‘Yes…’ Panting, she nodded. ‘And you’re the one who’d better run. It’s a Mr Holly ringing from Scotland Yard. He says it won’t wait a moment.’
The telephone was kept in the study. Billy hurried downstairs. As he picked up the receiver he heard the sound of a car in the driveway outside and saw through the window that Madden had just returned.
‘Styles here, sir?’
‘Ah, Sergeant!’ Holly’s deep voice rang in his ear. ‘Thank God I’ve caught you. Lang’s been spotted.’
‘Spotted! Where, sir?’
‘In Midhurst. He was treated by a doctor there yesterday. Some injury to his back. It meant he had to take his shirt off and the nurse saw his birthmark. She rang the police this morning and they sent someone round to show her that photograph. She identified Lang beyond question.’ The chief super’s customary calm had deserted him. His voice boomed down the line. ‘I’ve just spoken to Mr Sinclair in Chichester. He’s on his way to Midhurst now and he wants you to join him there.’
While Holly was speaking Billy’s eye had fallen on a framed map hanging on the wall beside the desk. It showed Surrey and the adjoining counties. He could see Midhurst marked. It wasn’t far, just across the border in Sussex. He became aware that Madden was standing in the doorway, watching him.
‘Sir, my car’s still out of action.’ Billy spoke into the phone, but he caught Madden’s eye and gestured with his clenched fist. ‘I’ll have to go by train.’
‘Do whatever’s best, Sergeant. But get yourself there.’
The line went dead. Billy jumped up. His heart was thumping.
‘That was Mr Holly, sir. Lang’s been seen in Midhurst. It was that birthmark of yours.’ Billy grinned. ‘I’ve got to get down there right away. Do you know if there’s a train-’
He broke off, silenced by the look on Madden’s face.
‘Midhurst, you say?’
The sergeant nodded. He was transfixed by the other’s expression: the intensity of his gaze.
‘Was he recognized?’ Madden spoke quietly.
‘So Mr Holly says. It was a doctor’s nurse picked him out. They showed her his photograph.’
‘Damn the train, then.’ The growled words made Billy’s hair stand on end. ‘I’ll take you there myself.’
26
Leaving his van in the otherwise empty parking area by Wood Way, Sam walked briskly down the empty road to where the men were working. Driving past he’d hoped to see Eddie’s figure among them. There was always the chance his friend had returned overnight. But it had been Harrigan’s eye that he’d caught, and the foreman was waiting for him, brawny forearms folded, his brow knotted in a scowl.
‘Well, where is he, then? Have you had any word?’ The Irishman didn’t bother to explain who he was talking about. Behind him the other members of his crew drew nearer so as to hear what was being said. They had just finished surfacing a strip of road and the air was sharp with the reek of hot tar.
‘I’ve no news, if that’s what you mean.’ Sam saw no point in beating about the bush. ‘But I’ve sent a telegram to his family, in case he’s had to go home for some reason. I’m still waiting for a reply.’
He had got back from Tillington a little after noon to discover there’d been no response from Eddie as yet, no message from Hove, and had paused only long enough to bolt down a sandwich and split a piece of cheese with Sal.
‘What can have happened?’ Now it was Ada who was starting to fret. She’d come out to the van with him when he left, her forehead creased with worry. ‘It’s such a strange thing to do. Going off like that without a word.’
She was right, of course, Sam could see that. But wasn’t it a fact that these apparent mysteries of life usually had simple explanations? Not forgetting, too, that people sometimes behaved in peculiar ways for peculiar reasons. Both possibilities had occurred to him in the course of the morning and he was prepared to take either into consideration.
What he wouldn’t accept, though, would have no part of, was the suggestion he could hear coming from Harrigan’s lips now.
‘I took him for a dependable fellow, someone I could trust.’ Burly, and with a moustache that matched his dark eyebrows, the foreman stood glowering. ‘Not the sort who’d let you down.’
‘Now you’ve got no cause to say that.’ Sam faced him squarely. ‘Not till you know the facts.’ He was pleased by the murmur of approbation his challenge evoked from the men around.
Harrigan grunted. ‘We’ll see.’ His glance stayed hostile. He seemed unconvinced.
‘When was the last time you saw him?’ Sam kept his own gaze steadily on the other.
The foreman shrugged. ‘Friday evening, knocking-off time, same as usual.’
‘Did he mention he had any plans for the weekend?’
Harrigan jerked his head in the direction of one of the men standing nearby, a youngish chap with fair, curly hair and stubbled cheeks. Sam recognized him as a pal of Eddie’s. A bloke called Pat McCarthy.
‘Nothin’ special.’ Pat shrugged. ‘He said he might join us for a drink Saturday night. There’s a pub down in Elsted we go to. But he never turned up.’
‘I sent Pat over to that barn Eddie sleeps in when he didn’t show up for work yesterday.’ Harrigan gestured towards the wooded ridge that ran alongside the road. ‘The doors were locked. There was no one around. Isn’t that so?’ He looked at the younger man, who nodded.
‘I hammered on them, and all.’
‘Well, that’s where I’m headed now.’ Sam gathered himself. ‘I’ve a key to the barn.’ He tapped his coat pocket. ‘I’m going to have a look inside. Then I want to go over to Oak Green. There’s a lady there who knows Eddie. She’s worried about him, too.’
‘Would that be Nell’s mother?’ Harrigan’s face had lost its grudging scowl. Sam saw that his belligerence was only a mask; he was as concerned as the others. ‘The lass was here yesterday, asking about him.’
‘Yes, it’s Mrs Ramsay.’ Sam looked around the ring of men. ‘I’ll be back later,’ he promised them. ‘We’re still waiting to hear from Hove. With any luck I’ll have something to tell you.’
He saw the doubt in their eyes.
‘Listen, there’s bound to be an explanation,’ he insisted. ‘People don’t just disappear. He’ll turn up. You mark my words.’
‘Come on, old girl, don’t dawdle…’
Sam called back to Sally from the crest of the ridge. She was still some way behind, plodding her way up the path. Poor old thing, she was starting to feel the cold; it was getting into her joints. But for once his patience was short.
‘Come on…’
Not waiting for her to catch up, he set off down the long slope, his gaze turning automatically in the direction of Coyne’s Farm, visible now in spite of the mist that still clung to the ground, blurring the contours of the landscape and bringing a hush to the woods, usually loud with birdsong, through which he had just passed. There was no break in the cloud cover as yet and Sam doubted they’d see the sun that day.
When he came to the gap in the hedge he paused once more, but it was obvious Sal was coming at her own pace. He could see her some distance back up the path, her nose buried in a bank of leaves. Delaying no longer, he slipped through the hedge and crossed the walled garden into the farmyard beyond.
It had come as a shock, talking to Harrigan and the others, to realize what they were thinking. That this bloke who they liked and had counted on, who they’d treated as one of them, had upped and walked off without a word, leaving them to wonder what had become of him. Sam told himself they were wrong – he knew Eddie too well, knew he’d never behave in such a way – but as he strode across the yard to where the barn was he could feel a nervous flutter in his stomach. There was no telling what he might find inside.
Difficulty with the padlock delayed his entry. For a while it seemed jammed, the mechanism refusing to budge, and it took him several tries, pushing his key in and out and jiggling it about, before the spring inside was released and the curved arm sprang open.
