by Rennie Airth
‘He doesn’t. He says the Surrey police are still looking for that tramp.’
‘Well, there you are, then.’
Aware that he’d not been entirely straightforward with his son, Madden drove back to Highfield deep in thought. Despite what he’d said he’d been hoping to hear from Sinclair, to learn whether any progress had been made in the case.
He continued to be gnawed by anxiety, a deep-seated unease that dated from the moment he had come on the corpse of Alice Bridger and seen her shattered face. The image had stayed in his mind and was linked with earlier memories of the war and the horrors he had witnessed then. Though he knew the feeling was irrational, it seemed to him that with the child’s murder and disfigurement a door had been opened once more into the world of savagery and barbarism which bitter experience had taught him lay just outside the frail fabric that bound ordered society.
Try as he might he could not shake free of his fears and increasingly he found the quiet rhythms of his life - rhythms dearly bought and cherished - disturbed by unanswered questions, and by the thought of the killer who still walked free.
More distracted than usual that morning - with the autumn ploughing at hand, he wanted to clear up the paperwork that had accumulated on his desk - he was late getting away from the farm and returned to the house for lunch to find Mary, their maid, impatiently awaiting his arrival in the hall.
‘Mrs Beck would like to see you, sir.’
‘See me?’ Madden was nonplussed. The household staff were Helen’s business. However, she had driven up to London that morning on a shopping expedition and would not be back until late afternoon.
‘Yes, sir. She’s waiting for you now.’ Mary Morris’s brown eyes bore a suspiciously innocent look. Her smothered smile hinted that there was mischief afoot.
Alerted, Madden made his way to the kitchen where he discovered their cook standing before the back door with folded arms, as though to bar it. She wore a defiant expression.
‘There’s a person says he wants to see you, sir.’
‘A person, Mrs Beck?’ Madden deposited the parcel of butter and eggs he’d brought from the farm on the kitchen table. ‘Who is he?’
‘I didn’t take his name, sir.’ Cook’s voice was heavy with disapproval.
‘Where is he?’
‘Outside, in the yard.’
Tossing her head in a gesture of disdain, she moved away from the door, and Madden went past her to open it. One glance at the shabby figure sitting slumped on an upturned barrel by the kitchen garden gate, and all was made clear to him. Over the years, and at the insistence of her employers, Mrs Beck had come to accept the occasional presence of tramps and vagrants in her kitchen. But she drew the line at gypsies!
‘Hullo, Joe.’ Smiling a greeting, Madden stepped out into the yard, and as he did so, Goram looked up. ‘What brings you back to Highfield?’
‘Beezy, you say? Are you sure? Is it him?’
‘Ah, well, that’s the trouble, sir.’ Goram rubbed his bristly chin. ‘I can’t be sure.’
They sat facing each other across the kitchen table, the remains of a veal and ham pie and an array of empty cider bottles between them. Two hard days on the road had put an edge on Joe Goram’s appetite.
‘We’re camped in Dorset, sir, t’other side of Blandford. I managed to get one or two lifts on the way, but mostly I’ve had to walk.’ He’d told Madden this while they were still outside, in the yard, and it was plain to see from the leaves and twigs clinging to the gypsy’s twill trousers and the grass stains smearing his grimy, collarless shirt that he’d been sleeping rough. Madden had brought him out a cake of soap and a towel to clean up with.
‘We’ll go inside in a moment and have something to eat. You look done in.’
His words had caused the gypsy’s scowl to lift for a moment as his face split in a gap-toothed grin. ‘I reckon I’d better stay where I am, sir. That missus won’t have me in her kitchen, I can tell you.’
‘Oh, yes, she will.’
Madden’s brave words had soon been put to the test. It had taken all of the ten minutes Joe had needed to make himself presentable before Cora Beck could be convinced of the seriousness of her employer’s suggestion and persuaded to lay the kitchen table for two. That done, she had taken leave of the scene, with an injured air, asserting that there was a mountain of ironing awaiting her attention in the laundry.
Goram had already indicated that he bore news and Madden had asked why he hadn’t telephoned the information to him.
‘Can’t say I’ve ever done that, sir.’ Joe had scratched his head. ‘Used the telephone like. Never had cause to. No, I thought I’d better come myself.’
He’d got a lift into Highfield that morning, he said.
‘I looked in at Dr Madden’s rooms, but she weren’t there.’
‘She drove up to London early today.’ Madden had seated his guest at the table. Seeing Joe eye his knife and fork warily, he had swiftly cut their pie into pieces and picked one up himself in his fingers. ‘Do you need to see her, Joe? Are you unwell?’
‘Oh, no, sir, I’m fine.’ The gypsy flushed. ‘It were something else. I had a message for her from Topper.’
‘Topper?’ Madden’s eyebrows rose at the name. ‘Have you seen him?’
‘Aye, just three nights ago. We were sitting round the fire and he walked in out of the dark. I didn’t know it were him at first.’ Joe chuckled. ‘He weren’t wearing his hat.’
‘Did he know you were camped there?’
‘Must have, sir. It’s the same place we stop at every year. There’s a farmer there lets us use his field. Anyway, old Topper asked if I could get a message to Dr Madden for him.’
‘What message?’
Goram’s face darkened. ‘He made me promise I’d keep it a secret,’ he muttered. ‘But I reckon I can tell you, sir. He said to say there was someone with him who was sick and needed help. Mortal sick was how he put it.’
‘And you reckon that could be Beezy?’ Madden leaned forward, his elbows on the table.
‘Well, like I say, I can’t be sure...’ The gypsy grimaced. ‘But it could be, couldn’t it?’ He eyed Madden anxiously. ‘What do you think, sir?’
‘I think you’re right. It’s him. I had a feeling they’d got together again. What did Topper say, exactly?’
‘That as soon as Doctor Madden came over I was to send one of my boys to Boar’s Hill. That’s where Topper is now. It’s not far.’ The gypsy’s scowl grew deeper. ‘He was that sure she’d come.’
‘He was right.’ Madden snorted. ‘But he’s out of luck. She won’t be back till later.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘Blandford, you say. That’s a good three hours away. More if we hit fog. Did Topper tell you what was wrong with his friend?’
Joe shook his head. ‘You know what he’s like, sir, the old sod. Two words is all you get from him, three if you’re lucky. He just said the man was sick and needed help. Didn’t stay more than a minute, either. Just took some food the wife gave him and was on his way.’
Madden pondered the problem. ‘We may have to get this man into hospital, whoever he is,’ he remarked, speaking the thought aloud. His mind was already made up. ‘I’m going to drive you back, Joe,’ he announced. ‘But you’ll have to show me the way to Boar’s Hill when we get there. Are you game?’
‘I reckon so, sir.’ Goram displayed his gap-toothed grin again. Eased of his burden at last, he leaned back in his chair and belched. ‘Long as I’m with you.’
‘And I want to thank you for what you’ve done. It was good of you to come all this way to speak to me.’
‘I said I would. Anything I heard, you’d hear. I gave you my word.’ The gypsy flushed as he spoke, and Madden bowed his head in grave acknowledgement.
‘I know you did, Joe. I’ve not forgotten it.’
‘He said to bring the lady when she came.’ The pale, bearded face was dim in the darkness. ‘Didn’t say nothing about two men.’
�
��I’m Dr Madden’s husband. She wasn’t home when Topper’s message reached me.’ Though he had a lamp with him, Madden kept it out of the man’s eyes. Behind him, Joe Goram clicked his tongue with impatience. ‘It said he needed help. That’s why we’re here.’
Topper’s envoy had been waiting for them, rising silently from a thicket as they approached, and Madden had had a brief glimpse of greasy locks beneath a torn cloth cap before the man ducked away from the light in his face. Looming against the night sky behind him was a dark protuberance in the land covered with trees and tangled bushes which Joe had already identified as Boar’s Hill.
Still short of their ultimate destination, it had taken them many hours to reach the spot, their journey from Highfield having been slowed first by low-lying mist on the road, then by the fading light of late afternoon.
Before leaving home, Madden had scribbled a brief note to Helen, telling her what little he knew himself and saying he hoped to be back before dawn. She would not be pleased to hear that he had involved himself in the case once more, he knew, but he hoped the appeal Topper had sent them would persuade her he’d done the right thing.
Helen would in any case be collecting Rob from school on her way back from London, and since Lucy was spending the afternoon with Belle Burrows, he had had to do no more than ring May and ask her to take charge of their daughter until relief arrived. His final act before departing had been to collect his policeman’s lamp - a souvenir of his days in the force, since appropriated by his son - and to prevail on the long-suffering Mrs Beck to put together a packet of sandwiches and a thermos of tea for them.
‘Mr Goram asked me particularly to thank you for lunch. He says he’s seldom eaten better.’
The variety of emotions struggling for release on their cook’s flushed face had lightened the moment of departure, and Madden had smiled to himself as he glanced at his companion, who by now had given in to exhaustion and was snoring beside him on the passenger seat, his head slumped on his chest.
They had left Highfield soon after two o’clock, but it was six before they crossed the River Stour, having driven through Hampshire into neighbouring Dorset. As they passed through the market town of Blandford Forum, Joe had awoken with a grunt, startled to find himself in a moving vehicle and close to the point from where he’d set out two days before.
Soon, following his passenger’s directions, Madden had left the Dorchester road and for the next two miles had had to pick his way along narrow, hedgerowed lanes, his headlights probing the darkness ahead, until they came to a turn-off onto a muddy track that led to the gypsies’ encampment.
While he’d warmed his hands on the chipped mug of tea which Goram’s wife, a large woman, swarthy like her husband, and sporting a gold earring, offered him, Joe had sketched out the problems that still faced them.
‘It’ll take us a good half-hour to walk out there, sir. Can’t get no closer with a car.’ For his own part, Joe had turned his back on traditional refreshment in favour of a bottle of gin from which he was taking measured pulls, having first offered it to his guest. ‘Topper said there’d be someone looking out for us. We’ll just have to hope that’s so.’
Another potential difficulty had been occupying Madden’s mind, meanwhile. ‘We may have to carry Beezy, or whoever it is, back with us. Bring a knife with you, Joe, in case we need to cut poles for a stretcher.’
His proposal had been welcomed by the gypsy, if not for the reason suggested. When Madden returned from retrieving his lamp from the car he found Goram and his sons examining a pair of cudgels which had made their appearance from the storage lockers underneath the caravans drawn up around the camp fire.
‘What do you want with those?’ he had asked.
‘Thought we’d better take them with us, sir. One knife’s no good between two of us.’ Joe swung the stick he was holding, making it whoosh through the air. ‘It’s got a name, Boar’s Hill...’
‘A name?’
‘Yes, it don’t belong to no one, see. It’s wild land ... common land.’ The gypsy glowered. ‘There’s rough men out there, sir, or so I’ve heard. Aye, and some of them wanted by the police.’
‘No matter. We’re not taking weapons with us.’ Madden was adamant. ‘Leave the sticks behind.’
Though he felt no fear, once they’d set off into the inky blackness beyond the circle of light cast by the fire, Madden quickly lost all sense of direction and had to trust to his guide as he stumbled over rock-strewn slopes and through sharp gullies, finding in the deep quiet around them an eerie reminder of the night patrols he had once made in no-man’s-land, when the darkness might be lit at any moment by a flare overhead and the silence broken by a sniper’s bullet.
Presently they had glimpsed the darker outline of Boar’s Hill ahead of them, and after Madden had flicked his lamp on and off several times, hoping it would be recognized as a signal, Topper’s messenger had materialized.
‘Been waiting here all day,’ he grumbled. ‘You’ll not be welcome, neither one of you.’ He had been shuffling his feet in indecision for some time. Now, without warning, he turned on his heel and strode off, calling over his shoulder as he did so, ‘Well, come if you’re coming.’
They followed him up the hill along a barely marked trail in the brush, and soon the canopy of leaves overhead blocked out whatever light might have come from the sky. While their guide seemed to know his way blindfold and Madden had his lamp, Joe Goram was forced to follow behind in near darkness, and his curses were audible.
‘Bloody tramps, bloody nonsense ...’
At last a glimmer of firelight appeared through the trees ahead and the hillside levelled off into a flatter area. As Madden took stock of the scene, the figure in front of him halted.
‘Stay here now. Don’t move.’
Not waiting to see if his order was obeyed, he continued on towards the firelight. Breathing hard, Goram caught up with Madden and they stood listening as sounds of an altercation broke out ahead of them. Men’s voices were raised in angry argument.
‘Come on, Joe.’ Madden, too, had lost patience. ‘Let’s get this over with.’
They moved on and after only a few paces pushed their way through the bushes into an open space of flattened earth, roughly circular in shape. A fire was burning in the centre of the ring and around it were a crowd of perhaps a dozen bearded and dishevelled men, their guide among them, engaged in fierce debate. Some were on their feet; others were seated on stones scattered about the fire; all seemed to be shouting.
As Madden stepped into the circle of light, silence fell. Hostile faces were turned in his direction and a low mutter ran through the group, growing in volume. One of the seated figures rose, a burly man with grizzled hair, wearing a soiled sheepskin belted at the waist. He advanced on them, wielding a heavy stick.
Goram reached for the knife in his pocket. He was poised to intervene. But Madden forestalled him.
‘Put that down!’
His voice cracked out like a whip above the hubbub and their aggressor stopped in his tracks. The others fell silent.
‘Put it down, I say.’
Tall in his coat and hat, and quite motionless, Madden stood where he was. He made no gesture, but after a moment the man lowered his club and moved away, muttering, to rejoin his companions by the fire. The murmur of voices resumed.
Joe Goram watched open-mouthed. He’d been told Madden’s history, but had never fully accepted it. Now he’d had the proof before his eyes. ‘That were a copper’s voice, all right, if ever I’ve heard one.’ Grinning, he whispered the words to himself, and thought of the tale he’d have to tell his sons later.
Madden, meantime, was looking about him. ‘I’m here to see Topper,’ he called out in clear tones. ‘Can any of you tell me where he is?’
There was no response. The muttering continued.
‘He sent a message to my wife, asking for help—’
‘Your wife?’
The voice came from the shadows tha
t lay at the edge of the circle, outside the fire’s reach. Madden turned his head and saw a tall man, craggy and stoop-shouldered, move forward into the light. Dark, sunken eyes and a strong jaw gave his lean face the stamp of character. His white hair, uncut, was trapped in the collar of an old army greatcoat that fell below his knees. His hands were plunged deep in his pockets.
‘Yes... Dr Madden.’
A murmur greeted the name. Several heads turned. The white-haired man was silent. He seemed to be absorbing the information.
‘Ah, well, that’s different,’ he conceded, after a moment, speaking in an altered tone. He came closer, offering his hand. ‘McBride’s the name.’ He had a marked Scottish accent.
‘John Madden...’ They shook hands. ‘And this is Joe Goram, who showed me the way here.’
McBride turned his dark glance on the gypsy. Despite the turned-up collar of his coat, Madden caught a glimpse of a ragged scar at the base of his neck.
‘You were wanting to see Topper? Well, he’s asleep now.’ McBride nodded towards the shadows from which he’d emerged and Madden made out a blanket-wrapped form stretched out on the ground there. ‘Unconscious, more like it.’ The Scotsman emitted a dry chuckle. ‘He’s been up and awake these past two nights. You’ll not get much sense from him.’
Madden grunted, registering his disappointment. ‘There was someone else I was hoping to talk to,’ he admitted. ‘A friend of his. A man called Beezy. Is he here?’
A hush followed his words. Madden examined the faces around the fire. When he turned his gaze back to McBride he found the Scotsman’s eyes had hardened.
‘John Madden ...’ He ruminated on the name. ‘I’ve heard it said you were once a policeman.’
‘That’s true. But not any more.’
‘You wouldn’t be doing their job now, would you?’
‘It depends what you mean.’ Sensing the challenge coming from the other man, Madden sought to stare him down. But the dark gaze met his without flinching. ‘I’m aware the police are looking for him. But I doubt it’s for murder any longer.’