seemed.
Watching him, Dr Blackwell was startled by the look of pain that crossed his face. Earlier her curiosity had been aroused. She had wondered about this rough looking man who bore the stamp of the trenches in his dark, shadowed eyes. A year spent working in a military hospital had taught her to recognize the signs, but she'd been surprised to see them on the inspector's face.
The police had been one of the reserved professions.
Now, all at once, another image came to her, raw and shocking, causing her to flush and bite her lip. And she thought then how cruel life could be. How heartless and uncaring.
Madden lived with ghosts. They came to him in dreams: men he had known in the war, some of them friends, others no more than dimly remembered faces.
Most were the youths with whom he had enlisted, shop assistants and drapers, clerks from the City and apprentices. Together they had marched through the streets of London in their civilian clothes to the bray of brass bands, heroes for a day to the flag-waving crowds, full of pride and valour, none dreaming of the fate that awaited them in the shape of the German machine-guns. Valour had died on the Somme in the course of a single summer's day.
One of the few survivors in his battalion, Madden had mourned the death of his comrades. For a time their loss had seemed like an open wound. But as the war went on he ceased to think of them. Other men were dying around him and their deaths, too, came to mean little. With no expectation of staying alive himself his emotions grew numb and by the end he felt nothing.
He never spoke of his time in the trenches. Like many others who came back, miraculous survivors of the carnage, he had tried to put the war from his mind, doing his utmost to block out all memory of it.
Offered his old job back, he had hesitated before accepting. His decision to leave the Metropolitan Police before the war had been taken in the hope of finding a new life in the familiar surroundings of the countryside. And although he came to accept the choice he had made, finding in the day-to-day demands of investigative work at least a partial shield against the charnel house of memories that threatened to engulf him, he could not shake free from the cold hand of the past. Always he sensed the abyss at his feet.
Sleep brought no respite, for what he kept from his mind by day he was forced to relive in his dreams where he was haunted by the faces of old comrades and by other, more terrible images from the battlefield, and from which he would wake, night after night, choking on the imagined smell of sweat and cordite and the stench of half- buried corpses.
For a while he had hoped all this would pass. That his memories would grow dim and peace of mind return to him. But he lived in the long shadow of the war, and as time passed and the shadow deepened he came to see himself as permanently injured, a casualty of the conflict, which had failed to kill him but left him none the less damaged beyond repair.
Increasingly solitary, he saw his life as all that was left to him: a tattered sail that might bear the wind but would bring him to no haven.
3
At nine o'clock the following morning, Chief Inspector Sinclair addressed the team of detectives assembled in the Highfield church hall.
'Some of you with experience in murder inquiries may already have recognized the particular problems we face in this case. Most murders, as we know, are either domestic in origin or are committed in the course of some other crime. We can probably rule out the first in this instance. And while robbery was certainly a factor at Melling Lodge, there are reasons to believe that this was not the principal motive.
Indeed, it seems likely that whoever broke in did so with the intention of killing all those present in the house.'
His words drew a murmur from his audience. The group of a dozen detectives included plain-clothes men from Guildford CID and a contingent from Scotland Yard, comprising Madden and Styles and a detective sergeant named Hollingsworth. They were accommodated in straight-backed chairs facing a dais where Sinclair sat at the centre of a table, flanked by Chief Inspector Norris on one side and a senior uniformed officer on the other. Also on the stage, but sitting apart, were Lord Stratton and a middle-aged man whom Boyce identified as Sir Clifford Warner, the Surrey chief constable. A thin file lay on the table in front of Sinclair. Beside it was a canvas bag tied with a drawstring.
'In a case of this nature there's bound to be speculation.
You will have seen some of it in the morning papers. Apparently we're looking for an armed gang.'
The chief inspector paused. 'That may or may not be true. Let's hope it is. One of them is sure to open his mouth before long. I see, too, that the Sinn Fein is being held responsible in some quarters. It might be useful if I gave you some background on Colonel Fletcher. He was born in India and was commissioned in the Indian Army before returning to England, where he transferred to the regular army. He served in the war in the Signals Corps and then settled with his family here in Surrey. Neither he nor his wife has ever set foot in Ireland so far as we can determine.'
Sinclair smoothed his neatly trimmed cap of grey hair. His eye fell briefly on Madden, who was sitting in the front row of chairs beside Boyce. The inspector looked pale and drawn.
'This investigation will be run initially from High field. The vicar has put this hall at our disposal, and I intend to use it as the main interview room and also as a central collecting point for all information. Mr Boyce will be in charge here, along with Inspector Madden, whom most of you have met. They'll be assisted by Detective Sergeant Hollingsworth from Scotland Yard. The uniform branch will be working with us in the early stages under the direction of Chief Inspector Carlyle, of Guildford.' Sinclair indicated the uniformed officer beside him. 'For the past hour his men have been searching the woods behind Melling Lodge. That will go on all day — and for as long as necessary thereafter.
'A word about the interviews. The villagers have been informed, and they'll be turning up in relays starting in about fifteen minutes. I want to know how they spent the weekend, and in particular where each and every one of them was between eight and ten on Sunday night.' He paused to give emphasis to his next words. 'Every person in the village must be spoken to.
We need to know if they saw or heard anything out of the ordinary, no matter how trivial.
'A more general line of questioning will deal with the matter of strangers. In a small rural community like this, outsiders are quickly noticed. Were any seen on Sunday, or the preceding days? With the help of the Surrey police we're going to be asking the same questions in the surrounding villages. Unfortunately, either by chance or design, this could not have occurred at a worse time for us.' The chief inspector frowned. 'I refer, of course, to the bank- holiday weekend.
Half the country seems to have been on the move, and I'm afraid we'll find even Highfield has had its share of visitors and passers-by.'
He opened the file and took out a sheet of paper.
'Here is a partial list of items taken from Melling Lodge. It was supplied by the cook, Mrs Dunn. She can't be sure about the upstairs — we'll have to check that with the maid Brown when she's brought back here from Guildford. Mainly silverware and some of Mrs Fletcher's jewellery.' He glanced up. 'Not the best bits, incidentally. It's being circulated to jewellers and pawnbrokers in the normal way. Consult it if you need to.'
He removed a second sheet of paper from the file.
'Fingerprints lifted from the house are being checked against the occupants and others who were known to be regular visitors. That will take a while.
We also have a footprint.' He held up the sheet of paper. 'This is a sketch of the cast taken of a print in the stream bed at the bottom of the garden. Size eleven, military-type boot. Notice the heel.'
Sinclair displayed the drawing which showed an arrow-shaped wedge missing from the rim of the heel.
'This will have to be checked against the boots of all the men in the village, as well as Colonel Fletcher's footwear. Mr Boyce will organize that.' He paused again. 'A number of cigarette stubs were found near the body of James Wiggins in the woods above the house. They have been sent to the government chemist for analysis. They
