The Blood-Dimmed Tide Read Online Free PDF Page A

shivering in his drenched tweed jacket, a curtain of rain descended and in a second he was immersed in a mist of spray and falling drops as water poured through the flimsy canopy of leaves above him.
    Caught there in the downpour his eye fell again on the ring of stones he’d noticed earlier. In the last few minutes an answer had occurred to him to a question he’d been asking himself since entering the wood and he looked around now for other indications that might confirm it. His inspection of the rain-blurred scene had hardly begun, however, when he was interrupted by a yell from Stackpole. Madden glanced up in time to see the constable plunge into the stream in his boots. Just as he’d forecast earlier, the level of the water had risen with alarming speed and Stackpole was already knee-deep in the frothing torrent, struggling to keep his footing while he tore off his cape.
    ‘Hand her to me, Will!’
    Madden was at the bank in a moment, and stood poised and ready as the constable tugged aside the screen of willows and lifted the body of Alice Bridger from the lapping water, wrapping her slight form in his cape and turning unsteadily to hand the bundle to Madden.
    Even encased in the heavy waterproof material the child’s body was a negligible burden. Backing carefully so as to avoid stepping on the tarpaulin, Madden laid her on the ground beside the piece of canvas. The cape fell open as he did so and he was stricken once more by the sight of the girl’s ruined features. Hastily he covered her again.
    Stackpole, meantime, had clambered out of the stream and stood shaking himself like a dog as the water cascaded off his helmet. He walked daintily around the piece of turf, trying not to leave footmarks in the soggy grass, and joined Madden at the edge of the bushes. The two men looked at the rushing water, which had now flooded the ledge where the body had lain and was already dangerously close to overflowing onto the bank where they stood beside the spread tarpaulin.
    ‘Looks like we may lose the lot, sir.’ Stackpole squeezed water from the cuffs of his trousers, which clung to his sodden boots.
    ‘No, I don’t think so, Will. It’s passing. See!’ Madden pointed up at the sky, which was clearing fast. The rain, too, was diminishing noticeably, and without warning it stopped. Sunshine broke through the thinning clouds, bathing the woods and the swift-moving stream in soft evening light. The silence around them was filled with the sound of dripping water. The constable fished a handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his face.
    ‘You were going to look for those detectives, sir?’
    ‘Yes. In a moment.’ While they’d been standing there Madden’s mind had returned to the problem he’d been wrestling with earlier. Casting about, his eye had lit on a birch tree which stood outside the ring of bushes, its pale trunk partly screened by the undergrowth. He gestured towards it. ‘I just want to go and have a look at that.’
    Mystified, the constable followed his lead and they worked their way round the ring of grass until they reached the birch, where Madden crouched down, parting the branches of a laurel that was growing wild beside the bank.
    ‘Yes! There… Look, Will!’
    Peering over his shoulder, Stackpole saw that the trunk had been scored by grooves etched into it, strange runic designs carved with a knife or some other sharp instrument.
    ‘Those were made by tramps. This is one of their camp sites. That’s why Topper left the path. He was coming here…’ Madden shifted on his haunches. He gestured with his thumb behind him. ‘That ring of stones on the ground over there – that’s where they light their fires. You can’t see it now because the grass has grown over. But look at these marks… that one’s Topper’s.’
    Squinting, the constable made out the shape of a cross carved into the trunk surrounded by a crude circle.
    ‘It’s a calling card. A sign he was here. Just like those