River of Darkness

10

White-haired and frail, but with a curiosity undimmed by age and failing health, Harriet Merrick paused by the pond to count the puffballs of yellow feathers paddling behind their broad-beamed mother.

Six. Only the other day there had been eight. Either a fox had been busy, or one of the village cats was finding the water-meadow a happy hunting ground.

The afternoon darkened as a cloud moved across the sun. Thunder rumbled close by.

Mrs Merrick glanced at the sky. She debated whether to return to the house. The thought of the scolding awaiting her there brought a smile to her lips. Her habit of taking solitary walks was a matter of concern to her son and daughter-in-law. It had reached the point where she was obliged to slip out when they weren't looking. Mrs Merrick maintained her independence serenely.

She decided to walk on. She was wearing a cardigan over her dress and a sensible straw hat. When she felt the first drops of rain she quickened her pace, then checked and deliberately slowed. Dr Fellows had advised her to take exercise in moderation. 'Don't overdo it,' had been his considered judgement, delivered after a lengthy study of her chart. He told her her heart was 'good for years', though he did not say how many. Harriet Merrick, who had little faith in doctors, thought she was in reasonably good health and might expect to live for a while yet. Unless Providence decreed otherwise.

She was planning to walk around Shooter's Hill the path she was following circled the wooded knob, a pleasant ramble taking no more than half an hour but the sudden brisk downpour prompted her to seek shelter beneath the trees bordering the footway. The weather had changed in the last few days. The first showers after the long summer drought had dampened the dust and leaf-mould of the forest floor. Standing under the wide branches of a purple beech she breathed in the soft autumnal scents.

On an impulse she decided to climb the hill, taking the most indirect route she could find, walking back and forth across the slope, following a line of easy contours to the summit. It was something she had not done for two years — Dr Fellows frowned on gradients — and she was pleased when she reached the top without either breathing hard or feeling the familiar warning flutter in her chest. Although it was still raining steadily, the dense canopy of leaves kept her dry. Near the summit she found a place to sit down on a leaf-covered bank beside the exposed roots of a giant beech.

There was a good view of Croft Manor from up here. The house had been in the Merrick family for nearly three hundred years. Her two sons had been born there: William, who had just passed his thirty- sixth birthday; whose withered arm had seemed like a curse, but had proved a blessing. And her darling Tom. On his last leave they had taken a walk in the woods together, the three of them. (Her husband, Richard Merrick, had died when the boys were barely grown.) Tom had made them laugh with his tales of a winter spent in the trenches before Arras. How the hot tea froze in minutes and the bully beef turned into chunks of red ice. When he described a night raid into no man's land he made it sound like an adventure from Boy's Own. Volunteers and blackened faces, knives and coshes.

A month later she had awoken in the middle of the night consumed by grief. The emotion was so profound — so far in excess of any nightmare's backwash — that she had roused her elder son and he had tried to comfort her. She lived through the next two days in a state of shock and confusion, unable to equate the psychological disturbance she had suffered with any known reality. Fearful of contemplating what the unknown might hold. On the evening of the second day the telegram had arrived from the War Office.

Her darling Tom.

She sat quietly, remembering. Grieving still. The patter of rain on the leaves overhead ceased, and presently the sun came out. Almost at once the glassed doors opened and the children slipped out and went hurrying down the yew alley towards the croquet lawn at the bottom of the garden. They had invented a game of their own, Mrs Merrick had observed, a complicated affair in which the mallets had been discarded and the hoops set up in a seemingly random pattern that only its devisers understood. Before they had reached the end of the alley the figure of Enid Bradshaw, their nanny, appeared in the doorway. She called out to them, or so Mrs Merrick judged, watching the dumb show from afar. The children paused and looked back.

Words were exchanged, no doubt on the subject of wet feet, and then Miss Bradshaw retired into the house and the children continued on their way.

Alison, the elder, had Charlotte's fair hair and already, at seven, her graceful gestures. She had never known her father, who had been killed in the first months of the war. William had married the young widow and together they had produced Robert, aged five. Harriet Merrick had watched her diffident son, always conscious of his handicap, grow into full manhood as he took on the responsibility of a dead man's wife and made her his own.

She smiled suddenly. Another person had made her appearance on the lawn. She was dressed in a long skirt that might have seemed old-fashioned even before the war, and her thick grey hair was tied behind her head in a severe-looking bun. Her name was Annie McConnell and she had once been Mrs Merrick's maid when they were both young girls growing up in County Tyrone. Annie had accompanied her mistress to England when she got married and had remained with her ever since. For a while she had been Tom and William's nanny, and after that had filled the post of housekeeper. Now she was simply Annie, part family retainer, part friend. Harriet Merrick loved her dearly.

She watched as Annie strode forthrightly down the yew alley towards the croquet lawn. From a distance her stiff black-skirted figure looked forbidding; to the children it seemed to have the opposite effect. They rushed across the lawn to greet her — Annie had been away for four days visiting her sister in Wellfleet and threw themselves into her outstretched arms. Mrs Merrick had once spent a whole day weeping in those arms.

She thought now with pleasure of the days they would soon be spending together. William and Charlotte were taking the children to Cornwall to stay with friends. The maids would be sent off. She and Annie would have the house to themselves. They would gossip and reminisce.

Meanwhile, Robert's small hands had been busy in the deep pocket of Annie's skirt. Whatever it was he found there seemed to give him pleasure, and Alison followed his example. Annie shot a guilty glance back in the direction of the house. Apparently contraband was being passed. Not wishing to spy further, Mrs Merrick rose to her feet and dusted off her dress. A slight movement on the slope below caught her eye and she stood still and watched as a pair of red squirrels worked busily, gathering nuts from beneath a walnut tree.

She noticed something else as she started back down the hill: half a dozen cigarette stubs lying in a neat line on the ground near to where she had been sitting.

It seemed someone else had found the bank a pleasant place to sit and meditate.

Five minutes after he arrived at his desk on Monday morning Sinclair received an urgent summons from Deputy Assistant Commissioner Bennett. He was gone half an hour and returned with a thick manila envelope on which the heavy red wax seals had been broken. 'From the War Office,' he told Madden, as he tossed him the packet. He stuck his head into the adjoining office. 'Sergeant, in here! You, too, Constable.'

Hollingsworth and Styles came in from their cubbyhole.

Sinclair perched on the edge of his desk. There was a light in the chief inspector's eye.

'A criminal attack very similar to the ones we're investigating took place in Belgium in September 1917. A farmer and his wife and family were murdered in their home. The assault bears a remarkable resemblance to the Melling Lodge killings. The husband and his two sons were bayoneted. The wife had her throat cut.'

Billy's whistle brought a glower of disapproval from Hollingsworth.

'An inquiry into the murders was conducted by the investigation branch of the Royal Military Police.

From the file, it appears there was little doubt in anyone's mind that the killer or killers were serving British soldiers. What the War Office has sent us is a record of the inquiry. It includes a detailed crime scene report, a pathologist's findings and a verbatim record of all interrogations.'

Madden frowned at the file cover he was holding.

'The case is marked closed.'

'So it is.' Sinclair slid off his desk and began to pace up and down. 'The chief investigating officer was a Captain Miller. In deciding to terminate the inquiry he wrote a memorandum to accompany the case files in which he explained his decision. It's logged in the file index, but unfortunately it's missing. Nothing sinister there, I'm told — the ministry's snowed under with wartime records. They have a warehouse somewhere in London stacked to the ceiling. We're lucky they were able to dig out what they did.'

'Is Captain Miller available?' Hollingsworth asked.

'No, he's dead,' Sinclair answered bluntly. 'His staff car was hit by a stray shell behind the lines. It happened a few weeks afterwards, but by then the case was wrapped up. Let me go on.'

He seated himself behind his desk.

'For whatever reason — we can't be sure from this distance in time — suspicion fell on a battalion of the South Nottinghamshire Regiment. On a company, rather, B Company, and just a small part of that fifteen men, to be precise. They were all questioned.'

'Were they together?' Madden asked.

'Apparently they all went to the farmhouse for a meal. The battalion was being rested. They'd been in action and taken a mauling and were waiting for replacements. The point, as far as we're concerned, is that these were the only men questioned in connection with the crime. Captain Miller must have had strong reasons for thinking the killer was one of them.'

'Then why was the case closed?' Billy Styles spoke before he could stop himself.

The chief inspector's smile was deceptively inviting.

'Why don't you tell us that, Constable?'

Billy blushed bright red. Hollingsworth, beside him, was grinning.

'Sergeant?'

'Because he must have reckoned whoever did it was dead, sir.'

'Just so.' Sinclair nodded his approval. 'The battalion was back in action a week later. It was that Passchendaele business. Of the fifteen men, only seven came out alive. Colonel Jenkins did some checking.

Miller closed the case right about the time the battalion was withdrawn a second time. Which suggests he believed the murderer was one of the eight men who were killed.'

In the silence that followed, the sound of a tugboat's whistle floated in through the open window.

Hollingsworth cocked his head. 'Could he have had the wrong man in mind, sir?'

'I wonder, Sergeant.' Sinclair sat forward in his chair. His eye met Madden's. 'Of the seven who came out, only four were alive at the end of the war. Their names and service records are in the file, and Colonel Jenkins was good enough to check with the Army to find out where they were paid their twenty pounds.'

'Twenty pounds?' Billy didn't understand the allusion.

'That's what the government gave every private soldier who came through the war. A gratuity. Two of them were paid in Nottingham, one in Brighton and the other in Folkestone.'

Madden extracted a sheet of paper from the file and handed it to the chief inspector. 'Here's a list of the names, Sergeant.' Sinclair passed it on to Hollingsworth.

'You and Styles find yourselves a couple of telephones and see if you can come up with four current addresses by lunch-time. But go carefully.' He raised a warning finger. 'Just say we want a word with these people. Don't start any alarm bells ringing.'

The chief inspector waited until they had the office to themselves again. He took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them on the blotter in front of him.

His fingers beat a rapid tattoo on the desktop. 'Well, John?'

'Was she raped?'

'She was not.'

Madden grunted. He was studying a fan of documents spread out before him. 'These verbatim interviews — they don't tell us much.'

'"Yes, sir, no, sir, it wasn't me, sir." We'll have to go through 'em, just the same.' Sinclair began filling his pipe. 'Damn it, John, we might have struck lucky.

We could come up with a name and a face.'

But he was smiling as he went on with his reading.

Madden said nothing,

Sinclair struck a match, 'I've just had a large pat on the back from Bennett.'

'Have you, sir?'

'In front of the chief super, too. He came expecting our usual Monday morning get-together. Instead he had Bennett telling him what my "leap of imagination" had uncovered. I thought Sampson was going to be sick on the carpet.'

Madden was grinning now. 'A leap of imagination, sir?'

'Those were his words. I was overcome. Speechless, you might say.' The chief inspector blew out a cloud of mellow tobacco smoke. 'By the way, how is Dr Weiss? Safely back in Vienna, I trust.'

Donald Hardy, who worked as a solicitor's clerk in Have. The fourth man, Alfred Dawkins, had had various addresses in Folkestone over the past eighteen months.

'The police don't know where he's living at present, but they know where to find him — that's how they put it.' Hollingsworth scratched his head. 'I let it go at that, sir. Didn't want to stir them up.'

After reflection, Sinclair issued his orders: 'John, you go to Folkestone tomorrow morning. Take Styles with you. Hollingsworth and I will deal with Mr Hardy in Have. Let's both be clear on one point. If there's any suspicion that either of these two is the man we're seeking, the help of armed officers must be sought before he's approached. I want no more casualties.'

Lunch-time came and went, and it was not until four o'clock that Hollingsworth was able to report success in tracking down three of the four survivors.

'The other bloke, Samuel Patterson, seems to have vanished. He left Nottingham two years ago to take a job as a labourer on a farm near Norwich, but he quit after only a few months and nobody's heard of him since. The Norwich police are trying to trace him.'

The second man paid his gratuity in Nottingham, Arthur Marlow, was a patient in an Army hospital.

'He's got a leg wound that won't heal. He's been bedridden for a year.'

Before they had even left the platform at Folkestone station next morning Madden and Styles learned that Alfred Dawkins was not the man they were seeking. 'That's right, sir, only one leg. Didn't they say?' Detective Sergeant Booth of the Folkestone CID had come to the station to meet them. He was a thickset man with dark brown eyes and a watchful air. 'Lost it in the very last month of the war, or so I've been told.'

Studying the sergeant, Billy noticed the yellowed fingers of a heavy smoker. His trousers were a little loose at the waist, possibly the result of a diet, Billy surmised. He had resolved to become more observant.

To take note of things. He knew he was burdened with a wide-eyed quality: a sort of innocence that led him to make daft remarks and ask stupid questions, like the one that had caused him such embarrassment in the chief inspector's office the day before. It was obvious why Captain Miller had closed the case, once you thought about it. His trouble was, he didn't think about things enough. Or, rather, he opened his mouth first.

This line of reasoning had been reinforced by a conversation he had had with Madden on the train coming down from London. The inspector had seemed in better spirits. The haunted look Billy had grown accustomed to was less marked. He had gone to the trouble of explaining to the young constable why the case they were on was proving so hard to crack.

'Nearly all murders take place between people who know each other, so there's an obvious connection from the start. But this man kills people he's never met. At least, that's what we think, though we can't be sure. How does he pick them? What took him to Highfield and Bentham in the first instance? Is he a travelling salesman? Does he drive a van, or some other vehicle? Whatever job he has seems to take him around the country. Without a real lead, we have to accumulate all the information we can, all the details, no matter how trivial, because the answer may lie in one of them.'

That chimed with what Billy had been telling himself. Pay attention.

They rode through golden cornfields and orchards heavy with fruit. Then the hedgerowed fields stopped abruptly and Billy saw the silver glint of the sea below. Madden pointed to a collection of low buildings on the outskirts of the town.

'That's Shorncliffe Camp. It used to be five, no, ten times the size. The tents stretched for miles. Nearly every British soldier who went to France passed through here. Did you know that, Styles?'

Billy nodded. It was the first time he had heard the inspector speak about the war.

'Towards the end they got up to nine thousand a day. They marched them down to the town and straight on to the Channel steamers and across to France. At night there were illuminated fishing boats strung out in lines all the way to the French coast.'

On the platform at Folkestone Detective Sergeant Booth explained about Dawkins. (To Billy's satisfaction, he had lit up almost at once.) 'We haven't got his current address, sir. He moves a lot — trouble with landladies. But he's generally down in the port this time of day. I've no doubt we'll find him there.'

'He's not the man I hoped he might be,' Madden admitted. 'But I'd like a word with him just the same.'

Booth had a taxi waiting outside the station. It took them on a winding downhill route through the town. When they reached the port he told the driver to stop. Ahead of them Billy could see the harbour situated in a natural bay carved out of the chalky cliffs. In the foreground a small steamer was tied up at the wharf. A crowd of people, mostly women, were gathered in front of the gangplank. Smoke was issuing from the steamer's red and white funnel. Sergeant Booth pointed. 'There he is, sir, at the foot of the gangplank.'

Through the press of bodies Billy caught a glimpse of a figure on crutches.

'All those women — they're war widows going on a tour of cemeteries in France and Belgium. It's something they started last year. Perhaps you read about it?'

Madden shook his head.

'Alf Dawkins gets himself down here whenever there's a sailing, which is most days in the summer.

Stands there on his crutches with his medals pinned on. You'd be surprised how many ladies put half a crown in his hand. Probably worth a couple of quid to him. Afterwards he goes over to the pub' — Booth pointed to a line of buildings a little way down the jetty — 'buys himself a drink. Two or three more likely. That's how we know him. He's been up before the bench. Drunk and disorderly.'

'I don't want to talk to him here. We'll wait in the pub.' Madden's voice was terse.

Twenty minutes later, sitting in a taproom smelling of fish and stale tobacco smoke, they heard the toot of the steamer's whistle. At that moment the pub doors opened and Dawkins swung in on his crutches. Short and stocky, his pale face was disfigured by red blotches. Billy noticed that one of his eyelids blinked with a nervous tic.

Madden rose. 'I'll talk to him alone, if you don't mind.'

Booth raised an eyebrow at his departing figure.

'Doesn't say much, does he?'

Billy wanted to defend the inspector, but he couldn't think of a suitable response.

'Mind you, I wouldn't have his job.'

'What do you mean?'

'This Melling Lodge business?' Booth shook his head. 'Worst kind of case a copper can find himself landed with.'

'Why's that?'

'Because you're dealing with something you don't understand.' The sergeant dipped into his beer. 'Most people do things for reasons and criminals are no different. But this bloke!' He shook his head again.

'With a case like that, it's hard to know where to start.'

Billy watched Madden lead Dawkins away from the bar to a table in the corner. The inspector carried their glasses. He pulled out a chair for the other man and saw that he was comfortably settled.

'I remember a case I was on once.' Booth was speaking again. 'A young woman was murdered, strangled.

Her body was found in a field just outside of town. We got the bloke that did it. He kept a diary.

It was produced in evidence.'

'Did he mention the murder?' Billy was fascinated.

Booth nodded. 'But it's what he wrote — I've never forgotten it. "Warm weather. Rain in the afternoon. I killed a girl today."'

'That was all?' Billy was incredulous.

The sergeant shrugged. 'She was his first, thank God. But I remember thinking then, there must be people around us living another life from the one we live. It's as though they're from a different world. To understand them you'd have to get inside their heads, and what chance is there of that?'

Madden took Dawkins's glass to the bar and returned to their table with a fresh drink. He was smiling and nodding at the other man. Dawkins spoke, gesturing with his hands. He patted his trousered stump. He was grinning across the table at the inspector.

'How did you catch him?' Billy wanted to know.

'Through a little thing.' Booth drained his glass.

'He'd taken something from the girl he killed, a brooch shaped like a buckle with a piece of amber mounted in the middle. It was nothing special, but we gave out a description of it. A couple of weeks later a beat constable noticed a girl in the street wearing something similar. He asked her where she'd got it and she told him a young man had given it to her. Turned out he was the bloke.'

'That was lucky.'

The inspector rose and took his leave of Dawkins.

Billy saw a banknote change hands.

'Lucky for her,' Booth countered. 'I reckon she would have been his next. But that's how it is with a case like that — or this Melling Lodge business. You won't crack it the usual way. You have to hope something will turn up. Some little thing,' he added, unconsciously echoing the inspector's words earlier.

'You have to keep your eyes open.'

Little was said on the journey back to London.

Madden sat gazing out of the window, seemingly wrapped in thought. Billy, aware that another possible lead had turned cold, supposed that was what was on the inspector's mind.

Or was he thinking about all those men who had marched down through the town to the harbour and on to the Channel steamers? the young constable wondered. The route had been renamed after the war, Sergeant Booth had told them in the taxi. Now it was known as the Road of Remembrance. To Billy, recalling Alf Dawkins with his crutches and his nervous tic, begging for half-crowns, it seemed more a case of how quickly people forgot.

'Mr Hardy has three children and sings in the church choir. He's short and fat and gets breathless climbing a flight of stairs. I hope you had better luck with Dawkins, John.'

Madden's response caused Sinclair's eyebrows to shoot skywards. 'One leg! Poor devil — but couldn't someone have told us that?'

The chief inspector had returned from Have an hour earlier. He was seated at his desk, smoking his pipe. Behind him the late-afternoon sun lay like molten fire on the river.

'He remembers the incident well enough. They were all lined up by the sergeant major and marched in one at a time to be questioned. It put a scare into them, Dawkins said, but he swears none of them was guilty.

They returned from the farm in a group that night.'

Madden settled behind his desk. He lit a cigarette.

'He said Miller was rough on them. He behaved as though he believed they were hiding something. But after they came out of the line a few days later they never heard another word about the case.'

'I got the same from Hardy.' Sinclair puffed at his pipe. 'What did you make of it?'

The inspector shrugged. 'I wondered why Miller didn't talk to them again. Even if he believed the guilty man had been killed in action he'd still have wanted to question the others to get the full story from them.'

'I had the same reaction.' Sinclair nodded agreement.

'It's obvious Miller no longer regarded them as suspects. He must have had someone else in mind.

We've been chasing the wrong fox, damn it!'

'But still someone he thought was dead,' Madden pointed out quickly. 'He closed the case, remember.'

The chief inspector grunted. He shook his head pessimistically. 'I've been wondering what to do next.

It occurred to me the Belgian police might be able to help us, so I sent a telegram to the Brussels Surete half an hour ago asking them to check their records.

After all, those were Belgian citizens who were murdered.'

He sighed heavily. 'The trouble is, Brussels was under German occupation at the time and I'm not sure the civilian police were ever involved in the investigation. I've a nasty feeling they'll simply refer us to the British military authorities and we'll be back where we started. With Miller's missing memorandum.'

Harold Biggs had been looking forward to spending that Saturday afternoon at the races. He and his pal, Jimmy Pullman, had planned to drive to Dover in Jimmy's second-hand Morris, lose a few shillings on the nags and then look in later at the Seaview Hotel where there was a regular Saturday tea dance.

They might, if they were lucky, pick up a couple of girls. But a summons from Mr Henry Wolverton, senior partner in the firm of Dabney, Dabney and Wolverton, on Friday morning put a stopper on that.

'There's something I want you to do tomorrow, Biggs. Old client of the firm. Widow of client actually.

Got herself into a state about something. Written me a letter.' Wolverton, a stout middle-aged man with an unhealthily red face, spoke habitually in short sentences as though he couldn't summon up the breath for longer utterances. 'Wants someone to go and see her tomorrow afternoon. Has to be then.' He peered up at Harold over the top of his half-spectacles. 'Out of normal working hours, I know. You don't mind, do you?'

'No, sir,' said Biggs, minding strongly.

'He's got his nerve,' Jimmy Pullman remarked when they met later in the Bunch of Grapes for a lunch-time drink. Jimmy worked in a gents clothing store. 'Catch Mr Henry Bloody Wolverton spending his Saturday afternoon traipsing around the countryside.

You should have told him where to get off, Biggsy.'

Harold shrugged, pretending unconcern. He accepted a Scotch egg from the plate Jimmy pushed along the pub counter towards him. His job as a solicitor's clerk was the same one he'd held before the war and he'd been happy when early demobilization enabled him to reclaim it. Other men returning later to civilian life had not been so fortunate.

'What do you have to do, anyway?' Jimmy demanded. 'And why tomorrow afternoon?'

Biggs took out the letter Mr Wolverton had given him and squinted through his horn-rimmed spectacles at the nearly illegible handwriting, which meandered drunkenly across the page. 'All she says is she needs someone to do something for her and it has to be tomorrow afternoon. She's underlined "afternoon" several times. She says it's important. She's underlined that, too.' Biggs sipped his beer.

'And she lives at bloody Knowlton?' Jimmy scowled. 'What's her name?'

Biggs glanced at the letter again. 'Troy,' he said.

'Winifred Troy.'

The early-afternoon bus left for Knowlton at a quarter to two, and Biggs reached the bus station with five minutes to spare, having spent the morning working at the office. He just had time to dash back to his lodgings and exchange his dark suit and black bowler for plus-fours and a checked cap. A pair of two-tone shoes, which he'd recently bought at a reduced price through the good offices of Jimmy Pullman, completed his ensemble. He was ready for a trip to the country.

The journey to Knowlton took forty minutes. The bus service, linking Folkestone and Dover via a string of inland villages, was a post-war innovation, and it looked like the business was flourishing. Every seat in the green-painted vehicle was taken and Harold was obliged to share his own with a dough-faced woman in the late stages of pregnancy.

To pass the time — and to take his mind off the disagreeable thought that the short, panting breaths he heard coming from beside him might herald an impromptu birth — he began to conduct a mental exercise. He had recently completed a correspondence course in Pelmanism, a method of memory training designed to eliminate mind-wandering and increase concentration. The course, a popular one in Biggs's set, had been heavily promoted. 'How to Eliminate Brain Fag!' the advertisements trumpeted. Harold was convinced that his memory was sharper as a result and he set out now to recall as much as he could of what he had read in the previous day's newspaper.

The main story on the front page had dealt with the Irish peace talks, which had dragged on in London all summer. A formal conference of the parties was due to open shortly, but diehard elements in Sinn Fein were opposed to any agreement that excluded the province of Ulster from a United Ireland. The report recalled that a shipment of 500 sub-machine-guns destined for Sinn Fein had been seized recently in New York.

There had been further debate in the House of Commons on the government's decision to admit women to the civil service in three years' time. Despite recent rains most of southern England was still in the grip of drought and rigid economies would be necessary for the remainder of the year. The price of whisky had been increased again. A bottle now cost 12/6d.

Most of these stories he had only glanced at (though he seemed to have retained the salient facts!). But there was one item he had read with close attention, a lengthy article dealing with the police investigation into the murders at Melling Lodge in Surrey two months earlier.

Biggs had followed the case with interest from the start. It was a talking point in his office and in the Bunch of Grapes where he usually spent his lunch hour. The apparently reasonless crime had caught people's imaginations. Some thought it the work of a maniac — Jimmy Pullman held to this view — but Harold felt there was more behind the murders than met the eye. 'It'll turn out to be the person you least expect,' he had predicted. 'Someone like the postman.'

He'd been disappointed initially when the opening words of the article — Important developments are expected soon in the continuing investigation into the horrific murders at Melling Lodge — were not borne out in succeeding paragraphs. Instead, the report detailed the progress of the inquiry to date. Or lack of progress, since it was plain the police had made little headway. The writer questioned whether the investigation was on the right track. If, indeed, it ever had been.

The shock felt at the killings seemed to have induced a sense of 'panic', he asserted. 'Wild theories' had abounded at the outset and even now, when it was increasingly clear that what they were dealing with was 'an isolated incident of senseless violence', there seemed to be an unwillingness, even among experienced officers, to approach the matter in 'a straightforward way'.

Harold was gratified to discover that he was able to retrieve key words and phrases from the text.

A move to seek the help of 'outside experts' had been checked, thanks to prompt action at the 'highest levels' in the Yard. But the investigation had continued to flounder in the eyes of many, who questioned whether proper attention had been given to 'the most basic areas of crime detection'.

A description of the man sought had been available to the police for some time, but there was doubt whether this area of the inquiry had been pursued with 'sufficient thoroughness'. Another 'solid lead' was the motorcycle and sidecar that the murderer was known to have used. It was rare in police work for a physical clue of this nature to yield no results, the reporter declared, leaving unspoken the implication that the detectives in charge of the case had somehow failed to make the most of it.

Somewhere in England is a man answering to the description who owns a motorcycle. Surely it only requires a methodical approach by the police of this land acting in concert to uncover his identity.

This somewhat dramatic assertion had lodged intact in Harold's newly improved memory. But he was puzzled by the article as a whole. He couldn't determine whether the reporter was giving his own opinions or those of the 'informed circles at Scotland Yard' to whom he referred from time to time. And it was only right at the very end of the report that the 'important developments' heralded in the opening paragraph were finally revealed:

The lack of progress has pointed to the need for a fresh approach. It is understood that the officer at present heading the inquiry, Chief Inspector Sinclair, will shortly be replaced by the man thought best qualified to bring matters to a successful conclusion, Britain's most famous detective, Chief Superintendent Albert Sampson, better known to the public as 'Sampson of the Yard'.

Knowlton was not Biggs's final destination. Mrs Troy lived at a place called Rudd's Cross, which he had been told was in the vicinity. Inquiring at the village pub, where the bus deposited him, he learned that in fact it was more than two miles away and could only be reached by a footpath that ran through the fields.

As he left the outskirts of Knowlton a distant rumble came to his ears. Away to the west the thunderheads of a storm were massing. The air was warm and muggy. Harold took off his glasses and mopped his face with a handkerchief. He'd brought no umbrella with him.

He hurried on through the stubbled fields, keeping an anxious eye on the heavens. Pausing at a stile, he removed his cap and patted dry the two bays of bare scalp on either side of his widow's peak. Thunder boomed again, louder this time. His new shoes were starting to pinch.

The bubble of resentment which had been swelling inside him all morning burst into angry recognition that he had let himself be used. Exploited! He might have minded less if there'd been any mention of compensation when Mr Wolverton gave him his assignment.

His bitterness grew as it fastened on this grievance.

Only last month his request for an increase in salary had been turned down. He'd felt hard done by then.

After years of wartime privation the shops were at last full of goods worth buying. Harold himself had been saving for months to purchase a wireless set — public transmissions by the new British Broadcasting Company were due to start the following year. Further off in his future the mirage of a motor-car shimmered.

Jimmy was right, he thought angrily, as he set off again. It was time he asserted himself.

Biggs was at his wits' end. He could make no sense of the old woman's ramblings. She would start on one thing, skip to another, and then lose the thread of both.

'Edna Babb? She's the girl who "does" for you?

Have I got that right, Mrs Troy?'

Finding his way to the cottage had proved no problem. It was just as Mr Wolverton had described it, standing on its own, separated by an apple orchard and unploughed fields from the rest of the houses grouped around the crossroads that gave the hamlet its name. But it had taken repeated hammerings on the door with the brass knocker before he heard the shuffle of slow footsteps inside and saw the door handle turn.

'Mr Wolverton?'

The figure peering up at him from the shadowy hallway was old and bent. Her thinning white hair was drawn back in an untidy bun. She wore a thick, knitted shawl wrapped about her shoulders over a long, stained skirt of dark bombazine. Wondering how she could possibly mistake him for his employer, he had given her his name. It was only when he went inside — when she led him into the small parlour and seated herself in a high-backed chair beside the window where a bar of sunlight entering through lace-net curtains illuminated her face — that he noticed the milky, cataract-clouded eyes.

He had pulled up a chair beside hers, and now he sat and listened while she talked of people he had never heard of — of 'Edna' and 'Tom Donkin' and 'Mr Grail' — as though they were old acquaintances of his.

While she spoke her hands moved ceaselessly, fondling a cat that had jumped into her lap as soon as she sat down, a large tortoiseshell beast which regarded Biggs steadily through narrow slitted eyelids. Its rasping purr filled the gaps of silence left by the quavering, breathless voice. Listening with half an ear, Harold thought sourly of the likely drenching he was in for later as the thunder rumbled ever closer. The shaft of light filtering through the lace-net curtains had dulled to a leaden beam.

'Tom Donkin took care of the garden?'

The picture was becoming clearer. Donkin was a local man, someone the Babb woman had found to work as a gardener and handyman. It seemed there was something between them, a relationship, but they had fallen out — had a fight in Mrs Troy's words — and Donkin had gone away. He was no longer living in the district and Edna Babb had been trying to discover his whereabouts.

'Looking all over,' Mrs Troy explained. She turned her face towards Harold, milky blue eyes blinking like some blind underground animal's. 'Poor girl. I think she's expecting.'

This had happened some months ago and since then Edna Babb had ceased to be someone Winifred Troy could count on. She still came in to clean, but only intermittently. Once a week, instead of the three times agreed on. Sometimes not at all.

'Why didn't you find someone else?' Biggs asked, increasingly impatient.

It seemed there was no one else, not in Rudd's Cross. Edna 'did' for two other families and they, too, complained of being let down. Sometimes she disappeared for days.

Unmoved by the old woman's predicament, Biggs was just telling himself he could see no way of dealing with the matter — not if the wretched Babb was the only cleaner available — when he discovered to his amazement that this, after all, wasn't the problem. It was merely the background to it. Mrs Troy had learned to cope with Edna's absences. If the house wasn't properly cleaned — and there was plenty of evidence of this in the layer of dust he could see coating the mantelpiece in front of him and dulling the glass front of the silver cabinet across the room — it didn't seem to bother the old woman. The crisis lay in another quarter. To be precise, in the shape of Mr Grail.

Mr Grail?

Harold had forgotten about him. Now he had to sit and listen again as Mrs Troy explained in her halting, back-and-forth way that he was the man who had looked after the garden since Tom Donkin's departure.

But there was more to it than that.

One of Edna Babb's duties had been to shop for her employer in Knowlton, but since she could no longer be relied on Mrs Troy had been forced to seek an alternative source of supplies.

'I told Mr Grail he could use the garden shed that's what he wanted — but he had to bring me food when he came.'

Why? Biggs wondered. Why on earth not ask one of the village women to shop for her? What was she clinging to so desperately? Was it her independence?

She shouldn't be living here on her own, he thought irritably. Didn't she have someone to care for her? 'What can I do for you, Mrs Troy?'

'I want you to tell him to go.' She spoke for the first time with certainty. 'I don't want him coming back.'

Biggs blinked. 'You've spoken to him, have you? Is he giving trouble?'

She shook her head. 'I can't talk to him,' she said.

'I want you to tell him.'

Now that he understood at last, Harold didn't trust himself to speak. He'd been dragged all the way out here on his afternoon off just to give some fellow his marching orders! As though to underline his sense of outrage, a loud crack of thunder sounded overhead. It was followed by a patter of raindrops on the roof that swiftly became a downpour. My God, he was going to get drenched!

He sought to keep a grip on his temper. 'Where can I find him?' he asked abruptly.

'He usually comes on a Saturday.' She turned her near-sightless eyes on him again. 'Saturday afternoons.

That's why I wanted someone here today.'

Without a word Biggs stood up and went out into the narrow hallway. He found what he was looking for — an umbrella, it was standing in a flowered china vase — and went from there directly through the house to the kitchen at the back. The smell of stale food assailed his nostrils. A pile of unwashed plates and dishes lay on the draining-board of the sink. Through the window he could see the shed, at the bottom, and to one side, of a small square of lawn bordered by flowerbeds.

He flung open the kitchen door. The rain fell like a curtain before his eyes. Fuming, he stepped outside, opening the umbrella as he did so, and splashed across the already sodden patch of grass to the shed. The door was barred by a heavy padlock. He hammered on it.

'Grail!' he called out. 'Grail! Are you there?'

There was no response. He laid his ear to the wooden door, but he could hear nothing above the noise of the rain beating on the corrugated iron above his head and pouring in a stream from the edge of the roof on to his spread umbrella.

He knocked once more, again without result, and then plodded back to the house. As he stepped into the kitchen he saw that the white leather of his new white-and-tan shoes had turned a muddy brown. Furious, he dried them with a kitchen towel. He returned to the front room.

'Grail's not in the shed, Mrs Troy. I doubt he'll come in this storm. Where does he live, anyway?'

She didn't know. Grail had never said. In short order Harold discovered there was almost nothing she did know about the man. He'd appeared mysteriously, several months back, in early spring. He came often on a Saturday but not every week. He usually brought food for her, groceries of some kind, though not always what she asked for.

'Just any stuff,' the old woman said, with sudden, fierce resentment.

So that was it! Grail hadn't lived up to his end of their bargain. Calmer in his mind now, Biggs reflected coolly. As far as he could see, the garden appeared to have been cared for. If it was just a question of the food Grail was bringing, then a word in his ear might do the trick.

Seating himself beside her again he began to put it to her, suggesting that if someone took Grail aside and- 'No! No! No! That's not what I want.' Twin pink roses like fever spots blossomed in the pallor of her cheeks. The hysteria in her voice shook him. 'I don't want to have to deal with that man. Please.' Listen to me!'

Flushing, Biggs sat back. There was no reasoning with her, he told himself bitterly. She was old and stubborn, and probably feeble-minded. She ought to be in a home. He couldn't see what this fellow Grail had done that was so terribly wrong. Anyone would think he was Satan incarnate! For a moment he wondered if there was something here he hadn't understood. Something she'd left unsaid. But he pushed the thought from his mind. All he wanted was to get the damned business settled and be on his way.

'Well, I can't tell him anything if he's not here,' he said sharply. 'And I can't wait for ever.'

She sat still in her chair, her face turned away from his. The cat's purring had ceased. 'I want Mr Wolverton to come,' she said in a low voice. 'I'll speak to him.'

The implied threat in her words brought the blood rushing to his cheeks again. 'There is something I can do,' he said quickly. 'I could write him a letter. Mr Grail. I'll leave it in the shed, so if he comes tomorrow he'll find it. I'll tell him he has to go, to quit the premises. There — will that help?'

She said nothing. But her shoulders under the knitted shawl made a faint shrugging gesture.

He stood up, temples throbbing. Old and helpless as she was she'd managed to humiliate him. He felt as though she had slipped a chain around his neck and given it a sharp jerk. He moved away to a small writing desk that stood against the wall behind her chair and sat down. His hand shook as he unscrewed his fountain pen and took a sheet of paper from one of the pigeon-holes.

Dear Mr Grail Mrs Troy informs me that for some time now she has allowed you the use of her garden shed in return for certain services…

The room grew suddenly brighter as he wrote.

Glancing up he saw that a beam of sunlight had broken through the lace-net curtains. He was aware that the rain had stopped a few minutes before. The sunshine brought a flash of silver from the glass fronted cabinet, and Harold's eye was drawn that way.

He noticed a pair of tankards standing on a silver salver that occupied the top shelf of the cabinet. The sight of them awoke a recent memory in him. He had gone to an auction in Folkestone with Mr Wolverton to oversee the sale of a deceased client's effects. He recalled the auctioneer holding up a brace of silver mugs, very like the ones in the cabinet.

'Georgian,' the auctioneer had said. They had fetched 120, pounds the pair of them.

She now finds it necessary to put an end to this arrangement and I am writing to inform you of this. Since no contract exists between you and Mrs Troy I assume that a period of notice of one week from today will be sufficient…

A hundred and twenty pounds the pair of them. He could buy a wireless set for 120 pounds for a lot less, as a matter of fact, but the balance could go towards a motor-car.

Harold Biggs sat like a statue, his pen poised above the paper, while the thought of larceny slithered into his mind like an adder and lay there, quietly coiled.

He glanced at the figure in the chair. The old woman seemed to be dozing.

He got up quietly and went out of the room and into the kitchen. His heart was leaping in his chest.

He needed time to think. He drew a glass of water from the sink tap and stood at the window staring out. Scattered raindrops fell through sunshine. Blue skies showed on the heels of the clouds, which were moving eastwards. He wouldn't get wet after all.

Dry-lipped he told himself he was entitled to claim payment, to be compensated for his trouble. But it wasn't that. He knew. It was the excitement he felt racing through his veins. The realization that he might be about to do something he had never dreamed of doing. Had never dared to dream of doing. It was like stepping into a new skin. A new person.

He went back to the front room. Mrs Troy hadn't stirred. Her chin lay on her breast. Her eyes were shut.

Biggs held his breath. The cat watched from her lap as he crossed the room silently to the cabinet.

Could he do it? Yes? No?

He opened the glass doors and took out the tankards, one in each hand, hefting them, testing their weight. His eyes, behind his glasses, began to water.

'Mr Biggs? Are you there?'

Harold froze. His back was to her.

Are you there?

He turned his head slowly — and then relaxed with a slow expulsion of breath. Her face was pointing towards the door. She couldn't see across the room. He had banked all on that.

'Mr Biggs…?'

Taking care not to make any sound, he replaced the mugs in the cabinet and shut the glass doors. Black spots danced before his eyes.

'Here I am, Mrs Troy.' He crossed the room unhurriedly to the desk. 'I'll just finish this letter now.'

Kindly remove all your belongings and leave the door unlocked…

Biggs's pen squeaked faintly on the paper.

I shall return next Saturday, a week from today, to ensure that the shed has been vacated as Mrs Troy requests.

Yours faithfully,

Harold Biggs (Solicitor's Clerk) 'I've been thinking this over, Mrs Troy.' He spoke to her from the desk as he addressed an envelope in clear capitals: mr grail, by hand. 'A letter's not enough, I feel. I ought to handle this in person. I'll be coming back next Saturday to make sure this fellow has got the message. Don't worry, I'll have him out of here, bag and baggage, I promise you.'

Because he didn't want to take the tankards now. Not today. He had thought it all out in the kitchen.

First, Grail had to be sent packing. Then, anything found missing from the cottage could be laid at his door. He'd be the obvious culprit, a man with a grievance. It was an added bonus, as far as Harold was concerned, that he did not need to trouble his conscience, either. Even if the police got around to questioning Grail they would find no evidence of the theft, no stolen goods, and the matter would be dropped.

Always supposing it came to that. Always supposing Winifred Troy even noticed the mugs had gone missing.

He sealed the envelope, got up and went over to where she was sitting.

'Do you understand, Mrs Troy?' He sat down beside her again. 'This letter's his notice to quit. I'll be back in a week to make sure he's gone. You don't have to deal with him. If he makes any objection refer him to us, to the firm. Tell him we're handling the matter.'

He didn't like it when she turned her face to him.

An exchange of glances was part of any conversation.

You looked into the other person's eyes and tried to judge their reactions. Mrs Troy's clouded gaze gave no hint of her feelings. Then he felt her fingers close on his.

'Thank you, Mr Biggs.' It was no more than a murmur. 'I'm sorry to have put you to all this trouble.'

Too late, he thought angrily, pulling his hand from hers. He didn't want to think about her, or her life.

Or how little of it was left.

'I'll be going now,' he said, getting up. 'I'll see you a week from today.'

He went out of the room without waiting for her response and left the house by the kitchen door, crossing the lawn and pausing at the shed to slip the letter under the door. The puddles in the dirt track outside the wicket gate reflected the washed blue sky.

He stopped for a moment to savour the extraordinary events of the past half-hour. He had walked across the room to the cabinet in her presence and taken out the tankards! He had done what he meant to do. Assert himself! He only wished he could bring it to Mr Wolverton's attention. Somehow ram it down his throat!

As it was, he couldn't even tell Jimmy Pullman what he'd done, or what he planned to do. It would have to remain his secret.

Always in the past he had lacked courage, he thought, needing an explanation for the mediocrity of his life. But he felt if he could do this one thing return next week and take the tankards — the whole of his future might change. In spite of everything he had a deep-rooted belief in his own good fortune.

' You're a lucky devil.'

Harold grinned at the remembered words. They had been spoken to him by a woman he had picked up one evening in the high street in Folkestone. It was in the second year of the war. He'd forgotten her name now.

They had walked arm in arm from the upper town to one of the pubs in the harbour, down the same winding road that, day by day, echoed to the marching feet of thousands of men on their way to the moored Channel steamers, and to France. (Harold heard them still in his dreams, those marching feet.) She told him her fiance had been killed at Loos and he had wondered whether this bright-eyed girl with the brassy manner might not feel contempt for a man who, with the help of weak eyesight and a cough he had learned to exaggerate, had worked himself a soft posting in the quartermaster's stores at Shorncliffe Camp. She soon put him right.

'I'll take a live man over a dead hero any day,' she declared, and proved it to him a few hours later, up against the wall in a dark alleyway behind the pub.

'You're a lucky devil.'

He never saw her again, but her words stayed with him. As the war continued, and the casualty lists lengthened, and weak eyes and doubtful lungs were no longer enough to keep a man out of the trenches, Harold had waited for the day when his name would be added to the columns marching down daily to the water's edge. It never arrived. He had remained at his post in the quartermaster's stores. And with the passing of time he came to see that what the girl had told him was true, though in a way she could not have imagined. He was specially blessed. Anointed. One of those, who, by fate or accident, was destined to escape the slaughter.

He still had the shiny new shilling he had been given when he enlisted and he had drilled a hole in it and threaded it on to his key ring. Even now, in moments of doubt or indecision, he would find himself slipping his hand into his pocket and running his thumb over the milled edge.

Amos Pike slipped into the kitchen and deposited the parcel of food he had brought in the pantry. He waited, expecting to hear the old woman's voice from the front room asking who was there. When she didn't speak he went through and found her sitting in her usual place by the window. In the fading light of early evening she seemed unusually pale and shrunken and he looked at her with cold-eyed concern.

'I brought you some things,' he said, in his dead voice.

'Thank you, Mr Grail.'

She sounded breathless, uneasy.

'I got some fish, like you asked.' He studied her face, observing the faint tremor that tugged at the corners of her mouth.

'Thank you,' she whispered again.

Pike's brow creased. He seldom conversed with anyone, but his instincts, like an animal's, were strongly developed.

'Is something wrong?' he asked.

She shook her head at once. 'No, nothing. Thank you for bringing the food.' She kept repeating herself.

He knew she found his presence unsettling, but now there was something else in her manner: a kind of tension, which she was trying to hide. He moved a little closer. He wanted to get to the bottom of this.

Distrust and suspicion were the dominant strains of his character, together with his need, and it was this last — the constant thrust of his longing — which caused him to turn away suddenly and leave her sitting where she was.

He would find out later what had upset her.

A last-minute change in Mrs Aylward's itinerary had meant a delay of several hours in his departure for Rudd's Cross. Normally he accepted these occasional disruptions in his plans without emotion. He could afford to take the long view.

But this afternoon for the first time he had felt impatience. The everyday world with its routine of chores and duties was becoming a burden to him.

Though he wasn't aware of it, the frail moorings that bound him to common reality were starting to fray.

Twilight was falling when he opened the shed door, and he failed to see the letter lying on the floor at his feet. When he lit the paraffin lamp a minute later he had already stripped the dust cloth off his motorcycle and thrown it aside. It fell on the floor, covering the white envelope.

He reached the forest before midnight and slept, wrapped in his groundsheet, beside his motorcycle until dawn. At first light he was on the move, hoisting his heavily laden bag on to his shoulder and striding, silent and ghostlike, through the thick ground mist that swirled about the tree trunks.

He found the dugout as he had left it, apart from a layer of mud that had accumulated at the bottom with the recent rains. He used his entrenching tool to scrape it out, stamping the remaining wet soil into a hard surface, and then went in search of one of the many stands of saplings with which the forest was seeded, returning an hour later with two armfuls of poles, which he trimmed and laid side by side on the packed mud floor, damp-proofing the pit.

At noon he broke off to open a tin of bully beef.

All morning he had kept his mind fixed on the minutiae of the jobs he was engaged in: on the branch he was trimming to size, on the neatness of the levelled floor. But he had been conscious all the time of the forces gathering within him: a tidal bore of emotion that throbbed at his nerve ends, making his skin prickle and burn as though lava flowed in his veins.

The sensation was thrilling. But it also made him uneasy. Self-control was the anchor of his life. It had steadied him through years of near-unbearable anguish and aching need, and the fear of losing it now was enough to calm him and keep his mind fixed on the tasks ahead.

When he had finished eating he left the area again, this time heading for a nearby pond, and returned with a sheaf of willow branches. Earlier he had nailed together a rough frame from the remaining saplings and now he began to plait the willow into a lattice to be fixed to the frame. It was painstaking work, and twice he had to return to the waterside for more willow laths, but by five o'clock he had constructed a roof for the dugout and laid it in place.

Collecting his bag and tools he retired into the refuge he had built. Now that his preparations were complete he was able to relax, lighting a cigarette and brewing a mess tin of tea on the Primus stove he had brought on his last visit. While it was still light he went through the contents of his bag, picking out those items he meant to leave behind. The stove he wrapped in oilcloth and stowed in a corner with the tinned supplies, following the pattern he had established, preparing himself for several visits and a long period of anticipation.

But even as he did these things he felt a seed of doubt. He wasn't sure he could wait. His experience at Highfield had been unique, a period when time had seemed suspended, a moment of sweet indecision prolonged to the point where he had temporarily lost the power to act. In retrospect he seemed to have sat for countless evenings in the woods above the village while the excitement mounted in him bit by bit like the slow accretion of coral.

He felt different now. The pressure inside his chest was like a clenched fist. His desire was growing by the day.

The last thing he did before leaving the dugout was to cut fresh brush, which he used to camouflage the site, threading the branches into the surrounding undergrowth, creating the illusion of a dense thicket.

Having made a final inspection of the area to satisfy himself that all was as it should be, he returned to where he had left the motorcycle, taking his bag with him.

Before wedging it into place in the sidecar he unbuckled the straps and took out a piece of meat wrapped in striped butcher's paper, which he slipped into the pocket of his leather jacket, wrinkling his nose at the gamy smell. He had bought it the day before and it was starting to go off.

The doors to the drawing-room stood open and the curtains on the windows had been pulled back so that light from inside poured out on to the grass. Two maids were busy with trays, moving back and forth between the house and the table under the trellised vine. Beyond the stretch of lawn illuminated by the lights the garden lay in silvered shadow under the bright moonlight.

Pike sat with his binoculars nailed to his eyes.

He had been watching for more than two hours, propped against the trunk of the beech tree, motionless in a well of darkness untouched by the moon's rays.

The adult members of the family were eating dinner.

There were three of them, but two he barely noticed. His attention was fixed on the fair-haired woman facing him, whose bare arms and shoulders glowed like ivory in the flickering candlelight.

Some kind of celebration was in progress. All three were in evening dress. Champagne had been poured at the start of the meal and glasses raised to the older of the two women. Even from a distance Pike could see the wine froth and sparkle.

He had done this at Highfield. He had sat in the shadows and watched. But try as he might now he couldn't recapture the feeling he had had then: the sense of a pleasure postponed, but within his grasp. A fruit he could pluck whenever he chose.

The beast stirring within him now cared nothing for patience and detachment. Its demands were insistent.

He shifted, easing the pressure in his groin.

He turned his attention away from the table to the edge of the lawn, where the yew alley began, and then traced the course of the path that ran the length of the garden to the croquet lawn. Three-quarters of the way along the yew alley a subsidiary path branched out and led to the gate in the mossed wall. Pike's eye came to rest there.

But not for long. Slowly, with all the deliberation he could muster, he made the return journey with his glasses, following the pathway back to the yew alley and then up to the lawn and the house.

He pictured it all in his mind's eye.

The charge, with the rifle and bayonet thrusting ahead!

The glass doors shattering!

He heard the screams. He'd heard them before.

They only increased his excitement.

Heart pumping in his chest, he brought the binoculars back to bear on the distant figure of the woman.

His mouth turned dry at the sight of her bare arms.

The thought of her body beneath his brought a low growl from his throat.

'Call me Sadie… I want you to call me Sadie.' He whispered the words.

At Melling Lodge he had been unable to contain himself. His climax had come too soon, soiling his trousers, while he struggled with the woman on the bed, the shame and the blood and the pleasure all mixed together.

Recalling those moments now, he made a silent vow.

This time it would be different. This time he would call on his iron control.

But the last two hours had shown him he couldn't wait. His need demanded urgent satisfaction. Even tonight would not have been too soon.

He put down his glasses and lit a cigarette, deliberately allowing his body to cool.

The following weekend Mrs Aylward would take the train to London on Saturday morning. He had already been informed of her plans. She would go from there to visit friends in Gloucestershire, returning only the following Tuesday. He would have the whole weekend free, and Monday, too, if he chose.

Pike drew deeply on his cigarette. In a moment his mind was made up.

He had one more thing to do.

Extinguishing his cigarette, he rose and started down the hill, slipping between the trees, catlike in the sureness of his footing, a shadow among the shadows. At the bottom he left the treeline and joined the path that led through the water-meadow, walking silently between the ponds where the moon hung motionless on the dark surface of the water.

When he reached the garden gate he stopped and went down on his haunches. He could hear their voices. The silvery notes of a woman's laugh came to him on the still night air. He thought of her white throat.

He began to whistle. Softly, almost inaudibly at first. Then a little louder. He went on that way, the grating tuneless air growing in volume all the time.

He was rewarded after a minute by the sound of a yelp coming from the direction of the lawn. Then almost at once he heard another noise in which whining, panting and scurrying movement were all mingled, and the dog burst into view on the pathway ahead of him, skidding around the corner from the yew alley, heavy ears flapping.

Growling a challenge, it ran towards the figure crouched behind rhe barred gate.

It was after midnight when he returned to Rudd's Cross, switching off the stuttering engine of his motorcycle when he was still some distance from the cottage. It had given trouble on the ride back, the carburettor needed cleaning. He pushed the machine for the last hundred yards along the puddle-strewn dirt track up to the shed.

Once inside, he wasted no time, not bothering to light the paraffin lamp, locating the dust cloth by feel in the pitch darkness and flinging it over the motorcycle.

He was anxious to get home as soon as possible.

A long drive lay ahead of him the following day — Mrs Aylward had a client in Lewes.

Before leaving he cast a glance at the darkened windows of the cottage. He hadn't forgotten the old woman's strange behaviour. Something was troubling her. He must find out what it was.

He would come early next Saturday. There was much to do.

Grim-faced, Sinclair strode along the carpeted corridor with Madden at his elbow. 'So Ferris thinks my days are numbered — did you see that piece in Friday's Express? "Is it time for a change?" I wonder, does he know something we don't?'

A breakdown in the Underground had delayed the chief inspector's arrival at the Yard by half an hour.

He had paused in his office only long enough to empty the contents of his briefcase on to his desk, secure the cumulative file from the drawer where it resided and signal Madden to accompany him.

'Let's leave that till later, John,' he said, when the inspector began to tell him about an idea he had.

'Let's get this over with first.'

Glancing at his colleague's face, Sinclair was pleased to see him looking rested and alert. He allowed himself to wonder whether a visit to Highfield had figured among Madden's weekend activities.

'"Informed circles at the Yard,"' he quoted, as he led the way into the anteroom to Bennett's office.

'That's what Ferris calls his source. Do you think the chief super will have the grace to blush this morning?'

In the event, they had no opportunity to find out.

Bennett was alone in his office. The deputy, dressed in funereal black, stood by the window, hands on hips, gazing out at the morning traffic on the river. He turned when they entered.

'Good morning, gentlemen.' He ushered them to their usual chairs at the polished oak table. Their way led past his desk where a copy of Friday's Daily Express was ostentatiously displayed. 'We're on our own this morning.' Bennett sat down facing them. His brown eyes were expressionless. 'Mr Sampson has another appointment.'

Sinclair opened his file. Without haste he began to leaf through the typewritten pages. His neat, contained figure showed no sign of strain or anxiety.

'As you know, sir, we were hoping these wartime killings in Belgium would provide us with information that would assist us in our current inquiries.'

The chief inspector raised flint-coloured eyes from the file and looked squarely at Bennett. 'I'm afraid thus far they've proved a blind alley.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.' Bennett shifted slightly in his chair. 'None of these men fits the bill, then?'

'Mr Madden and I have interviewed two of the four survivors of B Company. Neither was our man. The third, Marlow, is in hospital and the fourth, Samuel Patterson, has been traced by the Norwich police. He's working on a farm near Aylsham. His movements are accounted for.'

'Yet these men — and their comrades who were killed — were the only ones Captain Miller questioned?'

'According to the records, yes.'

'And we know he closed the case.' Bennett frowned.

'Then logic suggests he believed one of those killed in battle was the guilty man. That's been your assumption — am I right, Chief Inspector?'

'Yes, sir.'

'But you thought he could have been mistaken?

That it might have been one of these four?'

'That possibility was in my mind.' Sinclair nodded.

'But now I've had second thoughts.'

'Oh?' The deputy sat forward.

'I've been struck by the fact that none of these men — none of those who survived — was questioned again after they came out of the line. That doesn't make sense. I've looked at the verbal records of the interrogations carefully. Miller bore down hard on them. It's plain he thought they were hiding something. Even if he believed the guilty man among them was dead he would have had the others in again. He wouldn't have let it go at that.'

Bennett's brow knotted. 'Then the murderer wasn't from B Company after all. Miller must have decided it was someone else.'

'So it would seem,' Sinclair agreed.

'But without that memorandum, we're not likely to discover who.'

'Correct.'

Bennett sighed. He looked away. 'Is there anything else, Chief Inspector?'

'Only this, sir.' Sinclair dipped into the file. Selecting a paper, he pulled it out and held it up before him. 'I sent a telegram to the Brussels Surete last week asking them to check their records for us. I was hoping they might have a copy of Miller's report. They don't.'

His eye met Bennett's over the top of the sheet of paper. 'In fact, according to their records the case is still open.'

'What?' The deputy sat up straight in astonishment.

'I don't understand. What does that mean?'

'Well, for one thing, the British military authorities never informed the Belgian civilian police that the case was closed.'

The two men looked at each other. Perhaps five seconds elapsed. Then Bennett's eyes narrowed. Sinclair, who had a high opinion of the deputy's quickness of mind, saw the realization dawn.

'That damned memorandum! It's not lost, is it?

They just won't give it to us!'

Sinclair made a slight gesture of dissent. 'Not necessarily, sir. It may well be lost. Now.'

'You mean someone deliberately got rid of it. But we don't know who, or when?'

'That seems likely.'

'The killer himself?'

Sinclair shook his head. 'I doubt that. Unless he was an MP, and even then…' He slipped the paper back into the file. 'I spoke to Colonel Jenkins on Friday and asked him to put us in touch with Miller's commanding officer during the war. It's possible he may remember something of the case. Incidentally, Jenkins said they're still hunting for the memorandum at the War Office depot. I've no reason to disbelieve him. There could be a variety of reasons why someone in September 1917 decided it would be better to destroy that piece of paper, particularly if they thought the guilty party was dead. It was a brutal crime and the victims were civilians. No need to point a finger at the armed forces, they might have thought. Let the dead bury the dead.'

Bennett was studying his fingernails. After a few moments he rose and went to the window. He stood with his arms folded looking out. Sinclair glanced at Madden with raised eyebrows. The deputy returned to the table and sat down.

'Let me sum up, if I may.' He cleared his throat.

'There's no point in my tackling the War Office on this, no way of prising that memorandum out of them?'

'I believe not, sir. If it still exists, if they're withholding it deliberately, they'll continue to do so. If not, we'll only antagonize them.'

Bennett nodded, understanding. His frown returned. 'If you only had a name, something to go on…' He dropped his eyes. He seemed reluctant to continue. 'Then again, it's quite possible the cases are unconnected. The murders in Belgium, the killings here… We can't be sure.'

'Indeed we can't, sir.' Sinclair carefully aligned the papers in front of him and slid them back into the folder.

The deputy lifted his gaze. 'Perhaps, after all, it's time to look… in a different direction.' His glance conveyed sympathy.

The chief inspector acknowledged the words with a slight nod.

Bennett rose. He turned to Madden. 'Would you leave us, Inspector? I want a word in private with Mr Sinclair.'

Twenty minutes later the chief inspector walked briskly into his office. The bulky cumulative file flew from his hands and landed with a resounding thud on his desktop. As though in response, the nervous chatter of a typewriter in the adjoining room fell silent.

Sinclair stood before his desk.

'I rather hoped the chief super's non-appearance this morning might signal his dispatch to the Tower for immediate execution. But it seems Ferris was right we're the ones scheduled for the block.'

'I'm sorry, sir.' Madden scowled from behind his desk. 'I think they're making a mistake.'

'Perhaps. What's certain is Sampson has the assistant commissioner's ear. That's where he was this morning, by the way, doing some last-minute spadework with Sir George, making sure he doesn't change his mind.'

'Is that it, then? Are we out?'

'Not quite yet, though I dare say we would be if Parkhurst wasn't due in Newcastle this afternoon for a regional conference. He won't be back till Thursday.

That's the appointed day. He's called a meeting in his office. Bennett and I are invited to attend. You're excused, John.'

The chief inspector took his pipe from his pocket.

He perched on the edge of his desk. 'Poor Bennett.

He's in the worst position of all, trying to straddle a barbed-wire fence. He knows we're on the right track, even though it keeps going cold. But if he continues backing us he'll find himself exposed. I think he half suspects Sampson's after his job.'

'Surely not!' Madden was incredulous.

'Oh, he won't get it.' Sinclair chuckled. 'But our chief super's fantasies know no bounds. Never mind that. You were saying earlier you had an idea. Now would be a good time to hear it.'

The inspector took a moment to collect his thoughts. 'It all depends on how Miller went about his business,' he began.

'I don't follow you.'

'He wouldn't have worked alone. He would have had a redcap NCO along with him to take notes and type up his reports. But what we don't know is whether he simply drew a clerk at random from whatever pool was available, in which case it wouldn't be much help to us, or whether he worked with the same man regularly.'

'You mean if they were a team?' Sinclair frowned.

Madden nodded. 'If he used the same clerk, then that would be the man who took down the interrogations of B Company and typed up the records.

He'd be familiar with the case. They might even have discussed it.'

'You're suggesting this mythical clerk might have known what was in Miller's mind. Who he thought the guilty man was.' The chief inspector looked sceptical.

'More than that. He'd most likely have typed up that memorandum. And it wouldn't have been a routine job for him. He'd remember what was in it.'

Sinclair examined the bowl of his pipe. 'So what is it we need to know? The name of Miller's special clerk, if he had one. I'm not sure there's time. Thursday's our deadline.'

'I know, but I've thought of a short cut,' Madden said. 'Miller was travelling in a staff car when he was killed. It's likely he was on an investigation, which means he had a clerk with him, probably the driver.

He could be our man.'

'Now you're telling me he's dead!'

'He might be.' Madden was unfazed. 'But we don't know that.'

'Nor do we,' Sinclair agreed after a moment. He gave an approving nod. 'You're right, John, it's worth a try. I'll pester the War Office again. I'm in the mood to twist someone's tail.'

When she came to a convenient tree stump, Harriet Merrick paused and sat down, fanning her face with the wide straw hat she had put on to please Annie McConnell. (Mrs Merrick had pleaded in vain that the mild October sunshine was hardly likely to cause her sunstroke!) She was finding the gentle slope to the top of Shooter's Hill heavy going today. A slight pain in her chest, like a bolt tightening, had persuaded her to stop and rest for a while. She waited now for the sensation to pass.

She was reluctant to admit it, but she'd not been feeling herself these past few days. A nagging headache that had started on the night of her sixty-first birthday had continued to plague her since. At her son's suggestion they had taken advantage of the unusually warm autumn weather to dine outside that night, and Mrs Merrick thought at first she might have caught a chill. But the cold she feared did not develop. Instead, her head had continued to ache, keeping her awake at night and allowing her thoughts to wander restlessly in a state of increasing anxiety.

The trouble had started with Tigger's death.

Poisoned, Hopley reckoned. He blamed the farmers hereabouts who, he said, were laying down strychnine and other poisons against the foxes, which took a heavy toll of their hen coops. The gardener had come across the poor animal dragging itself on its stomach through the shrubbery in the early morning. Tigger had been missing all night, though Annie had called to him repeatedly before she went to bed.

The children's attention had been distracted while the dog was carried to the potting shed where presently he died. After lunch their father had told them what had happened. They had wept, but then, as children did, dried their tears and taken a lively interest in the funeral arrangements, which Hopley was charged with. That evening they had stood hand in hand with their parents and with Annie while prayers were said and the remains of the spaniel laid to rest in a grave dug behind the croquet lawn.

Their father had assured them he wouldn't let the matter rest there and had already informed the village bobby, Constable Proudfoot, who intended to look into it. The next day Harriet Merrick took her grandchildren aside and promised to buy them a new puppy on their return from holiday in Cornwall.

But, like spreading ripples in a pond, the brutal disturbance to domestic life at Croft Manor continued to claim its victims. On Tuesday night little Robert had become tearful again, and it was discovered he was running a temperature. He had been packed off to bed immediately by his mother while the unspoken thought hung in the air: if it turned out to be anything serious the whole family would have to delay their departure for Penzance at the end of the week.

This in turn seemed to upset Mrs Merrick, as she readily admitted to Annie. 'I don't want them hanging on. I want them to go.'

'Will you listen to yourself?' Annie had laughed at her. 'Your own flesh and blood, and you can't wait to see the back of them.'

'I was looking forward to us being here alone. Just you and I, Annie.'

'Now don't you worry, Miss Hattie.' Annie addressed her as Mrs Merrick in front of others, but always as Miss Hattie when they were alone, just as she had for the past forty years and more. 'We'll have plenty of time on our own, you'll see. They'll be off for three weeks.'

'Not if they don't go,' Mrs Merrick had pointed out with unanswerable logic, but Annie just shook her head at her.

'What a great silly you are! Always getting yourself worked up for no reason.'

Annie was right — there was no reason to be upset.

But this, paradoxically, seemed to distress her all the more, and the night before she had hardly closed her eyes for worrying.

'Oh, Annie, I don't know what's the matter with me. Why do I want them away from here?' They were walking in the garden together after breakfast. 'I'm starting to feel the way I did when Tom died. Do you remember? I was so afraid then, even before I knew.'

Annie had drawn her into a recess in the yew alley and put her arms around her.

'There, my dear,' she murmured. 'Aren't you forgetting it's four years since the poor dear boy was killed?'

'How could I forget?'

'Almost to the day…" 'Oh! Do you think it's that?' Mrs Merrick drew back. Tom had been killed in the second week of October. The anniversary was near. 'Oh, I do hope so.'

She caught her breath at her own words, wondering how she could have said such a thing.

But it was true, none the less, and the thought had comforted her for the rest of the day.

She felt better still when she went up to the nursery later with Annie and they found the invalid's temperature had come down. He declared himself fit enough for a game of Happy Families, and although his nanny, Enid Bradshaw, opposed the idea she was overruled by Annie whose writ ran in all departments of the household.

Mrs Merrick smiled as Robert's seven-year-old sister fussed over him, fluffing up his pillows and settling him comfortably in his bed. She giggled with them both when Annie fixed the patient with a glittering eye. 'Now tell me the truth, Master Robert — and may a lie never stain your lips — are you by any chance holding Miss Bun, the Baker's Daughter?'

The game continued until the arrival of Dr Fellows, who pronounced Robert to be on the mend after only the briefest of examinations. 'A case of nerves, I think.

Losing the dog must have upset him more than we realized. Poor beast, do you know yet how it happened?'

It was also Mrs Merrick's day for her weekly checkup and Dr Fellows apologized for having come an hour later than usual. 'I was just leaving the surgery when they brought in Emmett Hogg with a broken ankle. It seems he had to hobble and crawl for half a mile before he found help. Fell into a pit in the woods, he says.' Dr Fellows lifted an eloquent eyebrow. 'Not many men hereabouts manage to be dead drunk at two o'clock in the afternoon, but Hogg makes quite a habit of it. Now what have you been up to, madam?'

The doctor lowered his jowly visage over the gauge of his blood pressure apparatus. He pumped air into the cuff around Mrs Merrick's arm. He frowned. 'Been overdoing it again, have we?'

Mrs Merrick, who liked neither being addressed as 'madam', nor being referred to in the first person plural, acknowledged that she had been for a walk earlier that day. She made no mention of Shooter's Hill.

'Take it easy for the next few days,' Dr Fellows advised her. 'We'd better make that a week. No more walks outside the garden until I see you again.'

Mrs Merrick's thoughts were elsewhere. Something he had said had jogged her memory.

'Fell into a pit, you say?'

'That's Hogg's story.' Dr Fellows snapped his bag shut. 'I hae me doots.'

Harriet Merrick winced. 'If it happened in Ashdown Forest he must report it,' she said firmly. 'The police want to know about any fresh digging there. My son was telling me only the other day.'

William was a Justice of the Peace.

'I'm not sure anyone will believe anything Emmett Hogg tells them,' Dr Fellows remarked. He paused at the bedroom door.

'Nevertheless, he must report it. And you must make sure he does,' Mrs Merrick added, pleased for once to be in a position to dictate.