Death of an Innocent (Richard and Amelia Patton)

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Odds were!’ she said scornfully. ‘It was a guess.’

  ‘Not exactly. Look at it like this. Some sort of fiddle was done with what seems to be a charity sticker. It was either taken off or put on. Obviously, the intention was to change the evidence. Right? So...take off a sticker, and that’s a negative action. It says nothing. Put one on, and that’s a definite statement. It says something.’

  ‘Such as what?’ she challenged.

  ‘Such as the fact that she probably died on a Saturday involving a charity collection, which would make it the Saturday before she was found.’

  ‘Call her by name, Richard,’ she said testily. ‘Nancy Ruston.’ She frowned over the name, then shook her head.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘And you could easily be wrong, anyway. The intention of the person who changed the sticker —’

  ‘And who obviously took the pictures.’

  ‘That too. The intention could have been just the opposite — to hide the fact that she died on that Saturday.’ She smiled hugely at my expression. ‘And suppose the body of Nancy Ruston was found by the police without a sticker. Think of that. What then? I’ll tell you what, Richard. Inspector Poole, not being in any way foolish, will have spotted the difference in the picture you showed her — and just imagine what she’ll be thinking about you at this very moment. She would realize you’ve tricked her, and she’ll keep her eyes on you, like a hawk, from this moment on. You could well have made a serious error, Richard.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think so.’ But I wasn’t as confident as this sounded.

  ‘And Harvey Cole,’ she continued, piling it on, ‘don’t you think he noticed the difference between the two? He didn’t say anything. I wonder why!’ And her eyebrows lifted, putting fine creases across her forehead in an expression of naive enquiry.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ I suggested.

  There was a car parked in the darkness of the side road from which we had arrived. I didn’t notice it until its lights flicked on and the BMW slid across the road and stopped beside us.

  Harvey Cole climbed out. He said: ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ve seen her. She seems satisfied.’

  ‘You showed her what you’d got?’

  ‘She was in a bit of a huff that there was nothing in it for her.’

  ‘I thought so, from the way she slammed her car door. You showed her the photographs?’

  ‘One of them.’ I wished not to tell a direct lie.

  He smiled thinly. ‘Which photograph, I wonder.’

  Then he got back inside his car, swung out, and headed for home.

  ‘There!’ said Amelia as we settled again in the Granada. ‘What did I say!’

  ‘You’re usually correct, my love.’

  ‘You know what, Richard? I think you’re getting yourself all tangled up in this, and before long, no amount of words and your theories will rescue you. D’you know what we ought to do now?’

  I wished I had a clear picture of that. ‘Tell me.’

  ‘In the morning, we should go back to Mansfield Park. You produce the envelope and the photographs and tell them you’ve been able to recover what was stolen, get your money back, and then we leave them to sort it out between themselves.’

  I sighed. Oh dear...and what sort of domestic crisis might that precipitate!

  ‘That’s a distinct possibility,’ I said neutrally.

  Then she dropped the subject, and was silent. She knew when to leave me to sort my own thoughts into some kind of order. The coast road slid beneath the tyres. It was a perfect night for driving. I needed only a corner of my mind for the car, which in any event recognized the road now.

  But was it really so easy as she suggested? One of those two had known nothing about it, of that I was certain. And what it was about was murder, of that I was equally certain. There is no necessity to play about with corpses and fake a time of death, if that had been the intention, unless something as important as murder is involved. Was I — we — going to lay that in their laps, for one of them to see that the marital partner was involved in such matters? Amelia and I had been asked to help. To break up a marriage, with death and violence in the background, was not much in the way of help.

  All right. I could pretend to complete ignorance, could seal the yellow envelope in a plain brown manila one, and say: ‘I paid three hundred for this. Open it, and tell me if it’s worth it.’ In this way I would display a complete lack of knowledge of the contents, and be able to march away in complacent triumph, possibly with a cheque for £300 in my pocket. Chickening-out, they call it in the USA.

  I couldn’t imagine myself doing that. I had at least to discover more about the background, something hopefully more palatable to put in front of them.

  Such as what, for heaven’s sake? Two photos relating to a crime had been stolen from Mansfield Park. On contract. Yet what did that show? Even if they were evidence of a faked alibi, and thus would provide a lever in a blackmail attempt — who sent them to whom? The photographer, arguably the blackmailer, would naturally send to the victim a copy of each print. But would equally naturally keep a pair of copies for himself. So, was one of the occupants of Mansfield Park, if not both, the sender or the receiver?

  One could argue, though, that the most likely person to hire a professional burglar to recover blackmail evidence would be the victim. We knew who Harvey’s client was, a person called Mark Ruston, more than likely either the brother or the husband of the dead girl, Nancy Ruston. As I’d not met him, I was in no position to decide if he could be a murderer. But I had met Olivia and Philip. Did that make them, or one of them, a blackmailer?

  That was a completely unacceptable proposition.

  I could now understand why Harvey Cole had been sufficiently nervous of what he’d uncovered to be willing to unload the responsibility.

  As we turned into the courtyard of The Bull I said: ‘I don’t think we can do that.’

  She was half asleep. ‘Pardon. Do what?’

  ‘Drop it all into your friends’ lap, and sail off merrily for home.’

  ‘I was hoping you’d say that.’

  ‘You suggested home.’

  ‘I said we ought to do it. In this case, I believe it’s one of those situations where “ought” doesn’t come into it and “must” takes over. What we must do is find out more about it first.’

  I took her arm, squeezed it, and headed for the side door, behind which there was a dim light. The front had been in darkness as we’d turned in. The door was unlocked. There was a card dangling by a string from the inside doorknob. On it was written: ‘Please lock up when you return.’

  In the off-season they caught up on their sleep. The Bull, apparently, slipped into a gentle death after eleven at night. We turned into the lobby. It wasn’t completely dark. One corner light was on.

  Philip Dean rose stiffly and awkwardly from a green velvet easy chair, which he’d clearly found uneasy. He was embarrassed, his hands fluttering, his diction not quite steady.

  ‘I wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d walked out and gone home. Amelia...Richard...I really must apologize for Olivia’s attitude. She tends to be short and abrupt when she’s working on a book. It upsets her routine, missing an evening session. I simply had to explain that.’

  He was breathless at the end. It had been a prepared speech. Amelia put a hand to his arm. ‘Don’t worry about it, Philip.’

  ‘I was sure you’d have left.’ He gave her a miserable smile. ‘But all the same I rang around, and found you’re staying here. Which means...’

  He hesitated, waiting for a lead, but I didn’t give him one, simply stood there discouragingly quiet, and forced him to go on. Which he did, bubbling it out.

  ‘I meant what I said, Richard. About the out-of-pocket expenses. I mean, if they should arise. I was thinking — you know — if you managed to locate whoever did it, I’d be prepared to pay whatever’s necessary to recover...the...the situation.’

  Co
nsidering he had not admitted there could be anything physical to recover, he was placed in an awkward position.

  ‘Of course, Philip. I’ll bear that in mind. If the occasion arises.’ I cocked my head sideways, smiling at him man-to-man, forgivingly. ‘You did say nothing was stolen, though.’

  ‘Well...actually...’ His eyes searched the shadows. ‘Really, you know, there was something. When we said we searched the place top to bottom, that was me doing the searching. When she’s writing, she can’t be distracted. And there were...well, a couple of Meissen figurines she’s particularly fond of. I didn’t tell her. She hasn’t noticed. She gets lost in her books. And I’d hoped to...to get them back before...’

  He’d gone on too far for the truth, which is easily reached. Lying requires decoration.

  ‘Before she finishes the book? And looks round with seeing eyes?’

  He’d spotted my deliberate sardonic tone, and blinked. But he was forced to agree. ‘That’s about it.’

  ‘We don’t want her upset.’ It was her magic pen — or voice — that kept the shekels rolling in. ‘Take long, do they, these books?’

  ‘They’re very big. Yes.’

  ‘But the burglary was a month ago. Longer than that for a book?’

  ‘Three to four months, easily.’

  ‘So we’ve got plenty of time,’ I encouraged him.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’d been to a writer’s do at Copenhagen,’ I reminded him. ‘She said she’d done only two chapters, and it’s only a month since then, so she won’t spot any missing figurines for a month yet. At least.’

  I looked to Amelia for approval of this transparent item of logic. She was staring at me as though I’d gone mad.

  ‘Why don’t you come up to our room, Philip?’ she rescued him with sympathy.

  ‘No. Really. I must be off. She’ll be wondering...’ Unhappily he turned away. I followed him to the side door. He paused, and clutched at my bicep.

  ‘Richard, I meant what I said. Pay anything...’

  ‘Anything?’ He never seemed to finish a sentence.

  ‘Within reason.’

  He slipped out into the darkness and I locked and bolted after him. I couldn’t find the light switch for the stairs, so we had to manage with the feeble light we left on in the lobby.

  ‘You didn’t have to tease him, Richard,’ she said severely.

  ‘Tease! Good heavens, I was using my best technique for shaking a bit of truth out of him. Tease! I can imagine, at the station, interrogating a villain for hours, and the sergeant saying I shouldn’t tease him!’ I threw back my head and laughed.

  ‘Hush, Richard. People are asleep. And he’s not a villain.’ She glanced at me. ‘Is he?’

  ‘He’s a rotten liar, I know that much. He’s either very nervous because he knows what was stolen, or very nervous because he’s afraid to find out what it was. He’s too much on the defensive, and his fortress has been invaded.’

  ‘Fancy ideas get us nowhere.’

  I opened our door. ‘It’s confirmed the decision that we need to know more. And, I suppose, it guarantees a bit of relaxed sleep.’

  I needn’t have worried on that score. They were quite correct about the beneficial effects of the bracing sea breezes; we both slept as though unconscious.

  6

  We were taking our morning stroll along the coast road. It was nine o’clock. The weather was fine, brisk and sharp, with a sea breeze in our faces we could just about live with. We were well wrapped up, me in anorak and scarf with my tweed hat, Amelia in the coat she’d thought to bring and a nylon scarf over her head.

  The district seemed deserted. Nobody else shared our eccentric inclinations. On the far horizon a ship stood still, no smoke, no apparent movement. Rarely, a car slid quietly past. For a while a dog followed us, then got tired of it and inspected a shelter.

  ‘What day is it?’ I asked.

  ‘Wednesday.’ Concentration nearly broke her step. ‘I think.’

  ‘Hmm!’

  We walked. We turned about and began to return to the inn. The sea was whispering to itself way out there.

  ‘I’ll be running out of clean underwear,’ she decided. ‘I didn’t expect to be here for long.’

  ‘We’ll buy some. There ought to be some shops.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Charge it to Philip. Out-of-pocket expenses.’

  She made no answer. The wind shifted into our faces again. ‘What say we go and look for that boatyard.’ I suggested. ‘Why not? But it’s November. I bet it’ll be deserted.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. Somebody mentioned repairs. They must do all that out-of-season.’

  ‘You and your logic!’

  There seemed to be no point in going up to our room. I was beginning to hate the sight of it, anyway. We got in the car and I turned out into the road.

  ‘Which way?’ she asked.

  I stopped, not having thought of that, and we consulted the map.

  The indications were that here we were about twenty miles north of the Broads. Salhouse was a village just south of Hoveton. So it would be south to North Walsham, then on to Coltishall and Wroxham. I looked out for the right-hand fork from the coast road.

  For a while I thought we must have gone wrong, because there wasn’t much sign of open water, and the greenery wasn’t particularly sparse. With confidence, we followed the map, and suddenly there was all the water you could wish for. This was clearly a yachting centre. There were certainly shops, though a large percentage, which clearly catered for the yachting and boating trade in the summer, were now closed.

  We parked. Amelia went away to search for her necessities, and we agreed to meet at the car in half an hour. I decided to stroll around and ask questions, and try to find the location of Ruston and Sons.

  We had not actually reached Salhouse Broad. The river Bure, here, does quite a bit of wriggling about before it heads off in the general direction of the east coast. Water runs downwards, and in that area it has some difficulty in finding anything other than level. The result is two Broads, north and south, one on the outside of a larger curve, the other in the inside, further south. Or so it seemed. There was a large-scale map in a frame outside one of the closed boat charter places. The waterways were clearly marked. With a boat you could find your way to Salhouse Broad with reasonable ease.

  There were, however, no motor vessels available for hire, and as I’d never been in a boat in my life (well, fancy that, I thought in surprise) I was not about to contemplate it.

  To reach the village of Salhouse we would have to drive south and tackle a complex of lanes. I went back to the car and stood smoking as I waited for Amelia. She appeared, hurrying.

  ‘All right?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you. I can last another week.’

  ‘Bring any for me?’

  ‘You didn’t ask.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘But I did get you a map of the district.’

  We got in the car. She said; ‘We have to find the village of Salhouse. It’s south from here. This is really Wroxham Broad.’

  ‘I know. We could have managed it in a boat from here.’

  ‘Oh — lovely. I used to adore boating.’

  ‘Fortunately, there aren’t any for hire.’

  We headed south. Of course I got lost. I always do. But eventually we found the water before we reached the village. It was surprisingly surrounded by trees. But searching for Ruston and Sons seemed almost impossible by car. The road obstinately refused to stay near the water, and performed a series of exasperating contortions in order to keep us away from our objective.

  ‘There!’ Amelia cried suddenly.

  The sign was very nearly deleted by time and weather. It indicated a turning to the left, directly into the trees. We tried it, encountering rutted mud. The car slithered and lurched, and we emerged alongside a wooden fence in very poor repair. The driveway ended, with the nose of the car nearly in the water. In th
e fence to the right was a double gate, one wing of it open. I hesitated before turning in. There was no sign of activity, but the open gate indicated some sort of presence. We turned in. I decided to pretend to be somebody with an eye open for a yacht or something. It would have to be an ignorant somebody, because I knew none of the jargon.

  I saw at once that the yard itself was extensive. It fronted the water, with slipways disappearing into it, and further along there was a crane for hoisting. There were several large, iron-clad sheds set well back. We got out and looked round.

  Salhouse Broad, if this was it, in this light and at this time of the year, wasn’t appealing. Reeds lined it, making the perception of an actual border difficult. It didn’t seem broad to me. Out there, waterfowl were screeching and honking. Something took off in agitation from over on the far side. A migrating flock crossed high in a V.

  Then I realised that the screeching was not from the birds; it was too continuous, and came from the nearest shed. The double corrugated iron doors were open. Followed by Amelia, I wandered inside.

  Wearing goggles, a young man was kneeling in shirt sleeves and overalls, sending sparks cascading with a rotary hand-held sander. I didn’t recognize the metal structure he was working on. There was a hot smell of carborundum.

  It would have been impossible for him to have heard me, even if I’d shouted. The rear portions of the shed were deeply shadowed, but the shapes visible appeared to have no relationship to yachts or boats. I tried to sort them out as we waited.

  He seemed to reach a point where it was necessary to stop and consider progress. The sander was switched off, and died into fluttering silence. He lifted his goggles, rubbed his eyes, then noticed us. The metal was red hot, and died to black as I watched it.

  I smiled. He may not have been able see it. ‘You’ll be Mark Ruston,’ I said.

  ‘No I wouldn’t. Who’re you? You’d better see —’