River of Darkness

On receiving word, Billy had experienced a moment of elation, quickly followed by one of foreboding as he contemplated the prospect of spending another day under the dark glance of Inspector Madden.

But thus far, beyond a polite, 'Good morning, sir,' from Billy, and a distracted nod in response from the inspector, they hadn't exchanged a word, and Billy had found himself mildly bored as he recorded the villagers' bald accounts of the long, sun-drenched weekend.

Now he saw Madden, sitting in the corner of the hall, beckon to him. He rose from the table and went over. 'Sir?'

Madden held out a statement form. 'Yours, I think?'

Billy glanced at it. 'Yes, sir. May Birney. Her father owns the village store.'

The inspector eyed him. 'Well, did she, or didn't she, Constable?' he asked.

'Sir, she wasn't sure.' Billy shuffled nervously. 'First she said she did, then she changed her mind. Said she must have been mistaken.'

'Why did she do that? Change her mind?'

'Sir… sir, I don't know.'

Madden stood up so abruptly Billy had to spring backwards. 'Let's see if we can find out, shall we?'

With a nod to Boyce he strode from the hall. Billy hurried after him.

The village store, a few minutes' walk away down Highfield's only paved road, was situated between the pub and the post office. Alf Birney, plump, with a fringe of grey hair like a monk's tonsure, came from behind the counter to show them into a curtained-off toom at the back of the shop.

'It's not right this should have happened,' he muttered.

'Not to a lady like Mrs Fletcher. Not to any of them.' He shifted a carton of custard powder off a chair to make room for Madden. 'I can remember when she was a child. She used to come to the shop every Saturday to buy her sweets. Little Lucy He left them there, and a minute later his daughter came in. May Birney was no more than sixteen. She was dressed in a dun-coloured work smock, her bobbed hair cut in a fringe across her pale forehead.

'Get it straight in your mind now, girl.' Her father's voice came from beyond the curtain. 'Tell the inspector exactly what you heard.'

Miss Birney stood before them, nervously twisting her fingers. Madden looked at Billy and nodded.

Taken by surprise — he'd assumed the inspector would handle the questioning — Billy cleared his throat. 'It's about this business of the whistle you say you heard.

Or didn't hear.' He spoke loudly, and watched her flush and steal a glance at Madden, who was seated at a table in the middle of the room.

'You were out walking the dog, you said,' Billy prompted her.

May Birney stared at her feet.

'Tell us again what happened.'

The girl said something inaudible. 'What?' Billy heard himself almost shouting. 'I didn't hear. What did you say?'

'I said I told you before but you said I was imagining it.' She spoke very quickly looking down.

'I never said that-' Billy checked himself. 'I asked you if you were sure you'd heard a police whistle and you said, no, you weren't-'

'I said like a police whistle.'

'All right, like a police whistle, but then you said perhaps you'd been mistaken and you hadn't heard it at all. Do you remember saying that?'

The girl fell silent again.

Billy stepped nearer. He felt Madden's eyes on him.

'Now listen to me, May Birney. This is a serious matter. I don't need to remind you what happened at Melling Lodge on Sunday night. Stop saying you're not sure or you don't remember. Either you heard something or you didn't. And if you're making all this up…!'

The girl turned bright red.

Madden spoke. 'Would you like to sit down, May?'

He drew up another chair for her. After a moment's hesitation, the girl complied. 'Now let's see, I'm a little puzzled, what time did this happen?'

'Around nine o'clock, sir. Might have been a little later.'

'Was it still light?'

'Just getting dark.'

'You were walking the dog?'

'Yes, sir, Bessie. She's getting old, you see, and needs to be taken, but if you put her outside, she just flops down, so Mum and me, we take her down to the stream and make her walk a bit.' She kept her eyes on Madden's face.

'Then you heard what sounded like a police whistle?'

'Yes, sir, like that. The same sort of sound.'

'Just once?'

May Birney hesitated, her brow creased in concentration.

'Well, sir, it was like I said' — she shot a glance at Billy — 'first it was there, then it sort of faded away, and then it came back just for a moment.'

Madden's brow creased. 'Was there a breeze blowing?' he asked.

The girl's face lit up. 'Yes, sir, that was it. That's what happened. It came and went on the wind. I heard it twice. But it was so faint…'

'You wondered if you'd heard it at all?'

She nodded vigorously. Shooting another defiant glance at Billy, she said, 'I just wasn't sure.'

'But you are now?' Madden leaned forward. 'Take your time, May. Think about it.'

But she paused for only a moment. 'Yes, sir,' she said. 'Now I'm sure. Positive.'

On their way back to the church hall, Madden paused outside the Rose and Crown. A low brick wall enclosed the cobbled yard in front of the pub and he sat down on it and took out his packet of cigarettes. 'I believe you smoke, Constable?'

'Thank you, sir.' Surprised and pleased, Billy fumbled with his matches. Madden accepted a light. He sat for a while in silence. Then he spoke.

'This job we have,' he drew on his cigarette, 'it gives us a lot of power in small ways.'

'Sir?' Billy didn't understand.

'It's tempting to use it, particularly with people who… who don't know how to defend themselves.'

Billy was silent.

'Do you understand what I'm saying, Constable?'

He shook his head.

'Don't take the easy way, son.' Madden looked at him now. 'Don't become a bully.'

The cigarette in Billy's mouth had turned to gall.

'Now go and see if Mr Boyce has something for you to do.'

The following morning the inspector went from cottage to cottage on the Melling Lodge side of Highfield, inquiring whether any of the occupants had heard a whistle on Sunday evening.

The third door he knocked on was opened by Stackpole. The village bobby, still in his shirtsleeves, carried a small curly-haired girl in the crook of his arm whom he introduced as 'our Amy'.

'Can't help you, sir,' he told Madden. 'It wasn't me that whistled, that's for certain. Sunday evening the wife and I were over having supper with her parents.

They live on the other side of the green.'

A tow-haired boy peered out of a doorway behind him. Madden heard a baby's wail.

'Pardon me for saying so, sir, but young May Birney isn't what I'd call a reliable witness. Got her head in the clouds half the time, that young lady. She's sweet on a lad who works for one of Lord Stratton's tenants, but her parents are dead set against him. I've seen her down by the stream, mooning about.'

Madden smiled. Like all good village bobbies, Stackpole made everyone else's business his own. 'In the end, she seemed quite sure she'd heard it,' he said.

'Could have been something else,' the constable suggested. 'Jimmy Wiggins whistling up his bitch.

Or one of his lordship's keepers.'

'Perhaps.'

The inspector gave an account of his visit to Oakley the day before. 'I didn't take to Wellings. He didn't strike me as being truthful.'

'I'm not surprised,' Stackpole observed. 'Lies as he breathes, that one.'

'Gates said he handles stolen goods.'

'You weren't thinking…?' The constable raised an eyebrow.

'The stuff taken from Melling Lodge?' Madden shrugged. 'It did cross my mind. What's your view?'

Stackpole shifted the little girl to his other arm.