up or anything of that sort, just ask me, love.” And, before leaving, she gave Marda a little hug. Marda wanted to say thank you but her mouth was too full of food, so she just nodded her appreciation.
After she had demolished five or six more sandwiches over the next twenty minutes, Marda began to ask a thousand questions. She begged for a cigarette, and Gould gave her one of his Marlboros. She was smoking, eating, drinking and talking in a frenzy.
“Take it easy, Marda, you’ll be sick,” Gould warned.
She tried on the borrowed clothes, gabbling all the time. “They fit reasonably well; they’ll do until I get to my flat; presumably my clothes will still be there, don’t you think, Professor? Might be a bit damp, though.” Her words were barely comprehensible through the thick ham sandwich wedged in her mouth.
“Marda, seeing as we’re sharing a bathroom, at least call me Irvine. My friends call me Irv.”
“OK,
“Why did you call the police?” she asked distractedly through the open door.
“Well, for one thing, because the police need to know where you are right now, especially since Duval hasn’t been caught. I wanted to check that there is a policeman in your flat. And they mentioned again your not staying in hospital.”
“Professor, I couldn’t stand to be locked in any more, even in a hospital.”
She came out of the bathroom again and faced him squarely. “I will go to the hospital tomorrow, and every day, to see my brother. I’ll have a check-up, but I can’t be ordered to be in one place. I have to be physically free. Free. Free. At last.” She hiccupped as a result of her hasty eating, put her hand to her mouth, swallowed, and added very plaintively, “Don’t you understand?”
“Slow down, Marda. The police will have to ask you lots of questions.”
She lit another cigarette, took a long drag, and coughed. “I have a question for you, Professor, I mean Irvine.
“My research on Christine, the Anchoress of Shere.”
It was the very last thing that she wanted to hear at that moment.
“You’re not another maniac who’s obsessed with locking people up, are you?” She said this without alarm in her voice, because her brother had spoken highly of the professor during their shouted exchanges in the cellar.
“No, no,” replied Gould. “I’ve been working on an article on her life in France, but you don’t want to hear any more about an obscure fourteenth-century
The slightly defensive tone in the professor’s voice prompted Marda to indulge in a small smile for the first time since her release: “Actually, I’m a world authority on the subject of Christine Carpenter,” she said. “That’s what the pile of papers there is about. It’s Duval’s book. The only copy, I think. The one he forced me to read again and again while he kept me in his awful prison.”
“To be honest, I can understand you returning for the dog, but going back into that prison just for a book…I don’t get it.”
Marda took another bite from a sandwich. “I can’t really explain, but somehow I wanted her-Christine-to be free of him as well. We both had to get out of his clutches. In some way I identified with her. Who knows? You can take it to read. But look after it.”
“I can see it’s precious to you. I will read it, and presumably so will the police.”
“No,” said Marda emphatically. “The police would take it and keep it as evidence. It’s private, and it’s mine. Some of the stuff he wrote was absolutely mad, but she is-was-separate from him. I’m sure she was a good person. I think I deserve to keep the book after all I’ve gone through.”
“All right, Marda, if it’s that important to you. Technically, you have stolen police evidence, but let’s not make a fuss about it now. I’ll put it in the hotel strong-box later, if you like. I think it will be safe on the coffee table for the moment…”
There was another knock on the door and the sound of heavy boots shuffling outside.
“Sergeant Terence Davidson, Surrey police, sir.”
Soon the room seemed to be full of doctors, uniformed policemen and plain-clothes detectives. Marda’s friend Jenny was allowed in for ten minutes, and they hugged and kissed and promised to do a hundred things together once the policemen and doctors had finished their business.
Prompted by Gould, who was rapidly becoming her psychological mentor, his decency substituted for the evil of Duval, Marda briefed the police on her months in captivity; the professor insisted that she stay in the comfort of the hotel room rather than go to Shere police station. She would sign a full written statement the next day, once the doctors had given their agreement that she was fit enough. Meanwhile, the police needed some leads for their manhunt.
Marda tried to remain calm at the centre of this maelstrom. She did not cry, although she would, long and hard; but later, after it was all over, and with friends rather than strangers. After the initial police interview, everyone was asked to leave the room while a local doctor gave her a second, more detailed, check-up. Fifteen minutes later they all trooped back into the professor’s room.
“Rather run down and undernourished, but I’m sure she will be fine in a few weeks.” The doctor meant, but did not say,
Marda smoked too many cigarettes and drank pints of orange juice, interspersed with cups of tea and visits to the bathroom every ten minutes.
The outpouring of her experiences was not only a necessary police procedure, but also a useful psychological catharsis. Gould was always at her side as a prompter or comforter, until Superintendent Woodward arrived and asked to speak to him.
Leaving a policewoman with Marda, they went downstairs to the emptying bar to talk. The landlord, thrilled that the White Horse had become the centre of a manhunt, offered them tea.
After brief preliminaries, the police officer said, “We’ve got a full alert out for Duval, and at first light we’ll comb the woods for him. His car has been towed to the police station. He won’t get far. We had a sighting of a second car in the vicinity of the old rectory and it was registered to the car pool at the cathedral in Guildford. He might have sought help there. If so, we’ll get him straight away.”
The superintendent realised he had said too much: the Church connection could become sensitive.
“You’d better catch him fast, Superintendent. He’s killed five or six women, and almost finished off poor Mark. And Mark’s a bloody good bloke.” Gould threw in another of his favourite English expressions. “The hospital expects him to pull through, thank heavens, probably because he’s in good shape thanks to his army training. You know that Duval tried to crucify him?”
“That is utterly bizarre, although I must say that I find Catholicism generally rather…er, medieval,” said the policeman, scratching his head nervously.
“Well, it’s hardly anything to do with modern Catholicism, of course. But, historically, it’s not entirely bizarre.”
The superintendent looked at the American as though he were an alien.
“It ties in with my own research. It
“Sounds a very unsavoury practice to me, Professor. Not normally the sort of crime we’re used to around here. You’ll be talking about flying witches next.” He took his leave, adding, “The sooner we get this unholy priest under lock and key the better. Goodnight.”
The unholy priest was hiding near the spot where his last victim had taken up his observation post a little more than a week before. The rest of the world would undoubtedly have defined Duval as mad, but insanity takes many forms and the deviant priest was still very capable of avoiding capture, not least because he possessed the extra cunning of the hunted.
