The quick glance Dr Blackwell directed towards Madden, who was muttering in his sleep, contrived to suggest impatience without expressing it.
'Hobbs was able to flesh out the picture for me.
First, about the Pikes as a family. Ebenezer, the father, was a cold, hard man, he said. He married the daughter of a local farmer, Sadie Grail was her name, and that was interesting. Grail was the name Pike used at the village where he kept his motorcycle. Now, according to Hobbs, Miss Grail was by way of being damaged goods. The young lady had already achieved a certain reputation in the countryside and it seems that marriage by no means curtailed her activities.'
The chief inspector caught Helen Blackwell's eye and shrugged. 'Anyway, they had a son together, Amos Pike, but Hobbs said he had no end of trouble from them. Pike gave his wife a beating on several occasions. She ran away twice. Once she assaulted him with a kitchen knife. Meanwhile, young Amos was growing up — and making of it all, who knows what? He was becoming a problem, too.'
'A problem?'
'According to Hobbs, strange things had been found in the woods, small animals sliced up, some hanging from branches. Two cats from the village were killed… in unpleasant ways. The finger pointed towards Amos Pike, but no one had caught him at it.
He was growing up fast, Hobbs said. A big lad, even before he was in his teens. And there was something else, something between him and his mother, that seems to have upset the constable.'
'What was that?' The doctor's eyes had taken on a distanced look.
'The way she treated him, even in public' Sinclair made a gesture of distaste. 'I can only tell you what Hobbs told me. She'd run her hands over him, he said.
"Not in a good way" — that was how he put it. He thought she did it partly to anger her husband. But there was more to it than that, he reckoned. He called her "a dangerous woman". One has to form one's own picture, I think.'
The chief inspector felt momentarily embarrassed until he realized that Dr Blackwell wasn't similarly affected.
'He was trying to say she corrupted the boy, it sounds.'
'I believe so. On the day in question, the first he heard of the murder was when a local woman called Mrs Babcock arrived at his house in a state of hysterics and said she'd found Sadie Pike lying dead in her cottage. Hobbs rushed out there. On the way he encountered Ebenezer Pike with a bloody shirt-front and carrying his razor. He told the constable he'd killed his wife. When Hobbs reached their cottage he found the scene I've described.
'He sent for outside help immediately and a pair of detectives came from Nottingham. They made it clear they didn't require his assistance, but he went about making his own inquiries none the less. He discovered Pike had been with another keeper near the cottage shortly before the murder. This man couldn't say what time that was, but he remembered hearing the church bell ringing while they were talking.'
Sinclair cocked his head. 'Hobbs was intrigued.
He'd heard the bell himself and wondered why it was ringing — it was the middle of the afternoon and there seemed no reason for it. So he asked the vicar, who told him he'd had a new clapper installed and was trying it out. Hobbs went in search of Mrs Babcock again. He asked her if she remembered hearing the bell. Apparently she did. After finding Mrs Pike's body she'd gone outside into the backyard and thrown up. It was while she was being sick that she heard the bell ringing. She remembered particularly because she thought someone was sounding the alarm.'
The chief inspector was silent, musing.
'Ebenezer couldn't have been in two places at once.
His wife was dead before he ever got to the cottage.
Hobbs tried to explain this to the two detectives, but they wouldn't listen. They had their murderer — he'd already confessed. They didn't want to hear about bells ringing in the middle of the afternoon and new clappers. Two slick city lads, Hobbs called them. They must have thought him a yokel.'
Dr Blackwell sat with bowed head. 'She took him to bed and he killed her.'
'So it would seem.' The chief inspector sighed.
They sat in silence for a while. Then Sinclair spoke again: 'Madden met someone recently. Perhaps he told you. A Viennese doctor. He talked about blood rituals and early sexual experience. How patterns could be fixed for life. Those animals found in the woods, the cats… I've been wondering…' He grimaced. 'Interesting man, that doctor. I wish I'd met him myself.
We need to know more about these matters.'
He glanced at Helen Blackwell. She sat unmoving.
'Well, the boy grew up, but you don't leave that sort of thing behind, do you? It must have been in his mind all these years. I don't say on his mind. There's no sign his conscience ever troubled Amos Pike.'
She broke her silence, speaking softly: 'Poor child.
Poor man. Poor damned creature.'
He looked at her, astonished. 'Aye, there's that, too,' he conceded, after a moment.
Dr Blackwell rose and crossed the room to Madden's side. She bent over him, adjusting the bedclothes, smoothing the hair on his forehead. She kissed him once more. Sinclair again had the sense of her needing to touch him, to feel the assurance of his live presence.
He saw it was time to leave.
As they walked down the corridor to the entrance, the linoleum squeaking beneath their shoes, he remembered a commission he'd been charged with.
'There are many people asking after John. But one in particular wants his name mentioned. Detective Constable Styles. The young man is most insistent. Would you pass that on? John will be glad to hear it.'
'I'll tell him,' she promised.
When they reached the entrance lobby he turned to take his leave, but saw she had something more to say.
She was looking to one side and frowning, weighing her words it appeared. Finally she faced him. 'I'd better tell you now. You're not likely to get him back.'
The chief inspector found himself temporarily speechless.
'I mean to keep him here with me if I can. Lord Stratton's selling off some of his farms. Most of the big landowners are. They've had to retrench since the war. I've been thinking we might buy one. John always wanted to go back to the land. He'd be happy living in the country.'
It seemed to Sinclair's addled brain that he'd lost a battle before he knew he was fighting one. 'What does he say? Have you spoken to him?' He cast around for ground on which to make a stand. 'He's a damn fine copper, I'll have you know.'
'He's more than that,' she said simply.
The chief inspector took a moment to reflect on this. Then he bowed, accepting the truth. 'Aye, I'll not deny it."
His reward was to see the smile he had waited for in vain all afternoon.
'Are you and he friends?' She looked at him with new eyes.
'I should hope so!' Angus Sinclair was affronted.
'Then I look forward to seeing you again, very often.' She shook his hand in her firm grip. 'Goodbye, Mr Sinclair.'
As he watched her walk away down the long corridor with urgent strides, the scowl faded from the chief inspector's face and a smile came to his lips.
He'd just had a thought that made him chuckle.
All evidence to the contrary, and present circumstances notwithstanding, his friend John Madden was a lucky dog!
Epilogue
Have you forgotten yet?…
Look up, and swear by the green of the Spring that you'll never forget.