'There are twenty policemen in the woods beyond-'
'I warn you, young man, if you're making this up…!'
Billy was becoming desperate. He wanted to take hold of this old bitch and shake her hard. He wanted to tell her to stop being pig-headed and self-important and listen to what he was saying. But he had had the example of Madden before him for the past two months and he recalled the inspector's words to him at Highfield.
'I assure you I'm not making it up,' he said quietly.
'You've seen my card. I work at Scotland Yard. Some of the policemen over there are armed. It's possible that shots will be fired in the next half-hour. I want you to get these children together and take them away from here immediately.' He stared back at her.
'Please, miss…' One of the girls at her shoulder shuffled nervously.
'Oh, very well!' She thrust Billy's card back at him.
'But I warn you, young man, you haven't heard the last of this!'
She spun round on her heel and put her hand into the patch pocket sewn on to her uniform. In the nick of time Billy saw what was about to happen.
'No, don't!' He grabbed hold of her wrist as she brought the police whistle up to her lips. 'You mustn't use that whistle!'
'Take your hand off me!' Her lips had gone white with rage. 'Did you see that, Cynthia? This officer… this so-called officer manhandled me. I'm going to report him and you will be my witness. Manhandled!' she repeated, seeming to relish the word.
Red-faced with anger himself, Billy said nothing.
He watched as she turned away from him and clapped her hands. 'Girls! Get into line! We're leaving! This man has spoiled our afternoon.'
The blue uniforms gathered. Billy felt the weight of their disapproval. When they had lined up in twos the woman cast a final glare at him.
'Mr Styles,' she said. 'Yes, Mr Styles. I shan't forget that name.'
The Guides marched away down the footpath. Billy was hardly aware of their departure. All his thoughts were focused on the presence in the thicket behind him. He knew he was being watched. A hardened killer… The chief inspector's words came back to him. He remembered what had happened to Madden and Stackpole in the woods above Highfield and he felt an overpowering urge to move. To run!
Instead, he forced himself to stroll up and down the edge of the pond for a few minutes. When he spotted a flat stone on the ground he picked it up and skimmed it across the water's surface. Then another.
His knees were shaking and his mouth had gone dry.
Finally, as though bored with the amusement, he ambled back along the footpath. As he reached the cover of the laurels his knees gave way and he stumbled and fell to the ground. His cigarettes were in his jacket and he wanted one badly. But for a while he simply sat where he was in the shade of the bushes blinking away the sweat that ran down his forehead, waiting for his heartbeat to slow.
He marvelled how the minutes he had just passed had seemed to stretch into years.
William Merrick lifted his head from under the silver bonnet of the Lagonda. His brow was disfigured by a smear of oil. He rubbed his withered arm, massaging the hand that would never do quite what he wanted of it. Shutting his eyes for an instant, he shook his head as though to clear it, then dipped back under the bonnet.
His mother watched from the window of her bedroom in despair. The suitcases, which had been strapped to the wings of the long chassis, had been removed and stood on the gravel driveway. The rest of the luggage, a small mountain of it, was still packed in the dicky. But for how long?
Mrs Merrick looked at her watch. It was nearly half past four.
They had been on the point of leaving — the entire household, Hopley included, had gathered on the doorstep to wave goodbye — when the car's motor had simply died. Mrs Merrick had heard it shudder and cough as William reached up to fit his goggles over his eyes, and the next moment it had fallen silent.
After a couple of attempts to crank it back to life the car was an old model with no self-starter — he had ordered everyone to get out, unbuckled the straps holding the suitcases and lifted up the bonnet.
Charlotte had climbed out of the front seat and the children and their nanny from the back. For a while everyone stood around watching William at work.
Then they had drifted away. Only Harriet Merrick had remained on the doorstep, as though transfixed, disbelieving, until Annie came out to rescue her.
'Now take that look off your face, Miss Hattie,' she said severely, as she led her mistress back into the house. 'Give the poor boy a chance. He'll not get it mended if you stand there watching him.'
She settled Mrs Merrick in her room, where she was left to reflect bitterly on the fact that only six months before they had had a chauffeur — one Dawson — and that during his reign the Lagonda had never given a day's trouble. But Dawson had left to return home to Yorkshire and since then William had felt able to handle the car himself, with occasional help from Hobday, the village mechanic. It had been clear to Mrs Merrick for some time that her son overrated his skill and knowledge in the matter of managing an automobile — there had been a number of embarrassing breakdowns — but she had thought it wiser to hold her tongue. Now she wished she had been less reticent.
Rose and the upstairs maid, Elsie, were packed and ready to leave themselves and they had promised to send Hobday back to Croft Manor as soon as they reached the village. But the only emissary who arrived from Stonehill was the mechanic's twelve-year-old son, who reported that his father had gone to Crowborough for the day and wouldn't be home till nightfall.
So William had laboured on, his tools in their oilskin cover laid out on the ground by his feet.
Meanwhile, Charlotte busied herself rearranging the day. The children had been placated with a picnic in the garden, which their mother and Annie supervised.
Sandwiches were sent out to William. Mrs Merrick remained in her room.
At two o'clock Charlotte rang the Hartstons in Chichester to say they would be arriving later than expected. She added a rider that they might not get there at all that afternoon, in which case they would stop off briefly on their way through the following day.
Mrs Merrick came down at four o'clock to join her daughter-in-law in the drawing-room. Charlotte was still in her travelling clothes, her long fair hair drawn up in a net. Tea was served to them by Agnes, one of the downstairs maids, who had volunteered to stay on an extra day.
Despite her daughter-in-law's sympathetic presence Mrs Merrick found it almost impossible to speak. A feeling of terror had gripped her as she lay on her bed.
The dread, to which she could put no name nor ascribe to any cause, reminded her vividly of the agony of mind that had awoken her on the night of her younger son's death in France four years before. She had tried to tell herself it was the anniversary — now so close that had brought back the memory of the pain she had suffered. But even as her mind accepted the explanation, some other part of her, something deeper and darker, from the very depths of her being, rejected it.
'I'll go and speak to William again.'
As Charlotte prepared to rise they heard footsteps in the hall outside. They went past the door to the cloakroom. After a minute they returned. The door opened and William Merrick put his head in. 'We're getting there,' he said.
He shut the door before either of them could speak.
The two women looked at each other, sharing the same thought. Quite soon it would be too late to leave. They would have to spend the night at Croft Manor.
Harriet Merrick could bear it no longer. Excusing herself, she returned to her room upstairs. For a while she stood at the window watching her son at work beneath the bonnet, hoping to see him turn the crank and hear the engine cough into life.
Then that, too, became unendurable and she went quietly downstairs and out into the garden. The sun lay low in the western sky. Soon the wooded slopes of Shooter's Hill would lose shape and definition and appear only as a dark mass against the dying light.