Face Value (Richard and Amelia Patton)

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘They’re going to come at you with a substantial case, my dear. They don’t have to explain to you what case they have, nor the motive they’ll put to it. They will merely charge you and take you away. At this stage. So...I’ll tell you now, so that you can be prepared.’

  She nodded eagerly, agreeing simply to calm me, as though I wasn’t acting rationally.

  ‘Smoke if you want to,’ she told me.

  I shook my head, and put away the pipe.

  ‘They’re going to say you went to that cottage at night. They will say that your husband had gone there in fear of his life. He’d thought his danger was mainly from Kendall, and you’d already taken him to the cottage, so he knew he had a place to hide. It was a good place to be in fear. He’d had time to prowl the district in the dark, and he’d got himself a shotgun from Rennie’s place. That’s what they’ll say.’

  ‘But why? What would be the reason behind all this?’

  ‘I’ll come to that,’ I said, my voice clipped. ‘They’ll say you went to him in darkness, and that he saw you only as a shadow, so he fired at you through the open window. But you called out to him that it was you. He believed there was nothing to fear from his wife, so he ran to open the front door, but it was wedged solid. So...failing that, he flung open the window again, but by that time you’d reached the porch, and suddenly he realised he’d got a great deal to fear from you after all, because you too had a shotgun. The window opened against it, breaking a hole in the pane, so he slammed it quickly. But you thrust your shotgun through the hole and shot him with both barrels. Even though he held his hands in front of his face, palms out in entreaty. But it was dark. You might not have seen what he was doing,’ I conceded. ‘That’s what they’re going to say.’

  ‘And you...you believe this, Richard?’

  ‘No. I’ve told you what they’ll say.’

  ‘It’s...Richard, it’s quite absurd.’

  ‘But how can I prove it is?’ I asked, my voice sounding plaintive to me, not forceful enough.

  But now she was worried. ‘Don’t tell me they can say that without putting a reason to it. It’s not right. I’m not having it. Oh, it’s so stupid! I can’t even discuss it.’

  ‘They know all the details of your relationship with Kendall,’ I grated. ‘To you it might seem that you were just doing a job, a difficult job, and had to do it in the only way you could. But from outside — to other people — it all looks different. Damn it all, hadn’t you ever given one thought to Kendall’s attitude in this? He was a forceful and self-confident man, a supreme egotist, and he was helpless, there in prison. He had to submit himself to the tender hands of a woman. Hell, he probably despised women. But you had the control, you were the one he had to depend on completely. He’d writhe at your condescension.’ My face felt hot. My brain was working again.

  ‘I never treated him like that!’ she said indignantly.

  ‘To Kendall it would seem that you were patronising him. And, by God, he’d hate you. Why d’you think he sneered at your efforts, if not in pure self-defence? Why else did he throw challenges at you, if it wasn’t to prove to himself that he was in control? He had you dancing to every damned demand he could make, and he hated you, and he lived off it. More than likely, he never had any faith in your ability to get him released, on any grounds. And believe me, a man like that’d even hate you all the more for succeeding.’

  ‘What good is all this doing?’ she asked, a little nervous that I was no longer capable of controlling my emotions.

  I merely raised my voice. ‘And when he did succeed, and he was due for release, by heaven he’d hate the thought of losing you. Rona, his wife...I don’t think he ever managed to dominate her. Maybe that was what caused him to turn to little girls. God knows. But you’d proved to him that he could still dominate somebody.’

  ‘You’re accusing me!’ she cried. ‘I don’t want your contempt. I’ve got as much as I can put up with.’

  ‘Contempt?’ I shouted. ‘I’m talking about Kendall.’

  ‘And aiming it at me,’ she flashed back.

  I gave a furious snort. ‘I’m trying to get it clear in my mind. Kendall. That creature! Why d’you think he got you involved in cleaning his bungalow? Not because he couldn’t do it himself, but to see if you’d go that far. And then got you to check out the cottage! Not because he was really afraid. He wouldn’t need to stay in this district, if he didn’t want to. Ask yourself. But he’d need to prove to himself that he’d got you — there in the palm of his hand. Only got to snap his fingers, and you’d go flying in any direction he chose. He’d got you jumping.’

  ‘Why are you saying this to me?’ she asked in bemused misery.

  ‘It’s Kendall…’

  ‘No. It’s me you’re talking about.’

  I tried to speak more softly, more persuasively. ‘A thing like this, it grows. You can easily lose control of it.’

  ‘I never lost control!’ she snapped. ‘I knew exactly what I was doing.’

  ‘One concession, and it seems so small. Then a slightly larger one. You feel that to protest at that would be petty, and the whole thing would be lost for a minor annoyance. It’s so much easier to give way — and do it.’ I was appealing to her. ‘Then gradually it grows until you’re taken over, though you might not realise it at the time...’

  ‘Why don’t you sit down, for pity’s sake!’

  ‘…until there comes a point when anything will be conceded, because you’re too damned tired to say: no — go to hell.’

  ‘Sit down,’ she cried, controlling her temper with an effort. ‘Sit down...please.’

  ‘There can come a time when you find you’re taking actions completely opposed to your nature,’ I persisted.

  ‘Have you got the utter nerve to stand there, and tell me that he sent me out to kill —’

  ‘Not me!’

  ‘That he put a shotgun in my hands and said to me: go and shoot your husband!’

  ‘Listen to me, for heaven’s sake.’

  ‘And that I would!’ she screamed.

  ‘Be quiet!’ I shouted at her. ‘Listen — will you. They’re going to say that. They, they, they! Not me. They’ll say that Kendall could tell you to do even that...and you’d do it.’

  ‘By God, just let them!’

  ‘So you’d deny it to their faces?’

  ‘I’d walk out of the room,’ she declared hotly. ‘If it wasn’t you saying it now...I tell you, Richard...I’d be doing just that right now. And,’ she said fiercely, ‘you can just take that look off your face.’

  ‘Look? Look? What look?’

  ‘Like a thunderstorm, hovering.’

  ‘You’re trying to change the subject. This isn’t something you can run away from, Amelia. You wouldn’t be able to walk out on them. On me, perhaps. Not on them. They’ll arrest you, and they needn’t even put a motive to it. You’d be left with nothing to deny, only seeing the look on their bloody faces, and knowing what they were thinking.’

  ‘I’d have my say...

  ‘At the trial, oh yes.’

  ‘Trial? It’d come to that?’

  ‘What else am I trying to say, for heaven’s sake? After a few months in Holloway, you’d come to trial...’

  ‘I could never stand that,’ she said decisively.

  ‘And then, perhaps, there’d be discussion in court about your motive. And then, in open court, you’d get your chance. They’d claim he dominated you, sent you out...’

  ‘You’re saying: it again!’ She was almost in tears with frustration and anger.

  ‘And you’d deny it?’

  ‘Of course. At the top of my lungs.’

  ‘And fall right into their trap,’ I told her wearily.

  ‘Oh, I’m tired of this. You’re talking such nonsense. What trap?’

  I’d got round to it at last. I almost sighed myself to my knees. ‘They’d have offered you that as the easy way out, and you’d have refused to take it. They’d then say t
hat if you weren’t claiming that you killed your husband because of Kendall’s domination — because he wanted it — then you must have killed him because you wanted it yourself.’ I waited. ‘Amelia?’

  She was shaking her head, hardly able to get a word out. ‘From you, Richard? You can say such a thing!’

  ‘The only answer would have to be that you were fascinated by Kendall. His arrogance and domination. Perhaps that’s what you were looking for. Your husband deferred to you. You want a man who led and controlled.’ Such as me, I thought. Standing there, shaking, pleading, and afraid.

  ‘What’re you saying?’ she whispered.

  ‘They will say you killed your husband for the simple and usual reason — that it was what you wanted. Because you were in love with Kendall.’

  I let it hang in the air, mocking us.

  She got to her feet abruptly and turned her back to me, staring out of the window. I approached her quietly and put a finger on her shoulder. She shrugged herself free angrily. She was shaking, I could feel in that second, and I hated myself for going on with it.

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve got a right to know?’ I asked gently. ‘If you saw something in Kendall that you couldn’t resist, then maybe I could understand it. Sexual chemistry’s a strange thing. If what you really feel for Kendall is what you’d call love, then say it. For me, my dear, just for me.’

  She whirled on me so abruptly that I took a pace backwards. Her face was red, her eyes staring, her mouth distorted.

  ‘Love him?’ she choked. ‘I hated him. With all my heart and soul I hated him! I could not possibly hate a person more...’

  Then her face crumpled and tears streamed down her cheeks, and she fell into my arms, burying her distress in the breast of my jacket.

  I was smiling past her head, my palm spread between her shoulder blades. ‘Thank you, my dear,’ I whispered. ‘Thank you for that. And now, maybe, there’s still something I can do.’ After a few moments I eased her away from me. ‘They’ll be here soon.’

  She tossed a hand through her hair, and sniffed. ‘What do you want me to do?’

  ‘Can you say that to Merridew? Can you convince him that it’s the truth?’

  ‘I can repeat it a hundred times. Shout it from the roof-tops...’

  ‘That won’t be necessary.’

  ‘It’s boiled up inside me, all the time trying not to tell you, Richard.’

  ‘I know.’ I smiled at her, but the effort of extracting it had drained me. I swayed where I stood. ‘Let me speak to them first. I’ll take them into the front room. There’s something I’ve got to try and get across. You’ll stay in here?’

  She dipped her head without reservation. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘That sounds like them now. I’ll get out into the hall.’

  I didn’t look at her again, giving her no chance to retract a word. Perhaps, alone, she’d realise what she’d admitted. I went to meet the invasion.

  As I stood in the porch I saw that they’d brought three cars, transport for Merridew and Donaldson, the two outside inspectors, Ken Latchett, and Brason. A policewoman hovered at their shoulders.

  I was not pleased to see Brason. He made it more difficult. But I’d come so far now, and had wagered so very heavily. I managed not to meet Brason’s eye, not to flinch from him.

  ‘She’s in the back room,’ I said. ‘But I want to talk first. There’s something I’ve got to tell you.’

  Donaldson had recognised the Stag, and was in no mood for obstruction. ‘Now look here, Patton, I’ve had about as much as I can take from you.’

  I looked past him, and said: ‘We’ll talk in the front room. I’d advise it.’

  Something of the confidence I was now feeling seemed to get across.

  ‘We’ll hear what he’s got to say,’ Merridew decided.

  ‘We know what he’s after,’ Donaldson claimed, easing his way to the front. ‘He’s blocking. We’ve got it all put together, and now he wants to confuse the issue.’

  ‘We’ll listen,’ decided Merridew. ‘There’s no hurry. It does no harm to listen.’ He nodded to the policewoman, who walked past me towards the back room. I heard her speak to Amelia as the door opened.

  I smiled weakly, and flung open the door to the front room, switching on the light. They trooped past me, Ken with a conspiratorial wink, Brason with an uncertain grimace. Then they stood around, no one willing to look for a seat unless Merridew did, and he standing four-square, poised, ready to plunge in quickly if I said anything to upset Donaldson. Brason took up a position by the window, gloomily staring at the streaming night, miserable because he’d already seen me make a fool of myself once, and could see another coming.

  ‘Say it,’ said Donaldson. ‘Let’s get it over and done with.’

  ‘So you’ve got it put together,’ I said, trying for quiet control. I put a shoulder against the mantel, and now felt sufficiently relaxed to fill my pipe. ‘A theory you couldn’t even work out yourself— you had to rely on an inexperienced constable.’ I was aware of a sudden movement by the window but kept my eyes on Donaldson. ‘In too much of a hurry, that was your trouble, Chief Inspector.’

  ‘All right, Richard, that’s enough.’ Merridew had allowed as much as he dared.

  Donaldson growled, and tossed his head. I nodded to him, but he didn’t take it up.

  ‘But look what you’ve worked out,’ I said. ‘Just look, and don’t imagine I wasn’t listening while Brason got it off his chest. There were two absolutely contradictory themes: that the dead man should’ve fired two barrels at an intruder, placing the shotgun carefully against the wall and not even reloading it...and that the intruder should have been able to get close enough with his — or her — own shotgun, which would have offered a threat. To cover both, Brason came up with the grand idea that it would work if his wife’d come to the cottage in the dark.’

  I stopped. I lit my pipe. There was dead silence. I blew smoke at the ceiling.

  ‘What a load of nonsense,’ I said amiably.

  Donaldson moved. Merridew clamped a hand on his arm.

  ‘But sir....’ Donaldson appealed. Merridew said: ‘In what way nonsense, Richard?’ And Brason turned sharply, his face pale. He’d realised that I’d set him up.

  ‘Just look at it. This man, in the cottage, he’s sitting and waiting for trouble. In the dark, with a loaded shotgun at his side. He hears a sound. What would he do? Creep to the window and open it, and stick the gun out, more than likely. And blast away? No shout of: who’s there? And then she calls out! What the hell’s she been doing out there? Surely she’d have seen the shadow movement when the window opened — and would have called out straightaway. But no — he fired two shots, and then she called out, and he ran and leaned his gun against the wall. No...my mistake. The theory has to have him slam the window shut after he’s fired. So she still hasn’t called out.’ I considered the bowl of my pipe for a moment, then looked up with a new idea. ‘But perhaps she hadn’t got her wind back, having thrown herself flat on the ground after the first shot.’

  Brason was a rigid shadow by the window, his back to the room. Merridew coughed. Ken hummed quietly to himself, his eyes on the ceiling.

  ‘All right,’ I said, ‘so she hasn’t called out, and he’d shut the window. He dives for his cartridges, but her voice halts him. How do I know that? Because he didn’t get there, to the cartridges, but instead leaned his gun against the wall. But at that time he’d have been near the light switch. This was now a friend outside — his wife. The light worked, Brason showed us that, but it wasn’t put on. It would’ve been very dark. No streetlights there, not even snow at that time to throw back a sky-glow. But he ran around in the dark. How do I know that? Well, I don’t. But his wife must have had time to get all that way to the window. I wondered how he wasted all that time. Trying to open the front door, perhaps. But eventually it occurred to him to open the window again and say: “hello, darling, fancy seeing you.” And then her shotgun went
through the glass! Lord, what a shock that’d be. But all the same, he must have taken time out to shut and latch the window again. We know that, because only his hands touched that latch. And what does he do then? He gives her time to push her gun through the hole and line it up on him. Still in the dark, remember. By that time he’s only three feet away, but holding his hands up in front of his face. It hasn’t occurred to him to dive sideways into the darkness, or run for his own gun. Oh good Lord, what a botch-up!’

  ‘I’m not having this!’ Donaldson roared.

  I raised my eyebrows. ‘It’s your theory. And it includes the peculiar fact that he was shot three feet from the window, and didn’t shed a drop of blood till he fell back against the fireplace, eight feet or so away.’

  ‘I did mention that,’ said Merridew sadly, forgetting that he hadn’t.

  I’d waited until then to look directly at Brason. He was quite firm, head up and chin out, and in his eyes a pain that hit me. I looked away quickly. Somebody laughed quietly.

  ‘And all that,’ I said, ‘completely ignores the fact that there’s been no other shotgun turned up, except a rusty old wreck, which couldn’t possibly have fired.’

  Donaldson was breathing with difficulty. ‘And I suppose,’ he said heavily, ‘you know where to find the gun that killed him.’

  ‘Certainly I do. It’s in the forensic lab at HQ. It’s the Remington over/under shotgun, which was found leaning against the wall in the cottage. There was only one gun. Why complicate matters by assuming a second one?’

  ‘Come on, Richard,’ said Merridew softly. ‘What d’you know?’

  ‘Well...’ I straightened. ‘The trouble’s always been that we’ve assumed the fingerprints had to belong to the dead man —and that no intruder could have got in or out. But it doesn’t mean anything of the sort. It simply means that the fingerprints belonged to the man who’d just spent a fortnight hiding away in there. Invert it, and assume that the murderer was the one who’d been hiding away there, and that the dead man was his visitor — and it all falls into place.’

  There was a light in Merridew’s eye. ‘You’ll have to substantiate that.’