ‘But,’ he said, ‘remember Swaine’s theory last night. Symbolism. I can’t ignore the fact that the same thread runs right through every one of the murderer’s actions. I’ve looked at this plan, with Bullimore’s crosses on it, and I can see no rhyme nor reason in the dispersal of the bodies. And nobody has found the fifth victim. For all we know she could be miles from here. May well be, if your theory is right. And yet, if that were so, it would be the first inconsistency, wouldn’t it? So, on the off chance that it will help us, let’s plot the others carefully.’
‘O.K. You’re the boss. Come on, lads. We’ll need the fifty foot this time.’ Hill held it out. A long tape in a brown leather cover, big as a tea plate, and an inch deep.
‘Can I leave it to you?’ said Masters.
Green nodded, and said to Garner: ‘We’re going clockwise round to finish up here again. I want you to go to the next grave. Here, see. South-east. About two hundred yards away. When you get there, stand right beside it and hold up a white handkerchief. If I can see it, we’ll be O.K. If not, you’ll have to tie it on the end of one of the sticks round the grave and hold it up. Right? Off you go then.’
Green turned to Masters. ‘This may take a long time. If they’re not intervisible, we’ll have to do dog legs round obstacles.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Plot intermediate points by bearing and distance. And I don’t like that much. Apart from the time it’ll take I’m liable to get up to half a degree error in every bearing as I told you.’
‘Can you judge how inaccurate it will be when you’ve finished?’
Green lit a Kensitas. ‘I can tell you now. It’ll be bloody inaccurate. But I’m going to close on this first grave at the end, so we’ll be able to see exactly. Then, to iron out the error, I could go round again, anti-clockwise, and see what comes up.’
Masters said: ‘Do your best. If I can be of help I’ll be nosing round. Give me a shout.’ He waited a few minutes to fill his pipe and to watch Green dispose his forces. After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing by Brant, carrying messages to Garner to get the handkerchief higher, Green was able to take a direct bearing to the second grave. Then followed the business of measuring by Brant and Hill. Green was taking great care to see that their fifty feet of tape were always in the direct line between himself and the handkerchief. He controlled them by a series of arm signals. Right arm outstretched—move to the right. Arm slapped down, stop. Left arm up—move gently to the left. Stop. Mark the spot. Measure the next fifty feet. Masters could see that the exercise would take some time. With his pipe burning well in the wind, he turned to the bungalows and trudged over the sand towards them.
They were depressing. Wooden huts with corrugated iron roofs. Eyeless because the windows were boarded up. Tatty because the paint, mainly green and white, was flaking and faded, sapped of its nature by the salt-laden air and sun. Wooden huts on stilts to keep them clear of the sand. Masters looked more closely at these foundations. Some were of squared timber, but most were large, round, wooden blocks, eighteen inches in diameter and a foot deep. Small flights of two or three wooden steps up to front doors—each with a name reminiscent of fictional suburbia: Crow’s Nest, Dun Roamin, Sandy Nook—on to verandas, where sand had drifted against palings in narrow slopes like wedges of cheese. He walked round the back of the nearest one. Here a gutter had been added to the roof and a downspout leading into a forty-gallon oil drum with a distorted wooden lid. The recent rain had caused it to overflow, and the sand around it was darker and wetter than the rest. There were padlocks on the shutters and the door. He guessed there would be four rooms. One with a fireplace, because a tin chimney with a coolie-hat on top stood up a foot above the roof.
He looked around. On some bungalows there were television aerials; and one or two had car ports, some tailor made, others constructed of sections of old air raid shelter. But nowhere could he see any article which suggested that for several months in the year hundreds of families lived here and enjoyed themselves. The owners had taken great care to see that the scavengers didn’t get rich at their expense.
As he moved about, he came across Garner, erecting a banderole for his handkerchief at the third grave. Masters said: ‘I’ve never seen those round wooden things before. What are they?’
Garner said: ‘Fishing bobbins, sir. They’ve got a hole down the middle like a cotton bobbin. They’re threaded on to a metal foot rope and roll along the sea bed as the trawlers fish. At least they did. They use metal ones now. But those old wooden ones are useful for all sorts of things. I’ve got one at home I use for a chopping block when I’m cutting kindling.’
Masters thanked him. He looked into the grave. White and black sticks about five feet apart. He walked on to the fourth grave. The same sticks. He stood for a moment. Lit his pipe. Then lined himself up behind the white stick, looking directly over the black one. He could see the distant outskirts of Finstoft. He noted the building in line with his view. He returned to the first grave and repeated the manœuvre. The line of the white and black sticks again picked up the same building. Interested, he trudged round the remaining two graves. The same result. Green by now was on his last lap. As he stood signalling to the sergeants, Masters told him of this new discovery.
Green said: ‘All lined up, are they?’
‘No. They concentrate on the one building.’
Green slapped his hand to his thigh and made a pushing signal with both hands to tell the sergeants to move on. Then he said: ‘They only appear to concentrate. That building’s so far away that the slightest divergence out of parallel would make the lines miss it. They’re lined up, I reckon.’
‘Could you use your compass to tell me in exactly what direction?’
‘Nothing easier.’
Green finished his traverse and again using the bonnet of the car as his table, plotted the various bearings and distances. His work was good. By the time he’d finished he had an irregular rectangle with a grave at each corner, except the first. Here he had a slight gap in the lines and two crosses. He said: ‘We’re
as near as dammit right. Not more’n fifteen yards out at any rate. Good enough?’
‘Excellent, thank you.’ He looked at the map. It told him nothing. There were Bullimore’s marks and Green’s marks and the resection rays and the traverse box. It was a hotchpotch. Reluctantly he folded it away and said: ‘Now, the alignment of the graves.’
He plodded round with Green, who took shots over the head and foot sticks as marker posts. Green made notes on his Kensitas packet after each one. As they walked back to the car at the end, he said: ‘Well, as near as I can tell you, the bodies were laid due east and west, with the heads pointing east. Was that what you were expecting?’
‘Something of the sort. It doesn’t tell us much, but it definitely corroborates Swaine’s belief that symbolism is involved; and that the one we’re after is a most methodical loony.’
They all got into the car for the journey back to the Estuary. Garner, sitting forward between Masters and Green on the back seat was uncomfortable, not only because of his restricted sitzplatz, but because of his proximity to two men who, as leaders of this particular team, had a countrywide reputation for success in difficult cases. He wondered about them. In spite of the reputation they appeared very ordinary men to him. But different in their attitudes. More professional. No local C.I.D. men had gone out and surveyed the area. And from what he had gathered from the conversation nobody had tumbled to this theory of—what was it?—symbolism? He wondered exactly what was meant by it. Perhaps if he kept his eyes and ears open he’d get to know. Meanwhile he felt more than pleased to be working with leading lights from Scotland Yard, even if it was only as dogsbody. His thoughts were interrupted by Masters who said: ‘Would you like a drink, Constable, before your lunch?’
‘Thanks very much, sir.’
‘O.K. A quick one and then Sergeant Brant will run you home. It’s twelve now. Can you get back to the Estuary by two?’
‘Easily, sir.’
‘Right. Here we are.’
*
Deadly Pattern Page 5