Mask of Innocence

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘What was?’ I asked, because we’d got to get this straight.

  ‘The acceptance of Jeremy as a child of the marriage. After so long, that threat meant nothing.’ She smiled again. ‘Geoffrey told me that.’

  ‘You consulted him?’

  ‘Well, yes. He was the family’s solicitor, after all. And the man I wanted to marry. And who was my personal solicitor. Who else would I think of approaching? Do try to use your imagination, please. And Geoffrey told me there was nothing for me to worry about. And that Rowland had nothing to worry about. So I told him he hadn’t, and that he’d be quite safe to tell Charlie to go to hell.’

  I sat down abruptly in the creaky chair, and to hell with the conventions. The chair well-nigh collapsed. How many more facets of this woman’s strange personality was I to uncover?

  ‘You told Rowland that you’d confided in Geoffrey Russell?’ I stared at my hands, feeling it to be better to hide my expression.

  ‘I did. He’d got to face the facts some time.’

  ‘And he therefore faced them?’

  ‘In his own way. The farm where Pinson works — worked — belongs to us. It’s part of the estate.’

  ‘Don Martin—’

  But she didn’t allow me to say anything. ‘It’s rented. And Rowland applied pressure on Martin. Quietly, you see. No confrontations. Don Martin was told that he’d got to dismiss Pinson, as simple as that. Charlie was going to be hounded out of the district. Out of Rowland’s life.’ Again she managed a thin smile. ‘As Mary was.’

  I didn’t dare to allow myself to be sidetracked. ‘So it was Charlie doing the shouting downstairs, on that day?’

  ‘Yes. He knew, as well as I did and Rowland did, that there was nobody else in the house.’

  I nodded, not intending to interrupt, but Jeremy had said he was there. Not that he’d seen something, just that he’d been in the house.

  ‘I had to urge him,’ she went. ‘I told you that. And he slipped. Silly man. You would think — a skier — that he’d be able to keep his feet. As you’ve pointed out. But he slipped and knocked himself out.’

  I took a deep breath. ‘I just cannot accept that he slipped.’

  ‘He had no hand free for the banister.’

  ‘How...’

  ‘He was carrying a shotgun, with both barrels loaded, and both intended for Charlie. Rowland had some idea he could get away with that, as Charlie was, after all, an intruder. He’d gone over the brink, Rowland had. And he was the one doing the most shouting — filthy language. I do believe he’d had a few drinks...Anyway, he was shouting, and he ran, actually ran down the stairs. He had no hand free, you see. And he slipped...’

  ‘And knocked himself unconscious?’

  She nodded portentously. ‘Slipped and fell. Unconscious, yes.’

  ‘And so...’

  ‘His head,’ she said distantly, ‘was lying against the bottom stair.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And Charlie stamped on his back. It was over in a second.’

  I got to my feet. She was standing there at the window, nodding, nodding to herself, a smile flickering across her lips, disappearing, appearing again.

  ‘So Charlie was still a bit of a threat,’ I suggested. ‘The thing had to be covered up. The doctor to issue the certificate, and perhaps Geoffrey to tell the right story to the Coroner?’

  ‘That’s how it was.’

  ‘But it...it was murder!’

  ‘I know. But it’s all right now. Charlie Pinson’s dead.’

  ‘Yes, yes, it’s all right now,’ I mumbled, my mind racing away, trying to tie up ends, trying to find ends to be tied.

  I got to my feet, my legs strangely stiff. There seemed nothing more to be said. If I spent hours talking to her, I would never satisfy myself that I understood her. But I had to tell myself that the emotions had been hammered out of her over the years. They had hit their peak when she’d struggled in Charlie’s arms, in his cottage. From then, it had all seeped away, until now there were only the dregs she could offer to Geoffrey Russell. I had to hope that would suffice. For both of them. But at least, he would have his letterhead, though perhaps he would regret the price he would have to pay for it.

  I was hesitating at the door, turning to see whether she had anything more to say — and meeting only a meaningless smile when I heard shouts from the corridor.

  ‘Nanna! Nanna!’

  Flinging open the door, I ran out.

  16

  I followed Jennie into Mary’s room, and caught the door as it was closing. Jennie, in great distress, was trying to talk through her tears, her back to me.

  ‘They’ve...they’ve arrested...oh, oh, oh...they’ve arrested Joe.’

  ‘Now, now,’ I said, coming up behind her in a perfect position to slip my arm round her shoulders.

  She half-turned to me. ‘They took him out to their car. I ran out after them. They were taking him away...’ she wailed.

  ‘Probably only for questioning,’ I comforted her.

  But that wouldn’t be for a short stay, I knew. Phillips could have done his own casual questioning in the drawing-room. This would be more intense, in a proper interrogation room.

  ‘And he shouted...shouted out, “The dogs, the dogs.” And I don’t know what to do. The dogs don’t know me yet, and I’m...I’m scared of them. Oh...what am I going to do?’

  She clung to me, as being the largest, chunkiest thing in the room to cling to. ‘We’ll look after the dogs. You don’t have to worry, Jen.’ I caught a glimpse of Amelia’s expression, her eyebrows almost in her hair. She didn’t like the sound of this at all.

  Then Mary, who had gone white, and had seemed to be paralysed, finally came to life. She came over and took Jennie from me, to be replaced by Amelia, frantically clutching at my elbow and whispering tensely, ‘But they’re Dobermanns, Richard. They frighten me.’

  ‘Nonsense. It’s how you talk to them. Joe told me that.’

  ‘It’s all right for him to talk, but by the time you find out you’re not talking their language, they’ll have you on your back with their teeth in your arm. If not worse.’

  I noticed that I’d been elected to this task. It didn’t cheer me in the least.

  ‘I’ll go and see Phillips,’ I said. Promised. Three pairs of eyes were looking to me as their saviour. ‘The man doesn’t know what he’s doing. Why isn’t he up there at the cottage? I’ll go and find out what he thinks he’s playing at. In any event, Joe’s probably got a kennelmaid. Or something.’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Jennie, still not through with the sobbing. ‘He does it all himself.’

  ‘All right.’ He would...I might have guessed. ‘I’ll go and see the DCI, right now. I’ll be back as quickly as I can.’

  Already I was planning alternatives. Joe had mentioned a friend. A breeder friend. I could get Phillips, at least, to find out that friend’s phone number. Yes, it was sounding better now. He’d need to do no more than phone his station.

  ‘I’ll be back,’ I repeated. Then I was out in the corridor, and I took that staircase three at a time. Try killing me, buster, I said to myself. It didn’t. I arrived, a little short of breath, in front of the DC at the door. A different one.

  ‘I want a word with DCI Phillips,’ I said briskly.

  ‘Name, sir?’

  ‘Richard Patton.’

  ‘If you’ll wait a moment.’ He slid through the barely open door like a sinuous draught, and was back in a few moments. He said I could go right in.

  The room seemed little changed. Phillips still occupied the same chair, but was slumped deeper down in it, and seemed smaller, as though he might have sweated off twenty pounds or so, simply from the exercise of his brain. I knew that there would have been no reason for his presence up at the lodge, in fact he would not have been welcome. The Scene of Crimes team would take over — had taken over — each one an expert in his or her own field, and their reports would have been sent to Phillips, as and when sifted
and cross-checked. He had only to conduct interviews, and wait. This was his Operations Room.

  Before him, their chairs fanned so that each was facing him head on, were Jeremy and Paul. That he had them together was not surprising. There had been conflict between them, and it might have been possible to play one against the other in order to extract vital information. All three looked completely bored. Jeremy tinted his boredom with a shade of red on his cheeks, flaunting it like a warning flag. It was terribly obvious, his awareness that he was now Sir Jeremy Searle having penetrated his conscious mind, that with it had come a shade of confidence, something that added to his attitude a certain aura of condescension.

  Beside him, Paul seemed to be relaxed and slightly amused, possibly at Jeremy’s transformation into authority. The two suitcases were there and looking exactly as I had last seen them, but were now between their two chairs. Paul’s right hand rested on the handle of one of them, a casual gesture, but it conveyed a sense of possession. Not the cases themselves, of course, those would belong to Jeremy. His cases. But Jeremy was not touching them.

  Phillips lifted his head to watch me approaching. He leaned across and whispered something into the microphone, then switched off his recorder.

  ‘What the hell d’you think you’re playing at, Phillips?’ I demanded. Perhaps my voice was a little strained. It was certainly close to a shout.

  ‘My job,’ said Phillips placidly.

  ‘You’ve arrested Joe...’

  Observing my hesitation, he helped me out. ‘Torrance.’

  ‘Torrance?’ I asked stupidly.

  ‘Gladys’s nephew,’ Paul offered, hating to see me confused. ‘And he’s not arrested or charged. He’s been taken in for questioning,’ Phillips said flatly.

  ‘Damned stupid!’

  ‘Is it, Mr Patton? Is it? Wasn’t it you who told him how to explain why he was there at the lodge — cottage, whatever? Oh, a very plausible reason. I believe it. Oh, I do. But it hardly alters the fact that he was there. He could have gone inside—’

  ‘He couldn’t have done that. He didn’t know where the spare key was kept.’

  ‘Didn’t he? How can you know that? Nobody can be certain about a negative.’ He raised his palms, exonerating himself from defective reasoning. ‘And he had a motive. If he’d gone in there — just to gloat over what he might be owning, someday not too far away — and he was using a torch, then Pinson could have spotted him. We’ve checked that possibility. And Joseph Torrance had a motive. He’d already had one set-to in the Red Lion with Pinson.’

  The two brothers had been sitting woodenly, listening to this. Only Paul felt that Joe might merit support.

  ‘So what?’ he asked angrily.

  ‘We have evidence that Pinson spoke to him about Jennie. Spoke insultingly.’

  ‘What’d he say?’ Paul demanded, leaning forward.

  ‘That she was a bastard.’

  ‘I’d have flattened him,’ Paul declared.

  ‘He’d better not say it in my presence,’ put in Jeremy, who was in much the same situation as Jennie.

  ‘He’s dead, Jerry, dead,’ Paul reminded him.

  ‘Oh...yes.’

  Phillips waited until they were silent, then he went on, speaking directly to me. ‘So he’s under interrogation. If he’s got good answers, he’ll be released.’

  ‘Have you found the missing key?’ I asked angrily. He was beginning to annoy me.

  ‘No. Unfortunately not. We’ve done a crawl search. Nothing within throwing distance.’

  ‘Or a weapon?’ I insisted. ‘It would have to be something the murderer was carrying.’

  ‘Or something Pinson was carrying,’ said Phillips mildly. ‘Just imagine it. Pinson spots the light. Ah — an intruder, he thinks. Could be dangerous. So he picks up a rock or something, and takes that with him, to investigate.’

  ‘You’ve already covered that,’ I reminded him. ‘And it looks as though he did pick up something — that chunk of rock with the dirt and the grass stuck to it. But you told me that hadn’t been the murder weapon.’

  ‘Quite so. And the man with the torch managed to club him behind the ear with something else.’ Phillips was quite placid about it.

  ‘Not while Pinson had his eye on him, you can be sure of that,’ I said. ‘And Pinson certainly wouldn’t have turned his back.’

  There was a short silence, while Phillips pretended to think about that. ‘All right. So he took his eyes off him.’

  ‘Why?’ I demanded. ‘What else was there to look at?’

  Phillips smiled. ‘Look, Mr Patton — are you trying to prove something?’

  ‘Just helping with the old visualising act,’ I assured him, though a little impatiently. ‘I’m trying to imagine Joe Torrance there, facing Pinson, who’d got a chunk of rock in his fist, and somehow managing to belt him one with something heavy and hard, which hasn’t appeared yet as an item of evidence...Oh, come on, Phillips, it’s just not on.’

  ‘He’s a tough character, that Joseph Torrance.’

  ‘Tough enough to have overcome Charlie Pinson, who’d already got his own weapon? All right, you’ll say. A quick right to the chin...and Pinson’s unconscious on the floor. Then what? Why take it any further? Why not simply walk away and leave him to recover? So where’s your murder weapon? Show me a murder weapon. That room was completely bare when I saw it. You’ve already admitted it couldn’t have been Pinson’s chunk of rock.’

  ‘That,’ said Phillips complacently, ‘is why we’ve got Torrance in for questioning.’

  ‘Hoping he’ll admit he’d gone to that cottage, hoping Jennie might come along to say goodnight — with something heavy and hard in his pocket? You’re crazy, Phillips. Pure bonkers.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ he said placidly, ‘we’re questioning him. And we’re holding him until we get some reasonable answers.’

  It was clear that I was getting nowhere with my mission. I made an angry gesture. ‘Then phone the station. They can ask him for the phone number of his friend who breeds Dobermanns. It’s somebody out Leominster way.’

  ‘And break into the interrogation?’ Phillips was openly scornful.

  ‘But he’s worried about his dogs.’

  He spread his palms. ‘Fine. Then he’ll give us straight answers all the sooner.’

  I stared at him in anger, and he smiled back. I stared at the other two, who shrugged.

  ‘Oh, to hell with you, then,’ I said, and rushed out, almost walking over the constable outside.

  Amelia and Jennie were hovering in the hall. They pounced on me.

  ‘They’re holding him for now,’ I told them.

  ‘Then what’re we going to do?’ asked Jennie, her eyes wide and her face all distorted with distress.

  ‘It’s not really anything to get upset about,’ I assured her. ‘The dogs are probably fed only once a day, and they won’t starve, because Joe’s sure to be released soon.’ Sometimes I can lie quite smoothly.

  ‘But they might not have had their one meal, today,’ Jennie pointed out logically. ‘The poor things, they’ll be ravenous.’

  And only waiting for me to chew at?

  I was feeling a little peckish myself. But I didn’t say so. It was unlikely that their one meal would be at this time, anyway. I glanced at my watch. Eleven twenty. Damn it — perhaps Joe fed them at noon.

  Jennie tried to get it across to me. ‘He shouted, “The dogs...the dogs!” Please. It must matter.’

  I glanced at Amelia, who was frowning. At my lack of eager response? At my slightest hesitation? I sighed.

  ‘He was here earlier,’ I reminded Jennie. ‘He came back. If it’s just the feeding you’re worried about, that’s probably what he went to do.’

  It in no way penetrated her distress. ‘He probably went to the butcher’s.’ At my no doubt blank response, she went on, ‘To get their meat. Oh...what are we going to do? They’ll be starving!’

  Amelia’s gaze was darting from one to t
he other of us, unable to decide in which direction to focus her concern. To the dogs...or to me?

  ‘How far is it?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s only just the other side of the village.’ She was all eagerness now. ‘It’d only take a few minutes.’

  To look at them? To judge whether they looked ravenous? Amelia said, ‘It’ll do no harm to go and see.’

  But Joe was undergoing nothing worse than a difficult interrogation. They couldn’t hold him for long without making a charge. At that time, if his stay became extended, we might need to start worrying.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Jennie eagerly. ‘We could go...and see.’

  ‘Let’s get in the car, then,’ I said. Anything for a bit of peace. ‘Can we take Sheba and Jake?’ Amelia suggested.

  ‘Oh heavens, no. Surely not. They’d smell the others and start barking, and that’d set the Dobermanns off...Oh no.’

  ‘The poor dears.’ It didn’t seem that Jen meant the Dobermanns. ‘They’re not getting their exercise.’

  I slammed the door. Jennie was in the back. ‘They’ll have to wait, then, won’t they!’ I said over my shoulder.

  Jennie breathed in my ear. ‘When we get back, I’ll take them for you.’

  It was an offer, in repayment for a very minor service. I grunted. I enjoyed going out with our dogs. It was now part of my life. ‘If you insist,’ I said equably. Now committed, I felt more relaxed.

  It seemed strange, driving away from the scene of all the activity. Anything that meant anything had to be discovered back at Penhavon Park. And I was driving away from it. Yet, deep down, there was this niggling urge to continue to drive away from it, and forget the whole unpleasant tangle. If it wasn’t for Mary...and for Jennie.

  ‘There’s a turning along here,’ said Jennie. I hadn’t noticed we’d run through the village. ‘On the right there. There. There, look. Opposite that gate. On the right.’