Arthur & George

'That's bad, sir. That's very bad. This'd better not get out. There'll be panic in every village. Twenty wenches… People are worried enough for their livestock as it is.'

'You have children, Campbell?'

'A boy. And a little girl.'

'Yes. The only good thing in this letter is the threat to shoot Sergeant Robinson.'

'That's a good thing, sir?'

'Oh, maybe not for Sergeant Robinson himself. But it means our man has overstepped himself. Threatening to murder a police officer. Put that on the indictment and we'll be able to get penal servitude for life.'

If we can find the letter writer, thought Campbell. ' Northfield, Hednesford, Walsall – he's trying to send us in all directions.'

'No doubt. Inspector, let me summarize, if you have no objection, and you tell me if you disagree with my thinking.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Now, you are a capable officer – no, don't disagree already.' Anson gave the slightest smile he had in his repertoire. 'You are a very capable officer. But this investigation is now three and a half months old, including three weeks with twenty specials under your command. No one has been charged, no one arrested, no one even seriously taken aside and looked over. And the mutilations have continued. Agreed?'

'Agreed, sir.'

'Local cooperation, which I am aware you compare unfavourably with what you experienced in the great city of Birmingham, has been better than usual. There is, for once, a wider interest than normal in aiding the Constabulary. But the best suspicions we have obtained so far have come in anonymous denunciations. This mysterious "Captain", for example, who lives so inconveniently on the other side of Birmingham. Should we be tempted by him? I think not. What possible interest might some Captain miles away have in mutilating animals belonging to people he has never met? Though it would be poor detective work not to take a visit to Northfield.'

'Agreed.'

'So we are looking for local people, as we have always assumed. Or a local person. I favour the notion of more than one. Three or four, perhaps. It makes more sense. I would imagine one letter writer, one postboy to travel to different towns, one person skilled at handling animals, and one planner to guide them all. A gang, in other words. Whose members have no love for the police. Indeed, take pleasure in trying to mislead us. Who like to boast.

'They name names to confuse us. Of course. But even so, one name comes up again and again. Edalji. Edalji who is going to meet the Captain. Edalji who they said was locked up. Edalji the lawyer is in the gang. I have always had my suspicions, but so far have felt it proper to keep them to myself. I told you to look up the files. There was a campaign of letter-writing before, mainly against the father. Pranks, hoaxes, petty theft. We nearly got him at the time. Eventually I gave the Vicar a pretty heavy warning that we knew who was behind it, and not long afterwards it stopped. QED, you might say, though regrettably not enough to convict. Still, if he didn't own up, at least I put a stop to it. For – what? – seven, eight years.

'Now it's started again, and in the same place. And Edalji's name keeps coming up. That first Greatorex letter mentions three names, but the only one of them the lad himself knows is Edalji. Therefore, Edalji knows Greatorex. And he did the same the first time round – included himself in the denunciations. Only this time he's older, and not satisfied with catching blackbirds and wringing their necks. This time he's after bigger things, literally. Cows, horses. And not being much of a physical specimen himself, he recruits others to help him do the work. And now he's raising the stakes, and threatens us with twenty wenches. Twenty wenches, Campbell.'

'Indeed, sir. You will allow me to put one or two questions?'

'I will.'

'For a start, why should he denounce himself?'

'To put us off the scent. He deliberately includes his own name in lists of people we know can have nothing to do with the matter.'

'So he also offers a reward for his own capture?'

'That way he knows there will be no one to claim it but himself.' Anson gave a dry chuckle, but the joke seemed lost on Campbell. 'And of course, it's a further provocation to the police. Look how the Constabulary blunders about, while a poor honest citizen has to offer his own tin to clear up crime. Come to think of it, that advertisement might be construed as a libel on the force…'

'But – excuse me, sir – why should a Birmingham solicitor assemble a gang of local roughs in order to mutilate animals?'

'You've met him, Campbell. How did he strike you?'

The Inspector reviewed his impressions. 'Intelligent. Nervous. Rather eager to please at first. Then a little quick to take offence. He offered us some advice and we didn't seem keen on it. Suggested we try using bloodhounds.'

'Bloodhounds? You're sure he didn't say native trackers?'

'No, sir, bloodhounds. The odd thing was, listening to his voice – it was an educated voice, a lawyer's voice – I found myself thinking at one point, if you shut your eyes, you'd think him an Englishman.'

'Whereas if you left them open, you wouldn't exactly mistake him for a member of the Brigade of Guards?'

'You could put it that way, sir.'

'Yes. It sounds as if – eyes open or eyes shut – your impression was of someone who feels himself superior. How might I put it? Someone who thinks he belongs to a higher caste?'

'Possibly. But why should such a person wish to rip horses? Rather than prove he's clever and superior by, say, embezzling large sums of money?'

'Who's to say he isn't up to that as well? Frankly, Campbell, the why interests me much less than the how and the when and the what.'

'Yes, sir. But if you're asking me to arrest this fellow, it might help to have a clue as to his motive.'

Anson disliked this sort of question, which in his view was nowadays asked far too frequently in police work. There was a passion for delving into the mind of the criminal. What you did was catch a fellow, arrest him, charge him, and get him sent away for a few years, the more the merrier. It was of little interest to probe the mental functionings of a malefactor as he discharged his pistol or smashed in your window. The Chief Constable was about to say as much when Campbell prompted him.

'We can, after all, rule out profit as a motive. It is not as if he were destroying his own property with a view to making some claim against the insurance.'

'A man who sets fire to his neighbour's rick does not do so for profit. He does it out of malice. He does it for the pleasure of seeing flames in the sky and fear on people's faces. In Edalji's case there might be some deep hatred of animals. You will doubtless enquire into that. Or if there is some pattern in the timing of the attacks, if most of them happen at the start of the month, there might be some sacrificial principle involved. Perhaps the mysterious instrument we are seeking is a ritual knife of Indian origin. A kukri or something. Edalji's father is a Parsee, I understand. Do they not worship fire?'

Campbell acknowledged that professional methods had so far turned up nothing; but was unwilling to see them replaced by such loose speculation. And if Parsees worshipped fire, then would you not expect the man to be committing arson?

'By the way, I am not asking you to arrest the lawyer.'

'No, sir?'

'No. What I am asking – ordering – you to do is concentrate your resources on him. Watch the Vicarage discreetly in the day, have him followed to the station, assign a man to Birmingham – in case he is lunching with the mysterious Captain – and then cover the house entirely after dark. Have it so that he cannot step out of the back door and spit without hitting a special constable. He will do something, I know he will do something.'

George

George attempts to continue his life as normaclass="underline" this is, after all, his right as a freeborn Englishman. But it is difficult when you feel yourself spied upon; when dark figures trespass the Vicarage grounds at night; when things have to be kept from Maud and even, at times, from Mother. Prayers are uttered as forcefully as ever by Father, and repeated as anxiously by the womenfolk. George feels himself ever less confident of the Lord's protection. The one moment in the day he considers himself safe is when his father locks the bedroom door.