farmer and his wife and family were murdered in their home. The assault bears a remarkable resemblance to the Melling Lodge killings. The husband and his two sons were bayoneted. The wife had her throat cut.'
Billy's whistle brought a glower of disapproval from Hollingsworth.
'An inquiry into the murders was conducted by the investigation branch of the Royal Military Police.
From the file, it appears there was little doubt in anyone's mind that the killer or killers were serving British soldiers. What the War Office has sent us is a record of the inquiry. It includes a detailed crime scene report, a pathologist's findings and a verbatim record of all interrogations.'
Madden frowned at the file cover he was holding.
'The case is marked closed.'
'So it is.' Sinclair slid off his desk and began to pace up and down. 'The chief investigating officer was a Captain Miller. In deciding to terminate the inquiry he wrote a memorandum to accompany the case files in which he explained his decision. It's logged in the file index, but unfortunately it's missing. Nothing sinister there, I'm told — the ministry's snowed under with wartime records. They have a warehouse somewhere in London stacked to the ceiling. We're lucky they were able to dig out what they did.'
'Is Captain Miller available?' Hollingsworth asked.
'No, he's dead,' Sinclair answered bluntly. 'His staff car was hit by a stray shell behind the lines. It happened a few weeks afterwards, but by then the case was wrapped up. Let me go on.'
He seated himself behind his desk.
'For whatever reason — we can't be sure from this distance in time — suspicion fell on a battalion of the South Nottinghamshire Regiment. On a company, rather, B Company, and just a small part of that fifteen men, to be precise. They were all questioned.'
'Were they together?' Madden asked.
'Apparently they all went to the farmhouse for a meal. The battalion was being rested. They'd been in action and taken a mauling and were waiting for replacements. The point, as far as we're concerned, is that these were the only men questioned in connection with the crime. Captain Miller must have had strong reasons for thinking the killer was one of them.'
'Then why was the case closed?' Billy Styles spoke before he could stop himself.
The chief inspector's smile was deceptively inviting.
'Why don't you tell us that, Constable?'
Billy blushed bright red. Hollingsworth, beside him, was grinning.
'Sergeant?'
'Because he must have reckoned whoever did it was dead, sir.'
'Just so.' Sinclair nodded his approval. 'The battalion was back in action a week later. It was that Passchendaele business. Of the fifteen men, only seven came out alive. Colonel Jenkins did some checking.
Miller closed the case right about the time the battalion was withdrawn a second time. Which suggests he believed the murderer was one of the eight men who were killed.'
In the silence that followed, the sound of a tugboat's whistle floated in through the open window.
Hollingsworth cocked his head. 'Could he have had the wrong man in mind, sir?'
'I wonder, Sergeant.' Sinclair sat forward in his chair. His eye met Madden's. 'Of the seven who came out, only four were alive at the end of the war. Their names and service records are in the file, and Colonel Jenkins was good enough to check with the Army to find out where they were paid their twenty pounds.'
'Twenty pounds?' Billy didn't understand the allusion.
'That's what the government gave every private soldier who came through the war. A gratuity. Two of them were paid in Nottingham, one in Brighton and the other in Folkestone.'
Madden extracted a sheet of paper from the file and handed it to the chief inspector. 'Here's a list of the names, Sergeant.' Sinclair passed it on to Hollingsworth.
'You and Styles find yourselves a couple of telephones and see if you can come up with four current addresses by lunch-time. But go carefully.' He raised a warning finger. 'Just say we want a word with these people. Don't start any alarm bells ringing.'
The chief inspector waited until they had the office to themselves again. He took out his pipe and tobacco pouch and laid them on the blotter in front of him.
His fingers beat a rapid tattoo on the desktop. 'Well, John?'
'Was she raped?'
'She was not.'
Madden grunted. He was studying a fan of documents spread out before him. 'These verbatim interviews — they don't tell us much.'
''Yes, sir, no, sir, it wasn't me, sir.' We'll have to go through 'em, just the same.' Sinclair began filling his pipe. 'Damn it, John, we might have struck lucky.
We could come up with a name and a face.'
But he was smiling as he went on with his reading.
Madden said nothing,
Sinclair struck a match, 'I've just had a large pat on the back from Bennett.'
'Have you, sir?'
'In front of the chief super, too. He came expecting our usual Monday morning get-together. Instead he had Bennett telling him what my 'leap of imagination' had uncovered. I thought Sampson was going to be sick on the carpet.'
Madden was grinning now. 'A leap of imagination, sir?'
'Those were his words. I was overcome. Speechless, you might say.' The chief inspector blew out a cloud of mellow tobacco smoke. 'By the way, how is Dr Weiss? Safely back in Vienna, I trust.'
Donald Hardy, who worked as a solicitor's clerk in Have. The fourth man, Alfred Dawkins, had had various addresses in Folkestone over the past eighteen months.
'The police don't know where he's living at present, but they know where to find him — that's how they put it.' Hollingsworth scratched his head. 'I let it go at that, sir. Didn't want to stir them up.'
After reflection, Sinclair issued his orders: 'John, you go to Folkestone tomorrow morning. Take Styles with you. Hollingsworth and I will deal with Mr Hardy in Have. Let's both be clear on one point. If there's any suspicion that either of these two is the man we're seeking, the help of armed officers must be sought before he's approached. I want no more casualties.'
Lunch-time came and went, and it was not until four o'clock that Hollingsworth was able to report success in tracking down three of the four survivors.
'The other bloke, Samuel Patterson, seems to have vanished. He left Nottingham two years ago to take a job as a labourer on a farm near Norwich, but he quit after only a few months and nobody's heard of him since. The Norwich police are trying to trace him.'
The second man paid his gratuity in Nottingham, Arthur Marlow, was a patient in an Army hospital.
'He's got a leg wound that won't heal. He's been bedridden for a year.'
Before they had even left the platform at Folkestone station next morning Madden and Styles learned that Alfred Dawkins was not the man they were seeking. 'That's right, sir, only one leg. Didn't they say?' Detective Sergeant Booth of the Folkestone CID had come to the station to meet them. He was a thickset man with dark brown eyes and a watchful air. 'Lost it in the very last month of the war, or so I've been told.'
Studying the sergeant, Billy noticed the yellowed fingers of a heavy smoker. His trousers were a little loose at the waist, possibly the result of a diet, Billy surmised. He had resolved to become more observant.
To take note of things. He knew he was burdened with a wide-eyed quality: a sort of innocence that led him to make daft remarks and ask stupid questions, like the one that had caused him such embarrassment in the chief inspector's office the day before. It was obvious why Captain Miller had closed the case, once you thought about it. His trouble was, he didn't think about things enough. Or, rather, he opened his mouth first.
This line of reasoning had been reinforced by a conversation he had had with Madden on the train coming down from London. The inspector had seemed in better spirits. The haunted look Billy had grown accustomed to was less marked. He had gone to the trouble of explaining to the young constable why the case they were on was proving so hard to crack.
