Seeing Red

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘His name’s Phil Rollason.’ His face was abruptly lifeless. ‘You’ll do that, Evan?’

  ‘Yes, I’ll do it.’

  I ran out into the yard. Angie called to me, but I simply waved. She must have thought I’d gone mad. Well — I was. Mad at myself. But I did manage to remember something else I’d missed.

  Cursing, I ran through into the lab again. I could spare two minutes. I found the cans at once, the row of eight gallons of base and thinners for paint mixing. They were lined up under the bench along the side, and with them, tossed aside negligently, there was one of those electrically operated spray-guns. Its nozzle was covered with green paint. I couldn’t tell whether it was the green of the walls, which Lynne had catalogued as 5G 5/5, or the green of the Escort’s wing re-spray, which she’d said was 7G 4/5.

  It was just another thing I should have thought about. I should have deduced that the spray-gun had to be there — because she’d spoken of spraying the walls — and asked her to make a check of that, too. But the thought carried the assumption that she’d have told me the truth, which would have been pushing her a bit far.

  By the time I got to the end of the drive I had reached that point of self-criticism where one begins to feel very old and insecure. I was moving too fast. I admit it. I very nearly crushed a large car, which was just turning in. There were exchanged comments. I realised I was swearing at Paul. His wife, beside him, recognised me and joined in. My wavering self-confidence received a further blow when I realised she was far beyond me in swearing ability.

  I drove on, taking a right onto the back road Angie had showed me. With the turns and dips, and the tightly restricted width of the road surface in places, I could have done with a sports car. I tried to pretend the Rover was, and pushed it into the swinging curves. Only once did the tail slide. I caught it, banged down into a lower gear, and let the revs mount. Fifteen minutes, had I said? The loom of the block of flats came out of the night at twelve, and I was turning in at thirteen.

  Every flat was illuminated in the windows that faced inwards, all curtains drawn back. I parked the car by the row of garages and began to run. The light in the courtyard was directionless and I realised the balconies were lined with shadows, and the muttering whisper I’d taken for wind was voices. There was a patch of shadow near the swings. A light flickered. Red spots became the rear lights of a parked, silent ambulance. The group around it was caught in the petrified awe that always accompanies an accident. They allowed me through with no comment and no resistance.

  They were just loading her onto a stretcher. I pushed my way forward. The face was at peace, I saw, before they covered it. Then they slid the stretcher into the back. I turned away.

  ‘You knew her, sir?’ asked a young constable.

  ‘What? Yes. Her name’s Lynne Fairfax.’

  ‘We know her name. But...did you know her?’

  ‘I was on my way to visit her.’

  There wasn’t much in my voice. I hadn’t got any reserve. He had his notebook out, and I could see myself stuck there for hours. I tried to straighten my shoulders. I gave him my name. I told him I was a detective sergeant to indicate I knew procedures. I told him where I was staying, and I mentioned that Sergeant Timmis knew me. I said I’d be pleased to answer any questions the sergeant had to ask.

  ‘But not now, Constable. Not now.’

  Sensible chap, he nodded and smiled, and moved away. Then I found myself wandering back to the car, and only professionalism halted me. I knew nothing about what had happened. Nothing. I went back and mingled. There’d be police in her flat, and I wouldn’t be welcome there, so I moved around. Dozens of women, hugging their arms, were full of it. One was saying that Lynne just came tumbling down.

  ‘Seemed to run out and straight over the rail. I’ve always said...haven’t I always said?...they’re not high enough...’

  I wandered back to the car, fumbled around for a while looking for my keys before remembering they were in the ignition, then fell inside and did the only thing I was capable of at the time. I filled my pipe. I lit it and sucked on it. My head was aching again and the double vision had come back. I smoked, and wondered what I was supposed to be doing, remembered Phil at the Mitre, switched on the engine. Then I smoked a little more.

  Finally I drove out and found the road to Llanmawr, going gently because death was in the air. Sunday evening. My tyres thrummed on the cobbles and I saw Phil’s Sierra parked at the kerb. Nothing moved except a ginger cat, streaking across the road as though it might be pouring with traffic. I got out and stood beside the car. It was a ghost town. I felt like one of them.

  I found them in the snug, chatting quietly over half pints. As I approached I heard Evan say: ‘It’s a matter of rods and cones. It’s why we know cats see only mono, like an old TV set.’

  They saw me. Phil got to his feet. ‘Harry?’ My face was now in full light.

  I sat down. ‘Expected you’d be later,’ said Phil.

  ‘I would’ve been, but I didn’t get to do the talking I wanted.’

  ‘I’ll get you a drink,’ Evan offered.

  ‘Lynne’s dead,’ I told him flatly. ‘She fell off her balcony.’

  Of the two, Phil knew me better. My voice had sounded strange to me, and he probably detected it. ‘No, I’ll get it,’ he said, and Evan and I sat silently until he returned with a double whisky. I rarely touch spirits. ‘Get that down you,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Evan gently. He’d barely said two words to her. ‘I liked her.’

  I took a mouthful of scotch, searing my throat. Phil was watching me with interest. Evan finished his beer and said he’d be going. ‘You’ll have things to talk about,’ he murmured, knowing the things would be Angie.

  The spirit had shocked my brain into action. ‘You’re going back to Viewlands?’

  He nodded. ‘Thought I would.’

  ‘Her brother’s there. You know him. Don’t let ’em talk about Gledwyn.’

  ‘I’ll do what I can.’

  He walked out, one of your solid and dependable types who always get caught holding the sticky end.

  ‘You found her?’ asked Phil solicitously, though he hadn’t known Lynne.

  Lynne’s death was the only one in my life for which I could be held directly responsible. I cleared my throat.

  ‘Not exactly.’ I tossed down the rest of the whisky. ‘I want this finished, Phil, and quickly. I’ve handled it like a clumsy oaf. I want to see an end.’

  ‘You blame yourself…’

  ‘I’ve been blind, idiotic...’

  ‘Why don’t you tell me, then?’ he asked, annoyed at me. ‘Tell me, and let me judge.’

  ‘I’m the judge, mate,’ I told him.

  ‘For God’s sake — why have I come all this way?’

  I needed a minute to collect my thoughts. I spent it getting in two pints, banged them down on the table, and sat opposite him again. I led in from the beginning, telling him everything I’d done and discovered as well as I could remember, trying to miss out nothing, not even about Lynne’s death.

  ‘Oh hell, Harry,’ he said.

  ‘I missed it, you see,’ I told him. ‘I’d assumed he’d be able to mix a perfect match for any colour he came across, as near as damnit. I didn’t realise he’d have to use Lynne.’

  ‘What am I going to tell Angie?’ he asked in dismay. ‘I know she liked her.’

  ‘Yes...well...that’s the point. That was what I wanted to see you about. From what I’ve already said, you’ll have gathered something of what you’re up against. This isn’t just a nostalgia trip for Angie, like a man going back for a day’s trip to the place he was born. For her, the house is a symbol of her father, and her father’s the most wonderful thing that’s happened to her in this rotten world. You’ve heard. I’ve had contradictory evidence about Gledwyn. Listen to Paul and his wife, and he was a poor specimen, a failure, covering his failure with hypocrisy and self-mar
tyrdom. But I don’t think that even scratched the surface. It all came from Paul, and he’s blind in any direction but his own. I think Gledwyn was a fine man, weak perhaps, but making something great out of even that weakness. I think his wife died knowing he loved her. I think she believed he had gained by leaving his research work at Aberystwyth. If that’s so, he did a good job.’

  I paused. Phil had appeared to be listening carefully. I couldn’t tell how much was penetrating.

  ‘Angie realised, I think,’ I told him. ‘She was the one who lost out, because she could’ve stayed on and got her degree and nobody the poorer. But she doesn’t see it like that. She sees that she spent her mother’s last few years in a warm and close relationship with her father, smoothing her mother’s life to the best end it could possibly be. And because of that, the house where it happened has got a special place of its own in her life. She can’t let it go, Phil, she can’t let her father go.’

  He’d let me run on, talking the distress out of me. But I’d deliberately gone into it in detail, hoping to impress on him how important it was to Angie. I was no longer thinking directly about Lynne — she was an ache in the background.

  ‘You think I can compete with that?’ he asked miserably.

  ‘I think you were making a pretty good go of it. God knows what she ever saw in you...’ He gave a twisted grin at that, but I was serious. ‘Maybe you’re like Gledwyn, though I can’t see it. If so, you ought to be proud of that. But you know the place where she was brought up, so what d’you think it’s done to her, moving to a town flat, and with a husband who’s always missing at one of his other garages. And...I’m guessing this...I bet she got a share in what Gledwyn was doing, whereas now...’

  ‘You know I can’t involve her in what I’m doing now.’

  ‘Not if it’s illegal.’

  ‘Now come off it, Harry. You know what I mean. I’m breaking through and seeing a profit. And Angie knows that.’

  ‘Maybe she does. I think she blames herself bitterly for not being able to fall in with it all, and for leaving you like she did — and for knowing she can’t go back.’

  I’d got to shock him, preparing him for what was to come.

  ‘But she can’t do that,’ he burst out. ‘Harry, you’re crazy. I’m not having that.’

  ‘Keep your voice down. You’ll need it for later. I’m going to ask you to consider the effect on her if you tell her that Gledwyn was the hit-and-run driver who killed Lynne’s friend, Carla. No — worse than that — who knocked her down and didn’t stop, didn’t do anything about it, but left her to die.’

  Only his ears retained their colour. His face was quite white. I’d given him all the facts, and he hadn’t seen the obvious conclusion until I handed it to him.

  ‘You’d better prove that,’ he said, and there was threat in his voice.

  ‘I think I can. Listen. That day he’d been to Aberystwyth to see his son, Paul. It wasn’t a visit he wanted to make, and he was worried about the paper he was preparing for the Convention he was going to. It was a terrible confrontation with Paul and his wife. He heard a lot of home truths that must’ve shocked him to his heels, if my understanding of him is correct. Neville drove him. It was a rotten return journey for both of them, and Gledwyn was barely civil to his nephew when he got out of the Escort. Perhaps that trip, with his bit of treated windscreen, had convinced him his work was no use. Anyway, he marched into the house, leaving Neville in the car in the drive. Right? Are you with me?’

  ‘With you,’ Phil muttered. The bounce had drained out of him.

  ‘Gledwyn was in a right bad humour. I know he marched straight through the house, because he’d still got his keys in his hand when he reached Lynne’s office. He took it out on her. Imagine how he’d feel. He’d seen a year’s work — and possible acclaim — sliding down the drain. He didn’t even notice Lynne’d stayed late for him. He tore up his speech as a gesture and walked out. Back to the house...and then what?’

  I waited. I’d intended it as a direct question, trying to provoke Phil’s poor imagination. But he simply shook his head.

  ‘Imagine,’ I said forcefully. ‘He was a weak character perhaps, but he hadn’t shown himself to be thoughtless. He’d realise how he’d treated Lynne. She’d become important to him. He’d go back after a minute or two to apologise, but she told me she could have been out at the side, sitting in her car at the time. He’d see darkness, because she’d put off her light, and assume she’d gone home. So he’d go back indoors, would he? Probably. But I’d suggest that suddenly he’d realise how much he really needed her, not just because of the speech, but simply to talk to, perhaps. Somebody who’d got faith in him. So...what would he do, Phil? Come on. Think.’

  His eyes brightened. ‘He’d climb into that Escort…’

  ‘Well now, you do see it! Yes. The Escort, when he hadn’t driven for years.’

  ‘And chase after her. Is that what you’re saying?’

  I nodded. ‘And I reckon it didn’t matter to him whether or not she’d return to the lab with him, so long as he could be with her. But he’d got his special glasses, and there weren’t any traffic signals on that road, so it should have been all right. But it wasn’t. There was a broken-down car and a woman standing beside it, and through those glasses the rear lights would look like white sidelights, which would confuse him, and her green coat would look a dark grey and almost invisible. He hit her — and because he was the type who can’t look at other people’s pain, he drove on. Maybe he even went to Lynne’s flat, and found it empty. Yes, of course he went to Lynne’s flat!’

  ‘Why’re you so sure?’

  ‘When he got back, he went into the lab expecting to find her there, so he must have failed to find her at her place and guessed she hadn’t gone home. So that would put him in a panic to get back to Viewlands, and it’d mean a roundabout route — back through the traffic signals.’

  ‘He seems to have managed all right there.’

  ‘He’d be driving like an elderly nun, you can bet, half in shock, half in fear.’

  ‘And he got back just in time to find Lynne was still there, and just finishing off the re-typing of his paper. He’d have to try to act normal, and she’d leave. Then he’d put away the car in the garage.’

  I was beginning to have more respect for Phil’s imagination. Maybe, after all, it would be all right.

  ‘And then,’ I said, ‘the really terrible thing would start. His panic and his weakness had killed that young woman, and he’d be disgusted with himself. He wouldn’t be able to bear the thought of anybody finding out what a poor specimen he’d turned out to be — especially after that session with Paul and his wife. He’d got a week in Blackpool. He had to do something about the near-side wing of the car. The only possible thing for him to do was hire a car in Blackpool and take daily trips back to Viewlands, and work on it. He wouldn’t really be missed. Evan Rees said they talked for hours, but that’d still leave him huge gaps of time.’

  Phil’s professional interest stirred. ‘And he’d need it all. A big job, that.’

  ‘I’m sure it was. He’d have to buy a new headlamp and do a build-up job with fibreglass. It’d need to be good enough to fool Neville, next time he came. But when it came to the finishing — well, if there was one thing Gledwyn was an expert on, it was colour. Wasn’t that his own subject? He’d be able to make up his own spray paint.’

  ‘If he’d got the necessary...’

  ‘He’d got everything. I’ve seen. Even a spray-gun. But you can see the mistake I was making. Lord, it was nothing less than criminal. I assumed he’d do the colour matching himself. You see his difficulty? His only way of matching was to code the colour and mix it up like a mathematical exercise. He picked off some scraps of paint from the damaged wing. Now...it’d been buckled. Parts of the red re-spray were broken off, and I’m guessing he picked off bits of the original green by mistake, and used ’em to get his match. The fact that the coding showed it as a
green wouldn’t alert him to anything. The registration document told him it was green. So he didn’t know it, but he was spraying one wing green on a red car. But I thought any matching he’d be able to do himself, that’s where I was wrong, and it wasn’t until Evan told me he couldn’t do it without Lynne...oh Lord, and I’d watched her doing it! I watched her match it by eye, through a damned eyepiece, and still I didn’t realise!’

  ‘I’ll get you another drink,’ said Phil uneasily.

  ‘No.’ I stared at him. ‘Don’t you realise it means she’d have to help him?’

  ‘Of course I realise it.’

  ‘Well then...But obviously she never saw the battered car. One glance at it and she’d have said, “But it’s red!” No, he’d have to have given her one or two bits of paint, and not tell her what it was for. She’d put them in that machine and tell him it was 7G 4/5, or whatever the damned number was. She’d do that for him. She just couldn’t have known why he wanted it.’

  Phil watched me with concern. ‘When?’ he asked, reaching for a crack in my theory.

  ‘When what?’

  ‘When did he give her these scraps of paint? She drove him to Blackpool the next morning.’

  ‘Then,’ I decided. ‘He’d have come back the previous evening with the Escort battered. He’d go into the lab, having a good idea she’d be there — and she’d re-typed his speech for him! Ye gods. He’d try to act normal, and send her off home — and she didn’t notice the Escort, out there on the drive, so he’d put it away in the garage after she was gone. In the morning he’d decided what he had to do, and knew what part of it he couldn’t do himself. Before they left for Blackpool he asked her to do a reading on one or two bits of paint. He wouldn’t need to tell her why. And then, later, he could mix a paint that fitted the formula. It was a bit too dark, that was all. But with trips back to do the repair job, the spraying...by the Friday he was ready. He phoned for her to pick him up. She drove him home, and she says she left him at the drive entrance. Says that. Said it.’