The crowd in the Great Hall was growing increasingly restive, craving the comfort of their own homes more than the once reassuring proximity of bobbies, whom they were now growing to resent. The decision was made to let people go. The assembly broke up in chaos, with some confusion over whether a statement had been taken from everyone there. But once the tap had been opened and the flow begun, it was impossible to check it.
The detectives would have to hope that nothing significant had been missed, although Quinn knew that in a criminal investigation hope was not a factor to be relied on.
By an unfortunate coincidence, the victim’s body was carried out on a stretcher at the same time as the rush to exit was underway. Dr Emsley and the ambulance men had covered the body in a blanket, or had done their best to. Several hours had now elapsed since the murder and rigor mortis had begun to set in. And so the tented shape presented by the stiffening body beneath the blanket – with forearms extended to play the piano and legs bent in the seated position – created a rather gruesome and upsetting effect, especially as it had been necessary to leave one arm protruding from the side of the blanket. If this admittedly imperfect measure had not been taken, the narrowness of the blanket would have created a gap through which the face of the deceased would have been visible.
Despite these considerations, the sight inspired a degree of horror in those who saw it. And in none more so than Donald Metcalfe, who stood frozen to the spot, his mouth gaping as he struggled to find words for the emotions stirred by the grotesque spectacle. In the end, he had to be satisfied with, ‘No, no … it’s not right.’ Which was perhaps as fair a reaction to what he was seeing as any.
Dr Emsley, his demeanour rather more solemn than before, walked alongside the stretcher with his head bowed. Quinn jogged across the quad to intercept him.
‘Doctor, anything you can tell me that might help my investigations?’
Emsley raised his eyebrows as if he were surprised by the question, although perhaps it was simply the slight air of desperation in Quinn’s voice that he had not expected. ‘You’ll have my report on Monday.’ Emsley gave a wide, wincing smile. ‘But in the meantime, you may be interested to know this detail.’
Quinn nodded for the doctor to go on.
‘I removed the fatal implement, which I naturally surrendered to one of your policemen.’
‘The tuning fork?’
‘It appeared to be a tuning fork, yes. However, the metal handle had been ground to a long, lethal point, reminiscent of the blade of a stiletto.’
It was Quinn’s turn to raise his eyebrows.
The doctor bowed and went on his way, leaving Quinn to take in the implications of this new information.
Just then, one by one, the uniforms who had set out with Willoughby in pursuit of Special Constable Elgar’s attacker began to return, each shaking their heads glumly to signal their failure.
Quinn counted them in and demanded, ‘Where’s DC Willoughby?’ of the last man.
The copper blew out his cheeks and shrugged. ‘We all split up.’
‘Which way did he go?’
‘Turned off down Church Row.’
‘Did you not think to go look for him when the rest of you had drawn a blank?’
Another shrug. ‘I thought he must have come back here.’
The fact that Willoughby had not returned yet could mean one of two things. He had had sight of Elgar’s attacker and was still chasing him down. The second possibility was not something Quinn wished to consider. ‘Macadam!’
‘Sir!’ The steely tension was audible in his sergeant’s reply, hissed through gritted teeth.
‘Leversedge!’ All his doubts about the DI were put aside. He needed his men about him.
‘I’m here!’
Quinn pointed at the shrugging policeman. ‘Show us.’
To Pool: ‘I need some men, as many as you can spare. With torches.’
Quinn drew out his revolver. Somehow there was the feeling that this was what everyone had been waiting for.
The darkness ran at them as much as they ran into it.
The pounding boots of the racing policemen, the half-panicked cries, male-scented aggression wafting on the night breeze, the bobbing beams of light – the night seemed to relish it all, as if it had an infinite appetite for danger and fear. The hoot of an owl perched in one of the spectral trees had a gleeful note to it. It was calling them on to something fateful.
The other two officers of the SCD had taken their cue from their governor: they had their guns drawn as they advanced. The Hampstead bobbies held truncheons in their right hands, torches in their left. The Hampstead CID had not thought to issue themselves revolvers, and so they brandished the small cudgels favoured by detectives.
Whether they were closing in on a helmet tipper or a murderer, they weren’t prepared to take any chances.
They slowed to a trot at the entrance to St John-at-Hampstead. Quinn saw the door to the church was open, a dim rectangle of light indicating that the inner door was open too.
A terse nod was the only command he needed to give. Leversedge took charge of directing the details of the operation, communicating by means of precisely executed arm gestures. Macadam understood himself charged with taking a contingent off to sweep through the churchyard to secure the rear. They duckwalked noiselessly between the tilting gravestones, holding to an unspoken formation as if the knowledge of such manoeuvres was something they held in the marrow of their bones.
Leversedge led a second contingent in a shallow arc behind them, circling round to seal off the front and sides of the building.
Quinn alone walked upright, straight towards the open door.
Quinn alone picked up the scent of death in the cold, sanctified air.
Quinn alone found his constable.
The boy – Willoughby seemed especially boyish now – was lying face up in the aisle, eyes open in wonder, an unvoiced question on his lips. His bowler lay upturned beside him, hat doffed for death.
For there was no doubt that he was dead. No room for hope in that neat red circle in the centre of his forehead. It seemed incredible, outrageous, that such a small wound could undo a life. You could clean that spot with cotton wool and iodine, surely, and set him right on his feet again.
But the darkness that pooled around him, claiming him for its own, made savage mockery of that illusion.