Rennie Airth - The Blood-Dimmed Tide

Madden grunted. He watched as the small figure made its plodding way up the lawn. ‘They’ll have to stop doing that for the time being.’ He spoke regretfully. ‘We can’t have them wandering off into the woods alone. Not for the moment.’ He caught Helen’s eye. ‘I’ll tell Rob about the murder when he comes in. And Lucy, too. There’s bound to be talk in the village. Better they hear it first from me.’

Although Brookham was only five miles distant, the drive along narrow country lanes busy with farm traffic was a slow one and it took Madden the best part of twenty-five minutes to reach his destination. An unmarked police car parked on the grassed verge by the line of cottages signalled the presence of detectives in the hamlet. They would likely be there for some time. Unless established procedures had changed much since his day, Madden knew that with a crime of this nature all the inhabitants would have to be questioned. The police would want to know their movements and to discover whether any strangers had been seen in the vicinity.

His own return to Brookham was unplanned; a surprise, even to himself. Although he had talked only briefly with the CID men sent from Guildford the day before, he had promised them a statement, and already that morning, before breakfast, had written out a full account of all he had seen and done from the moment he and Will Stackpole had set foot in Capel Wood. That completed, there was no reason for him to go back. The statement could have been forwarded to Surrey police headquarters.

But enough of the old policeman still dwelt in John Madden to ensure that he wouldn’t rest satisfied. A nagging sense of duty, the feeling of a job half done, had dogged him since leaving Brookham and he’d spent sleepless hours reviewing the facts surrounding the girl’s disappearance and recalling to memory every detail of the murder scene.

Morning had brought no relief and he’d risen saddled with a feeling of guilt which initially he’d put down to his failure to make proper sense of the evidence that had been presented to him at first hand. Some instinct, honed in past years, no doubt, but still lively, told him there was more to be learned from the murder site than he had so far managed to deduce. But troubling though this realization was, it did not measure up fully to the sense of unease he felt, which seemed to spring from deeper roots and was linked to the hideous image he bore of Alice Bridger’s ruined face.

Still, he’d had no plan to involve himself further in what was now a police matter, nor to alter his routine, and had meant to spend the morning at the farm, as he usually did. It was only after Helen had left the house to go to her surgery and he was setting out himself that a sudden impulse had prompted him to change direction and take the road that led across the long wooded ridge called Upton Hanger, beneath which Highfield nestled, and make his way by twisting, hedgerowed lanes to Brookham once again.

Watched by Madden, Galloway fished up a sizeable stone from the stream bed and examined it closely, peering over the top of his horn-rimmed spectacles. Portly, and now red-faced from his exertions, he stood shin-deep in the fast-moving current, wearing fisherman’s waders.

‘I thought myself he might have used a stone,’ Madden remarked from the bank above. ‘But then I wondered…’

‘Wondered what, John?’ Peter Galloway glanced up quizzically. He was the senior pathologist attached to the hospital in Guildford. Madden knew him socially through Helen.

‘He did such a thorough job on her face I thought he might have used a tool of some kind. A hammer, perhaps?’ It was the first time Madden had put into words the thought that had tormented him during the long night: the barely believable notion that the killer might actually have brought with him the means for demolishing a human face.

‘As it happens, I think you may be right.’ Breathing heavily, Galloway tossed aside the stone he was carrying and then bent down, searching the stream for another. His rumpled tweed suit looked as though it had been slept in. ‘I was up half the night trying to decide that very point, based on the available evidence, the pulped flesh, I mean. I could come to no conclusion. So, having first photographed it, I left an assistant with instructions to remove said flesh while I came out here. When I return I mean to examine the bone structure, or what’s left of it, to see if I can reach a more precise verdict. Such are the joys of a pathologist’s life. Would you mind?’ Wearied of his search, he reached out a hand and, with Madden’s help, hauled his heavy bulk up on to the bank, where he stood, swaying awkwardly in his hip-high boots, blowing hard. ‘I might add, it’s the worst case of its kind I’ve ever come across,’ he continued, having caught his breath. ‘There was nothing left of her features. Thank God, those injuries were post-mortem.’

‘I was told she was strangled. That’s so, is it?’ Madden needed to be reassured, and the other man nodded.

‘The cause of death was asphyxiation. Mind you, he broke her neck as well. At the same time, perhaps. Hard to be sure. Rigor was quite well advanced when the body reached me. I would estimate she died between twelve and two, but not later.’ Galloway controlled a yawn. ‘Since I was coming out here anyway, I thought I’d inspect a few rocks at the site. There appears to be a shape to some of the blows. But my instinct tells me that’s a blind alley. A hammer’s more likely.’

Madden looked about him. He had come back to Capel Wood to find Topper’s secluded camp site a scene of antlike activity with no fewer than four plain-clothes men scouring the small rectangle of sodden grass which he and Stackpole had attempted to cover the evening before and examining the far bank where the body had been concealed. Their labours, directed by Galloway, were overseen by a fifth detective, the senior CID man in charge of the case, who had hailed his arrival.

‘Mr Madden, sir! I was hoping you’d come by. Wright’s the name. Detective Inspector.’

The two shook hands. They hadn’t met before, but Madden’s name and face were well known to members of the Surrey force; the other men, too, had paused in their work to greet him, doffing their hats in respectful recognition. They included the two young detectives he’d encountered the previous evening and guided to the murder site.

‘There are some details I need to go over with you, sir.’ Wright had a confident, bustling air. He was in his early forties, a thin, wiry man with a receding hairline. ‘How the body was lying when you found it, for example. Before you and the constable had to shift it. Stuff I’ll need for my report and for the inquest. I expect you know what I mean.’

By way of reply Madden had handed him the written statement, which he’d brought with him. ‘It’s all in there, Inspector. I put down everything I saw before the storm hit us. It’ll save time if you read it first. Then, if you have any more questions, I’m at your disposal.’

‘Thank you, sir. I’ll do that now, if I may.’

Leaving him to read the statement, Madden turned his attention to the scene around him. He had left his car parked by the haystacks, where two police vehicles stood nose to tail, and made his way through the wood, quitting the path at the same place as he had the day before and following the now much-trampled trail through the undergrowth to the murder scene. He still felt there was more to be learned from this spot, though its appearance had changed strikingly in the space of only a few hours. Vanished were the foaming torrent and dark, rain-streaked sky of yesterday. Now the gurgle of the stream hardly reached his ears, drowned out by the joyous clamour of birdsong echoing from the woods all around. The bushes, too, were still, unmoved by the faint breeze that was stirring the tops of the trees.