'Nearly all murders take place between people who know each other, so there's an obvious connection from the start. But this man kills people he's never met. At least, that's what we think, though we can't be sure. How does he pick them? What took him to Highfield and Bentham in the first instance? Is he a travelling salesman? Does he drive a van, or some other vehicle? Whatever job he has seems to take him around the country. Without a real lead, we have to accumulate all the information we can, all the details, no matter how trivial, because the answer may lie in one of them.'
That chimed with what Billy had been telling himself. Pay attention.
They rode through golden cornfields and orchards heavy with fruit. Then the hedgerowed fields stopped abruptly and Billy saw the silver glint of the sea below. Madden pointed to a collection of low buildings on the outskirts of the town.
'That's Shorncliffe Camp. It used to be five, no, ten times the size. The tents stretched for miles. Nearly every British soldier who went to France passed through here. Did you know that, Styles?'
Billy nodded. It was the first time he had heard the inspector speak about the war.
'Towards the end they got up to nine thousand a day. They marched them down to the town and straight on to the Channel steamers and across to France. At night there were illuminated fishing boats strung out in lines all the way to the French coast.'
On the platform at Folkestone Detective Sergeant Booth explained about Dawkins. (To Billy's satisfaction, he had lit up almost at once.) 'We haven't got his current address, sir. He moves a lot — trouble with landladies. But he's generally down in the port this time of day. I've no doubt we'll find him there.'
'He's not the man I hoped he might be,' Madden admitted. 'But I'd like a word with him just the same.'
Booth had a taxi waiting outside the station. It took them on a winding downhill route through the town. When they reached the port he told the driver to stop. Ahead of them Billy could see the harbour situated in a natural bay carved out of the chalky cliffs. In the foreground a small steamer was tied up at the wharf. A crowd of people, mostly women, were gathered in front of the gangplank. Smoke was issuing from the steamer's red and white funnel. Sergeant Booth pointed. 'There he is, sir, at the foot of the gangplank.'
Through the press of bodies Billy caught a glimpse of a figure on crutches.
'All those women — they're war widows going on a tour of cemeteries in France and Belgium. It's something they started last year. Perhaps you read about it?'
Madden shook his head.
'Alf Dawkins gets himself down here whenever there's a sailing, which is most days in the summer.
Stands there on his crutches with his medals pinned on. You'd be surprised how many ladies put half a crown in his hand. Probably worth a couple of quid to him. Afterwards he goes over to the pub' — Booth pointed to a line of buildings a little way down the jetty — 'buys himself a drink. Two or three more likely. That's how we know him. He's been up before the bench. Drunk and disorderly.'
'I don't want to talk to him here. We'll wait in the pub.' Madden's voice was terse.
Twenty minutes later, sitting in a taproom smelling of fish and stale tobacco smoke, they heard the toot of the steamer's whistle. At that moment the pub doors opened and Dawkins swung in on his crutches. Short and stocky, his pale face was disfigured by red blotches. Billy noticed that one of his eyelids blinked with a nervous tic.
Madden rose. 'I'll talk to him alone, if you don't mind.'
Booth raised an eyebrow at his departing figure.
'Doesn't say much, does he?'
Billy wanted to defend the inspector, but he couldn't think of a suitable response.
'Mind you, I wouldn't have his job.'
'What do you mean?'
'This Melling Lodge business?' Booth shook his head. 'Worst kind of case a copper can find himself landed with.'
'Why's that?'
'Because you're dealing with something you don't understand.' The sergeant dipped into his beer. 'Most people do things for reasons and criminals are no different. But this bloke!' He shook his head again.
'With a case like that, it's hard to know where to start.'
Billy watched Madden lead Dawkins away from the bar to a table in the corner. The inspector carried their glasses. He pulled out a chair for the other man and saw that he was comfortably settled.
'I remember a case I was on once.' Booth was speaking again. 'A young woman was murdered, strangled.
Her body was found in a field just outside of town. We got the bloke that did it. He kept a diary.
It was produced in evidence.'
'Did he mention the murder?' Billy was fascinated.
Booth nodded. 'But it's what he wrote — I've never forgotten it. 'Warm weather. Rain in the afternoon. I killed a girl today.''
'That was all?' Billy was incredulous.
The sergeant shrugged. 'She was his first, thank God. But I remember thinking then, there must be people around us living another life from the one we live. It's as though they're from a different world. To understand them you'd have to get inside their heads, and what chance is there of that?'
Madden took Dawkins's glass to the bar and returned to their table with a fresh drink. He was smiling and nodding at the other man. Dawkins spoke, gesturing with his hands. He patted his trousered stump. He was grinning across the table at the inspector.
'How did you catch him?' Billy wanted to know.
'Through a little thing.' Booth drained his glass.
'He'd taken something from the girl he killed, a brooch shaped like a buckle with a piece of amber mounted in the middle. It was nothing special, but we gave out a description of it. A couple of weeks later a beat constable noticed a girl in the street wearing something similar. He asked her where she'd got it and she told him a young man had given it to her. Turned out he was the bloke.'
'That was lucky.'
The inspector rose and took his leave of Dawkins.
Billy saw a banknote change hands.
'Lucky for her,' Booth countered. 'I reckon she would have been his next. But that's how it is with a case like that — or this Melling Lodge business. You won't crack it the usual way. You have to hope something will turn up. Some little thing,' he added, unconsciously echoing the inspector's words earlier.
'You have to keep your eyes open.'
Little was said on the journey back to London.
Madden sat gazing out of the window, seemingly wrapped in thought. Billy, aware that another possible lead had turned cold, supposed that was what was on the inspector's mind.
Or was he thinking about all those men who had marched down through the town to the harbour and on to the Channel steamers? the young constable wondered. The route had been renamed after the war, Sergeant Booth had told them in the taxi. Now it was known as the Road of Remembrance. To Billy, recalling Alf Dawkins with his crutches and his nervous tic, begging for half-crowns, it seemed more a case of how quickly people forgot.
'Mr Hardy has three children and sings in the church choir. He's short and fat and gets breathless climbing a flight of stairs. I hope you had better luck with Dawkins, John.'
Madden's response caused Sinclair's eyebrows to shoot skywards. 'One leg! Poor devil — but couldn't someone have told us that?'
The chief inspector had returned from Have an hour earlier. He was seated at his desk, smoking his pipe. Behind him the late-afternoon sun lay like molten fire on the river.
'He remembers the incident well enough. They were all lined up by the sergeant major and marched in one at a time to be questioned. It put a scare into them, Dawkins said, but he swears none of them was guilty.
They returned from the farm in a group that night.'
Madden settled behind his desk. He lit a cigarette.
'He said Miller was rough on them. He behaved as though he believed they were hiding something. But after they came out of the line a few days later they never heard another word about the case.'
