MADDEN PEERED THROUGH the windshield through narrowed eyes. Though cleared for traffic, the road to Chipping Norton was still pocked with icy patches, some of them hidden beneath freshly fallen snow and impossible to spot until you were on them, when the temptation to brake had to be fought as it was likely to send the car slewing from side to side or even spinning in a circle. He had witnessed just such an event only a few minutes earlier when a light van coming towards him had struck one of the patches and turned on its axis in slow motion before coming to rest facing the wrong direction. As he went by, the driver, a young lad, had waved gaily to him.
After three days of inaction—and heartened by the knowledge that the road, as far as Great Tew at least, was open again—he had seized the opportunity to make contact with Sinclair. The news had been brought to the hotel by Lily Poole, who had appeared just as Madden and Hans Probst were sitting down to breakfast.
‘The bobby at Enstone says you can get through if you take it carefully.’ At Madden’s invitation she had joined them at the table. ‘Mr Morgan spoke to him on the phone this morning. He doesn’t know about the road up to Wickham Manor, though. But he said if you decide to go, you’d better do it right away. According to the weather forecast there’ll be more snow tonight along with high winds. In fact, they’re predicting a blizzard. But that’ll be the end of it. There’ll be no more snow after that; it’ll have blown itself out.’
She had paused for a moment to order a cup of coffee and some toast and marmalade from the waitress who was hovering beside her. It was the first chance Madden had had to speak to the young policewoman since her arrival in Oxford, but they were well acquainted. A protégée of Angus Sinclair’s—the chief inspector had been instrumental in securing her transfer from the uniform branch to the CID at the end of the war—Lily had shown her worth by earning no fewer than four commendations for her work as a detective and, having passed the sergeant’s exam with distinction, had recently been promoted to her present rank of detective sergeant (though not without ruffling some feathers along the way, particularly among the longer-serving DCs who believed they should have been given precedence over a mere woman).
Quite separate from that—and against all the odds—she had also become a friend of Lucy’s, the pair having met by chance when Madden had been staying with his daughter in London a year or so earlier attending to some family business. No two young women could have been less alike both in background and interests, or so Madden thought, but they had nevertheless struck up an instant friendship, with the result that Lily was now a frequent weekend guest at the Maddens’ home in Highfield. Indeed one of the fruits of their friendship was evident that morning in the garments Lily was wearing. Formerly a somewhat dowdy dresser, she now presented an appearance bordering on the elegant and Madden fancied he could detect his daughter’s hand in the well-cut blue skirt and silk blouse topped by a jacket of the same shade that the young detective sergeant was sporting.
‘Mr Styles asked me to drop in here on my way to the station and give you the news about the road,’ Lily told him. ‘He and Inspector Morgan are driving up to Banbury this morning.’
‘Why there?’ Madden knew that the town lay beyond Chipping Norton.
‘It’s because of a report we had late yesterday from the Banbury police.’ Lily sipped her coffee. ‘They’d had a woman in for questioning yesterday, or rather to give a statement about a man who she said had broken into her house the night before. She lives in a village some way out of the town and said she’d been woken by a noise in the middle of the night and found a man prowling about her cottage. Luckily her husband returned just then—he’s a travelling salesman—and the man ran off. But she was scared by what happened, or so she said, and when they went into Banbury the next day she made a complaint to the police. While she was doing that she caught sight of that photograph of Voss that was stuck up on the wall and said it was him.’
‘He was the man who broke in?’ Madden was astonished.
‘That’s what she said. She swore it was him. Apparently she’d got a good look at the bloke. Anyway, Mr Morgan thought they ought to drive up there and have a word with her.’
Probst, who had been silent throughout Lily’s recital, awoke at that point as though from a trance. (Noting the telltale signs of sleeplessness in the dark circles beneath his eyes, Madden had wondered where his thoughts were.) ‘This is a strange story,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t sound like something Heinrich Voss would do.’
‘That’s what Mr Styles thought.’ Lily nodded. ‘But the weather may have played a part in it.’
‘The weather?’ Madden was nonplussed.
‘We don’t know where Voss is based, but we think he might be somewhere in the general area. Perhaps his car broke down or he got stuck in the snow. Perhaps he was just looking for shelter. It’s been freezing cold at night.’ She saw the expression on the faces of her two listeners and grinned.
‘I know. It doesn’t sound very likely. But we’ve had nothing to go on up till now, not so much as a whisper. I’m not counting the people who’ve claimed to have seen someone who they say looked a bit like him. There’ve been a few of those. This is the first positive sighting we’ve had and Mr Morgan thought it ought to be checked. He also felt it’d be a good idea to show the plod up there that we’re taking this business seriously.’
‘And what will you do in the meantime, Lily?’
‘Nothing really, just wait.’ The young woman shrugged. ‘I did ask Mr Styles if I could drive you up to Great Tew in our car—he doesn’t need it today, he’s with Mr Morgan—but he said we weren’t here to rescue retired chief inspectors who should have stayed home and not got themselves stranded in the snow, and anyway it was something you could do perfectly well on your own.’
Madden chuckled. He was glad to hear that his erstwhile protégé was prepared to speak his mind. ‘Well, he was right there.’
‘But at least he didn’t suggest I go with them to Banbury.’
‘You didn’t fancy a drive in the country?’
‘Not when it’s a wild-goose chase, sir.’ Lily grinned.
‘Ah, yes . . . the wild goose!’ Probst brightened. ‘I have heard of this bird.’
‘And that reminds me, sir . . .’ Lily turned to Madden. ‘I almost forgot. Mr Styles also asked me to tell you he’d heard back from the Yard. We’ve got nothing on that Gonzales bloke you were wondering about. He’s not in our records.’
‘Gonzales?’ Fully alert now, Probst intervened. ‘This is a name I have not heard before.’
‘He’s the man I told you about yesterday,’ Madden explained. ‘The friend of Mrs Lesage’s who was determined to get to her house, even if he had to walk part of the way.’
‘You have been making inquiries about him?’ The Berlin detective’s tone had sharpened.
‘Apparently he’s an admirer of hers. In fact, he’s asked her to marry him. I got that from another friend of hers, a lady academic who lives here in Oxford. She has doubts about Gonzales’s intentions towards Mrs Lesage. He seems to be a somewhat mysterious figure. She implied that his background was obscure.’
Probst looked thoughtful.
‘Mrs Lesage is a wealthy woman, is she not?’
Madden nodded.
‘And so you thought it might be worthwhile to make some inquiries about this man?’
‘I wouldn’t put it as strongly as that.’ Madden frowned. ‘In fact, I wasn’t entirely serious when I mentioned it to Billy. I certainly didn’t suggest that he might be Voss. That would be too much of a coincidence. But Billy decided to check with the Yard just in case they had something on him.’
‘He was right to do so.’ Probst gave an approving nod. ‘I should have done the same. One cannot be too careful. Wild goose or not, I think I will telephone my colleagues in Berlin this morning and ask them to check our records as well.’
‘About four miles, you say?’ Madden asked.
‘Closer to five,’ Sam Butterworth, the Enstone bobby, replied. ‘It’s a pity you weren’t here earlier, sir. You could have gone over to Great Tew with me and Bert Emsley. Bert took me in his tractor and we had no problem with the road. Some of the cottages in the area have been cut off by all this snow and I wanted to be sure none of the residents was in any difficulty.’
‘I’m hoping to manage in my car,’ Madden said. ‘I want to bring Mr Sinclair back with me if he’s there.’
‘Well, I’ve got some news for you on that front, sir.’ Butterworth’s face lit up. ‘I had a word with Bob Greaves. He runs the village store and he said Mrs Lesage’s chauffeur has come down from the house a couple of times on foot to pick up supplies and told him they had a Scottish gentleman staying with them.’
‘That sounds like the chief inspector all right.’ Madden was relieved to learn his journey was not in vain.
‘And you know about the phone working again, do you, sir, between here and Great Tew anyway?’
‘No, by God, I did not.’ Madden was startled by the news.
‘Mind you, it only happened this morning. We had a repair crew come from Oxford. They found a telegraph pole down and managed to fix it.’
‘But only as far as Great Tew, you say?’
‘I’m afraid so, sir. I tried calling the manor. I know they must be wondering what’s going on. But it was no go. There must be another break in the line. We’ll have to get the crew out again. Will you tell Mrs Lesage that when you see her?’
‘I’ll do that.’ Madden nodded.
‘As for the road itself, it’s not too bad, as I say, not as far as the village anyway. But keep to the tracks Bert made with his tractor if you can. He’s cut a path through the ice. It’s still very slippery either side of them and you should try and get back before dark. They say there’s more snow on the way tonight and high winds too. It could turn nasty.’
‘I’ll bear that in mind.’ Madden smiled his thanks. ‘But what about the road from Great Tew to Wickham Manor? Is that manageable?’
Butterworth shook his head. ‘I shouldn’t think so, sir,’ he said. ‘It’s just a narrow lane and I’m not sure anyone’s tried to clear it yet. As far as I know, it hasn’t been used since Mrs Lesage got back. It might be best if you walked up to the house from the village.’
It was not something Madden had wanted to hear. He knew that over flat ground his old friend would have no difficulty walking a mile or two. But whether the same applied to a slippery lane covered with snow and ice was another matter. He had rung Helen in Highfield just before he’d left Oxford and received her warm approval for his projected expedition. How she would feel about it now he was less certain. But it was too late for a change in plans. And since he had already received confirmation from Butterworth that the phone to Wickham Manor was still down, there was no way he could consult Sinclair on the matter. Having come this far, all he could do now was proceed.
‘Thank you, Constable. I’ll be on my way.’
‘Oh, he’s Scottish all right, no question of that.’ Bob Greaves spoke with assurance. ‘In fact, I think Mr Baxter said something about him once having been a chief inspector, or something of the sort.’
Bent over the counter in his shop attending to some paperwork when Madden had entered by a swing door, causing the small bell attached to it to emit a faint tinkle, the proprietor of Great Tew’s only grocery store had greeted his visitor with raised eyebrows.
‘I’m sorry, sir, but we’re shut, it being Sunday.’ Short and stout, he wore a long white apron tied about his waist that seemed only to emphasise the extent of his girth. ‘I was just doing my accounts for the week. I’m afraid I can’t sell you anything, not without breaking the law.’
Madden had explained his mission.
‘I would have driven up from Oxford earlier if the snow hadn’t been so bad,’ he said. ‘I want to collect my friend if I can and take him home. Do you happen to know if the road up to Wickham Manor is usable?’
‘Offhand I’d say it’s not, sir, and I don’t know of anyone who’s tried.’ Greaves seemed in no doubt. ‘I can tell you Mrs Lesage’s car hasn’t been seen in the village since she arrived back a few days ago, and although Mr Baxter has been in once or twice I know for a fact that he came down on foot. But the turnoff to the lane that goes up to the manor is just at the end of the street.’ He pointed. ‘You can have a look at it and decide for yourself.’
Madden received the news in silence. He had a sinking feeling he might have made a mistake in hurrying over at the first opportunity. On the point of quitting the store, he paused.
‘Do you happen to know a Mr Gonzales?’ he asked.
‘Oh, yes, sir. He’s a friend of Mrs Lesage’s. But I haven’t seen him for a while.’
‘He didn’t come through the village the other day?’ Madden was surprised. ‘I was told he walked all the way from Enstone to get here.’
‘Did he? My word!’ Greaves was impressed. ‘Well, I didn’t see him myself and I’ve not heard that anyone else did. Mind you, if it was dark when he passed through I doubt he would have been spotted. Most people have been staying indoors.’
His words were born out a few minutes later when Madden walked up the short, snow-covered street to where he had parked his car by the village church. Although lights were on in one or two windows there wasn’t a soul to be seen outside. He looked at his watch. His trip that day had been plagued by delays, the first of which had been the failure of his car to start. The old Hillman he had hired from Alf Hutton had been standing in the hotel car park for two days in freezing weather, and he had to get the hotel to summon a mechanic from a nearby garage and have a new battery installed.
His troubles were far from over, however. Not surprisingly, with the road declared open, it was now being used again and twice he had met cars coming in the opposite direction, encounters which had required agonizingly slow manoeuvres on the part of both drivers as the vehicles squeezed past one another on the narrow lane. But no such desperate measure had been possible when he’d met a heavy farm lorry only a mile or so short of Little Tew. Both drivers had drawn to a halt and the two vehicles had faced one another, like bulls in a pasture, Madden thought, but with one so much outweighing the other that he had had no choice but to back up until he’d found an empty space by a gate where he was able to edge off the road and watch as his tormentor went by (without so much as a wave of acknowledgement on the part of its driver).
An agonizing five minutes had followed while Madden had repeatedly tried to shift his car out of the deep snow into which he’d been forced, wrestling with the steering wheel as he tried to gain traction, only to fail time and again, until he reached a stage where he’d been all but resigned to leaving his car where it was and walking the remainder of the distance to Great Tew. At that point, however—and quite miraculously—his tyres had suddenly gained a grip and with a surge he had shot back onto the road and thereafter managed to complete his journey without further mishap.
However, he had planned to reach the village before one o’clock, but he saw it was now well after three, and whatever faint hopes he might have had of driving his car up to Wickham Manor were dashed when he reached the turnoff to which Greaves had directed him. One glance was enough to show him that the narrow lane would almost surely have to be cleared of snow before it could be safely navigated.
Having no intention of getting stuck again, he returned to where he had parked the car by the village church, but only to retrieve his hat and a scarf that he’d left on the front seat and a torch that he’d had the foresight to bring with him. All he could do now was walk up to the manor, make his presence known, and hope that Julia Lesage was every bit as helpful and understanding as she appeared to be. He was sure that together with Sinclair they could devise some means of extricating the chief inspector from his predicament.
Of more concern to him, though, was the strengthening wind. Already it was starting to blow in sudden gusts and he realized that if the promised blizzard arrived earlier than expected he might well have to spend the night at Wickham Manor.
As he set off along the lane he saw that a path of some sort had been trodden in the snow—no doubt by the chauffeur and any others among the staff who might have walked down to the village—and he followed the tracks, placing his feet in the holes that had already been made in the snow. The shoes he was wearing were good stout country brogues, but with the snow knee-deep in some places he wished he’d thought of bringing a pair of boots with him to Oxford. The wind was growing stronger—it forced him to clutch at his hat to stop it blowing off—but before long the lane entered a wood, which gave some shelter, but also allowed showers of snow to drop down on him from the drooping branches overhead.
Trudging on, head bowed, he had covered what he thought was more than a mile—it was hard to judge the distance moving at such a sluggish pace—when he saw ahead of him in the fading light a pair of wrought-iron gates standing open and deduced that he had reached the start of the drive that must lead up to the manor. As he passed through the gates, still walking with bowed head against the wind that burst on him as he left the shelter of the trees, he caught sight of something lying on the snow in front of him, an object he didn’t recognize.
Stooping to pick it up, he found it was a leather glove of good quality, lined with fur. Puzzled, he stood for a few moments turning it over in his hands. While it was quite possible to imagine someone dropping it by mistake, it was hard to picture whoever it was continuing on his or her way without being aware of its loss. Not when it was as cold as it was.
Stuffing the object into his coat pocket, he continued on his way. In the last few seconds the wind had picked up even further, and as he plodded around a bend in the drive, which was bordered by hedges, he saw the house ahead of him, a dark shadow in the gathering dusk showing only a single light above the front door. At the same moment a tremendous gust of wind set him rocking on his heels, almost bowling him over, and all at once he was enveloped in a whirling cloud of icy snow.
Hardly able to breathe, he stood for second or two, blinded by the stinging particles, unsure for a moment where he was in relation to the house, which direction to take. He peered at his watch. It was after four; darkness was falling and it appeared the promised blizzard had arrived with full force.