Out of touch since the previous day, Billy rang the Yard after breakfast to report his whereabouts only to discover that Sinclair was not at his desk and that all calls concerning the Lang case were being referred to Chief Superintendent Holly.
‘Mr Sinclair went down to Sussex yesterday to see the chief constable. They have to decide how long it’s worthwhile going on with this search. He was caught by the fog and decided to spend the night in Chichester. You’d better tell me what your movements will be today, Sergeant. He may want to get in touch with you.’
Billy explained that he was not yet sure.
‘My car broke down yesterday, sir. Mr Madden was kind enough to put me up for the night. I’m having it fixed now.’
Summoned by telephone, the village mechanic, a man called Pritchard, had appeared at the house soon after dawn and departed shortly thereafter at the wheel of Billy’s Morris, lurching down the drive in bottom gear, promising to report back once he knew the extent of the problem.
Word of Fred Bridger’s suicide had already reached London and the chief superintendent spoke feelingly of the tragedy. ‘Poor fellow. I hope to God he didn’t think we’d failed him. At the very least he must have hoped to see justice done.’
He asked Billy for the Maddens’ telephone number. ‘I’ll ring you there if anything crops up. Oh, and give my regards to John, would you? It’s been many years. Thank him for all his help. I dare say he wants to see this devil caught as much as we do.’
Of that there was little doubt. Madden’s preoccupation with the case was self-evident and the previous night he had given the sergeant an insight into the foreboding that gripped him.
‘There’s no point in deceiving ourselves. It’s quite possible this man will never be caught. We tend to assume killers like Lang give themselves away. That they can’t remain at large in society for any length of time. But he’s not like the rest. He would have learned long ago how to cover his tracks. His profession must have taught him that.’
It was Billy’s first intimation that his old chief was aware of their quarry’s true identity.
‘If he disappears now it could be years before the police catch up with him again. He’s had all the time he needs to plan a new future. And now he’s got the world to wander in.’
It was not until late, when the two men were sitting alone by the dying fire in the drawing room, with the house quiet about them, that Madden had unburdened himself. Earlier, he had seemed only too ready to seek relief from his anxiety in the high spirits which Billy’s unexpected arrival had produced in his children, who’d contrived, in the absence of any firm parental word to the contrary, to stay up well past their usual bedtimes.
Just as her father had predicted, it had been Lucy who had taken special delight in the sergeant’s presence. Unswerving in her devotion to her chosen friend, she had kept him at her side throughout the prolonged and noisy supper shared by all at the kitchen table, and when it was over had insisted that he accompany her upstairs for the last solemn rituals of her day.
He had stood by while she washed her face and brushed her teeth and before tucking her into bed he had listened to her prayers and heard his own name included among those for whom a blessing was sought.
Looking down at her small, kneeling figure, golden-haired like her mother, and possessing something of the same intensity he had always sensed in Helen, that capacity for fierce attachment, he had recalled the sight of Madden’s face not long before as he’d regarded his daughter at the supper table, the tenderness of his expression clouded by another emotion which Billy had recognized as grief, and which had puzzled him until he’d realized that it was not the bright countenance lifted towards his that the older man was seeing at that moment, but the now-empty cottage at Brookham and the lives it had once contained, so savagely destroyed.
From his bedroom upstairs Billy could hear the phone ringing and he wondered if it was Pritchard calling about his motor car. The mechanic had rung an hour before with the discouraging news that not only was there a fault with the Morris’s clutch – something the sergeant had guessed for himself – but there was trouble with the gearbox, too.
‘I can’t see her being ready before this afternoon at the earliest, sir. And even then I wouldn’t go too far, not without a proper overhaul.’
Forcibly immobilized, Billy had spent the morning on paperwork, drafting brief accounts of the series of interviews he had conducted among the birdwatching fraternity for the Yard’s records. It was a dispiriting exercise. The hunt for Gaston Lang had yielded no dividends to date, and sitting at the window gazing out over the garden the sergeant had found his mood of pessimism mirrored in the drab scene that met his eye outside where lingering fog hid all trace of the wooded ridge beyond the stream and the sky was hidden by a blanket of low cloud.
Nor had his spirits been raised by another phone call earlier, one to which he’d been summoned by Mary, who had come upstairs to knock on his door. Helen Madden, ringing from London to let the staff know her movements, had discovered his presence in the house, and with Madden absent – he was taking both children to school – it had fallen to Billy to break the news of Bridger’s suicide to her.
‘Oh, how dreadful! That poor family…
Distressed though she was, Helen’s first thought had been for her husband.
‘This will upset John terribly. He’ll feel he should have done more. You must talk to him, Billy. Make him see it’s not his responsibility.’
She had told him she would be back by lunchtime, fog permitting, and hoped he would not have departed by then.
The phone had stopped ringing below and presently Billy heard the sound of hurried footsteps in the passage outside. There was a knock on the door, which opened to reveal the figure of the Maddens’ maid, flushed and out of breath.
‘You want to watch it, Mary.’ The sergeant grinned. They were old friends. ‘You’ll give yourself a heart attack running up those stairs. Is that call for me?’
‘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.’