Dead of Winter

by Rennie Airth

  The chief inspector paused, either to catch his breath or to reflect on his own words.

  ‘It’s not surprising, after all,’ he went on. We know he’s disguised himself in the past. That was mentioned in the report Duval sent us. What puzzles me is why – why put himself to so much trouble? He’ll have to go back to his lodgings at some point and he won’t want to be seen dressed up as a soldier boy. Could it be because he’s feeling more exposed since we published that picture of him?’

  The question was clearly rhetorical: he continued without pause.

  ‘There’s not much more to tell. Only a riddle to ponder. I haven’t mentioned this yet, but the men I sent over came on something odd when they searched his room, an item Mrs Cully said wasn’t there when she went through it. It was a first-aid kit of the kind air-raid wardens carry around with them in their satchels. They’ve become war surplus; I’m told you can buy them at any of these markets that have sprung up. The one in Ash’s room had been torn open and there was a dressing missing.’

  ‘A dressing?’

  ‘A bandage and so forth. They found the empty packet it had been in. I wondered if he’d been injured. Could he have got into a fight with Quill the other night? There was no indication of it at the scene.’

  Sinclair paused, perhaps hoping Madden might offer some suggestion, but when he remained silent he went on:

  ‘I had word from Styles not long ago. He and Grace aren’t far from Liphook. But it’s slow going. There’s a lot of snow on the roads. I haven’t heard from Petersfield again, but I dare say the men they sent will get there eventually. Once everyone’s assembled we can have another council of war. You can tell Mrs Spencer that. Say nothing’s decided as yet. I don’t want to drag this young woman up to London unnecessarily.’

  ‘A bandage, you say … ?’ As though in a trance, Madden had been staring at his own reflection in the window-pane.

  ‘That’s right.’ It took the chief inspector a few seconds to realize what his old colleague was referring to. ‘A dressing from the first-aid kit. Why … ?’

  ‘There was a man with his eye bandaged up on the train this morning. An army officer.’

  Sinclair grunted. At first he seemed unsure how to respond.

  ‘I take it you didn’t recognize him?’ he finally asked.

  ‘Oh, no. In fact, I hardly looked at his face. He got off the train behind me and I gave him a hand down.’

  The chief inspector cleared his throat. Though his old partner’s powers of recollection never ceased to amaze him, his ability to retrieve even the most trivial details from the well of memory, he felt bound in this instance to question the assumption he seemed to be making.

  ‘Aren’t you rather leaping to conclusions, John? After all, a wounded soldier is hardly a rarity these days.’

  ‘It wasn’t that. It was something else.’ Madden spoke in a dead voice. ‘I remember it now. He didn’t return a salute. Two, in fact.’

  ‘I’m sorry … ?

  ‘A pair of privates walked by as he got off the train and saluted him. He looked right through them. No real officer would do that. You respond automatically. It’s drilled into you. I should know – I was one myself.’

  Sinclair allowed a few seconds to pass.

  ‘Very well. Let’s say for argument’s sake that you’re right. Why the elaborate disguise?’

  ‘If it was Ash, he would have travelled on that line often, working as a salesman. Perhaps he was afraid of being recognized by one of the ticket collectors. He must know by now that his description’s been circulated, that every policeman in the country is looking for him.’

  ‘You’re suggesting Quill gave him the information, then? That he knows where the girl’s living?’

  Madden said nothing. For the past few minutes he had been watching the light fade on the snow outside.

  ‘But that means he arrived in Liphook this morning, when you did, yet there’s been no sign of him. What’s he been doing all day?’

  ‘I don’t know, Angus. I don’t even know if it was Ash. But he may have been waiting for dark.’

  He broke off to call out loudly over his shoulder.

  ‘Bess … ! Bess … ! Can you get in here?’

  When he spoke again it was to the chief inspector.

  ‘Look, we can’t take the risk. I’m going to lock up the house. If you can reach Billy tell him to hurry.’

  ‘Wait a minute, John—’

  ‘No, I can’t, Angus, not now.’ He heard the sound of Bess’s heavy steps approaching. ‘There’s no time.’

  31

  SHE BURST IN.

  ‘John—?’

  ‘Ash may be here in Liphook.’ He saw her gasp. ‘I’m worried about Mrs Spencer and her son. How far away is the Hodges’ cottage?’

  ‘About a quarter of a mile.’

  ‘Have they a telephone?’

  She shook her head. But Mary won’t be back for at least an hour. Mrs H will want to serve them tea.’

  ‘I’m going to lock up the house. How many doors are there?’

  ‘Let me see.’ She had taken in the situation at once. Her voice was steady. ‘ from the kitchen and the front door there are two others at either end of the house. You can reach them by the passage. They may be already locked. Mary’s careful about that.’

  ‘I’ll check them. You fetch Eva. Get her down here.’

  They parted at once, Bess heading for the hall where the stairs were, while Madden ran down the passage in the opposite direction to the end of the house, where he found a study with a door giving on to the garden. It was locked, as Bess had said, but he spent a minute shifting a heavy table across the floor and planting it in front of the door to provide an additional barrier.

  Running back he stopped at the kitchen, where he first made sure of the door, turning the key in it twice, then switched off the lights. The window above the sink offered a good view of the yard, and he stood there for a few seconds scanning the white-blanketed cobbles outside. The tracks Mrs Spencer and her son had left in the pristine surface were easy to follow: they went from the door to the end of the line of stalls at the back of the yard before disappearing around the corner. His breathing became easier when he realized they were the only footmarks to be seen.

  Back in the corridor he stopped in the hall to check the front door. It was locked, but he noticed it also had a bolt higher up and he slid that into its slot. The light on the landing above had been switched on and he could hear Bess’s voice urging Eva to hurry. His own destination was now the room at the other end of the passage, which he reached within a few seconds, only to find it filled with unwanted furniture that obstructed his path to the door which was at the side of the house. Having picked his way there, he discovered it was locked, but took the same precaution as he had in the study, this time choosing a bookcase that was standing nearby as a further barrier. Given the cluttered state of the floor, the task was an awkward one, and it was several minutes before he was able to manoeuvre the heavy oak piece into place.

  His job done, he hurried back, and when he came to the hall he found that the light on the landing above had been switched off, a sign that Bess and Eva must have come down. But before joining them in the sitting-room, he stopped off again at the kitchen – he wanted to make a further inspection of the yard – and as he entered the room he heard a low rustling noise he could not place at first until he realized it was coming from the saucepan Bess had been stirring earlier: the liquid inside had come to the boil. Stopping by the stove, he paused long enough to shift the heavy pot to one side of the range, first drawing on his gloves so that he could grasp the hot handle, then went to the window and looked out.

  What he saw there sent a chill through him.

  In the few minutes he’d been away a fresh set of footprints had appeared in the snow. They led from the gate straight to the back door. Whoever had made them had tried to get in. Or so it seemed to Madden as he quickly tested the door and found it still locked
. The tracks led off in the direction of the woodbin, but although he leaned over the sink and peered that way he was unable to see how far they went. To do so he would have had to open the door and look out, an act he was unwilling even to contemplate. If it was Ash, and he was lurking just out of sight on the other side of the woodbin, the action might well prove fatal to him.

  There was nothing he could do except pray that the police car would arrive soon, within minutes even. But then another thought came to him, a frightening image that sent him racing down the passage to the sitting-room. If Ash was circling the house searching for a way in, he would see Bess and Eva through the window, and if the Polish girl offered him a target he might well take the opportunity to shoot her.

  But the room, when he reached it, was empty.

  There was no sign of either woman.

  Where were they, then? Still on the floor above?

  Panting, Madden stood in the doorway, his mind racing.

  He wondered if Bess had seen the same tracks as he had from the window of Eva’s bedroom – or, even worse, spotted Ash crossing the yard – and decided to stay upstairs. But if so, why hadn’t she tried to warn him?

  Racking his brains for an answer he switched off the light at the door and went to the window. There was no sign of any footprint on the terrace outside, no indication that Ash had walked round the house.

  So where was he now?

  What was he planning?

  With no weapon of any kind, Madden felt doubly exposed. But as he turned to leave, an idea struck him, and he went to the fireplace and reached up above it to where the shield and assegai were fixed. With a sharp wrench he pulled the spear free, and with its comforting weight now nestling in his hand he returned to the passage and set off in the direction of the hall.

  His intention was to go upstairs and find out what had happened to the two women. But he got only as far as the kitchen door, then froze, stopping in his tracks.

  Something was different … something had changed.

  Madden felt the hairs on his neck rise.

  Struggling to understand what it was that had made him halt, he caught a whiff of the spiced wine coming from the saucepan on the stove. Steam was rising from the pot. It was being borne to him on a breeze, he realized, a cool wind that brushed against his cheek, and with a flash of insight he knew this couldn’t be.

  Stepping into the kitchen, he swept the room with his gaze and saw at once where the breeze was coming from: at the far end of the kitchen, behind the coloured lights of the Christmas tree, the door to the cellar stood open.

  Madden stared at it. He remembered what Mary Spencer had said: that she would have to go down to the cellar again because her son had left the door to the yard open.

  But she’d failed to do that.

  Ash was in the house.

  The shock was like a physical pain and he turned quickly, half-fearing to find that the soft-footed killer had crept up behind him, his garrotte ready. But the passage was empty: and since he knew that Ash could not have gone in the direction of the sitting-room – or else they would have met – that left only the hall where the stairs were.

  He started towards them at once, straining to hear any sound as he tiptoed down the carpeted passage. The hall was in half-darkness: there was a light still burning in the passage and he saw it reflected in a small pool of water on the stoneflagged floor near the stairs, moisture that could only have come from the snow outside.

  He paused then. There was still no sound from above, but the silence there was filled with menace and for a moment his heart failed him. He knew the danger that lay in wait for him and how much he stood to lose. In the past, when his life had hung by a thread in the endless slaughter of the trenches, he had learned like others to view his future, if any, with the eye of a fatalist. But those days were long gone. His love for the woman he had married, like some wondrous plant, had flowered into other loves, and now every moment of his life seemed precious to him.

  But it was not in his nature to turn from the threat, nor even to wait the few minutes it might take for the police to arrive. Somewhere on the floor above him were two women in imminent peril, and though his fear stayed with him, he put it aside, as he had learned to do when he’d been a soldier. He considered the danger confronting him with a clear mind.

  There was no point in ascending the stairs himself. If Ash was waiting in the passage off the landing above, pistol in hand, he would simply provide him with a target. The silence on the upper floor persuaded him that the killer was still searching for his primary victim, for Eva, going from room to room. One or other of the women must have seen him climbing the stairs in his officer’s uniform; now both were hiding and it was only a matter of time before Ash found them.

  Unless he could be diverted.

  At once his strategy became clear to him. He must draw the killer away, downstairs, if possible out into the yard – and then hope that the police car would arrive and Ash would be dealt with. Either way there was no time to lose.

  At the bottom of the stairs was a cloakroom where he had seen Mary Spencer hang her son’s coat earlier that afternoon. The door was open a few inches, and for a brief moment Madden toyed with the idea of concealing himself there and attempting to seize Ash when he came running down the stairs (as he hoped he would). But the plan seemed rash – he had no idea whether he could overpower the younger man, who in any case was inured to violence – and he dismissed it. Instead he positioned himself at the bottom of the flight, assegai in hand.

  ‘Ash!’ He roared out the name. ‘Raymond Ash. I have a warrant for your arrest. Drop your weapon if you have one and give yourself up.’

  His last words echoed in the empty hall. Expecting his quarry to appear at any moment on the landing above, he prepared to run.

  There was silence for several seconds. Then a faint sound reached his ears. The stirring of movement. It came from the floor above and he peered up there.

  A hinge squeaked.

  This time the noise came from closer at hand, but Madden’s attention was so riveted to the scene above, his concentration so fixed on the few square feet of the landing, that only when something like a shadow passed before his eyes – it was no more than a flicker – did he react; and then only instinctively.

  He thrust his gloved hand upwards and in that fraction of a second saved his life.

  As the wire cut into his palm he realized in an instant what had happened: Ash had been hiding in the coat cupboard behind him and was set on killing him now.

  Like two drunks they staggered about the stone-flagged floor, Madden roaring in his chest with the pain and with the effort he was making to fling off the man behind him, who equally clung to his garrotte, growling unintelligibly himself. First they thudded into the wall, then into the front door before ricocheting off that to a table that stood at the side of the hall with a brass tray on it. Knocked off its perch, the tray fell to the floor with a noise like a gong being struck. And throughout the eternity of seconds that passed as they writhed together, Madden kept trying to strike at his foe with the assegai, which he still held clutched in his right hand, thrusting backwards with the short stabbing spear, while his left held the wire at bay. Little by little, though, the pressure was choking him and he felt himself weakening.

  Through bleary, tear-filled eyes, he saw two figures appear then, as if by magic, on the stairs, Bess in the lead, her heavy boots pounding on the carpeted runners, Eva at her heels. The sight galvanized him into one last effort. Seeing his attacker’s foot on the floor just behind and a little to one side of him, he drove the tip of the assegai into the instep with all his strength and was rewarded with a cry of pain. The band of fire at his throat slackened, and before Ash had time to recover he repeated the action and then threw himself backwards, sending his attacker crashing into the table again. All at once the wire loosened, and as they rolled apart Madden saw that Bess had reached the bottom of the stairs and was coming to his aid.

&n
bsp; ‘Run!’ he croaked to her. ‘Run!’ He had lost his assegai as he tried to scramble to his feet. He saw Ash was doing the same, fumbling in the pocket of his greatcoat as he got to his knees. But his own strength was gone: he knew he couldn’t tackle him again. ‘To the kitchen – !’

  Whether Bess heard his choked cry he never knew, but she turned at once and grabbed hold of Eva’s hand. The girl was standing at the bottom of the stairs, paralysed by fright, unable to move, it seemed, until Bess jerked her into motion and then dragged her in the direction of the passage. Unsteady though he was, Madden began to stagger after them, but his feet struck the tray that had fallen to the floor and as he stumbled and almost fell, a shot rang out and he felt the sting of plaster on his face. A bullet had struck the wall beside him and he looked back. Ash had risen to one knee and was taking aim with the pistol.

  Madden threw himself forward into the passage as he fired, landing on his hands and knees, then picked himself up and staggered down the corridor to the open door of the kitchen where Bess was waiting like some burly guardian angel. She swept him inside, slamming the door shut behind them as she switched on the light, then cursing when she found there was no key in the lock.

  Still gasping for breath, Madden seized one of the chairs by the table. Out of the corner of his eye he saw that Eva had fallen full-length on to the floor. Wide-eyed with shock, she was trying to pull herself up using the edge of the table. As Bess pressed her heavy shoulder to the door he slid the back of the chair beneath the doorknob. Before he could wedge it there, however, there was a muffled report and splinters of wood were blasted inwards from a hole that appeared suddenly. Another shot sounded and Bess clutched at her temple, the blood leaking through her fingers. She stumbled back into the big iron range behind her.

  Next moment the door swung open, knocking the chair sideways, and Ash stood there, pistol raised. Seeing Madden, he swivelled to point the weapon at him, not realizing until it was too late that the danger was coming from another quarter. Bess had seized hold of the saucepan of mulled wine off the top of the range and as Ash turned his gun on her she hurled the boiling contents into his face. His scream of agony was accompanied by the sound of another shot and Bess fell to her knees. The saucepan clattered to the floor with her, and without thinking Madden bent and picked it up by its handle, rising in the same movement and swinging the heavy iron vessel around. He caught a glimpse of Ash’s face, blistered red and contorted with pain, before the saucepan connected with the side of his head and he reeled back, dropping the gun as he did so and clawing at his face. Grabbing hold of the handle with both hands now, Madden struck him again, bringing the makeshift weapon down on top of his head like a club.