Face Value (Richard and Amelia Patton)

by Roger Ormerod

  I turned away. I thought I was moving like a stricken old man, but I was at the front door and outside before she could stop me. She ran after me, out through the snow, and was at the car window as I reached forward to start the engine.

  ‘Richard...don’t hate me so much,’ she whispered.

  ‘Hate?’ I managed a twisted smile. ‘It’s not that.’

  She had her hand on the sill of the open window. I reached over and clamped my fist on it.

  ‘When I saw that dead man in the cottage,’ I told her, ‘I thought at first it was your husband. I knew it’d make you very unhappy, if it was, but...heaven help me...I was rather hoping that’s how it’d turn out. But now...’ I released my hand. ‘Now d’you know what I’m doing? I’m praying it turns out to be Kendall.’

  I switched on the engine, not turning to look at her again. I felt the wheels through the turning circle at the end, and drove back past her. She was standing in the snow, watching me leave. She did not wave.

  6

  Ken had left a report on my desk, when I got in the next morning. It was clearly a photostat of what he’d submitted to Donaldson. He must have been up half the night. There was a note stapled to it.

  Richard. I’ve starred the points you probably don’t know about. I don’t like the smell of it. Ken.

  That was my friend, determined to keep me involved. I shoved it to one side. My head was still aching from a sleepless night, but I was stubbornly determined to do just what had been asked of me, no more and no less: tidy up the paperwork.

  I reached for the IN tray and got the first file, and my mind was tracking two lines behind my eyes. I lit my pipe, and concentrated. Seven files later I’d scrawled seven signatures, but I couldn’t have told you what I’d authorised. Angrily, defeated, I flung them aside and drew forward Ken’s report.

  There were bold pencil asterisks at several places, and here and there a scribbled note in the margin. It was long and detailed. I skipped most of it, and concentrated on what he’d marked. After a minute or two my mind creaked into gear, and I sat back, absorbed.

  Many of the points possibly held no significance, but they added to the general background.

  The upper floor had been completely stripped of floorboards, and the main staircase dismantled. Clearly used as firewood. Evidence in ashes that a small amount of furniture also burned. Scarcely anything burnable left. No reports of smoke being seen, but Con. Brason states there have been either strong winds or mists.

  About a week’s food left. Cans and rubbish in rear garden indicate he had been in the cottage around two weeks. Water was available from underground well. (Location not discovered.) Pump and tank in outhouse. Pump is electric and automatic. Company’s fuse box was shorted. Water very pure.

  Keys were found in their appropriate locks. The rear door was locked when found, but the lock in the front door was unfastened. However, the front door was wedged in its frame and immovable.

  The shotgun has been identified as belonging to Henry Rennie, comparison of numbers having been made. Both barrels had been discharged. There was an open box of cartridges found beside the wall in kitchen, only two having been taken out. The weapon had not been reloaded. Fingerprints were found on the weapon. (See para on fingerprints.)

  Preliminary examination of fingerprints in cottage indicate as belonging to one person only. This has a theoretical confirmation in that entry from outside seems impossible. (Prints on window latch match those on the shotgun and in the cottage.)

  Glass fragments on the ground surface outside front window are indicative of the discharge of a shotgun from inside, as is the size of the hole in the pane. Disposition of glass indicates that shotgun was fired at an angle through the window pane, in the direction of the porch outside the front door??? (The inference from this is that a second shotgun was afterwards discharged through the same hole from outside, killing the subject. See separate report — DCI Donaldson.)

  I raised my eyes at that, and turned the page sideways to read Ken’s pencilled note.

  He told me to put this in. What d’you think of it? He’s already convinced himself that we’ve found what’s left of Kendall. Wish I was that certain. But we’ll know when the prints have gone through the PNC. Going home now. I’m whacked. Ken.

  I folded the report and slipped it into an inside pocket, then drew a fresh batch of files towards me. I started off with determination, but after a quarter of an hour it ran out. I put down my pen, then reached for the phone and asked for HQ —Computer Section.

  ‘Harry...it’s Richard. No — I’m at my desk. Anything yet on those prints? The Swallow’s End murder, what d’you think?’

  He commented that he’d heard I was not in charge of it. Damn it all, I’d bought him a pint last time we’d met! I talked him down cheerfully.

  ‘I know Donaldson’s got it, but that doesn’t mean I’m not interested...yes...you fed them in when? Eight this morning. Well, you ought to have heard something by now, Harry. Thanks. One I owe you.’

  I put down the phone and settled a shoulder against the patch on the wall. I’d been sent, grumbling, to a short course on the Police National Computer, but now it was useful to know how it clicked. They’d have fed it with a code covering all the recognised characteristics of the prints they’d found. Then it would make a search. If it found a positive match straightaway, it would throw it out. But failing that, it would search for all characteristics minus one, and throw out a dozen or so possibles, then minus two, and produce a hundred or more, and then minus three...and so on, until somebody punched a key to tell it to stop playing the fool, and lay off.

  A positive ID of all characteristics, as you’d expect for prints already on file, might take the computer as long as four seconds to locate. Non-positive took longer. They had fed the computer at eight. It was now ten-thirty, and it hadn’t disgorged. The body was therefore not that of Clive Kendall, always provided that nobody had botched it up.

  I reached for my hat and coat, and Merridew walked into the office.

  ‘Going out, Richard?’

  ‘Something I’d like to check.’

  He fingered his lower lip. ‘I’ve put Donaldson in the room opposite mine.’ He gazed along his nose. ‘If you should want him.’

  ‘It seems unlikely.’

  ‘Latchett in yet?’

  ‘He was here very late last night.’

  ‘You’ve seen him, then?’

  ‘No...o...He left me a note.’

  He frowned. ‘Did he, now! I’ll have a word with him. He’s to report direct to Donaldson.’

  ‘Then I’m on my own,’ I observed pleasantly.

  ‘Your own pace, Richard. No sweat, huh?’ He was addicted to Americanisms. ‘But let me see the files you’re shedding. Oh...and it looks like we can close down the watch for Kendall.’ He smiled thinly.

  ‘Perhaps a little early for that assumption.’ I laughed. ‘No, perhaps already too late.’

  Then I went out, leaving him wondering.

  The sky had cleared that morning. The weatherman had said there was a stationary high-pressure system right over my house, which brought a distinct drop in temperature, but clear air and a snap to my walk that hadn’t been there the day before. Something I could get my teeth into. The low sun was in my eyes and I flicked down the visor, and headed for Kendall’s bungalow, which was only half a mile from the station.

  The snowfall in the narrow alleyway had been undisturbed, but had melted on the surface before freezing again, nicely preserving two sets of footprints, one in and one out. I walked carefully, left shoulder brushing the fence. They were cleated rubber soles. I compared the size with my own shoes, which were tens. About size eight, I decided, allowing for the fact that they make rubber boots on the large side.

  There was no apparent change to the bungalow. Walking round it in daylight I was able to confirm my previous impression that some period of occupation had occurred. The Coalite in the bag had not gone down any more, thoug
h.

  Then, standing close to the kitchen window, I noticed something different. The message of warning, which had accompanied the hanging doll, had been rubbed off.

  I had a think about that. Had Kendall been back, and wiped it clean in anger? But why trouble? Why, even, wait to rub it off? He’d been a strange mixture of cowardice and arrogance, completely egotistic. This had seemed to fit in with his attacks on girls — they would arise from a necessity to assert. Perhaps his wife hadn’t been too easily impressed. She had been a bitter, belligerent woman, and I’d always wondered whether the anonymous phone call that ended the investigation might not have come from her.

  No, I decided. If Kendall had seen the warning, he wouldn’t have stayed around long enough to clean it off. Although, I realised, the doll hadn’t been there for him to see.

  Still theorising uselessly, I went round the corner, and there, on the back window, was the answer. Something new had been substituted. In white emulsion paint applied with a paintbrush, as though Ted Clayton had used it in a gesture of personal defiance to me, there was a crude drawing of a man’s face. The mouth was open in a perfect O, the eyes wide, smaller Os, and the hair standing on end as six spikes. Framing the face on each side, two hands were roughed in, palms extended in horror.

  It was too expressive. To be the work of Ted Clayton, he’d have had to witness the killing — must have been there. Must have done it? And then he’d come back here to tell the world all about it? Oh, come off it, Richard, I thought. This is Ted Clayton you’re thinking about. Dear old thick, unimaginative Ted.

  I turned very slowly. Pointing directly at the drawing — and therefore at me — was a double-barrelled shotgun, side-by-side model. It was wedged in the fork of a tree and tied roughly with rope.

  I skirted it carefully. It wasn’t going to fire itself, but I was remembering all those trip wires at the cottage. Then, as I got closer, it became obvious that it couldn’t possibly fire. It was so rusted that it probably hadn’t been fired for twenty years. Its stock was grey with rot, with deep clefts in the wood, and was riddled with worm holes.

  There wasn’t anywhere smooth enough to take fingerprints, but all the same I untied it carefully, and used the rope to bind round it and carry it away.

  I sat in the Stag with the gun on the seat beside me, drew smoke into my mouth thoughtfully for a few minutes, then drove to Atlas Electronics.

  As I was checking in at the gate the Chief Personnel Officer was just driving out. He saw me, and drew up.

  ‘Ah...Mr Patton. Did you receive our communication?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘I’m sorry. There were a large number of applicants.’

  I hadn’t wanted it, hadn’t expected it. ‘That’s all right.’ Yet all the same, there was a plunge in my self-esteem.

  ‘If you were coming to ask about it...’

  ‘No. I’m here on my own business.’

  He looked worried. ‘Police business?’

  ‘Nothing serious. I just want a word with one of your staff.’

  Then I walked over to the Production Control building and hunted out Foster Clayton in his office. He had a glassed cubicle at the far end of a long, narrow room, which was clattering with computer consoles and typing machines.

  He was dozing over a cup of tea, a cigarette smouldering in the hand resting on his desk, the other hand supporting his forehead. He looked up with a start when I opened the door.

  ‘Can’t you knock?’

  ‘Had a bad night?’ I drew up a chair. The ashtray was full, papers scattered all over his desk, and at one end of it an open package of half-finished sandwiches.

  Foster groaned. ‘I’ve been here half the bloody night. A breakdown on M line, and all our damn schedules thrown to cock...’

  ‘Are you trying to tell me something?’ I asked pleasantly.

  He glared at me. ‘Such as?’

  ‘Such as an alibi for last night.’

  His head came up. Eagerness lit his eyes. ‘Something’s happened? Don’t tell me somebody’s done the bleeder in.’

  I shook my head slowly. ‘Didn’t I warn you about issuing threats?’

  ‘Threats! Is that all? You come here, worrying me about paltry threats...’

  ‘Not paltry.’

  ‘The word’s around that you’re on your last few days, Mr Patton. Of course, you wouldn’t want to see much action.’

  ‘Do you own a shotgun, Foster?’

  ‘A shotgun! You’ve asked me that before.’

  ‘And didn’t get an answer then, either. Do you?’

  ‘Find out. If I had a Firearm Certificate, you’d know.’

  ‘I didn’t ask about a certificate, I asked if you’ve got a shotgun.’

  ‘No. And never had one.’ His eyes slid away. ‘Nor Ted, neither.’ He looked suspicious. ‘You been to Ted?’

  ‘Not yet. Do I need to?’

  But I’d got him uneasy. I waited patiently, realising what was worrying him. He was well aware that his brother was weak and unpredictable. That I’d gone first to Foster, who could be much more difficult to break down, meant that I probably had something definite, and was confident with it.

  I waited while he worked it out.

  ‘What’s this about a shotgun, anyway?’ he grumbled at last.

  ‘What size shoes d’you wear, Foster?’

  ‘What the hell!’ Then he laughed hoarsely, slapping the desk with his right palm. ‘By all that’s holy — you’ve found some footprints! And what does Holmes make of ‘em?’

  ‘What size?’

  ‘And where were they?’

  ‘Down the little entrance drive to Kendall’s bungalow. Let’s have a look at one of your shoes, there’s a good chap.’

  He glared at me. ‘You can just bog off outa here.’

  ‘These were size eight or nine wellies.’

  ‘Wellies don’t mean anything. Anybody can flop along in big wellies....’ He stopped. ‘I take sevens.’

  ‘Well now!’

  I leaned back, took out my pipe and started filling it, relaxed and waiting. That pipe’s a useful psychological weapon. He spoke grudgingly at last.

  ‘Where’s the shotgun come into it?’

  ‘Don’t you know?’

  He thumped the table.

  ‘Mind you,’ I conceded, ‘the drawing was done with a paintbrush, and Ted’s the one for paintbrushes. Have you seen him lately?’

  He got to his feet. ‘All right, Mr Patton, you’ve had your bit of fun. Charge me with something, or get out.’

  I grinned at him, stood up, and headed for the door. I paused. ‘And there’s no sense in phoning Ted, because I shan’t be seeing him. No point, really.’

  I walked the full length of that long office with every eye on me. They might not have heard, but they certainly could have seen.

  But my show of confidence was empty. I was worried. There was still an outside chance that the man in the cottage was Clive Kendall, so the obvious suspects had to be the Claytons, even though the cottage was isolated, and they’d be unlikely to know about it. The two threats had all the marks of their work, but the second — and the first, for all I knew — had been rigged after the killing, which was a bit late for threats. It indicated an unawareness that Kendall was dead. All right, so it could have been a clever bluff, but I wouldn’t have thought those two could put together one subtle thought between them.

  When I got back to the office I discovered I’d been wasting my time on conjecture. Ken was in, looking red-eyed and jaded, and he had the computer print-out on the fingerprints.

  There were seventeen possibles on the minus one sheet, one hundred and eighty-seven on the minus two sheet, and Clive Kendall’s fingerprints failed to match on five similarity points.

  ‘Has Donaldson seen this?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ken tried to smile.

  ‘So now he knows it’s not Kendall.’

  ‘He doesn’t want to believe it. Says all the evidence shows it’s go
t to be Kendall. So he’s furious. Quietly furious, ‘cause he thought he was going to wrap it all up in a couple of days.’ His eyes met mine. He was worried. ‘So now it’s back to routine. Wading through all the missing person lists . Got any ideas, Richard?’

  ‘Wouldn’t I tell you?’

  He didn’t return my smile. ‘You know where we’ve got to go first.’

  ‘Mrs Trowbridge.’

  ‘No comments? Nothing to offer, Richard?’

  ‘Why should I have?’

  He shrugged, painfully uneasy. ‘You liked her, didn’t you?’

  ‘I never said that.’

  ‘I saw her when she made the report. I thought to myself: Richard would like this woman.’

  I grinned at him, though it cost a lot. ‘Liar.’

  ‘You were getting along just fine with her, in the Crystal Orb.’

  ‘Now how the hell d’you know that?’

  ‘Young Peters was in there, having a coffee.’

  ‘It’s as well he didn’t try the tea.’ PC Peters. Nosey young bugger. He’d do fine in the CID.

  I began to fiddle with a few files, wondering how far Ken would dare to take it. At last he ventured:

  ‘She’ll have to be seen. I thought — you’ve got another day — I thought you’d like me to put it to Donaldson for you to see her...’

  ‘Put nothing to him,’ I snapped.

  He couldn’t understand me. Shook his head. ‘Then I’ll go myself.’

  ‘You do that.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Richard, can’t you see what I’m trying to say? I don’t want to go tramping in, not knowing...’

  ‘Take it as it comes, Ken. As it comes.’