'Keep clear,' Madden warned him sharply. 'There'll be blood on the floor.'
Billy was just wondering how the inspector knew that — could he see in the dark? — when the answer became clear. Staring down at the livid gash in the white column of flesh, he felt a sense of violation stronger than anything he had experienced that day.
'Why'd they do that?' Billy couldn't stop himself.
'Why'd they have to cut her throat?'
Boyce was waiting for them when they came out on to the terrace again. The sun was lower in the sky, the shadows lengthening.
'Mr Sinclair rang from Guildford,' he told Madden.
'He'll be here soon.'
'You can start the men searching the gardens.' The inspector lit a cigarette. 'But stay out of the woods for now.'
Boyce wondered what Madden had made of the shambles inside the house. He searched in vain for any hint in the dark, withdrawn eyes.
'You don't think they came that way, do you?'
The inspector shrugged. 'If they drove in the front gates, why come round to this side to break in? They could have knocked on the door.' To Billy, he said, 'Find that village bobby — what's his name?
Stackpole?'
Billy returned in a few minutes with a tall, moustached constable. Madden greeted him.
'Do you know these woods?' he asked.
'Well enough, sir.' Stackpole eyed him warily.
Word had spread about the Scotland Yard inspector who'd told the Lord Lieutenant where to get off.
'Come along, then. You too, Styles.'
A gravel path through the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden led to a wooden gate. On the other side of the wall they found a uniformed constable patrolling a small expanse of meadow grass bordering a shallow stream. He was a young man, not much older than Billy himself, and with similiar colouring — fair skin and reddish hair. His face was flushed by hours spent in the broiling sun.
'Excuse me, sir.' He hurried over to them.
'What is it, Constable?'
Madden had paused to take off his hat and jacket and hang them on the gate. When he rolled up his sleeves Billy saw a random pattern of scars spread over his forearm the size and shape of sixpences.
'A footprint, sir. Down by the stream. I noticed it earlier.'
'Show me.'
The constable led the way down the gently sloping bank. He pointed. 'There, sir, next to the steppingstones.
Coming this way.' The stream, diminished by weeks of drought, had shrunk to half its normal size. The earlier course of the water was marked by a surface of smooth dried mud. It was on this that the faint imprint of a footmark showed beside one of a line of flat stones crossing the stream. Madden nodded his approval.
'Well spotted, Constable.'
'Thank you, sir.'
'Go up to the house. My compliments to Mr Boyce and ask him to send a couple of men down here with some plaster-of-paris. Tell him the footprint's shallow but well defined and if they're careful they should get a good cast of it.'
'Right away, sir.' The constable set off briskly.
Madden went down on his haunches. Stackpole joined him, squinting at the stream bed.
'He might have missed his footing, sir. Coming across last evening, just as it was getting dark.'
'Big man.' The inspector frowned. 'Size eleven, I should say. That looks like a boot mark.'
Stackpole pursed his lips. "Course, it could be anyone's.'
Billy felt the prick of envy. First the young constable.
Now the village bobby!
Madden led them across the stepping-stones to the opposite bank. Almost at once they were in the wood, moving uphill through a stand of saplings that ended when they came to the tall beeches. A sea of fern and brush covered the ground on either side of the path, which was well used and easy to follow. The air was hot and still.
'Do the villagers come up here often?' Madden spoke over his shoulder.
'A fair bit, sir.' Stackpole kept pace with the inspector's long stride. 'Time was when the whole hanger was a shoot, but that was before the war. Now his lordship only has two keepers and they don't come over this way, except once in a while.'
Panting at the rear, trying to keep up with them, Billy had to watch for branches whipping back in his face. When he caught the cuff of his jacket in a bramble thicket, the constable paused to help disentangle him. He was grinning under his helmet. 'City boy,' he whispered.
Billy flushed a deeper red. He saw that Madden was watching them from above, hands on hips.
The hill steepened as they neared the top of the ridge. Madden stopped. He sniffed the air. 'Constable?'
'Yes, sir. I smell it…'
Stackpole cast about him with narrowed eyes. Billy caught a whiff of something. They were in the middle of a steeply sloping forest of pines. The carpet of ferns stretched unbroken on either side of them.
'Can't tell which way the wind's blowing,' the constable complained.
'Quiet!' Madden spoke sharply.
They stood in silence. Billy heard a low rustle in the undergrowth away to their left. Madden picked up a stick and threw it. A raucous cry broke the stillness, followed by the flapping of black wings as a pair of crows rose from the ground and flew off, threading a path through the lofty pines.
Madden and Stackpole looked at each other.
'Let's take a look,' the inspector said.
Madden left the path and began wading through the waist-high ferns. Keeping his eye fixed on the spot where the crows had appeared, he worked his way up and across the slope. Stackpole stayed close behind.
Billy, struggling in the rear as before, lost his footing on the steep slope and had to grab at a root to keep himself from sliding down. His hat fell off. He caught it with his other hand. For a moment he lay spreadeagled like a starfish on the hillside. The others paused and looked back.
'It's all right, sir,' Billy gasped. 'I'm coming.' He could see Stackpole chuckling.
By the time he caught up with them they had stopped and were standing with their backs to him looking down. Madden held out a hand to check Billy's puffing uphill progress. The young constable saw they were at the edge of an area where the undergrowth had been flattened. The body of a small white dog lay on the ground in front of them. Beyond it was the corpse of a man, clad in a soiled cloth coat.
He lay on his back with his head pointing down the slope. His hands, clutching at his chest, had torn apart his blood-soaked shirt. Where his eyes had been there were only pits. Billy blenched at the sight of the sockets, filled with congealed blood.
'Do you know him, Constable?' Madden's tone was detached.
'Yes, sir.' Stackpole, too, had paled. 'Name of Wiggins. James Wiggins. He's from the village.'
'What would he be doing up here?'
'Poaching, most likely.' The constable mopped his brow. 'That coat of his has got the deepest pockets in the county. Like as not we'll find a bird in one of them. Must have come across here from his lordship's shoot to dodge the keepers.' He pointed a finger at the dog. 'That's Betsy, Jimmy's bitch. Wonderful nose for a pheasant, or so Jimmy always said.'
'You've had dealings with him?'
'You could say that.' Stackpole grunted. 'He's been up before the bench. But not nearly as often as he should have. Hard man to lay a hand on.' The constable bit his lip. 'Poor Jimmy. I always said he'd come to a bad end.'
Madden was peering at the ground in front of them.
Something had caught his eye. He bent down and slipped his hand into the trampled ferns, then withdrew it holding a cigarette stub delicately between his fingertips. He held it up to the light.