by Rennie Airth
‘Don’t worry, sir. We’ll get him.’
‘I hope so, Billy. I hope so.’ Madden had paused by his car, smiling now. ‘Well, at least I’ll be out of your hair.’
‘Sir?’
‘It’s my impression you’ve been keeping an eye on me, Sergeant Styles. Did Mr Sinclair give you an order to that effect?’
Billy had grinned, but said nothing.
‘Well, you can both relax. I’m on my way.’ Madden had chuckled.
Approaching the top of the ridge now, driving carefully over the rutted track, he came on the figure of Henry Meadows. The clerk was pushing his bicycle up the slope, which steepened over the last twenty yards or so. Bulky in his coat, and with the added burden of his attache case, which was strapped to a carrier on the back of his bike, he was making heavy weather of the climb. Hearing the sound of the car behind him, he moved off the road. Madden drew to a halt.
‘Would you like a lift, Mr Meadows? I’m going by Midhurst.’
‘Oh, goodness, sir… thank you.’ The doleful look on the clerk’s fleshy face was dispelled in an instant. A smile of relief took its place.
‘We can put your bike in the back.’
Having done so, they were soon on their way again and within minutes had rejoined the paved road.
‘What an afternoon, sir! I still haven’t got over it.’ Seated beside Madden in front, with his hat, containing his bicycle clips, perched upside down on his knees, Henry Meadows seemed disposed to relive his experience. ‘The men bursting in like that. I don’t know when I’ve had such a shock.’ He hesitated, unsure whether to continue. ‘Sir, what’s he done, this Mr De Beer? No one would say.’
‘I can’t tell you that, I’m afraid.’ Madden glanced at him. ‘But you can take it he’s a dangerous man.’
Silenced by these words, the clerk swallowed.
‘What did you make of him?’ Madden switched on his headlamps. Although it was not yet dark, the light was dull and leaden.
‘Nothing, sir. I mean, we hardly spoke. He must have known I was coming: he’d left a note on the kitchen table with the keys. If I’d have been ten minutes later he’d have gone. But he never said goodbye or anything; he just drove off.’
‘He was in a hurry, was he?’
‘Oh, yes… no doubt of that.’ Meadows nodded. ‘He looked at his watch twice, I remember, even in the few minutes we were there together. It was as though he had somewhere to go, somewhere else to be.’
‘Somewhere else?’ Madden repeated the words. But his attention had shifted to the road ahead where a bus had appeared, blocking their forward progress. He saw a group of men bearing tools on the verge beside the vehicle and realized they had reached the roadworks, where the surface narrowed. The bus was motionless; the driver seemed to be waiting for him to make way.
‘There’s a parking area just behind us, sir.’ Meadows had noted the problem. ‘It’s for Wood Way. Ramblers going to the Downs use it.’
Twisting about, Madden saw the space he was referring to and put the car into reverse. When he reached the entrance to the gravelled area, he spun the steering wheel hard and continued backing into it, avoiding a small van that was parked there. The bus had already begun moving forward.
‘Sir?’ Meadows spoke beside him. He’d turned round in his seat while Madden was reversing and he was still looking back.
‘Yes?’ Madden’s eyes were fixed on the bus as it lumbered past.
‘That car of Mr De Beer’s… the one the chief inspector was asking me about. He wanted to know the model, but I couldn’t tell him…’
‘I remember… what about it?’ Madden changed gear and they started forward.
‘It was just like that one over there.’
Madden put his foot hard on the brake. Turning, he peered through the narrow rear window and saw, on the far side of the parking area, half hidden by the overhanging branch of an oak tree, the vehicle Meadows was indicating. He changed into reverse again and backed rapidly across the area, wheels spinning on the loose gravel. As they drew near the spot, he saw that the car was a black Ford sedan.
‘Come on. Let’s have a look at it.’
Meadows was on the side nearest and as he opened the door to descend he let out a yelp of excitement.
‘It’s his! It’s the same car. Look – there’s his trunk! The one I saw.’ He was pointing.
Madden had already seen the object. Brassbound, and bare of any label, it occupied the rear seat. Swiftly, his heartbeat quickening with every second, he tried the doors and found them locked.
‘Mr Meadows – get your bicycle out!’
He spoke in a low tone, but the clerk responded as if stung, springing to obey. He dragged the machine from the back of their car, then turned to find Madden standing on the running board of the other car looking about him. His eyes moved in a slow circle; first he peered at the trees bordering the parking area on this side, then swung round to look in the other direction, where the country was more open; finally, he shifted once more on the cramped running board and gazed up at the wooded ridge that ran parallel to the road they’d come on.
‘I don’t see him.’ Madden murmured the words to himself. He turned his glance on the clerk, who was standing nearby, bicycle at the ready, but with the stunned look of one who wasn’t sure what would be asked of him next.
‘I need your help, Mr Meadows.’ Madden stepped down from the running board. ‘You must ride back to the cottage as quickly as possible and tell Mr Sinclair – the chief inspector – that De Beer’s car is here.’
‘Ride back?’ If Henry Meadows was dismayed by the prospect, he managed not to show it. The day had been a hard one for him, but now he rose to the challenge. ‘Yes, of course… I’ll go at once.’ As he bent to fix his bicycle clips he heard a hissing sound and glanced up to see Madden, on his knee, letting the air out of one of the Ford’s tyres.
‘You can tell Mr Sinclair he won’t be going anywhere.’
‘Yes, sir. Right, sir.’ In the intervening seconds, Meadows had shed his coat, tossing it into the back of the car. Hoisting one plump leg over the saddle, he mounted the bicycle and moved off, wobbling on the gravel at first, but then picking up speed.
‘And Mr Meadows!’ Madden called after him.
‘What is it, sir?’ the clerk yelled over his shoulder.
‘Pedal like blazes.’
Madden drove his car across the gravelled area to the entrance and left it parked beside the van. Hastening on foot down the road to where the workmen were assembled, he saw that they were knocking off for the day, gathering their tools – picks and shovels, mostly – and putting moveable signs in place. His own hurried approach had not gone unnoticed, and as he came up, one of their number, evidently the foreman, a brawny figure with a thick black moustache, came a few steps forward to meet him.
‘Madden’s my name. I was with that party of police that went by. I dare say you noticed them.’ Madden held out his hand.
‘Harrigan,’ the other responded. He shook Madden’s hand. ‘Aye, I saw ’em.’ He spoke with an Irish accent, his tone wary.
‘We’re looking for the man who was driving that car.’ Madden pointed behind him towards the distant corner of the parking area, now almost invisible in the dying light. ‘You can’t see it very well, but it’s there. A black Ford. Did any of you notice him when he arrived? Did you see where he went?’
He scanned the faces of the men who had gathered around while he was speaking. Most of them were rough, none was particularly friendly.
‘What do they want him for, then, this bloke?’
The question came from one younger than the rest. He had blue eyes and fair curly hair. Stubble coated his cheeks.
‘Murder,’ Madden replied bluntly. He looked the foreman squarely in the eye.
‘Jaysus!’ Harrigan paled, and the men about him began to mutter. The atmosphere had changed.
‘I reckon I saw him,’ the foreman said. He was planted in front of Madden,
his arms folded. “Twas about an hour ago. He went up the path there.’
Madden followed the direction of his pointing finger.
‘Is that Wood Way?’
‘I reckon so.’ Harrigan nodded.
‘Where does it go?’
‘To the Downs.’ He shrugged. ‘There’s farms there, too. On t’other side of the ridge. And a village. Oak Green.’
‘Have you seen anyone else?’
‘Going up the path, you mean?’
Madden nodded.
‘A bloke we know called Sam Watkin went over there earlier. It was around two o’clock. That’s his van you left your car by.’
‘Anyone else?’
Harrigan thought. ‘Don’t reckon so.’ He shrugged again.
With a nod of thanks, Madden turned to leave. He’d decided to wait in the trees by the parking lot, where he could keep an eye on the Ford. But as he moved off he heard the men muttering among themselves.
‘Except Nell,’ a voice said, louder than the rest.
Madden stopped where he was. He turned.
‘Who’s Nell?’ he asked in a low tone.
‘Just a lass.’ It was the same curly-haired young man who had spoken earlier. ‘She lives over in Oak Green. Takes the bus back from school every day. She was here just a minute ago. We had a word with her.’
‘Are you telling me she went up the path?’
The young man paled at the look on his questioner’s face. He nodded.
‘My God!’ Madden stood stunned. ‘He’s after the girl.’
‘What do you say?’ It was Harrigan who responded first. He stared at Madden. ‘Who’s after Nell?’
‘That man. He’s a killer.’ Madden seized his arm. ‘Listen to me now. I can’t stay…
He turned even as he spoke and begun to run down the road away from them, shouting over his shoulder as he did so.
‘The police are coming. You must wait for them. Tell them Lang’s up in the woods. Lang… do you hear me? Tell them about the girl. Tell them!’
But he was already out of earshot and too far off to hear the single word that was Harrigan’s only response.
‘Jaysus!’
33
Madden raced up the hill, peering into the woods on either side of the path, looking for any sign of life in their dark depths; listening for any sound. In an agony of mind at the thought of the savage act that might be taking place within a stone’s throw of where he was, under cover of the deepening dusk, he called out the girl’s name as he ran.
‘Nell… Nell…’
He was hoping to disturb her assailant if they were near, but tormented by the fear that he was already too late: that the horror he had come on at Brookham was even now being re-enacted.
Out of breath by the time he reached the top of the hill, he paused, heart pumping, to take in the wide sweep of country beyond whose outlines were still visible in spite of the dying light.
Before him, the path ran straight as an arrow down the slope, heading for the distant Downs, themselves hidden from view by the clinging mist. To his left were the lights of a village, which he took to be Oak Green, and to his right, some distance off the path, and separated from it by a hawthorn hedge, a farmhouse with darkened windows. Nothing stirred in the fields: the countryside seemed deserted.
He set off again, jogging down the hill, looking left and right, but after only a few steps he paused, arrested by the sight of an object lying on the path ahead of him. It was some way off still, but he could just make out its white shape in the gathering dusk. Gripped by a sense of foreboding, he ran flat out down the slope, but even before he reached it he knew that his fears had been realized.
Gasping, he picked up the white school hat with its characteristic ribbon. The elastic beneath the brim was broken.
‘Nell!’ In desperation he shouted out her name again. ‘Nell!’
There was no answer. But in a silence broken only by the sound of his own heavy breathing, he heard a faint noise coming from the other side of the hedge and realized after listening hard for several moments that it was a dog’s whine.
‘Who is it? Who’s there?’ He called out again, and this time was rewarded by a bark.
Madden tore at the hedge, which at first seemed impenetrable, until he discovered a gap in the dense foliage nearby. Plunging through it, he found himself in an apple orchard; beyond was what looked like the brick wall of a kitchen garden. It had a gate in it.
Again he heard the dog’s whine, this time mingled with a man’s groan. It was coming from the garden. Madden raced across the orchard and went through the open gate, almost tripping and falling as his foot caught on something. Looking back, he saw a hand reaching up and realized that a man was trying to drag himself out of an old compost pit beside the path. A dog crouched by the lip, whimpering.
‘Wait!’
Madden turned to help him, and as he hauled the man from the pit by his arms he saw that his head was wet with blood. But it was his stomach that he clutched as Madden laid him groaning on the ground. Distressed by the scene, the dog, an old Labrador bitch, growled and bared her teeth.
‘There, now…’ Madden calmed her, and then drew her to lie by the injured man, who was still holding his stomach. Pulling open the old army greatcoat he wore, Madden discovered a spreading stain on his shirt.
‘Lie still,’ he urged him.
But the man tried to resist, pushing himself up. ‘Not me… not me,’ he gasped, struggling to rise, while the dog whined beside him. ‘Nell!’ He pointed across the garden. ‘Nell!’
‘Where?’ Madden looked in the direction indicated. He could see nothing. ‘What’s he done with her?’
In a fever to go on, he hesitated. He felt he couldn’t leave the injured man. Tearing off his coat, he tried to lay it on the prone figure. ‘Keep still,’ he pleaded with him. ‘You’re bleeding.’
But the man wouldn’t heed him. ‘Not me,’ he repeated, desperation turning his words into a cry. ‘Nell… Nell…’ His finger continued to point. Madden saw the anguish in his face.
‘Don’t move,’ he said. ‘I’ll find her.’
Springing to his feet, he raced across the garden and came to another gate, also open. Beyond it was a large stableyard backed by a farmhouse: it was the same one he’d seen earlier from the crest of the ridge.
Breathing heavily, he halted for a moment at the edge of the cobbled space to look about him. Darkness had fallen in the last few minutes, but he was still able to make out a line of stalls to his right, facing the house. Further off, at the very end of the yard, a barn was visible, its lofty roof silhouetted against the moon that was rising behind it. There was no sign of life in any of the buildings.
About to run on, he hesitated, disturbed by something he had sensed rather than seen, a change so slight he was not sure at first whether it wasn’t something he’d imagined. The perception had occurred at a moment when the darkness in the yard had seemed to deepen, and as he peered narrow-eyed into the blackness before him he saw what it was: there was the faintest suggestion of illumination coming from inside the barn, a vertical sliver of light at the point where the doors met, so thin it hardly seemed to be there at all.
He leaped forward, sprinting across the yard, his footsteps ringing on the cobbles. Reaching the doors, he hauled the heavy wooden sections open and saw a glow of light coming from the far end of the cavernous structure.
‘Gaston Lang!’
Madden roared out the name at the top of his lungs.
‘Show yourself!’
Striding forward between piles of hurdles lining the barn on either side, he called out again.
‘Lang! Gaston Lang!’
Wanting only to stop what might be in progress beyond the dark, canvas-covered shapes he could see in front of him now; not caring if he alerted the man he had come for, he moved swiftly, hoping to surprise him nonetheless with the speed of his approach. Seeing a way through the heaped objects in front of him he took it, peeri
ng from side to side, but taking no other precaution in his haste to reach the back of the barn where the light was brightest.
He came to a tall shape from which the canvas had been thrown back and saw it was a wardrobe. The lighted area at the back of the barn was just beyond and he paused as he reached it, wary now. The illumination, he saw, came from an oil lamp hanging from a nail in one corner above a heap of straw. His gaze swept the area. He saw an old washstand and a wicker basket filled with farm implements; near it was a pony trap standing with the shafts upraised.
Of Lang and his victim there was no sign.
Or so Madden thought, until his glance returned to the lamp and he saw the mirror leaning against the wall beneath it. Reflected in the glass was a sight that brought a cry to his lips.
‘Oh, God!’
Half hidden in the hay the body of a girl lay sprawled. The skirt of her gymslip had been pulled up baring her thin white legs.
‘No!’
He ran to her side, and, crouching, felt for her pulse. It throbbed faintly against his fingertips. He caught a whiff of anaesthetic on her shallow breath.
‘My poor child…’
Her face had been turned away from him as she lay and he saw it was undamaged. When he reached to pull down her skirt he found her white pants in place and the sight of them brought tears of relief to his eyes. Covering her legs, he stooped to take her in his arms, glimpsing his own face in the mirror above as he did so – and then behind it the shocking sight of a half-naked figure that sprang out from the open door of the wardrobe with arm upraised and launched itself across the short space that separated them.
With a cry, Lang struck.
But Madden had seen the hammer descending, and he flung himself to one side, avoiding the blow by a hair’s breadth, letting the force of it carry his assailant stumbling past him into the hay where he lost his footing and fell forward, striking his head against the mirror, cracking the glass. Dazed and bleeding from the forehead, Lang dropped the hammer, and the time it took him to retrieve it, burrowing in the hay, gave Madden the few seconds he needed to scramble to his feet. As his attacker turned with arm upraised to strike again, he closed with him, catching hold of his wrist with one hand and with the other seizing him by the throat, and then, with his fingers sunk deep in the other’s flesh, shaking him savagely, like a rat, from side to side, the rage that possessed him so great he could readily have torn his head from his shoulders.