At ten forty-seven Relf turned off the road into an unsigned lane.
For the first hundred yards there was tarmac. After that, the car jolted through ruts, and Eleanor put a hand against the dashboard.
"Is this the right way?"
"To Wren's Cut, yes."
She looked at him.
"Whether it's the Wren in the message, we'll find out."
Ahead, a pair of tail-lights showed between the hedges, then disappeared round a bend.
"One of yours?"
Relf nodded.
He had said little during the last hour. Eleanor had stopped asking questions he plainly wasn't going to answer. She watched the verge instead, catching glimpses of water whenever the headlights swung across it.
Until that evening, the message had been something she could work on at a table. If she had misread it, they would spend a cold hour beside a ditch and go home. She hoped that was what would happen.
Relf stopped beside an unlit building. A man approached his window.
"Anything?" Relf asked.
"Not yet."
"And access?"
"Road, or along the bank. There's still a navigable channel coming in from the seaward side."
"How far?"
"Couple of miles."
"Keep everyone back until we know what we've got."
The man glanced at Eleanor.
"Dr Marsh," Relf said. "She helped us read the message."
The officer nodded and moved away.
Shortly after eleven, Relf got out. Eleanor followed him.
He handed her a torch.
"Keep it off. And stay with me."
The cold reached her through her coat before they had gone fifty yards. Away from the car she could see the stars, the pale edges of clouds and, now and then, a reflection on the water. The bank was uneven. Twice she caught her foot in a rut and had to steady herself against Relf's arm.
After perhaps three hundred yards he stopped.
The channel widened here, meeting another stretch of water. Reeds crowded its edges. A few timbers projected from the bank.
"The landing stage?" she whispered.
"What's left of it."
He crouched behind a broken wall. Eleanor settled beside him, keeping her feet clear of the loose rubble.
For several minutes she could hear only water and the occasional movement of Relf's coat. She tried to pick out the opposite bank. Once she thought she saw someone there, but when she looked again she could find nothing.
At eleven fourteen she checked her watch.
Relf shifted beside her.
Eleven fifteen passed.
She waited another minute before looking again.
"Could be an old message," he murmured.
"The date in the notebook wasn't old."
"He might have copied it."
"Yes."
She had considered that already. There was nothing useful to say about it now.
A small light appeared on the water.
Relf leaned forward.
It vanished, showed again twice, then went out.
An engine became audible. Eleanor could not judge its distance. She strained to see beyond the reeds until a low shape separated itself from the darkness.
Behind them, a foot scraped on the bank.
She turned. Relf touched her sleeve.
"One of ours."
The boat came slowly towards the landing stage. A man stood at the stern. Farther forward, Eleanor could make out people sitting close together.
The engine stopped.
A bird call came from the bank near the timbers. The man at the stern answered with two short whistles.
Two figures emerged from the reeds. One carried a holdall.
The boatman stepped ashore and secured the boat. A second man followed, reaching back to help a woman across the gap. She wore a long coat and carried a handbag. When she reached firm ground, one of the waiting figures embraced her.
The other passenger stood apart.
He was older than the boatman and wore a suit beneath his coat. He looked down at his shoes, then towards the people waiting for him.
The holdall changed hands.
He opened it. Eleanor saw him take out a small document and bend over it. A passport, she thought, although she was too far away to be sure.
Then he took off his coat.
One of the men on the bank gave him another, followed by a hat. The passenger put his old coat into the bag. Something smaller went in after it. A wallet was handed to him.
Eleanor leaned towards Relf.
"They've brought him clothes and papers."
He nodded without looking at her.
A shout came from farther along the bank.
"Police! Stay where you are!"
Torches came on across the water.
The man holding the bag dropped it. Someone ran into the reeds. The woman cried out and grabbed at the person beside her.
The boat's engine started.
"Stay down," Relf told Eleanor.
He rose and moved along the bank towards the landing stage.
The boatman tried to reverse away from the timbers. The hull struck them, swung across the channel and caught the light of three torches at once.
There was a splash.
Eleanor stood before she had decided to. Someone was in the water. She could hear coughing beneath the engine noise, but could not see where it came from.
She switched on her torch.
The beam caught a man scrambling up the opposite bank. He looked towards her. For a second or two his face was clear; then he turned and disappeared into the reeds.
An officer followed him.
She brought the light back to the water. Another torch had already found the person who had fallen in. An officer was lying flat on the bank, reaching down.
The suited passenger had raised his hands. His new coat hung open as two officers approached him.
The woman was on her knees beside the landing stage.
Eleanor stayed where she was, holding the torch without knowing where to point it. Orders came from several directions. The engine stopped, started again, then died.
Farther along the bank, someone shouted, "Got him!"
Relf returned with mud up both trouser legs.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
"No."
"I told you to stay down."
"Someone fell in."
"They're getting him out."
He looked at the torch in her hand.
"Back to the car. Follow the bank. I'll have someone take you."
By the time he joined her, nearly an hour had passed.
Eleanor had the heater running. Her shoes were on the floor beside her, and she had wrapped her cold feet in the bottom of her coat.
Relf opened the driver's door and stood there for a moment.
"Three detained at the landing. Another arrested farther along the bank. We've secured the boat."
"The person in the water?"
"Out. Being checked."
She let her shoulders settle against the seat.
"What was in the bag?"
"Passports, among other things. Some appear to be false."
"Any drugs?"
"None found so far."
He got into the car, bringing cold air and the smell of wet mud with him.
"Both passengers seem to have come from France," he said.
"So people-smuggling?"
"That's what it looks like."
Eleanor thought of the woman stepping ashore with her handbag, and the man examining his papers.
"The clothes were waiting for him. So was a wallet."
"Yes."
"He wasn't just being brought across."
"We'll need to speak to him."
"And the four?"
Relf rubbed a hand over his face.
"Four people at the landing?"
"Two on the bank, two passengers. Unless you count the boatman."
"Then perhaps it means something else."
"Four passports?"
His hand stopped.
"Arthur?"
He reached for the ignition.
"I need to get to the station."
At half past two, Eleanor's telephone rang.
She was back at Marsh View House. Mrs Fenner had left a flask outside her bedroom with a note tucked beneath it.
YOU MISSED DINNER.
Eleanor had poured a cup but had been too tired to drink it.
"Arthur?"
"The man had four passports."
She sat up.
"The passenger?"
"Yes. Same photograph in each. Four different names."
She switched on the bedside lamp and reached for her bag.
"Do you know who he is?"
"We're checking the names."
"Is one of them his own?"
"One might be."
"Which one?"
"I can't give you that."
She found the folded message and laid it on the bed.
"Does the four mean the passports?"
"It could. I thought you should know."
Neither spoke for a moment. She could hear something being moved at his end.
"Is there anything else?" she asked.
"The way they did it."
"What about it?"
"We caught them because we were waiting. They knew the channels. The passengers had no phones on them. There was cash, a change of clothes, documents. A vehicle waiting away from the landing."
"Where was the driver?"
"That's being dealt with."
She looked down at the message.
"You think they've done this before."
"I think tonight took some preparation."
"But they used Bull's cipher."
"That's what bothers me. Why go to all that trouble?"
"Perhaps they trusted it."
"Until Bull read it."
She held the paper against her knee.
"Do you think that's why he died?"
"I don't know."
"But you're considering it."
"I've got two passengers to identify and several people to interview. Get some sleep."
The call ended.
Eleanor remained sitting up.
Bull had worked out the cipher. He had gone to the church for the final part of the inscription. If their reconstruction was right, someone else had been there to move the tenor for him.
That person might have been helping him.
Or might have known enough about the bell to hurt him.
She put the message on the bedside table and fetched her notes. She could do nothing more with the bell tonight. The number was another matter.
WED 2315 / 4 / WREN
The day, time and place had brought them to the landing. They still did not know what the four was for.
She wrote beneath it:
People\ Passports\ Vehicle\ Route
Then she crossed out people. Not impossible, but the count depended on whom she included.
Four passports. Four names available to one man.
She added another possibility:
Identity to use?
Perhaps four was an instruction rather than a quantity. It might tell someone which set of papers to bring, or which name the passenger was to leave with.
She drew a line beneath it.
That was something Relf could ask during the interviews.