'How far have we come?' He saw that Stackpole was looking at him with concern, and realized he must have paled in the few seconds it had taken them to cross the bowl.
'More than a mile, I'd say, sir. Dr Blackwell's house is below us.' He pointed down. 'You can see it from further on.'
Lightning crackled in the darkening sky, followed almost at once by a loud peal of thunder. A sudden gust of wind brought a shower of leaves and twigs from overhead.
'Let's find some shelter,' Madden suggested.
A short distance along the path they came to another clearing where a huge sweet chestnut stood.
The spreading branches, decked with graceful leaves shaped like spearheads, provided ample protection from the fat raindrops that were starting to fall.
'Good place to stop for a bite, sir.' The constable was still anxious about his companion.
'Why not?'
They settled down under the tree. Madden peeled back the top of the tin of sardines. Stackpole sliced bread with his pocket knife. The constable had brought two bottles of beer with him. They ate and drank, sitting comfortably with their backs against the deeply scored trunk, while the sky at first grew darker, and then brightened. By the time they had finished eating the sun had come out again, but at that moment it began to rain in earnest and they sat in the shelter of the great tree and watched the drops falling like a shower of golden coins through the sunlight.
'It won't last,' Stackpole predicted with the assurance of a countryman, and after a minute he was proved right. The rain ceased. Perversely, however, the sky began at once to darken again and the thunder continued to roll.
Madden had been thinking. 'I don't believe he'd have picked a spot too far from Melling Lodge. Can we find a path to the top of the ridge? I'd like to have a look around up there.'
'We passed one a quarter of a mile back.'
Gathering the remains of their lunch, they set off again, retracing their steps. Lightning flashed, followed by a detonation of thunder. Madden increased his pace, striding out along the path. They had come to the circle of beeches where the footpath bent like a bow, and this time the inspector followed it, avoiding the bowl of leaves. The dusty track had darkened in colour with the earlier shower. Madden's eyes were fixed on the ground ahead of him. Suddenly he halted.
'What is it, sir?' Stackpole hurried forward.
'Stay where you are!'
The constable stopped in his tracks. He stood rooted.
Madden crouched down. On the damp earth in front of him, fresh as a newly minted coin, a footprint had appeared. The heel had a piece missing. His eye skipped swiftly past it and he saw others. They were coming in his direction. He looked over his shoulder at the path behind him: his own footsteps showed in the damp dust, but no others.
'Sir, what is it?'
'Quiet!'
Madden looked to his left: there was only the circle of beeches with the empty bowl at their centre. To his right the slope rose steeply to a line of ilexes, their leaves blowing silver and green in the gusting wind.
A dense growth of holly filled the spaces between their trunks, forming an impenetrable screen. As he stared at the thicket a familiar sound came to his ears, borne on the breeze: the oiled click of a rifle-bolt being drawn back.
'Down!' he roared. 'Get down!'
Madden dived to his left, where the nearest beech tree stood, and as he did so the silence exploded.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
The shots came in rapid succession and the ground beside Madden's head erupted as he rolled frantically towards the tree. Another shot rang out and a chunk of bark as big as a fist struck him in the face. Next moment he was safe behind the massive trunk.
He looked back and saw the constable lying flat on the path, his face white and shocked. 'Move!' he yelled. 'The trees!'
Galvanized by the command, Stackpole rolled over.
The earth where he had lain leaped into the air as the sound of two further shots coincided with a loud crack of thunder. The constable scrambled to his hands and feet and plunged behind a tree trunk.
Madden counted in his head: six. He looked around him. He was near the edge of the bowl, but where he was it was shallow, only inches deep. Stackpole was luckier. A few paces from where he crouched behind the tree, the floor of the depression was at least a couple of feet below the rim. Madden's experienced eye skipped from the row of ilexes to the lip of the bowl, working out angles of fire. His terror of a few moments ago had been replaced by a familiar numbness.
'Will!' He used the constable's name, speaking in a low voice. 'Can you hear me?'
'Yes, sir.' The hoarse whisper barely reached him.
'Stay behind that tree, but move back into the dip behind you. When you're there, get down on your stomach and crawl around the edge. Be sure to keep yourself pressed up tight against the side. Don't worry, he won't be able to see you from where he is. When you get to where the path straightens, stand up and run like hell!'
Stackpole was silent.
'Will?'
'I'm not leaving you, sir.'
'Don't be a damn fool.' His officer's voice came back to him easily. 'Do as I say. Now!'
The constable began to back away from the tree trunk. When he reached the edge of the bowl he slid down into the depression and began to crawl on his stomach, away from Madden, back the way they had come. Another shot rang out and bark flew off the side of the tree where he had been crouching.
Seven. A Lee-Enfield rifle held ten rounds in its magazine.
His mind cold, Madden waited for the inevitable to happen. Soon now the man would descend from the screen of holly to hunt them down. When that happened, he planned to spring to his feet and run along the path in the opposite direction to Stackpole, splitting up the available targets. He knew their attacker was expert with a bayonet. Whether he was also a marksman was something he would discover in the next few minutes. Still in the grip of the numbness that had taken hold of him after the first shots, Madden viewed the prospect with a fatalism bordering on indifference.
Thunder echoed, further off now. Then he heard another sound: the smashing of undergrowth. It came not from the line of ilexes but from higher up the slope. Taking a gamble, Madden sprinted across a dozen feet of open ground to the next beech tree in the circle. Pressing his body to the trunk, he waited for the answering shot. None came.
Again he heard noise, more distant now. He peered around the tree and caught a glimpse of a figure high up, near the crest of the ridge.
'He's moving!' he shouted. 'I'm going after him.'
Madden flung himself at the slope, tearing through the waist-high ferns, forcing a path through the dense undergrowth. Skirting the barrier of holly bushes, he came on the path left by his quarry, a line of snapped branches and flattened ferns leading up the hill, and he followed it. Stackpole's shout sounded behind him.
As Madden neared the crest the underbrush thinned and the ground became slick with pine needles.
Emerging from the straggling firs he saw the figure of a man running along the top of the bare ridge half a mile away. He was carrying a bulky object slung across his shoulder.
'I'm coming, sir…' Stackpole's voice was close, and a moment later he joined the inspector red-faced and gasping.
Wordlessly, Madden pointed. They set off in pursuit.