River of Darkness

'Three Castles. One of his?'

'Not likely. Pipe and a tin of Navy Cut — that was Jimmy's style.' Stackpole's brow was knotted in a frown. 'Sir, I don't see how this could have happened.'

Madden, occupied with folding the stub into a handkerchief, glanced at him questioningly.

'I just can't see anyone creeping up on Jimmy. You wouldn't have got within twenty feet of him. If he didn't spot you, the bitch would have.'

Madden put the handkerchief carefully into his trouser pocket. He said, 'I think it was the other way round.'

'Sir?'

The inspector turned so that he was facing down the slope. The others followed the direction of his glance. Melling Lodge lay directly below them, clearly visible through a gap in the pine forest. Billy could make out a group of men in plain clothes standing on the terrace. A line of blue uniforms moved slowly across the sunlit lawn.

'I think whoever killed them was sitting here, waiting for dark.'

Stackpole nodded slowly, comprehending. 'Betsy would have picked up their scent,' he said. 'Come looking to see who it was.' He touched the small body with the toe of his boot. A thin trickle of blood had dried on the white jaw. 'When she was stabbed she must have squealed, kicked up a racket, and Jimmy came running.'

Madden was frowning. 'I didn't see a dog at the lodge,' he said. 'Did the Fletchers have one?'

'Yes, sir, Rufus. An old Labrador. But he died not long ago.'

Leaving Billy posted by the body, Madden and the constable returned to the path. The inspector wanted to climb to the top of the ridge. It took only a few minutes, the pines thinning out as they scaled the stony crest. On the other side was a vista of farms and woodland stretching for miles. In the distance, hazy in the afternoon light, they could just make out the blurred contours of the South Downs.

Not far from the base of the ridge a cluster of cottages stood with a square church tower in the middle.

'That's Oakley, sir,' Stackpole said, without prompting. 'I was born there.'

Madden pointed to a narrow track that led from the hamlet through fields of ripening corn to the edge of the woods beneath them.

'Could you get a car along there?'

The constable shook his head. 'Tractor, maybe. Car springs wouldn't take the ruts.'

They went back down the path and crossed the slope to where Billy was standing by Wiggins's body.

Madden paused for only a moment. 'Stay off the flattened area,' he told the young constable. 'It needs to be searched. I'll be sending some men up.'

Billy felt his cup of bitterness brim over. The inspector had finally found something he was fit for.

To stand watch over a body until others came to do the police work.

'Isn't there something I can do, sir?'

'Yes, keep the crows off him,' Madden called back as he hastened away. 'They go for the eyes.'

Stackpole clapped him on the shoulder sympathetically as he went by. 'Not yours, lad,' he said, with a wink.

Chief Inspector Sinclair drew Madden aside, leading him down the shallow steps from the terrace on to the now deserted lawn. They made an oddly contrasting pair: Madden, tall and rumpled, with his jacket slung over his shoulder; Sinclair, slight and no more than medium height, almost the dandy in his tailored pinstripe suit and soft felt hat. They stood close together, casting a single shadow in the dying sunlight.

'A question. Have we any idea what we're dealing with here?' The chief inspector's restless glance took in the squad of uniformed police who had moved off the grass and were searching the shrubbery at the bottom of the garden. At Madden's behest he had just dispatched two CID sergeants to deal with the body in the woods. 'An armed gang, I'm told, a robbery gone wrong.' He nodded towards the terrace where Boyce and Chief Inspector Norris stood watching them. 'In that case, perhaps someone would explain to me why there's stuff in the house in plain view worth more than what was taken. Did you see the china in the drawing-room? And that brace of Purdeys on the gun rack? Good of them not to loot the place, wouldn't you say? Especially since they had all night to do it.' Angus Sinclair's consonants had the precision of cut glass. A native of Aberdeen, he'd been a policeman for more than thirty years. 'Your thoughts, John?'

Madden lit a cigarette before replying. Sinclair studied his face. He noted familiar signs of strain and deep-seated fatigue in the dark, shadowed eyes. They were aspects of Madden he had come to recognize, souvenirs of the war, as permanent and unalterable as the scar on his forehead.

'Starting with the door, sir,' Madden's deep voice rose little above a murmur, 'why break it down? It wasn't locked. Then the victims' hands and arms.

Apart from Mrs Fletcher, they were all killed the same way, but there isn't a cut or scratch on any of them.'

'Your point?' Sinclair cocked his head attentively.

'Whoever did this was in a hurry. The victims had no time to react or defend themselves. I think those downstairs were all dead within seconds of the door being smashed in.'

'Which means the killings were deliberate. That was the intention from the outset.' The chief inspector paused, reflecting on what he had said. 'So much for a robbery gone wrong! Anything else?'

'The weapon, sir. It was unusual. No injuries to the hands and arms, as I said. And then there's Colonel Fletcher, killed from behind in that way.'

'Would you care to be more specific?' Sinclair frowned. 'Have you any idea what it was?'

Madden shrugged. 'I'd rather hear what the pathologist says. I don't want to put ideas in his head.'

'Or mine?' The chief inspector raised an eyebrow.

'But as regards Colonel Fletcher, I take your meaning.

You'd think he would have faced his attacker. Why did he turn and run?'

'He might have been trying for one of the guns in the study.'

'Even so, an old soldier… You'd expect him to take on a man with a knife. If it was a knife…'

Sinclair grimaced. 'An armed gang? Could they be right?' He gestured towards the terrace.

Madden shook his head. 'I think it was one man,' he said.

The chief inspector looked hard at him. 'I was hoping you wouldn't say that,' he admitted.

Madden shrugged.

'I have the same feeling.' Sinclair's gaze shifted to the house. 'It's got the smell of madness about it.

That's one man's work. But we have to be sure. What about the woman upstairs, Mrs Fletcher? There could have been two of them.'

Again Madden shook his head. 'He broke the door down and killed the maid in the drawing-room, then went for Colonel Fletcher. The colonel tried to reach the study — where the guns were — but he only got as far as the doorway before he was caught from behind.

As for the woman in the kitchen, the nanny, I doubt she even knew what was happening. You can see the surprise in her face.'

While Madden was speaking Sinclair had taken a briar pipe from his pocket. He stood now, tapping the empty bowl in the palm of his hand.

'Aye, but that still doesn't explain Mrs Fletcher.

She wasn't killed like the others.'

'I think she heard the disturbance and came down the stairs. That's where they met. Did you notice the pearls in the carpet?'

The chief inspector nodded. 'From a bracelet, I'd say. It must have broken. I think he seized her there and dragged her upstairs to the bedroom. Tell the pathologist to look for bruises on the wrists and arms.'

Sinclair examined the bowl of his pipe. 'If you're right, then since he didn't kill her on the stairs, he must have had something else in mind. Rape, by the look of it. Poor woman. Well, we'll know soon enough.' He slipped the pipe back into his pocket.

'That would explain why she wasn't stabbed. He wanted her alive. But what did he use to kill her with?'

'A razor, I'd say.'

'Yes, but whose? The colonel's? Or did he bring his own?'