Death of an Innocent (Richard and Amelia Patton)

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Yes, yes. Now you’re understanding. I needed one to show him she hadn’t been wearing one when I found her, and one to show I’d left her wearing one. I switched the prints around, you see. To show him that I’d given him an alibi, and could easily withdraw it. If necessary.’

  He was smiling as he said it, complacently. Clever me!

  ‘And this was because you knew he’d killed her on that Saturday?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘You’re saying that you knew what he’d done — killed his sister — but all the time you were willing to give him a faked alibi?’ I waited. He waited. I went on: ‘But you’re said you wanted to get him out of your lives — your own life. Wouldn’t it have been easier to have him arrested, tried and sentenced? That would’ve done the trick.’

  ‘Richard! Richard!’ he chided. ‘Don’t be so foolish. That would have hurt Livie terribly, to discover such a thing about her darling Mark. No — it was a warning, no more. And you must admit, it did work.’

  ‘But you were taking a big risk, yourself. Withholding information, falsifying evidence...’

  ‘In what way?’ he demanded.

  ‘You’re said you found her wearing a sticker, and took if off for your second shot. That’s what the negatives prove.’

  ‘I put one on again before I left her.’

  ‘They found her without one.’

  He shrugged. ‘Not my fault. As you say, it probably didn’t stick properly, to a damp anorak.’

  I sighed. He made everything fit exactly with the evidence. In matters involving self-protection, Philip had a razor-sharp mind.

  ‘And all this was to show him that you’d rigged him an alibi for the Saturday. No...let me finish. This, I suppose, was because you knew he was pretty well covered for that Saturday?’

  He nodded, his mouth twisted sardonically. ‘Apart from one short period.’

  I didn’t want to be side-tracked just then. Olivia was moaning softly and beginning to rock herself backwards and forwards. Reality was intruding too forcefully. Amelia had no time to glance at me, even in disapproval. My forehead felt clammy and my eyes gritty.

  ‘I don’t understand, damn it. Would you really have gone to the police and admitted this — said it — when you’d given him a faked alibi? They’d clap you inside...’

  He shook his head. ‘Richard, Richard, it’s only that you’re a bit slow. If things got too difficult, then I’d have gone to them. Don’t you realize, this was a false alibi for Mark. To the police it wouldn’t be. I told you, I could destroy it. It was a threat to Mark, to keep away from this house, from me, from Livie. In emergency I could always have fallen back on the truth, and he’d have been arrested, with all the pain and suffering —’

  Olivia whispered: ‘I’ll kill you for this, Philip! So help me...’

  Neither of us took any notice of her. There might have been nobody but us two in the room.

  ‘Which you would have done, if things became desperate?’ I asked him.

  ‘Things,’ he said distinctly, his voice still steady, ‘were already pretty desperate, anyway.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he stop!’ moaned Olivia. ‘Make him stop, Amelia.’

  I felt cold at the empty tonelessness with which she said this. She had entered a second stage of shock, in which she had to retreat from it to a recognized and familiar formula. She gave instructions, and they were expected to be carried out. She meant me, of course. I was to be made to stop.

  Amelia stared at me with dull eyes. It was clear that I couldn’t carry on much further without revealing details that could send Olivia way over the edge.

  In desperation, I tried another approach. ‘The police are under the impression that Mark did have an alibi for the whole of Saturday, Philip.’ He inclined his head. I went on: ‘But you said something about — apart from one short period. I’ve got to assume it was something that would destroy Mark’s apparent alibi. Can you explain that?’

  ‘Well, if you wish, Richard. Certainly. Isn’t that pipe drawing? Here, I’ll get you...’ He went across the room and fetched me a large ashtray. ‘There, my dear chap, scrape it out into that. All right now? Fine.’

  He went back to his stool, fetched out his own pipe, looked at it, then lit it. Blew out a stream of smoke, and smiled.

  All this was to give himself time to marshal his thoughts, I knew. Olivia had followed his movements as though he’d gone insane. My throat was dry. I coughed, and he went on.

  ‘This short period, eh? Well, of course, this was why I knew he’d been the one to kill her. I was at Potter Heigham myself, that day.’

  ‘At the church, yes. For an hour around three o’clock. So?’

  ‘I was at Heigham Bridge very much earlier. I had an appointment to meet Nancy Ruston, as you know. But I was down by the bridge earlier. In fact, I saw Olivia and Mark meet, and go away together. I suppose they had lunch. So did I. Then I was back again. It was still only two o’clock. I saw Mark walking away along the path beside the river...’ He paused and licked this dry lips. He was wondering how to go on.

  ‘Walking away?’ I prompted quietly.

  ‘With a young woman. They disappeared.’

  ‘This would be in the direction of Womack Water?’

  ‘Yes.’ Again he paused, hesitated, then continued. ‘I waited, and half an hour later Mark came back. And he was alone.’

  ‘I see. You’re saying this was Nancy he’d been with?’

  He tapped his fingers on his knee. ‘I didn’t realize then, of course. But I had to get off to St Nicholas’s, to wait for her, and when she didn’t turn up I began to think —’

  ‘What did you think?’

  ‘That the girl Mark had been with had to be Nancy.’

  ‘And that he’d done away with her?’ I asked flatly.

  ‘Yes, yes.’ He was impatient.

  ‘But surely, that was a rather far-fetched assumption, Philip. From where I’m sitting here, I can’t see the logic. You saw her walking away...’

  ‘And not coming back.’

  ‘Perhaps she was going back.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘There’s a yacht and boat basin there. You ought to know that. Where people hire boats. There’d be parking space.’ I turned to Melanie. ‘Inspector, you’ll know...I hoped she would lie, even if she didn’t know.’

  ‘There’s parking space there, yes.’

  I returned my attention to Philip, who’d had to lean forward to ease his back. ‘You see? Perhaps she’d parked there. Perhaps she’d walked from there, and Mark was simply escorting her back. Perhaps it wasn’t Nancy at all.’

  ‘If it was,’ he shot back, ‘she wouldn’t have left her car there. It’d be a long walk from there to the church.’

  I rubbed my face with both palms, peering at him between my fingers. ‘Look, Philip, I’m trying to understand. Really I am. But from what you’ve said, I can’t see why you’d assume that girl was Nancy.’

  ‘She didn’t turn up at the church,’ he said simply.

  ‘That could’ve meant she was delayed —’

  ‘She was desperate to see me. I knew that — the way she wrote.’

  ‘In fact, she believed she was going to meet Olivia.’

  ‘What?’ Olivia said. ‘What’s this, Philip?’ She stared at him dazedly.

  He ignored her, his attention on me. ‘How d’you know she thought she was meeting Livie?’

  ‘She said that. To a friend.’

  ‘And she might have said the same to Mark,’ he claimed in triumph. ‘And then he’d have been in a desperate position.’

  ‘And on those two points, her failure to be at the church, and Mark’s motive, you based the decision that he’d killed her! And from that you searched for her body, and did all that trickery with the photographs! For heaven’s sake, Philip, don’t you understand why I’m here? Don’t you see? It’s not enough, just supposition and motive.’ I flapped my palms on my knees. ‘It’s no damned exp
lanation at all.’

  Then I twisted from the chair and thrust myself to my feet in annoyance, and from behind me Olivia threw in, coldly and bitterly:

  ‘Motive, Philip? Will you kindly explain that.’ Yet she didn’t seem as though she would understand if he did.

  When I turned back to him I saw that he was trapped. A cold and bitter Olivia was more than he could handle. Some time he would be forced to tell her, and it was clear to him that I already knew. He slumped for a moment, then straightened.

  ‘Very well, Livie,’ he said, then he raised his shoulders at me, as though we’d been engaged in no more than a conspiracy to protect her from the facts.

  ‘Mark came to this house,’ he went on, trying to keep his voice neutral. ‘You’ll remember, my dear. He came, talking about you having had a child. I’d never heard about that, but I suppose I had no right! That’s beside the point. You recognized him as the son of his father. You remembered him, it seemed. One assumed he was the father in question.’ Now his voice was far from neutral. This was a bitter man.

  ‘This isn’t quite what you told me,’ I put in.

  He turned on me, momentarily furious. ‘All right. I lied. Make something out of that.’ Then, calmer, he turned back to his wife, who sat as though the words were washing over her and leaving her cold with shock.

  ‘I sat — in here, it was — sat and listened to what was said, Livie. I remained on the sidelines, as is my place, and watched you mooning all over him, just like one of your empty and vacuous heroines, for Christ’s sake! All right. I’ll keep to the point. The fact is that from that moment on he became the centre of your life. And this, it seems, was a child you’d never even seen. You’d had him adopted, and I’ve come to understand you didn’t even ask the sex of the wretched little sod. No, for God’s sake don’t try to interfere. I’m going to say this. You let him take over. Your writing went to pot. Yes it did. God, that’s a laugh! Coldly and calculatingly, you’ve been able for years to write emotional scenes that break people down in tears. Then along came some real emotion to occupy your personal feelings, and your writing went flat. It did. Ask your publisher.’

  If it did anything, his sudden and fierce attack on her jolted Olivia towards normality. Not all the way, but enough for her to be able to organize a response.

  ‘Very well, Philip,’ she said acidly. ‘I appreciate your opinion. Now bloody well get on with it.’

  ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘And that’s about the sum total of the emotion I’ve received for a hell of a long time.’

  ‘Will you get on with it!’

  He stared into her eyes. ‘With pleasure, my love. So be it. You can’t deny you went crackers over Mark, buying him this and that. Don’t trouble to deny it — I’m the one who does the accounts. Promising him the world, I expect. All very well. What could I do about it? You were happy.’

  ‘For over a year I’ve had happiness,’ she said softly, her mind searching the past for comfort. ‘And now he’s dead.’ A flat, empty statement.

  ‘Yes...well...it was going to end some day or other. I found out the truth. A young woman wrote to you, Livie. Of course, I intercepted her letter. She claimed to be your daughter. Nancy Ruston. Mark’s sister. Claimed to be your daughter,’ he repeated in emphasis. ‘What a pity you didn’t even ask about its sex, before you gave your child away! But this one was telling the truth. She enclosed a copy of her birth certificate, and the legal documents relating to her mother. It was conclusive. She was your daughter — Mark was not your son. Now d’you see why I kept it from you?’ He smiled, as though he’d done her a great favour, and because he’d enjoyed every moment of the telling.

  Olivia remained every still. Her hand, which still clutched Amelia’s, must have been giving her pain. Now the fingers relaxed and her hand went over to her lap. She stared down at it. When she raised her face it was set and cold, with tiny flares of red on sallow cheeks, as though someone had slapped her. Slowly she came to her feet. That much she managed with apparent ease, but when she turned to face the door and began to walk towards it her movements were the stumped and stiff march of someone who cannot control her legs. Somehow, Tony was now standing in front of the door, casually, smiling at her. For some moments she stared at him, then she turned about and marched awkwardly back to her chair. There, she sat heavily, put one elbow on its arm, and rested her forehead on her hand. I could see her shoulders shaking.

  If Philip noticed, it did not distract him. He stared at me, eager to have me understand.

  ‘So you see, Richard, with that sort of motive...perhaps Nancy had even confided in Mark. They seemed friendly enough, walking away along the river path.’

  I was impatient to have done with it, anxious to confront the pitfalls ahead before I faltered. I tried to speak slowly and distinctly. ‘Yes, I can see he’d simply have to stop her reaching you, or Olivia, whichever one it was. I understand his motive even better than you do, because he told me himself. But Philip...’ I rubbed my hair into a mess in exasperation. ‘Philip, we didn’t come here to discuss what we already knew. The important thing is what might have driven him to suicide. In other words, what did those photos mean — which I can’t see — but which he might’ve seen. Hell, Philip, we’ve been on this for hours already. It all comes down to your reason for taking the blasted photographs. You must’ve had a damn good reason, to go to all the trouble of hunting around until you found the body.’

  He looked puzzled. ‘But I’ve explained. I’d seen him and Nancy walking —’

  ‘That’s another thing. I still can’t see how you knew it was Nancy.’

  ‘That was obvious.’

  ‘Was it? How was it obvious?’

  ‘Nancy didn’t turn up at the church, Mark would’ve wanted to stop that. He did stop it. I saw him walking along the river —’

  ‘With a young woman. A young woman.’

  ‘Clearly it had to be her.’

  ‘It need not have been even a young woman.’

  ‘Of course —’

  ‘You saw no more than her back.’

  ‘Will you listen!’ he bleated, then abruptly he was calm again. ‘The way she walked. A free kind of young walk. I put two and two together, Richard. People do. I’m not stupid, you know.’

  ‘But from that you assumed it was Nancy, and later that he’d killed her?’

  ‘It took a little time. Of course. A day or so later. I don’t understand you. Don’t you ever use ordinary common sense?’

  ‘I’m trying to, Philip. Trying to. Very well, I’ll go along with that. You thought he’d killed somebody. You thought it was important to find a body, if only to confirm a death.’

  ‘Exactly.’ He bit on the word.

  ‘And at the same time, because you’d had time to think about it, you’d worked out how you could use one of the stickers to scare the daylights out of Mark.’

  ‘It worked, didn’t it.’

  ‘It did. But only because he thought those pictures had come from Olivia. Not from you, Philip. From Olivia, they meant something very different to him.’

  She lifted her head. The tears had been real. Her face was streaked and blotched. ‘What?’ she demanded. ‘What d’you mean by that?’

  ‘Mark entirely misconstrued the meaning of those photos,’ I told her, hoping she would leave it at that.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she appealed in a dull voice.

  I admit I was tired. The concentration was giving me a headache, and sweat was running down my nose. I said: ‘Olivia, Mark thought you were using them to tie him and you together even closer than you’d been before. And it was stifling him, Olivia. I’m sorry, but there it is.’ I was trying to gloss over it.

  Her lips fluttered and she drew in a breath. She gave in a tiny moan. Amelia said: ‘Richard!’ I knew that tone. I’d have some explaining to do. I dragged my mind from it.

  ‘Yes, Philip, it worked,’ I agreed. ‘By the way, where did you get the sticker? It was days later —’
r />   ‘Livie threw away a whole bunch of ‘em.’

  ‘Yes. I guessed so. All right. Where were we?’

  ‘You were blundering on,’ he said helpfully, ‘trying to make something out of nothing. Getting at me. You’re as bad as the rest.’

  ‘Yes,’ I agreed. As bad as the rest? ‘So you searched for a body. How?’

  ‘My little boat. It was the simplest.’

  ‘Of course. All the same, when you did find a woman’s body, how did you know she was Nancy? I mean, even though you’d put your two and your other two together...that could’ve been any girl’s body. How did you know it was Nancy? And don’t tell me you guessed. Your actions prove you knew it was Nancy.’

  I’d gradually eased my way to this point. I knew exactly what he’d done, and why. But it had to be prised from him.

  ‘Well of course,’ he said, spreading his hands. ‘When I found her, I knew. She had to look either like Livie or her father — in other words like Mark.’

  ‘That’s a bit of a sweeping statement, but never mind. You hadn’t previously seen her face, so I suppose...’

  ‘Oh, you are clever.’

  ‘Philip,’ I said, my voice failing, ‘you not only searched for her body, but you did it with your camera and the stickers, all ready for when you found her. You must have been absolutely certain before you even set out.’

  He licked his lips. ‘Certain enough to take them with me — yes.’

  ‘And which face was it, Olivia’s or Mark’s...’ I was trying to keep the shake out of my voice, because he simply stared. I grated out: ‘When you found the body, that confirmed it?’

  ‘It’s all so simple when —’

  ‘For God’s sake, whose face?’

  ‘Well of course, there was some difficulty,’ he admitted warily.

  ‘I should imagine there was.’ I cleared my harsh throat. What I wanted to do was shout it out loud, in a sudden overload of anger, but it came out quietly enough, if a little rough. ‘But in the end, you were certain — huh? So who did she look like —Mark or Olivia?’ It was the third time of asking.

  He nodded. Now he really got my point. ‘Oh...like Livie.’

  I sat for a moment. My legs felt stiff and painful, but I levered myself to my feet, turned, and moved towards Melanie. She’d anticipated me, and had her briefcase open. I stood over her as she sorted through her envelope and produced the picture of Nancy, lying face upwards on the river bank.