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‘Will said, most likely he’s been getting help from other vagrants, other tramps.’

‘He’s right.’ Madden seated himself across the hearth from Billy. ‘Mind you, if Beezy had killed that girl, and they knew, they’d have given him up by now. Or at least not protected him. He’ll have needed food, of course, and that means someone’s been getting it for him. Topper, most likely. If you ask me, they’ve joined up again. I’ve tried to get word to him.’

‘To Topper, sir?’ Billy was all ears. ‘How could you do that?’

‘A lot of these vagrants call at Helen’s surgery: she let it be known a long time ago that they could get medical treatment from her if they needed it. I’ve sent messages by one or two asking Topper to get in touch with us. So far without result.’

Billy took a sip from his glass of brandy. It had been a day of many pleasures. Earlier, he had spent an hour at the farmhouse chatting to May Burrows while she strung beans in the kitchen. Looking at her pink, composed face, he’d remembered the teenage girl with bobbed hair whom he’d once had to question; now May was a young matron with two children of her own, the younger, a baby boy, still in his cradle.

She had seated him at the table where the two little girls were still occupied with their tea, a generous meal in the Burrows household, containing elements of both breakfast and supper in it, and where Billy had had no choice but to submit to the maternal instincts of Lucy Madden, which had taken the form of pressing on him spoonfuls of her soft-boiled egg and morsels of thickly buttered toast steeped in honey.

Later, another old friend had put in an appearance. Will Stackpole had cycled over from the village and Billy had spent some time discussing the case with the constable, whom he had first met years before, during the Melling Lodge investigation.

The autumn evening had been drawing in by the time he’d driven down the avenue of limes, clothed in yellow leaves now, to the Maddens’ front door, where Helen had been waiting to relieve him of Lucy’s still-voluble presence, returning with her half an hour later, bathed and clad in pyjamas, to say her goodnights, a process which the little girl managed to prolong by a series of well-honed stratagems, causing her brother, who was trying to do his home-work, to roll his eyes in despair. Finally, Helen had lost patience.

‘Lucinda Madden! That will do. Say goodnight now to Sergeant Styles.’

‘He’s not Sergeant Styles. He’s Billy!’

While Madden was helping his son wrestle with a problem of arithmetic, Billy had wandered outside onto the terrace and stood for a while gazing out over the garden at the dark woods of Upton Hanger, lit by a thin sliver of moon that evening, remembering a visit he’d made earlier that year when the air on this very spot had been sweet with the mingled scents of jasmine and roses. Now, only the faint smell of burning leaves reached him.

Helen had soon returned from putting Lucy to bed and before long it had been Rob’s turn to be dispatched upstairs. To his bitter disappointment: he was sure his father and Billy were going to discuss the Brookham murder and had hoped for an opportunity to eavesdrop on them.

With the children safely in bed, Helen had taken the two men in to dinner, where the conversation had turned to the subject of Billy’s forthcoming marriage. The Maddens were yet to meet his fiancee, and Helen was insistent that this oversight be repaired.

‘It’s time you brought Elsie to see us. Lucy must be made to accept the situation.’ She could seldom resist teasing the sergeant, whose regard for her husband, though it touched her deeply, sometimes made him tongue-tied in their presence. ‘You do realize she thinks you belong to her. I hope she won’t feel rejected now.’

Once dinner was over, however, and with the excuse of a heavy day ahead of her, she had bid them goodnight, saving her last words for their guest.

‘I won’t ask what you and John are going to talk about, though I can guess. And welcome as you always are, Billy, dear, I sense a hidden hand behind your visit today. You can tell Angus Sinclair I’m not deceived.’

On which note, and with Billy speechless in his chair, she had left them by the fire.

The younger man stifled a yawn. He still had to drive back to Guildford – he’d taken lodgings in the town – but there was a question he wanted to put to his host before leaving.

‘You said earlier, sir, when we were at the farm, how you thought at first the killer might have seen the Bridger girl before – marked her out, as it were. I know you changed your mind, but what made you think that in the first place? If you don’t mind my asking…’

‘No, I don’t mind, Billy.’ Madden smiled, as though in acknowledgement of this sign that the habit of paying careful attention had taken such healthy root in his protege. ‘In fact, the whole business puzzles me. I’ve been trying to make sense of it. Let me explain…’

Billy sat forward, doubly alert now.

‘At first I thought it a strange coincidence when I found Alice Bridger’s body that the murderer had hit on a tramps’ camp site to commit the crime. It only occurred to me later it was much more likely he knew about the spot in advance. He carried the girl’s body through thick brush in order to get there. The odds were against him having come on it by accident. That’s what made me think he might have had her in mind as prey, that he’d already scouted out a place nearby where he could take her.

‘But later I discarded the idea. It implied he must have been hanging around Brookham for some time before, waiting for his opportunity, and there was simply no evidence to support that. No reports of strangers lurking in the neighbourhood that day, or the days preceding. I decided he must have been driving through the village, just as we were, and came on her by chance. But that left the first question unanswered… how did he find his way to the tramps’ site?’

Scowling, Madden rubbed the scar on his forehead. Noting the familiar gesture – and aware from times past of the depth of preoccupation it signalled – Billy smiled to himself.

‘Do you see what I’m saying? He’s not a pure hunter of opportunity, this man. He only acts when he’s prepared.’ Madden’s scowl deepened. ‘From what you’ve told me, I’d guess that at Henley he’d already inspected the manor grounds, perhaps that same day, and knew he could take any victim he picked up there. As for Bognor Regis, I’m familiar with that piece of coastline where the girl was abducted. There are long stretches of reeds and scrubland along the shore. No shortage of cover, I mean, and I’ll wager he knew it.’

‘And it must have been the same at Brookham – that’s what you’re saying,’ Billy broke in. ‘He only picked her up because he knew there was a place nearby he could take her. That spot by the stream.’

‘If his behaviour’s consistent, that seems to be the case,’ Madden agreed. ‘But it means he must have been in Capel Wood earlier, for some other reason, and I’ve been racking my brains, trying to think what it might be.’

Billy thought for a moment. ‘He could be a hiker, sir. The countryside’s full of ramblers.’

‘Yes, I’d thought of that.’ Madden shook his head. ‘But it still doesn’t explain how he found the tramps’ site. It’s not a spot you’d stumble on by chance. He’d have had to leave the path, for one thing, and that’s no easy matter. The undergrowth’s dense. Discouraging. No, he’d have needed a reason, as I said, a particular purpose.’ Madden scowled. ‘That’s what’s been puzzling me. How did he find it? What took him there in the first place?’

14

It was nearly two o’clock before Sam Watkin got to Coyne’s Farm that Friday. Earlier, he’d been delayed in Midhurst making his weekly report to Mr Cuthbertson, who’d been held up himself by a talkative client, forcing Sam to sit outside his office for half an hour or more, twiddling his thumbs.