THE KILLER OF THE DARKNESS

EPISODE SEVEN

JSEVEN

I made it to the chemist shop and found Joanne working hard as usual.

"Can you cast these impressions for me?"

"I should think so. When do you want them?"

"As soon as possible."

*

I sat and noticed Joanne examined with disgust what I had given her to cast. Something odd about them. She opened the tin of plaster of Paris that stood on the bench, and scooped up the white powder inside, sprinkling it on to the water in the mixing bowl.

Once satisfied, she gave it a stir, and then sat waiting for it to firm. She glanced at the impression again and gave a shiver of distaste. There were three, all misshapen lumps of pink, stained with brown on the inner surface. She recognized that as altered blood. You sometimes got if from infected gums or a tooth socket where there had been a recent extraction. But never as much as these showed. She could not figure them out at all, and nor could I when she asked me.

She stirred the plaster again, and finding its consistency exactly right, turned on the electric vibrating pad. Holding the impression on it, she poured in the white creamy mix, watching it work into all the nooks and crannies of the detailed surface.

Satisfied with the first one, she did the same for the other two, and then left them to set, turning off the light in the small windowless room that served as the laboratory to the pharmacy.

*

An hour later I met up with Roome. All morning, his men, the entire strength of his police force, had been visiting the houses in the country town, the caravan site, and the Onehouse Arms Hotel.

Nobody has been missing in fact, there were less than six outsiders. All of them from the army, manning the anti-aircraft guns scattered around the coastline. I, for one, thankful in one way there was a war on, and it did not happen in the peacetime in the summer.

Now there were only outlying holiday cottages to be checked, and this afternoon he wanted us to check out the isolated buildings in the rugged northerly side. That would be the extent of our investigations.

He wearily pulled himself to his feet and lifted his hat odd the desk where he had dropped it when he had called back to the station for a cup of coffee and a piece of cake made by his wife, Caroline.

Out in the office, I stood waiting. Roome gave me a friendly punch on the shoulder.

"Right, let's get the show on the road."

We went downstairs and out the back way to the 1939 Wolseley ENK 916 with standard wartime markings.

I settled myself into the passenger seat and consulted Roome's clip board of names and addresses as Roome fired up the engine and did a 'U' turn on the gravel courtyard and came down past the side of the weather-beaten, stone police station.

We headed northwards, past the golf club and on and up over a twisting road that soon degenerated into nothing more than a cart track.