He looked uncomfortable. 'Hell of a thing to find yourself wondering,' he muttered.
'If it's any consolation, sir, Mr Sinclair had the same reaction.' Madden returned to the file. 'What about the murder weapon?' he asked.
'According to our pathologist, probably a cut-throat razor. Caddo had one. It was tested, but nothing came up.'
'Prints?'
'None.' Derry got to his feet. 'I dare say you'd like to have a look at the place, Inspector.'
'I would, sir.' Madden ordered the papers in the file. 'What would be the best way of getting there?'
'I'll take you myself,' Derry said. 'This business is like a bone in my throat. I have to know one way or the other.'
It turned out Derry had his own motor-car — one of the new 20 h.p. Ford five-seaters. The cars were being offered on the market at only 205 pounds and Billy had a secret yearning to possess one, though he hadn't learned to drive yet.
They left Maidstone by the Sheerness road, but soon turned off it and drove through the rolling chalk uplands of the North Downs. The August sun was hot on their faces and the breeze in the open car was welcome. At Bentham, a village nestling in the fold of a green valley, Derry stopped outside a set of wrought iron gates. He pointed up a long, straight drive, treeless but flanked at its furthest point by a pair of ornamental ponds. In the background, a handsome Palladian facade was visible.
'Bentham Court,' he said. 'The guidebooks call it an architectural gem. A family named Garfield own it now. Reynolds is one of their tenants.'
They drove on for another mile, then branched off the road on to a narrow rutted track that ended at a patch of bare earth beside a chalky stream.
'This was Caddo's camp-site. Reynolds's farm is a mile or two away.' Although he hadn't handled the case, the chief inspector seemed to have taken the trouble to familiarize himself with the details. 'There's a path that runs along the stream.'
They returned to the road and continued on the winding paved surface until they came to another dirt track, which Derry took, steering the car down a gentle gradient to the stream bed, which he crossed slowly, the water creaming about the wheels, and then ascending the grassy slope on the other side. A slate roofed farmhouse with a whitewashed barn behind it came into view. Sheep dotted the green contoured landscape on either side of the roadway. As Derry pulled up near the house, a man in rough clothes came out of the barn. He stopped some distance from the car and stared at them. There was no hint of greeting in his manner.
'Mr Reynolds?' Derry got out of the car. 'We haven't met. I'm Chief Inspector Derry, from Maidstone.
This is Inspector Madden, and Detective Constable Styles. They're from London.' When the man didn't respond, he asked, 'Would you like to see our warrant cards?'
Reynolds shook his head. 'I thought I'd done with you lot.' He came closer, but didn't offer to shake hands.
'Inspector Madden has some questions to ask you.
And we'd like to have a look around, if that's all right?'
'I don't understand.' He was about forty, Billy judged, but somehow older. Unshaven and wearing a dirty, collarless shirt, he looked like a man who had lost interest in how he appeared to others. His eyes were dull and uncaring. 'I thought the bastard hanged himself.'
'Can we go inside for a moment? We won't bother you for long.'
'No,' Reynolds said flatly. He glared at them.
Madden spoke: 'I understand how you feel, Mr Reynolds, but please oblige me.' Billy was struck by the gentle tone of his voice. 'I'm working on another case and I believe there may be a connection. You'd be doing me a great service if you'd help us.'
The man didn't reply at once. He stared into Madden's deep-set eyes, until Billy began to think that some silent communication was passing between them. Abruptly he turned away. 'Go in, if you want to,' he said, over his shoulder. He walked off.
Madden led the way through the front door, which opened into a small brick-paved entrance hall where they had to pick their way through a litter of muddy boots. Beyond was a sitting-room smelling of stale cigarette smoke. Sunlight streaming through smeared window-panes fell on a heap of dirty laundry lying on the floor in the middle of the room. An overturned ashtray spread its contents over the surface of a low wooden table where a pile of dirty plates and cutlery was stacked.
The house was like the man, Billy thought. Something had gone. Snapped. He followed Madden and Derry to the kitchen at the rear of the house, where the inspector examined the back door: a fresh section of wood in the jamb, still unpainted, showed where the lock had had to be repaired.
They returned to the hallway and went upstairs.
The low-ceilinged bedroom displayed the same signs of neglect as the rooms below. The double bed was unmade, the bedclothes pushed aside, and the glassed top of the dressing-table was dulled by a thin coating of dust. Two framed photographs stood on the mantelpiece above the fireplace. One showed a smiling young woman with a wreath of flowers in her fair hair. The other was a picture of Reynolds in a private's uniform.
Billy saw the dark buttons on the tunic and knew what they meant. Reynolds had served in the Rifle Brigade. Black-buttoned bastards.
The bathroom was across a narrow passage and Madden walked from one room to the other. Billy saw that he was pacing out the distance between the big ball-and-claw-footed bath and the bed. It looked to be about twelve feet, the young constable reckoned. He saw what Derry had meant. Why drag the woman all the way to the bed and not rape her? If he'd wanted to kill her, why not do it in the bathroom? He realized that the same questions could indeed be asked about Mrs Fletcher's murder.
Before they left the bedroom his eye was caught by a leather-bound volume on the bedside table. He glanced at the title. It was a collection of poems by a writer Billy had never heard of. Opening the book, he found an inscription in the flyleaf: To my dearest darling girl, with all my love, Fred.
Outside, Madden stood in front of the house and let his gaze wander over the gently sloping hillside.
The chalk downland was bare of cover.
'Shall we talk to him now?' Derry asked. He had just seen Reynolds appear from a fold of land below them. He had a young dog at his side. When it trotted away, he summoned it back, slapping his thigh, making the animal come to heel.
'In a moment,' Madden replied.
He walked round to the side of the house. Derry and Billy followed. They found him gazing up the hillside behind the farmhouse at the crest of the ridge, about half a mile away, where a small coppice of beeches stood.
'There!' The inspector pointed. 'I want to have a look at that first.'
As they walked up the cropped grass of the shallow incline Madden told the chief inspector about the dugout in the woods on Upton Hanger. 'We haven't made that public — we're being careful about what we put out. He used a rifle and bayonet for four of the five killings. And we think he was wearing a gas mask when he broke in.'
Derry grunted. 'Sounds to me like you've got a weird one,' he commented.
Billy, walking a respectful two paces behind them, thought that was putting it mildly.
The coppice covered only an acre or two. The leaf carpeted ground beneath the trees showed no sign of having been disturbed. Madden stood in the shade at the edge of the treeline and looked down at the farmhouse. The barn behind it was set a little to one side, and from where he stood he had a clear view of the kitchen door and the backyard. Watching him, Derry saw the crease of frustration notched in his forehead.
'This is the spot…' Madden glanced left and right along the bare crest of the ridge. 'We know he likes to watch them first.'
He took off his hat and mopped his brow with a handkerchief. Derry noticed the ragged scar running along his hairline. The sense of familiarity he usually felt when he met another policeman was missing with Madden. He recognized that this grim-faced inspector was different.