Rennie Airth - The Blood-Dimmed Tide

Only chance brought the Maddens to Brookham that day.

Earlier, they had driven over to Reigate to attend a luncheon party and in the normal course of events would have returned directly by the main road to Guildford. But the fine weather had tempted them to break their journey in order to climb a narrow bridle path that led up the steep slopes of Colley Hill to the top of the North Downs.

It was a walk they had made many times before – the view from the crest was justly famous – and for more than an hour they had strolled arm in arm in the late summer sunshine, pausing now and then to gaze out over a wide sweep of southern England, a patchwork of fields and hedgerows and woods extending to the distant horizon.

A land at peace in that year of 1932.

By the time they returned to their car, however, the afternoon was well advanced and they had found the main road clogged with slow-moving Sunday drivers out for a spin. It was then they had decided to make a detour and to return home by quiet back lanes.

Madden had driven with one eye on the road ahead and the other on the darkening sky. A bank of clouds had been massing in the west for some time, and although the harvest was over and the haymaking done, a hailstorm now would do costly damage to crops of vegetables still ripening in the fields.

Glancing up through the windshield, he might have driven past the line of cottages without noticing anything was amiss if Helen hadn’t touched his arm.

‘John! Look-’

They were passing through a small hamlet called Brookham, still a few miles from home. A group of men had gathered in front of one of the cottages in the row. Some were in the garden, others outside the fence. An air of expectancy hung over them.

Madden stopped the car.

‘What is it, do you think?’ Helen was a doctor and her first thought had been that her services might be needed.

Madden made no reply. The scene struck a chord in his memory. It had a grim familiarity, albeit one he hadn’t encountered for many years.

At that moment the door of the cottage opened and the uniformed figure of a police constable emerged from within. Tall in his helmet, he towered over the men before him.

‘Good lord!’ Helen gasped in astonishment. ‘It’s Will!’

Will Stackpole was the village bobby at Highfield, where they lived.

‘What on earth’s he doing over here?’

Unwilling to hazard a guess, Madden simply shook his head.

But already he felt the chill of premonition.

The child’s name was Alice, Will Stackpole told them. Alice Bridger. She and a friend had set out shortly before midday to walk to the neighbouring village of Craydon, little more than a mile away, along a path bordering the road that linked the two.

‘They were going to have lunch with a friend there and then all three of them were going to a birthday party later.’

Catching sight of Madden and Helen as they got out of their car, the constable had left the group of men and crossed the road at once to speak to them, his forehead grooved with worry. He had made no secret of his relief at seeing them.

It seemed that Alice, recently turned twelve, and her friend, a girl named Sally Drake, had got only halfway to their destination when Sally realized that she’d forgotten to bring the birthday present her mother had wrapped for her that morning – it was a box of homemade fudge – and had dashed back to Brookham to fetch it, leaving Alice at a point on the path where it ran alongside a stretch of densely forested land known as Capel Wood.

They had agreed that Alice would wait for her there, Sally said later, but when she got back – after not more than ten minutes – there was no sign of her friend. Thinking she must have decided to continue without her, Sally had gone on to Craydon herself, only to discover that Alice hadn’t arrived at their friend’s house and no one had seen her.

‘The family rang the Bridgers and Fred walked over to Craydon himself, looking for his daughter,’ Stackpole told the Maddens. ‘He’s the dairy manager on a big farm hereabouts. Anyway, they were going to ring the local bobby when they remembered he was away on leave, so they got in touch with me, since I was next nearest. That was three hours ago.’

As the constable was speaking, thunder rumbled in the distance. Meanwhile, the men gathered across the road had turned to watch them and Helen saw that their glances were directed towards her husband. Before their marriage Madden had been a policeman himself – a Scotland Yard inspector – and his name and reputation were widely known in the area.

‘There’s been no shortage of volunteers wanting to help,’ Stackpole said, mopping his brow. With the approach of the storm the air had grown still. ‘We’ve been up and down the road, searching the fields on either side, and the wood, as well, but there’s no sign of the lass. All we found was her gift.’

‘Her gift?’ Helen asked.

‘The present she was taking for the birthday child. A pair of mittens wrapped in coloured paper. It was lying in a ditch by the path, near to where the other girl left her.’

Helen glanced at her husband. Madden had shown no reaction so far. He’d simply listened. ‘Where are the Bridgers?’ she asked.

‘Fred helped with the search, but he’s gone to join his wife now. Some of the women have been keeping her company. That’s their cottage.’ The constable gestured behind him. He wiped his brow again. The strain of the past three hours was beginning to show.

‘Has her doctor been notified, Will? Brookham’s in David Rowley’s practice, I think.’

‘He turned up half an hour ago and gave her a sedative. Then announced he’d be on the golf course, if needed.’ Stackpole’s lip twitched.

‘He won’t be there much longer,’ Helen remarked as lightning streaked the advancing clouds, followed by another rolling boom of thunder. ‘I’ll go and see her myself.’ But increasingly uneasy, she stayed where she was, her arm linked with her husband’s, unwilling to leave him now.

‘Is there anything I can do, Will?’ Madden spoke for the first time. He, too, was aware of the glances being directed at him. He had already nodded to one or two of the men whom he knew by sight.

‘Thank you, sir, but I’ve rung Guildford and they’re sending reinforcements. It looks as though we’ll have to widen the search area.’

‘What about detectives?’ Madden’s scowl was unconscious. It signalled his concern.

‘I’ve asked for them, and I’m told a couple of plain-clothes men are coming.’ Stackpole grimaced in turn as he caught the other man’s eye. ‘Ah, there’s nothing worse in this job, is there, sir? Nothing so bad as a child gone missing. All we can do is put out the word to other stations and keep looking.’

Distressed though she felt, Helen was relieved to hear that her husband wouldn’t be needed. She pressed his arm. ‘I’ll go and see how Mrs Bridger’s doing,’ she said, but just then her attention was caught by something she saw on the other side of the road, and she paused. The front door of a cottage near the end of the row had opened and a sandy-haired man had come outside. He was looking about him in an agitated manner.

‘Isn’t that Dick Henshaw?’ she asked. ‘He and Molly used to live in Highfield. She was a patient of mine.’

Stackpole glanced round, and as he did so the man caught sight of him and hastened in their direction. ‘That’s Dick, all right.’ The constable frowned. ‘Now what’s this about, I wonder?’