‘Guildford?’ Arthur Holly frowned. ‘That rings a bell. Wasn’t there a child murdered in the district recently? I seem to remember reading something about it in the newspaper.’
‘Yes, a young girl. She was raped and strangled. It happened while you were away.’ Bennett settled himself in his chair. ‘The chief inspector drew my attention to it. There are aspects of the murder which he feels can’t be ignored.’ He gestured to Sinclair, inviting him to continue.
‘It was the nature of the crime, Arthur, as well as the circumstances.’ Sinclair addressed his remarks to his colleague. ‘The injuries inflicted on the child’s body after death were unusually severe. Her face was destroyed, demolished in fact. After due consideration, the pathologist determined that the killer used a hammer for this purpose, a stonemason’s tool, to judge by measurements taken of the imprint.’
‘My God!’ The shock showed on Holly’s face. ‘I’ve not heard of that before.’
‘Among the various conclusions one might draw from such an act, the most disturbing to me is that the assault appears to have been planned in advance. If he had a hammer with him, he must have intended to use it. It’s one of the reasons why I believe this crime merits our attention. There may be more to it than meets the eye.’
Silence followed his words. After a moment’s pause, the chief inspector continued, ‘For the present, all I can tell you is that the Surrey police are actively searching for a tramp in connection with the assault, a man whose travelling name is Beezy. He was known to have been in the wood where the girl’s body was found round about the time she was killed. His description has been circulated in Surrey and the surrounding counties, and to the Metropolitan Police, as well.’
‘What do we know about him?’ Holly asked.
‘A fair amount.’ Sinclair drew a page from his file. ‘I received this information from Guildford yesterday. His real name is Harold Beal. He’s a Londoner by origin and once had a job as an insurance clerk. Twelve years ago his wife died suddenly. He began to drink heavily, lost his job and finally took to the road. He’s been a tramp ever since, and, like many of them, a man of habit. Until this year he used to spend his summers in Kent, working on farms there, returning to London for the winter. He’s been found drunk and disorderly a number of times and has one other conviction on his record. Last year he was convicted in a Canterbury magistrate’s court of indecent exposure.’
‘Was he, now?’ Holly sat up. ‘What do you make of that?’ And when Sinclair failed to respond at once. ‘It’s a pointer, isn’t it?’
‘It could be. But I’m not sure.’ The chief inspector eased a muscle in his back. ‘Petty sexual offenders are ten a penny, after all. Between unbuttoning your flies in public and what was done to that poor girl, there’s a vast distance. An enormous leap.’
‘True. But they all start somewhere.’ The chief superintendent pursued his point. ‘Look at the record of any serious offender, Angus, and chances are you’ll find he was once a peeping Tom, or something of the kind.’
‘I accept that.’ Sinclair nodded. ‘But let me tell you a little more about Beal’s case. A Canterbury schoolmistress alleged that he exposed himself on a public road while she was walking by with a crocodile of schoolgirls. Beal said in court that he was simply relieving himself and hadn’t been aware of their approach. He claimed to be hard of hearing, which seems borne out by the court record. He kept asking for questions to be repeated. On the face of it, I’d say it was a charge that should never have been brought, but the magistrate found him guilty and sentenced him to two months’ imprisonment. It’s there on the record.’ The chief inspector tapped the file with his forefinger. ‘I don’t dismiss it, Arthur.’ He caught the chief super’s eye.
‘Perhaps that’s why Beezy chose to come to Surrey this year instead of going to Kent,’ Bennett remarked dryly. ‘Wherever he is now he must wish he hadn’t. What does Boyce think? Does he believe this tramp is their man?’
‘Not as strongly as he did at first. Not after hearing John Madden’s views on the subject.’
‘Madden?’ Holly’s eyebrows shot up. ‘How does he come to be involved?’
‘He happened to be the one who found the body. He was helping the local bobby search the wood. I had a word with him in Highfield on Sunday.’
‘Good man, John Madden.’ The chief super rumbled his approval. ‘You should never have let him go, Angus.’
‘I can’t imagine why you think I had any say in the matter.’ Stung by the remark, the chief inspector responded sharply. ‘It was his wife who persuaded him to quit the force. I don’t believe you’ve ever met her, Arthur.’
‘I have,’ Bennett chipped in. ‘At a dinner party in London a few years back. I remember the occasion well. It was soon after Parliament had agreed to allow women into the civil service at last and I asked her if she was pleased by the vote. “Speechless with gratitude”, was her reply, but I don’t think she meant it.’ He chuckled. ‘Dashed fine-looking woman, too… So Madden saw the murder site? What did he make of it? I take it he doesn’t hold with the tramp theory?’
Sinclair shook his head. He tugged thoughtfully at an earlobe. ‘Madden’s always had a way of seeing things clearly, of seeing through them, or rather beyond them. I used to think it was a kind of sixth sense when we worked together, but now I wonder if it isn’t just that he understands what he sees better than most. The meaning of it…’ He shrugged. ‘No, Madden doesn’t believe Beezy murdered that young girl. When he saw the child’s face, what remained of it, he got the scent of another kind of killer. One that may be much harder to track down.’
‘Why so?’
‘He thought the damage inflicted on the girl’s features was deliberate, the work of a man who might have done that sort of thing before, rather than the aberration of some old tramp who’s come across an unsupervised child and suddenly taken leave of his senses. What’s more the pathologist’s findings tend to support his view.’
Holly scowled. ‘I’m not aware of any recent crime that fits this pattern, Angus. Have you found something in the files?’
‘No, nothing.’ The chief inspector shook his head. ‘Not even a hint of a connection, I’m afraid. But that’s not quite the end of the story. Something else has come to my attention, a straw in the wind, you might say, but I feel I should share it with you.’
Holly and Bennett exchanged glances.
‘Please do,’ the assistant commissioner said dryly.
Sinclair eyed his two listeners.
‘Three years ago – in July of 1929, to be precise – a twelve-year-old girl by the name of Susan Barlow went missing in Henley-on-Thames. Her body wasn’t discovered until this year: six weeks ago, in fact. She’d been presumed drowned in the river – the last sighting of her was near the bank – and her body was recovered from the water. It had got trapped in an inlet under a log which itself was wedged into the bank. Needless to say, the girl’s corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition.’
‘You’re not telling us she’d been raped.’ Holly scowled. ‘Surely they couldn’t know that.’
‘Indeed not. Nor whether she’d been strangled, if we’re going to compare it with the Brookham crime. Lodged in fresh water, the flesh would have turned into adipocere after only six months. But her face told a different story.’
‘Was it damaged?’ The chief superintendent’s features darkened.
‘Beyond question. But not to the same extent as at Brookham, which may be an important point. The nose and one of the cheekbones had been fractured and the skull cracked.’
There was silence for some moments. ‘Yes, but a body lying in the water that long… there might be any number of ways injuries like that could be caused,’ Holly growled.
‘It’s a mystery, certainly,’ Sinclair acknowledged. ‘One which is exercising the minds of the Oxfordshire police as we speak. I should tell you, too, that we’ve not been officially informed of this matter. No murder inquiry has been instituted. I heard of it by chance.’