Willoughby had often had dreams in which he was running. Arms and legs pumping nineteen to the dozen, his chest bursting as it pulled ragged breaths out of the void. But for all this effort, he would make no progress. A muscular ache would creep over his whole body and he would be running on the spot as if some invisible force was holding him back, a thick rubber band, for instance, or a strange thickening of the night which it was impossible to part.
Sometimes his legs would seize up altogether. No matter how hard he tried, he could not manage to put one foot in front of the other.
They were horribly unpleasant and frustrating dreams, if only because Willoughby did not see himself as one who would hold back in any situation.
What made those dreams nightmares, he realized, what gave them their particular and personal horror was not so much being unable to escape some monster pursuing him but rather the sensation that he was being prevented from rushing into the fray.
For, in reality, if there was a suspect to be pursued, as now, Willoughby would always be first off the blocks, leading the pursuit. His greatest fear, these dreams told him, was that he might be thought a coward.
Willoughby did not believe that he was a coward. He would not claim to be an especially brave man either. That was for others to judge. He did not act out of bravado. He did what was necessary. That was all. He was a copper. Sometimes it was necessary to chase down danger.
If so, he would not hold back.
So here he was, now, running. It was not like those dreams at all, he told himself. Except that something made him think of them. Was it the dark? The way the dark created the impression that he was running without getting anywhere.
Or the fear that when it came to it, he would betray himself, that his legs would lock as in the dreams, and he would be shown to be a coward after all.
He came to a divide in the road and slowed his pace, allowing the shouts of the other police to catch up with him.
He pointed at the lane which went off to the left. ‘One of you, down there. The rest of you come with me.’
A few paces on and they reached another split. Willoughby took the path off to the right, directing the others to go straight on, telling them to separate in the same way when they came to the next junction. He grasped the hopelessness of the pursuit at that moment. Any further divisions and they would run out of men.
It was all down to luck now whether they caught the attacker or not. Given that the fellow had a start on them, he did not reckon much for their chances. He felt the tension go out of his body. With a mixture of relief and disappointment, he realized it was probably a wild goose chase. But then he was immediately wary again. It’s just when you think the danger’s gone that you’re most vulnerable. He knew that.
And it was important to see the task through. And not simply to go through the motions either.
Who was it who had said to him? ‘You have to make your own luck in this game.’
Ah, yes, he remembered. And then immediately wished that he hadn’t. His old boss. DCI Coddington.
He would do better not to think of Coddington right now.
Which was worse? he wondered. To be a bent copper or a coward? Neither was good, of course.
The path he had taken brought him to a church which stood at the end of a broad, illuminated residential street with large houses and mansion blocks on either side. The lights of the main road were visible, four hundred yards or so away at the other end of the street.
If the attacker had come this way, would he have made it to the main road by now? Quite possibly. In which case he was beyond Willoughby’s reach. But somehow Willoughby’s sense was that he would not have gone that way. Although it appeared to be deserted, the street was open and well-lit. He would have felt exposed, conspicuous, when his instinct would have been to hide.
Probably not inside the church itself. He would have felt trapped in there. The building could be surrounded, the entrance blocked off. Willoughby realized he was trying to think like his new governor, Silas Quinn; that is to say, psychologically. Somehow the church presented too obvious a refuge. It seemed to be tempting him to enter, which was why he instinctively rejected it.
A low railing ran around the churchyard, giving Willoughby a clear view in. There were a few well-established trees there, behind which a man might easily hide. Or someone could be crouching down behind one of the gravestones.
Another reason not to go in. He would make himself vulnerable to attack. Was this cowardice? Or intelligence?
Sometimes it was hard to tell the difference.
Opposite the church was a graveyard separated by a lane. This presented a more likely hiding place, Willoughby decided. From here you could watch and wait until you saw your pursuers go inside the church, as they would if they allowed themselves to be drawn by the lure of the obvious, which most men – most policemen especially – would. Then you could make your getaway.
As he walked around the church, Willoughby’s senses grew heightened again, his body once more tensed and wary. He strained to hear the subtle signals of another man’s presence. A rustle of foliage pulled him up short. His body froze. The sound had come from above, from the branches of a large tree that overhung the churchyard perimeter. He looked up to see the two eyes of a cat watching him, diamond bright in the black night. He could make out something else up in the tree, another small animal that the cat seemed to be stalking. Perhaps fearing that the man would deprive it of its prey, the cat suddenly pounced. It caused the other creature to fall limply down on to Willoughby’s upturned face.
He gave an instinctive cry of repulsion and clawed at his face to bat the thing away. Whatever it was, it was damp and loathsome and, yes, dead. It lay at his feet without moving.
He could see it there, shining in the dim glow of the street lighting. He toed it tentatively. It did not respond, except to roll inertly in the direction his boot pushed it.
Willoughby felt a little foolish and somehow strangely embarrassed, as if he were being watched or even tested. Of course, the cat was still in the tree looking down at him, no doubt disgruntled that it had lost its prey to its new enemy. The unpleasant sensation of being watched grew stronger. Willoughby turned his head in the direction of the graveyard and saw a dark human figure looming.
‘Oi! You! Police! Hands up where I can see them.’
But the figure did not move. And never was going to move, Willoughby now realized. It was a memorial statue looking across at the church, contemplating eternity.
Willoughby let out a heavy sigh, feeling more foolish than ever. He stooped down and grasped the thing at his feet. It was too light to be a dead animal after all. There was nothing to it, only hair. He turned and held it up to the nearest streetlamp.
He could imagine the ribbing he would get over this. He appeared to have bravely captured a false beard.
Willoughby stood up tall, self-consciously so: that sense of a hidden watcher again.
He turned his head decisively, taking in all the possible routes by which the man he was pursuing could have got away from him.
The lane that he was standing on now ran in one direction back to Frognal. If the suspect had gone that way, it would bring him back towards the uniformed officers who had given chase with Willoughby. There was a chance he would go that way if he wasn’t thinking straight. Or perhaps he might think he was being very clever, by doing what no one would expect him to do and doubling back on himself.
In the opposite direction, the lane turned into the street that gave on to the main road. As Willoughby had already calculated, if the man had gone that way, he would be away from him by now, though he might have been seen on his way. He could have picked up a cab, or ducked into a public house, or slunk off through one of Hampstead’s many narrow alleyways.
There was a lane running up the side of the graveyard. He did not know the area, so he could not say where that led; perhaps nowhere. A second lane, a little further on, ran parallel to that. There was the chance the two lanes joined up at some point, so if he guessed correctly he might run into the suspect going in the opposite direction. But really, how could he prove that a man he met so far from the school was the same person who had assaulted the special constable? And why should he assume that the first person he encountered was the suspect?
Or he could have gone into the church. He had to admit that was always a possibility.
If you included the graveyard, that made six options and Willoughby was one man on his own. There was no way he could close down every possible escape route available.
He looked down at the hairpiece in his hand. Something settled inside him. Not quite despondency, more like resignation. It was time to cut his losses and take the clue he had found back to his governor. The possibility that it might be an important piece of evidence lightened his mood.
But first, maybe he ought to check out the church, after all. Sometimes it’s a mistake to overlook the obvious.
He pocketed the false beard and drew out his service revolver. If the fugitive was in there and felt himself trapped, there was no saying what he might do to evade capture.