by Rennie Airth
‘Oh, a good three weeks ago.’
‘And he claimed to be a policeman?’
‘That’s what Evie said.’ Bess reinforced her words with a growl. And the MacGregors, too. He went to their farm first. They said he showed them what looked like a warrant card and wrote down their names and the names of their farmworkers. I asked Bob Leonard to find out who he was but he said he couldn’t have been a real policeman. He even spoke to his headquarters in Petersfield to make sure. They’d never heard of him. Bob said he might have been a burglar on the lookout for a place to rob.’ She saw the expression on Madden’s face. ‘I gather you don’t agree.’
‘He was up to no good, all right. But it sounds more like Quill. This private detective. We know he was looking for a Polish girl. That business of taking down names – that was just a front – a way of finding out if they were employing any foreigners. Of course once he’d met Eva he wouldn’t have had to search any further. It’s odds on he was given a description of her.’
‘By the man she saw in Paris that evening? The same one who killed the girl who worked for you.’
Madden nodded again. Bess had come prepared to take up the cudgels on her friend’s behalf, but after the brief explanation Madden had given, her attitude had changed and she had listened to him attentively.
‘The fact that nothing’s happened since may be a good sign,’ Madden went on. There’s some thought on the part of the police that Quill may not have passed the information on to his client. He was trying to extract as much money as he could from him, stringing out the enquiry. If so, he seems to have paid the price. He was murdered himself two nights ago.’
‘Good God!’ Bess’s face stiffened. ‘What kind of creature are we talking about?’ And when Madden failed to reply – he merely looked at her – she had added, ‘Well, I can see now why you and the police are so concerned. Until this man’s arrested Evie won’t be safe.’
‘That’s what I’ve been trying to tell Mrs Spencer. I should have been more direct. Perhaps you could speak to her … ?’
‘I will. You may depend on it.’ She glanced over her shoulder towards the kitchen. ‘I’ll talk to her as soon as I’ve seen to Pickles.’
Brushing snow from her cheek, Bess turned to where her pony was standing still harnessed to the trap, frosty plumes issuing from his nostrils, and as she did so the door opened and Mary Spencer put her head out.
‘There’s a phone call for you, Mr Madden. It’s a Chief Inspector Sinclair calling from London. He says he’s got some good news.’
When he returned to the kitchen ten minutes later, Madden found Bess sitting alone at the table nursing a cup of tea.
‘Mary’s in the cellar seeing to the furnace,’ she said, nodding to a door at the end of the kitchen which stood open. She sent Evie upstairs to lie down for a while. The poor girl’s exhausted. Mary’s feeling guilty herself. Not only wouldn’t she listen to you when you tried to explain, but she’s failed to offer you anything to eat all day. Do have one.’
She pushed a plate of sandwiches that was lying on the table in front of her towards him.
‘She’s longing to hear your news,’ she added. ‘And so am I.’
The smile that accompanied these words softened her rough-hewn features, which Madden now saw in their entirety for the first time. During his absence Bess had shed not only her coat – revealing a pair of corduroy trousers and a seaman’s thick sweater beneath it – but her fur-lined cap with its earflaps as well. Her hair proved to be iron-grey in colour and cut short.
‘The police have tracked this man down. They know where he’s staying in London.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ She gave a grunt which to Madden’s ears sounded more like a growl. There was a certainty about her solid presence he found reassuring. Her brown eyes held his with a steady gaze.
‘They haven’t laid hands on him yet. But I’m hoping it’s just a matter of time.’
Before he could say more, the sound of Mrs Spencer’s voice came to them from below, through the floor.
‘Freddie, are you down here?’ they heard her call out.‘Are you hiding?’
Glancing out of the window – he’d noticed that the snow had stopped falling – Madden saw a flicker of movement against the white backdrop.
‘He’s out in the yard,’ he told Bess, who looked over her shoulder and then called to Mary Spencer.
‘Freddie’s up here …’
After a few seconds they heard footsteps and their hostess appeared, brushing aside the branch of a Christmas tree which stood in a corner near the cellar door, puffing from the steps she’d just climbed.
‘There you are, Mr Madden.’ Her smile was like a peace offering. Please have something to eat. I feel I’ve been starving you all day.’
She opened the kitchen door and looked out.
‘Come in at once, Freddie,’ she called to her son. ‘I’ve already told you. No more playing outside today. And why haven’t you got your coat on?’
After a pause they heard the squeak of Wellington boots on the snow-covered steps and Freddie appeared, flushed in the face and with eyes that sparkled with mischief.
‘You didn’t see me, Mummy,’ he boasted.
‘Oh yes I did. You were hiding behind the snowman.’
‘Not then. Before.’
‘Before when? Oh, you mean down in the cellar. Of course I saw you. I suppose you went out of the door down there, even though you’ve been told not to. Now I’ll have to go down and lock it again. Honestly, you exhaust me.’
She flopped down on one of the chairs.
‘I’m so ashamed of myself, Mr Madden. I was quite beastly to you earlier, and all you were doing was trying to help. Please forgive me. Bess gave me a good talking to while you were on the phone.’ She smiled. ‘ hardly dare to ask, but is it true? Have you got some good news for us?’
‘Yes and no.’ Madden returned her smile. ‘The police have caught up with this man.’
‘Thank heavens.’ Mary Spencer put a hand to her breast. ‘Does that mean Evie can stay with us?’
‘I’m not sure. They haven’t actually laid hands on him yet. It might be as well not to say anything to her for the time being.’
It was a point Sinclair had stressed when he’d rung to report that the whereabouts of Raymond Ash were no longer a mystery. And to hear from Madden’s lips what he himself had learned in the course of the past half-hour.
‘I’m sorry if I have to disrupt their Christmas, John, but we can’t take any chances. Not after what you’ve told me. It’s obvious Quill found the girl. That must have been him asking questions down there. What we don’t know – still – is whether he told Ash.’
Nevertheless, on balance the latest developments had inclined the chief inspector towards optimism and he was now in a far more cheerful frame of mind.
‘He’s come down to roost in Lambeth this time, Mr Raymond Ash. I’ve just heard from the station there. And he didn’t move far: just up the road from Brixton. He registered as Henry Pratt at a boarding house off the Stockwell Road last Monday and his new landlady swears it’s him. She didn’t recognize him from the photograph published by the papers, but when they showed her a blow-up of Ash’s face she changed her mind. Unfortunately he’s out at the moment; he left early this morning. But the place is being watched by the local police and I’ve got four armed detectives on their way over there.’
‘What about Billy and Grace?’ Madden asked. As before, he had stood by the window looking out; though now at a changed scene. Gone were the footprints he had seen earlier on the path leading up to the house. The snow that had fallen had covered all trace of them.
‘I’d half a mind to recall them,’ Sinclair had replied. But they were past Leatherhead already and after some thought I decided to let them proceed. If we haven’t laid hands on Ash by the time they get to Liphook they’ll have to bring the girl back. Let’s wait and see, shall we?’
Despite having his hands fu
ll, the chief inspector had paused long enough to add a few more details to the brief state of play he’d given his old colleague.
The detectives I’ve sent over will wait for Ash inside the boarding house. I don’t want him spotting them. I’ve supplied them with a search warrant and they can have a look at his room while they’re waiting. I’m still hoping we’ll get our hands on something, some piece of evidence that will tie him to at least one of these killings.’
Sinclair had saved till last his news about the van bringing the Petersfield police contingent to Liphook.
‘They went into a ditch, if you can believe it. One of them had to walk to a neighbouring farmhouse to ring headquarters. Apparently the farmer’s going to pull them out with his carthorse. They’ll arrive in due course. Oh, and I spoke to Helen. She said Rob had just got back and now you were the only absentee. I told her she needn’t worry about there being no trains to get you home: Styles can drop you off at Highfield when he and Grace return to London.’
30
AT HALF-PAST FOUR, having received no further word from Sinclair, Madden went outside to look at the weather. The fresh snow that had fallen earlier had blanketed the yard and he saw the deep tracks crossing it that Mary Spencer and her son had left when they had walked up to the Hodges’ cottage ten minutes earlier.
Persuaded that the crisis was all but over now – the information Madden had relayed to her had done much to lift her spirits – she had decided to pay her Christmas call on the old couple as planned and had taken her son with her.
‘Bess will you keep you company,’ she told Madden.
In keeping with the festive spirit, before setting out she had got Freddie to turn on the lights of the Christmas tree, and they had all watched as he got down on his knees and crawled underneath the drooping branches of the fir to find the switch.
‘Well done, Freddie.’
Twinkling prettily among the green branches, the coloured bulbs had added a further note of cheer to what was now a more relaxed atmosphere.
‘I don’t want to disturb Evie for the moment,’ Mrs Spencer had added before leaving. ‘ looked in on her a minute ago and she was fast asleep. Better she gets some rest now, don’t you think?’
Madden glanced at his watch. All being well, and provided the snow held off, the car with Billy and Grace in it would arrive in less than half an hour and from that point on matters could be left in their hands. His own part in the drama of the past few weeks would be over; and none too soon. Not even the imminent arrest of the man they had been seeking, this cold-blooded killer, could assuage the deep grief which the revelations of the afternoon had brought him. The senselessness of Rosa Nowak’s death had left him with a feeling of despair, of helplessness in the face of destiny. But could even fate be held to blame, he wondered? No inexorable chain of events had led to the young girl’s murder. Chance alone had decreed it. Cruel chance.
Yet black though his mood was, he knew where the cure for it lay, and as he turned to go inside, he took refuge in the thought that his business here would soon be done and that before long he would return home, to the house where he had found his own happiness, and where all those he loved were gathered now under the same roof for the first time in many months.
‘You must come over to Highfield in the New Year and visit us,’ he told Bess when he went back into to the kitchen. ‘Helen would love to see you again.’
‘Do you think so?’ Left by their hostess with the task of preparing some mulled wine, she was standing by the stove stirring a saucepan, and she flushed with pleasure on hearing his words. ‘I’ve been thinking about her ever since we met this morning, remembering those days.’
‘You must come and spend a weekend.’
She smiled and then bent to sniff at the aroma of spices rising from the saucepan.
‘Do you know, this takes me back. I was a FANY during the war – the last one, not this one – and whenever we got hold of a bottle of wine we’d gather in one of the tents and warm it up with whatever we could find. Then we’d get tipsy together.’
‘A FANY … I might have guessed,’ Madden chuckled. He’d seated himself at the table. ‘We thought the world of you ladies. The way you dashed about the Front in your ambulances.’
‘Ha!’ Bess scoffed at his words. But her glance had turned inward and for a moment she stood lost in memory, her face damp from the steam that rose from the bubbling saucepan.
‘We did think of it as an adventure,’ she admitted, after a pause. ‘At first. We were so determined to be jolly. We kept telling each other these were the best days of our lives. But they weren’t really. It’s one thing to read about war; it’s quite another to see it in the flesh. When it was over, when I came home, I was convinced it would never happen again, the carnage: that men would never inflict such suffering on each other again, no matter what the cause. How wrong I was …’
She turned her blunt, weathered countenance towards him. Madden saw the question in her eyes before she asked it.
‘This man the police are searching for – who is he?’
‘Ash is his name, though he’s used others in the past.’
‘I take it he’s no ordinary criminal?’
It was clear she expected an honest reply, and Madden hesitated for only a moment before responding.
‘Far from it. He’s an assassin. A killer for hire. The police have known about him for years: he left a string of victims on the Continent before the war. Once he broke into a house in France and massacred a whole family. He’d been paid to kill the husband but when the others – the man’s wife and daughter – saw him he shot them too. He’s gone to great lengths all his life to hide his identity: not to leave any witnesses behind. That’s why he wanted to kill Evie, and still would if he got the chance. She’s the one person who can send him to the scaffold.’
He paused. Impressed by the strength of character he sensed in her, he’d been carried away and he wondered for a moment if he’d said too much; spoken too brutally. But when he met her level gaze he realized his fears were groundless. She had taken in what he’d said without flinching.
‘It’s always a shock to find out such people exist.’ She spoke after a short pause. She’d been weighing her response. And hard to understand how they continue to live in their own skins. To breathe like ordinary human beings.’ She shook her head. ‘He must have no feelings.’
‘None at all,’ Madden concurred. Only a black heart. That’s how a woman who knew him when he was a boy described him to me. He was sixteen when he killed for the first time.’
‘Dear God.’ She put a hand to her brow.
‘But he’s come to the end of his rope. They’re closing in on him. It won’t be long now.’
With a sigh she turned back to the stove. But before she could resume her task the peal of the telephone sounded and she cocked an ear.
‘That must be for you.’
‘The plot thickens.’
Sinclair didn’t trouble to announce himself this time. He began speaking as soon as Madden picked up the receiver.
‘No sign of Ash himself yet. He’s still out and about. But we’ve learned that he may have disguised himself. It’s possible he’s wearing a military uniform.’
The chief inspector broke off to mutter something not meant for his auditor. Madden caught the words ‘be quick’ and do it now’. Either by chance, or as a result of orders given to the telephone exchange operators, the line was exceptionally clear.
‘The detectives I sent over to Lambeth have searched his room. They didn’t find anything incriminating, but what they did discover suggests he’s up to something. Before we get to that, let me tell you what his movements have been over the past few days. He turned up in Lambeth last Monday. Quill was murdered two days later and Ash’s new landlady confirms he was out late that night. The following day he was absent again – she only caught glimpses of him coming and going – and when he got back he had a big parcel with him, contents unknown.
But we do have a clue as to what might have been in it.’
Again Sinclair paused and Madden heard him mutter. He waited patiently, the receiver pressed to his ear. The light outside the sitting-room window had dulled since his last call, and already he could see the faint outlines of his own reflection in the glass of the window-pane.
‘I’m sorry, John. With Christmas almost on us we’re even shorter-staffed than usual. I’m trying to do several things at once. This parcel, then: we suspect it might have contained a military uniform and that Ash may be wearing it now. His landlady’s our source for that. Mrs Cully, her name is, and she’s a classic of her kind. Not just curious, downright nosy. She can’t make head nor tail of this Mr Pratt. He never appears for either breakfast or supper and thus far they’ve hardly exchanged a word. The best she’s been able to do is have a good poke round his room on the pretext of cleaning it, and when our fellows turned up today she was able to tell them she’d seen two suits hanging in the wardrobe when she’d peeped in. Ash had gone out that day wearing another suit, so it was a matter of simple addition to calculate he had three, and they were all there in the wardrobe when our men looked through it, plus the hat which Mrs Cully had seen him with earlier.’
‘So he must have been wearing some other clothes, what he had in that parcel, most likely. Yes, I see.’ Madden spoke. ‘But what makes you think it was a uniform?’
‘Again, we’ve the eagle-eyed Mrs Cully to thank. She was still in bed this morning when she heard footsteps on the stairs. Someone was tiptoeing down them, and that was enough to get her up and over to the window in a flash. She caught a glimpse of an officer going down the steps outside: she only saw his back, worse luck – his greatcoat and cap – but she had no lodger of that description staying there and, as she rather primly put it, no young ladies of the kind who might think of entertaining a gentleman for the night. Which anyway was against the rules. In the course of the morning she observed her other guests departing, but there was no sign of Ash, and later she went upstairs to knock on his door on some pretext and found the room empty. So it looks as though this mysterious officer must have been our man.’