A Shot at Nothing

by Roger Ormerod

‘You’re lying, of course.’

  ‘But why d’you say such a thing, Clare? I’d have expected a certain amount of gratitude. I can prove your innocence. You ought to be happy. I didn’t say I intended to, and that should make you even happier.’

  ‘Ah!’ She nodded. I seemed to have succeeded in easing her anger. Then she appeared to realise something. ‘You spoke of this, out there? Recently?’

  ‘I told you—a few minutes ago.’

  ‘With people all round you?’

  ‘I think so. It was dark, you see, and at the end the fireworks had finished.’

  ‘Then I’ll know.’ She nodded positively to herself. ‘It’ll be all round the countryside tomorrow. They’ll come to me, and I’ll hear everything. You’ll see. I shall know who’s made this ridiculous claim, this admission, as you call it.’

  Oliver said, ‘I don’t see what you think you’d gain from that, Clare.’

  ‘I’ll know.’ She nodded.

  ‘And be able to deal with this person?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘You don’t seem pleased.’

  ‘Pleased?’ That seemed to baffle her. She went across the room and closed the French windows. ‘It’s getting quite cool.’

  ‘Isn’t it!’ I said. I waited until she’d turned back and was facing me. ‘But don’t assume anybody will be coming to tell you anything, Clare. I don’t think they’ll come to you—and if you go down to the village, I feel they’ll look away and not speak.’

  ‘What’re you talking about?’ she demanded, becoming more tense with every second.

  ‘Are you familiar with the phrase: persona non grata, Clare?’

  ‘Of course. I did Latin at school. Have you gone insane or something?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sane enough, I assure you. And I can feel what’s going to happen. When they all accepted that you’d killed Harris there would’ve been general approval. He was universally hated. When you were sent to prison, and went there with your head high, grandly to your punishment, you were adored for it. The whole thing had an element of proud sacrifice about it, and was coloured splendidly by the violent scene in the background. Oh, how they cheered you this morning! You were back…their heroine. And you lapped it up. You were indeed the lady of the manor. But now they’ll know it was all false. You played it for all it was worth. Not for you the kicking and screaming when they dragged you away. No. It was head high. The proud killer. You fooled them, Clare. They know the genuine executioner now. In the morning it’ll be all round the district. And d’you think they’ll whisper a word, outside their tight little circle? Not on your life, they won’t.’

  ‘Who is this person? You’re lying.’ She lifted her shoulders in a gesture of contempt. ‘I’ll know, anyway, when the police go there with a warrant.’

  ‘There’ll be no warrant, Clare. Can we put it that there’ll be a conspiracy of silence? Yes, silence when you’re near—when authority’s near—silence when you wave grandly, no answer when you call out: good morning. Because they’ll all know you used the situation to inflate your own personal ego. That it’s all been a pantomime, with you as Cinderella. But…I was forgetting…you won’t have to suffer it for long. You may not even have time to see the village in the morning.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Now she was pale, her eyes still wide, but with a wildness to them. They settled fixedly on my face, searching for a way out from what would sound like purgatory to her. I didn’t answer.

  ‘Not long?’ she whispered. ‘I still don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘You didn’t want me to prove your innocence, did you, Clare? You were happy with what you’d got.’

  I’d made it a direct question. She responded to it. ‘No, damn you, no.’

  ‘Shall I tell you why you didn’t? I didn’t understand. I do now. It had brought you the status you longed for. You had come home to a great welcome. And all this rested on the one fact: that you’d killed Harris, on behalf of the whole community, and you’d paid your debt to society. You wallowed in it, Clare.’

  ‘Oh, this is absurd. You’d better leave.’

  ‘In a moment, Clare. It’s motive, you see, a motive that to anyone else would seem paltry. But not to you. You see, if I proved your innocence a large part of your magic aura would have been snatched away. And I was doing this thing. So I had to be removed before I succeeded. How strange, that you’d be prepared to commit a murder in order to hide the fact that you hadn’t committed the first. Strange, that is, to someone who didn’t know you.’

  I paused, waiting for her to say something. She was staring at me with a set, white face. And I was wondering whether there hadn’t been just a hint of jealousy in the stabbing. Oliver was infinitely desirable—to both of us. But she said nothing.

  ‘But Clare, you loved the adoration, as you love your guns. Both affections so very destructive. Shall we go now, Oliver? I’m very tired.’

  In fact, I could barely remain on my feet.

  ‘You’re insane,’ she whispered.

  ‘I shall phone the police—Superintendent Vosper—first thing in the morning, Clare. Were you so foolish as to use one of your own knives?’ I caught the flick of her eyes, which was as good as an admission. ‘And I suppose, here, they’d come in sets. Now…if I were you…I wouldn’t try hiding or burying the rest of the set. That would look bad. And if you went out to buy a matching knife…well, you’d find nobody would sell you one, and it’d look bad if the police arrested you while you were searching the shops. Think about it. Think about it, Clare.’

  Oliver was at the French windows and was holding open the right-hand one. I didn’t like to turn my back on her. My nerves ached with the strain, expecting the Darne to be hurled at my head. But there was no sound as we walked out, not even a whimper, and we reached the corner of the house before we heard anything. Then it was a crash of glass. She had thrown the Darne at one of her cabinets.

  ‘You were wrong on one point, Phillie,’ said Oliver, as we approached the belt of trees.

  ‘What was that?’ I didn’t really care.

  ‘The knife. Even if it matches a set she’s got, it wouldn’t be proof. Not something you could use in court.’

  ‘I know. But it doesn’t matter. She’ll confess to it. Claim it, perhaps. She’s so stupid, really. The death of Harris—everybody took that as a justifiable homicide. Clare will think that killing a policewoman, even if in mistake, is the same. But it’s not the same, Oliver, is it, even though I was the intended victim?’

  ‘No, love,’ he said, ‘it’s not at all the same.’

  The car stood where we’d parked it, now apparently isolated. There was no sign of any other vehicle, but nevertheless I had an impression that we were not alone. The deeper shadows beneath the trees seemed restless, and were moving.

  I stopped so abruptly that it almost jerked my hand from beneath Oliver’s arm.

  ‘Oliver,’ I whispered. ‘The keys! They’re still on the terrace. I threw them…’

  ‘At me,’ he confirmed.

  I was abruptly very tired indeed. The thought of walking all the way back for them was appalling. The thought of waiting there while Oliver went to get them was even worse. The car was no more than a heavier block of darkness in a surrounding darkness, one that was restless and expectant.

  Then the car doors swung open. The interior light indicated that Glenn was at the driver’s door, Josie at the passenger’s. They held them wide. And was Glenn smiling? In any event, he inclined his head.

  As I reached his side, I saw that the key bunch was dangling from the ignition lock. Then I understood. Glenn had overheard my disagreement with Oliver, and he’d seen me throw the keys at him. That Glenn had more recently gone to the terrace to rescue them for me, indicated that he must also have overheard what had been said to Clare.

  I slid on to the seat. As Glenn slammed the door with one hand, he put the other to his mouth, inserted two fingers, and whistled shr
illy. I’d always wanted to be able to do that, but had never mastered it. I would have to come back and learn the secret, I thought. Or perhaps not.

  An engine, far off, had thumped into life, then settled down, and the strewn coloured lights, draped each side of the driveway, glowed feebly, flickered, then settled down to their full glory.

  The sides of the drive were lined with people, who’d behaved so superbly that not one sound had come from them. Scattered with different colours, their faces glowed. And they were all smiling.

  I pushed the window switch, and they slid down, the better for both of us to see. I started the engine and slid the box into drive. The car eased forward, and then the gentle pattering sound, which I’d taken for a sudden rain shower, became a clapping of palms. No other sound. Smiling faces and gently applauding hands.

  I tried to smile, but I was exhausted, physically and emotionally, and all I achieved was tears. I stared ahead, barely able to see, and slid the car slowly into movement. There was a ridiculous urge to wave a hand languidly in acknowledgement, but I resisted it.

  Who the hell did I think I was? Clare?

  If you enjoyed A Shot at Nothing you might be interested in A Death to Remember by Roger Ormerod, also published by Endeavour Press.

  Extract from A Death to Remember by Roger Ormerod

  1

  I was sitting at a corner table in the lounge of the Winking Frog, nursing a half of bitter and wondering whether to eat there, when I suddenly remembered I’d had a car. What provoked this thought was the sight of a large, pallid man in boots, jeans and anorak standing in front of me with his pint glass almost lost in his fist, and who was saying: ‘Mind if I join you?’

  I couldn’t have put a name to him, but the sight of him had prompted the thought: what the hell happened to my car?

  ‘What the hell happened to my car?’ I asked angrily, the anger surprising me because I had nothing on which to base it, and no clear reason to aim it at him.

  He sat opposite me. His smile was apologetic. He half reached forward with his left hand in a gesture that I realised was intended as reassuring.

  ‘It’s in a corner of the servicing bay. Only wants the battery charging and the engine turning over...’ He stopped, tilting his head. His blond hair tumbled over one ear. ‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ There was genuine anxiety in his voice.

  The mention of a servicing bay, and of turning over the engine, had provided the necessary information. The mental image was of a garage, and then of an office overlooking the yard at the back, and I had him. Clay...no, Clayton it’d been. Christian or surname? I hesitated, not sure whether I ought to be friendly or aggressive, not willing to commit myself.

  ‘Tony Clayton,’ he said, and I realised he was feeling as tentative as I was, though it had to be for a different reason. It was unlikely that he, too, suffered from a deficient memory. He would know where he stood in this world, his viewpoint firmly established, but I was still rebuilding mine. I needed any help I could get, but not from Tony Clayton.

  Other people – ones I could trust – had made sure I was not short of basic information. During the previous nine months, from the time it was decided that my mind would accept information and store it, my visitors had programmed facts into my brain in a steady stream. I knew who I was, why I’d been there in that convalescent home, what I had been before the assault (an Executive Officer in the Civil Service), and vaguely what I had been doing that day. A Welfare Officer had ex-plained that my decree absolute had gone through only four days before the incident. (Lucky, that, he’d explained. My coma might have affected the issue. He hadn’t fully explained why it was to be considered as lucky.) There had been no shortage of detail about my life and my work, but nobody had explained, or been able even to attempt to explain, what my emotional background to life had been. I didn’t know whether I’d been light-hearted or serious, introvert or extrovert, optimistic or pessimistic. I could no longer trust my emotional responses, so that there was no basis from which I could face life with any confidence. They hadn’t been able to restore my personality.

  Perhaps the psychiatrists had realised this. It would explain their reluctance to have me roaming loose in the harsh and unforgiving world. They hadn’t told me whether or not I should treat it as harsh and unforgiving, or look on it as a challenge, with hope leading the way and optimism guiding me.

  But amongst the facts I’d been fed had been the simple one that the person I had to blame for my present condition was a garage owner by the name of Tony Clayton. I stared at him, and felt nothing. He was uneasy and restless. His eyes would not hold mine. He glanced down at his glass.

  ‘I might need the car,’ I said in a neutral voice.

  He looked up eagerly. ‘I’ll tax it for you. But you’ll have to check on the insurance. You’ll have all the papers...’ He stopped, flustered. ‘But you don’t remember me, do you?’

  ‘I remember you.’

  What I remembered came as an abrupt, brilliant picture in my mind. In it, he was towering – seemed huge in my second of reconstruction – at his desk, with the window behind him. His face was in shadow. I could detect no expression, but his voice was loud and aggressive. ‘...be damned if I’ll let you take anything out of this office...’

  I smiled as the image died, and my amusement angered him again. But now his anger was tempered by time. His face, I realised, was thinner, and there was weariness and suffering behind his eyes. When he spoke he’d already controlled himself. His voice was no more than disgruntled.

  ‘I don’t see what’s funny.’

  ‘You were furious,’ I explained, taking his question seriously. ‘The way I remembered you.’

  ‘That’s funny?’

  ‘You said I wasn’t going to take anything out of your office. I’m sure I wouldn’t have done that, if you objected.’

  ‘But you bloody-well did.’

  ‘I took...what?’ I asked, keeping my eyes on his.

  ‘Wages book, bank statements, cheque stubs, petty-cash books...’

  My memory had blank spots about my previous work as a Social Security Inspector, but I was fairly clear on one point: books were not impounded unless something very serious had been discovered. I sat and stared at him. In the shadowed car park beside the Social Security office, this man had caught up with me and smashed in my head with a large adjustable spanner, apparently to recover his books. So the issue must have been serious. I could remember nothing of what the issue had been.

  ‘I’ll get you the other half,’ he said, gesturing towards my glass. Perhaps my eyes on him had made him nervous.

  ‘No. No, thanks. I’m not supposed to drink too much alcohol.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I get headaches.’

  ‘Yes.’ He looked away. ‘I suppose you would.’

  We eyed each other cautiously. There seemed nothing more to say. He raised his hand from the table, then flapped it back. There was a hopelessness about the gesture. I thought he was about to leave, but he did not.

  ‘For heaven’s sake!’ I burst out. ‘What’s this all about? What do you want with me?’

  ‘I heard you were back in town.’

  ‘Don’t tell me you’ve been wondering when I’d be coming to hunt you out.’

  ‘I’ve only been back a week, myself.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘From Winson Green.’

  ‘The prison?’

  ‘I got two years. Time off for good behaviour. Got out a week ago.’

  ‘Me too. Out a bit longer, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A month ago. From the convalescent home.’ Then I was laughing, though I wanted to cry, and couldn’t understand either emotion. All I knew was that we’d both lost fifteen months of our lives, and what I knew of the reason didn’t make sense.

  This time he could laugh with me, but only miserably. I stopped when I saw I was making him afraid. Afraid of me? But I felt nothing, no desire for retribution,
no fury, no haunting cry for revenge within me.

  ‘So what is it you want?’ I asked.

  He moved his glass around on the table, looking down at it. And mumbled something.

  ‘I didn’t hear that.’

  He looked up defiantly. ‘I want you to come to the garage and go through my books.’

  ‘It’s not my job...’

  ‘As a favour.’

  ‘Didn’t you know? I’m retired on health grounds. I’m not in the Civil Service now. Not your local Social Security Inspector.’

  This I offered to him savagely. My job was just one of the things he’d taken from me, though not by any means as important as the loss of my memory. The job was a loss I’d become reconciled to, the resentment, if any, being directed against the Department, which had been just a little too anxious to see the back of me, I thought. I mean, they could have given me unpaid leave for a year – two years – then taken me back. All right, it could be argued that I would never be able to handle the work, but they hadn’t given me the chance to give it a try. The Welfare Officer had been persuasive. Perhaps he’d been more concerned with the welfare of the Department. My memory did at least supply the information that I had not always conformed to rules and regulations.

  So my response to Clayton was savage, though not directed at him. All the same, he flinched, but he persisted.

  ‘As a favour.’

  ‘A favour...to you? Lord – you must be crazy.’ I said this less aggressively. I was beginning to realise there had to be more behind it than his plain request. Curiosity held me.

  His smile faded, but he went on stubbornly, as though he’d rehearsed it all. ‘I’ve been out a week. I told you. My wife’s been running the place, and doing a good job of it, with a bit of a hand from the accountant. But...’ A shrug. His huge shoulders moved heavily. ‘But I don’t know. There’s something wrong.’

  ‘If you’ve got an accountant...’

  ‘All the same, if you’d just give them a look through. You must’ve had years of experience...’ He left it hanging, like a bait, and either he was very clever or he’d dropped by accident right on the words that captured me.