Rennie Airth - The Blood-Dimmed Tide

‘Are you thinking someone might have brought her here?’ Stackpole asked. ‘Come the same way we did?’ He’d climbed out of the car himself and was putting his helmet back on.

Partly shielded by the haystacks, the spot where they’d ended up looked out over empty fields with a distant vista of tree-clad hillocks.

‘It’d be a quiet spot,’ the constable observed. ‘Nobody working in the fields on a Sunday. No reason for anyone to come here.’

‘It’s possible.’ Madden shrugged. ‘But we’d only be guessing. Let’s get moving, Will. There’s no time to lose.’

The constable donned his cape, then retrieved the roll of tarpaulin from the back seat of the car, tucking it under his arm. He pointed ahead of them to a line of willows and low bushes that wound across the field towards the tree line.

‘There’s our stream, sir. It runs clear through the wood and comes out on the other side not far from Brookham.’

The two men set off, with the constable leading the way, forging a trail through knee-high grass around the outskirts of the wood until they came to the stream. A pathway was visible running alongside it on the further bank and they crossed to it by means of a fallen log. Thunder crashed all around them and they hurried to seek the shelter of the forest. When they got there, Stackpole stepped aside off the path.

‘You lead the way, sir. Your eyes are better than mine.’

Madden went ahead and soon found himself in a zone of twilight cast by the dense canopy of foliage, which deepened as they moved further into the trees. Rain pattered on the leaves overhead, but did not reach the ground, which remained dry. A layer of damp leaf mould underfoot muffled the sound of their steps.

The path continued to run parallel to the stream, which was visible most of the time, disappearing only briefly behind tree trunks or overhanging branches. Madden kept his eyes on it, knowing that Topper must have come this way himself since he was heading for Brookham and that whatever he had found would not be far from the water.

‘How big is the wood, Will?’ He spoke over his shoulder. ‘How long will it take us to walk through it?’

‘Twenty minutes, at least. It’s a fair size.’

Half that time had elapsed, and so far they had seen nothing of note, apart from a set of stepping stones in the stream which they had passed and which Madden had inquired about. Stackpole told him they connected with a secondary path that ran down to the road between Brookham and Craydon.

‘So Alice Bridger could have walked into the wood?’

Stackpole nodded. ‘Or been brought. I came that way myself with the men when we searched up here earlier.’

Not far beyond this point the path changed direction, crossing the stream by a second set of stepping stones and then apparently taking a course away from the brook into the depths of the forest. Madden halted.

‘Topper said by the stream…’

The constable came up to his shoulder. He saw what Madden meant. ‘They only separate for a short distance, sir. The path and the stream. They join up again a little further on.’

Madden shook his head, unconvinced.

‘No, I want to stay by the water.’ He peered downstream, but his view was impeded by thick undergrowth and overhanging trees. The rain was steadily increasing in volume and the thunder boomed louder overhead. Madden stood for some moments, hands on hips, looking about him. Then something caught his eye and he switched his attention to the brush lining the path, studying the ferns and low, stunted bushes that filled the spaces between the tree trunks.

‘Look-!’ He went down on his haunches. The constable peered over his shoulder. ‘Someone left the path here, or rejoined it.’ Madden indicated a fern that had been broken at the base and, near it, a slender oak sapling bent askew. ‘If Topper was following the stream rather than the path he might have come this way.’

‘But why would he do that?’ Stackpole was puzzled. ‘It’s hard work pushing your way through that.’ He gestured at the dense underbrush.

‘I’ve no idea.’ Madden bent lower to scan the ground, hoping to find some trace of a footprint, but the damp mould was too loose to hold an impression. He stood up. ‘Will, I’m going to carry on down the stream on this side. You stay on the path. If what you say is right, we should meet up further on.’

Had the circumstances been different, his words might have brought a grin to Will Stackpole’s face. Without realizing it, Madden had reverted to his old role, taking charge. He was behaving like the police inspector he’d once been.

‘I’ll do that, sir. Call out if you see anything.’

The constable waited until his companion had moved into the underbrush and then continued along the path, crossing the stream on the stepping stones and following the course of the footway, which left the brook initially, but then bent back so that it was running parallel to it again, only further from the bank than before. He found that, although he could still hear the rushing water, his view of it was blocked by the intervening trees and a screen of tangled bushes.

‘Will?’

‘I’m here, sir.’ Stackpole halted. Madden’s voice had reached him clearly from the other side of the stream. He wasn’t far off.

‘Someone’s come this way, all right… there’s a trail of sorts …’

Stackpole shifted the roll of tarpaulin from one arm to the other. He waited for a moment, then walked on, but after only a few paces he heard the other man call out again.

‘What kind of clothes was she wearing, Will? What colour were they?’

The constable thought. ‘She had a blue skirt on, sir. Blue skirt, white blouse, black shoes.’ Dry-mouthed now, he waited anxiously.

‘I can see a bit of thread caught on a bramble. It might be blue

… it’s difficult to see in this light…’ Madden’s voice trailed off. But he called out again, suddenly, ‘No, wait! There’s something else!’

Stackpole stood riveted to the spot, awaiting Madden’s next words. Ears pricked, he stared at the dense wall of greenery blocking his view of the stream and presently fell into a half-trance which was abruptly shattered when a bolt of lightning ripped through the low clouds overhead, followed almost instantaneously by a tremendous clap of thunder.

The air about him seemed to shiver and he caught a whiff of ozone. Curiously, the patter of rain drops on the leaves above had diminished in the last few seconds, but the sky continued to darken. It was as if the elements were gathering themselves to unleash an assault, and the constable felt a comparable coiling of forces within him, a rising tide of agonized tension that cried out for release.

‘Will?’

‘Sir!’

‘You’d better get over here!’

The sharpened note in Madden’s voice caused the hairs on the back of the constable’s neck to rise, and he caught his breath.

‘You won’t get through those holly bushes, Will. Better to go back to where I left you and come the way I did.’

‘What is it, sir?’ Fearful of the answer, Stackpole’s voice was choked. ‘Have you found her, then…?’

The few seconds it took Madden to reply seemed to stretch into an eternity. Then at last he spoke.

‘Yes, I’ve found her, Will.’

He said no more. But his voice told all.

It was only by chance that Madden had spotted the body.

Earlier, picking his way through the brush and clinging brambles, his attention had been focussed on the abundant signs that one or more people had come by this route: snapped twigs and ferns bent back and flattened marked the rough passage that had been forced through the undergrowth.

The disturbance seemed recent – some of the broken twigs were green, with the sap still wet in them – and had probably occurred within the past few hours. Closer study might have told him more, but there was no time to linger and he had carried on downstream until his attention was caught by the piece of thread, which was snagged on a bramble at waist height. This he had paused to examine, but such was the gloom brought on by the approaching storm he’d been unable to determine its colour with any certainty and had decided to leave it where it was.