The Blood-Dimmed Tide (17 page)

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?’

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.

He’d used the time to write out a report in his notebook of the work that would have to be done at Hobday’s Farm, over Rogate way, where he’d been earlier that morning. One of the chimneys on the farmhouse had come down since his last visit, smashing the roof tiles beneath it and leaving a hole as big as your head which went straight down to the room below, where the floor had been damaged. The repairs would have to be done before the next rains came, which might be any day now – the spell of fine October weather they’d been enjoying for the past few days couldn’t last – and if the owners didn’t want a deteriorating property on their hands, they’d better do something about it quick.

Such, at any rate, was the news that Sam eventually gave to Mr Cuthbertson after he was shown into his office, a pleasant, airy room that looked out over the old Market Square onto St Ann’s Hill. Mr Cuthbertson had rubbed his chin.

‘Oh, they won’t be pleased to hear this.’ He’d caught Sam’s eye and they’d both chuckled. ‘They do so hate paying out money.’

The banks, he meant. The ones that owned so many pieces of property hereabouts now. The terrible slump in prices in 1929 had led to foreclosures left and right. Sam himself had been among the victims. He’d owned a small farm, part of what had once been a large estate just the other side of Easeborne, bought when he’d come back from the war. With the help of a loan from the bank, of course. Well, that had gone.

But he’d been luckier than most. It had been Mr Cuthbertson, of Tally and Cuthbertson, a firm of estate agents in Midhurst specializing in farming land, who’d been charged with handling the business and in spite of the painful circumstances, which had ended with Sam and his family having to move out bag and baggage, all their belongings piled onto a cart drawn up in the yard, and which by rights ought to have turned them into enemies, they’d somehow managed to hit it off and Sam had departed with Mr Cuthbertson’s offer of a job in his pocket.

What he was paid to do now was keep an eye on the farms in the district which the firm had on its books. Farms that were for sale, but attracting no buyers, not in present conditions. The Depression had bitten deep into the country and farmers had suffered along with everyone else. It was a matter of hanging on if you could and hoping for better times. Sam spent his days driving from one property to another, inspecting buildings for any damage and keeping an eye out for undesirable trespassers, gypsies in the main, and moving them along where necessary.

Mr Cuthbertson called him ‘our factor’ when he introduced him to clients. “This is our factor, Mr Watkin.’ It made Sam chuckle. He’d been a lot of things in his time: farmworker, stable lad, a boxer in a fairground booth for one whole summer; and a poacher on the side. He’d even been an officer, to his eternal wonder. Having somehow survived two years in the trenches, he’d still been alive and kicking when the powers-that-be began their policy of promoting from the ranks. Lo and behold, Sam Watkin had found himself a second lieutenant! A ‘temporary gentleman’, as the saying was then. The phrase still brought a smile of derision to his lips.

After the war he’d considered emigrating to Canada, or perhaps Australia, but Ada Witherspoon, daughter of the landlord at the Dog and Duck in Elsted, had said, ‘Well, you can go where you want, Sam Watkin, but don’t expect to find me waiting here when you get back.’ So they’d ended up buying a farm instead, and now he was a factor, and if you asked Sam what he thought about life he’d have said there was no sense to it that he could see, none at all. It was just one darned thing after another.

The business of the roof had been quickly settled. Mr Cuthbertson had told Sam to get hold of a workman if he needed one, but to see to the repairs himself. There was no point in calling in a firm of contractors. They’d only charge the earth.

There being little else for them to talk about that day, Sam had soon been on the move again, returning to his van, which was parked in the square below. He’d bought it second hand from the Post Office a few years back and painted it dark green, a colour he liked. It was perfect for rattling around in, and for hauling the tools and other odd bits and pieces he needed for his work.

Perfect for Sally, too, his old labrador, who went everywhere with him. The thump of her tail on the van’s floor had greeted him when he’d climbed in behind the wheel. Sal liked to lie in the back, curled up on her blanket, snoozing; waiting till it was time for a walk. Or, better still, a snack. Greediest dog alive, Sam always said.

‘We’ll run over to Coyne’s Farm now,’ he’d told her, as they set off. ‘Could be we’ll have a spot of lunch when we get there.’

But another delay had been in the offing.

Soon after he’d turned off the Petersfield road, in the direction of Elsted, he’d run into some roadworks. A gang of men was engaged in widening a stretch of the paved surface, a job that must have begun in the last few days, since they hadn’t been there the last time Sam had come this way. The crew were at their lunch break when he arrived, sitting in a line on the bank, leaving one of their number to direct traffic. The patch of road where they were working had been narrowed to the width of a single vehicle and this fellow was controlling the flow from both directions, using red and green flags to warn approaching traffic.

Sam had eyed him with some interest, and given the signal to proceed, had drawn up beside the shabby figure.

‘What, ho, Eddie!’ he’d exclaimed.

‘Crikey!’ A bristly face had peered in at him through the opened window. ‘Is that you, Sam?’

Eddie Noyes was the chap’s name and the last time Sam had seen him he’d been lying face up on a stretcher with the front of his tunic soaked with blood and his eyes wide with shock. At Wipers, it had been. Eddie had got his ticket home that day. He hadn’t returned to the battalion.

‘What are you doing over this way?’ The reason Sam had asked was because he knew Eddie came from another part of Sussex – from Hove, down on the coast, if he remembered right – but as soon as he spoke he’d wished he hadn’t. It was obvious, after all, what a bloke was doing when you caught him in workmen’s clothes with a two-day stubble on his chin waving flags on the edge of a public highway. He was taking any job he could find. Things were that hard still.

But Eddie hadn’t been ashamed to talk about it. (This was after Sam had pulled to the side of the road and sat down with him on the bank, one of Eddie’s mates having volunteered to direct the traffic.) He’d lost his position as a salesman for a paper-manufacturing company the previous year – the firm had gone bust – and hadn’t been able to find another. Just odd jobs from time to time, this stint with the road gang being one of them.

He was still living in Hove, he said, taking care of his old mum and his sister, who had lost her husband in the war. Money was short – Eddie had shrugged – but they managed. His only problem with this job he had now was he couldn’t get home at night – it was just too far – so he was having to bunk with some of the other men in the shed they’d put up to house their equipment. He had grinned then. ‘It takes me back, Sam, I can tell you. I’ve known shellholes more salubrious.’

Sam’s first impulse had been to put his hand in his pocket, but he’d checked himself. You couldn’t offer money to a chap who’d won the Military Medal. Who wasn’t more than an inch or two over five feet, but would stand up to anyone.

‘You must come and have a meal with us, Eddie. Just let me warn Ada first. She’ll want to put a spread on for you.’

He’d wished he could have offered him a bed, too, but for one thing they were living over at Halfway Bridge now, on the other side of Midhurst, which wouldn’t suit Eddie at all, and for another there simply wasn’t room in their cottage, what with the kids growing up and Ada having gone into the business of making frocks for friends and neighbours, turning what passed for their parlour into a sewing room filled with patterns and tailor’s dummies.