Colin Watson - Bump in the Night

Shunning these scenes of excitement, with their flavour of an auto da fe , a youth in sleuthing suit worked his way round by side streets to the northern outskirts of the town and sought the fence-flanked path that led to a remembered stile.

Leonard Leaper had waged and won a short tussle with his conscience earlier in the evening. His first intention on changing into dark clothes and soft shoes had been the same as the week before: to discover, outwit and expose the criminal. Almost immediately, however, a sense of the unlikelihood of success flooded coldly over him and left him helplessly receptive to a much less creditable idea. The fact was that he had forgotten the revulsion that events in the caravan had initially aroused in him; it had been replaced by a lively desire to attend a second performance.

On arriving at the stile, he peered down the field. The windows of the caravan were dark. He cautiously approached through the grass. No sound came from inside. He tried to remember at what time he had arrived behind Mrs Larch the previous week. It must have been at least half an hour later than this—perhaps an hour, even. There was no need yet to conclude that his second excursion was to be fruitless.

Leaper walked slowly round the caravan, looking through the windows. There was still enough light in the western sky for him to distinguish the shape of objects inside: a chair, a small stove, the shelf on which he had seen the drinks and the handbag. Something was lying on the shelf now, something of about the shape and size of a boot box.

When he reached the forward end of the caravan, Leaper noticed a break in the window. His instinct for the dramatic told him that so small a hole—it was about four inches in diameter—in so large a pane of glass could have been caused only by a projectile. He received the daunting image of another secret observer, less fortunate than himself, spotted by the hairy-armed philanderer and promptly shot.

Leaper glanced nervously towards the stile. There was no one there. Realizing that his own figure would be visible in silhouette against the caravan’s light grey paintwork, he hurried away in the shortest line to the edge of the field.

He stood in the shelter of the corrugated steel fence and kept watch for arrivals by way of the stile. It was not a comfortable vigil. A rising mist soon drove off the lingering warmth of the day. The air became damp and the chill of the soggy ground crept up his legs. Bats, hurling themselves in zig-zag quests, passed within inches of his face. An occasional moth made soft whirring contact with his skin. When this happened, he would shake himself frantically at the dusty, legged and whiskery, feathery, flailing creature that he imagined to be aiming for his mouth and nostrils. In the intervals between assaults by bats and moths, he listened apprehensively to rustling noises in the grass around him and fancied that he heard the gnashing of tiny, ankle-seeking teeth. Leaper was no nature lover.

He had almost made up his mind that he was paying too high a price for an uncertain and risky measure of libidinous entertainment when he caught the sound of approaching footsteps.

There was something odd about them. They came from somewhere nearer than the path beyond the stile, yet they rang upon a hard surface.

Leaper listened, puzzled and with increasing unease, as the firm unhurried footfall grew louder. Then suddenly there was silence. He stood tense and open-mouthed with the effort of estimating where his danger—and he felt sure it was danger—would reveal itself.

Several seconds passed. Leaper started: tiny metallic sounds had reached him, a scraping and a click. Behind him, were they? But...

He threw himself flat at almost the exact moment when a section of the fence, a couple of yards from where he had been standing, swung out with a clangorous shudder.

Leaper kept absolutely still, his face pressed into a clump of wet and malodorous weed. Not until he had heard the gate replaced and locked and the swishing of feet through the grass die away did he turn his head and look towards the caravan.

A tall figure was standing there, to disappear a moment later into the black rectangle of the opening door. Bright light sprang from the windows and laid a glistening trail across the dew-beaded grass.

Slowly, Leaper rose to his feet, but kept close to the fence. The woman, he supposed, would be arriving very soon. He would have to wait until she, too, was safely behind the door and the curtains drawn before he ventured out of cover. Of course, she might not be coming. He would give her half an hour. It would be exceedingly awkward if he were to meet her on the narrow path back to the road.

A shadow crossed one of the windows. Leaper looked away from the light and tightly shut his eyes to restore their sensitivity to the night scene. On re-opening them he peered over to his left, trying to discern the outline of the group of trees beneath which was the stile. It was almost oppressively quiet now; even the moths seemed...

The trees! They were there, blindingly clear. The fence, the field, the bushes, all flashed starkly upon his vision in an instant of electric-blue revelation. Then, in the scarlet-shot darkness that immediately followed, Leaper felt himself heaved and battered by a great bolt of noise.

His head feeling like a belfry tweaked by an earthquake, he reeled back against the fence. For some time he could see nothing; then gradually he became aware of a faint and irregular orange radiance where the caravan’s windows had shone before. Unsteadily he walked out across the field.

As he drew near the caravan, the shape of what remained standing was thrown into relief by fire that crept among the wreckage within like glowing maggots. At least half the structure had been split away, leaving a skewed, open-fronted shed. While still twenty yards off, Leaper found himself stumbling over splintered spars and buckled panels.

The flames gained hold and brightened. He halted and looked about at what they revealed. A broken chair lay in a patch of nettles. Humped nearby was a small mattress. Flock had spilled from a rent in its cover and was being blown gently across the grass. The stove, lying on its side, was entangled in a tattered blanket.

The last thing Leaper saw before he turned and fled, retching, was the body almost under his feet.

It was understandable that he had not noticed it immediately for it had landed in a compact bundle within a slight hollow. Indeed, Leaper only recognized it for what it was when he bent down and saw the glint of a pair of shoes.

He prayed, as he ran, that he would not tread upon what his hasty, fearful examination had failed to account for...the body’s arms and head.

Chapter Eleven

“Will you be taking over the arrangements for the inquest, sir?”

Sergeant Worple looked hopefully at Purbright, who had won his considerable respect by showing an interest in his envelope collection.

Purbright shook his head. “Oh, no, sergeant. That’s decidedly Mr Larch’s province. I’m not sure that I can claim to have anything more to do with the case now.” He did not mention the telephone conversation with Hessledine half an hour previously when he had been strictly enjoined to ‘get to the bottom of how that lunatic got the stuff to blow himself up with’.

“You will wait for the inquest, though, won’t you, sir?”

“I wouldn’t miss it for anything. Our inquests are absolute nightmares under old Amblesby; I want to know what a decently conducted one is like.”

“Mr Chalice is an able gentleman and very sensible.”

“There’s no question as to what the verdict will be, I suppose?”

Worple pursed his lips. “No, not really, sir. It’s just what everyone seemed to be expecting. He was a bit of a card, you know, this Mr Biggadyke. Had a name for getting up to queer tricks. Mind you: I must say I’m a tiny bit surprised, myself.”