he could come from anywhere, Norwich, Ipswich, even London. It's dangerous to assume that he's necessarily working in his own territory. Looks like it, though. He obviously knows the locality well. And he seems to be sticking now to the same MO. He chooses a road intersection, drives the car or van into the side of one road, cuts across and waits at the other. Then he drags his victim into the bushes or the trees, kills and cuts back to the other road and the car and makes his getaway. With the last three murders it seems to have been pure chance that a suitable victim did, in fact, come along.'
Dalgliesh felt that it was time he contributed something to the speculation. He said: 'If he doesn't select and stalk his victim, and obviously he didn't in the last three cases, he'd normally have to expect a long wait. That suggests he's routinely out after dark, a night worker, mole-catcher, woodman, gamekeeper, that kind of job. And he goes prepared; on the watch for a quick kill, in more ways than one.'
Rickards said: 'That's how I see it. Four victims so far and three fortuitous, but he's probably been on the prowl for three years or more. That could be part of the thrill. 'Tonight I could make a strike, tonight I could be lucky.' And, by God, he is getting lucky. Two victims in the last six weeks.'
'And what about his trademark, the whistle?'
'That was heard by the three people who came quickly on the scene after the Easthaven murder. One just heard a whistle, one said it sounded like a hymn and the third, who was a church woman, claimed she could identify it precisely, 'Now the Day is Over'. We kept quiet about that. It could be useful when we get the usual clutch of nutters claiming they're the Whistler. But there seems no doubt that he does whisde.'
Dalgliesh said:'
'Now the day is over / Night is drawing nigh / Shadows of the evening / Fall across the sky'.
It's a Sunday-school hymn, hardly the kind that gets requested on Songs of Praise, I should have thought.'
He remembered it from childhood, a lugubrious, undistinguished tune which, as a ten-year-old, he could pick out on the drawing-room piano. Did anyone sing that hymn now, he wondered? It had been a favourite choice of Miss Barnett on those long dark afternoons in winter before the Sunday school was released, when the outside light was fading and the small Adam Dalgliesh was already dreading those last twenty yards of his walk home where the rectory drive curved and the bushes grew thickest. Night was different from bright day, smelt different, sounded different; ordinary things assumed different shapes; an alien and more sinister power ruled the night. Those twenty yards of crunching gravel where the lights of the house were momentarily screened were a weekly horror. Once through the gate to the drive he would walk fast, but not too fast since the power that ruled the night could smell out fear as dogs smell out terror. His mother, he knew, would never have expected him to walk those yards alone had she known that he suffered such atavistic panic, but she hadn't known and he would have died before telling her. And his father? His father would have expected him to be brave, would have told him that God was God of the darkness as He was of the light. There were after all a dozen appropriate texts he could have quoted. 'Darkness and light are both alike to Thee.' But they were not alike to a sensitive ten-year-old boy. It was on those lonely walks that he had first had intimations of an essentially adult truth, that it is those who most love us who cause us the most pain. He said: 'So you're looking for a local man, a loner, someone who has a night job, the use of a car or van and a knowledge of Hymns Ancient and Modern. That should make it easier.'
Rickards said: 'You'd think so, wouldn't you.'
He sat in silence for a minute then said: 'I think I'd like just a small whisky now, Mr Dalgliesh, if it's all the same to you.'
It was after midnight when he finally left. Dalgliesh walked out with him to the car. Looking out across the headland Rickards said: 'He's out there somewhere, watching, waiting. There's hardly a waking moment when I don't think of him, imagine what he looks like, where he is, what he's thinking. Susie's ma is right. I haven't had much to give her recently. And when he's caught, that'll be the end. It's finished. You move on. He doesn't, but you do. And by the end you know everything, or think you do. Where, when, who, how? You might even know why if you're lucky. And yet, essentially, you know nothing. All that wickedness, and you don't have to explain it or understand it or do a bloody thing about it except put a stop to it. Involvement without responsibility. No responsibility for what he did or for what happens to him afterwards. That's for the judge and the jury. You're involved, and yet you're not involved. Is that what appeals to you about the job, Mr Dalgliesh?'
It was not a question Dalgliesh would have expected, even from a friend, and Rickards was not a friend. He said: 'Can any of us answer that question?'
'You remember why I left the Met, Mr Dalgliesh.'
'The two corruption cases? Yes, I remember why you left the Met.'
'And you stayed. You didn't like it any more than I did. You wouldn't have touched the pitch. But you stayed. You were detached about it all, weren't you? It interested you.'
Dalgliesh said: 'It's always interesting when men you thought you knew behave out of character.'
And Rickards had fled from London. In search of what? Dalgliesh wondered. Some romantic dream of country peace, an England which had vanished, a gentler method of policing, total honesty? He wondered whether he had found it.
BOOK TWO. Thursday 22 September to Friday 23 September
It was ten past seven and the saloon bar of the Duke of Clarence pub was already smoke-filled, the noise level rising and the crowd at the bar three feet deep. Christine Baldwin, the Whistler's fifth victim, had exactly twenty minutes to live. She sat on the banquette against the wall, sipping her second medium sherry of the evening, deliberately making it last, knowing that Colin was impatient to order the next round. Catching Norman's eye, she raised her left wrist and nodded significantly at her watch. Already, it was ten minutes past their deadline and he knew it. Their agreement was that this was to be a pre-supper drink with Colin and Yvonne, the limit both of time and alcohol consumption clearly understood between her and Norman before they left home. The arrangement was typical of their nine-month-old marriage, sustained less by compatible interests than by a carefully negotiated series of concessions. Tonight it had been her turn to give way, but agreeing to spend an hour in the Clarence with Colin and Yvonne didn't extend to any pretence that she actually enjoyed their company.
She had disliked Colin since their first meeting; the relationship, at a glance, had been fixed in the stereotyped antagonism between newly acquired fiancee and slightly disreputable old schoolmate and drinking partner. He had been best man at their wedding – a formidable pre-nuptial agreement had been necessary for that capitulation – and had carried out his duties with a mixture of incompetence, vulgarity and irreverence which, as she occasionally enjoyed telling Norman, had spoilt for her the memory of her big day. It was typical of him to choose this pub. God knew, it was vulgar enough. But at least she could be certain of one thing: it wasn't a place where there was a risk of meeting anyone from the power station, at least not anyone who mattered. She disliked everything about the Clarence, the rough scrape of the moquette against her legs, the synthetic velvet which covered the walls, the baskets of ivy spiked with artificial flowers above the bar, the gaudiness of the carpet. Twenty years ago, it had been a cosy Victorian hostelry, seldom visited except by its regulars, with an open fire in winter and horse brasses polished to whiteness hung against the black beams. The lugubrious publican had seen it as his job to repel strangers and had employed to that end an impressive armoury of taciturnity, malevolent glances, warm beer and poor service. But the old pub had burnt down in the 1960s and been replaced by a more profitable and thrusting enterprise. Nothing of the old building remained and the long extension to the bar, dignified by the name Banqueting Hall, provided for the undiscriminating a venue for weddings and local functions and on other nights served a predictable menu of prawns or soup, steak or chicken, and fruit salad with ice-cream. Well, at least she had put her foot down over dinner. They had worked out their monthly budget to the last pound, and if Norman thought she was going to eat this overpriced muck with a perfectly good cold supper waiting in the refrigerator at home and a decent programme on the telly he could forget it. And they had better uses for their money than to sit here drinking with Colin and his latest tart who had opened her legs to half Norwich, if rumour were to be believed. There were the hire purchase repayments on the sitting-room furniture and the car, not to mention the mortgage. She tried again to meet Norman's eye but he was rather desperately keeping his attention on that slut Yvonne. And that wasn't proving difficult. Colin leaned over to her, his bold treacle-brown eyes half mocking, half inviting, Colin Lomas, who thought every woman would swoon when he beckoned.
'Relax, darling. Your old man's enjoying himself. It's your round, Norm.'
