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three years ago when the old boy died. Nobody could find any trace of his mother though. The murders were committed after his father’s death.”
    “How do you know he’s coming back here?” It was Constable Reed this time.
    Randall repeated his conversation with Stokes and the psychiatrist, expressing his own doubts about the killer returning to Exham. Reed seemed satisfied with the explanation.
    There was an uneasy silence and Randall scanned the collection of faces before him
    “Any more questions?” he asked.
    There were none.
    “Right,” he glanced at his watch. “There’s a couple of hours of daylight left. We may as well make a start.”
    The uniformed men and women got to their feet, filing past Randall and the board, each one picking up a couple of the black and white photos. The inspector himself waited until they had all departed and then made his way up to his office on the first floor. He lit up another cigarette and sat down at his desk, flicking on the desk lamp. Already the sky outside was overcast, heavy with rain, it hastened the onset of dusk and the watery sun which had tried to shine for most of the day had finally been swallowed up by the banks of thick cloud.
    Randall held one of the photos before him, studying Harvey’s chiselled features. There was a piercing intensity in those eyes which seemed to bore into the policeman even from the dull monochrome of the picture. Harvey carried two distinctive scars on his right cheek which Randall guessed were bottle scars. They were deep and the Inspector wondered how and when the escaped prisoner had sustained them. He sat back in his seat, tossing the photo onto his desk. The smoke from the cigarette drifted lazily in the air, curling into spirals around him. He closed his eyes.
    The wind moaned despairingly at his window.

 
     
     
     
Five
     
    He couldn’t remember how long he’d been running, only that it had been daylight when he’d begun but now the countryside was wrapped in an almost impenetrable cloak of darkness. He wondered if he had been running in circles, chasing his own tracks round and round as he sought some vague escape route. The hills and fields all looked alike in the blackness. His legs felt like ton weights, burdened as they were by clods of mud. His heart thumped hard against his ribs and the breath rasped in his lungs as if it were being pumped by defective bellows.
    He paused for a moment, atop a hill, and looked around. Below and behind him lights were shining. In some places the sodium glare of street lamps, in others the brighter glow which spilled from the windows of houses. If he had been able to calculate distance, Paul Harvey might well have guessed that he was about two miles from the centre of Exham. The town was little more than a collection of dim lights in the distance. Like a scattering of fire-flies. He panted loudly, his mouth filled with a bitter taste. He was cold, the first particles of frost now sparkling on the grass around him as the moon fumbled its way from behind a bank of thick cloud. Harvey looked up at the wreathed white orb and blinked. He put up a hand, as if trying to sweep it from the sky and, when this ploy didn’t work he decided to keep on running.
    The hill dipped away sharply before him and he slipped on the slick grass as he descended the slope. He lay still for what seemed like an eternity, ignoring the dampness which he felt seeping through his clothes. He merely lay on his back, gazing up at the moon, sucking in huge lungfuls of air. Every muscle in his body ached but he knew he couldn’t stop. Not yet. Grunting painfully, he hauled himself upright and stumbled on. As he ran he could feel the sandwiches bumping in his coat pockets. He’d eaten one or two since taking them from the children earlier in the day and the flask was now half empty, its contents only luke-warm. He realized that he would have to eat as soon as he found shelter. Eat and drink. But what would he do when