Mask of Innocence

by Roger Ormerod

Paul hauled himself to his feet. ‘I’ve told him that. I’m getting out of here.’

  ‘Oh no.’ Phillips smiled crookedly.

  ‘Oh yes,’ I said definitely. ‘I’ve got something. Come outside and I’ll show you.’

  Phillips gave this his serious consideration. Then he reached across and switched off his recorder. ‘I hope this is worth seeing.’

  ‘It is. You’ll like it.’

  He managed to get himself to his feet, but he was stiff. Paul and Jeremy stared at each other, then Jeremy too stood up.

  ‘Not you,’ Phillips told them.

  ‘It’s all right.’ I ran my hands over my hair. ‘They can watch.’

  ‘Watch what?’ asked Paul.

  ‘You’ll see. Oh...and we’d better take along the suitcases.’

  I went over to them, moved one sideways so that I could stand between them, and then picked them off the floor. I tried to make this a nonchalant action, as though it was nothing to me, but in fact I had to summon up a few muscles that I didn’t know I had.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Let’s go.’

  Jeremy stood aside and watched me. ‘How far d’you intend to take ‘em, Mr Patton?’

  ‘Not far.’

  ‘I’ll take one of them,’ he offered, as to an old and broken man.

  ‘No, no. I’m all right. It helps, if only to get an idea of how you managed it. Anyway...I want you fresh and relaxed. Lead the way, Mr Phillips, if you please.’

  He was eyeing me from beneath his eyebrows suspiciously. ‘What’re you up to?’

  ‘It’s only an experiment.’

  Outside in the hall, Phillips nodded to his DC, who held open the front door for us.

  The terrace steps were a little difficult, as they caught the back edges of the cases as I went down. I had to bend my arms to hold them clear. There was already a pain across the back of my neck, and my right knee ached.

  ‘How far d’you expect to keep this up?’ Phillips asked.

  ‘Not far. Just to the steps.’

  ‘Ah!’ But Phillips probably hadn’t even seen the steps.

  Paul said, ‘You’ll do yourself a mischief.’

  ‘Oh...I don’t think so. After all, Jeremy managed it — and all the way to the cottage.’

  ‘I’m fitter’n you,’ said Jeremy shortly. ‘And it just about knackered me, anyway.’

  I managed it by fastening my eyes on the top of the steps, with Amelia’s face low down beyond them, and by simply keeping one leg moving after the other. It felt as though my shoulder-blades were coming apart.

  Six feet short of the steps, I stopped, put them down, straightened my back, and sighed.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Phillips.

  Jeremy and Paul were beside me, one at each shoulder. Jennie hovered a few yards back.

  I pointed. ‘My wife’s footprints. The ones with the smooth soles. She’d just walked down. D’you see them? She started off from her right foot, and she came down into the soft surface at the bottom with her right. Same foot. Four steps, so it’d be: start from the right, then — left, right, left, right. Okay?’

  Phillips mumbled something.

  ‘And these,’ I said, ‘are Jeremy’s prints, also coming down. They were made this morning when he carried the cases up to the cottage, and they’re still nice and clear. A bit deeper than Amelia’s. Naturally. They’re his trainers, with the cleated soles. And what do we get? A right footprint next to Amelia’s at the top — both right. But at the bottom, from Jeremy...another right print? No. It’s a left one. Now...ask yourself. How could that have happened? No — we’ll ask Jeremy himself. Still got the same trainers on? Ah, I see you have. A bit muddy, aren’t they, for inside the house? Never mind. Now look...here’re the cases. So you just pick ‘em up, Jerry, and show us all how you did it. Come on. Give it a try.’

  He looked round him, studying each face. He must have seen only what I saw myself — puzzlement. It assisted me with my own decision.

  ‘No.’ It was a flat rejection.

  ‘Why not? All right. I’ll show you, then.’

  I picked them up again and stood, my right foot beside Jeremy’s right footprint. And I walked down. But these steps were even more difficult than the terrace had been, being steeper. I had to lift the cases clear of the steps behind, the whole weight taken by my biceps. I felt a flash of hot pain across my neck. As I knew would happen, I came down at the bottom on my right foot, beside Jeremy’s left footprint.

  I put them down, and turned. They were all three staring at me, bewildered.

  ‘All right?’ I asked. ‘Can you tell me how you managed to switch feet, Jerry? How did you manage to land on the bottom surface with your left?’

  Nobody said anything. I sighed. Now came the difficult part — carrying them back.

  But in fact it was a little less difficult, as I had to tip only the forward edges, and I could watch it happening. All the same, I was breathing deeply when I put them down in front of Jeremy.

  ‘Well?’ demanded Phillips, annoyed with himself that he couldn’t see what I was trying to put across.

  ‘I want Jeremy to demonstrate how it happened.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Phillips burst out. ‘What is this, a test of strength?’

  ‘You could call it that,’ I conceded. ‘Well, Jerry, how did you do it?’ He shook his head. ‘Just did. D’you think I was worrying what foot went where?’

  I slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Of course you weren’t. But you see — there is a way you’d take off from your right foot and land on your left at the bottom. That’s if you jumped it. In one go, missing out the steps altogether.’

  ‘Gerraway,’ said Paul.

  I smiled at him. ‘He must’ve taken the steps in one big running stride. A leap!’ I explained.

  ‘That’s impossible,’ said Jeremy flatly.

  ‘No, no,’ I told him encouragingly. ‘You managed to do it once. Well, here’re the cases, exactly as they were. Try it once more. For me. Just to show me how you did it.’

  Phillips came across to me and took my place, tried lifting the cases, and shook his head. ‘Impossible. Even running at all with ‘em...that’d be something. A great big running jump? Nah! He’d break a leg or an ankle or something. How could he have been running?’

  ‘I rather hoped Jeremy would show us,’ I said. ‘Aren’t you going to try it?’ I asked him.

  He turned away.

  ‘All right, then,’ I said. ‘I’ll have a go at guessing at it. He’d have had to be running. He couldn’t have done that leap without a run at it. And he could have started running, and nobody realise he had, the moment he was out of sight of the house. Once hidden by the hedge, and it would have been a flat run and he took the steps in one single bound.’

  ‘Carrying damn near a hundredweight?’ asked Phillips. There was no sign of scepticism in his voice now. His eyes were bright. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Not that. He was carrying empty suitcases.’ There was a silence. Then Jeremy said, ‘Like to try it, mate? Try it with two heavy cases.’

  ‘But that was the point,’ I said. ‘They weren’t heavy, they were empty. You pretended they were heavy. Once you’d seen you’d been noticed, you thumped along with your arms hanging straight. But the second you were out of sight it was one desperate run. When we got up to the cottage, you were exhausted. But that wasn’t from the weight, that came from having to run up the slope to the cottage. And you could have got there five, perhaps eight minutes before anybody would’ve expected you to.’

  ‘You were watching this?’ Phillips demanded.

  ‘We had to go up the drive in the car,’ I told him. ‘We didn’t hurry, because I assumed he’d have to take it slowly. But he wasn’t going slowly at all. He was running. In that way he’d have reached the cottage minutes before we did. It gave him the time to do something he desperately had to do. That was to go inside and pack the masks back inside the cases, lock the door after him when he got them outside — and be found in exhaust
ion, sitting on full cases with the door locked — and no key available to open up again.’

  ‘I don’t believe this,’ said Paul, his voice uncertain. I glanced at Jeremy. His face was set, his eyes glazed. I’d hoped he would carry it on from there. But apparently not.

  I shrugged. ‘I’m having to guess,’ I apologised. ‘But the way I see it is that he must have left the masks in there, the night before. He’d taken them up there — as he’d said he would, but he was interrupted. By Charlie Pinson. What did he say to you, Jerry? What?’

  I turned to him. He was shivering, but not from the cold. He shook his head, so I had to carry it on.

  ‘Did he greet you as Sir Jeremy? Did he say he had news for you, because you weren’t Sir Jeremy, but plain mister? And that Sir Rowland had not been your father?’ Jennie made a sharp sound of protest, but I had to ignore her.

  ‘You’d dipped into Lady Chatterley, hadn’t you, Jerry?’ I asked. No response. ‘It was tucked away on the shelves in the library, but you’d come across it, and you spotted the pencilled notes. In your mother’s writing. And gradually, you came to suspect what those notes meant, and you put one or two things together in your mind — your father’s obvious dislike of you, for one thing. Until in the end you’d got to believe it. Your own mother! But there — in front of you — was the living proof. Charlie Pinson. Jeremy! If you’d only called his bluff. Told him to go to hell.’

  Jeremy made a wretched sound, perhaps intended as a laugh of derision.

  ‘But did he offer to shake hands, Jerry? Shake hands with your father, son!’

  ‘Oh no!’ Paul whispered.

  But I wasn’t taking my eyes from Jeremy. ‘And the appalling knowledge that you’d have to live with this creature as a perpetual burden, a special personal nightmare. And how could you face your mother...’

  ‘Stop it!’ shouted Paul, and Jennie whimpered.

  I turned to Phillips. ‘Your weapon’s been with you all day,’ I told him. ‘It’ll have been one of the stone masks. There they would’ve been, Jeremy busy unloading them on to the floor. And perhaps one of them was still in his hand — as Charlie gave him the glad news that he was his father. He probably, from blind instinct, struck out in fury—’

  ‘No!’ cut in Jeremy abruptly. His voice wasn’t strong. ‘It wasn’t like that. It’s all very clever, but it wasn’t like you say. Oh yes, he walked in on me. Near gave me a heart attack, he did. There I was, the torch on the floor, and laying out the masks...oh, you don’t have to worry, Paul...’

  ‘Who’s bloody worrying about the soddin’ masks?’

  Jeremy gave him a thin, sardonic smile. ‘Well, I was being careful, and I’d just about finished, the last one in my hand, and all of a sudden, there he was. Said he’d seen the torchlight, and he was glad to get the chance of meeting me, because there were things I ought to know.’

  ‘But as I said, I expect you already knew,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Guessed.’ Jeremy was dismissive, disgust flattening his tone. ‘“Meet your dad, son,” he said. Or words to that effect. “Shake hands with your real father.” Christ!’

  ‘And you lashed out at him?’ asked Phillips.

  ‘No! No, I didn’t. I told him he could get stuffed, and he could do as he bloody well liked. It was all so long ago, see. Who’d believe him, anyway? I laughed in his face — what I could see of it. I told him I’d see he got hounded out of the district...and he had a go at me. By God, the temper he’d got! There was something in his hand...a lump of rock or the like. It was so damned stupid — that’s the point. Stupid! I could’ve disabled him in a second. Killed him, even.’

  Phillips clearly didn’t understand this. I said quickly, ‘He’s trained in martial arts.’

  ‘Ah.’ Phillips nodded.

  Jeremy glanced at him, and licked his lips. ‘But it didn’t occur to me. He was...oh, I don’t know...all of a sudden he seemed damned pitiful. Just a drunken lout. I reckon I laughed at him, and he swung his rock at me...well, I blocked that easily enough, and I sort of swung back, and that stone mask was in my hand — and he went down. Then, when I...when I checked, he was dead.’ He looked frantically from one face to the other. ‘Oh Lord, I’d killed him.’

  Then he was silent, staring away into the distance. I took it up for him.

  ‘Can you see it?’ I asked Phillips. ‘You and your damned images, do you see that one?’

  He stared at me. Eventually, he nodded.

  ‘Right,’ I went on. ‘So there was sure to have been panic. Jeremy would’ve had to get away from there. Couldn’t wait to load the masks back into the cases — and of course, he didn’t dare to abandon them.’

  Jeremy cleared his throat. ‘I had to get away. I couldn’t bear to bend over him and load the masks back in the cases, and didn’t want to toss ‘em back, willy-nilly. Didn’t want them chipped...for Paul. But I just couldn’t wait. Couldn’t. I grabbed up the cases, threw the torch inside, and took out of there like a rocket. You bet. I couldn’t get away fast enough.’

  ‘And you left the door open?’ I asked quietly.

  ‘Yes.’ Jeremy shook his head, wanting to get it straight. ‘And d’you think I got any sleep? Not on your life. I had to work out how to do it, ‘cause I didn’t dare to have the masks found, right there by him, and I couldn’t face it till it was light. So...the empty cases. Run up there, as you said. And still I didn’t have to throw the masks in. I was ever so careful, Paul. Honest. But I had enough time. Just. Got the door locked behind me just as I heard the car arrive.’

  He was silent, licking his dry lips. Then, silently, he produced the missing key from his pocket. Jennie was coming up quietly behind him, and Amelia was beside me now, with the dogs.

  ‘And there’s your answer to the question about the key,’ I told Phillips. ‘The key had to be missing, to show that he couldn’t get in — and therefore hadn’t been in. It was a very neat inversion. Don’t you think?’

  He grunted. ‘So it’s all been a bloody waste of time. And I bet it’ll go down on the file as self-defence.’

  I nodded. I was sure it would. ‘If you’ll phone ahead, and tell me where to go, we’ll run along and fetch Joe home. All right?’ He nodded morosely.

  Jerry stared at us, his mouth gaping, then his splendidly fit body went limp and he collapsed to his knees in the mud, covering his face in his hands.

  The dogs, hating to see distress so close to them, pushed in and frantically slobbered all over his distorted face. Jeremy howled in distress, not recognising the only genuine and unqualified affection he’d received in his life. Until Jennie joined them, kneeling in the mud, joined them in the affection proceedings with her own comforting hugs. Because after all, they were really in the same situation, not quite brother and sister. And Sir Jeremy Searle would probably return home from the station, his title undisputed.

  Jennie looked back at me over her shoulder. ‘Now look what you’ve done,’ she said severely.

  If you enjoyed Mask of Innocence 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 corne
r 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.