Sergeant Callaghan’s blank reception of this message told him the truth.
He said, ‘Then do it now,’ and rang off.
‘Bit of a hitch?’ said Joliffe.
‘You might call it that,’ said Oldham grimly. ‘I’m afraid we shall have to wait. Do you think you could raise us a cup of tea, Toft?’
Toft thought that his wife would be able to do that.
It was ten past four, and the light was coming back into the sky, when two dark grey saloon cars drew up outside Brading Police Station and Detective Chief Superintendent Jock Anderson stepped out of the front one.
2
Jock Anderson was thirty-five but might equally well have been ten years younger or ten years older. He had the pale, ageless face which is bred in the manses of the Scots and nurtured in their granite universities. The single disorderly feature in his disciplined appearance was a tuft of hair which stood out like a cock’s comb from the middle of his forehead.
He was standing at the mouth of the track in the full light of dawn. Fifty yards down the road four cars were parked nose to tail.
He said, ‘It’s up here, is it?’
‘That’s right, sir,’ said Toft. ‘You go over the gate at the end, turn right a piece, then left. The boy’s two or three yards in, in the corn.’
Anderson said, ‘How many people have been up to the body?’
‘There’s the couple who found it. And me.’
‘How did you go?’
‘I kept clear of the track, on the left hand side. And I didn’t go round. I walked straight across through the corn. I thought it safer not to go round the outside of the field at all.’
‘Good. We’ll make that the agreed track for anyone approaching the body. Up the left hand side of the track. We’ll have the gate wide open, I think. Then straight across the corner of the field to a point behind the body. Over to you, Doctor.’
Rainey picked up his bag and departed, keeping carefully to the appointed line.
‘Are those the boots you were wearing, Constable?’
Toft grinned and said, ‘I’m afraid they’re my only pair, sir. The others are away being mended.’
‘We’ll have to borrow them off you. You can wear slippers for half an hour.’ He turned to his second-in-command. ‘Now, is there anything I can do for you, David?’
Detective Inspector Rew, nearly six foot four and broad in proportion, said, ‘I’ve got the search-and-stop procedures started. Superintendent Oldham is co-ordinating that with the Superintendent from Petersfield. If you’ve nothing more for me here, I’d like to get back to Horsham.’
‘Off you go. Sergeant, I want to block off the section of the road at the mouth of the track. We can’t stop traffic, but you can put work-in-progress signs round the half section on this side. Then cover the area of the gate with plastic sheets. As soon as the doctor’s finished, and you’ve done your stuff with your camera, Carter, we’ll take the body out, sticking to the authorized route. Then I’ll have the whole of that corner of the field covered, including the hedgerows at the angle. Nobody is to set foot in that area until the sheets are down. The doctor will be a fair time yet. I’ll go back to the car.’
Des Maybury was sitting in the back of Jock Anderson’s car. Reaction had set in. He looked white and miserable.
‘I’ll have a word with the girl, now,’ said Anderson. ‘Will you show me where she lives?’
‘She won’t be able to tell you nothing I haven’t,’ said Des. ‘I don’t think she’s in any state to talk. She was carrying on so.’
‘We’ll have to take a chance on that. It’s those cottages up there, isn’t it? No need to take the car. It’ll do you good to stretch your legs.’
Mrs Moritz was waiting for them. It was clear that she had not been to bed. She said, ‘I gave Rosie a sleeping pill. It’s the pills we have for grandfather, when he has one of his turns. I don’t think we can wake her up.’
‘I’m sorry, but we shall have to try. How long has she been asleep?’
‘I had her in bed just after midnight.’
‘Five hours,’ said Anderson. ‘That should be enough.’ He stopped, and said in quite a different tone of voice, ‘Midnight. Are you sure?’
Des said, ‘It would have been about then. We found the boy around a quarter past eleven. It took time to get hold of the constable. I had to take Rosie back first, see. She wouldn’t be left alone. She was crying and carrying on.’
‘I’m not blaming you, son. I was just trying to work out these times. There’s something that doesn’t quite add up. But that’s a problem for me, not you. Now Mrs Moritz, if you don’t mind–’
‘I’ll do what I can.’
When Rosie came down she was wide awake and quite composed. Most of her hysteria had been automatic cover against questions about what she had been doing in the field, and she was glad to note that the policeman seemed uninterested in her reason for going there. There was a look in her mother’s eye which suggested that she might be going to raise the question later.
Times and places were what interested Anderson. He made a few notes. Her story seemed to tally well enough with what Maybury had told him. He could not be sure until he got the pathologist’s report, but if other customers at the Three Horseshoes confirmed their time of leaving, it was impossible for them to have had any hand in the boy’s death.
It had never seemed very likely, but in an enquiry of this sort all lines had to be ruled off neatly.
He said, ‘I’ll have to borrow the shoes you were wearing. You can have them back as soon as we’ve made a plaster cast. And a list and description of the clothes you had on last night.’
‘The clothes?’
‘That’s right. You may not know it, but whenever you go anywhere you leave some trace behind. A fibre of wood. A scrap of wool or fabric. We shall be going over the ground inch by inch. If we do find anything it’ll be important to know if it was left behind by you – or someone else.’
‘I see,’ said Rosie faintly. It did not seem to her that after so minute an examination the police could be in any doubt as to what she had been up to. It wasn’t a crime, was it?
‘I’d like a note of your blood group, too.’
Rosie had no idea what her blood group was, but gave him the name of her doctor.
Anderson left Detective Fraser behind to collect the necessary details and was on the point of going when Mrs Moritz said, ‘Do you think grandfather might have seen anything? He was down at the Horseshoes. He left early. It takes him half an hour to get home. It’s his knees.’
‘That’s a very sound suggestion, Mrs Moritz. Do you happen to know what time he started home?’
‘Ten o’clock. Dead on,’ said Rosie.
‘That’s right,’ said her mother. ‘He got here past half past. The news had finished when he came in.’
‘Then I shall certainly have to have a word with him.’
‘Wake him up, you mean?’
‘I’m afraid so.’
‘He won’t be best pleased,’ said Mrs Mortiz. ‘But if you say so.’
It took ten minutes to wake old Mr Moritz up and explain what was wanted and fifteen to get him dressed and downstairs. After that there was a further delay because his teeth had been forgotten. Anderson waited patiently. When the information arrived it was well worth the wait.
‘You saw a car coming out?’
‘Out of that path leading up to Laycock’s hay field, Dad?’
‘You’re sure it was that one?’
‘Ah.’
‘That’s right. Laycock’s hay field. Hadn’t no lights on. That’s not right, you know. Might have hit me.’
‘The car hadn’t got any lights on.’
‘That’s what I said.’ A further thought occurred to the old man. ‘Turned the lights on when he was driving away.’ There was something else that he was trying to remember. Something about the car and its lights. Anderson waited patiently. He never hurried a willing witness. B
ut the memory had gone.
‘Which way did it turn?’
‘Turned right. Back to the village.’
‘Could you describe the car?’
The old man blinked, and made an indeterminate gesture with his hands. ‘Sort of middle size. Sort of ordinary car. Dark colour. I couldn’t really see.’
‘Did you happen to see the driver?’
‘It was a man. I didn’t see him very clearly at all. Tell the truth, I was busy wondering if it was going to hit me. Bursting out like that. No lights on.’
‘If you do think of anything else, let your daughter know, and she’ll get in touch with me. I shall be at Haydock Wood, Mrs Moritz, that’s where the boy came from. I’ll let you have the number to ring as soon as I know what it is.’
‘How anyone could do a thing like that to a boy!’ said Mrs Moritz.
When Anderson got to Haydock Wood he found that Inspector Rew had been busy. An empty building, once a British Legion Club, had been taken over and the Post Office were already busy installing telephones. Tables and chairs had been borrowed from the village hall. In the corner a portable printing machine was turning out the first of a series of notices, hundreds of which would be handed out and exhibited that day.
‘Sorry I couldn’t do better with the car,’ said Anderson. ‘If it had been a smart boy of ten who saw it – instead of an old man of eighty – he’d have given us the make, year, colour and registration number.’
‘Lucky anyone noticed it,’ said Rew. He was busy pinning sections of the large scale Ordnance Survey map to a square of hardboard propped against the wall. ‘How do you see this one?’
‘Let’s make some assumptions, shall we? When a man like this goes out on the prowl and picks up a victim he doesn’t turn back towards home with him. Whatever’s going to happen, he wants it to happen as far away from his base as possible. He picked up the boy here. In Haydock Wood. He took him to Brading, which is due east. That meant he had to cross the A24 somewhere. He wouldn’t risk going through Horsham. He’d have used one of these side roads. And that means that when he turned right out of the track, he was starting out in the wrong direction. Again, quite a natural thing to do.’
‘Particularly if he saw the old man watching him.’
‘Right. But he’d want to get back on to the return route as soon as possible.’ Anderson stared at the map, with his eyes half-closed, turning the lines on it into roads, thinking himself into the mind of a man who had committed a bestial crime, with the heat out of him, with one desire, to slink home unobserved.
‘It would be the first turning to the right,’ he said at last. ‘That crossroads there. Then south-west through St Leonards Forest, recrossing the A24 there. After that there are too many choices. We’ll net the whole of that area.’
‘Timings?’
‘He’d have passed through that area between half past ten and eleven.’
Rew started to write this down and then stopped.
He said, ‘Are you sure–?’
‘All right,’ said Anderson. ‘I had noticed it. I’m going to deal with it now. You get on with your job.’
At Horsham Police Station Anderson faced Superintendent Oldham. He said, ‘I’ve started the operation. It’ll be slow work now. I shall need a lot of help.’
‘The Chief Constable is calling a conference at eleven. Any assistance you need, be sure you’ll get it.’
Anderson said, ‘Thank you.’ There was something more to be said, and both men knew it. There was no point in evading the issue. ‘What are you doing about Sergeant Callaghan?’
Oldham said, ‘I haven’t decided yet.’
‘There’ll have to be a disciplinary charge.’
Oldham looked up sharply. ‘That’s for the Chief Constable.’
‘He has no choice in the matter.’
There was a long silence. Oldham was about to break it when Anderson forestalled him. He said, ‘I’ve spoken to the pathologist. When that man had the boy to himself, in the field, he took off all his clothes, except his shirt, and tortured him. There are burns from a cigarette lighter, the pathologist thinks, on his stomach and legs. The boy couldn’t scream. A pad of foam rubber had been forced into his mouth and taped there. Then he killed him, but not too quickly. The pathologist thinks that the cord round his neck was tightened and loosened again more than once. The marks of the boy’s teeth where he bit his tongue in his agony are clear in more than one place.’
Anderson had been speaking quietly and with a lack of emphasis which seemed to make the words he was speaking more horrible.
‘It is possible – not certain by any means, but possible – that the sort of precautions we took at half past three, when we finally got your message, if we had taken them before midnight – which we could have done, if Callaghan had given the signal himself at ten to twelve – might have enabled us to catch this man before he got home. Even if we hadn’t headed him off, people’s recollections would have been fresher, the chances of picking up the trail far stronger. A slip-up like that puts the next boy in danger. It mustn’t happen again. That’s why an example must be made of Callaghan.’
Oldham said, ‘I see.’ It was neither acceptance nor refusal.
Anderson got up and stretched himself. He said, ‘The man’s gone to earth. He’s hidden himself away somewhere and thinks he’s safe. But I’m going to dig him out and nail his hide up on the wall. No matter what it costs. No matter how long it takes. That’s a promise.’
3
‘Gentlemen,’ said Mr Fairfax, ‘I welcome you back and hope that you enjoyed the brief respite from your labours.’
‘Too brief,’ said Arthur Diplock.
‘But very welcome,’ said Constance Latrobe.
‘You will be glad to know that as a result of strenuous efforts by the gardening staff and Sergeant Baker, we have, I think, got rid of the last of the unwelcome visitors introduced by Palel Major.’
‘Scoured the ship, eh, Headmaster?’ said Commander Gaze.
‘We did indeed. On Saturday, after you left, we sealed up all the windows in the classrooms, changing rooms, lavatories, bathrooms and dormitories. The sanitary authorities having told us they would be here in the early afternoon naturally did not arrive until after tea. We therefore had to work until nine o’clock that night, but we succeeded in disinfesting every room the boys had used. Without Sergeant Baker, I don’t think we should have done it. He was a tower of strength.’
‘Lovely to be able to stop scratching,’ said Latrobe.
‘Mostly imagination,’ said Commander Gaze.
‘I’m not sure,’ said Nigel Ware. ‘The first thing I did after lunch on Saturday was to get Elizabeth to wash my hair for me.’
To turn to pleasanter subjects,’ said Mr Fairfax, ‘I have succeeded, once more through the good offices of Colonel Brabazon, who has been so kind to the school in so many ways, in getting a temporary replacement for Mr Millison. It was quite clear from his medical report that he would not be fit for the rest of the term. The doctor advised complete rest.’
‘One-B has much to answer for,’ said Ware.
‘We shall therefore not have to rearrange the time-table, as we feared might be the case. The new man – his name, by the way, is Kenneth Manifold – will simply take over Mr Millison’s classes. His special subjects seem to be French, History and English, so that fits in quite well. He can have Mr Millison’s bedroom.’
‘Where’s he going to keep his car?’ said Mr Diplock. ‘There’s no room in the garage.’
‘How do we know he’s got a car?’
‘All assistant masters have cars these days. It was very different when I started teaching.’
‘In those far off days,’ said Latrobe, ‘I suppose you all rode horses.’
‘I’m not quite as old as that, thank you.’
‘Set your minds at rest,’ said Ware. ‘No one will have to move out of the garage. He’s got a motor bike.’
All looked out of the
window. A motor bicycle had turned in at the lodge gates and was coming up the front drive of Trenchard House School.
The headmaster said, ‘I think you’re right. This must be him. Sit tight, gentlemen. I’ll bring him straight in.’
The four men relaxed slightly as the door shut behind him. Arthur Diplock got out his pipe and started to scratch out the blackened interior with an implement designed for extracting stones from horses’ hooves. Ware said, ‘Poor old Milly. I knew One-B were getting on his wick, but I didn’t expect him to have a full scale nervous breakdown.’
‘I warned him about his health,’ said the Commander. ‘What he needed was more exercise. I told him not to fug in the common-room, smoking cigarettes all day.’
‘I agree,’ said Latrobe. ‘There’s nothing wrong with One-B. They’re very nice boys, taken individually. All they need is understanding–’
‘And beating twice a week,’ said Ware.
‘In forty years of school-mastering–’ began Mr Diplock, but was cut short by the opening of the door. Four pairs of eyes studied the man who came in behind the headmaster. Reddish brown hair, thick eyebrows, a nose which was not hooked, but had a curious hook at the end of it, like the beak of a raptor, a long chin, a head set on a thick neck. A suit which had once been good, but had been worn too long. Ware thought, he doesn’t look like a man who suffers from nerves. One-B might be in for a lively time. Commander Gaze thought, athletic type, run to seed a bit, but might help with the games. Diplock thought, unusual sort of assistant master. Could have been sacked from some other job, I suppose, and come here in search of a soft billet. Latrobe thought, looks a bit of a brute.
When Mr Fairfax had completed the introductions, he said, ‘You’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other later. I’ll take Manifold off and show him round. I think the Sergeant is about to ring the bell.’
The tour finished in the headmaster’s study. Mr Fairfax said, ‘You’ve been reserving judgement, I can see. What do you think of it all?’
Night of the Twelfth Page 2