Death of an Innocent (Richard and Amelia Patton)

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘For Christ’s sake!’ I whispered. ‘It’s for you now.’

  ‘We can’t switch at this stage.’

  ‘I didn’t anticipate this,’ I pleaded. It was a weakness. ‘I can see where we’re heading. It’s yours, Melanie. The truth’s obvious. I don’t want to go on with it.’

  Her voice was quiet but fierce. ‘If I take over now, it becomes official. He’ll dry up. You must see —’

  I snatched the picture from her fingers. ‘I know, damn you! I owe you something.’

  I got back to my chair. Philip was watching me ironically.

  ‘If I’d known you wanted time for a conference, I’d have fetched drinks.’

  ‘There’ll be time for that later.’ And possibly necessity, all round.

  I was uncomfortable in that Amelia had now moved from her own chair and was perched with one thigh on the arm of Olivia’s, clutching one of her hands and with the free arm round her shoulders. There was no doubt where her sympathies lay, and I couldn’t watch Olivia’s face without observing Amelia’s. My wife was set in her intention, her thin lips told me that. Olivia, who had looked up, was holding on to her control with blind determination.

  For a few moments I stared at the picture of the dead Nancy, trying to keep the disgust from my expression. Then I forced myself to my feet again and walked over Philip. I put the picture in his hands.

  ‘That was how she looked when she was found. Can you see Olivia’s face in that?’

  He seemed to be staring at it, head down, but I realized he’d simply been unable to look at it. I knew that, because when he looked up his eyes were just opening. I took it from him. He cleared his throat. I waved it wildly under his nose.

  ‘Can you, Philip?’

  ‘No,’ he croaked.

  ‘Let me see,’ Olivia put in.

  ‘No!’ I snapped, and I took it back to my chair. ‘So we’ve got nowhere,’ I said to Philip. ‘You still haven’t justified all the trouble of hunting her out and taking the photos. You hadn’t seen her face before, and when you found her you couldn’t have recognized her as anybody.’

  He stared at his palms.

  ‘Perhaps you did see her face,’ I offered to him. ‘If you’d met...’

  ‘Then she’d still be alive,’ he said sharply, fighting back.

  ‘Of course. That’s true. The moment she met you she’d be safe. Safe from Mark. Then when did you see her, when she was still recognizable?’ I was wary of it, not wishing to approach too clumsily in case I scared it away. My heart was beating heavily, and I wasn’t sure my voice was under control. ‘Perhaps that’s it. Still recognizable.’

  From my inside pocket I drew out Larry’s masterpiece and grimaced at it. No, not like this, I thought, not laughing like this. ‘Did she look like this, Philip?’

  And this time I didn’t get to my feet. I wasn’t sure I could, but I knew he’d have to see what I held. He was looking towards me, but I wasn’t sure he could see me. Nevertheless, he got himself to his feet and headed in my direction. He took the picture in his fingers and held it up, but seemed unable to focus on it. He walked to the french window, twisting and turning it to the light. For a moment I wondered if he was going to plead poor eyesight, but when he turned I saw that it’d been temporary. For one short second he’d been blinded by tears.

  But of course he didn’t need to see it — he knew.

  ‘Philip?’ I demanded.

  Two yards to one side of him Melanie sat, still with the briefcase between her feet, her face drawn and pinched. She watched him. She made no move.

  ‘Philip!’ I repeated.

  ‘Yes,’ he whispered, ‘like that.’

  Olivia’s head had come up. Understanding had brought her expression alive. But it was an awareness she refused to accept. She had difficulty in unclenching her teeth. ‘Let me see.’

  Philip was shaking his head. It was not in refusal, it was in rejection.

  ‘Let me see, damn you!’ she cried, half out of her chair and with Amelia restraining her.

  He turned, and seemed to be on his way to his stool, stumbling towards her. Negligently, disgustedly, he threw the photograph into her lap, then returned to the french window, where he stared out at the water and fumbled with his tobacco pouch.

  She grabbed at it, crumpling it, stared and swallowed, blood rushing to her face and then from it. Then she screamed, the sound abrupt and shocking, and threw it away from her. I hauled myself to my feet and bent to pick it up. There was blood on it, from where her clenched hands had forced the nails into her palms.

  Shuddering, she fell back, weeping now, muttering and mumbling with Amelia comforting her, and the only thing I could make of it was: ‘My little girl.’ Over and over. The child she’d never met.

  ‘So tell me, Philip,’ I said, standing over him. ‘If you didn’t see her face to face alive, and she was not recognizable when you found her — how and when did you see her in order to know it was Nancy?’

  He shook his head, having run out of answers.

  ‘You say you didn’t see her face, that day at Potter Heigham, and you couldn’t have known her when you found her. Did you see her dead, Philip, but recently dead? Is that the answer?’

  There was a clicking silence in the room. Far away, one of the dogs howled. Olivia was silent. I’d been deliberately dramatic, to cut through it and have done with it. Olivia was so still that I couldn’t see her breathing. Then Philip, possessing more guts than I’d expected, destroyed the silence with a disgusted laugh, even with a hint of triumph in it.

  ‘You’ve let yourself get carried away, Richard. I saw her alive and looking like that. Yes. I lied. All right, so I’ve done lots of lying. I didn’t want to make things worse. So now, I’ll have to warn you. This room’s full of witnesses. What you’re saying is plain, downright slander. Do you wish to go on? Make up your mind.’

  I heard Melanie whisper, ‘For pity’s sake.’ Amelia was on her feet. I felt a flutter of panic. Was I, after all, completely wrong? I took a deep breath and paused before answering.

  The distant sound seemed at first like a noise in my head, then I separated it into distinct shouts, coming closer. I turned, as Malcolm Ruston came charging along the flagstones outside. He stopped. We stared at each other through the glass, then he reached out and jerked open the door. The two dishevelled constables came to an abrupt halt outside. Malcolm had blood on his face. He took two steps inside towards me, and stopped.

  Melanie was on her feet. ‘Wait!’ she snapped at her men. ‘Stay there.’ Then she turned to watch what was happening.

  Malcolm stood with his head down between his shoulders, his eyes hunting the room. He was lost and baffled, licked his knuckles, frowned into the shadows. ‘It’s Olivia? Livie!’ Then he groaned. ‘And Philip. I don’t understand.’

  He turned his eyes to me. I was the one to ask. But he saw the picture, still in my fingers, and snatched at it. Stared at it. ‘My Nancy!’ A swollen lip forced it out, distorted and high-pitched. Olivia was half on her feet, but she subsided again. Her lips seemed blue. Philip gestured. It could have meant anything, most likely a curt dismissal.

  Melanie, not wishing to have any interruption to what I’d been approaching, took charge. ‘He can stay. Sit in this chair, Mr Ruston.’ Clearly he had to sit somewhere. She meant the one she’d been using. She told the two constables to wait outside. Her voice was harsh. They turned away unhappily, and she went to stand at Malcolm’s shoulder. I heard her speak to him quietly. ‘You will be silent, Mr Ruston. Hear me?’ Then to me: ‘Richard, that’ll be enough, thank you. I’ll take over now.’

  And leave me carrying the debt I owed Mark? No! This was mine. I had to carry it through.

  For some reason, her calm and unflustered face infuriated me. She was untouched by it, uninvolved. I shouted at that face, and watched the blood run from it.

  ‘No!’ I tried to contain it. ‘For Chrissake, I’ve got to finish it.’ She stared at me for a moment, then sh
e turned away. There’d been fury in her eyes.

  With no energy left now for Philip, I turned wearily to him.

  Amelia stared at me as though I was a stranger, then she walked straight past me and through the open window. I didn’t turn to watch her, but heard her footsteps come to a halt.

  Philip had been given time to summon his reserves. His eyes were bright.

  ‘Very well, Philip,’ I said, ‘tell us why you’ve stalled so long, and when you saw Nancy’s face.’

  And only the slightest of sounds came from Malcolm.

  17

  Philip was now sufficiently in control of himself to be able to take out his pipe and fumble with it, to come to his feet and walk round in a proprietorial manner while he did it, and use the pipe for gesturing in emphasis. He made no attempt to light it, though.

  ‘I stalled, as you put it, in order to keep from my wife the unpleasant facts of Mark and his impersonation — his fraud and his deception. I spend half my life fending off these invasions into our lives. They try to get at us...’ He stopped himself forcibly, then went on: ‘Contrary to what you seem to think, I protect Olivia from anything so sordid and upsetting, not as a simple business matter, but because I still love her dearly. I am not demonstrative. She may not believe it, but it’s true. So I stalled.’

  ‘All the same —’

  He paused in his stride and pointed a finger at me. ‘Let me speak for once on my own.’

  I nodded, glancing at Melanie. No encouragement. I looked back at Philip, trying to affect patient interest.

  ‘I was at Potter Heigham and around the bridge area all that Saturday. I went early. I thought this young lady might do the same — get there early. And no, she hadn’t sent me her photograph. But she came. I saw her first, close to the hotel. I knew her at once, of course. I suspected there was some sort of conspiracy going on, Mark and Nancy, some method being planned for extortion and blackmail. I was protecting my wife, and myself if you like. I watched and I waited. I saw Mark, and I saw them meet. They appeared friendly. She bought a sticker from him.’

  ‘This was in the morning?’

  He seemed annoyed. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Before he went to lunch with Olivia?’

  ‘Yes. Will you let me speak! I watched her. She went away. I followed. She was merely wasting time. Then I saw them meet again, and I watched them — as I told you — walk away along the river side. And I saw him come back alone. Now do you see why I was suspicious? I continued to watch him. Occasionally, he spoke with friends. Still selling his stickers. Then he went to a house, where he apparently unloaded them all. Then he came out of there and went to a pub, and settled in with some mates. I left him, then, and went myself along to Womack Water, and along to the yacht basin. I couldn’t see anything. It was dark. No trace of her. Not even her car parked anywhere. I didn’t know, at that time, that she’d got a car, but there wasn’t one there. So I went back for my car, and returned here.’

  He smiled bleakly, but didn’t return to his stool. There’d been no sound from Malcolm except his deep, snoring breathing.

  ‘So in effect, you yourself could give Mark an alibi for that Saturday, apart from his walk out of sight along the river?’

  ‘Pretty well all day.’

  ‘So it’s in that way that you could’ve given him an alibi — and taken it away again?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And with no danger to yourself. I mean, you had an alibi for the whole of that day...I suppose you did?’ I risked a thin smile. ‘Even, I remember, for that hour or more you spent at the church...waiting. You spoke to the verger, I believe.’

  ‘I resent your suggestion. If I need an alibi...shall I write out a schedule? Draw up a time-table...’

  I shrugged, half turning away. Now that I had him close to the truth, the weariness entered my bones. Malcolm was staring at me, his face haunted, his eyes vacant.

  And Philip, now apparently on a flush of confidence, appeared at my shoulder, flapping his empty tobacco pouch. ‘Richard...if I could just beg...’

  I looked down into his face, seemingly unstressed, his eyes steady, and wondered at his almost schizophrenic responses.

  ‘Of course.’ I offered him mine. I tried not to contact his flesh.

  We stood together, then, like old friends. When he spoke, head down and watching his fingers stuffing tobacco into his pipe, it was clear that he thought he could draw me into collusion against officialdom. ‘I hope these are no ideas of yours, Richard. What on earth is all this leading to?’

  He didn’t realize that these actions were only confirming what I now believed, that he was capable of having done what I guessed.

  ‘It’s what’s been troubling Inspector Poole.’ I gestured towards her, where she was standing very still, one hand on Malcolm’s shoulder. ‘It’s what brought us here, really, to try to make sense of it.’ It was agony to speak calmly.

  He returned my pouch, patted his pockets, found his lighter. All were confident and casual actions. ‘I just hope you’ve managed to do that.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure I have. You see, when she was found — Nancy — by the police, she hadn’t got a sticker on her anorak.’

  ‘I told you what I did.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I know. That’s what’s so puzzling.’

  ‘Is it?’

  He wandered over to the french window, me with him. This, he intimated, was between us, but in fact Melanie was only feet to one side, and Malcolm simmering even closer, and the silence in the room was stifling. I stood beside him.

  ‘They conducted experiments, you see,’ I explained. ‘It was found that she could not possibly have been wearing a sticker after having been so long in the water. In no way. So you must’ve found her stickerless, one might say. No, let me go on, Philip. Your intention, you’ve told us, was to send two photographs to Mark, one indicating she’d been found like that, and one indicating you’d left her wearing a sticker. In fact, to make it very clear to him, you marked the prints 1 and 2. But you actually took the pictures the other way round, the first one with a sticker, the second without. Now — why was that? There seemed no point why you should not have taken the first one how you found her, stickerless, and then one when you’d put a sticker on. Then the negatives would’ve been in the same order as the prints you sent to Mark. Am I making myself clear?’

  He had his pipe going, and he blew smoke out at the open air, where Amelia stood aloof. ‘You’re making too much fuss over it.’

  ‘It would have been more natural to do that. But I’d suggest that you particularly wanted the negatives in that specific order, first the one showing the sticker, second the one without. Now I can see why.’

  ‘I wish I could.’

  ‘It’s because, if the going got difficult — as it has now — you intended to produce those negatives. With prints, you can’t tell the order they were photographed. With negatives, there’s no argument about it. They are in order, and numbered on the edge of the strip. This means you’d be able to show, with reasonable certainty, that Nancy did die on that Saturday, because you’d be able to demonstrate that you’d found her wearing a sticker.’

  ‘Which I do say.’

  ‘That’s exactly my point. You were trying to achieve two things with the same photos. You sent the prints to Mark, apparently showing you’d left her with a sticker, but you intended to use the negatives, if pushed to it, to prove you found her wearing one. One was something to convince Mark the prints. The other was a fall-back to convince the police —the negatives.’

  ‘This is just words.’

  ‘Words, yes. But for you...actions, Philip. Just look what you’ve achieved by taking those two pictures. You’ve kept Mark at bay, and you’ve persuaded the police she died on that collection Saturday. Deeds and words, Philip. Your words and all we’ve heard is Saturday. Now we hear that you have an absolutely solid alibi for the same day. As of course you would. Saturday, Saturday, that’s all we’ve heard. It’s all come from
you, Philip. The day of the appointment — Saturday. The sticker — Saturday. The day you watched Mark’s movement —Saturday. The day, you say, you saw the two of them on the river path. Oh...what’s the point in going on!’

  He said nothing. He stared out through the open window.

  I turned my head to Melanie. Her eyes were bright, her flush high.

  ‘You said she borrowed a car,’ I reminded her. ‘You’ll know more about it.’

  ‘It hasn’t been found,’ she said softly.

  ‘But when was it borrowed?’ I already knew, but I wanted her answer out in the open air, where we could all look at it.

  ‘From a friend.’ Her voice was uncertain. ‘On the Friday morning.’ And her fingers closed on Malcolm’s shoulder.

  The air whooshed out of my lungs as I turned back to Philip.

  ‘She borrowed a car on the Friday morning. She wouldn’t have done that unless she intended to drive to Norfolk that day. She would not have intended to stay overnight at the Rustons’, because that would have involved explanations. If she’d stayed anywhere else...’

  I didn’t need to finish it. Melanie was with me. ‘We made enquiries. Nobody. Nowhere. She was not seen.’

  ‘Then it seems more likely she’d have gone straight to her appointment on the Friday. At Potter Heigham, Philip? Most certainly not. You’ve gone to so much trouble to point our attention in that direction. I’d suggest it was somewhere quiet, where she would not be seen. To here. To the place Nancy already knew. Friday. Were you here that day, Olivia?’

  I turned to her. Moaning and incoherent, she could not even move her head, either sideways or downwards. She stared past me.

  In a conversational tone Philip said to her: ‘That was the weekend you were in London, my love. Agent and publisher.’ He shrugged. As well talk to a block of stone. He returned his attention to me.