the Hodges’ cottage?’
‘About a quarter of a mile.’
‘Have they a telephone?’
She shook her head. But Mary won’t be back for at least an hour. Mrs H will want to serve them tea.’
‘I’m going to lock up the house. How many doors are there?’
‘Let me see.’ She had taken in the situation at once. Her voice was steady. ‘ from the kitchen and the front door there are two others at either end of the house. You can reach them by the passage. They may be already locked. Mary’s careful about that.’
‘I’ll check them. You fetch Eva. Get her down here.’
They parted at once, Bess heading for the hall where the stairs were, while Madden ran down the passage in the opposite direction to the end of the house, where he found a study with a door giving on to the garden. It was locked, as Bess had said, but he spent a minute shifting a heavy table across the floor and planting it in front of the door to provide an additional barrier.
Running back he stopped at the kitchen, where he first made sure of the door, turning the key in it twice, then switched off the lights. The window above the sink offered a good view of the yard, and he stood there for a few seconds scanning the white-blanketed cobbles outside. The tracks Mrs Spencer and her son had left in the pristine surface were easy to follow: they went from the door to the end of the line of stalls at the back of the yard before disappearing around the corner. His breathing became easier when he realized they were the only footmarks to be seen.
Back in the corridor he stopped in the hall to check the front door. It was locked, but he noticed it also had a bolt higher up and he slid that into its slot. The light on the landing above had been switched on and he could hear Bess’s voice urging Eva to hurry. His own destination was now the room at the other end of the passage, which he reached within a few seconds, only to find it filled with unwanted furniture that obstructed his path to the door which was at the side of the house. Having picked his way there, he discovered it was locked, but took the same precaution as he had in the study, this time choosing a bookcase that was standing nearby as a further barrier. Given the cluttered state of the floor, the task was an awkward one, and it was several minutes before he was able to manoeuvre the heavy oak piece into place.
His job done, he hurried back, and when he came to the hall he found that the light on the landing above had been switched off, a sign that Bess and Eva must have come down. But before joining them in the sitting-room, he stopped off again at the kitchen — he wanted to make a further inspection of the yard — and as he entered the room he heard a low rustling noise he could not place at first until he realized it was coming from the saucepan Bess had been stirring earlier: the liquid inside had come to the boil. Stopping by the stove, he paused long enough to shift the heavy pot to one side of the range, first drawing on his gloves so that he could grasp the hot handle, then went to the window and looked out.
What he saw there sent a chill through him.
In the few minutes he’d been away a fresh set of footprints had appeared in the snow. They led from the gate straight to the back door. Whoever had made them had tried to get in. Or so it seemed to Madden as he quickly tested the door and found it still locked. The tracks led off in the direction of the woodbin, but although he leaned over the sink and peered that way he was unable to see how far they went. To do so he would have had to open the door and look out, an act he was unwilling even to contemplate. If it was Ash, and he was lurking just out of sight on the other side of the woodbin, the action might well prove fatal to him.
There was nothing he could do except pray that the police car would arrive soon, within minutes even. But then another thought came to him, a frightening image that sent him racing down the passage to the sitting-room. If Ash was circling the house searching for a way in, he would see Bess and Eva through the window, and if the Polish girl offered him a target he might well take the opportunity to shoot her.
But the room, when he reached it, was empty.
There was no sign of either woman.
Where were they, then? Still on the floor above?
Panting, Madden stood in the doorway, his mind racing.
He wondered if Bess had seen the same tracks as he had from the window of Eva’s bedroom — or, even worse, spotted Ash crossing the yard — and decided to stay upstairs. But if so, why hadn’t she tried to warn him?
Racking his brains for an answer he switched off the light at the door and went to the window. There was no sign of any footprint on the terrace outside, no indication that Ash had walked round the house.
So where was he now?
What was he planning?
With no weapon of any kind, Madden felt doubly exposed. But as he turned to leave, an idea struck him, and he went to the fireplace and reached up above it to where the shield and assegai were fixed. With a sharp wrench he pulled the spear free, and with its comforting weight now nestling in his hand he returned to the passage and set off in the direction of the hall.
His intention was to go upstairs and find out what had happened to the two women. But he got only as far as the kitchen door, then froze, stopping in his tracks.
Something was different … something had changed.
Madden felt the hairs on his neck rise.
Struggling to understand what it was that had made him halt, he caught a whiff of the spiced wine coming from the saucepan on the stove. Steam was rising from the pot. It was being borne to him on a breeze, he realized, a cool wind that brushed against his cheek, and with a flash of insight he knew this couldn’t be.
Stepping into the kitchen, he swept the room with his gaze and saw at once where the breeze was coming from: at the far end of the kitchen, behind the coloured lights of the Christmas tree, the door to the cellar stood open.
Madden stared at it. He remembered what Mary Spencer had said: that she would have to go down to the cellar again because her son had left the door to the yard open.
But she’d failed to do that.
Ash was in the house.
The shock was like a physical pain and he turned quickly, half-fearing to find that the soft-footed killer had crept up behind him, his garrotte ready. But the passage was empty: and since he knew that Ash could not have gone in the direction of the sitting-room — or else they would have met — that left only the hall where the stairs were.
He started towards them at once, straining to hear any sound as he tiptoed down the carpeted passage. The hall was in half-darkness: there was a light still burning in the passage and he saw it reflected in a small pool of water on the stoneflagged floor near the stairs, moisture that could only have come from the snow outside.
He paused then. There was still no sound from above, but the silence there was filled with menace and for a moment his heart failed him. He knew the danger that lay in wait for him and how much he stood to lose. In the past, when his life had hung by a thread in the endless slaughter of the trenches, he had learned like others to view his future, if any, with the eye of a fatalist. But those days were long gone. His love for the woman he had married, like some wondrous plant, had flowered into other loves, and now every moment of his life seemed precious to him.
But it was not in his nature to turn from the threat, nor even to wait the few minutes it might take for the police to arrive. Somewhere on the floor above him were two women in imminent peril, and though his fear stayed with him, he put it aside, as he had learned to do when he’d been a soldier. He considered the danger confronting him with a clear mind.
There was no point in ascending the stairs himself. If Ash was waiting in the passage off the landing above, pistol in hand, he would simply provide him with a target. The silence on the upper floor persuaded him that the killer was still searching for his primary victim, for Eva, going from room to room. One or other of the women must have seen him climbing the stairs in his officer’s uniform; now both were hiding and it was only a matter of time before Ash found them.
Unless he could be diverted.
At once his strategy became clear to him. He must draw the killer away, downstairs, if possible out into the yard — and then hope that the police car would arrive and Ash would be dealt with. Either way there was no time
