by Rennie Airth
The Blood-Dimmed Tide
( John Madden - 2 )
Rennie Airth
The Blood-Dimmed Tide
The Blood-dimmed tide
Rennie Airth
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned
W. B. Yeats, ‘The Second Coming’
PART ONE
1
Only chance brought the Maddens to Brookham that day.
Earlier, they had driven over to Reigate to attend a luncheon party and in the normal course of events would have returned directly by the main road to Guildford. But the fine weather had tempted them to break their journey in order to climb a narrow bridle path that led up the steep slopes of Colley Hill to the top of the North Downs.
It was a walk they had made many times before – the view from the crest was justly famous – and for more than an hour they had strolled arm in arm in the late summer sunshine, pausing now and then to gaze out over a wide sweep of southern England, a patchwork of fields and hedgerows and woods extending to the distant horizon.
A land at peace in that year of 1932.
By the time they returned to their car, however, the afternoon was well advanced and they had found the main road clogged with slow-moving Sunday drivers out for a spin. It was then they had decided to make a detour and to return home by quiet back lanes.
Madden had driven with one eye on the road ahead and the other on the darkening sky. A bank of clouds had been massing in the west for some time, and although the harvest was over and the haymaking done, a hailstorm now would do costly damage to crops of vegetables still ripening in the fields.
Glancing up through the windshield, he might have driven past the line of cottages without noticing anything was amiss if Helen hadn’t touched his arm.
‘John! Look-’
They were passing through a small hamlet called Brookham, still a few miles from home. A group of men had gathered in front of one of the cottages in the row. Some were in the garden, others outside the fence. An air of expectancy hung over them.
Madden stopped the car.
‘What is it, do you think?’ Helen was a doctor and her first thought had been that her services might be needed.
Madden made no reply. The scene struck a chord in his memory. It had a grim familiarity, albeit one he hadn’t encountered for many years.
At that moment the door of the cottage opened and the uniformed figure of a police constable emerged from within. Tall in his helmet, he towered over the men before him.
‘Good lord!’ Helen gasped in astonishment. ‘It’s Will!’
Will Stackpole was the village bobby at Highfield, where they lived.
‘What on earth’s he doing over here?’
Unwilling to hazard a guess, Madden simply shook his head.
But already he felt the chill of premonition.
The child’s name was Alice, Will Stackpole told them. Alice Bridger. She and a friend had set out shortly before midday to walk to the neighbouring village of Craydon, little more than a mile away, along a path bordering the road that linked the two.
‘They were going to have lunch with a friend there and then all three of them were going to a birthday party later.’
Catching sight of Madden and Helen as they got out of their car, the constable had left the group of men and crossed the road at once to speak to them, his forehead grooved with worry. He had made no secret of his relief at seeing them.
It seemed that Alice, recently turned twelve, and her friend, a girl named Sally Drake, had got only halfway to their destination when Sally realized that she’d forgotten to bring the birthday present her mother had wrapped for her that morning – it was a box of homemade fudge – and had dashed back to Brookham to fetch it, leaving Alice at a point on the path where it ran alongside a stretch of densely forested land known as Capel Wood.
They had agreed that Alice would wait for her there, Sally said later, but when she got back – after not more than ten minutes – there was no sign of her friend. Thinking she must have decided to continue without her, Sally had gone on to Craydon herself, only to discover that Alice hadn’t arrived at their friend’s house and no one had seen her.
‘The family rang the Bridgers and Fred walked over to Craydon himself, looking for his daughter,’ Stackpole told the Maddens. ‘He’s the dairy manager on a big farm hereabouts. Anyway, they were going to ring the local bobby when they remembered he was away on leave, so they got in touch with me, since I was next nearest. That was three hours ago.’
As the constable was speaking, thunder rumbled in the distance. Meanwhile, the men gathered across the road had turned to watch them and Helen saw that their glances were directed towards her husband. Before their marriage Madden had been a policeman himself – a Scotland Yard inspector – and his name and reputation were widely known in the area.
‘There’s been no shortage of volunteers wanting to help,’ Stackpole said, mopping his brow. With the approach of the storm the air had grown still. ‘We’ve been up and down the road, searching the fields on either side, and the wood, as well, but there’s no sign of the lass. All we found was her gift.’
‘Her gift?’ Helen asked.
‘The present she was taking for the birthday child. A pair of mittens wrapped in coloured paper. It was lying in a ditch by the path, near to where the other girl left her.’
Helen glanced at her husband. Madden had shown no reaction so far. He’d simply listened. ‘Where are the Bridgers?’ she asked.
‘Fred helped with the search, but he’s gone to join his wife now. Some of the women have been keeping her company. That’s their cottage.’ The constable gestured behind him. He wiped his brow again. The strain of the past three hours was beginning to show.
‘Has her doctor been notified, Will? Brookham’s in David Rowley’s practice, I think.’
‘He turned up half an hour ago and gave her a sedative. Then announced he’d be on the golf course, if needed.’ Stackpole’s lip twitched.
‘He won’t be there much longer,’ Helen remarked as lightning streaked the advancing clouds, followed by another rolling boom of thunder. ‘I’ll go and see her myself.’ But increasingly uneasy, she stayed where she was, her arm linked with her husband’s, unwilling to leave him now.
‘Is there anything I can do, Will?’ Madden spoke for the first time. He, too, was aware of the glances being directed at him. He had already nodded to one or two of the men whom he knew by sight.
‘Thank you, sir, but I’ve rung Guildford and they’re sending reinforcements. It looks as though we’ll have to widen the search area.’
‘What about detectives?’ Madden’s scowl was unconscious. It signalled his concern.
‘I’ve asked for them, and I’m told a couple of plain-clothes men are coming.’ Stackpole grimaced in turn as he caught the other man’s eye. ‘Ah, there’s nothing worse in this job, is there, sir? Nothing so bad as a child gone missing. All we can do is put out the word to other stations and keep looking.’
Distressed though she felt, Helen was relieved to hear that her husband wouldn’t be needed. She pressed his arm. ‘I’ll go and see how Mrs Bridger’s doing,’ she said, but just then her attention was caught by something she saw on the other side of the road, and she paused. The front door of a cottage near the end of the row had opened and a sandy-haired man had come outside. He was looking about him in an agitated manner.
‘Isn’t that Dick Henshaw?’ she asked. ‘He and Molly used to live in Highfield. She was a patient of mine.’
Stackpole glanced round, and as he did so the man caught sight of him and hastened in their direction. ‘That’s Dick, all
right.’ The constable frowned. ‘Now what’s this about, I wonder?’
He moved away and the two met in the middle of the road. Taller by a head, Stackpole had to bend to listen to what the other man was saying. They stood like that for perhaps two minutes while Madden and his wife watched from beside their car.
Abruptly, the constable wheeled and came striding back to them.
‘It seems I’m going to need your help after all, sir.’ He spoke to Madden in a low, controlled voice, but there was no disguising the urgency of his manner.
‘What is it, Will? What’s happened?’ Helen’s fingers tightened on her husband’s arm.
‘I’ll tell you in a moment, Miss Helen. But could you come with me now, both of you? Just move away quietly. I don’t want that lot over the road getting wind of this.’
Accompanied by Henshaw, they walked up the lane to the end of the line of cottages and then, following the constable’s lead, joined a path that went around the back of the houses. As soon as they were out of sight of the men, Stackpole halted.
‘Run along and tell Molly we’re coming, Dick. And mind you keep this quiet now.’
He waited for Henshaw to move out of earshot. But Helen couldn’t contain her anxiety.
‘What is it, Will?’ she whispered. ‘What’s this about?’
The constable shook his head in frustration. ‘I can’t say for sure. All I know is there’s an old friend of yours sitting in Molly Henshaw’s kitchen and he’s acting strange.’ He eyed them meaningfully. ‘It’s Topper,’ he said.
Helen’s eyebrows rose at the name. She glanced at her husband. ‘I didn’t know he was back. We’ve been expecting him for weeks. I was starting to get worried.’
‘Has he seen the girl?’ Madden asked urgently.
‘That’s just it, sir. I don’t know…’ Stackpole’s face was grim. ‘There’s some business about a shoe. Molly’ll tell us more. But the thing is, he’s gone silent. She can’t get a word out of him. Now you know old Topper. One sniff of a police uniform and he’ll close up tighter than a clam. So what I was wondering, sir, is would you try? See if you can get him to open up.’
As he waited for an answer, thunder boomed out again, louder than before, and the afternoon light dimmed still further.
‘I’ll try if you want me to, Will,’ Madden said, after a pause. He sounded dubious. ‘But you’ve got the wrong person.’ Smiling, he glanced at his wife. ‘Helen’s the one to ask. If he’ll talk to anyone he’ll talk to her.’
2
‘Thank Goodness you’ve come, Will.’ Molly Henshaw’s plump, motherly features were flushed with distress. Before Stackpole had even unlatched the gate she appeared at the back door of the cottage, with her husband behind her, and came hurrying across the bricked yard to meet them. ‘I can’t keep old Topper sitting still any longer. He’s all for running off. Dr Madden…!’ Her face lit up when she saw Helen and she bobbed her head in greeting.
‘Molly, dear! How are you? What a dreadful business this is.’ Helen took her hand. ‘Have you met my husband?’
Molly Henshaw’s reply was drowned in a clap of thunder. Stackpole glanced anxiously at the heavens.
‘Quick now, love, before we go inside – tell us about this shoe. Did Topper give it to you?’
‘Give it me?’ She appeared not to understand the question.
‘Of his own accord?’ Madden spoke for the first time, and she stared at him as though she had not yet taken in his tall, commanding presence.
‘Oh, I see what you mean – yes, sir, he did.’ She nodded vigorously. ‘He knocked on the door – it must have been half an hour ago – and I asked him in. We know Topper, Dick and I.’ She nodded to her husband beside her. ‘He’s been coming to these parts for years, usually in the summer. If there’s something needs doing in the garden he’ll lend a hand, otherwise I’ll just give him a meal and a cup of tea. He never says much. Sometimes you don’t get a murmur out of him. But he likes to sit here with us. I reckon he knows he’s welcome.’
‘The shoe, Molly,’ Stackpole urged her.
Mrs Henshaw bit her lip. She wiped her hands nervously on her apron. ‘I could see he was bothered about something as soon as I opened the door, but I wasn’t surprised, not with all the fuss going on. I brought him inside and right away he went and sat down in the corner. Then I noticed he was carrying something in his hands, both hands, and when he held them out to me I saw what it was…’
‘A child’s shoe?’
She gave the barest nod.
‘Do you know that it belongs to Alice?’
‘Oh, no, not for sure.’ She swallowed. ‘But Jenny Bridger brought her a new pair only the other day. Alice came and showed them to me. They were shiny black with pearl buttons on the straps, just like the one Topper brought.’
‘But he wouldn’t say where he’d found it?’
‘No, nor anything else.’ Molly Henshaw dabbed at a teary eye. ‘So I gave him a cup of tea to keep him occupied and ran outside to look for Dick.’
‘We’d just come back from the fields, Will, and I saw Molly waving to me.’ Her husband took up the story. ‘She told me what had happened and I went in to see Topper myself, tried to get him to talk. But it were no good. He wouldn’t say a word. So I came to fetch you.’ Noticing the tears that were coming down his wife’s cheeks now, Henshaw put his arm around her shoulders. ‘There, there, old girl,’ he said gruffly. ‘Don’t take on now.’
Stackpole caught Helen’s eye, his glance bright with urgency.
‘Molly, dear, could we go inside now?’ She pressed the hand she was holding. ‘I need to see Topper myself.’
The room lay in shadow, the only illumination coming from a shaft of dull grey light entering through the back window. It fell on the kitchen table, where a child’s shoe, black and shiny, showed starkly against the scrubbed wooden surface.
Surveying the scene from the doorway, Helen heard the murmur of Stackpole’s voice. It came from the hallway at the front of the cottage. He was speaking on the telephone to the Surrey police headquarters in Guildford. Madden stood behind her in the narrow passage, out of sight of the shabby figure seated on a straight-backed chair in the far corner of the room. She felt his reassuring hand on her shoulder and reached up to press it with her own. Then she crossed the room to where Topper was sitting.
He showed no awareness of her approach. Well into middle age, or perhaps past it – his white-stubbled cheeks were deeply grooved – he sat slumped in the chair with his chin resting on his chest and his hands loosely linked on his knees, seemingly oblivious of his surroundings. Like others who’d encountered the old tramp in the past, Helen knew him only as Topper, a name that derived from his hat, a battered piece of evening headgear, cracked at the brim and missing half the crown, but given a jaunty, individual air by the addition of a cock pheasant’s tail feather stuck in a red velvet band. The manner in which he wore the hat – square, and pulled down low – gave it the appearance of a permanent feature, and he was seldom seen without it. Dressed in a black cloth jacket over striped trousers, his feet were shod in heavy boots, worn down at the heels and tied with a combination of string and broken shoelaces.
‘Hullo, Topper,’ she said softly.
At the sound of her voice he lifted his head. She drew up a chair beside him.
‘How have you been?’
He gave a slight shrug, but made no other response.
‘Are you well?’
He nodded. A smile came to his lips, and he fixed her with a look of shy affection.
‘We missed you at harvest time. Why haven’t you come to see us?’
‘Was coming…’ The muttered words brought a faint gasp from the doorway behind Helen where Molly Henshaw had appeared and was watching them. ‘Had to meet Beezy first…’
‘Beezy?’
The tramp nodded again.
‘Who’s Beezy? Where were you meeting him?’
Topper’s grey eyes lost focus. He looked away.
Helen regarded him in silence for a few moments. Then she took his left hand in hers. ‘Let me see your arm.’ She pushed up the sleeve of his jacket and then the threadbare flannel shirt beneath it, revealing a fresh scar fully six inches long running from the top of his wrist up the back of his sunburned arm towards the elbow. She ran her fingers lightly over it.
‘Look, Molly,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘That’s where Topper cut his arm last year. He was helping us with the haymaking and his scythe slipped. I had to sew him up.’
‘You fixed it…’ The old tramp chuckled. He brought his eyes back to hers. ‘You mended old Topper.’
‘It was a nasty cut, but it’s healed well.’
Still holding his hand in hers, and continuing to stroke his arm, she spoke again. ‘You were right to bring the shoe, Topper. But we need very badly to know where you found it. Can you help us?’
The fingers she was holding stiffened and she saw the fear in his eyes. His glance shifted and went past her shoulder. She looked round again. Madden had come quietly into the room with Molly Henshaw. Stackpole’s uniformed figure hovered in the doorway behind them, and when Topper caught sight of it his eyes fell. He slumped lower in the chair.
‘Now none of that,’ the constable rumbled. ‘You know me, Topper. There’s no need to take on.’
Helen turned back. ‘The shoe,’ she said in a low voice. ‘Where did you find it? You must tell me, Topper. Please…’ She had kept hold of his hand, and after a moment she felt renewed pressure on her fingers. When she bent closer he whispered in her ear.
‘What was that?’ She struggled to hear his husky murmur. ‘Did you say Capel Wood?’
Behind her, Stackpole stiffened in the doorway. ‘We’ve already looked there,’ he muttered to Madden. ‘Is he sure?’ he asked Helen.
‘Capel Wood?’ She repeated the name clearly and looked into the tramp’s eyes for confirmation. He nodded. ‘Would you take us there?’ she asked. ‘Would you show us where you found it?’