The grave tenderness of Madden’s expression as he spoke to his daughter reminded Sinclair with a pang of the loss his old friend had suffered many years before. Of the little girl and her mother whom he’d watched die. It was this double blow, the chief inspector believed, that his driven his erstwhile partner to seek oblivion in the trenches.
Madden had waited until they were alone before speaking.
‘Well, Angus… What can you tell me about the Brookham case?’
He listened now as the chief inspector, puffing on his pipe, revealed what little result his own inquiries had produced.
‘There’s nothing in the files, as I say; there’s only this business at Henley, which has yet to be established as a murder case. The facial assault points to a connection with Brookham, I grant you, and there’s also the fact that an attempt seems to have been made to dispose of the body afterwards. But there are still difficulties in linking the two cases, not least the three-year interval separating them. If it was the same man, what’s he been doing all this while?’
Madden grunted. ‘I take it you’ve checked prison records?’ He was staring at the ground in front of him.
‘In detail. We’re satisfied he wasn’t inside.’
‘Mightn’t he have gone abroad, then?’
Sinclair shrugged. ‘That’s certainly a possibility. But not one I can pursue at present: not until the case is officially in my hands, and even then not without further evidence.’
Grimacing, he knocked out his pipe on the wall beside him and then watched as Madden stood brooding, testing the jagged edge of the saw with his fingertips. Plainly he’d hoped to hear better news, and the chief inspector sighed.
‘I’m sorry, John. But without some fresh development, it’s hard to see how this matter can be taken any further. All we can do now is wait while the hunt for this missing tramp goes on.’
The feeling, however irrational, that he had let his old colleague down continued to haunt the chief inspector during the day and was still lodged like a burr in the back of his mind when, with the clock on the mantel striking five o’clock and the shadows in the drawing room deepening, he looked up and saw Franz Weiss standing in the doorway.
‘Ah, there you are, Mr Sinclair! I was hoping to find you alone. We have not yet had a chance to talk.’
Smiling, the analyst crossed to where his fellow guest was seated by the fireplace with a book on wild flowers open on his lap.
‘Is it true our hosts have abandoned us?’
‘I’m afraid so, sir.’ Sinclair rose to his feet to receive the older man. ‘But not for long. John’s gone over to Guildford to collect Robert. He took Lucy with him.’ The Maddens’ son, an absentee from the household, had been playing that day in a school cricket match. ‘Then, soon after they left, Helen was called out to see a patient. You find me holding the fort.’
It was the first time the two men had been alone. Apart from a brief appearance at tea-time, when he had joined the others on the terrace, the doctor had remained in his room all afternoon, working. Apologizing for his absence, he’d explained that he had a paper to prepare which he was due to present at a symposium on his return to Berlin.
‘The subject to be discussed will be certain aspects of psychopathology, in particular the treatment of patients who indulge in abnormally aggressive and irresponsible behaviour, a difficult question on which to air one’s views these days when so many of one’s fellow citizens display little else.’
He’d accompanied the remark with a characteristic wry smile, but his words had struck a chord with the chief inspector, echoing as they did a discussion that had taken place earlier, at lunch, when Weiss had spoken at some length about the situation in Germany and his fears for the future. Though aware from newspaper accounts of the turmoil prevailing in that country, so recently an enemy of his own, Sinclair had listened with dismay as the Maddens’ foreign visitor drew a picture, blacker than he could have imagined, of a society racked by civil strife and teetering on the brink of political collapse.
Most disturbing of all had been an account given by the doctor of an assault by brown-shirted storm troopers on a group of communist sympathizers which he had witnessed by chance near his consulting rooms in Berlin. Evidently distressed by the memory, he’d described in vivid images the brazen behaviour of the attackers and their indifference to the bodies of the injured which they’d left lying in the street, their blood drying on the cobblestones.
‘When civilized man turns so readily to savagery, one can only fear the worst.’ Weiss had fixed his dark eyes on Sinclair as he’d uttered these words, seeing him perhaps as one of the law’s guardians. ‘What restraints are there left, one wonders? Of what crimes is he capable?’
The analyst had made no secret of his anxiety for his family and his desire, ever more pressing, to quit Germany.
‘All the signs are that my people are no longer welcome there. At any rate, not with those whose voices are loudest and whose hands are already reaching for power.’
Perceiving that it was not his Austrian nationality Weiss was referring to, Sinclair had felt a flush of discomfiture, and the memory of it served to check his first impulse now, which was to return to the theme of their lunchtime conversation. He wanted to question the analyst further. But having poured him a drink and seen to it that he was settled comfortably by the fire before resuming his own seat, he hesitated, and it was Weiss, his pale face made bright by the blaze, who broke the silence between them.
‘Tell me, Chief Inspector, this case you are dealing with, the one to do with the murdered girl, is it causing you much anxiety?’
Though momentarily startled by the question, Sinclair realized at once that Madden must have discussed the assault with the doctor, something Weiss himself confirmed the next moment.
‘I ask because John seemed so concerned when he told me about it the other evening. Clearly it has disturbed him a great deal. We did not discuss it at length. Helen was there, and I sensed she was upset by the subject.’
‘She thinks he’s too caught up with the case,’ Sinclair grunted. He’d got over his surprise. ‘She’s never forgotten how close he came to death all those years ago. She doesn’t want him involved in anything like it again. But John won’t let go of this.’
Weiss nodded. ‘He sees it as his duty, what he owes to others, something presented to him, which he did not seek, but accepts. Our friend is like the Good Samaritan: he cannot pass by on the other side. It is one of the reasons Helen loves him, of course, why she prizes him so. This makes it difficult for them both.’
The shadows in the room had been deepening while they were talking and Sinclair rose to switch on a pair of table lamps. He added another log to the fire and then watched as a shower of sparks flew up the chimney. Behind him the doctor, too, was gazing into the flames, his eyes clouded with thought. Sinclair returned to his seat.
‘What did you make of it, sir? The crime itself, I mean? As you probably know, John thinks this man has killed before.’
‘So he said. And I can understand why. One must be cautious when drawing conclusions from evidence that is purely circumstantial, but there are strong indications that this was no ordinary predator,’ Weiss said.
‘You’re referring to the post-mortem assault, I assume?’ Sinclair sat forward in his chair, curious now. Weiss nodded.
‘The battering of the girl’s face was most unusual. Although abuse of the victim’s corpse is a common feature in cases of this kind – most often it reflects the killer’s contempt for the body that has served its purpose – so deliberate an assault has the appearance of a ritual. One should not overlook the care which this murderer took with his preparations, either. Am I right in thinking he carried the child’s body some way to the spot he had chosen for the assault?’
‘Yes. Through quite dense undergrowth.’
‘To where there was a stream. An important detail. Perhaps he already had a picture in his mind of what was to follow. Perhaps he knew he would have to wash the blood from his body afterwards. If we see all this as part of a pattern, then it is hard to believe this man has not committed similar crimes in the past.’
The doctor broke off. He’d shifted his gaze from the fire and was looking at Sinclair, who sat pondering.
‘There’s something you don’t know, sir.’ The chief inspector frowned. ‘I only told John about it this morning. We’ve come across a case that might have a bearing on the Brookham murder. It involves a young girl who went
