results… he didn't have any answer to that one. Today they would drag that wood out, uproot every tree and bush if they had to. But he still had that nagging feeling that they would not find anything. Your thinking's negative, he reprimanded himself. Think positively*. We're bloody well going to find 'em, all of 'em, including Foster. He poured himself a cup of black coffee, swigged it down. Calls were coming in all the time, the switchboard a non-stop panel of activity. Cranks, you always got 'em. I raped and killed the girl, please believe me, officer. I'll put it in writing and you can lock me away for the rest of my life; I don't mind so long as you believe what I say and give me the credit, tell the newspapers. There were a hundred confessions for every murder but you still had to sift through 'em until you found the one who denied the lot.,You got hunches, followed 'em. Instinct. But right now Jim Fillery's instinct had dried up. The whole of the county force, every man that could be spared and a lot who couldn't, had converged on Droy. The burglars and the car thieves would have a field day and good luck to them. The minute it was light enough they were going to rip that bloody wood wide open. A copper had gone missing and that counted for an awful lot where the boys were concerned, in some cases more than the two girls. Some bastard had got one of your colleagues, you might be the next… So you moved heaven and earth to find the killer. Fillery couldn't work it out about PC Lee. One of the most promising young detectives in the force yet there was evidence that he had raped the decoy girl; they had both fled into the wood. We'll rip the fucking place right open, Fillery told himself. The way we're going to scour it today a vole couldn't escape undetected.
Damn this fog, wasn't it ever going to shift! Now its tentacles had stretched right up to the village, a vaporised monster extending its territory. These villagers were scared, most of 'em skulking in their cottages and flatly refusing to assist in any way.
'You won't get anybody from Droy to join in the hunt, Sarge.' Eddie Farnett, the sub-postmaster, shook his head slowly, a half-burned cigarette perpetually bobbing in the centre of his thick lips. 'None of 'em will go within half a mile of the wood. It doesn't bother me, personally, but I can't get away from the post office. My wife doesn't like the post office work, she'll only look after the shop part, if you see what I mean. When we go on holiday or I'm ill, I have to get a temp in. But you can't get temps at a moment's notice, if you see what I mean. And you can't shut a post office up, can you?'
Excuses on tap, a ready-made cocoon. Jim Fillery saw what he meant all right, only too well. Just two locals amongst the large gathering on the road adjoining the wood. PC Houliston because he didn't have any choice; Roy Bean because secretly he resented this intrusion of his game preserves. He didn't go to Droy Wood in the course of his work but he objected to anybody else going there. They were trespassers whichever way you looked at it. Dogs in any woodland were a bloody nuisance except on shooting days; they ran about barking and disturbing every species of wildlife. In a way the wood was a useful reserve. Pheasants could breed safely in there during the summer months; the wood had its uses and today was going to undo all of them. Muffin seemed strangely lethargic today, not even straining at the leash, keeping close to his heels as they split up in bunches for briefing. She didn't like the set-up, that was only too clear. Cringing, tail between her legs. Silly bitch, but he felt uneasy, too. Like something was going to happen today, something awful.
A three-pronged 'attack' was planned for today; Houliston had already left with fifty men, skirted the perimeter of the wood and gone out to the marsh. They would move inland, due north. Two lines of searchers, one from the east, the other from the west, everybody in due course converging in the centre, approximately where the ruined house stood. Thirty dogs in all, a net which nobody could slip through, Fillery had told them and tried to sound confident. And after that they were going to drag every pool. Nobody mentioned the bogs because you couldn't do anything about them.
The mist was thicker than ever, had the density of an old-fashioned
'pea-souper', a strange menacing purposeful-ness about the way it hung over the wood and the village, a deliberate obstruction to the hunters, hiding its terrible secrets. Elsewhere the atmosphere was dull and cloudy with normal visibility. That was what disturbed you most.
A long wait. Roy Bean tried to curb his own impatience. This was how the shooters felt when the beaters had to go out a long way in order to bring a patch of cover back towards them. Anticipation, then boredom. Today there was an added ingredient — fear!
At last they heard the whistle, a synchronisation of all their respective lines, looking to the men on either side of them. Keep me in sight all the time, you guys. For Christ's sake don't leave me on my own. Always was scared of the dark and if this fog gets any thicker it'll be as good as night. Moving forward, Alsatians, terriers unleashed and being encouraged to hunt for a scent. This time they just had to come up with something. It had taken Jock Houliston over an hour to reach the outskirts of Droy Marsh following a circuitous route over the adjoining pastureland, always hoping he was going in the right direction because the fog gave you a feeling that your own personal radar wasn't working any longer. At last, though, they reached the narrow foreshore, stood with their backs to the sea, heard the tide but couldn't see it, an eerie watery wilderness lapping against the rocks. It's trying to drive you back into the wood. That's ridiculous because we're going there, anyway. Hurry then. Everybody looking about them but they could not see anything, not even the murky outline of Droy Wood. A noise, one that you gradually became aware of, a splashing that wasn't just the waves on the shoreline. Rhythmic, forming a picture in your mind, a draw-by-dots kiddies' scene that had you pencilling, joining up the dots eagerly, wondering what was going to unfold. A seascape… a boat! Houliston hesitated, half turned back. Of course, nobody had tumbled to it, not even those smart-alec plainclothes detectives. It took an ordinary bobby in uniform to solve a case which had commanded the front pages of every daily newspaper for almost a week. Foster had a boat, had lain low and now was making his escape by sea!
The policeman's pulse raced and his hand went to his pocket radio. And stopped. No fear, not on your nellie! The bright boys would take all the credit with not a mention of your long-serving country copper. Well, this time they were going to end up with egg on their faces. PC Jock Houliston would make the arrest, he'd have the killer handcuffed before he… but he didn't have a boat and you couldn't chase anybody out to sea without one!
Swish. splash. swish. splash.
Louder! It should have grown fainter, as the boat gradually left the shore, barely discernible.
Swish. splash.
Houliston craned his neck, thought he could make out a shape in the fog; the boat, somebody hunched in it, heaving on a pair of heavy oars; coming this way
.
Unbelievable but it was true. Who ever it was they were now scraping the bottom of their craft on the beach, jumping out, pulling it up out of the water. More than one of them. peering again. Three of them. Foster and.
Five people had gone missing. Perm any three from five. Logically one of them had to be the rapist and that was all that mattered. The policeman glanced behind him; there was no sign of the rest of the search party, the fog having swallowed them up. Not a sound except for that made by those with the boat. His hand caressed the flat oblong shape of his radio again. Not bloody likely, this was his show!
He crouched down, tried to make himself as inconspicuous as possible. They would come this way, all he had to do was to wait, loom out of the mist in front of them. His hand went into his pocket, jangled a pair of handcuffs faintly. Oh yes, the country copper would show them a thing or two. Here they come now, two men and what looks like a boy. It might be one of the missing girls, a slip of a figure. No, Carol Embleton was a big girl, it couldn't be her. Thelma Brown then. Hell, it didn't matter just so long as one of them was James Foster, the most wanted man in Britain. Their feet squelched in waterlogged grass, and they were muttering to one another. Furtive, stopping every few yards as though they anticipated an ambush. Once they almost turned back, one man grabbing at the sleeve of the other, cursing him in low tones, the boy (?) cowering as though he expected to be struck. But they still came on, more wary and suspicious than ever. Cries of fear as Jock Houliston suddenly straightened up, a truncheon clasped in his hand.
'You're under arrest, all three of you.' A pair of handcuffs were dangled ostentatiously. 'Now, James Foster, let's be having you. You're all going to accompany me to the police station where. '
Houliston's jubilant caution died away as he saw their faces for the first time, tried to match that police photo of Foster with one of them. Oh Christ Almighty, those hideous countenances belonged anywhere except in a civilised twentieth-century society, pock-marked scarred faces that even the mist failed miserably to hide. Wretched beings that cringed and whined, the boy on his knees covering his head with his hands as though he expected a blow. Ragged clothing torn in many places so that the flesh was visible beneath, skin that was a mass of blackheads, an unwashed poverty-stricken trio, their bare feet bleeding where they had scratched them on the stones.
