‘Especially if a couple of extra chaps come over from Bridgeford,’ he added. ‘So we’d better risk letting him in on things up to a point, and hope we’ll get the use of his telephone.’

  As he locked the car, Toye remarked that if Stobart had been persuaded to play, anybody might.

  The call at the farm began inauspiciously. As they opened the gate a posse of dogs streaked round from the back regions barking and growling furiously. Ruby Bickley appeared in the doorway, and on recognizing the visitors clapped a hand to her mouth. Simultaneously her husband thrust his head out of the kitchen window, and roared at the dogs. A sudden silence descended which he broke with a bellow which would have done credit to a bull.

  ‘You ain’t puttin’ a foot inside my ’ouse without you’ve gotta warrant,’ he informed them. ‘Shut that door, Ruby, and bolt’n.’

  The heavy front door thudded, and a bolt shot home.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Bickley,’ Pollard said equably. ‘We can talk to you from here if you’d rather.’

  Reg Bickley stated forcibly that he had no intention of conversing with him under any conditions, and made to shut the window.

  ‘Just a minute, please,’ Pollard said authoritatively. ‘You may have got hold of the wrong end of the stick. A lot has happened since we were last here. For one thing, we’re no longer interested in you in connection with our case.’

  Bickley digested this remark.

  ‘T’ain’t good enough. Not by a long chalk. Think there ’asn’t been talk? Long as you ’aven’t copped the chap as did it, talk there’ll be. About me. An’ you in an’ out won’t ’elp matters.’

  ‘There’s a chance of copping the chap, as you put it, tomorrow morning, round about dawn. If I can get local co-operation, that is. I need a telephone urgently. Are you prepared to let me come in and use yours?’

  ‘This some ruddy perlice trick?’

  ‘Come on, Sergeant.’ Pollard turned away abruptly. ‘We can’t waste any more time here. We’ll go up to Mr Wainwright.’

  ‘’Ere, I never said I wasn’t lettin’ you in,’ shouted Bickley as they started walking to the gate. ‘Open up, Rube.’

  He withdrew his head as the door groaned on its hinges, and feet pattered hurriedly away over stone flags.

  ‘Wife’s upset, an’ no wonder,’ Bickley remarked, meeting them in the passage. ‘Phone’s in there.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the kitchen. ‘It’s all yours.’ He strode out into the back garden.

  ‘Short, sharp and successful,’ said Pollard, as Toye carefully closed the door behind them, and went to inspect another leading to a further room. ‘Now for Torcastle, to begin with.’

  In the intervals of his conversations, first with Torcastle, then with Bridgeford, and finally with Torcastle once more, Pollard was sharply aware of his surroundings. There was something suggestive of a fortress about the farm kitchen with its immensely thick walls and huge oak beams. Something timeless too, in the deep silence notched implacably by the steady tick of the grandfather clock as the little ship ploughed its way through the waves on its endless voyage… He felt unbelievably remote, isolated from the complex supporting machinery of the Yard, none of which could help him at this juncture. He’d got to go it alone, pitting mind against mind, and perhaps brawn against brawn in the last resort… As usual, he was finding the stage of closing in exhilarating, but shot through with panic. Suppose he was wrong about Twentyman from start to finish? Suppose the arrangements he’d just put in train ended in the utter bathos of nothing happening at all?

  At this moment Superintendent Maggs came on the line again. Plans were checked once more before he rang off. Pollard put down the receiver.

  ‘Got all that down?’ he asked Toye. ‘They’ve rung Highmead on the wrong number tack. Twentyman was there. His car’s still in the garage: they’ve got a chap hidden in the shrubbery. If Twentyman makes a move, he’ll ring us here from a kiosk at the corner of Myrtle Avenue.’

  Reg Bickley was leaning against the back door, smoking a cigarette. As Pollard and Toye emerged from the kitchen he straightened up and came towards them.

  ‘Thanks for the use of the phone,’ said Pollard. ‘There could be a call back anytime. May I sit in a corner somewhere to wait for it? The rest of us can wait in the car.’

  Bickley gaped.

  ‘Rest o’ you? ’Ow many’ll you be?’

  ‘Five, counting Mr Stobart.’

  ‘’Ere, what’s bloody well ’appening? ’Tis my land, when all’s said an’ done.’

  ‘We’re expecting an attempted murder by the same chap. That’s all I can tell you at present.’

  Bickley slowly digested the information.

  ‘What’s wrong with our kitchen for the ’ole lot o’ you?’ he demanded at last, in the tone of a man whose hospitality had been put in question. ‘The wife’ll lay on a bit o’ grub. Better’n outside. There’s a smell o’ rain. Reckon it’ll let down b’dawn.’

  ‘Decent of you,’ said Pollard. ‘Thanks very much.’

  At a later hour Pollard was momentarily amused by the cloak-and-dagger appearance of the kitchen. Reg Bickley, unconsciously enjoying the role of host to the conspirators, sat at the table demonstrating local topography with assorted cutlery. His audience consisted of Toye, Inspector Crake, who had come over from Bridgeford with a constable, and, incredibly, Henry Stobart, whose re-entry into community life seemed to have passed unnoticed. In the background Ruby Bickley was playing the woman who keeps up a steady supply of food and drink. The constable sat at a small table dealing with a heaped plate, looking slightly dazed under the barrage of her conversation.

  Ten miles away an unfortunate was keeping watch under decidedly less comfortable conditions… Pollard was seized with fresh qualms. The chunk of granite could have perfectly well been taken up to the ledge for a giggle by hooligans hoping to frighten people passing on the track below. Or did Twentyman take it up to act out a wish-fulfilment, born of a sudden terror on seeing Henry Stobart again? Or had he really thought of killing him at first, but subsequently changed his mind, trusting that his luck would hold? All these possibilities could lead to one thing only — a ghastly deflating anti-climax.

  In an attempt to exorcize these tormenting doubts Pollard walked across to the party at the table, and put them into words.

  ‘What price our chap’s thought better of it?’ he asked.

  They looked up at him with a surprise which was hardly reassuring.

  ‘He’ll hardly come till it’s starting to get light,’ said Inspector Crake. ‘He’s got to pick his way over the moor: no one would be fool enough to come down the lane past the houses and risk setting off the dogs here.’

  Reg Bickley pointed out that this meant another couple of hours, and suggested they could all do with a bit of shuteye. Ruby vanished upstairs, saying she’d be down before the telephone stopped ringing. The rest of them settled down in chairs. Pollard dragged his close to the telephone, and tried to relax. The electric light had been switched off, and a couple of candles left burning on the table. He tilted his head back and watched the faint animation of the shadows on the ceiling as the candle flames flickered in imperceptible draughts… When he got home he’d take Jane out to dinner. They would go to that little Italian restaurant where you dined by candlelight… He tried to picture the moment when the telephone would ring, keeping at bay the dread that it might keep obstinately silent until the moment when they rang from Torcastle to say there was nothing doing. He did not exactly fall asleep, but hung poised in a timelessness, from which he was jerked by someone giving an explosive snore. The fraction of a second later the telephone bell rang stridently; and he found himself grabbing the receiver…

  ‘It’s on,’ he said half incredulously, to a room suddenly full of bright light and people.

  Outside, once his eyes were acclimatized, it seemed surprisingly easy to find one’s way about. A faint sound indicated the opening of the cottage door, and he followed in the wake of Toye and Henry Stobart.

  ‘Shut the door,’ said the latter. ‘I’ve blacked the place out.’

  They synchronized their watches.

  ‘Remember to slam the door like hell when you come out,’ Pollard said to Toye, ‘and make as much row as you can tramping along the path. Use the staff. And for God’s sake jump for it when I yell.’

  ‘I’ve got it all taped, sir,’ Toye assured him.

  ‘And take over that gun Mr Stobart’s got in his hip pocket, and stop him from behaving like a bloody fool.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  Henry Stobart handed over a service revolver with a reluctant grin. ‘Aren’t our police wonderful?’ he remarked.

  ‘Be seeing you,’ said Pollard, and went out.

  He paused once again to let his eyes adjust themselves, and went quietly down the path, over the little rise and round the black forbidding mass of Buttertwist. Picking his way carefully over the clutter, he reached the foot of the rock staircase, and checked his cover behind a large boulder. Then he climbed up, suddenly feeling excited, and sat on the topmost step, facing away from the track and in the direction of the road as it curved towards Wilkaton.

  A light drizzle was falling, and he shivered a little, but knew it was from tension rather than physical cold. Tiny sounds were magnified in the enveloping silence: the running of the stream, small stealthy movements, the stirring of a sleepy bird, and once a small, pitiful squeak, but his whole being was focused on the road which lay invisible beyond the intervening sea of darkness. Once he glanced eastwards, and fancied he could detect a pallor at the world’s rim. When the first faint light came from the quarter where the road lay, his heart gave a humiliating bound. Then the light intensified and resolved itself unmistakably into the beams of a car’s headlights. It slowed down, stopped, and suddenly disappeared.

  Pollard gave a low whistle which was answered twice, climbed down, and went to ground. It was damp and uncomfortable, and he was glad of the sacks provided by Reg Bickley. Setting himself as best he could, he switched over to his sense of hearing.

  It seemed an eternity before there were sounds of someone approaching. Then they became obvious enough to suggest a state of complete confidence. Feet squelched on a patch of boggy ground, there was a slight stumble and the rattle of a stone dislodged among the clutter. Then an unnerving nearness, when harsh breathing was audible. Faint noises came from the region of the stone slabs. Finally all was silent once more.

  Pollard realized that he was holding his breath painfully, and released it in a long sigh. A glance at the luminous dial of his watch told him that it was ten minutes past four.

  Ten past three by sun time, he thought. In half an hour Toye and Stobart would begin to move. He looked around and saw that form was tentatively emerging from the void of the dark. He watched the process gain momentum, and waited for the first trace of colour to manifest itself, all the while straining to catch the first sound of activity from the cottage.

  It proved to be the screech of a window being thrown up. A good move, he thought. It’ll alert Twentyman, and keep him from coming down and wandering around. Presently a door was noisily unlocked and flung back, so that it hit a wall. The throb of a small engine started up, pumping the water from the well behind the cottage. It struck Pollard in the midst of his preoccupations that Henry Stobart had really dug himself in very comfortably. Another longish interval followed, indicating that breakfast was being prepared and eaten. Finally the motor was switched off, the window slammed down, and a moment later a door was shut with such force that the impact echoed between the two tors.

  Pollard was halfway up the granite slabs in a flash. He discovered that they were unpleasantly slippery from the light rain, and narrowly avoided a fall. Creeping upwards he heard the latch of the cottage gate click, and heavy purposeful footsteps on the track, punctuated by the jab of a walking stick on hard ground.

  Hoisting himself noiselessly to the level of the terrace, he saw a figure lying towards the narrow end, slightly raised on its left elbow, and looking intently downwards and to the left. Its right hand steadied the lump of rock, now precariously poised on the edge.

  As the footsteps drew nearer there came the prearranged burst of coughing from Toye, under cover of which Pollard advanced further. Then, as the figure’s right hand moved, he gave a tremendous shout. A splintering crash below was followed by a yell of ‘OK!’. For the fraction of a second he stood looking down into Bryce Twentyman’s face, so contorted with frustration and rage as to seem hardly human: The next moment he was down beside him, desperately struggling to prevent him from flinging himself over the edge.

  A torrent of obscene abuse flowed from Twentyman as he wrestled and fought like a madman, now intent on dragging Pollard over with him. With the feeling of being caught up in a nightmare, Pollard put out every ounce of his strength as they slipped perilously on the greasy wet rock of the narrow ledge. He shouted for help, wondering as he did so if it could possibly come in time. As he made a supreme effort to drag Twentyman back, pulling him on top of his own body, while trying to keep the clutching hands from his throat, he was at last seized and securely held.

  There was a confusion of voices. He saw that Twentyman had gone limp, and was lying with trickles of saliva coming from the corners of his mouth… The stuffing’s running out of him, he thought, still slightly bemused… As if he wasn’t a real person…

  ‘No, I’m perfectly all right, thanks,’ he said, surfacing. ‘Get him down off this bloody death-trap, and into the car, and I’ll charge him.’

  FIFTEEN

  ‘Your report fascinates me, Pollard,’ said the Assistant Commissioner, opening an eye. ‘The entire investigation based on a half-baked woman’s claim to have seen spectral lights on Lammas Eve… What’s happened to her, by the way? Is she still giving the Press interviews on the case?’

  ‘Not that I know of, sir. She seems to be launching out commercially. There’s an arty-crafty sign outside the bungalow announcing THE HOME OF HEDGEROW HERBALS. And I hear she’s been asked to broadcast on local folklore.’

  ‘Good God! Well, the least you can do is to become a regular customer.’

  ‘I admit it was a bit unorthodox, sir. But as the chap Bickley had beaten up had vanished into thin air, and Derek Wainwright petered out as a suspect, there simply wasn’t another lead to work on. Not that I’m satisfied with my handling of the case.’

  ‘Why, what’s biting you?’

  ‘Chiefly the feeling that I ought to have pulled Twentyman in sooner, it was pure chance that the Wainwright children saw him around that morning. If they hadn’t, Henry Stobart would almost certainly have been killed.’

  ‘He’d only have had himself to thank,’ said the AC unfeelingly. ‘He ought to be charged with deliberate obstruction. No, I don’t think I agree with you about pulling in Twentyman. A clever Counsel might very well have persuaded a jury that the identification business was simply a mistake. After all, on his own showing Twentyman had only seen Finch once. And with that disposed of, the murder charge wouldn’t have stood up. The evidence was almost entirely circumstantial. Even the attempted murder of Stobart is, up to a point, although it pulls your case together. Still, as Twentyman’s certain to be pronounced unfit to plead, it’s all of academic interest now. The thing that matters is that a killer like him won’t be in circulation. In my opinion you’ve done a good job, Pollard.’

  ‘Don’t eat too much of that cake,’ said Jane Pollard. ‘I’ve got something rather special for supper, to celebrate… As I said before, you do land out-of-the-run interesting cases, don’t you?’

  ‘This one’s all right in retrospect,’ her husband said indistinctly. ‘It was hell to work on, though. All the elusive dead ends, and that grinning unidentifiable skeleton as a sort of backcloth all the time.’

  ‘Interesting people on the whole, though. Some of them likeable, too, from what you say.’

  ‘Not the Pendine,’ said Pollard with unusual vehemence. ‘Even now the idea of her intercepting my private thoughts about you gives me the willies. And Twentyman was a spine-chiller.’

  ‘I suppose something must simply have snapped when he realized that you’d caught up?’

  ‘It felt like a pathetically small-scale version of the Faust theme,’ he said. ‘Just as if he’d bartered his soul long ago for status, and then it was suddenly settlement day.’

  ‘The thing that strikes me as so odd was his going to Twiggadon that Saturday. I mean, there wasn’t any business reason for it, was there?’

  ‘None whatever. I asked Ruby Bickley if he’d given any reason for calling at the farm, and she said she’d wondered at the time why he’d troubled to come out on a Saturday morning about some insurance scheme against foot and mouth, which wasn’t in the least urgent.’

  ‘But do murderers really revisit the scene of the crime?’ Jane asked. ‘I thought that idea’d been exploded.’

  ‘Not altogether. You see, I think all murderers are paranoiac to some extent, and certain that they can get away with it. Deliberate murderers, I mean. Then the shock of discovering that the police seem to be uncovering their trail completely unnerves some of them, and they get the feeling that they must go over the ground and check up, however pointless this is. I’d underestimated the amount we’d rattled Twentyman.’

  ‘What’s the latest report on him?’

  ‘Apparently he’s still completely inert. He doesn’t take anything in, or show the slightest initiative. And dribbles. Horrible!’

  ‘Here, have some more tea, and try to get him out of your system. Tell me what’s happening to Henry Stobart.’

  ‘Thanks, I think I will.’ He gave her his cup. ‘Old Henry’s definitely coming up to breathe. Lending Reg Bickley a hand, and so on. So perhaps the whole beastly affair has done some good, over and above removing Twentyman from the scene.’

  ‘It certainly has in the Wainwright circle. You know, I could never have married you if I’d thought you were the sort of man who needed constant psychological nursing. Your robust appearance and unflappability weighed with me a lot. Perhaps I’m subconsciously the clinging type.’

 

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