Madden grunted. He still wasn’t altogether happy.
‘Of course, if you wanted to be sure, you could try telephoning this Mrs Spencer. I got a number from Bob …’
Stackpole looked questioningly at him, but Madden shook his head.
‘What I have to ask this girl — what I have to tell her — can’t be done on the phone. I just wish it wasn’t Christmas Eve.’
‘Why not put it off then, sir? Wait till after the holidays.’
‘I thought of that. But with Ash still at large it’s not something we can drag our heels on. It sounds as though Rosa may have recognized him that day, and we don’t know what she might have said to this girl. Or given her, perhaps.’
‘Given her, sir?’ The constable was perplexed.
‘It’s just a thought. There’s still an aspect of Rosa’s murder that’s unexplained. Apparently Ash was searching for something after he killed her; there were charred matches found all around the body. We still don’t know exactly what happened in Paris that evening. All we know for sure is that Rosa fled the scene. So whatever passed between her and this other girl could be relevant to the investigation. As things stand the police haven’t much of a case against Ash. With no corroborating witnesses, what can they charge him with? So every lead matters. At the very least I’m hoping this girl will remember what happened on their journey up to London that day: the incident Tyson told me about. If she could recognize Ash again — if she could place him on the train — it would at least be a link in the chain of evidence.’
‘Well, you’ll know soon enough.’ Stackpole stamped his feet to restore circulation to his frozen toes. They’d been standing there for ten minutes waiting for the train to arrive. ‘What’s it to Liphook? Half an hour at the most, I’d say.’
It was the closeness of the Hampshire village to Highfield that had persuaded Madden in the end to make the journey after the constable had rung him shortly after breakfast with the information he was seeking.
‘It was no trouble, sir, just like I said. Bob Leonard was the second bloke I rang, and after I’d checked with the others I got back to him. This is our lass, all right.’
According to the Liphook bobby, Eva Belka was married to a young Pole serving with the Allied forces in France, Stackpole told him. Recently he’d been wounded, though not seriously, and she had gone up to Norwich for a few days to visit him in hospital. Her employer was a woman called Mary Spencer, whose home in London had been destroyed by a V-bomb, forcing her to seek alternative accommodation for herself and her young son. Together with Eva, the boy’s nanny, they had come down to Liphook six months earlier and taken up residence in a house called the Grange not far from the village.
‘Liphook’s only taxi has broken down, but you can walk out there easily, Bob said. You’ll need a good pair of boots, though, with all this snow.’
Still hesitant about making the expedition — Rob was due to arrive in the late afternoon from London and Madden didn’t want to miss his son’s return after the anxious weeks he and his wife had passed — he had consulted Helen, who, somewhat to his surprise, had urged him to go.
‘Lucy and I will be spending most of the afternoon in the kitchen with Mary,’ she had told him after he’d spoken to Stackpole. ‘ is, if firstly I can get her out of bed and secondly keep her out of the clutches of her various admirers, who’ve been ringing up since breakfast asking for her. All that dancing last night seems to have done wonders for the walking wounded. If you’re going to go, you might as well do it today. At least you won’t have it weighing on your mind over Christmas.’
‘I’m sorry, my dear, I’ve been caught up in this long enough, I know.’ Madden had been contrite. ‘But I have to be sure I’ve done all I can. Followed up every lead. I can’t explain it exactly, but I feel we owe it to Rosa. To her memory.’
‘And so do I.’ Helen’s kiss had served as a seal on her words. ‘But don’t be too late back. I want us all to be together this evening.’
Soon afterwards she had dropped him at the station on her way to her surgery and Madden had found Stackpole waiting for him on the platform, with the welcome news that extra trains would be running to cope with the flood of travellers expected over the Christmas period and he would have no difficulty getting back to Highfield once his selfimposed duty was done.
Another figure in a police constable’s uniform was waiting on the platform at Liphook when Madden’s train arrived, this one considerably shorter in stature than Will Stackpole, but no less portly.
‘Bob Leonard, sir.’ The bobby touched his helmet. Well past middle age, he sported a grey toothbrush moustache and veined red cheeks. ‘We’ve not met, Mr Madden, but I know you by name. Weren’t you with the Yard once?’
‘I didn’t think there was anyone left who remembered that.’ Madden laughed as they shook hands.
‘Ah, well, when you’ve been in this job as long as I have …’ Leonard chuckled. ‘I was due to put my feet up four years ago, but then the war came along and there was no one else to do it.’ He nodded at the train from which Madden had just alighted and which was still disgorging passengers. ‘You might have picked a better day. Don’t think I’ve ever seen ‘er so full.’
The same thought had come to Madden as he’d sat wedged in a corner seat while they’d crawled along at a snail’s pace. Despite the cramped conditions the holiday spirit had been well in evidence and the sound of a sing-song had reached his ears from another compartment a little way down the corridor in the antique carriage. Reprieved by the needs of wartime from the junkyard perhaps, it had been decorated by photographs of straw-hatted girls walking arm-in-arm along a seaside promenade with young men clad in white flannels. Phantoms from another age.
Many of those travelling had belonged to the services and some were still recovering from their wounds. Noticing that an army sergeant standing in the crowded corridor outside was on crutches, Madden had given up his seat halfway through the trip, and when they had finally reached his destination he had paused long enough to help another injured soldier, this one an officer with a bandage covering one eye, who was stepping down uncertainly on to the platform behind him with the help of a cane, oblivious to the salutes which a pair of privates were offering him as they strode by.
Although it had stopped snowing during the journey, the grimy slush covering the platform was deep underfoot and Leonard suggested they take refuge in his office, which was nearby and where he would give Madden directions to the Grange.
I don’t know the young lass myself,’ he said as they plodded through the snow, down Liphook’s main street. ‘Except by sight. Will told me you wanted a word with her, but not why.’
The unspoken question required an answer. The Liphook bobby had done them a favour, after all.
‘If it’s the right girl, she was on the same train as a young woman who was murdered in London a few weeks ago. Another Pole called Rosa Nowak. She was working for me as a land girl. Apparently they knew each other. Rosa was murdered less than an hour after they parted at Waterloo. I want to have a talk with Eva. I want to know what happened on that journey.’
‘You’ve been in touch with the Yard about this, have you, sir?’
The tone of Leonard’s query was polite, but firm, and Madden smiled.
‘Yes, don’t worry, Constable. I’m not acting on my own. I’ve been helping the police with this. In fact, I may want to ring Chief Inspector Sinclair from your office later when I come back.’
‘You’ll be welcome, sir.’ Leonard looked relieved. ‘In fact it might be easier for you to do it from here than from the Grange, say. The telephone lines are jammed at the moment. It’s the Christmas season. But I can get through to the Yard all right, and if you need to ring me from the Grange you’ll have no trouble. The village exchange isn’t affected.’