There’d been a flash of white shirt cuff and gold cuff-links. Two comments, and he’d told me the lot. He’d got his rank of Chief Inspector, and he expected my full co-operation.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Have you been inside, yet?’
‘Not yet.’ He waited. He’d got to know where he stood with me. He was a trim, slim figure, maybe forty-five, holding himself as though he thought he was in the army. I happened to know he’d come straight from University to the force. A pity about the moustache, I thought, and the sideboards were really a little long.
But there was something in his eyes I couldn’t interpret. A pity the light was so poor. He’d been thrown into this — his new rank and a murder case — and he hadn’t even located his desk. He was nervous, but afraid to show it.
I set the position straight. ‘Sergeant Latchett’s running things inside. He’ll give you the background. This is Brason, the local man. I’ll be at my office, if you want me.’
He nodded. His eyes caught the remnants of the light, glowing red and reflecting what could be anger, or simply satisfaction. Then he turned around smartly and went into the cottage.
Brason was uncomfortable, eyeing me sideways with raised eyebrows.
‘Mr Donaldson’s in charge now,’ I told him. ‘You’ll be working for him, so you’d better trot along inside. Oh, and I wouldn’t offer him any bright ideas, he might not appreciate them.’
Then I nodded, and ambled off round to the front of the building. No hurry now. It was strange, taking it slowly, with no pressure. Something else I’d need to get used to.
Ken wasn’t waiting for me to inspect the glass splinters, but was now inside, talking to Donaldson. To hell with the glass, I thought, then I wandered over to have a look.
The man from forensic was still working on the snow beneath the window. He’d used a spatula to scrape it aside, meticulously, probably flake by flake. I stood and watched him for a moment, then crouched at his side.
The glass splinters were scattered in a patch about a foot square, and a cameraman was taking flash shots of it from various angles. I held up my hand, and he lowered the camera.
‘What d’you make of it?’ I asked the technician.
He was cheerful, waving the spatula, though his trousers were soaked to the knees. ‘Oh, it’s certainly window glass, sir, so I’d say it’s from the hole in the window. See — that piece on its edge. It’s dirtier on one side than the other.’
We stared together at the piece of glass, then at the hole in the pane.
The window was a simple wooden-framed design, four feet wide by three high, half of it — the right-hand half, from where I was squatting — consisting of an opening section. It was now firmly latched. I could see the latch inside, a simple downward-swinging arm of curved, cast metal. The hole, six inches across on average, was in the pane immediately beneath the latch. Its edge was only an inch or so from the central vertical bar.
‘That hole,’ I asked, ‘would you say it could’ve been done by a shotgun blast?’
‘It’s the size you’d expect, if it was fired close to the glass.’ He was dubious. ‘But fired that close, you’d expect the glass to fly further, and it’d be in smaller fragments, I’d have thought. We could do some tests, if you want them.’
‘No. But pass it on to Mr Donaldson.’
I eased my knees. There was no point in pursuing the subject — it wasn’t my case anymore. ‘But it wasn’t blasted out, was it?’
‘Sir?’
‘Take a look at that hole, and then at this glass in the snow. One isn’t beneath the other.’
The small patch of glass fragments was about two feet from the cottage wall, and a foot or more to the right of the hole. I edged round, not an easy thing to do when you’re in a crouch. Looking straight on at the wall, the patch of glass was closer to the hinge than to the central vertical bar.
I told the photographer what to do about it. ‘Get a shot from here. It could matter. Show exactly the relationship between the hole and the bits of glass.’
He’d have done that, anyway. But he nodded, looking solemn. The two men seemed impatient to get on with it. I creaked to my feet and headed for the Stag.
It was almost completely dark. I sat quietly for a while, my pipe going, drifting the smoke out of the half-open window. It was necessary to rearrange my emotions. I’d been a damn fool to stand on my paltry authority and come there. I’d seen it now. I’d become interested and involved, and the best I could hope for was second fiddle to Donaldson’s confident leadership. To hell with that! It was like a marriage gone sour — better to break clean and walk away from the case with a blank mind.
I started the car, edged round, and drove away, leaving behind me an oasis of light in the middle of desolation. Heading into desolation.
Yet there were compensations, I told myself. From what Brason had said there was a direct link with Kendall, and the body could be his. Even thinking of him was disturbing. The life sentence had been a source of complete satisfaction to me, as a private individual and as a policeman, so that his early release had produced a choked feeling of outrage, as though something had been kicked away from under me. No...better out of it, if it turned out to be Kendall. I’d have been blocked by emotion, and torn apart.
And yet...the possibility of the body being Kendall’s naturally turned my thoughts to the Clayton brothers. But how could they possibly have known about this remote refuge? The Claytons were, at least, still mine. Them, I could approach unemotionally.
I drove on, pleased with this rationalisation, and for some minutes pleased with myself, too.
The road surface was worse than when I’d driven there. I hit the main road into town, fortunately facing the commuter stream, and there’d been some gritting done. But all the same, there were difficulties. From a long way away I could see that Turner’s Gap was blocked, with a trailer-wagon slewed across the hill. I slipped into a minor road.
This took me in a loop that eventually ran along the outskirts of the building estate in which Amelia Trowbridge lived. There was an abrupt urge to drop in on her, and I found myself testing excuses to do that. But though the description fitted her husband, the location of the body suggested Kendall. I would not even dare to mention it, and what else was there? It would be completely unprofessional to visit her...and the case was Donaldson’s. I turned away from it.
I entered town past the railway station. Every day, it seemed to me, they messed about with the diversions round the work on the new by-pass. At the bus stops there were long queues, with miserable feet shuffling in the slush. Suddenly I felt tired, picking it up from their strained faces, I suppose. I didn’t think I could persuade myself to return to the office, to the IN tray, and to Merridew’s satisfaction, however well he managed to control it. Tomorrow would do. There were a lot of tomorrows completely untouched.
I saw her, standing in a bus queue on the other side of the street. I was in the outside lane of a tail-back from the traffic lights at the pelican crossing ahead. There was no oncoming traffic. On impulse I swung out from the stream and across the street, winding down the window.
‘Can I give you a lift?’
She bent to the opening, features peaked, with a little woolly hat tilted on her head. For a moment she was startled and defensive. ‘But you’re not going my way.’
‘I could. Very easily.’
I tried to make my voice match the warmth that must have been wafting out at her. The very sight of her had flushed away all my weariness, and tomorrow had another name.
‘If you really wouldn’t mind,’ said Amelia Trowbridge. There was relief in her voice.
‘Hop in, then.’
She skipped round like a teenager. The lights had changed, and the oncoming traffic was pressing close, flicking indignant headlights at me. She had difficulty opening the door wide enough, but at last she fell into the seat beside me, throwing her head back with a breath of released tension. She was wearing a skirt, I saw. I
preferred her in a skirt.
‘And now you’re in trouble,’ she said, as one who knows, staring into the advancing headlights.
‘I’ll manage.’
Tempers on the whole were short. Nobody seemed pleased when I forced my way back through the stream. Horns were blasted. I grinned. A bit of opposition was like a blood transfusion. I achieved my original stream at last.
‘I’ll turn down from the square,’ I told her. ‘We can do a circle at the island at the bottom.’
She sighed. I glanced at her. She was jutting her lower lip. ‘Shopping’s been simply terrible,’ she told me. ‘You can’t imagine...’
‘Yes, I can. I do my own.’
‘Your wife...’
‘My wife’s been dead for three years.’
‘I’m sorry. You’re quite alone?’
‘Yes. But I manage. I can always send a constable out to the takeaway.’ I wanted to get off the subject.
She hesitated, unsure whether it was a joke, but then she got the hint. ‘I’m sure you can do no such thing,’ she said gravely, reproving me.
‘How d’you feel about a cup of tea?’ I asked wildly. ‘We could drop in to a cafe.’ I risked a glance. ‘If you’re not in a hurry.’ My own evening stretched away into emptiness.
‘I’m in no hurry.’ A pause. ‘There’s something you want to tell me, isn’t there?’
Something I didn’t. ‘Nothing that comes to mind,’ I said smoothly.
‘Then you should not have stopped for me.’
‘There you were, miserable and cold. I thought: just what she needs, a cup of tea.’ Had I? I couldn’t remember.
‘You’re a detective inspector,’ she reminded me. ‘Already you’ve taken some trouble over my missing husband and the car, and I’m sure they were very minor matters to you. And now you make a point...’
I interrupted. They never see past the uniform, even when you’re in plain clothes. ‘Funny, I had it different.’ I’d stopped just beyond a meter space and was backing, my head twisted. I didn’t dare switch my eyes to her. ‘I simply thought it would be pleasant — a chat over a cafe table. Was I wrong?’
Perhaps my voice was slightly challenging. Her attitude had irritated me a little. She sat still for a moment, not opening the door.
‘Yes,’ she decided. ‘I think it would be very pleasant.’
I got out and locked the car. There were forty minutes left on the meter. I went round and took her arm in my fist, and steered her into the covered shopping complex.
‘We might find room at the Crystal Orb,’ I said.
It wasn’t quite as I remembered it. The cafe was a narrow slice inserted in the shop fronts, on one side a long counter and on the other a row of small tables, at which four people would have been cramped. There was a two-chair table in the far corner unoccupied.
I was sure she’d expected something better — crisp table linen and a silver pot of tea, tiny cakes and a soft background of gossip. But she’d been reluctant and I couldn’t afford to march her all around the town. I thrust her ahead of me, and sat her with her back to the door, my habit from years of facing entrances. Then I went to the counter and returned with two cups of tea.
I caught her expression as I put them down. Nothing for it but to face it out, hoping I didn’t look like an embarrassed boy on his first date. ‘I got it wrong, didn’t I! They must have altered this place. Never mind, we’ll find something better next time.’
‘Next time?’
Why was I saying the wrong things? I covered quickly, watching her play with the sugar dispenser.
‘A figure of speech. I certainly shan’t be seeing you officially.’
Her eyes were dark above the rim of the cup. ‘So that’s what this is. Official.’
‘Pleasure,’ I persisted. ‘An interlude.’
‘A break, you mean? In your work, or out of your own time?’
I’d spent forty years interviewing people, one way or another, and always there’d been the same damned barrier. They wouldn’t let you get inside. Maybe it was guilt, maybe suspicion, even pure ingrained opposition to what I represented. But I always tried to see behind their eyes. What were they like? How did they click? How could I gain their confidence? But always that veil in between. Always I was a copper. How long did I have to go before I became an ordinary human being?
I laughed, showing her I’d got a laugh in me. She was still grave, nowhere approaching my mood.
‘The trouble with CID work is that nobody can tell when you’re off duty,’ I told her. ‘Now, for example, I’m supposed to be on my way to the office to clear a few files.’
‘This will make you late, then.’
‘I’m not sure I’ll trouble to go. So — you decide — am I on duty or off?’ I tried to make it a little game.
‘Give me a clue.’
‘On duty I wear a dark tie, off duty a flashy one.’
‘This one’s dark.’
‘Is it?’ I fingered it. ‘The other’s in the car. Shall I dash back and change it?’
‘Would that make this meeting unofficial?’
‘It is unofficial. Me — Richard Patton — drinking tea and talking nonsense.’
She raised her chin. There was pain in her eyes, as though she felt I was being cruel by imposing suspense. ‘Something’s happened, hasn’t it?’
‘I have never,’ I said, clattering the spoon in my saucer, ‘met such a persistent woman. It’s no wonder your husband...’ I stopped. She could know nothing of my outrageous sense of humour. ‘I’m sorry. It was supposed to be funny.’
‘You’re trying to cheer me up,’ she decided. ‘But I’m not really in the mood, Inspector. My feet are freezing and my head’s aching.’
‘Even reprimanding me, I think you ought to call me Richard,’ I suggested. That, I saw, had touched some nerve of amusement in her. ‘If there’s to be a next time,’ I ventured, taking advantage.
She flushed like a young girl, and for a moment her mouth softened to something close to a smile. ‘Well...Richard,’ she told me, ‘my feet are still freezing, and...
‘And I should call you Amelia?’ I cut in.
‘I ought to know better than to talk to a detective without my solicitor present,’ she told me. And now at last she’d tuned in to my mood.
‘It’s all right if I give you a warning first.’
‘Warnings now! Warn away, then.’
‘Anything you say will be noted, and used in your favour if I get half a chance.’
Then she laughed. It was the first time she had really treated me to her unrestrained laughter. Her face lit up. I grinned at her. She looked down, glanced up.
‘This tea is quite undrinkable,’ she said.
‘It’s not really for drinking, it’s for talking over.’
Still smiling, she said: ‘And is it likely you’ll need to speak in my favour...Richard?’
I slapped my left palm down on the table. ‘Oh hell.’
‘What’s the matter? What have I said?’ When I did not meet her eyes she reached over and put a hand on the back of mine. ‘Richard?’
‘You never miss a word,’ I whispered. ‘Any slightest intonation, and you’re onto it. I merely said...’
‘I know what you said. It was your subconscious peeping through. Warnings, Richard. Something’s happened, and you don’t want to tell me. That’s what it is,’ she decided firmly, sitting back.
I sighed, pushed away my tea in case I picked it up again without thinking, and looked directly into her eyes. The smile was still there, but I could see she was not the sort of woman who’d let me go on skating around it.
‘Something has happened,’ I admitted. ‘Several things, though it’s not clear whether they involve you. One of them...’ I paused. Did that involve her? ‘One of them is that I’ve been out-ranked, and in effect been tossed aside to tidy up the paper rubbish. But that doesn’t really matter, because I’m retiring in a day or two, anyway.’
‘You
should have said. Are you looking forward to it?’
‘Not really.’
‘A man like you, you’ll soon find something to occupy your mind.’
‘But it’s not a matter of finding something to do — to fill a gap. Is it? It’s a matter of finding something that you want to do. Then there aren’t any gaps.’
She leaned forward, genuinely interested. ‘And what do you want to do, Richard?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t planned. What I didn’t want was to get involved in another case, this close to the end.’
‘You should have said,’ she repeated, ‘that you’re retiring.’
She couldn’t know the extent of my involvement, nor what the case was. ‘But when,’ I asked, ‘if not now? This gives me a chance to tell you, in case I never see you again.’
‘That would be a pity.’ Her eyes were soft.
‘And in a mood of depression — I suppose — I saw you, and I wanted to talk. But really, you know, I shouldn’t even speak to you, because it’s too early, and too indefinite.’
For a moment she was uncertain what I meant. Then she nodded. ‘You see, I was right.’
‘There was no point in causing you distress, when it could be unnecessary.’
I needn’t have worried about that. She was a woman of strong character. A finger touched her lips. The nail was polished, but not varnished.
‘We’ve found the body of a dead man,’ I said, suddenly relieved that it was out.
She drew a long, shuddering breath. ‘It’s...
‘I don’t know. It’s going to be difficult, due to the nature...Amelia, it’s a shotgun business. They do a lot of damage. The face...nobody could know him. He’s the correct height, and the clothes fit your description. But thousands of people dress like that.’
‘I must see him.’ Her fingers to her mouth, still.
‘No!’ I produced my pipe. ‘No,’ I said, more gently. ‘Not yet. There are other aspects to it. The body was found in a rather remote cottage...are you all right?’
Face Value (Richard and Amelia Patton) Page 7
