River of Darkness (33 page)

Shortly after one o'clock the following day Bennett arrived by car from London. The deputy assistant commissioner was surprised to find the leafy lane leading to Croft Manor empty of both press and rubberneckers. The constable on duty at the gates informed him that the chief inspector had had it cleared. 'He's told the reporters to wait for news in Stonehill, sir. And the villagers have been asked not to congregate.' The day had dawned grey and misty, as though signalling the arrival of autumn. Bennett, black-coated and black-hatted, paused before the front steps to look about him. He was surprised again - this time because he saw no sign of police activity. Sinclair explained that the gardens had already been searched. 'Madden has the men out in the woods now. They're looking for the dugout.' The chief inspector met Bennett at the door and escorted him to the morning room, which he had made his headquarters. The deputy took in the other man's pale, unshaven cheeks. He reflected that it was the first time he had ever seen Angus Sinclair with a hair out of place. 'You look exhausted, Chief Inspector. Have you had any sleep?' 'A couple of hours here on the couch, thank you, sir.' 'How about Madden?' Sinclair merely shrugged. Bennett wasted no time. He was already undoing the straps of his briefcase as they entered the morning room. 'I've something for you. New pictures of Pike.' Tozer's collaboration with the police artist had resulted in a pair of sketches, which the Yard's photographic department had begun producing in poster form. In one of them, the face was as Tozer remembered it, complete with heavy moustache. In the other, the artist had reproduced the same features stripped of facial hair. Sinclair took copies of each over to the window to examine them in the light. 'He's caught something in the eyes, hasn't he? But I wonder about the mouth -- that can only be a guess.' 'We're getting them out to the newspapers today,' Bennett told him. 'They should be in tomorrow's editions.' He waited until Sinclair came back from the window and then sat down in an armchair, indicating to the chief inspector to do the same. 'You wouldn't mind having the press off your neck, I dare say.' Sinclair's look was answer enough. 'That's what I thought. I'll speak to them before I go back. What's more, I'll tell them all information from now on will come out of the Yard, in London.' 'Thank you, sir.' 'Now fill me in.' Bennett sat back. "I want to know everything. And so does the commissioner. I have to report to him when I get back. And you'll have to come up to London on Wednesday, I'm afraid. It's a command performance. You and I and Sir George as well. We're all summoned to appear.' Sinclair sat silent for a few moments, ordering his thoughts. Bennett was used to seeing him with his file in front of him. Now he watched as the chief inspector drew from his mind a summary of the situation. 'We have teams of detectives from London and Tunbridge Wells in place. Some of them are going through the house now, dusting for fingerprints and collecting other evidence. We'll shortly be starting the same process as we followed at Highfield, questioning the villagers as to who or what they might have seen in the past few days and weeks. We'll be showing them these new pictures of Pike along with the earlier one. 'Important items of physical evidence are already in our possession, notably a gas mask.' 'By God!' Bennett sat up. 'Pike's, do you mean?' 'We believe so.' Sinclair spoke in a monotone. 'It was found in the drawing-room this morning under a cabinet. Flung there, perhaps. I'll show it to you.'

He rose and went to a table on which a cardboard box rested. He brought the box over to Bennett and took off the lid. 'You can pick it up, sir. The eyepieces have been tested for prints.' Bennett held up the khaki canvas hood studded with round glassed eyeholes and a rubber nozzle for breathing. 'Normally the nozzle would be attached to a box respirator,' Sinclair explained. 'Either it was pulled free, or else he doesn't bother with one. And you'll see it's torn behind.' He showed Bennett the ripped canvas. 'There's no doubt one of the victims struggled with him. Annie McConnell. The pathologist found traces of skin under her fingernails when he examined the body this morning. She must have marked him. I pray it was on his face.' 'It was her body you found in the hall?' 'It was. From some bloodstains detected on the carpet in the drawing-room it looks as though he may have bayoneted her there, as he did the other two, but failed to kill her outright. When he came down from upstairs -- I'm speculating now -- we think he found her trying to use the telephone in the hall.' Bennett winced. 'Is that why he mutilated her body in that way?' 'Possibly.' Sinclair shrugged. 'But Madden has a different theory. I'll tell you what he believes in a moment. May I continue, sir?' 'Please do.' 'We can't be sure exactly when the attack occurred, except that it must have been after a quarter past five, which was when Mr William Merrick and his family left by car for Chichester. That time's been fixed by the gardener, who was here. Apparently Merrick had had trouble getting the car started and had all but decided to spend the night here - they were going away on holiday - but old Mrs Merrick wanted them out of the house for some reason. She'd been on about it all day.' Sinclair shook his head wearily. "i can't make that out, sir. But thank God they left.' 'Amen!' Bennett murmured. 'We returned ourselves to Stonehill with our prisoner shortly before seven o'clock. Hobday, the mechanic, went out to Croft Manor at about eight. I haven't had the pathologist's report yet on time of death so again I can only speculate. We know Pike attacked Melling Lodge and the farm at Bentham around sundown. I'm assuming he broke in here soon after dark and was gone from the house before we got back to the village. In any case, the request I made to various county authorities to stop and question motorcyclists has had no result. I ordered it suspended this morning. I'm afraid he had ample time to get well away before we were alerted.' Bennett was becoming increasingly concerned. Listening to Sinclair's dead voice he realized that the man was deeply depressed. 'What else . . .?' The chief inspector's gaze wandered about the room. 'Madden's team has found a collection of cigarette stubs -- all Three Castles - on a hill close by. It's a good vantage point, apparently. We'll have them tested. And we may have another footprint to compare with the cast taken at Melling Lodge. The technicians of the photographic department have lifted some marks off the stone floor in the hall. They use oblique lighting -- it's a new development.' He paused deliberately. 'And then there's the matter of the dog. The family had one. It was poisoned a week ago. I had the remains dug up this morning. Ransom will examine them. The Sussex force offered us their own pathologist, but I wanted Ransom again.' 'Quite right, Chief Inspector.' Bennett was watching him closely. 'I could have asked, you know, sir.' Sinclair's eye met his superior's. 'It slipped my mind, but that's no excuse.' 'Asked what?' 'When I got down here yesterday morning, I could have inquired as to whether any dogs in the district had been poisoned lately. The village bobby knew all about it.' The chief inspector's face showed pain. 'In fact, I wonder now if I haven't been wrong all along in withholding that piece of information from the public' 'And I tell you you've no cause to blame yourself on either count.' Bennett spoke more harshly than he meant. 'If you broadcast that sort of warning we'll have the police being summoned every time a dog throws up. And as for the other, you came here believing you were about to arrest Pike. To arrest him or see him shot down. That's what was on your mind.' 'True, sir.' Sinclair nodded assent. 'But I should have inquired just the same.' Bennett looked away. 'Have you spoken to William Merrick?' he asked. 'I have. We managed to get in touch with the people they were staying overnight with in Chichester and he came back at once. He's staying with friends nearby. We had a meeting in the early hours of this morning.' 'What did he have to say?' 'A great deal,' Sinclair replied heavily. 'He's bitterly angry, and I can see why. He wanted to know how it was possible for his mother and two members of his household to be murdered in this fashion when there were upwards of a score of policemen in the vicinity. A question to which even the Delphic oracle might feel pressed to provide an answer,' he added, with a flicker of his old spirit. Bennett had heard enough. 'Let me say something.' He stood up and began to pace about the room. 'Quite apart from the tragedy, this is an appalling piece of misfortune. Because of the incident of that man falling into the pit, you've been cruelly misled. But had he not done so your position would be no better. Worse, in fact. What happened here would have happened just the same' -- he gestured with his hand -- 'and you would have learned about it in London and had to start from scratch. Instead, you were here - on the spot. Make the most of that, Chief Inspector.' Sinclair regarded him in silence for a moment or two. Then he nodded. 'Thank you, sir. I mean to,' he said quietly. 'One further point. I had a brief conversation with the assistant commissioner before coming down this morning. I put it to him that the theory we'd heard advanced that the perpetrator of these crimes was no more than a thief with a bent for violence was pitifully wide of the mark. It's quite clear he's a criminal psychopath, just as you have indicated from the start. Had your views encountered less opposition, I suggested, this investigation might have been concluded by now and at least one tragedy averted. Sir George did not disagree. This is your case, Chief Inspector. Though whether you'll thank me for telling you that. . .' Bennett raised an eyebrow, and Sinclair shrugged. 'You mentioned earlier that Madden had a theory about why the McConnell woman's body was damaged in that way. I'd like to hear it.' The deputy was standing by the window, looking out. 'But I see he's coming now, so perhaps we should wait.' Sinclair rose from his chair and joined him. Emerging from the yew alley, dark-jowled and haggard, the tall inspector came striding through the mist like the very spectre of Death. Bennett spoke. "I was mistaken about him. You picked the right man for this inquiry.' A minute later there was a knock on the door and Madden entered. 'Good morning, sir,' he said to Bennett. He turned to Sinclair. 'We've found the dugout. It's about two miles off. There's been no attempt to fill it in. He left a few items behind - a tin of stew, an empty rum jar. I've had them collected for examination.' 'Sit down, John.' The chief inspector pointed to a chair. Madden obeyed. 'It's like the one we found at Highfield,' he went

on. 'Made with care and an eye for detail. Looking at the Ordnance map, I'd say it's no more than a couple of miles from the pit we found yesterday. That was due south of Stonehill. The dugout's more to the west.' 'My God!' Bennett shook his head in disbelief. 'You might almost have stumbled on him.' Sinclair returned to his chair and sat down. "I told Mr Bennett you had a theory why Annie McConnell's body was savaged,' he said to Madden. 'He'd like to hear it from you.' Madden turned to the deputy. "I believe it resulted from rage, sir. Fury. The woman Pike came for was the younger Mrs Merrick. When he found she wasn't in the house he must have gone berserk. Miss McConnell was probably trying to use the telephone when he came back downstairs. But even if that angered him, killing her would have been a simple matter. What he did to the body suggests to me some much stronger emotion at work.' Bennett nodded, understanding. Sinclair spoke. 'I'm forced to agree with the inspector,' he said. 'Though I don't care for the implication it carries.' 'Implication?' 'It seems that Pike takes many weeks to prepare for these attacks. By the time he's ready he must be near boiling point. Only on this occasion he was frustrated. I can't pretend to understand his state of mind. But I tremble at the thought of it.' *He was primed to attack, you mean, and that won't have changed?' Bennett looked grim. 'He could be ready to strike at any time,' the chief inspector agreed. 'We must find him. And soon.'

When Pike came into the kitchen on Tuesday morning he found Ethel Bridgewater already there. She was sitting with a cup of tea on the table in front of her reading the newspaper, which, in Mrs Aylward's absence, she had not had to take upstairs that day. Ethel's fine head of hair was piled up under her lace cap in a new way, but Pike barely noticed it. His thoughts, agonized and bloody, ranged far beyond the confines of the kitchen. He was ravenous. He hadn't eaten a proper meal for thirty-six hours. Having poured himself a cup of tea he cut three thick slices of bread from the loaf on the kitchen counter and sat down opposite the maid, who was holding the open newspaper in front of her face. When Pike lifted his head he received a shock that went through his nervous system like a bolt of electricity. He saw his own eyes staring at him from the front page of the newspaper. Stunned witless, it took him several seconds to realize that what he was looking at wasn't a photograph but an artist's impression. The caption was printed in bold letters: MAN SOUGHT. Beside it, filling the whole of the next column, was a story headlined: 'KILLER STRIKES AGAIN'. A sub-heading bore the words: 'Police Net Spread In Southern Counties'. Pike's jaws moved automatically as he chewed his bread. He couldn't make out the small print of the report. But beneath the picture, in darker lettering, he read his own name: Amos Pike. Another shockwave went juddering through him. He stared at the letters in disbelief. The police knew his name! But how? He was dead. Army records had him listed among the fallen. He was sure of it. But they had his name. And they knew what he looked like. Pike put his cup to his lips while the thoughts flailed about inside his head. It hardly mattered to him that the sketch, now that he looked at it, did not, in fact, portray his features with any degree of accuracy. True, the eyes were those that stared at him every day from his shaving mirror. But his own head was squarer than the one shown in the drawing and his mouth quite different. The artist had failed to catch his thin, tightly drawn lips which, in any case, had been altered by a wound he had suffered during the war. A shell fragment had struck his cheek, severing a nerve and causing one corner of his mouth to droop. The effect was to give his face a skewed look. But none of that mattered . . . Pike touched the fresh scabs on his neck. He felt