Randall got out of the car and walked across the pavement towards the front of the cinema. A few red letters still hung from the track which ran around its canopy, others had been displaced long ago by the wind. He looked up and read:
TH P LA E
“I can remember when the Palace used to be the best cinema in Exham,” P C Higgins told him, scanning the front of the building.
“Well, it’s been empty for two years,” said Randall. “It’s as good a place as any to hide.”
“You don’t really think he’d pick somewhere in the middle of town do you, guv?” asked the constable.
“I doubt it,” Randall confessed, “but we’d better check it anyway.” He pulled a large key from his jacket pocket, one which they’d picked up from the owner of the building earlier that morning. He owned both The Palace and The Gaumont further up the road and had asked why the police should be showing so much interest in the deserted cinema. Randall had told him there’d been a spate of arson recently and they wanted to check the building out in case the fire-raiser should strike there next. The owner had not asked any more questions.
“You stop in the car,” Randall told his driver. “Just in case anything comes over on the two-way.”
Higgins hesitated for a moment.
“I’ll be OK,” the Inspector reassured him. He waited until the constable had retreated to the car then inserted the key in one of the padlocks which hung from the four sets of double doors. The Inspector threw his weight against the doors and they swung open reluctantly. He coughed at the smell of damp and decay inside.
A door to his left led into the stalls, to his right, a staircase which would take him up to the circle. He checked the stalls, the beam of his torch scarcely able to penetrate the gloom. Dust, at least a couple of inches thick, swirled up and around him, the particles drifting lazily in the glow of the torch.
The circle was worse.
Seats had been tom up and piled at both sides of the balcony and Randall had to put a handkerchief across his face so foul was the odour of decay. He checked everywhere, including the projection box, but all he found up there were a couple of yellowed copies of Men Only. He glanced through one, smiling thinly to himself then dropped it back into the dustbin. Rusted spool cans lay discarded on the stone floor.
Satisfied that the cinema was, indeed, deserted, Randall made his way back outside and across to the waiting Panda car.
“Not a bloody trace,” he said, dropping the torch on the parcel shelf.
It had been the same story all day, not just in the places where Randall had searched but from the other members of the force. The Inspector had ordered hourly reports from each car but, as yet, with the time now approaching noon, no sign had been found of Harvey. There was no hint that he was anywhere near, let alone in, Exham. As Higgins moved the Panda gently out into traffic, Randall looked at the people who thronged the streets of the town. Some were shopping, some stood talking. There were children with their mothers, youngsters standing in groups smoking. The Inspector exhaled deeply wondering what any of them would think or say if they knew that there was a psychopath heading for their quiet little town. If that fact was correct of course. Randall hated trusting other people and he felt especially reluctant to trust the opinions of a prison psychiatrist and a jumped-up bastard like George Stokes.
As yet another report came in, again drawing a blank, Randall began to think that he and all of his force were on one big wild goose chase.
Paul Harvey slept until almost one o’clock in the afternoon, a fitful, dreamless sleep which he awoke from abruptly. He tasted something bitter in his mouth and he spat as he clambered to his feet. He stretched, the joints in his arms cracking loudly. He bent and picked up the sickle, gripping it tight in one huge hand. From his perch inside the barn, he could see the farmhouse. His stomach rumbled noisily and he belched loudly. Perhaps there was food in the house.
Either way, he decided to find out.