River of Darkness (36 page)

Pike left off digging in the compost pit and started back across the lawn towards the house. The road outside was hidden from his gaze by a privet hedge, but he kept his eye on the gate as he walked across the leaf-strewn grass. A short driveway led to the front door and beyond it was another stretch of straggly lawn bordered by a shrubbery and a brick wall. Pike's glance swept the garden. When he passed the conservatory he saw Mrs Aylward's portly, middle-aged figure bent over a tub of hothouse peonies. The double doors to the adjoining studio were shut behind her, but Pike could see the lights switched on inside the house. The evening was drawing in. He needed to keep busy, to have his hands occupied and his mind-fixed on details, no matter how small or trivial. His head felt raw inside. His thoughts gave him pain. Several times in the past two days he had felt himself losing touch with his physical surroundings. On one occasion he had had a sudden vision of the ground opening under his feet and himself, his consciousness, tumbling into blackness, spinning away like a dead leaf. He had bitten his lip hard, drawing blood, forcing himself to feel the pain of here and now. Hourly he expected the police to arrive at the house. He had given himself things to do in the garden so that he could keep watch on the front gate. But if he strayed too far from the stables he might be cut off from his escape route. His mind, as though on a pendulum, swung between rage and fear. If they came for him he would make them pay dearly! But his anger was as nothing to his dread at the thought of capture. He had always promised himself he wouldn't be taken alive. He could never endure the shame of appearing in court, of hearing the charges against him read out in public. An even greater terror, barely acknowledged, lay beneath the surface of his thoughts. What did they know of his past? Would he be called to account for it? His first intimation of the net being spread for him had come the previous day at Folkestone station when he had gone there to collect Mrs Aylward. He saw his own face on a poster affixed to the noticeboard in the ticket hall. Less than half an hour later, when driving his employer home, they had come on a police roadblock on the outskirts of town. A line of motorcycles was drawn up at the side of the road and the drivers were being questioned. Pike, at the wheel of Mrs Aylward's Bentley, was waved through, but already he had felt the iron jaws of the trap closing on him. He knew he had to leave the district. Once Mrs Troy's body was discovered the police would be going from door to door searching for Grail. Even if they didn't connect him with Pike, the face on the poster and in the artist's sketches published in the newspapers would be fresh in their minds. But his motorcycle, hidden for the present in a field behind the stables, was useless to him now. Even the bus seemed fraught with peril. How did he know the police weren't stopping public vehicles as well? He had lain awake most of the night, seeking a solution to his dilemma. It came to him the following morning, but by that time he was half-way to Dover. The answer lay in the car he was driving! Dressed in his chauffeur's uniform he could go where he chose and not be stopped. They were looking for motorcyclists. The idea struck him with such force he almost pulled off the road at once in order to deal with the lesser problem of Mrs Aylward's presence in the back seat. But he checked himself in time. He needed several hours' start before the alarm was raised, and that could only be achieved if he travelled by night. He would leave when the household was asleep and his absence would not be noted until morning. Once he was well away, he could abandon the car, and then . . . and then . . . ? His mind clawed at the question. But this time he could find no answer. The future was blank. Henceforth he must live as an outlaw, his face displayed in police stations and public buildings throughout the land, while the beast within him grew stronger and more demanding. The future was chaos.

Pike went through the stone-pillared gateway into the stableyard. The lights were on in the kitchen, where the maid was preparing Mrs Aylward's dinner. He understood from some remarks he'd overheard that Mrs Rowley, the cook, wouldn't be coming in that evening. She had telephoned to say she was unwell. It made no difference to him. He planned on leaving the house -- and Mrs Aylward's employment -- within the next few hours. The Bentley was parked across the cobbled yard in the old stables. Pike shut the doors behind him and switched on the light. His room on the floor above was swept clean. Nearly everything he wanted to take with him was already packed in the car. His clothes and his military uniform, together with his rifle, were stowed in the boot. Earlier that day, while Mrs Aylward was lunching in Dover, he had purchased a five gallon can and filled it with petrol as a fuel reserve. The can shared the back seat with a tarpaulin-wrapped bundle, which served to wedge it securely in place. He was almost ready to leave. He needed only to retrieve his canvas bag, which was still in the sidecar of his motorcycle. He had had to make two trips from Rudd's Cross on Sunday night to clear the shed and remove all traces of his presence from the cottage. He hoped the police were still puzzling over what had occurred there. (How would they interpret the disappearance of Biggs?) His bag contained the silver ornaments he'd taken from Mrs Troy's cabinet. He wanted to get well away from Knowlton before he disposed of them. There was just a chance - the slimmest of possibilities -- that Carver the chauffeur would not be linked in the minds of the police to either Pike or Grail. That his absconding with Mrs Aylward's Bentley would be marked down as straightforward theft. He meant to leave as few clues to his identity as possible. The longer he could keep them guessing the better. Pike unbolted the rear door of the stables and stepped outside. Darkness was falling. A high brick wall only a few paces from where he stood marked the boundary of the property. Beyond it was a field, which also belonged to Mrs Aylward - it had come with the purchase of the house and had been used by the previous owner as a paddock for his horses. Now it served no purpose and was overgrown. Pike had parked his motorcycle at the bottom of it under the cover of overhanging bushes. There was an iron gate in the wall, giving access to the field, but Pike walked past it to a smaller, wooden gate, which opened on to a path that ran alongside the field in the shadow of an untrimmed hedge. Just as it was natural for him to use the cover of the hedge, so he walked soft-footed, making hardly any sound as he padded through the darkness. He had gone no more than twenty yards when he heard a cough, and stopped dead in his tracks. The sound came from his left, where the field stretched. He crouched down at once, reaching for the bayonet that swung from his belt, motionless in the inky shadows. After a minute he heard a man's voice. He was speaking softly and Pike couldn't hear what he was saying. He fixed his gaze on the direction from which the sound had come. Beyond the edge of the field, at the far limit of the horizon, the sky was the colour of pearl, glowing faintly with the last rays of the sun. Against this pale backdrop -- and visible only for a second, as the man changed position on the ground -- he presently glimpsed a familiar shape: the unmistakable outline of a policeman's helmet. Pike dropped to his stomach and, without pausing, began to crawl back the way he had come. He was practised in the action -- he had done it countless times -- but the peril he faced now seemed far greater than the dangers he had risked among the mud choked shell-holes and barbed wire of no man's land. In little more than a minute he was back at the wooden gate. He slid through it on his belly and only when he had regained the protection of the brick wall did he spring to his feet and run to the stable door. The situation was clear to him. He had understood all in a flash. These were not officers coming to the house on routine inquiries. The presence of the police in the field meant there were others nearby. In all likelihood the house was already surrounded. They knew who he was and had come to arrest him. His mind screamed a silent refusal. They would never take him. His first impulse was to seize his rifle and bayonet and charge the constables crouched in the grass. Shoot them! Bayonet them! Break through their flimsy cordon and run free into the night. Madness bloomed like a red flower in his brain. But sanity still had a foothold there, and he paused, panting, beside the Bentley. Where would they go first? To the house, or the stables? The answer was obvious. They knew where to find him. Mrs Rowley would have seen to that. The cook who was unwell, who wouldn't be in that evening. He went quickly to the main doors and opened them a crack. The stableyard was empty. So was the lighted kitchen. Either the maid was upstairs, busy in Mrs Aylward's bedroom, or the police were already inside, clearing the house of its occupants. He switched off the light in the stable and opened the doors wide. He needed to create a diversion. Luckily the means were at hand. Running back to the car, he took the can of petrol from the back seat and began to spray the liquid about, splashing the walls of the building and the wooden partitions between the old stalls. He emptied half the can in this way and put the remainder back in the car. Pausing only to check that the yard was still empty, he raced to the far end of the stables, struck a match and set fire to the heap of junk and old furniture stored there. Flames sprang up at once. He seized a burning picture frame from the pile and tossed it into the nearest stall, and then ran back to the car. It took only seconds to crank the engine into life. Pike settled behind the wheel. He had no plan, only a compelling need to break free of the trap closing about him, a desperate desire that burned as hotly in his brain as the fire that roared the length of the stables now, leaping from stall to stall. He waited until the flames were almost on him before putting the car into gear. As the heavy vehicle rolled slowly out of the doorway a piece of flaming wood from the rafters fell on the canopy, setting it alight. Pike swung out of the stableyard through the stone pillared gateway. The course of the drive wound around the projecting conservatory to the front door, but as he began to turn the corner he saw the headlights of a car at the front gate, and he wrenched at the steering-wheel, dragging the Bentley off the gravelled driveway on to the lawn. He was intending to make a wide circle on the grass and return to the stableyard from where he could leave by the back gate that gave on to the field. His own headlights had picked out a number of helmeted figures running across the grass towards him. A sudden blast of heat on his neck made him look round and he realized the car was on fire. Flames from the burning canopy licked about his head. The men ahead of him dropped to one knee, as though on command. Next moment the windscreen shattered, and as he swung hard on the wheel again, pulling the car around, he heard the sound of gunshots and felt a stabbing pain in his upper arm. Pike drew back his lips in a snarl. Pain meant nothing to him. He accepted it as his due. But he had to duck his head to avoid the heat of the flames overhead, and as the bonnet of the Bentley came round he saw other blue-clad forms issuing from the stable yard. A bullet sang past his ear and buried itself in the upholstery behind him. Directly ahead of him was the lighted conservatory where Mrs Aylward stood framed in one of the panes like a giant moth, her white face staring out into the garden. They were firing from both sides now. Bullets rang on the car's chassis. A shard of glass from the broken windscreen struck him on the forehead. Blood trickled down into his eyes. Pike held the car to its course. Foot clamped to the accelerator pedal, he saw Mrs Aylward step back from the glass and then stumble to one side, ponderous in her movements, struggling to escape the huge mass of metal that thundered towards her. Roaring his rage, he drove straight at the glasshouse. Come what may, they wouldn't take him alive!

'Cease fire!' The bellowed order was drowned in the crash of breaking glass as the car plunged head-on into the conservatory, bringing down the entire structure in its wake as it ploughed straight on, smashing through the double doors and knocking a hole in the side of the house. Madden sprang to his feet - he'd lain down flat when the shooting started - and ran through the line of marksmen towards the shattered greenhouse. Billy Styles was at his heels. They arrived at the same moment as a pair of uniformed constables coming from the other direction, from the stableyard. A huddled shape lay in one corner under a mantle of broken glass. 'That's Mrs Aylward -- get her out of here,' Madden called to the two policemen. 'Take care, she may be badly cut.' He ran on over crunching glass to where the car was jammed in the wall. Its momentum had taken it most of the way through into the studio beyond. Only the rear protruded. Black smoke streamed through the broken doors above it. The canopy of the Bentley was still blazing. 'It's no good. We can't get through here.' Madden caught hold of Billy's arm and pulled him away. He stepped over the broken shards of a windowpane and ran around to the front of the house. The door was open and they went in and found a police sergeant already there with a constable. They were casting about in the hallway, unsure where to go. The inspector pushed past them and turned to where the studio must be. He opened a door. Smoke poured out of the darkened room into the hall. The flicker of flames was visible inside and Madden caught a glimpse of the black bulk of the Bentley before he was driven back by the pungent fumes. The two policemen were crowding at his back. Behind them was a staircase. Madden called to Billy, who was waiting in the hallway. 'Go upstairs. See if there's anyone there. Get them down.' Pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, he turned back to the studio. But as he started towards the door he caught a whiff of petrol borne on the billowing smoke cloud. 'Look out!' Madden flung himself to one side. With a whoosh a huge tongue of flame erupted suddenly into the hallway. One of the policemen gave a cry and staggered backwards. A tapestry hanging on the wall beside the stairs caught fire. The lintel above the door was already ablaze. 'Out!' Madden shouted. 'Everyone out!' He pushed the two officers towards the front door, but turned himself to the staircase where the banisters had now caught fire. As he started up a figure appeared in the smoke above him. It was Billy. He had a body slung over his shoulder in a fireman's lift. He staggered as he sought to keep his footing on the smouldering stair-carpet. 'It's all right, sir,' he called out. 'I can manage.' Walking backwards, Madden shepherded him down, keeping him close to the wall, away from the blazing banisters. The body was that of a young woman in maid's clothing. Her long hair had come loose and the inspector batted sparks from it as he guided the young constable towards the front door. As Billy stumbled out on to the driveway a cheer went up from the assembled policemen. Coughing, Madden caught sight of the chief inspector walking fast across the lawn towards them. He had Hollingsworth at his side. Booth stood in the driveway yelling at a group of officers who had just come hurrying around the corner of the house. 'What are you doing here? Go back to the yard. Stay at your posts.' The men turned tail and disappeared. 'John?' Sinclair was at his elbow. 'He's trapped in the car, I think, sir.' Madden spat a mouthful of smoky saliva on to the gravel. 'I couldn't get into the room. The whole house is going up.' As he spoke, one of the front windows exploded and flames leaped into the night. The policemen gathered in the drive drew back. 'It'll be hours before we can get in.' Booth had joined them. Madden's eye picked out the figure of Billy Styles kneeling on the grass beside the young woman he'd carried from the house. She was also on her knees, bent over, retching. Billy supported her with his arm about her waist. A uniformed sergeant appeared before them. 'I've sent a man down the road to look for a telephone, sir. He'll call for an ambulance and the fire brigade.' 'Thank you, Sergeant,' Sinclair said. 'What about Mrs Aylward?' 'Her cuts don't look too bad, sir. They're mostly on her back. She must have managed to turn away. But she's in shock. We've got her covered up and lying down over there on the grass.' The chief inspector looked about him. Light from the blazing house illuminated a broad swathe of lawn. Some of the policemen had sat down. Cigarettes were being lit. He shrugged and took out his own pipe. 'Well, there's nothing we can do now except wait.'