Face Value (Richard and Amelia Patton)

by Roger Ormerod

  Her eyes had flickered, and she’d gone very pale. She nodded, lower lip caught in her teeth.

  ‘It’s a good four miles from where your car was found,’ I told her. ‘If it is your husband, it’d be strange for him to be there, and it doesn’t link at all with your car being set on fire.’

  ‘You’re making a point.’

  ‘I’m making the point that it’s too soon to be making assumptions.’

  ‘No. It’s something else.’

  ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  ‘Richard...please.’

  I didn’t want to go on with it, and continue to stare into her liquid, hurt eyes. I’d already gone too far. I half rose to my feet, but she put out a hand, and I sat down again. Wasn’t there anything in which I could oppose her?

  ‘There’s another man,’ I said miserably. ‘He’s recently returned to the district, and a number of people could mean harm to him. There’ve been threats, and he’s disappeared. But...and this is the point...this cottage is where that man was born. He’d even have reason to know it would be empty. He’d shut himself away in such a manner that suggests he was scared to death, and heaven knows he’d got good reason to be. And on top of all that, there was a shotgun in the cottage which he, coming from the district, would know how to put his hands on. You can see, the set-up fits that man exactly, but the description could fit your husband. I didn’t want to discuss it at this time. You can surely understand that.’

  ‘Then why did you offer me a lift?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake...I explained.’

  She gave a little grimace of apology. ‘Sorry. You’ve been very frank with me, Richard, and I’m grateful for that. I truly am. But I’ve been prepared for something. He’s been gone for so long, and the car...All you’ve got to do is take me to see him.’ It was all so clear and uncomplicated to her.

  ‘I’m afraid you couldn’t see him now, anyway,’ I told her. ‘The medical officer’s got the body. And anyway, it might not be necessary. The cottage is full of his fingerprints, and the other chap’s well known to us. His prints are on file. You see, by tomorrow we’ll know. Come along, now, I was going to run you home.’

  This time I was going to accept no arguments. I bustled her to her feet, urging her ahead. ‘But Richard....’ I strode along, my usual heavy strides, she trotting at my side and clutching my arm. ‘But why are his fingerprints in your files?’ We got to the car, and I held the door open for her.

  She slid in, her face raised. ‘You haven’t told me — why are that man’s fingerprints in your files?’

  ‘Because he’s only just come out of prison.’ I said it angrily, choking on the thought of Kendall’s early release.

  Then I walked round and got in behind the wheel. She was strangely still.

  ‘Amelia?’

  ‘You said — only just.’ Her voice was weak. ‘How long ago?’

  ‘Two or three weeks. What....’

  ‘Oh...h...h!’ It was a shuddering gasp.

  I’d slid in the ignition key, but now I didn’t turn on the engine. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It’s just....’ She gave a nervous little rattle of forced laughter. ‘In either case — if my guess is right — I could probably identify your man.’

  ‘What is this? What’re you saying?’

  ‘I know a man who could have reason to be afraid, who’s recently come out of prison. It’s Clive Kendall you’re talking about, isn’t it?’

  ‘You know him?’ The surprise jolted my voice. Suddenly things began to fall apart.

  ‘Yes.’ She nodded. She was staring straight ahead, her profile in silhouette against a bright shop window. ‘I know him very well. I’ve spoken with him many times, as a counsellor in the Prisoners’ Aid Association.’

  ‘Oh dear God!’ I whispered.

  ‘He’s been my own special case. I managed to get him paroled.’ She said it in pathetic pride.

  I woke the engine into life, hitting the throttle wrong. It howled for me as I crashed into a gear and forced the car out into the traffic stream.

  ‘Richard...please!’

  I’d run a red at the pedestrian crossing and forced the car forward. The rear wheels were skidding wildly, the roundabout coming up. I knew what I was doing, watched myself doing it, and couldn’t control the impulse. I was running away. Everything had suddenly become insupportable, and I couldn’t handle it. The roundabout was too close, and I had to do something. Brake hard. I scrambled it into some sort of control, but still rocking, and shot into the roundabout under the nose of a wagon. Sweat ran down my face and into my eyes, from the strain of running away. And yet...I was carrying it with me.

  Then we were round the island and I was flicking the winker for the turn-off. The car, at least, was under control. I slowed, glanced sideways, almost afraid to look at her. She had her face in her hands. I was ashamed. I knew what I had to do. I had to get her out of the car and drive away, and think it out alone.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she whispered. I had to read her lips.

  But I couldn’t say anything. I was remembering what I’d said to Ken, when we’d heard of Kendall’s release. ‘By God, I wish I could meet the stupid, bumbling bastard who’s done this! I’d tell him....’ But it wasn’t a him, it was a her, and a very special her. Amelia. She didn’t fit the image. She couldn’t...How could I trust my voice?

  The obvious thing to do was to drop her at the bus stop. Where I’d picked her up. But even at that time I retained enough manners to realise it would be no more than a petty show of ill-humour. It would be an insult, and it was insult I was choking down.

  She’d gathered her shopping bag onto her lap. Her voice was cold and distant. ‘If you’ll let me out along here...’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’d best catch the bus.’

  ‘I’ll take you home.’

  ‘I don’t understand you. Richard, please stop the car.’

  ‘I’ll drive you home. I promised,’ I replied, the words bouncing back at me from the windscreen.

  I drove on, and past her bus stop. The length of the queue added point to the decision. But I was silent, driving with controlled tension.

  ‘You’re frightening me,’ she said at last, reaching to me with her voice. ‘Is that what you want?’

  ‘I want to take you home.’ My jaw muscles were painful. ‘Such temper!’ she commented, her voice gaining strength. ‘And what when you get me home?’

  ‘Then I’ll ask you to get out of the car, and I’ll drive away.’

  ‘Well, at least you’re speaking normally now. I just can’t understand this...this exhibition. But you must do as you wish, I suppose.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  No more was said during the rest of the journey. I was aware of her there, sitting stiffly upright, but I sensed a relaxation in her. She had persuaded herself to go along with my decisions. I was ashamed, but still burning with rejection. Now I didn’t want the situation to remain unresolved. There was just a chance I’d misunderstood, and that I’d misjudged her.

  The cul-de-sac stood in front of us, the snow layer in the unmade street unbroken. I drew up in front of the house. It was very quiet. I switched off the engine and sat back. She made no move. I could not look at her.

  ‘No explanations, Richard?’ she asked softly. ‘No apologies?’ She was putting me on the defensive. ‘Apology, yes. I don’t know what...I’m sorry.’

  She left it at that. It was pure nervous reaction when I reached for my pipe and fumbled with it.

  ‘You must come in,’ she said, nodding decisively. ‘We’ve got to talk. Surely you can see that. You terrified me, Richard. You owe me an explanation. We were...so...we were communicating. Do you know what I mean?’

  I knew very well. ‘I don’t want to come in. Not now.’

  ‘Then why have you switched off the engine?’ I turned to her. She gave me a tiny, searching smile. ‘Oh, come along. You mustn’t be childish.’

  Women’s blackma
il. You don’t ever have to give in to it. ‘For a minute, perhaps.’

  It would have been better if she hadn’t smiled with such complete lack of restraint. I followed her into the house, feeling awkward and hesitant.

  ‘You know where to hang your coat,’ she said. ‘I’ll put on the kettle.’ On her home ground, she was taking control. I was limping along on injury time. ‘Do go into the back room,’ she called, walking away, but I prowled after her into the kitchen. ‘They called it the dining-room in the specification,’ she told me more loudly. ‘It’s more comfortable than the front. Oh!’

  I was at her shoulder. The warm smell awakened my hunger, but I could hardly ask her to feed me. ‘Very pleasant,’ I said, looking round.

  It must have come as a fitted unit, long sink beneath the window, flanked by the cooker, fridge, cupboards and washing machine. She had slatted blinds at the windows, and everything matched, the surfaces to the Formica-covered table and the chair seats. Along beneath a side window there was a counter, with four stools, clearly a dining alcove. It wasn’t suitable, I decided. I wouldn’t be able to sit facing her.

  I sat at the table, then I got up again to place two chairs against the wall. Might as well demonstrate my intentions, I thought. Seeing this, she grimaced ruefully, but said nothing.

  She filled the pot, slid crockery onto the table, and sat opposite me. She poured. I tasted mine.

  ‘Much better.’

  ‘Now please explain,’ she demanded. ‘Why were you so upset?’

  ‘Very well. But first of all, I’ll need to get it clear. You said you know Clive Kendall. You said you’re a worker for the Prisoners’ Aid people. You said this was your own special case.’

  ‘Yes.’ She sipped.

  ‘Does that mean it was you — your actions — that brought about his release?’

  ‘Oh yes. My first triumph.’ She tossed her hair, her eyes glowing. ‘I’m very proud of it.’

  I tried again. ‘I suppose you know he got life imprisonment?’ A nod. ‘And that the judge recommended it shouldn’t be less than twenty years?’ Another nod. Why was she so complacently unresponsive? ‘And that your efforts...’

  ‘I can’t claim it all as mine, Richard. Our President — his lobbying and persistence...’

  I talked her down, not being able to take her pride and false modesty.

  ‘But — I assume — they were your recommendations?’

  ‘Certainly. Oh, please relax. You can be so severe, you know.’ She pouted. She was trying to keep it on a light level.

  ‘So presumably you know what he did to earn a life sentence?’

  ‘Of course I know. Is it relevant?’

  ‘It’s all that matters, damn it.’

  ‘I could argue that with you.’

  ‘Not now, for pity’s sake. You know he raped and killed a child?’

  ‘I know that.’ A paltry defiance. ‘I had all the documents.’

  ‘Documents! I was on the case. Four months of it. Coral Clayton wasn’t the only girl he raped, you know. We had a hundred men working on it. Five rapes, and three indecent assaults. I went through the lot. But we got him in the end. The whole town breathed a sigh of relief. Then six months to get him to trial, the Director of Public Prosecutions, solicitors, barristers, a court, a jury and a judge. All that to show the world that it’d been done right and proper. Then he was put away.’

  ‘I do understand all this, Richard.’ Her eyes pleaded. I’d touched something, perhaps.

  ‘Then perhaps you can explain why you — you and your recommendations — should override it all. Why you’d want to! Just so that he can start another lot...’

  ‘Now, that’s ridiculous. There’s no reason to suppose he’d do it again.’

  ‘It’s almost certain he would. Who in God’s name gave you the right to interfere with law and justice, and...’ I controlled myself, shaking my head.

  ‘You were going to say: and the public’s revenge,’ she said in a flat voice. ‘Don’t you think that’s archaic — a pagan emotion?’

  ‘Do I hell! It’s still there in everybody, and you can’t deny it. The public wants to see that revenge. They saw him put away, but I bet that most people don’t even know he’s been let out again. God damn it, you should’ve been here at the time. The town was boiling. Revenge? They’d have torn him apart, if we hadn’t got to him first.’

  ‘We?’ she demanded, attacking. ‘You mean the police? Where’s their instinct for revenge, then? Don’t tell me they’re the only civilised people around! But I see what you mean. When it came to it, when it came to making an arrest, they’d pick the subhuman types, who’d had all the human feelings and imagination knocked out of them.’

  She was hot and angry. I sipped my tea. ‘It only took a bit of self-control,’ I said. ‘No — it took a great deal. But no fancy principles. I was the arresting officer, Amelia.’

  She bit her lip, shook her head, and said: ‘Damn!’ bitterly.

  I felt empty, my spirits low. You only see the outsides. I’d probed and wormed around, trying to get to know her. I sensed that even now this was not the true woman. But I was lightheaded, my brain craving rest. I sighed.

  ‘Can I get back to what I was saying? Tell me, please, why you wanted to undo all that effort, and get him released.’

  ‘Not me alone. There were numerous examinations and reports by psychiatrists.’

  ‘Psychiatrists now! My God.’

  ‘Any objections...’

  ‘They don’t even come into it. Nobody said he was insane. He was put away because of what he’d done.’

  ‘Because of what he was,’ she corrected. ‘He was a danger to the public at that time. But, after eight years, he was showing not one sign of any instinct for assaults on young girls.’

  ‘There weren’t any for him to get at. That’s the whole idea.’

  ‘That’s a very cynical remark.’

  ‘Realistic. He was a vile man, and you decided to let him have another go.’

  ‘I was convinced he’d do no such thing.’

  ‘Ah, then we’re all right. You’re the expert.’

  ‘I didn’t think you’d sink so low.’

  ‘I feel low, right down at rock bottom.’ I rubbed my face with both hands. I had to keep control. ‘But tell me — have you thought what it might mean to you, personally, if another little girl dies? Have you given any thought to that at all?’

  ‘What d’you think I am?’ she demanded angrily. ‘Of course I have. But I saw him, in Long Lartin, oh, maybe a hundred times. I’ve looked into his face, and he was a human being who was suffering. To you he was a finished case, discarded, and shut away like his file in a drawer, gathering dust. All I saw was that he needed help.’

  ‘Perhaps a bit of that pity could’ve been spared for the parents of Coral Clayton. Perhaps they needed help,’ I said in disgust.

  ‘But you’re so lacking in imagination! What help — what possible help — could’ve been given to those poor people? It’d be a personal distress. Who could’ve intruded? But something could be salvaged from it. You have to go forward. It was in the past, and nothing could be retrieved, except for him.’

  I groaned. ‘From you!’ But hadn’t I said much the same thing to Ted Clayton?

  ‘Clive Kendall could be helped. I helped him.’

  I stared into my cup. I couldn’t believe I’d been completely wrong about her. Call it pride, if you like. She’d seemed normal, with no hint of the fanatic. I wondered whether her husband had been unable to live with it, wondered how much longer I could, myself. I spoke from an exhaustion I was unable to oppose. But I had to hang on to something.

  ‘There’re some things, Amelia, that people can’t forget and forgive. And never excuse. Clive Kendall will never he normal, and never fit to be amongst ordinary people.’

  ‘I can assure you, his reactions to me were normal enough.’

  ‘Oh Lord! He was married. Rona was quite beautiful. Was. I mean, she must h
ave been, before all that business started. I talked with her quite often, after the arrest. His sex life with her had always been normal.’

  ‘You questioned her about that?’

  ‘We talked.’ I flicked a smile at her. ‘She needed a bit of help, around that time.’

  ‘Then she couldn’t have been normal, telling you that. How d’you know she was telling the truth?’

  ‘Did he tell you anything that makes it a lie? I suppose you questioned him about his sexual appetites.’

  ‘Richard...’

  ‘Well, that was what it was all about.’

  She became dignified. ‘I found him to be a perfectly normal man. He was polite to me, a little domineering, very masculine. But easy to talk to.’

  I was on my feet, unable to remain still any longer. ‘Then perhaps you’d better tell that to Coral Clayton’s mother. She’d be pleased to hear how normal he is. Or to her uncles. I can take you to the uncles. Would you like me to arrange that?’ I asked bitterly.

  Her eyes were angry. She bounced up, all tense fury. ‘Now?’

  ‘Not now,’ I said wearily. ‘I must go. We’re getting nowhere. But...I forgot to ask you. Do you know just what this normal, masculine and charming man did?’

  ‘I know he raped and killed...’

  ‘Yes. Goes together, doesn’t it? One single and ungovernable act of a man who ought to be pitied because he couldn’t control what he was doing.’ I shook my head, trying to clear my eyes of the streamers of anger. Or were they tears? She had seated herself again, white-faced, and I tried to go on in a flat, emotionless voice.

  ‘Clive Kendall raped little Coral Clayton. She was nine years old. It was the only one in daylight, so there was a chance she’d know him and recognised him. We got her to the hospital. We thought it was enough — for the doctors to say she’d live, and maybe, in a day or two, be able to talk to us. But two nights later he walked into the ward. Nobody saw him. He walked into the side room where she was sleeping, and silently took what remained of her life with a pillow. I’ve always blamed myself not putting a guard on her. But I thought, like you, that he was just a sexually perverted man, acting from some obsessive drive he couldn’t control. But I was wrong. Nobody conceived such a depth of evil.... There, you see, and I was feeling proud I could talk about it so calmly. But I can’t, after all. And that was what he did. And the parents — who couldn’t be helped? Six months after the trial, the child’s father, who I suppose couldn’t help the images that wouldn’t leave him alone, took his own life, because that was the only defence he had. That’s what Clive Kendall did, and you’ve got him out to do it again, and I can’t...I can’t talk to you anymore about it.’