Billy scratched his head. ‘Well, we know he’s a birdwatcher, sir…’
‘Yes, but I mean what was he doing with it there? At the doctor’s rooms?’ Madden gestured as they walked on.
‘Perhaps he took it along to look at while he was waiting.’ Billy still couldn’t see what his old chief was driving at.
‘That’s not what the nurse said. She’s an observant witness. She said he had it with him. To me that suggests he’d brought it for some other purpose. But if he was going for a walk in the country later and needed it with him, surely he’d have left it in his car. Driscoll’s surgery’s not far from here – it’s on the Petersfield road. I looked at the map. Mrs Hall locked the door when he left – doctor’s hours were over – and she saw him walking off in the direction of North Street. That’s the main street. He was heading back to the centre of town.’
‘Where he stopped at the chemist’s shop,’ Billy reminded himself with a shudder.
Madden scowled. ‘Yes, but he still had the book with him, that’s the point, and I wondered where he went next, and whether it might have been here.’
They had reached their destination, yet another timber-framed dwelling, but this one with a sign on a brass plate beside the door proclaiming it to be the Midhurst Public Library. When Billy tried the door, he found it locked. It was not yet two o’clock.
‘You see, there’s no reason he shouldn’t have joined the library.’ Madden blew on his fingers. ‘It’s not as though the police have been on his trail. As far as he’s concerned, using a false name was only a precaution. If he’d wanted to get his hands on any reference books, this was the obvious place to come. He could have been returning one yesterday. After all, he’s on the point of leaving. Or so it seems.’
While they’d been standing there, the lights inside the library windows had come on. Billy hesitated a moment longer.
‘But would he bother, sir? A man like Lang? Wouldn’t he just pocket the book?’
‘Oh, no, I don’t think so.’ Madden was quick to respond. ‘His aim in life is to avoid attracting attention. If he did borrow the book, he’s more likely to return it than not.’
‘So if he’s a subscriber, they’ll have his name. Or rather, De Beer’s. Is that what you’re thinking, sir?’
‘More than that.’ Madden’s voice had hardened. ‘He’d have had to give an address. And while it’s possible he might have left a false one, I’m inclined to doubt it. It’s the sort of thing that causes questions to be asked. Eyebrows to be raised. If it comes to light, I mean. No, if he joined the library – and it’s a big if – I think he’d have given them his true address. But we’ll soon find out…’
Billy checked the index for a second time, riffling through the cards with his fingers, looking at the Bs now.
‘It’s no use, sir. He’s not here.’
He’d already been through the Ds.
‘There’s no De Beer.’
Madden grunted. He was standing by the desk with folded arms, watching. Billy saw the disappointment in his face.
‘Could he have used some other name, do you think?’ he asked, but Madden shook his head.
‘I doubt it. Going under one false name is difficult enough; it’s something you have to keep in mind constantly. A second would only compound the problem. I know Lang’s accustomed to doing this, but I doubt he’d take unnecessary risks. And as I said before, he’s had no reason to feel threatened.’
Although the library had not yet opened – it seemed that a quarter past two was the appointed hour – they’d been admitted after Billy had knocked on the door, by a woman clutching a pile of books to her chest. Friendly, but harassed-looking, she had given her name as Miss Kaye and told them she was not in charge there, she was merely the assistant to the head librarian, a Miss Murdoch.
‘Agatha’s away, I’m afraid. She’s gone to Chichester for the day to see her mother. The poor dear’s not well. I’ve been left to manage as best I can.’
Slight, with red hair tucked up in a bun at the back of her neck, and green eyes blinking behind spectacles, she’d ushered them through a raised flap in the counter to a desk on which a small wooden cabinet, equipped with drawers, stood.
‘That’s our index of subscribers. By all means examine it.’ The horn-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose gave her an owlish look. She’d declined Billy’s offer to inspect his warrant card. ‘But you’ll have to excuse me. I came in early to tidy up.’
Madden glanced at his watch.
‘I’m sorry, Billy, I’ve dragged you over here for nothing. I must be off.’
Peering about, he saw Miss Kaye approaching from the direction of the stacks carrying a pile of old newspapers in her arms and he lifted the wooden flap in the counter to let her through. Smiling her thanks, she dropped her burden into a large wicker basket already brimming with waste paper behind the desk.
‘Have you had any luck?’ she asked.
‘I’m afraid not. We’ve bothered you for nothing. But thank you all the same.’ Madden smiled in response.
‘Just who is this man you’re looking for?’ she asked, as Billy rose from the desk. She seemed reluctant to let them leave.
‘A foreigner called De Beer,’ Madden replied. ‘We thought he might have joined the library recently. But his name’s not in the index.’ He paused, as though reflecting. ‘Sergeant Styles has a photograph of him. May we show it to you?’
‘Of course.’ Eagerly, she turned to Billy, who’d already taken the poster out of his jacket pocket and was unfolding it on the desktop. But after studying it for a few seconds, she shook her head.
‘No, I’m afraid not. I don’t remember seeing him.’ She seemed disappointed at having failed them, and watching her reaction, Billy smiled. It was not the first time he had observed the effect of Madden’s personality on a witness, even if his memories of the phenomenon came from many years back. There was some quality his old chief possessed, a gravity, perhaps, some deep well of seriousness, that seemed to draw a response from others. As though they accepted without question the importance of what he was asking of them and the need to help.
‘If he was here at all it would have been yesterday, just before one.’ Madden smiled at her again, encouragingly, but she shook her head.
‘You’ll have to ask Agatha, I’m afraid. Miss Murdoch. She was working here, at the counter, all morning. I was mostly in the stacks, putting books away.’ She gestured towards the shelves. ‘But why yesterday, particularly?’
‘We think he’s leaving the district for good.’ Madden buttoned his coat, nodding to Billy, who had folded the poster and put it away in his pocket. ‘He was seen with a book that might have been borrowed from a library. It occurred to me he might have come here to return it, but it seems I was wrong. Thank you again.’
He lifted the flap on the counter for Billy, who nodded his own thanks and followed. As they moved towards the door she addressed them again.
‘Leaving, did you say?’
‘Yes, we think so…’ Madden paused. Billy was at his shoulder.
‘Then he might have said so… to Miss Murdoch, I mean?’ She spoke hesitantly. ‘He might have told her he was going away?’
Madden stared at her for a moment. He seemed surprised. ‘I didn’t think of that,’ he admitted. ‘I should have. You’re quite right – that’s exactly what he would have done.’ To Billy, he added, ‘He’d have wanted De Beer’s name removed from their list of subscribers.’
‘I asked because if he was here yesterday, and told Agatha that, she would have taken his card out of the index and torn it up. Deadheading, she calls it.’ Miss Kaye smiled.
‘Yes, of course. I see.’ Madden shook his head in chagrin. ‘So we’re a day too late.’
‘Oh, no… not necessarily.’ Miss Kaye’s green eyes sparkled. Her face had lit up. ‘If Agatha tore up his card, the bits will still be here, with the waste paper.’ She pointed at the wicker basket behind her. ‘It’s only emptied once a week.’
It was Billy who came on the first piece. Sifting through a stack of old periodicals, holding up each in turn and shaking it, he was rewarded by the sight of a torn shred of pasteboard, blue-ruled like the cards he’d already seen in the index, slipping out from between the pages of one of them.
