Chapter One
A Soldier Runs Amok
‘I’ll bet he’s tough,’ said the bus conductor admiringly. ‘You’ve got to hand it to them Commando boys, yes sir, you’ve got to hand it to them.’ He watched the thick-set man in battle-dress move across the pavement after jumping from the bus then rang the bell for the driver to start off. Peering through the gloom of the winter evening he lost sight of the Commando, shrugged and added: ‘I’ll bet he’s tough,’ to a disinterested audience of passengers whose chief preoccupation was getting home before it grew really dark.
‘I’ll bet he is,’ he repeated and clucked his tongue at the lack of response.
The soldier who had inspired the conductor’s enthusiasm walked rapidly along the Chiswick High Road, intent on his progress, shouldering aside two or three people who were in his way: from them he earned approbrium, not blessings, but it was doubtful whether he heard them. Even at close quarters it was too dark for casual passers-by to see his face although they could discern the outlines of his revolver holster and the three stripes on his arms.
A clock in a nearby shop, where the shutters were being put up, struck six.
The sergeant hurried on and, had the light been better, many would have seen a strained expression on his face as if he were afraid of being late for an appointment of great importance.
He reached a side-street near Turnham Green and swung into it. From the several shops on the left-hand side of the road people were emerging, more shutters were being put into position and from one a chink of light showed; vivid in the blackout.
A car pulled into the kerb.
The sergeant was walking on the edge of the pavement and jumped to one side as a wing brushed against him. He turned round and rasped: ‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
‘I say, old boy, I am sorry,’ said a plump little man at the driving-wheel. ‘No damage, eh? That’s good, that’s good—’
He broke off, his voice ending on a gurgling note. His eyes were goggling towards the sergeant’s right hand as the Commando snatched his revolver from its holster. The driver did not raise another shout, just flung himself to one side.
The roar of a revolver shot broke the quiet, hitherto disturbed only by hurrying footsteps and closing doors. A single flash of flame showed the car, the Commando and the driver who was slumping sideways. Someone screamed; three or four people stopped indeterminately. One man, bolder than the rest, ran forward. The Commando swung round on him and fired again. The bold pedestrian gasped, staggered back and then began to shout: ‘Police! Police!’
Half a dozen others took up the cry. The Commando peered about then jumped towards the car and pulled the driver towards him; the conductor had been right, the man was tough. He hauled the driver on to the pavement, sending him sprawling to the ground, then jumped into the driver’s seat.
Not far off a police whistle shrilled out. Nearer at hand, four or five men came together from a small shop and the Commando fired towards them without apparent reason. The roar of the shots and the flashes of flame merged with the startled gasps of the men, three of whom fell.
A fourth darted back into the shop, a fifth took to his heels and ran.
The Commando started shouting at the top of his voice, uttering vicious and obscene oaths which made a grotesque anticlimax to the violence of his shooting. The engine of the car turned but three or four men gained enough courage to rush at him and two reached the running-board, one an officer in RAF uniform. He flung his revolver at them, striking one in the face, then lunged out and pushed the second man into the road.
The Commando eased off the brakes while the RAF officer picked himself up, dusted his clothes, hesitated then turned and hurried away.
The car raced off, swerving past one cyclist but failing to avoid a second; there was a rending sound as a wing struck the back of a cycle, a scream as the cyclist went flying. The car passed the machine and rider, swung round a turning and then gathered speed. It had no lights and sent the traffic coming towards it into confusion. A policeman, knowing nothing of what had happened, bellowed and pointed towards the headlamps but the Commando ignored him. It was just light enough to see vague shapes and figures on the sidewalk while the lights from other cars and cyclists added to the glow. He wove in and out of the traffic, keeping his hand on the horn, sometimes emitting a high-pitched shout which made people stop and stare.
The headlamps of a car shone on him as it climbed a slight incline; in the eerie glow the sergeant’s head was thrown well back, his mouth was wide open and he laughed with wild abandon.
Apparently he knew the road well. He swung across to take a right-hand turn, forcing another driver to jam on his brakes, a third car to bump into the one which had been forced to stop. The sergeant uttered a peal of fantastic laughter then sent the stolen car along the street into which he had turned.
Two cars commandeered by the police flashed past the entrance to the turning; the policemen saw the cars which had bumped, suspected what had happened and stopped and turned, making inquiries and having their suspicions confirmed. But they were too late to get results for the Commando sergeant had disappeared.
There was no trace, that night, of the stolen car.
At the scene of the shooting were two ambulances, a doctor and a crowd which gathered in spite of the attempts of the police to clear it way. Rumours spread swiftly, the most fantastic that twenty people had been killed, the most conservative that a dozen had been shot. The truth was better even than that; seven people had been wounded, two of them fatally and a third so badly that whether he lived or died rested with the surgeons.
The only clue to the identity of the killer was the revolver and promptly the police made contact with the War Office. The effort to trace the gun to its user began.
Superintendent Grice of Scotland Yard said, with some scepticism, that they would be lucky if there were any news within a week. Grice could be forgiven both scepticism and pessimism for he conducted the inquiries that evening and interrogated the slightly wounded as well as the spectators. All the stories were reasonably corroborative: the soldier had pushed his way through a crowd in the street, stepped to the edge of the pavement and been touched by the car. That slight mishap appeared to have turned his head for he had started the shooting then, haphazard and wild. Stories of his progress, after the shooting, of his high-pitched laughter – described by three people as demoniac – of his reckless driving, were carefully and painstakingly compiled.
By nine o’clock Grice had learned all he expected to and at long last consented to see the Press whose representatives were waiting with an eye on the clock. He gave them a story in a cold, precise fashion, leaving nothing out, and they went off fully satisfied. Already the national daily papers had sent reporters to seek first-hand personal stories of the Commando Who Ran Amok and, except for treatment and style, the stories which appeared in the various papers varied little. What was more surprising, the theories about the shooting were almost identical: a soldier had gone mad and fired at random at all whom he had passed. The parallel between the sensation and another, near the same place but some twelve months before, was drawn by each writer and the front pages of every newspaper devoted a headline and a few paragraphs to a subject only indirectly connected with the war. Another coincidence was widely reported. In the office above the shop a man named Ryson had been murdered two years before but the murderer had never been caught.
Amongst the millions of people in London who read the story was the Hon Richard Rollison. He read it more closely than most while drinking morning tea and sitting up in bed at his Gresham Terrace flat. He scanned two other versions, then heard the water running for his bath. He climbed thoughtfully out of bed and took his bath without making a comment to Jolly, his man, who was preparing breakfast. It was very cold and he saw frost on the roofs of houses nearby.
It was a source of considerable irritation to Rollison that he had been given a staff appointment at Whitehall. That the appointment carried with it the acting rank of Colonel did not appease him for he was a man who preferred an active life and a desk at Whitehall was no place for physical action. On the other hand his domicile in London, after two years either abroad or with his regiment in England, was a positive joy to Jolly.
That morning Rollison was not contemplating the office with the gloom which nearly always pervaded the beginning of his day.
Generally speaking, that gloom only existed before he reached and after he left the office for he was kept busy and he did not look kindly upon those who condemned all red tape and Brass Hats and those who did not take an active part in the fighting. He had no set notions about work being done behind the scenes; his prejudice was against his own part in it.
With the case of the Commando Who Ran Amok fresh in his mind, he approached the small breakfast-room – in reality an alcove off the sitting-room-cum-study – with something approaching relish. Jolly, thin, of medium height and with a perpetually gloomy expression heightened by the deep lines engraven on his face, was waiting by the hotplate. Rollison joined him, standing half a head taller, still showing something of the tan of Libyan sun – he had left North Africa long before the battle of Egypt had begun – a dark-haired, good-looking man with a thin dark moustache and a square, clear-cut chin. His tan made his teeth seem even whiter than they were. He did not comment upon the morsel of fish to be followed by an even smaller morsel of bacon and a generous helping of mushrooms but said: ‘You could go on and on doing this, Jolly, couldn’t you? Getting my tea, running my bath, cooking my breakfast—my oath, I wonder you don’t pick it up and throw it at me one day.’
‘I should certainly not jeopardise a good situation, sir,’ said Jolly, in whose melancholy eyes was a glimmer of a smile. ‘Will you have coffee or tea this morning?’
‘There you go,’ deplored Rollison. ‘Not a single variation from the exasperating norm. Tea. Have you read the papers?’
‘I glanced at them, sir.’ Jolly deposited a plate on the table-mat and Rollison sat down. ‘I’ll go and make the tea, sir.’ He went into the kitchen and Rollison propped the Echo in front of him and read of the mad Commando again, thoughtfully, and with one eyebrow raised above the other.
Jolly returned with tea, and said: ‘A very nasty business at Chiswick last night, sir.’
‘Ye-es,’ admitted Rollison.
‘I suppose they’ll catch the poor fellow soon,’ said Jolly.
Rollison stared up at him, surprised.
‘Poor fellow? The killer?’
‘Madness is surely a thing to pity, sir.’
‘H’m, yes,’ said Rollison. ‘So are the other poor beggars. Are you going to be busy this morning?’
‘No more than usual, sir.’
‘Good. Don’t worry about lunch, I’ll have it at the Club. Pop along to Green Road, Chiswick, and have a look at the scene of the doings, will you? There should be plenty of people about who can tell you just where it happened.’
‘You don’t think—’ began Jolly.
‘I don’t think anything about it,’ declared Rollison firmly. ‘I’m curious, and have a nostalgic yearning. Just that and no more. If there were no war I’d be there myself.’
‘If there were no war there would be no Commandos,’ said Jolly logically.
‘There would be men and guns,’ Rollison reminded him darkly, ‘you won’t be looking for anything in particular but just getting an impression of what happened there last night. You might even try to contact one or two of the eye-witnesses. The driver of the car, for instance, wasn’t badly hurt. A bullet grazed the top of his head, according to the Echo, and just shaved his hair, according to the Post. His name’s Ibbetson, a good North Country name suggesting a blunt man. Have a chat with him if you can and,’ added Rollison grandly, ‘pretend that there’s no war, that I’ll be along soon, that the Commando didn’t go mad but did it on purpose. Start off on that premise and see where it takes you.’
‘Is that wise, sir?’ asked Jolly, eyeing his employer squarely.
‘Why shouldn’t it be?’ demanded Rollison.
‘You’ll remember advising me always to beware of the false premise,’ said Jolly. ‘And in any case, sir, supposing by some remote chance there is more in it than meets the eye, you aren’t likely to have an opportunity to do anything constructive.’
‘There is never any opportunity at all unless you make it yourself,’ declared Rollison. ‘Don’t moralise, mobilise!’ He smiled, lighting a cigarette after finishing the mushrooms and while contemplating his second cup of tea. ‘You may be right. You usually are and, when I get home tonight, I’ll probably have forgotten it. But have a full report, will you, particularly from Mr. Ibbetson.’
As it transpired he did not forget the affair when he reached the office; and it happened that a batch of correspondence he expected to find waiting for him had been delayed and would not arrive until the afternoon. As that meant that he and the two members of his clerical staff would have to work well into the evening, he declared it fitting that they should take the morning off. He stayed in the office until half-past eleven then strolled along Whitehall thoughtfully, reaching Parliament Street and nodding towards a constable beating his arms about his chest while standing outside the iron gates of Scotland Yard. The constable smiled in turn and saluted and Rollison turned his steps towards the Yard. Determining that there was no sense at all in asking whether Superintendent Grice was in and, in any case, convinced that Grice would not have anything to tell him beyond what he read in the newspapers, so that a visit would be a waste of time, he reached the constable who wished him a bright good morning and said that it was cold.
‘Hallo,’ said Rollison amiably. ‘Is Mr. Grice in?’
‘He came in about half an hour ago, sir.’
Rollison decided that the Fates were conspiring in his favour. ‘I’ll go and have a chat with him, I think.’ He nodded and passed by, not hearing the question of a youthful-looking constable who approached the man to whom Rollison had talked and asked: ‘Who’s that fellow, Joe?’
‘Who, him?’ asked Joe. ‘That’s Mr. Rollison.’
‘Never ’eard of him,’ declared the other.
‘Never ’eard—heard—of Mr. Rollison?’ Joe, florid and grey in the Yard’s service, stared at the man aghast. ‘Now listen, young feller-me-lad, don’t try jokes on me. And remember yer aitches. If yer want to get on in the Force you’ve got to speak well, see? Don’t take any notice of some of the old-timers who’ve got on even though they drop their aitches; things are different now.’
‘Okay, okay,’ said the younger man impatiently. ‘I can’t help forgetting now and again. But who is he?’ As he saw Joe’s expression of gathering wrath, he added hastily. ‘Go on, I mean it, I’ve never ’eard of ’im.’
‘You’ve never ’eard of the Toff?’ demanded Joe, practice of his preaching going to the winds in sheer surprise. Then witheringly: ‘And you call herself a policeman!’
The younger man’s eyes widened, his eyes kindled, there was a note of satisfaction in his voice.
‘The Toff, is he? Strewth, he’s the bloke who helped old Gricey bottle up the black market.’ He peered towards the doorway which had swallowed Rollison while for some moments Joe was silent. Then, with heavy emphasis, the older man said: ‘That’s who he is. But not so much of the ‘Old Gricey’ when you’re on duty, you never know who’s passing here. Morning, sir,’ he added, as a dapper man passed with a brief nod. Then, sotto voce: ‘Yer see? That’s the Super from X Division, Chiswick; he might have heard and I’ll bet he’s going to see Superintendent Grice now. I wonder what’s up?’ added Joe reminiscently. ‘When the Toff blows in, something nearly always happens. I wouldn’t half like to be at that “chat” he’s having with Gricey.’
‘Now, Joe,’ said the younger man reprovingly. ‘You’ll get overheard one of these days, talking disrespectful of the Super. You never know who’s passing by.’
Joe glowered at him and stepped to the other side of the gate, thinking less of his spell of duty on guard than of the Toff and the stories which had built themselves up about that almost legendary figure.
Chapter Two
Little Patches Of Ice
Superintendent Grice, tall, academic of appearance with a high forehead and large brown eyes, looked up when the door of his room opened and then started to his feet. He was dressed immaculately in brown and his smile of welcome emphasised the peculiar way in which his skin stretched across his nose and his cheeks, giving them an almost transparent look although he was not over-thin.
‘Hallo, Rollison,’ he said with warmth and offered a hand. ‘What’s brought you?’
‘Idleness, sloth and a delayed mail,’ Rollison answered. ‘I mean I had half an hour to spare. You’re looking well.’
‘I’ve never seen you looking better,’ returned Grice and pulled up a chair. ‘Now that the pleasantries are over, what has brought you?’ He regarded the Toff expectantly: his manner said as clearly as Joe’s words that he did not believe that the Toff had come simply for the sake of a visit.
Rollison chuckled.
‘I’ve said my piece.’
‘You’re an evasive beggar,’ declared Grice; ‘but I suppose I mustn’t try to alter you.’ He stretched back in his chair and locked his fingers behind his neck. ‘So without any ulterior motive you came in, just for the sake of a talk about old times. You wouldn’t waste my time. You’ve a fair idea of how busy I am.’
‘Picture of a policeman hard at work,’ murmured the Toff, regarding the half-recumbent figure with some amusement. ‘Seriously, I—’ he paused and then shrugged. ‘I suppose if the truth were known, I’m intrigued by the Chiswick business.’
Although the Superintendent did not alter his position or make any comment there was a noticeable alteration in his expression. His eyes narrowed a little and his lips tightened. He was balancing precariously on the back legs of his chair, swaying gently to and fro.
Then: ‘Intrigued?’ he said heavily.
‘Just that.’
‘You aren’t natural,’ declared Grice and brought the front legs of his chair down so that in a moment he was sitting upright at the desk. ‘Why on earth should it intrigue you? A man who’s been trained to the limit, living under a considerable strain—you’d assume that, as he’s a Commando—cracks up and goes haywire. It’s happened often enough before. Now and again there’s an unsuspected neurotic amongst the special troops and it comes out when least expected. Why shouldn’t it be just that?’
‘Isn’t it?’ murmured the Toff.
Grice raised one eyebrow above the other. ‘It wouldn’t surprise me to hear that you know damned well that it isn’t,’ he said. ‘Or it mightn’t be,’ Grice corrected slowly. ‘It was a peculiar business and I haven’t sorted it out yet. On the surface everything is the same as it’s been before. The last straw breaking the camel’s back, a wild shooting affray and a mad rush by car. The main difference is that the man got away this time, evading all his followers. We’ve traced most of the eye-witnesses—in fact the only one who was there but hasn’t been found was a young RAF man. He’ll probably keep in the background.’
‘So I read,’ said Rollison.
‘What did you read into it?’ asked Grice, obviously genuinely interested in the other’s opinions.
‘Just a single question,’ Rollison admitted. ‘Here’s a man who goes haywire after a slight jolt from a car, sprays bullets about him and then tears off in the said car. But he doesn’t dash along the main road until he has a crash; he doesn’t do the things that a man suffering from a brainstorm is likely to. He goes down a narrow turning leading to a maze of streets—I’m quoting the Echo—and disappears completely. He could have turned off at several other points but without a maze of streets conveniently handy for losing himself in.’
He broke off and regarded the Superintendent with some eagerness while Grice nodded.
‘I’ve got that far,’ he admitted. ‘Just.’
‘Have you found the car yet?’ asked Rollison.
‘Yes. Stranded near the Grand Junction Canal, at Wembley,’ Grice told him. ‘We’re having the canal dragged. It’s just possible that he came to, realised what he’d done and drowned himself. But there’s an odd thing,’ added the Superintendent. ‘The canal is patrolled regularly by the Home Guard and a man who passed the spot at six o’clock this morning swears that it wasn’t there then. Another, who passed at eight—on the last round, they only patrol it during darkness-discovered it. The petrol tank,’ he added heavily, ‘was half-full.’
Rollison’s eyes narrowed.
‘The man Ibbetson said it was only a quarter-full when it was stolen. Quoting the Post!’
‘You don’t miss much,’ admitted Grice. ‘I haven’t made up my mind whether Ibbetson knew there was more petrol in the tank than there should have been and is covering himself or whether the car was taken somewhere else and refilled. It might have travelled a hundred miles during the night: Ibbetson says he doesn’t remember the mileage showing when it was stolen.’
He paused and then the telephone rang on his desk. He lifted it and after a moment said: ‘Ask him to come along, will you?’ He replaced the receiver and added: ‘The police-surgeon who treated the victims is coming in with the Chiswick man who’s upstairs with Freeman. Stay, if you’d care to.’
‘I don’t think I’ll worry,’ said Rollison, pushing his chair back. ‘There is one other little thing—’
‘Let it come,’ invited Grice.
‘Who died?’ asked Rollison. ‘Did they matter? Could they have been picked out?’
Grice rubbed his long chin.
‘One was a customer, the other a member of the staff of a shop in Green Road—a furniture shop. The other members of the staff, three in all, were leaving at the same time, just after six o’clock. They were in a group in the doorway and the staff usually leaves at six o’clock promptly, so that it would have been prearranged. On the other hand, Ibbetson wasn’t concerned with the shop or any of the people there. Nor were others who were wounded. If the shots were intended for the group coming from the shop, several were wasted beforehand. It was too dark for our man to distinguish one from the other. Everything considered, I’d say that the shooting was haphazard but that isn’t conclusive.’
‘As far as I can see we’ve reached the same stage,’ said Rollison. ‘It could be a genuine case of dementia or there might be deep things beyond it. I suppose we’ll see,’ he added and smiled lazily as he rose to his feet. ‘On what part of the Grand Junction Canal was the car parked?’
‘The stretch of bank between Wembley and Willesden,’ Grice told him. ‘Are you going out there?’
‘Do you know,’ said Rollison earnestly, ‘I feel that a breath of fresh air would do me good. But I’ve only a couple of hours to spare and it’s an exercise in curiosity more than anything else. If I should see anything that looks interesting I’ll give you a ring when I’m back.’
‘Thanks,’ said Grice; and meaningly: ‘Don’t forget.’
The door opened as Rollison reached it, to admit the dapper man whom Joe had commented upon and another. They exchanged nods and Rollison went out, walking along the high-ceilinged passages of the Yard to the courtyard and thence to Westminster Underground Station. It was obvious that Grice had ideas similar to his own about the shooting affray. Grice was a level-headed and logical man and between the two of them there was both understanding and respect.
On the way to Wembley, Rollison alternated between moods of pleasure and satisfaction at being involved, even tentatively, in a case that was at least intriguing and depressed at the realisation that the pressure of work at the office was too great for him to devote much time to it. By the time he reached the canal, finding a taxi near Wembley Station which deposited him outside a narrow alleyway leading to the waterway, he decided that this one mission of inquiry should be his last but he also wondered what would be said if he put in an application for a few days’ leave. He had received none for six months, not even a long weekend. Arguing that he had every justification for such a request, he saw the small Ford standing against wooden fencing which divided the canal bank from some allotments. Three policemen were near the car – a grey one – while two small boats were moving along the canal, the end of a long drag-net fastened to each. Three men were in each boat and all seemed intent on their task, although obviously perished by the cold.
The January sun was bright and clear; white frost still covered the ground where there was shadow and the grass of the paths on the allotments looked wet and fresh. The air was crisp, invigorating as wine. He strolled along thoughtfully while the police on the bank eyed him curiously. One of them recognised him and Rollison heard his name passed on to the others. That saved him the need of explanations and he exchanged greetings with the sergeant in charge then strolled along, watching the boats on their grim task and seeing the wide, earth-surfaced towpath going along in a straight line for half a mile or more. Round a corner in the canal he saw the chimneys of a house, divorced from the roof and showing above a large bill-posting board; wisps of smoke rose from them and were carried straight up, for there was no wind.
Half-way between the Ford and the chimneys he slipped.
He had been walking carelessly and had not noticed a small puddle, ice-covered, near the canal. His heel skidded on it and he clawed the air to keep his balance and save himself from falling. Instead he hastened his fall and lurched sideways towards the unruffled surface of the canal. Someone shouted: ‘Look out!’ Rollison’s heart turned over and he leaned his weight towards the towpath but, for a moment, thought a ducking unavoidable. He even prepared to make a deliberate plunge rather than go in accidentally and risk twisting himself but, with a last-minute effort, brought himself to a standstill on the edge of the water. His hat fell from his head as he did so and dropped straight into the canal, splashing water up into his face.
As he backed from the icy patch one of the policemen hurried up, carrying a small pole. He retrieved the hat and Rollison, profuse with thanks, left it on the bank to dry, congratulating himself on evading a wetting. Then he peered thoughtfully at the puddle and another a yard farther away while the policeman reassured himself that Rollison was all right and went back to the car.
Rollison looked at the row of puddles, frowned and glanced along the bank. There was an edging of concrete all along it and, at regular intervals, small rings where boats could be tied. Some three yards from the first ice-covered puddle was a coating of ice upon the concrete; it spread for several feet in either direction, narrowing as it encroached farther on the path itself.
‘Odd,’ murmured Rollison audibly.
He walked back a few yards and then turned. The sun shone on the coating of ice and the puddles which stretched for several yards at evenly spaced intervals, growing smaller until they seemed to disappear altogether. He walked along again, stepping more carefully. Watching his feet, he saw that from the first puddle to the second there was the distance of a normal stride – as long as his own, suggesting a tall man – and that the puddles were spaced at similar intervals.
He looked round to find the sergeant close on his heels again. A thick-set man with a ruddy complexion and a sober expression, the man eyed Rollison without a smile and asked: ‘Have you noticed anything, sir?’
‘I’m not sure,’ replied Rollison evasively. ‘Have you?’
‘I can’t say that I have,’ admitted the sergeant.
‘Wait here for a few minutes, will you?’ asked Rollison. ‘I’ll be back.’ He walked on with a faster but still cautious stride, watching the ground. At regular intervals there were the faint traces of ice on the ground. The farther he went the fainter the traces became until they looked little more than patches of white frost.
Standing by the last, he looked up and saw the small house perhaps twenty yards away. It was a cottage, creeper-clad with an evergreen, looking charming and picturesque, out of place against a background of factory chimneys and large buildings and, farther distant, the red tops of a vast mass of little houses. There was a well-tended garden, a shed, a small coal-house. It was the home of a man who took pride in it and who also took great pains with the outside for there was fresh paint at the windows and the door. The curtains looked clean, suggesting a housewife as proud as her spouse.
On either side of the narrow gate leading to it were high privet hedges, sheared into round balls and casting shadows over the gate itself. Rollison reached the gate and looked at the top rail; on it was a smear of ice. He put his hand on the smear, finding that his span covered it. Stepping back, he saw an icicle dripping from the bar immediately below the patch; but for those things the gate was quite clear of ice.
‘It’s just possible,’ murmured the Toff sotto voce. ‘A man fell, jumped or was pushed into the river, clambered out—accounting for the first ice patch—walked along steadily after standing still for a moment and accounting for the pool and the second ice patch. As he walked the water dripped from his trousers at first and made the other pools but when it stopped dripping there was no water and therefore no ice. But he came here and gripped the gate with his hand; his hand was wet from his clothes. More water, which dripped and froze and became an icicle. The perfect reconstruction!’ He smiled sardonically and rubbed his chin, glancing again towards the house.
A movement at a window in the roof, a little attic window, attracted him. For a moment he glimpsed the face of a man, no more than a youth: he had a vivid impression of staring eyes and drawn lips; then the face disappeared but the white curtains continued to move.
Rollison half-turned and called to the sergeant: ‘There’s nothing here, I’m afraid,’ saying so deliberately because he did not want the man to approach.
trouble,’
‘Would you mind?’ asked Rollison. ‘It would be a kindly act if she did make one.’ He opened the gate and saw the old man lick his lips. A step behind the other he walked up the garden path with a trim privet hedge on either side of him. Glancing up to the attic window he saw the curtains move again.
A sharp gasp greeted his entry into the parlour of the cottage; the front door led straight into the room where he saw a kitchen dresser. A swift movement followed and then a clatter of pots and pans; something broke. Rollison made a banal comment while the old man hurried into the kitchen. Another gasp and a tearful voice was raised on a high note to be cut short by a gruff command from the man. A whisper which followed came clearly: ‘You must pull yourself together, Jane! He’s a decent chap, he wants …’
The words faded while Rollison drew on his cigarette and then glanced out of the door by which he had entered. It led, on the far side, to another room and a flight of stairs. He stepped towards the stairs and ascended them, making little sound. A small landing at the top revealed three doors and a loft-ladder; there was an opening in the ceiling – the entrance, he assumed, to the attic. He reached the ladder and began to mount it, still making hardly a sound, intent on his errand but prepared at any moment to hear an exclamation from below-stairs, evidence that he was missed.
No interruption came from the parlour but he heard a gasp above his head and then a bundle, which looked like clothes, hurtled down. He swayed to one side on the ladder; the bundle struck it, then dropped heavily to the floor. A moment later a pair of legs showed, feet rested on the top rung of the ladder and the man from the attic began to hurry down. He swung from the ladder ahead of Rollison, landed heavily, made a wild blow at Rollison and then darted for the stairs.
