The Bright Face of Danger

by Roger Ormerod

  I laughed, pretending not to notice. ‘We could cheat you...’

  ‘If you didn’t come for your money, then what for?’

  ‘There’re still things to clear up.’

  ‘After he’s dead?’ she cried. ‘That was when it ended. I shan’t pay you for a minute since then.’

  ‘Of course not.’ I was aware that George was ambling around the kitchen, and even more aware that he had remained silent, when I expected an interruption at any moment. I’m surprised,’ I went on, ‘that you’d be willing to pay us for our work even until then. After all, we failed.’

  ‘I simply want an end to it.’

  ‘Or at least, we failed in half of it. The other half we haven’t yet completed.’

  Her brow was flexed in concentration. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Your husband expected us to prove his innocence.’

  I tossed it in. From what Amanda had said, that expectation was now way in the past. I was simply wondering if it had any validity for Delia.

  ‘The kettle’s boiling,’ said George equably.

  She tore her mind away from what I had said, and went over to the kettle. I didn’t see what she had to do to turn it off.

  ‘Is that why you came?’ she asked at last. Somehow her voice was normal again.

  ‘In a way.’

  ‘Only in a way?’

  ‘If I were to ask you about Tina, it would be because her death might have some relevance to your husband’s murder, and not necessarily to his innocence.’

  She brought the pot to the table, frowning. ‘You’re trying to confuse me. Of course my husband’s death is linked with Tina’s. Or with one of the others.’ How could she calmly pour tea, not spilling a drop, whilst she said such a thing? Or with one of the others! Her eyes were bright when she raised them. ‘One of the three men must have managed to get to him.’

  ‘Because they assumed he had killed the three girls?’

  ‘Is there any doubt about that?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Doubt about what?’ I was gentle. ‘That they assumed it...none at all. That Adrian killed them...’

  ‘Three sugars in mine,’ said George, dead on cue, because I hadn’t known how to finish the sentence. He saved me a shrug.

  Amanda had given her own evidence of Adrian’s guilt. Delia had no such direct evidence. All she could know would have to be from inference, from her knowledge of his inner character, and of his emotions. She slowly sat down at the table, and absently stirred her cup.

  ‘Of course,’ she said, staring at it, ‘you were bound to ask. I could see it coming. You want to know how I knew, and why, and all I can say is that it was a feeling. Even now, there’s nothing I can look back to and say: yes, I knew then, at that very moment. But he was...I suppose you’d call it secretive. There was something not quite genuine in his attitude to me. Some guilt he wouldn’t tell me.’

  The spoon stopped. She lifted it from the cup and tinged it against the side, casually, quietly.

  ‘Why wouldn’t he tell me!’ she said with suppressed violence. There was a louder ting. ‘Didn’t he trust me? Did he think I’d go running to the police? But I was his wife. I owed him loyalty. To me, Adrian was my life. We were a couple, not two people. He should have known he could rely on my loyalty.’

  She clashed the spoon against the cup, her suppressed emotions contained in that single gesture. I thought they should have got together some time, she and Adrian, he with his hidden loyalty, she with hers rampant. But something had held them apart, something perhaps too cold and practical and passionless in Delia?

  ‘Your loyalty must have been obvious,’ I assured her. ‘He must have known he could confide in you with safety.’

  ‘But he did not do it!’ she cried. Crash, the spoon went, and the cup shook with it.

  ‘Then doesn’t that suggest there wasn’t anything to confide?’

  ‘He didn’t trust me,’ It was like an incantation, accompanied by clashing bells. ‘What did I care what he did!’

  ‘Within reason, surely. You couldn’t condone—’

  ‘He cheated me!’ she burst out, and the cup shattered, bursting tea all over the Formica, pooling across the surface to drip, then pour onto her lap, as she sat, suddenly, in desperate tears, his deception at last recognised.

  We did not move. It was nothing we could interfere in, her strange grief. Her mute loyalty had been thrown back in her face, because Adrian had cheated her by failing to confide in her. She had longed for him to go to her and say he was a rapist and a murderer, and then she could tell him it didn’t matter.

  I said quietly to George: ‘We’d better leave.’

  ‘I’ll wait a bit.’

  The little woman complex? He was looking at her with the same hurt and puzzled concern as Major, who had come to his feet, startled, and was watching her with his head on one side.

  ‘How do you think you can help, George?’

  ‘I just want to know something. How can she say she didn’t care what he did, when she knew at least one of the girls — Tina?’ It was beyond poor old George’s conceptions. He’d have raged with compassion.

  She had obviously heard what George had said, but she ignored it. She got up suddenly and whipped open a drawer, withdrew a small kitchen towel, and began mopping up the mess. It was an automatic action; her eyes were glazed. Then:

  ‘Excuse me.’

  Or maybe I read it in her face. Anyway, she walked out, and we waited self-consciously until she returned in five minutes.

  Women can walk through a tunnel lined with familiar and comforting adjuncts to their very existences, and from them draw strength. The tunnel itself might become depleted, but that is not what is seen; it is their private tunnel. She returned in a dark skirt, her face replenished and yet unmasked, her eyes calm.

  ‘So very silly of me,’ she apologised. ‘You mentioned Tina. A dear child, but painfully...I was going to say shy, but more constrained, I suppose. She used to come here and help me with the cleaning, when we first built the place.’

  ‘Did she speak of her mother?’ I asked, thinking that perhaps Tina had been looking for a substitute.

  ‘She didn’t mention her. She spoke of her step-father, Jonas...Fletcher, isn’t it?’

  ‘Surely you knew her name.’

  ‘She called herself Tina Martin. She refused to change it to his. She could please herself, I suppose.’

  ‘Refused?’

  ‘She hated him.’

  ‘It’s not what we heard. I thought they were very close. That’s how Fletcher put it.’

  She seemed to wince, then grimaced. ‘I suppose he would.’ She was silent.

  ‘Would you care to explain that?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Did your husband know her?’ I went on, sliding onto a new tack.

  ‘He met her here. If you mean, would she trust him, would she accept a lift in his car — yes, she would. I’ve had all this over with the police.’

  ‘We’re not preparing a case against him, you know.’

  ‘Your attitude seems very strange to me, that’s all.’

  ‘I’m sorry about that. Every now and then I come up against a brick wall. Such as Tina and her stepfather.’

  ‘You don’t let anything pass, do you! I suggest you ask somebody else, then, somebody more her own age.’

  ‘You’ve got somebody in mind?’

  ‘Young Andrew Partridge. Tina was a friend of his wife, Marilyn.’

  ‘Then we must certainly speak to him.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked wearily. ‘What is there to gain, now?’

  ‘I don’t know. The truth, perhaps.’

  Major saw us to the door. Delia remained behind. I patted Major’s nose, and nearly caught it in the door.

  ‘And what did you get from that, Dave?’

  I said: ‘Shall I drive?’ I was aching for the touch of a wheel — my personal tunnel, I suppose.

  ‘Try her if you like.’ He wal
ked round to the other side. ‘Where did it get you?’

  ‘You too. You’re interested in Tina, as much as I am.’

  ‘I’m interested in having no more to do with this.’

  ‘George, just give me one clue, will you, just one hint of what the hell you are interested in.’

  ‘The ignition key’s in.’

  ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Then why don’t we go and ask Andy Partridge about Tina?’

  I glanced at him

  ‘It’s what you want, Dave. I’m just going along for the ride.’

  The ride was short. Andy’s cottage was only four miles from Firbelow, towards the town for a few hundred yards, and then off to the right. He was just putting away his motorbike in the shed he had.

  He ignored us, although he must have been aware that we were standing just outside. It was a neat little shed, with a small bench and shelves up there in the shadows above the single, swinging shade. He took off his crash hat and carefully put it in the box-like container he had on the back of the bike, removed his black, zipped jacket — real leather, I thought — and unzipped his fleece-lined boots. Then at last, in slacks and sandals, he deigned to notice us.

  ‘You got a pushbike in here?’ George asked.

  ‘Does it look like it?’

  ‘Mrs. Collis has seen a man hanging round her place with a pushbike.’

  ‘Not me, mate. I’d go on this.’

  ‘Of course you would. Just asking.’

  ‘If that’s the lot, I’ll get in for my tea.’

  ‘Back to work, then?’

  ‘I was feeling better.’ He looked at us in disgust. ‘I was.’

  ‘A friendly chat,’ I said persuasively. ‘A friendly visit. We wanted to talk about Tina.’

  He looked us up and down. ‘Everybody does. What’d I know that could interest you?’ This was a new and more aggressive Andy.

  Suddenly mature, a man of the world, who’d seen it all and didn’t like it.

  ‘She was a friend of your wife — Marilyn, isn’t it?’

  ‘They were friends.’

  I was trying to soften him. ‘Went to school together, I suppose.’

  He sighed. ‘Tina was just a kid. My wife was five years older.’

  ‘But they were friends?’

  ‘Fletcher’s place is only half a mile down the road. Where’s this getting? I want my tea.’

  ‘Tina came here, to the cottage? It seems reasonable.’

  ‘She came here. Yes.’

  ‘And the girls would talk — they do, you know, all sorts of personal rubbish, embarrassing to chaps like us.’

  ‘I used to go out.’

  ‘But you’d hear things.’

  ‘I tried not to listen.’

  ‘But why not? You should’ve seen your face then. What was it you just remembered? It must have been unpleasant.’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Fletcher’s unpleasant,’ I reminded him.

  ‘I don’t have anything to do with him.’

  ‘But Tina did. More than she’d wish, I’d expect. Did she speak of that?’

  The light was still swinging, impelled by some draught or other, lifting a shadow up and down the side of his face The corners of his eyes caught the reflection. It made him look wild.

  ‘She spoke of it.’

  ‘So that on the night she died, if she ran out of the house, she might conceivably come here?’

  ‘Not here!’

  ‘Now you sound violent.’

  ‘I couldn’t have her here. He’d fetch her back. That Fletcher’s a crazy man. There’s no knowing what he’d do.’

  ‘But you’ve already said she often visited. Why should he fetch her back?’

  ‘If she came to stay, you fool.’

  ‘Ah!’ I felt we had reached a turning point, but I could not see it. George said: ‘If she couldn’t come here, where would she go?’

  ‘I don’t know. Don’t ask me. There’s an aunt at Kings Bromley.’

  ‘A fair way to walk,’ George said. ‘All of twenty miles. Well, well.’

  I turned to him. ‘Well, well — what?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  We both turned. A car had drawn up behind the Renault. The headlights went out and two shadows advanced through the gate. Sgt. Williamson seemed almost apologetic.

  ‘We’d like you to come along with us, Mr. Partridge. The Super wants to ask you a few questions.’

  ‘Heh, now look! I only just got home.’

  Then I noticed that a van had drawn up quietly behind the patrol car. It was more than questions.

  ‘Are you arresting him?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not sure what the Super’s got in mind.’

  ‘But you know the evidence he might be holding.’

  ‘It’ll take time, Mr. Mallin. Time. We’ll need your bike, Mr. Partridge. Don’t worry, it’ll be quite safe in the van. And your boots, sir, and your riding jacket. Are these them? Fine. We’ll feed you at the Station, and with a bit of luck you might be in your own bed again tonight.’

  ‘A bit of luck?’ I asked. What’ve you got, Sergeant?’

  ‘A footprint or two, up at the log house. A tyre print of a motor cycle. And, if things go right, a confession. Then you’ll be able to go home.’

  We watched them drive away. That minor road might have been in the middle of nowhere, the activity there was in that area. When the car engines had died, there was silence apart from the slight breeze in the trees and the gentle whoosh, whoosh as the shade swung backwards and forwards.

  ‘Williamson missed it,’ said George with satisfaction. He pointed.

  The shadow chased up and down the wall. At its highest pitch it revealed two inches of the shelf along one side.

  ‘Well, will you look at that!’ I said.

  Andy Partridge had three different crash helmets on that shelf, two full-face ones like space helmets, and one visored one with a peak. One was red, one yellow, and one black.

  ‘And the one he was using tonight was blue,’ I remembered.

  ‘And look at this.’ George reached it down. It was a black, crumpled shape in leather, with a long zip.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Haven’t seen one of these in years.’ George was going all nostalgic. ‘I ran a Vincent Black Prince once. Now there was a bike! A thousand twin, a V, used to go bubble-bubble, all out of phase, until you opened it up. They were famed for the finish of the black and gold tanks. It was so splendid you were scared of scratching it. So a firm brought out a leather cover for the tank, only it was such a beautiful bit of leather you were scared of getting petrol or oil on it, so some other firm brought out a plastic cover for that.’

  ‘Get to the point, George.’

  ‘This is a leather tank cover.’

  ‘You could’ve said so.’

  ‘I was reminiscing. You’ve got no soul, Dave.’

  ‘What I’ve got is a nasty feeling. A motorcyclist, on the road he’s much like any other. In the rear-vision mirror he is, anyway. The only thing you can tell ‘em by, at a glance, is the crash hat and the tank colour. So...if you ring the changes...How many crash hats can you get in those boxes they’ve got?’

  ‘Sure to be two, Dave.’ George got his reminiscing look again. ‘No point in having a dual seat unless you’ve got a bird on the back.’

  ‘And I suppose this Vincent of yours had a dual seat?’

  ‘It certainly had. But they had a most unusual swinging fork arrangement—’

  ‘Another time, George. What’ve we got? We’ve got a motorcyclist who could change his appearance in a second or two. And what better tailing vehicle is there than a bike? It can drop right back, knowing it can cut through the traffic again. This Andy chap has been tailing us.’

  ‘Tailing somebody, anyway.’

  ‘Listen. You know him. He’s quiet, the determined type. He wasn’t sure, he said, about Collis. He’d have to be sure. And then he’d kill him.’

  ‘
He’s not the type. Not in cold blood.’

  ‘Isn’t he? It’s the quiet ones who stick at it, all obsessive, and the quiet ones who do it in the end. But...and this is the point...if he wanted to be sure, and if he thought on the same lines as Collis, then he’d think that Collis’s coming out of prison would mean another rape and another murder. So he would follow Collis, and conveniently he went on the sick list when Collis came back on the scene.’

  ‘You do manage to make things sound real, Dave. But there’s no proof.’

  ‘They’ve got a footprint and a tyre print.’

  ‘Most motorcycle tyres are alike.’

  ‘You’re doing it again. Can’t bear to find out who killed him, can you?’

  ‘Dave,’ he said kindly, ‘don’t get so excited. At the best it shows he could’ve been following. It doesn’t make him a murderer.’

  ‘But you said yourself you had the feeling of being followed.’

  ‘As I would do,’ he said irritably, ‘if I was watching Collis, and Partridge was following him at the same time.’

  ‘And what if he switched? What then? You see what I’m getting at? He could’ve been around when you took the gun from Fletcher. Damn it, that’s only half a mile down the road. And admit it, a motorbike around — you wouldn’t particularly notice it.’

  ‘I tell you, there was not a soul around when I chucked it into the ditch.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Of course I’m bloody sure.’

  Our eyes met. An idea had begun to course through my mind. Perhaps it showed.

  ‘I wish you hadn’t said that, George. Not so definitely.’

  ‘Want me to change my mind? D’you want me to tell lies, just to suit you?’

  ‘Not to suit me.’

  ‘Damn you, Dave.’

  He marched back to the car.

  CHAPTER TEN

  It was unlike George to react so slowly. He had driven a good hundred yards before he drew in, his rear wheels on the grass verge.

  ‘What the devil did you mean by that?’

  ‘Use your brains. You toss a gun into a ditch, a fully-loaded gun, if we’re to believe Fletcher...’

  ‘No reason for him to lie about that,’ George growled, hunched round in his seat.

  ‘And when it’s found it’d been fired. Now you have to be so damned awkward as to insist that nobody could’ve seen you dump it.’