The Blood-Dimmed Tide (12 page)

‘None at all, sir.’ Sinclair had his file already opened on his lap. ‘Both girls were raped and strangled, faces destroyed in the same manner in post-mortem assaults. However, there was one difference.’ He glanced up. ‘The body found near Bognor Regis showed traces of chloroform in the lungs. It’s presumably what he used to immobilize her.’

‘There was no mention of that in the Brookham report.’ Bennett frowned.

‘No, but I’ve had a word with Dr Galloway – the pathologist who dealt with the body – and he points out that the killer in that instance drowned the girl as well as strangled her. It’s quite possible that any traces of chloroform in her lungs or what was left of her nasal passages could have been washed away.’

Bennett grunted. ‘Go on, Chief Inspector.’

‘Now, as regards the weapon employed for the facial assaults, Galloway has plumped for a hammer, and I gather the Sussex doctor’s of the same opinion. Mind you, his cadaver is in rather worse condition.’

‘Why’s that?’ Holly intervened.

‘Of course – you don’t know, Arthur.’ Sinclair turned to his colleague. ‘The murder in Sussex pre-dates the Brookham killing, by as much as a month. That’s according to medical opinion, and it’s confirmed by the time of her disappearance, which was late July. Her body was found on the coast near Bognor Regis – the girl’s name was Marigold Hammond, by the way. It’s a flat, fairly empty stretch of shoreline and the corpse was buried in a shallow grave in a patch of reeds and scrubland, covered with loose earth and pebbles – the beaches are shingled there – no more than fifty yards from the sea. Once again he took pains to hide the body. We were lucky at Brookham. The corpse was found within hours, thanks to Madden.’ The chief inspector’s face darkened. ‘I only wish we’d used the time better. The Surrey police have spent the past month looking for that blasted tramp. What’s more they still have to find him.’

‘Because he might be a witness, you mean?’ Holly put the question.

‘Exactly. In fact, the more I think about John’s reading of the murder site, the more convinced I am that he was right. It’s odds on this Beezy actually caught sight of the killer. That’s why he ran for it, dropping some of his belongings on the way. God alone knows where he is now. Not in our hands, that’s for certain.’ The chief inspector glowered. He caught Bennett’s eye.

‘Yes, sir, I’m sorry. Briefly, then, all we can say for sure about our killer at this stage is that he’s not Beezy – who was in Surrey for all of July, moving about within a relatively small area, and who’s most unlikely to have had a bottle of chloroform about his person – and that in all likelihood he owns a car. In hindsight, it seems probable that both girls were picked up on the road – one between Brookham and Craydon, the other near Bognor Regis. How he persuaded them to get into his car we can only speculate, but once there he could have used the chloroform to render them senseless.’

As Sinclair paused to clear his throat, Holly interrupted.

‘You say she vanished in July, the girl at Bognor Regis. Have the police been searching for her since then?’

‘The answer to that question is no, Arthur. Though you may well ask it. The child wasn’t even reported missing until a week ago. It’s an extraordinary story. Believe it if you can.’ The chief inspector shook his head. ‘Her parents are circus people. Not performers, her mother runs a sideshow, but they travel all over the south coast during the summer months and they happened to be at Bognor Regis when the child went missing. Except it wasn’t recognized as such at the time. She’d had a row with her mother and the man they were living with – the girl’s father had gone off some time before, he doesn’t figure in this – and announced that she was leaving to go and spend some time with an aunt of hers who worked in another circus that was performing in Eastbourne at the time. It was something she’d done before, apparently, and for much the same reason.

‘Before?’ The chief superintendent was incredulous. ‘And how old was this girl? Twelve or so?’

‘No… and that’s an interesting point.’ Sinclair tugged at an earlobe. ‘Marigold Hammond was fourteen, but she looked younger. This killer seems drawn to girls before they reach puberty.’ He caught Holly’s look. ‘Yes, I know, Arthur, even fourteen seems too young, but all I can tell you is it doesn’t seem to have bothered her mother when she packed a suitcase and announced she was off to catch the bus to Eastbourne.’

‘But when she didn’t hear from her…?’

‘There again…’ Sinclair shook his head in despair. ‘We have to understand… these people live their lives differently from you and me. They’ve no telephone to ring up with, and I doubt they correspond by letter. Mrs Hammond just assumed her daughter had joined up with her aunt in Eastbourne and only discovered six weeks later that she’d never appeared there, at which point she reported her missing. The circus she was with had moved on to Devon by then, but she came back to Bognor Regis to help the police, who began searching right away. It took them a further week to find the girl’s body.’

‘I’ll be blowed!’ Holly was speechless.

Bennett cleared his throat. ‘What next, Chief Inspector? Where do we go from here? I take it you don’t plan to interfere with the Sussex investigation?’

‘Oh, no, sir. Nor the one in Surrey. As I said, they still have to find the tramp. We may yet have a witness to the Brookham killing. For the time being our best role would be one of coordination. I plan myself to go down to Sussex tomorrow to talk to the officers conducting that investigation. God knows I don’t envy them. The trail must be stone cold by now.’

‘What about the Henley angle? The girl whose body was found in the Thames? Do you mean to take any action over that?’

‘Yes, I do, sir. Mind you, it’s still a sensitive issue. I’ve spoken to the Oxfordshire police. They’re no longer inclined to treat it as a case of accidental death. But they’re undecided as to how to launch an investigation, particularly with the body in the state it’s in. However, I’ve been informed confidentially that they plan to open a murder inquiry soon. Once it’s official, they’ll be only too pleased to accept our help. In the meantime, I’ve told them we’d like to sniff around discreetly, and they’ve informed the Henley police accordingly. I’m sending a man down there tomorrow.’

Bennett glanced at his watch. ‘I can give you another three minutes, Chief Inspector. Where do we stand with the press?’

‘Like us, they’re sniffing around, sir.’ Sinclair shut his file. ‘They didn’t make too much of the Brookham murder, thankfully. But with this latest body discovered and the Yard called in, they’re bound to take an interest. Still, the subject’s not an easy one for the newspapers to handle. Sexual crimes involving children are something we all instinctively shy away from, and their readers are no different. So far, published details concerning the facial injuries have been kept to a minimum, and if my wishes are heeded that will continue. Needless to say, they’ve no idea yet that the inquiry might stretch back several years. That’s something I’d particularly like to keep from them. We’ll have to see how we go.’

Bennett nodded. ‘Very well. That will do for now.’ He rose. ‘Gentlemen…’

As they walked back to their offices Holly’s broad brow creased in a frown.

‘Do you really feel it’s worth pursuing this Henley business, Angus? The connection seems very iffy to me.’

‘Perhaps. But I want to get to the bottom of it, just the same. There’s a good chance this man may have been active for longer than we think, and if that proves to be the case, it puts a quite different complexion on things.’ The memory of his conversation with Franz Weiss not long since was still vivid in the chief inspector’s mind.

‘Well, I wish you luck.’ They had reached the chief superintendent’s office and he paused at the door. ‘Who are you sending down, anyway?’

‘An officer I’ve had my eye on for some time now, a detective sergeant.’ Sinclair opened the door for his superior. ‘Come to think of it, he did his first serious work under Madden. John thought very highly of him.’

‘I’m duly impressed.’ The chief super’s deep laugh rumbled in the corridor. ‘Now all I need to know is his name.’

‘Why, it’s Styles, of course.’ Sinclair smiled broadly. ‘Billy Styles. I thought you’d have remembered that, Arthur.’

The traffic that morning was light, and Billy was glad of it. The old Morris he’d been allocated from the Yard’s car pool had tired gears and a tendency to stall. Not that he was complaining, mind you. Still clear in his memory were the days when motor cars provided for the use of detectives had been rarer than unicorns.

The very concept of mobile policing hadn’t taken hold in the Met until the early twenties. The first patrols had been restricted to bands of uniformed police who’d been ferried around the capital – stopping at prearranged points to telephone headquarters – in a pair of vans bought second hand from the RAF. Some wag had dubbed them the ‘Flying Squad’ and the name had stuck. Now a fleet of wireless-equipped cars roamed the streets of London day and night and the roof of Scotland Yard spouted a forest of aerials.

All that notwithstanding, the job Billy had been assigned wouldn’t normally have called for a car. He could just as easily have taken the train to Henley. But Chief Inspector Sinclair wanted him to have freedom of movement when he got there.

‘Don’t pay too much attention to what the local police tell you,’ he’d advised the sergeant. ‘They’ve got some explaining to do. Nose around on your own if you can. Bear in mind, if it’s the same man he would have had a car.’

The summons to report to the chief inspector’s office had come out of the blue, and Billy had responded to it with alacrity. After a dozen years with the Met he could look back on a varied career during which he’d been involved in a wide range of investigations.

None, however, had approached the drama of the Melling Lodge case, and Billy had never forgotten the nerve-racked weeks he had spent in the company of the then Inspector Madden as they’d searched for a savage murderer.

The inquiry had been conducted under Sinclair’s leadership, and, ever since, Billy had nursed the hope that the chief inspector might hold him in some special regard. Whenever they met, as they sometimes did, in one of the corridors at the Yard, the older man would pause for a word, and Billy retained the feeling, which dated from their very first meeting, of being perpetually weighed in the balance of Angus Sinclair’s steady flint-grey gaze.

His greeting when he’d arrived in Sinclair’s office the previous day had been warm.

‘Sergeant! It’s been a while. How are you?’ Sinclair had risen from behind his desk to shake Billy’s hand. ‘I spent last weekend with the Maddens. John was asking after you. I trust you keep in touch.’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’ Billy had taken the chair indicated. ‘I go down and see them quite often.’

Sometimes for a whole weekend, just like the chief inspector had done, he might have added, though on the first such occasion Billy had been so nervous at the prospect of a dinner party his host and hostess were giving that evening he’d barely found the courage to present himself in the drawing room beforehand, and it had taken all of Helen Madden’s skill in the art of gentle teasing to restore him to his usual cheery self.

‘You’re not married, are you?’ Sinclair had inquired. ‘Or am I mistaken?’

‘Not entirely, sir. Engaged, as it happens.’ Billy grinned.

‘Well, well! Congratulations.’ The chief inspector leaned forward and they shook hands formally. ‘What’s the young lady’s name?’

‘Elsie Osgood, sir. We met when I was posted to Clapham for a spell last year. She owns a small dress shop down there. We’re getting married next spring.’

‘I wish you both well.’ Sinclair regarded the younger man benignly. Then his expression changed. ‘You’ve heard about Madden finding that child’s body, I take it?’

‘The Brookham killing? Yes, sir. It was all round the Yard.’ Billy straightened in his chair. He guessed he was about to learn the reason for his summons. ‘And now there’s been another one, I see. Down Bognor Regis way.’

‘Quite right. That’s why you’re here. The cases are clearly linked and the Yard’s been called in. But there’s more to it than that. It’s possible the murderer has killed before. At Henley, three years ago. That’s where you’ll be going tomorrow.’

Billy felt a tingle of excitement. Mention of Madden’s name had reminded him of that day, far off, but still fresh in his memory, when the two of them had been sent flying to Waterloo station to catch a train bound for Highfield. He watched as the chief inspector picked up a buff-coloured folder from his desk, then paused before speaking again, as though to underline the importance of what he was about to say.

‘This is not only a serious matter, Sergeant. It’s one of particular urgency. As I’m sure you know, sexual criminals have a tendency to offend again, and that’s specially true when it comes to attacks involving children. The man we’re hunting is extremely dangerous. And violent. But what concerns me even more is that he may think he’s in the clear, that no one’s picked up his trail yet. You’ll grasp the implications of that, I’m sure.’

Billy nodded. ‘It means, likely as not, he’s already on the lookout for another victim.’

‘Precisely.’ The chief inspector hefted the file for a moment, then handed it across the desk to Billy. ‘Most of what we know is in there. Take it away and read it. Then come back in an hour and I’ll tell you what I want you to do.’

Henley police station was situated in a double-storey brick building in the middle of the town, a few minutes walk from the riverside. The desk sergeant was expecting Billy – he’d rung to let them know he was coming – and directed him to an office upstairs where he found a sour-faced plain-clothes man called Deacon awaiting his arrival.

‘You’ll want to see this, I suppose.’ Deacon tossed him a file across the desk, the papers spilling out as Billy clutched at it. Grey-haired and in his fifties, he seemed put out to discover that they were the same rank, both detective sergeants. Discontent sat lodged at the corners of his mouth, which was turned down in a sneer. ‘So they’re calling it murder now…’ His shrug was defiant.