Farewell Gesture

by Roger Ormerod

  I grinned at her. “But that was for the party,” I said.

  “He’s too eager. Like a child. He couldn’t wait. He gave her the headsquare too early. He couldn’t have realised he was giving her too much time, and she’d see through him. Anyway, there it was, lying on one of the tables on the hall—”

  “I know where you mean.”

  “And I just picked it up and ran after her with it, calling after her.”

  She said this with her head on one side, waiting for my obvious reaction. My response was out before I could stop it.

  “So she was wearing—”

  “You’re much too impulsive, Paul. No, she didn’t take it. I caught up with her by the gate. I gave it to her. She just said, ‘Oh, it’s Grant’s present,’ and walked off with it in her hand. And I saw her hold it up and drop it on the grass verge, less than a dozen yards from the gate.”

  That, I could understand. Grant had sprung his joke too early. She had not been amused, not knowing the second part of the surprise. So she was miffed.

  “Grant wouldn’t like that.”

  “He was sulking.”

  “You mean…he knew where she was going? To see Art.”

  “It wasn’t that. He’d seen the way she’d accepted the headsquare when he gave it to her. All pleasure and smiling thanks. Gracious. I was proud of her. He’d expected a pout of disappointment, at least.”

  “Ah, yes.” Good for her. “It rather dented his joke, didn’t it! Perhaps it would’ve done him good to see her drop it in the road. But I suppose he didn’t.”

  She threw herself into the chair Grant had been using, reaching for her cigarettes on a side table. “Why’re we discussing this, Paul?”

  “I’m groping for the truth.”

  “The truth is that she died. Keep out of it, that’s my advice. It’s a police matter.”

  I tried to smile at her, realising I was losing her confidence. “And the nylon headsquare? What happened to it?”

  “I went and picked it up, of course. The grass was already damp.

  “And where was Felton, not to have seen it dropped?”

  “He’d shut himself in one of the garages with his precious car, polishing and polishing. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was hiding her engagement ring somewhere inside it. Like a big, soft kid.”

  Not the Grant Felton I knew. Big, yes. Soft, no. “You know that?”

  She gestured impatiently. “He was still at it when Art got to the house, and I went to tell Grant she was missing. I had a job holding him.”

  “How come?”

  “Paul, I’m ex-police. I knew the ropes. She couldn’t be far away, and he wasn’t going to do any good crashing around…” She gestured again, scattering ash.

  “You restrained him?”

  “I locked him in with the car.”

  I laughed. Poor Grant. Restrained by a woman!

  “Will you please leave now, Paul. I don’t understand you…these questions. You know she was strangled with Art Torrance’s scarf—”

  I shook my head. “Not with the scarf. When she died, Art still had the scarf in his possession. In fact, he hadn’t even got to the phone box, where he left it.”

  “I’m glad he’s got such an alibi, though it’s a measly poor thing.”

  I grinned at her, trying to lighten the mood. “Of course, he might not have been telling the truth. Here…I’ve just had a nasty thought. You don’t happen to have owned a fawn silk scarf, by any chance?”

  It’s my rotten sense of humour. The suggestion was too absurd to be considered seriously. But it jerked her to her feet.

  “I did not!” she snapped, her protest too violent.

  “It was a joke,” I said gently.

  “Was it? You’d better leave, I think. We’ve talked ourselves to a dead end,” Her voice was weary with the strain.

  “Yes. Right. I’ll go.” I turned, hesitated. “Oh…something else.”

  “Not more of your damned questions!”

  “A simple one. You were in Philomena’s confidence.” It wasn’t a question, but she couldn’t prevent the tiny nod. “So she’d have told you things, private things, even her secrets. Did she tell you whether Dougie French had contacted her?” Now her eyes were blank. “Dougie French,” I repeated. “The man Carl Packer sent.”

  Her lips were bloodless. “Then it wasn’t—”

  “No, it wasn’t me. He sent Frenchie.”

  “I don’t…oh, God!”

  “You’ve made your explanation,” I said. “You’re entitled to mine. Packer did approach me—I thought it was about a killing. So I refused his offer, but I came here, to find her—to warn her or protect her, or whatever. And found you. Then things got all confused, and in the end, partly to get you away from trouble and partly for myself, I asked you to come to the U.S.A. with me. That’s all there is to it.”

  The blood had run from her cheeks, and when she spoke there was no tone to her voice. “Thank you. That’s very clear.” She lifted her chin. “Dougie French, you say.” She knew his name, knew of him. “He was Packer’s man?”

  “Not to kill her. To make her an offer.”

  Her eyes slid away. “Offer? What offer?”

  I sighed. She had known about the offer. “He sent Frenchie to offer her money, to persuade her to change the evidence she gave at Packer’s trial. It wasn’t Packer who shot your Ted Adamson, and he wanted her to say so. He hoped it’d get him a new trial, or a pardon. I’m not sure of the legal aspects. But Frenchie didn’t intend to kill her. Packer was shocked when I told him she was dead. She was his only chance.”

  She was confused. A blush bloomed on her cheeks and her eyes hunted. “I don’t…what?…don’t understand. What’re you saying?”

  “I wanted to know whether or not he’d contacted her, and if she’d decided to retract her evidence. That’s all. You obviously don’t know. I’d better leave. It’s a long drive to Sumbury.”

  I turned to the door. Her left hand clamped on my arm. “Wait!”

  “I thought you wanted me to leave.”

  “You get me all mixed up, and then you walk out!”

  “I didn’t intend to confuse you. I just wanted to ask that one question. To tell you the truth, I’m glad you didn’t know the answer.”

  “Now what d’you mean? Paul, I’ll brain you if you don’t explain yourself.”

  I ran my fingers through my hair. It was embarrassing. “Well…you see…if she was intending to go back on it all, you wouldn’t have been pleased. You’d been turfed out of the police because of your loyalty to her, and you’d spent two years waiting for a killer to come to you. So…if you found out she’d been lying all the time, and she was going to broadcast the fact that she lied—”

  “Damn you!” she said throatily.

  “And—sort of—that would’ve given you a bloody good motive for killing her.”

  “Damn you!” she shouted, on top register.

  I reached quickly for the door. “So I’m glad you didn’t know,” I managed to get out.

  Then I was out in the hall with the door shut, and from behind me there was silence. I’d expected noisy fury—but there was nothing. I hurried from there into the darkness of the landing; imagining her distress and afraid I might weaken and return and take her in my arms and apologise, and…oh, I don’t know. All those stupid retractions that hamper a man’s journey through life. Because I knew it was over. I’d been talking to Dorothy June Mann, whom I didn’t know. Both Philomenas had died together.

  I slowed on the stairs, having to feel my way. I realised I’d known neither of them. The fault was mine. Or it was the fault of the prison system, where reality recedes and the outside world becomes vague and illusive. Women, for instance, become either the figures of excessive eroticism, or the heroines of ridiculous romanticism. My mind had taken the second course, otherwise I wouldn’t have involved myself in a stupid idyll in which the gallant Sir Paul was intending to save the life of the innocent Philome
na. This basic concept had clouded the whole issue, and I’d not come out of it very well—I was even now departing in disorder.

  But nevertheless, the sense of loss was devastating. I couldn’t handle it soberly; my memories clashed with cool logic inside my head. I had to have time.

  Consequently, I rushed from the front door without thought. I hadn’t seen any shadow on the landing that could’ve been Grant Felton. This, apparently, was because he’d been lurking outside, to one side of the porch. I had the warning of feet on gravel, a second in which to half turn and duck when I saw the shape of a left hand coming at me. I knew he’d be aiming that stump of his at my left eye.

  He got me on the forehead. I could only hope it hurt him as much as it did me. For a second I was dazed, unsteady. A man such as Felton needs no more. He’d have had me on the ground, and heaven knows what would’ve happened then, but we were interrupted.

  With a howl, a shape burst in from the shadows. Compared with the bulk of Felton it was small, but Art was all flying fists and feet and teeth, and though he distracted Felton for no more than a second or two, it was enough. By the time Felton threw him off I’d been able to make some sort of a recovery. When he returned his attention to me I had both feet firmly spread on the gravel and my right fist was poised. He ran into the punch, deep under his heart, and with a grunt he fell to his knees.

  There was another howl from Art, and he would have finished him off in true alley style, but I grabbed his arm and hurried him away, and together we stumbled out of the drive to the car. I leaned against it, still dazed, my head throbbing.

  “You’d better drive,” I managed to say, and I fell into the passenger’s seat. We slammed our doors and snapped down the locking catches. If he’d recovered in time, Felton could’ve torn off a door.

  The first few heavy drops of rain hit the windscreen as we started away. Art said nothing. The wipers began to lash. He screamed the tyres whenever an opportunity arose, just to prove how good he was. He’d have made a lousy getaway driver; they’d only have needed to follow his tyre screams.

  When I was feeling a little more stable, I said, “We’ll have to make good time if we’re going to get there before our landlady and landlord lock up, but it’d be marvellous if we could do it more smoothly. With a good driver, it doesn’t have to show, but he gets there just as quickly.”

  “Does that mean you don’t like my driving?” He sounded offended.

  “Let’s say it’d be fine to watch, from outside. And talking about outside, that’s where you’re supposed to overtake.”

  Poor Art had been suffering many damaging blows to his ego recently. He grunted in response, but from there onwards we progressed rapidly but with comparative safety. This needed his concentration. He was silent. The rain now lashed down, and the headlights cut into the gleaming spikes. The slicked tarmac allowed him to demonstrate his four-wheel drifts round corners. He couldn’t resist that, and seemed to get some enjoyment from it. It was more than I did.

  After an extended period of silence I said, “Tell me again. All about the scarf and the timing.”

  “Aw hell!”

  “No. Please. It matters.”

  So he told it again, and it did not vary one iota from the previous account.

  “I suppose your watch wasn’t faulty?”

  “It’s a quartz digital.”

  “Marvellous. I make it eight thirty-three. What d’you make it?” He spared himself a dangerous glance at his wrist. “Eight-thirty. Get a good watch, mate.”

  “I suppose you only nick the best.”

  “Lay off me, will ya!”

  “And you’re sure you saw nobody along the Port Sumbury road?”

  “Nobody. Why can’t you believe me?”

  “Because you’ve already told me one lie.”

  There was a pause as he thought back to which one I might mean. “Such as what?”

  “You said you weren’t wearing gloves when you fired the gun.”

  “That wasn’t a flamin’ lie.”

  “Then how d’you explain the fact that it was clean of fingerprints?”

  “I don’t have to, do I! Let me get on with the driving, damn it.”

  So I did. Problems tumbled around inside my head, jostling for precedence. And thrusting them aside, each time I had them sorted into some sort of sequence, was the throb of pain from the blow on my forehead. I twisted the rearview mirror—Art never glanced at it, anyway—and in the dim reflected light from the instruments I could see the bruise blossoming. I owed Grant Felton, and I’m meticulous with debts.

  We ran out of the rain, and into it again. We stopped for a quick meal, dashing through the downpour into a café, where Art downed his chips like a dolphin his fish.

  “I never thanked you,” I recalled.

  “Whaffor?”

  I touched the bruise and winced. “This. Your intervention.”

  “It was a pleasure. You scratch my car and I’ll scratch yours.”

  “I’ll remember that.”

  We proceeded another ten miles before he asked, “What y’ gonna do about me, then?”

  “In return for the scratched car? I’m not going to do anything. Nothing I know will affect the investigation into Philomena’s death. And as to the copper’s—what could I tell the police that’d cause any reaction at all? Your Phillie’s dead, and only she could’ve given evidence.” I thought about that. “Except you, of course.”

  “Come off it.”

  “Which I doubt you will. No—what you’ve got to worry about is Carl Packer, and there I can’t help you at all, Art.”

  “Don’t put yourself out.”

  We drove on. Out in the open countryside, for the last twenty miles before we reached Sumbury, the road was more tricky. I didn’t expect it to affect his speed, but I noticed he was slowing. In the end he drew in to the side of the deserted road and spoke miserably.

  “I don’t know what to do, and that’s the truth.” It was the first hint of defeat I’d had from him.

  “You go back to Mrs. Druggett’s, and you wait it out.”

  “Easy to say. I feel lousy.”

  “I don’t feel too good myself.”

  “I’m scared,” he admitted, so quietly and modestly that the rain almost drummed the words out of sight.

  “The very fact that you’ve gone back voluntarily will be in your favour.”

  “It wasn’t voluntary. You couldn’t ’ave driven yourself. You’ve bin asleep half the way.”

  “Have I?”

  “An’ anyway, I feel safer with you.”

  Oh, Lordy me! He felt safer with me! How crazy could you get? “I’ll drive the rest if you like.”

  “No. No, I’ll do it.”

  He started again, and we rolled quietly and placidly into Sumbury. It was eleven o’clock, and it’d been a fast run.

  “Straight to Mrs. Druggett’s,” I said, “and I’ll take it on from there.”

  He didn’t argue. A light in him had faded. Art was a very frightened young man.

  The house was a small cottage along one of the dim side streets, with the grey bulk of a church lurking opposite. There was light in the front window and he hopped out smartly, attracted to it like a homesick moth. I got out and went round to take the wheel.

  “See ya!” he said.

  “Sure.”

  I had one foot inside when a shape moved to my shoulder. My nerves were so taut that I’d whirled and had my fist ready before I recognised her. Sergeant Lucy Rice was wearing a plastic hood over her head, the rest of her covered with a police slicker. It was made for a taller person, and reached right down to her ankles.

  “We’ve got to talk,” she said.

  “I need to be in before George locks up,” I answered inanely.

  “He’s waiting for you. And Inspector Greaves. They’ll wait a little longer.”

  I looked at her, what I could see by the spill of light from a far street lamp.

  “We’d better get
inside the car,” I decided.

  Twelve

  She edged her way on to the passenger’s seat. The slicker seemed to fill the car with angular, wet folds.

  “How come you were waiting here?” I asked her.

  “I saw you and Art getting on the bus, and guessed you would be going somewhere to hire a car. George said you’d been asking about that. So I reckoned you’d bring Art back with you.”

  Into three sentences she had condensed the complex pattern of her theorising, and on it based a long and dreary wait. Possibly more than one.

  She was a direct and uncomplicated person. Her confidences gave the impression of being naïve, in that she offered them freely and didn’t expect them to be betrayed. A romantic, too, it seemed. I looked at her with curiosity. She was also a police officer, but this could well be a trusting attitude she had perfected, and maybe it worked well with the locals who knew her. I didn’t know her. Suddenly I wanted to.

  “I’d thank you if I knew why,” I said, meaning whether the trouble had been taken officially or personally.

  She answered obliquely. “Greaves reckons he’s got enough to be able to take you in.”

  “And you don’t?”

  “It’s not for me to reckon anything. I’m only a sergeant.”

  “But you trust him?”

  “Certainly. We’ve worked together for several years. I trust him. He’s a straightforward country copper with no tricks.”

  “Does he trust you?”

  “I like to think so.”

  “And yet—he wouldn’t be pleased that you’re talking to me now.”

  Her face was in shadow, so that I could judge only by her voice, which sounded tentative when she replied. “He’d trust me not to say anything that could ruin his case.”

  “The case against me, you mean? I suppose you’re talking about the death of Philomena?”