Now he was almost opposite the lay-by. Not a hint of the sergeant, in blackest shadow under the hedge.
Alleyn paused.
It was as if an ironclad fist struck him on the jaw.
iii
He lay in the lane and felt grit against his face and pain and he heard a confusion of sounds. Disembodied voices shouted angrily.
“Mr. Fox! Come down here. Mr. Fox.”
He had been lifted and rested against a massive thigh. “I’m all right,” somebody said. He said it. “Where’s Fox? What happened?”
“The bloody kid. He chucked a brick at you. Over my head. Gawd, I thought he’d done you, Mr. Alleyn,” said Sergeant McGuiness.
“Where’s Fox?”
“Here,” said Fox. His large concerned face blotted out the stars. He was breathing hard. “Here I am,” he said. “You’ll be all right.”
A furious voice was roaring somewhere out on the hillside beyond the hedge. “Come back. You damned, bloody young murderer. Come back, till I have the hide off of you.” Footsteps thudded and retreated.
“That’s Bruce,” said Alleyn, feeling his jaw. “Where did he spring from? The cottage?”
“That’s right,” somebody said.
Fox was saying: “Get cracking, Sarge. Sort it out. I’ll look after this!”
More retreating footsteps at toe run.
“Here, get me up. What hit me?”
“Take it easy, Mr. Alleyn. Let me have a look. Caught you on the jaw. Might have broken it.”
“You’re telling me. What did?” He struggled to his knees and then with Fox’s help to his feet. “Damn and blast!” he said. “Let me get to that bank while my head clears. What hit me?”
“Half a brick. The boy must have woken up. Bruce and the sarge are chasing him.”
Fox had propped him against the bank and was playing a torch on his face and dabbing it very gently with his handkerchief. “It’s bleeding,” he said.
“Never mind that. Tell me what happened.”
“It seems that when you got as far as here — almost in touching distance of the sarge — the boy must have woken up, seen you, dark and all though it is, picked up a half-brick from his fireplace and heaved it. It must have passed over the sarge’s head. Then he lit off.”
“But, Bruce?”
“Yes. Bruce. Bruce noticed the light in the graveyard and thought it might be vandals. There’s been trouble with them lately. Anyway, he came roaring down the hill and saw the boy in the act. How’s it feel now?”
“Damn’ sore but I don’t think it’s broken. And the sergeant’s chasing Daft Artie?”
“Him and Bruce.”
“No good making a song and dance over it: the boy’s not responsible.”
“It’s my bet they won’t catch him. For a start, they can’t see where they’re going.”
“I wonder where his home is,” said Alleyn.
“Bruce’ll know. It must,” said Fox, still examining Alleyn’s jaw, “have caught you on the flat. There’s a raw patch but no cut. We’ll have to get you to a doctor.”
“No, we won’t,” Alleyn mumbled. “I’ll do all right. Fox, how much could he see from the lay-by? Enough to recognize me? Go and stand where I was, will you?”
“Are you sure—?”
“Yes. Go on.”
Fox moved away. The light still glowed beyond the church. It was refracted faintly into the centre of the lane. Fox was an identifiable figure. Just.
Alleyn said: “So we know Artie could have recognized Carter and I suppose, me. Damnation, look at this.”
A window in the parsonage on the far side of the green shone out. Somebody opened it and was revealed as a silhouette. “Hullo!” said a cultivated voice. “Is anything the mattah?”
The Vicar.
“Nothing at all,” Alleyn managed. “A bit of skylarking in the lane. Some young chaps. We’ve sorted it out.”
“Is that the police?” asked the Vicar plaintively.
“That’s us,” Fox shouted. “Sorry you’ve been disturbed, sir.”
“Nevah mind. Is there something going on behind the church? What’s that light?”
“We’re just making sure there’s been no vandalism,” Alleyn improvised. It hurt abominably to raise his voice. “Everything’s in order.”
By this time several more windows along the lane had been opened.
“It’s quite all right, sir,” Fox said. “No trouble. A bunch of young chaps with too much on board.”
“Get that bloody light out,” Alleyn muttered.
Fox, using his own torch, crossed the lane. The lych-gate shrieked. He hurried up the steps and round the church.
“You don’t think perhaps I should just pop down?” the Vicar asked doubtfully, after a considerable pause.
“Not the slightest need. It’s all over,” Alleyn assured him. “They’ve bolted.”
Windows began to close. The light behind the church went out.
“Are you sure? Was it those lads from Great Quintern? I didn’t hear motor bikes.”
“They hadn’t got bikes. Go back to bed, Vicar,” Alleyn urged him. “You’ll catch your death.”
“No mattah. Goodnight then.”
The window was closed. Alleyn watched Fox’s torchlight come bobbing round the church and down the steps. Voices sounded in the field beyond the hedge. Bruce and the sergeant. They came through the hurdle and down the bank.
“I’m here,” Alleyn said. “Don’t walk into me.” The sergeant’s torchlight found him.
“Are you all right, sir? ’E’s got clean away, I’m afraid. It was that bloody dark and there’s all them trees.”
Bruce said: “I’ll have the hide off my fine laddie for this. What’s possessed the fule? He’s never showed violent before. By God, I’ll teach him a lesson he won’t forget.”
“I suppose it was Artie?”
“Nae doubt about it, sir.”
“Where did you come from, Bruce?”
It was as they had thought. Bruce had been keeping company with his shaken sister. She had gone to bed and he was about to return to Quintern Place. He looked out of the window and saw the glare of the lamp in the churchyard.
“It gied me a shock,” he said, and with one of his occasional vivid remarks: “It was oncanny: as if I mysel’ was in two places at once. And then I thought it might be they vandals and up to no good. And I saw the shadow on the trees like mine had been. Digging. Like me. It fair turned my stomach, that.”
“I can imagine.”
“So I came the short cut down the brae to the lane as fast as I could in the dark. I arrived at the hedge and his figure rose up clear against the glow behind the kirk. It was him all right. He stood there for a second and then he hurrled something and let out a bit screech as he did so. I shouted and he bolted along the hedge. The sergeant was in the lane, sir, with you in the light of his torch and flat on your back and him saying by God, the bugger’s got him and yelling for Mr. Fox. So I went roaring after the lad and not a hope in hell of catching him. He’s a wild crittur. You’d say he could see in the dark. Who’s to tell where he’s hiding?”
“In his bed, most likely,” said the sergeant. “By this time.”
“Aye, you may say so. His mother’s cottage is a wee piece further down the lane. Are you greatly injured, Superintendent? What was it he hurrled at you?”
“Half a brick. No, I’m all right.”
Bruce clicked his tongue busily. “He might have kilt you,” he said.
“Leave it alone, Bruce. Don’t pitch into him when you see him. It wouldn’t do any good. I mean that.”