someone in Edinburgh — a psychologist — who could start treating the child right away.'
'Takes a lot on herself, your Dr Blackwell does.'
'Not mine, sir. Very much her own woman, I'd say.'
'Would you, now!' Sinclair snorted. 'Damn it, everything she says makes sense.' He took out his pipe and began to fill it. 'This doctor in Edinburgh…?'
'Another woman, sir.' Madden smiled. 'A Dr Edith Mackay. She had a full medical training and then studied to become a psychologist. Apparently she specializes in children. Sophy's aunt and uncle are only half an hour out of Edinburgh. She could see the child regularly.'
'Very well.' The chief inspector held up his hands in surrender. 'But if the girl says one word about what happened that night 'Her uncle will get in touch with the Edinburgh police immediately. Dr Blackwell promised that.'Sinclair lit his pipe. 'Anything else?'
'Only this.' Madden took two folded pieces of paper from his jacket pocket. 'Dr Blackwell gave Sophy a pad and some crayons and she started drawing straight away. Always the same thing, the doctor said.' He handed the papers to Sinclair who examined the childish scribbles. The same balloon and string design covered both sheets of paper with little variation.
'What does it mean?'
'Dr Blackwell has no idea. But she thought we ought to see it.'
The chief inspector handed the papers back. He said, 'I'm about to break the law. I'm going to ask Mr Poole to serve us a drink. Then I'll tell you what happened at the Yard this morning.'
'Like the curate's egg, it could have been better and it could have been worse.'
Sinclair set two glasses of whisky on the table in front of Madden. He shut the hatchway to the taproom, picked up his pipe from the ashtray and sat down.
'Parkhurst started off chairing the meeting' — Sir George Parkhurst was the Assistant Commissioner, Crime; effectively head of the CID — 'but he only spoke for ten minutes. Held forth on the undesirability of massacres in the Home Counties, pointed out that the words 'police baffled' were already appearing in the press, and then handed everything over to Bennett.'
'That's good, isn't it?' Bennett was the Deputy Assistant Commissioner. He had a reputation for sharpness among detectives who'd come into contact with him.
'Up to a point.' Sinclair glanced sideways at Madden.
'Chief Superintendent Sampson was also present, and he'll be taking a hand in the investigation.'
'Sampson of the Yard?' Madden kept a straight face.
'You may find it amusing,' Sinclair said acidly, 'but take it from me, the man's a menace. I dare say he's already pictured the headlines. 'Another Triumph For Sampson Of The Yard!''
'They're not putting him in charge, are they?'
'Not yet — but he hasn't suggested it. He wants to sniff around a little first, get the feel of it. After all, other headlines are possible. 'Sampson Of The Yard Falls Flat On His Face. Sampson Of The Yard Doesn't Know His Arse From A Pineapple.'' The chief inspector looked wistful. 'He's playing it canny for the moment. He and Bennett will oversee the investigation, but it's still ours.'
He tapped out his pipe in the ashtray.
'I gave them a summary of our inquiries to date.
That we've no reason to suspect any local involvement in the murders. We think they were killed by an outsider. Norris, from Guildford, was there. He still believes more than one man was involved. Said the victims downstairs and Mrs Fletcher were almost certainly killed by different people. Sampson agreed with him.'
'Why did he do that?' Madden scowled.
'To create difficulties for us?' Sinclair shrugged.
'Who knows? I should warn you, he doesn't care for me. Wouldn't mind seeing me fall flat on my face. The point is, we're still officially searching for more than one man. So be it.'
He emptied his glass.
'But the important thing was, Bennett supported us on the bayonet theory. Over Sampson's objections, by the way — he said the medical evidence was inconclusive. Did you know there were more than sixty thousand soldiers in mental hospitals at the end of the war? Most of them shell-shocked, poor devils, but there must have been some of the other kind.
Bennett's going to talk to the War Office. We'll get a list of patients who've been released and start running them down. He'll also ask them to look into Colonel Fletcher's military service record. Did he have a run in with one of his men? Some deep-held grudge?' The chief inspector shook his head. 'Motive's still our main problem. I told them that. Revenge is a possibility, but this notion of an armed gang losing their heads and going berserk is pure balderdash, and Bennett knows it. Those killings were deliberate.'
At the coroner's inquest, held in Guildford the following day, verdicts of murder by person or persons unknown were returned in the case of all five victims. The coroner, an elderly man with red-veined cheeks and a drooping eyelid, spoke of the horror felt 'not only in Highfield, but here in Guildford' at the 'heartless, brutal murders of Colonel and Mrs Fletcher'.
'He seems to have forgotten about the maid and the nanny,' Sinclair remarked to Madden afterwards. 'Not to mention Mr Wiggins, the poacher.'
They were standing in the street outside the courtroom.
Madden nodded to the Birneys as they went by with a group of villagers, heading for the station. The public benches had been crowded.
Helen Blackwell had been one of those testifying.
She had arrived with Lord Stratton and a tall, silver haired man whom she seemed to resemble. Now she brought him over.
'Chief Inspector, I'd like you to meet my father, Dr Collingwood.' Sinclair shook hands. 'And this is Inspector Madden.'
Dr Collingwood told them he had been driving through France with friends when word of the murders had reached him. 'I thought I'd got over the shock, until I drove past Melling Lodge yesterday evening.'
He had the same dark blue eyes as his daughter, and he looked at her with concern. 'My dear, this has been harder on you than you realize. You seem quite worn out.'
It was true, Madden thought. She was paler than he remembered, tense and stiff-backed, and for the first time her manner with him was cool and distant.
'Don't treat me like a patient,' she scolded her father. 'Anyhow, my main worry's over now, thanks to Mr Sinclair.' She turned to the chief inspector. 'I can't thank you enough for agreeing to let Sophy go to Scotland.'
Sinclair tipped his hat to her and bowed. 'You should thank Inspector Madden, ma'am. He was a most persuasive advocate.'
Dr Blackwell looked at her watch. 'We ought to go. Sophy gets anxious if I'm away too long.'
Dr Collingwood moved off towards Lord Stratton's Rolls-Royce, which was parked nearby. Sinclair accompanied him. Dr Blackwell lingered.
'I almost forgot,' she said. 'Sophy keeps doing those squiggles. But today she produced something different.
Or, rather, it's the same, only bigger.'
She opened her handbag and took out a sheet of drawing paper. It bore a single, enlarged version of the smaller figures the child had drawn earlier.
'I can't think what she means by it.'
She gave the drawing to Madden, who studied it.
'It looks like a balloon,' the doctor said. 'But why does she keep repeating it?'
Madden stared at the drawing, frowning. 'Has she ever done anything like this before?'
'I don't think so. Mary says not. To tell the truth, I haven't the faintest idea what's going on in her mind.' Or yours, Inspector, Dr Blackwell thought, as she turned away and went off to join her father and Lord Stratton.
Walking briskly, briefcase in hand, Chief Inspector Sinclair threaded a path between the headstones and joined Madden where he was standing in a corner of the Highfield churchyard.
'Has something happened, sir?' Madden had been expecting him earlier — in time for the funeral service —
