‘Not as strongly as he did at first. Not after hearing John Madden’s views on the subject.’
‘Madden?’ Holly’s eyebrows shot up. ‘How does he come to be involved?’
‘He happened to be the one who found the body. He was helping the local bobby search the wood. I had a word with him in Highfield on Sunday.’
‘Good man, John Madden.’ The chief super rumbled his approval. ‘You should never have let him go, Angus.’
‘I can’t imagine why you think I had any say in the matter.’ Stung by the remark, the chief inspector responded sharply. ‘It was his wife who persuaded him to quit the force. I don’t believe you’ve ever met her, Arthur.’
‘I have,’ Bennett chipped in. ‘At a dinner party in London a few years back. I remember the occasion well. It was soon after Parliament had agreed to allow women into the civil service at last and I asked her if she was pleased by the vote. “Speechless with gratitude”, was her reply, but I don’t think she meant it.’ He chuckled. ‘Dashed fine-looking woman, too… So Madden saw the murder site? What did he make of it? I take it he doesn’t hold with the tramp theory?’
Sinclair shook his head. He tugged thoughtfully at an earlobe. ‘Madden’s always had a way of seeing things clearly, of seeing through them, or rather beyond them. I used to think it was a kind of sixth sense when we worked together, but now I wonder if it isn’t just that he understands what he sees better than most. The meaning of it…’ He shrugged. ‘No, Madden doesn’t believe Beezy murdered that young girl. When he saw the child’s face, what remained of it, he got the scent of another kind of killer. One that may be much harder to track down.’
‘Why so?’
‘He thought the damage inflicted on the girl’s features was deliberate, the work of a man who might have done that sort of thing before, rather than the aberration of some old tramp who’s come across an unsupervised child and suddenly taken leave of his senses. What’s more the pathologist’s findings tend to support his view.’
Holly scowled. ‘I’m not aware of any recent crime that fits this pattern, Angus. Have you found something in the files?’
‘No, nothing.’ The chief inspector shook his head. ‘Not even a hint of a connection, I’m afraid. But that’s not quite the end of the story. Something else has come to my attention, a straw in the wind, you might say, but I feel I should share it with you.’
Holly and Bennett exchanged glances.
‘Please do,’ the assistant commissioner said dryly.
Sinclair eyed his two listeners.
‘Three years ago – in July of 1929, to be precise – a twelve-year-old girl by the name of Susan Barlow went missing in Henley-on-Thames. Her body wasn’t discovered until this year: six weeks ago, in fact. She’d been presumed drowned in the river – the last sighting of her was near the bank – and her body was recovered from the water. It had got trapped in an inlet under a log which itself was wedged into the bank. Needless to say, the girl’s corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition.’
‘You’re not telling us she’d been raped.’ Holly scowled. ‘Surely they couldn’t know that.’
‘Indeed not. Nor whether she’d been strangled, if we’re going to compare it with the Brookham crime. Lodged in fresh water, the flesh would have turned into adipocere after only six months. But her face told a different story.’
‘Was it damaged?’ The chief superintendent’s features darkened.
‘Beyond question. But not to the same extent as at Brookham, which may be an important point. The nose and one of the cheekbones had been fractured and the skull cracked.’
There was silence for some moments. ‘Yes, but a body lying in the water that long… there might be any number of ways injuries like that could be caused,’ Holly growled.
‘It’s a mystery, certainly,’ Sinclair acknowledged. ‘One which is exercising the minds of the Oxfordshire police as we speak. I should tell you, too, that we’ve not been officially informed of this matter. No murder inquiry has been instituted. I heard of it by chance.’
He paused, squaring a piece of paper from his file on the table in front of him, then turned to Bennett.
‘Do you know who I mean by George Ransom, sir? He’s a pathologist at St Mary’s in Paddington.’
‘I’m familiar with the name.’
‘I bumped into him by chance this week and he told me about the body taken from the river at Henley. He offered it more as a curiosity than anything else, but with the Brookham case fresh in my mind, I pricked up my ears. How Ransom came to hear about it was through a dinner he’d attended, some annual medical get-together. You might think it a curious mealtime subject, even for pathologists, but he happened to be sitting next to the doctor who’d performed the autopsy – an Oxford medico named Stanley – so he got the whole story. Stanley said he was convinced the injuries were caused by blows struck to the face – he marked half a dozen at least from the bone evidence – which points to an assault. He told Ransom the Oxfordshire police were holding back for the moment, looking for another explanation.’ Sinclair rubbed his chin. ‘I can’t blame them. We don’t seek out murder, do we?’ He glanced at his listeners. ‘We look for a natural explanation first. But it’s hard to find one in this case, or so Stanley thinks.’
‘River traffic?’ Bennett shifted in his chair. ‘That’s a busy stretch of the Thames. Half the year round it’s jammed with pleasure craft.’
‘A boat’s propeller, you’re thinking, sir? It would have to be several blows.’ Sinclair nodded. ‘They’ve considered that. But Stanley gave it as his opinion that the marks on the bones weren’t consistent with the shape of propeller blades. He wouldn’t go beyond that.’
‘What about a paddle steamer?’ the chief super suggested.
‘It’s the Thames, sir, not the Mississippi.’
Crushed, Holly muttered, ‘Still there must be other things that could have caused it. We can’t be sure it’s murder.’
‘No, we can’t. That’s true.’
‘And aren’t there are two quite separate questions here?’ The chief superintendent’s tone was gruff. He’d not yet recovered his poise. ‘First, was it murder at all? And second, is it connected to the Brookham assault?’
‘Quite right, Arthur.’ Sinclair sought to soothe his superior. ‘And I’m not for a moment insisting that it is. But we can’t ignore the common factors in these cases: I mean the ages of the girls involved and the damage inflicted to their faces.’ He paused. ‘Mind you, there’s a problem with the time lag, as well. A gap of three years between crimes of this type is most unusual. I’m having a check made of prison records on the off chance that he may have been inside during this period – that’s assuming it’s the same man – but I’m not overly optimistic. I’m sure if he’d been arrested for a serious sexual offence we would have heard about it by now.’
He caught the assistant commissioner’s eye. ‘That’s all for the present, sir.’
‘Good.’ Bennett glanced at his watch. ‘I’ve another meeting in five minutes. But let’s see if we can reach some interim conclusions before we part.’
Rising, he went to the window and stood there, hands on hips, gazing out. The other two watched him in silence.
‘The tramp’s still the key, isn’t he? Beezy? We must wait till they find him, I think. Until he’s been interviewed, until we know whether he’s responsible for the Brookham murder. The Surrey police are quite capable of handing a straightforward inquiry, if that’s what this turns out to be. I don’t want the Yard butting in and seeming to steal their thunder. All the same, I want to be kept informed of the progress of the investigation. They’ve no objection to the interest we’re showing, I take it?’ He glanced over his shoulder.
‘Quite the contrary,’ Sinclair assured him. He closed his file. ‘After listening to Madden, Jim Boyce is as nervous as a cat. Any hint that the case might stretch beyond his domain and he’ll be on the phone to me.’
‘Still, you seem unsatisfied, Chief Inspector.’
‘Oh, no, sir. Not that.’ Sinclair shed the frown his superior had noticed. ‘By all means let them search for Beezy. What’s more, if he can be shown to have been the killer, I’d be inclined to let the whole matter drop, at least as far as the Yard is concerned.’
‘You don’t think he could have been involved in the Henley business?’
‘Hardly. Beal’s a man in his fifties. He’s known to have spent these past ten summers in Kent. I can’t see him suddenly transporting himself to Oxfordshire.’ Sinclair shook his head. ‘No, if Beezy’s their man, I’d be disposed to let this inquiry lapse.’
