Adders on the Heath (2 page)

The light broadened fast, as, pulling a towel from his pack, he went off to his water-hole for a dip. The stream was agonisingly cold and, when he was dry and had dressed, he went for a run. Breakfast at the hotel was not served before eight, so he trotted towards the gravelled road which led one way to the house he had seen and the other way to the wide wooden bridge. Twenty yards or so beyond the bridge, he still followed the road, where it bent to the left, and trotted on.

The surface was loose and very rough, but soon he realised that by leaving its verge and making passage through a gap in the wayside gorse, he could run parallel to the road on the adjacent common. He crossed over and soon his shoes were sodden with dew.

The road itself led into magnificent woods. He left the common and followed the stony track over a rough plank bridge, and then across another, beneath which the main stream ran. He paused on this second bridge and leaned on the parapet. The water below the left-hand side of the bridge ran deep and widened out into a sizeable pool. Richardson marked the pool as a possible swimming place, and then walked on. The woodland was open, and displayed, in all their grey-boled grandeur, magnificent beeches and several giant oaks. There also were holly trees whose girth gave a clue to their antiquity, and there were some ancient thorn trees on which the berries were bright in their autumn scarlet. Blackberries were ripe, or ripening, and every wild rose bush had its smooth, red, ovular fruits.

Richardson followed the path along ruts made by foresters' carts and the indentations of the caterpillar wheels of tractors. He skirted muddy pools which rarely dried up all the year, and, pursuing his way, disturbed the sudden birds and the darting grey squirrels. At last he came to the fringe of the wood and to such a watery quagmire that his progress that way was halted. Beyond him, and on either side of the path, was a heather-covered, bracken-fronded common with never a path or road. He looked at his watch. It was more than time to turn back if he wanted breakfast.

He retraced his steps-no hardship in this undiscovered country. The wood, except for landmarks in the form of one or two fine beeches which he had noted on his outward journey, looked completely different when traversed in the opposite direction. He regained the bridges and the road, and then took a narrow, built-up path (which a formidable notice prohibited equestrians from using) and, by brisk walking, came, as he had anticipated, on to the so-called lawn-really a part of the common-opposite the hotel. He crossed a couple of plank bridges over small and sluggish streams, and struck out across the grass. He arrived rather muddy, but in great spirits and extremely hungry for his breakfast, at just after nine o'clock.

The defection of Denis, who was now not due to arrive until Monday morning, had made him consider how best he might employ the Saturday and the Sunday. He thought that, on these days, the quiet walks and excursions which he had so much enjoyed on the Thursday and Friday might be made less solitary by the invasion of week-end parties or by the local people who had Saturday and Sunday free. By the time breakfast was over he had made up his mind what to do. He would take a train to the second station down the line and from there follow his nose. There was a manor house marked on the map. He thought he might take a look at it.

He looked up a train in the A.B.C. lent to him at the hotel, and set off, inconspicuously dressed in grey worsted trousers and a green-mixture tweed jacket, for the station. The train came in to time, but nobody, later on, came forward to declare that he had boarded it, and at the station where he alighted there was not a ticket-collector or a porter to be seen. Not knowing what to do with his ticket, and unwilling to hang about, he left it on the ledge of the ticket office and walked out into the sunshine.

He had sheets 179 and 180 of the one-inch Ordnance Survey, but the roads proved to be adequately signposted and a walk of about three miles brought him to cross-roads in the middle of a large, flourishing, remarkably uninteresting village. At this point the map helped him, and he tramped along a country road, past fields, until he came to the manor house. Regrettably, but in accordance, he supposed, with modern usage, the mansion had been turned into flats. Cars stood about in what had been the entrance to the stables, and in the forecourt of the once pleasant old country house were a couple of large caravans.

There was nothing for it but to tramp onwards towards lunch and the coast. He crossed the main Lymington road, dropped southwards and then, still following the signposts and helped again by the map, he took a secondary road south-east until he came to cliffs and the sea. There was a solitary hotel on the cliff-top. He went in, drank beer and had lunch.

After lunch he strolled for an hour along the cliff-top; later he descended a primitive wooden stairway to the beach. He changed, behind a chunk of fallen cliff, into the swimming trunks he had brought, stayed in the smooth sea for twenty minutes or so, dried himself and dressed and, foreswearing tea for once, caught the bus into Lymington. Here he purchased two pairs of woollen socks and, at another shop (where, afterwards, they remembered him), he bought a pair of gumboots.

After that he waited for and boarded another bus which took him back to the station from which he had set out. Half an hour later he was at dinner in the hotel. He felt relaxed but not tired, treated himself to a half-bottle of claret and was in no hurry to get back to camp. He had coffee and a liqueur, smoked a couple of cigarettes and finally left at a quarter to nine.

The night was clear and fine and the moon was up, but the temperature had dropped considerably with the coming on of the dark, so Richardson stepped out briskly, and, in spite of having to carry the heavy gumboots as well as his bathing trunks and towel, took ten minutes' less time than usual. His tent glimmered faintly ahead. The time was approximately twenty-five minutes to ten.

He switched on his torch, tossed the gumboots on the ground beside the waterproof pack which contained most of his belongings, unstrapped the knapsack from his shoulders and pulled out the damp trunks and towel. Then he turned the torchlight on to the flap of the tent to light up the narrow entrance.

'Hello!' he thought. 'I've had a visitor. Wonder whether anything's missing? Have to wait until morning. Can't check everything now. Lucky I didn't leave any spare cash about. Messy blighter, whoever he was!'

The marks of muddy fingers were visible on the tent-flap. Richardson had studied them for a minute or so before another thought came to him. The visitor, finding the tent unoccupied, might have decided that it would shelter him for the night. In this case, he most probably would be a tramp.

Richardson had encountered tramps before. As a class he did not care for them. He switched off his torch, lay with his ear against the tent flap and listened. The first thing that struck him was that there was no sound of breathing, or of anything else, coming from the interior of the tent. The second point to impinge upon his conscious mind was that the dew on the heath was heavy and that his feet were extremely wet.

With these considerations in mind, he switched on the torch again, drew aside the tent-flap and crawled in. His bed was occupied. On top of groundsheet, rubber mattress and sleeping-bag lay a man. There had been no sound of breathing because the man was dead.

It did not take Richardson long to ascertain this. At first, on hands and knees, he played his torch over the features and clothing of the corpse. Then he backed out again while he considered how best to tackle the problem which confronted him.

It was not an easy thing to do, but he forced himself to enter the tent again. He felt the man's hands and stared, in the torchlight, at the rigid, slug-white face. He groped inside the man's shirt for his heartbeats, but there were none. Then, with a sense of repugnance, but also from a sense of duty, he put his mouth against the mouth of the corpse and breathed deeply, in and out, against the clenched teeth and parted lips.

All was in vain. At last, in an effort of resuscitation which was not far removed from an inexperienced person's panic in the face of unexpected, unexplained death, he thumped the corpse over the heart with a pounding fist and shouted,

'Why the devil, Colnbrook, did you have to die on
me
?'

CHAPTER TWO

HOUNDS OF THE LAW

'...and some of the young hounds paid him rather more attention than he appreciated; so he tried to keep them off with his umbrella...'

Sporting Recollections of a Younger Son

Claude Luttrell

After the first shock of dismay and-it must be admitted-a sort of horrified annoyance, it occurred to Richardson that the house whose estate he had circumnavigated in the approach to his camping site was probably on the telephone. It would need to be, he argued, as it was so far from the shops and the village.

Thither, therefore, he made his way by torchlight, intending to request the loan of the instrument for the purpose of calling the police. These, he supposed, would contact a doctor, although he realised that there was little, if anything, that a doctor could do except specify the cause of death and arrange for Colnbrook's body to be removed.

At the house, however, he met with an immediate check. An obviously nervous maidservant, her hair in curlers, answered the door and stood there staring at him. He gave no reason, beyond a statement that the call was urgent, for asking to use the telephone, and was met, not unreasonably, by a flat, although apologetic, refusal.

'Nobody aren't home except me and Cook and Shirl, and I dursent let anybody in with the master and missus away,' the quavering domestic announced.

Richardson, although a trifle nonplussed, tried again.

'I'm not trying to steal anything. It's just that the call is very important indeed and it would take me some time to get to another telephone. Don't you think...?' he enquired.

The maid cut the conversation short by slamming the door, and he heard the heavy bolts, which had been withdrawn in answer to his knock, thrust home again. There was nothing for it but to make for the hotel and trust that there was a night porter on duty.

It turned out that the hotel did not employ a night porter, but that the front door was kept open until midnight to accommodate those guests who had motored into Bournemouth to see one of the shows. He effected an entrance easily enough, therefore, and found the day porter, with whom he was already acquainted, about to lock up and retire for the night.

'Barney,' he said, 'I want to use the phone.'

'Help yourself, Mr Richardson.' The porter took in the white face and the shaking hands. 'Anything I can do?'

'Yes. Look up the police for me, will you? Some gosh-awful bloke has gone and died on me.'

'Not the friend you were expecting, Mr Richardson?'

'Oh, no, thank God. Somebody who decided to crawl into my tent and peg out there. I suppose he felt bad, poor devil, but I wish to hell he hadn't picked on
me
! Now there'll be no end of a hoo-ha, I suppose, and I'll be questioned and goodness knows what!'

'Sit you down on the settee, sir. You look as if you'd had a nasty shock. It'll be the Hurstington police as will be best. Some of the sub-stations aren't manned the whole of the time. I'll need to look in the book to put you through.'

He disappeared, but the telephone kiosk used by the guests was only a step or two along the passage and Richardson could hear the porter's end of the call.

'Hurstington police station? New Forest Hunt Hotel here. Gent has something to report.... Yes, hold the line, please.' He returned to Richardson. 'O.K. You're through, sir.' He retired and Richardson went to the telephone. He told his tale, but withheld the fact that he knew the dead man. There would be time for the details later.

'Stay where you are, sir, and we'll be right over,' said the Superintendent.

Tom returned to the settee in the entrance hall. Barney came back with a pot of black coffee and a basin of sugar.

'Here, sir,' he said. 'Have a go at this. You need it. Sorry I can't stiffen it up a bit for you: but the bar's been locked up this last hour.'

The police arrived half an hour later and took Richardson in their car along the secondary road from the hotel and then by way of the crunching gravel trackway on to the common. The causeway, which led across the plantation of baby firs to the deciduous wood and the bridge, was not nearly wide enough to take a car, so the driver continued to follow the gravel trackway and crossed the wide bridge. Here he parked the car on the grass and remained in charge of it while the Superintendent and a detective-sergeant accompanied Richardson to his camp.

Richardson, on whom his experience of finding the dead man had acted like something in a horrible dream, had the feeling, suddenly, that he had brought the police on a wild-goose chase and that when they pulled back the tent-flap there would be nothing there but his bedding and effects. This, however, was not the case. The sergeant took charge of him, while the Superintendent, armed with a powerful torch, ducked into the mean little shelter.

He soon came out again.

'Go and get Sansom,' he said to his sergeant. 'I'll wait here with Mr Richardson until you come back. Sansom will have to stay on guard here. There's nothing we can do until the morning. Can't take any useful photographs in this.'

The sergeant went off and the Superintendent addressed Richardson. He had switched off his torch and they talked in the dark.

'Been here long, sir?'

'Since Thursday, about eleven in the morning.'

'Know the neighbourhood?'

'From studying the Ordnance maps.' (It was part of the truth.)

'Know the deceased?'

'Never set eyes on him in my life before.' He told this lie instinctively and regretted it too late.

'Just so, sir. I'll have to take a full statement from you in the morning, but, if I can get one or two facts quite clear for the moment, it may help me.'

'To make sure I don't spend the night cooking up a story?' Richardson felt panic-stricken again.

'Now, now, sir! You could have only one reason for doing that, you know.'

Richardson, in his fright, asked disingenuously, 'Good Lord! You don't think the chap was
murdered
?'

'That is a matter for the doctor, sir. Now, if you'd just give me an account of your movements yesterday and today...'

Richardson, feeling slightly sick, gave the Superintendent a resume of what he had done and where he had been. It sounded inadequate, he thought.

'So, you see, I had a bit of a shock when I clocked in here at about half-past nine or just after, to find that I'd got a visitor. I was sure he was dead, but I did my best for him,' he said in conclusion.

'Yes, sir?'

'Then I went to that house over there-there were lights on then, but they're out now-to telephone, you know.'

'Yes?'

'But there was nobody there who was prepared to authorise me to use the phone-only the maids and they wouldn't let me in. I don't blame them, of course, only it meant that I had to get back to the hotel. I telephoned you from there as soon as I could.'

'Very good sir. Well, as soon as the constable gets here, I'll run you back. I suppose they can give you a bed?'

'I've no idea, but I certainly can't sleep here.'

'Definitely not, sir.' Someone holding a torch approached them. 'Ah, here comes Sansom.' He gave the constable some directions. 'Now, then, sir, I expect you can do with some sleep. It's a bit late for you to fix up at the hotel, now I come to think of it, so, if you'll accept another arrangement, there's a spare room at my house and we'll drive back there now and soon get you settled for the night.'

'Well, thanks...' said Richardson uncertainly. 'It will mean I'll be on the spot for questioning in the morning, I suppose. Still, it's very good of you.'

'Think nothing of it, sir. As for questioning, there's nothing to worry about there. It's just routine, you know. The circumstances are unusual, you see, and we'll need to get a clear picture. That's all there is to it, you'll find. Oh, there
is
just one thing more, sir. Now I don't want you to get any wrong ideas about this, thinking I don't believe your account of the matter and so forth, but I expect my torch is a good bit more powerful than your own-you did say you saw the dead man by the light of your torch, sir?'

'Yes, but it gives a pretty strong light, you know, and the battery's new.'

'Quite so, sir. Well, now, if you don't mind just borrowing my torch while I stand by.'

'What on earth for?' Richardson realised that, unintentionally, his voice was high-pitched and his tone nervous.

'Well, sir, the circumstances being, as I say and as you will admit, unusual, I would appreciate it if you would just take another look at the body to make certain you don't know who it is.'

Richardson's heart failed him. The Superintendent suspected something! There was nothing for it, however, but to comply with his request. He accepted the loan of the powerful torch and unwillingly crawled into the tent. It was a complete and almost devastating shock to see that the body was no longer that of Colnbrook. What lay there was the corpse of a man considerably shorter than Colnbrook. It must be that of the other runner, although both men had changed their clothes since he had seen them last. Colnbrook had had on a rather aggressive check suit. This man had on a tweed jacket and flannel trousers.

Feeling sick, Richardson backed out of the tent and handed the torch to the Superintendent.

'I don't know him,' he said. This, at least, was true. 'But, well, it doesn't look to me like the same man,' he added, desperately anxious to cover up his first lie.

'Come, come, sir. You had a shock, I daresay, when you first saw the body. Not surprising, that. You can't identify him, then?'

'He's pretty persistent,' thought Richardson. Aloud he said, 'No, I certainly can't. What can have induced him to plant himself on me?'

'That we must find out, sir-that is, if he
did
plant himself on you.'

'What do you mean by that?' (Murder, of course! They
must
believe the man had been murdered! And what about Colnbrook? Could he have been suffering from hallucinations when he thought that the first man was Colnbrook?)

'We have to keep open minds, sir, when bodies are found in unexpected places under what might prove to be suspicious circumstances. That's all, sir,' said the Superintendent, soothingly. 'And now, come along, sir. Hop in the back and we'll soon find you a kip-down for the night. Best forget about this until the morning.'

'Shall I-do I have to attend an inquest or anything?'

'I'm afraid so, sir, but there's plenty of time for that. You'll only need to depose that you found the body. Then we'll have to get it identified, as you cannot help us there, and the rest is up to the medical officer. There's really nothing to worry about.'

'Sez you!' thought Richardson grimly.

The police car ground itself over the rough gravel until it reached the road which led to the hotel. It passed the hotel and turned through a shallow water-splash and up the main street of the sleeping village. At the top it turned to the right at the level crossing, and, some time later, after a smooth rush on an empty main road, it was driven in at the double gates of a large, red-brick, new-looking police station lighted fearsomely by the headlamps. At the back of this solid block was the Superintendent's private house and here the car drew up. Richardson was taken into the dining-room and given whisky and soda and a plate of biscuits and cheese. The Superintendent made no reference to the dead man in the tent, but drank whisky with his guest and then smoked placidly while Richardson, who found himself almost startlingly hungry, played havoc with the food provided.

The young man had brought nothing with him from his camp, but, when he was shown up to the spare room which had been promised him, he found pyjamas laid out on the small single bed and the Superintendent, indicating these, observed that they might be a bit on the large side but would be better than nothing. He then showed him the bathroom and an electric razor and wished him good night, adding that breakfast would be served at half-past seven. Richardson was aware, ten minutes later, that a car drove off, but after that he slept until a thumping on the door caused him to accept the fact, at first incredulously, that it was morning and time to get up.

The Superintendent's wife served breakfast. It was a misty morning, but this, she said, would soon clear. The Superintendent himself did not appear and Richardson, who had expected to be grilled as soon as breakfast was over, was not certain whether to be thankful or apprehensive when the wife observed that Jim would find it cold up there on the common.

After breakfast she settled her guest in an armchair by an electric fire and gave him the morning paper. He flicked over the pages to find out whether there was any reference to the dead man in the tent, but soon realised that that piece of news would not yet be public property.

At just after ten the Superintendent returned and Richardson was invited to step over to his office. Although the headlights and the lamp over the door had given him an impression of size, he was surprised to see, in daylight, just how large and uncompromising a building the red-brick police station was.

The Superintendent's office, however, was reassuringly like all other offices. There was an enormous desk with a swivel chair and two telephones, filing cabinets against the walls and an armchair for the visitor. There was a box of cigarettes on the desk and Richardson accepted a cigarette when it was offered and prepared to sell his life dearly.