The Blood-Dimmed Tide Read Online Free

reverted to his old role, taking charge. He was behaving like the police inspector he’d once been.
    ‘I’ll do that, sir. Call out if you see anything.’
    The constable waited until his companion had moved into the underbrush and then continued along the path, crossing the stream on the stepping stones and following the course of the footway, which left the brook initially, but then bent back so that it was running parallel to it again, only further from the bank than before. He found that, although he could still hear the rushing water, his view of it was blocked by the intervening trees and a screen of tangled bushes.
    ‘Will?’
    ‘I’m here, sir.’ Stackpole halted. Madden’s voice had reached him clearly from the other side of the stream. He wasn’t far off.
    ‘Someone’s come this way, all right… there’s a trail of sorts …’
    Stackpole shifted the roll of tarpaulin from one arm to the other. He waited for a moment, then walked on, but after only a few paces he heard the other man call out again.
    ‘What kind of clothes was she wearing, Will? What colour were they?’
    The constable thought. ‘She had a blue skirt on, sir. Blue skirt, white blouse, black shoes.’ Dry-mouthed now, he waited anxiously.
    ‘I can see a bit of thread caught on a bramble. It might be blue
    … it’s difficult to see in this light…’ Madden’s voice trailed off. But he called out again, suddenly, ‘No, wait! There’s something else!’
    Stackpole stood riveted to the spot, awaiting Madden’s next words. Ears pricked, he stared at the dense wall of greenery blocking his view of the stream and presently fell into a half-trance which was abruptly shattered when a bolt of lightning ripped through the low clouds overhead, followed almost instantaneously by a tremendous clap of thunder.
    The air about him seemed to shiver and he caught a whiff of ozone. Curiously, the patter of rain drops on the leaves above had diminished in the last few seconds, but the sky continued to darken. It was as if the elements were gathering themselves to unleash an assault, and the constable felt a comparable coiling of forces within him, a rising tide of agonized tension that cried out for release.
    ‘Will?’
    ‘Sir!’
    ‘You’d better get over here!’
    The sharpened note in Madden’s voice caused the hairs on the back of the constable’s neck to rise, and he caught his breath.
    ‘You won’t get through those holly bushes, Will. Better to go back to where I left you and come the way I did.’
    ‘What is it, sir?’ Fearful of the answer, Stackpole’s voice was choked. ‘Have you found her, then…?’
    The few seconds it took Madden to reply seemed to stretch into an eternity. Then at last he spoke.
    ‘Yes, I’ve found her, Will.’
    He said no more. But his voice told all.
    It was only by chance that Madden had spotted the body.
    Earlier, picking his way through the brush and clinging brambles, his attention had been focussed on the abundant signs that one or more people had come by this route: snapped twigs and ferns bent back and flattened marked the rough passage that had been forced through the undergrowth.
    The disturbance seemed recent – some of the broken twigs were green, with the sap still wet in them – and had probably occurred within the past few hours. Closer study might have told him more, but there was no time to linger and he had carried on downstream until his attention was caught by the piece of thread, which was snagged on a bramble at waist height. This he had paused to examine, but such was the gloom brought on by the approaching storm he’d been unable to determine its colour with any certainty and had decided to leave it where it was.
    All this time he had kept the stream in view, though his glimpses of it were intermittent and hampered by the thick brush that clung to the banks. But a few steps further on a sudden break in the bushes gave him a clearer sight of the water. He found he was