‘Nobody could persuade him?’
‘Somebody tried. Yeah, it was Drew, and they nearly had a fight over it.’
‘So I heard.’
‘You don’t fight a potential backer.’
‘Not if you know what you’re doing,’ I agreed solemnly.
‘I’ve gotta get on with this.’
In a second he’d switched me off, and his drawings held all his attention.
‘And yet…’ I waited. No attention. I plunged on. ‘And yet, you people, supposed to be worried about him dashing off, you set to and played party games.’
He sat back again. ‘Are you going to let me get on with this?’
‘In a minute. You played party games…’
‘Games! Who’re we talking about? Me—and I’m knocking seventy, sonny—and Mildred, well…you’ve seen her, and Drew Pierson, old whitehead over there, and Clyde Greenslade, as humourless a bladder of lard as you’ve ever seen, and Harry Martin, that fellow there in the jeans and sweat shirt. He was the only one young enough for party games. We played Scrabble and got a bridge four going…Just try concentrating when the centre of it all is off in the night.’
I ticked them off in my mind. He’d mentioned five, and needed six. ‘And Rosemary?’
‘She tried to organise things. All nice and quiet, it was, until Duncan came rushing in, shouting about the garage and Edwin, and waving that radio in his hand.’
‘Shouting what?’
‘As though I can remember! Yeah, perhaps I can. About not being able to get the door to go up. That radio…’
‘And you all dashed down there?’
‘Of course, straight over the terrace. Somebody managed to get the door up. I think it was Drew. And…well, you know what we found.’
‘Yes, I know.’ I stared across at the brightly lit area of the floor. The young couple were enduring a telling-off by Mildred Niven, in her best grande-dame voice, and Rosemary was standing with her feet paddling in the verge of the light, every nerve stressed as she mentally urged the dialogue onwards.
‘Edwin’s parties had a tendency towards tragedy,’ I murmured.
‘Ha!’ he said. ‘Guessed you wouldn’t miss that. Glenda Grace.’
‘You were there? At that party too?’
‘Most certainly. They’d used my sets.’
‘So you know what happened?’
‘Nobody knows what happened.’
He didn’t seem inclined to enlarge on that, so I ventured on a hunch, to provoke him.
‘Somebody seems to. I heard there were threatening notes…’
I hadn’t taken my eyes from Rosemary during the last exchange. Perhaps she sensed my attention. In any event, she suddenly broke up a tearful response from the young woman, and marched over to where Latimer and I were seated.
‘If you two want to talk, why don’t you do it elsewhere?’ she demanded forcefully.
I raised my eyebrows at her, but couldn’t draw a smile. ‘Really!’ she said, then she marched back.
What had intrigued me was that, during this brief interlude, the actors had reacted complacently, and simply stood there, except that the tears had ceased to flow and Mildred had bent towards the young actress to say something that brought a short laugh. On Rosemary’s return they fell straight back into character, Mildred resumed her outraged dignity stance, and the young woman’s shoulders and body sagged into the misery of her tears.
And…did we want to talk? I glanced at Latimer. He jerked his head towards the nearest door. My mention of blackmail notes had hit him.
We were in a corridor, wide and bare and emulsion-painted. At the far end was a door with an inset design of coloured glass. The front door? There was a mirror on the wall just inside it, and an umbrella stand.
‘What d’you know about those letters?’ Latimer demanded, propping one shoulder against the wall.
‘I’d heard.’
‘You mean…’ He clutched my sleeve ‘…somebody else had one?’
I wasn’t going to be drawn, simply bent away from him to tap out my pipe. ‘I take it you did?’
‘Mad. Crazy. Me! I ask you.’
‘What did it say?’
‘That they’d seen me push her off the balcony. Nobody saw her go.’
‘Well then. What else did it say?’
‘I was supposed to take money in a carrier bag and wait on a park seat…oh, sometime or other.’
‘How long after her death was this?’
‘Oh, two months. A bit more.’
‘Much money, was it?’ I asked, not too interested, and making that plain.
‘A thousand. Who could ever…’
‘So what did you do?’
‘Tore the damn letter up and tried to forget it.’
But not with success. ‘Then what happened?’
‘Nothing.’ He stubbed his latest cigarette against the wall.
‘So that’s all right.’
‘How can it ever be all right? Somebody was throwing accusations around! And how could anybody have seen what happened on that balcony? There was a huge curtain. Velvet. Dark green. Floor to ceiling, with a cord-operated pull.’
His designer’s eye would have recorded that detail. I patted him on the shoulder. ‘Then I wouldn’t worry about it.’
‘Who’s worrying? That was years ago.’ He tried to look casual. ‘And the inquest said it was an accident, anyway.’
He gave an agitated jerk of his head, ruining the image. ‘But you could tell—that damned copper in charge—he thought something wasn’t on the up-and-up.’
Did he say that?’
‘She was stoned out of her mind, you know. They found cocaine…well, you know how it is.’
‘No. I don’t, as it happens.’
‘She could’ve done anything. That bitch. Any way she could hurt anybody…’
He stopped. She’d hurt him in some way. He mashed a fresh cigarette in his hand and threw it away.
I told him I’d heard about her. My dislike for her was growing steadily. Could such a fiend have been Rosemary’s daughter? I bared my teeth at him, hoping he’d take it for a smile.
‘I know what you mean. She’d be the last person to hurt herself.’
‘Sure. Well. It follows.’
‘So it follows she didn’t, perhaps, commit suicide. But there’s still accident…and that’s what the coroner’s court decided, as you said.’
The thought didn’t seem to comfort him, and he seemed about to take it further, but the door along the corridor opened.
‘Ah, there you are, Mervyn,’ Rosemary said, all smiles and as sweet as pie. ‘I’ve changed my mind about that settee. It’d clutter the stage.’
‘Now she tells me.’ But this time he said it fondly. She had shattered the mood, and recalled him to his work. He prodded me in the ribs. ‘Wouldn’t have your job for a fortune,’ he said. Then he toddled back into the dining room.
I wondered what strange idea he had as to what I was doing, and went to try that front door.
It opened on to a covered half-circle of steps down to a gravelled parking area. Out there it was dark, completely. The lights behind me in the hall barely penetrated the pall of rain, which had now made up its mind and was coming down steadily. The light indicated five vague shapes. I was interested only in hatchbacks, but not all that interested. I would not have been able to recognise the one I’d seen on the night of Llew’s fire, anyway.
Away out there a car’s headlights spiked through the rain, rising and falling, sometimes flashing straight into my eyes. I watched the cones reaching closer, until it was certain they were coming to the house. I waited. A small vehicle bucked up the drive, parked the other side of the cars, and the lights went out. Dimly I could make out its shape, a square box of vehicle, like a van.
He weaved through the cars, making his way towards the light behind me, an incongruous figure in slacks and a jacket, but wearing an official police cape and a flat cap.
‘Is
that you, Mr Patton?’
I knew the voice. It was Constable Davies, off-duty, but utilising official property. That was his police van, in which he’d just driven up.
‘Constable. You’re out late.’ He came closer, the grin on his face almost of embarrassment. ‘And I’d guess off your patch.’
‘Still my territory, sir, but I’m rarely up here.’ He mounted the steps into the porch, paused to shake off his cap, and dropped the cape around his feet like a woman stepping out of a skirt. ‘This is lucky, I must say. I wanted to see you alone, and here you are.’
There was an air of indecision about him, although it would have taken a firm decision to undertake the drive.
‘Better come along in. I might even find you a cup of tea.’
‘I’d prefer not, sir, if you don’t mind. To both.’
‘One thing that irritates me,’ I told him, ‘and which I’d like you to cure, and that’s this business of “sir” all the time. Either Mr Patton, or Richard. All right?’
He gave a sideways smile. ‘I’ll try Mr Patton for size, if you don’t mind.’
‘Good. Now…Mr Davies…why not inside?’
‘I wanted to see you alone.’
‘The corridor’s empty.’
‘All the same…’ He stared at the cap in his left hand before replacing it on his head. ‘If you don’t mind, here will do. I don’t want us to be seen together.’
It restricted our area of movement. I tried three paces one way, three the other. ‘All very mysterious,’ I said. ‘This is private?’
‘In some ways.’
‘Hmm!’ I sucked at the stem of my pipe. ‘Since I saw you last, I’ve obtained a lot of information. Things have changed. How d’you know you can trust me?’
‘I’ve got to trust somebody,’ he burst out, then he became embarrassed and looked away. ‘No, I mean…’
‘Even me.’
‘Especially you, sir. Mr Patton.’
‘Suppose you tell me.’
Still he hesitated. He stared out at the rain. ‘I hear your wife got back all right.’
‘Tired,’ I said. ‘But pleased with herself. You’, I accused him, ‘have been keeping an eye on us.’
‘I was up at his place yesterday. Ewr Felen. Poking around the ashes.’
‘Ah yes?’ Let him do it his own way, I thought.
‘His car’s still in that shed he used.’
‘It was well clear of the fire.’
‘I had a look inside the shed.’
‘I gathered that.’
‘There’s a gallon can of petrol in there.’
‘I suppose—isolated like that—he’d keep a reserve.’
‘Yes, he kept a reserve. Mr Patton,’ he burst out, ‘he’d been warned, you know. He used to keep a gallon can in the outhouse, attached to the main building. We warned him about it—the danger. Mr Grayson warned him, and asked me to check on it. Check if he’d done anything about shifting it.’
He stopped, as though waiting for me to say something. I searched around for something appropriate. ‘And you forgot?’
A pause. Then an emphatic shake of the head. The overhead porch light caught in his dark eyes. ‘Not really. It’d only been two days. It wasn’t that.’ He faced me squarely. ‘And anyway, he’d done it. Switched the petrol to his shed. Because it’s there.’
‘And how d’you know it was the same can?’ I asked with interest.
‘Well…look at it. He wouldn’t have had two cans, one in each place. He wouldn’t have bought a second, and kept it with the car, and left the other in the outhouse. No…it’s logic. He was warned, and he shifted his can of petrol from the outhouse to the shed.’
It had come out in a burst of lilting rhetoric, his reasoned argument. ‘And so?’ I asked quietly.
‘So the fire wasn’t an accident.’ He shook his head again, as though discarding rain from his hair. ‘But there was that smell of petrol…’
‘I see,’ I said casually, seeing more than he realised but not committing myself. ‘So you came all this way to check your reasoning…’ I tried to get my pipe going, but a breeze snatched away the flame. ‘…before going to tell Mr Grayson.’
‘Mr Grayson knows.’
‘Sure?’
‘He told me the car was all right. As there aren’t any windows, he must’ve opened the shed door. The can was there, just inside. I kicked it. He couldn’t have missed it.’ He was gesturing vehemently. ‘And the inquest’s on Thursday,’ he said in a hollow voice.
‘The last thing I heard, Mr Grayson was intending to go for accidental death.’
‘Still is.’
‘I can see your difficulty. You think you ought to give that information at the inquest—you, as the officer first on the scene of the fire. And it wouldn’t be a good idea to clash head-on with your Chief Inspector, not in court. I can understand that.’
He was looking at me with disappointment. ‘It wasn’t that.’
I tapped him on the shoulder with my pipe. ‘No need to worry about it. I’ll give that evidence. I’ll even go a run to Ewr Felen and have a look at it, then I won’t be lying. Come to think about it, I’d rather like the chance…’
‘It wasn’t that,’ he said again, his voice dead, controlling his anger.
‘Wasn’t it?’ I asked innocently.
‘I can give my own evidence, thank you.’ His dignity was immature, but it would improve with practice. I said nothing. ‘The can of petrol in the shed means he was killed,’ he went on. ‘Mr Hughes was making enquiries, and somebody killed him. You’re making the same enquiries, so things could become difficult for you, Mr Patton.’
‘I’m aware of that, laddie. I can look after myself.’
‘I’m sure you can.’ His former embarrassment returned. He screwed a toe into the slimy surface of the porch. ‘I was thinking about your wife.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I wasn’t too happy when she came back,’ he said, as though his lips were stiff. ‘From home,’ he amplified. ‘Which I understand to be a long way away.’
‘It pleased me,’ I told him. ‘And it’s two hundred miles. I was glad to have her with me, where I can keep an eye on her.’
‘Just thought I’d mention it.’
‘That’s very good of you.’
‘And just thought I’d let you know I’ll be around. In case, you might say.’ He gulped. ‘Sir.’
It had taken him some measure of resolution to drive there and tell me this, even more to suggest that I might not be able to look after the welfare of my own wife.
I grinned at him. ‘By heaven,’ I said, ‘but you’re going to have a hard time of it in the force, Mr Davies. So formal and so delicate! They’ll eat you alive, either the villains or your own superiors. But you’ve made me feel a damn sight better. I’ll be able to see you on the horizon, and know you’re there. I’m grateful.’
He managed a wry smile. ‘You were ahead of me, all the way,’ he accused.
‘Most of it. I was simply wondering whether you were going to warn me off.’
He laughed. ‘You, sir!’
‘We’ll have to find time for a drink,’ I said, as he turned away. ‘If you’ll forget the sir.’
He fastened his cape at the neck, perched his hat on his head at a jaunty angle, and marched off into the rain. You’d have thought he’d climbed a mighty peak.
I watched until there was no sign of his lights in the night, then I went back inside to see what they were doing.
The rehearsal now seemed to be going well. Rosemary was making no interruptions, and I got the impression that we were heading for a curtain climax. I edged round in the shadows until I located Amelia in a corner, sitting with Cindy asleep on her lap, and completely immersed in it. I sat beside her, saying nothing. The act came to an end, though apparently the end of the second act, not the play. Another act to come.
Rosemary, who’d been out of my sight at the far side of the room, walked into the light an
d said: ‘That was fine. I didn’t interrupt, it was all sweeping along splendidly. Break, everybody. Coffee and buns, and we’ll go straight into the third act.’
There were groans. ‘It’s bloody late, Rosemary.’
‘While we’re in the swing of it.’
There was no denying her. The complaints were purely formal. Rosemary had decided.
She came over to us, smiling, all the tension between the two of us now swept away.
‘We’re going to finish very late, I’m afraid. But stay on if you like.’ Amelia glanced at me. Around the room, one by one this time, the main lights were coming on.
‘I’m rather tired,’ she admitted.
I hastened to say we really ought to be going. Outside, the rain continued to pound on the terrace, which was the quickest way to the car.
‘If we could borrow an umbrella or two,’ I said.
Rosemary looked blank. ‘I don’t know…’ She gestured vaguely. ‘Umbrellas?’
‘There’s a stand full of them in the hall.’
‘Oh heavens yes. They’ve been there for years. Of course, help yourself. If…’ And her eyes glinted wickedly at me ‘…you’ll promise to return them.’
I promised. Amelia busied herself fastening the lead to Cindy’s collar, although she’d be carried to the car. I went out into the hall and walked to the umbrella stand by the front door, and chose two, from the shape of their handles.
One of them was still running with rainwater. I slid it back and drew out another. I didn’t want anybody to notice that I’d noticed.
12
The Stag, when fitted with its hood, was not the ideal vehicle in the Welsh mountains at night in the pouring rain. The hardtop was at the cottage in Devon, so there was no alternative. With two umbrellas we reached the car without getting too wet, but inside it became clear that my latest attempt to repair the hood had not been successful. There was a pool of water on my seat, and I knew that once we got moving the rain would drive back at us round the edges of the windscreen.
Amelia is always philosophical. ‘Can’t be helped, Richard. There’s a dry bed to aim for.’
It seemed that her thoughts were mainly on the bed, because I had the impression that she was quickly asleep. Certainly her head was back when I glanced sideways.
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