An Alibi Too Soon

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘I’m making no accusations. For Christ’s sake listen. How could she have…’

  ‘She was here, a few days before,’ he said harshly. ‘You’ve known that all the time. Tried to trap me. She was here—came to pick me up and drive me there. And you knew, damn you.’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I said softly. ‘Not until you told me.’

  9

  I wanted to go somewhere else, alone, to think about that. But I wasn’t going to be allowed to. I had already spent longer with him than I’d expected, yet there were still a number of things I wanted to ask. I eyed him speculatively. He had his fingers to his forehead, as though he really did have a headache, and his face averted. But before he’d been able to hide his features I’d detected a twist of the lips that for one second conveyed bitter disgust.

  When he looked at me again he’d regained his composure. ‘I could do with some air. What about you?’

  ‘Whatever you say.’

  ‘A few turns round the Close?’

  ‘I could manage that.’

  We eased ourselves out of the room and gained the narrow alleyway, then out to the Close. The Cathedral was echoing to the rise of the organ and the voices of the choir.

  ‘Looks like we’re in for some rain,’ he said.

  ‘Most likely.’

  Neither of us wanted to face the real issue. We paced, side by side, he with his long legs, awkwardly striding. He seemed unaware of his old tattered cardigan.

  ‘I’m surprised you never said anything about it,’ I commented after a while. My pipe was going well. ‘All that drink on the back seat, I mean. It was the basic reason the police officer assumed Edwin had been out and come back, so it was the reason he charged you.’

  ‘He didn’t say that.’

  ‘All the same, when the beer and stuff was mentioned, you ought to have realised it.’

  He kicked at a stone pensively. ‘How did I know what he was basing his reasons on?’

  ‘At the trial—wasn’t it mentioned?’

  ‘Not that I can remember. Everybody seemed to take it for granted that Uncle Edwin had been out and come back. Including me.’

  Possibly they would. Unless the defence spotted the point and demanded proof, no evidence relating to the drinks need have been given.

  ‘Look, Mr Patton, I’ve been thinking…’

  I didn’t want him thinking too deeply. ‘Did the prosecution produce any motive?’

  They wouldn’t have needed to, only as a point strengthening their case. He had to think about that. We paused at the head of Dam Street.

  ‘You can just see Dr Johnson’s statue,’ he told me.

  ‘Did they?’

  ‘Only money. He owed me money.’

  ‘Hardly a good reason for killing him, I’d have thought. Dead, he couldn’t have paid you.’

  ‘The inheritance, too.’

  ‘Oh…that…’

  By the time of the trial, Edwin’s estate might not have been probated, and its value, or lack of value, not been assessed.

  ‘I’m surprised the question of motive wasn’t challenged,’ I said. ‘It’s flimsy.’

  ‘Ah…yes. But there was the other,’ he said mysteriously, miserably.

  I stopped walking. I forced him to pause and face me.

  ‘What other?’

  He made a vague gesture, and one leg bent as he cranked himself into a standing position. ‘They get together, these lawyers. My barrister said if he challenged on motive the prosecution would bring in the business of Glenda Grace, and we didn’t want that, did we, because it’d blur the issue…’

  ‘What business of Glenda Grace?’ I demanded, never having heard of her.

  He tried for dignity, but it was pitiful. ‘She was a friend of mine—oh, years ago. Not a close friend, but I liked her. Too young for me, anyway. I was fifteen years older than her.’ The agony in his voice was terrible to listen to, especially as the choir was mounting to paeans of joy behind him. She’d been a very close friend indeed. ‘It wasn’t long, the time that I knew her. Then she was off to London and the bright lights. And inside a year after that she was dead. Accidental death, they called it. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘You’ll have to, won’t you! If the defence didn’t like to have it mentioned, and you were involved with her death…’

  ‘I wasn’t even there!’ he said, fiercely for him, and he began to walk away.

  I caught up with him. ‘Where?’

  ‘The flat. Uncle Edwin’s flat in London. This was in the good days, when he was doing well. He had a flat. One of those tower block places with a commissionaire, and fancy balconies. There was a party…’

  ‘Nothing else but parties…’

  ‘Don’t listen, if you don’t want to.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Go on. This young woman—Glenda, was it? Tell me about her. How you met her.’

  ‘At a party…’

  ‘Not another blasted party!’

  This time it was he who stopped, just in order to show me his bared teeth, his face now gaunt, straining for humour. ‘The Bishop wouldn’t like you to call it that. It was his party. There,’ he told me, pointing a finger at the solidly complacent building behind me. ‘To celebrate a tapestry we’d received as a bequest. She was there. Heaven knows who’d brought her. We seemed to get along fine, and I met her afterwards, several times. I began to wonder…but my earnings were nearly nothing. The house free and a small stipend.’

  I was disinclined to stop him. Glenda Grace had been someone special to him. We marched ahead, he lifting his face and telling it to the steeples.

  ‘But we had something in common. At that time I was writing plays, nothing much, but Uncle Edwin was polishing them, and that was what she wanted, to get on the stage. She had a good singing voice. Anyway, I gave her an intro to Uncle Edwin, which was the worst thing I could’ve done. God, if I could take it all back! But you can see what happened —she went to London, and I lost her. I never saw her again.’

  ‘But you followed her career with interest?’ I asked.

  ‘Career!’ he said with disgust. ‘Some career! I should’ve known better. Uncle Edwin was a playwright—what influence had he got? But he could have been kind, sent her back to me, told her…but no. Not him. He handed her over to Clyde Greenslade, of all people. That slimy swine.’

  For him, that was strong language. I recalled that Greenslade had been one of Edwin’s guests on the night he died.

  ‘It wasn’t a good move?’

  ‘D’you know what business Greenslade did? Uncle Edwin knew, but still he sent her to him. Greenslade did blue movies.’

  Oh Lordy me! Porn. I paused to tap out my pipe on my heel.

  ‘Didn’t she realise that?’

  ‘She was about as bad as me. Another world.’

  ‘In which case, she’d turn and run.’

  ‘She was beautiful. A kind of youth and innocence…just what Greenslade could use. God knows how he persuaded her. All I know is that she was on drugs when she died. Perhaps he told her his stinking films were a stepping-stone to greater things. I wasn’t there. I should’ve gone to see her, but London scares me. I blame myself…Greenslade got her started, and she never finished. When she died—at Uncle Edwin’s flat—they said she’d been on uppers and downers, whatever those ghastly things are, and speed and cocaine. They said she’d been incapable after a few drinks, and had gone out on the balcony, feeling sick. And fell off! Everybody knew she’d been killed. God knows why anybody would want to kill her. But somebody pushed her off the balcony, and I was here at the time. They told me the exact time. I was in the Cathedral, playing the organ.’

  He seemed to choke, and then he was silent.

  ‘Let’s go back,’ I said, and like a lost little boy he turned obediently and shuffled along beside me.

  ‘And did you suspect your uncle?’ I asked, having given it twenty paces. ‘Of killing her,’ I amplified.

  He turned to me, aghast. �
�Of course not.’

  ‘So why didn’t your barrister want it to be mentioned?’

  ‘I blamed my uncle for sending her to such a creature as Greenslade.’

  ‘And for that, they thought, you could have killed him?’

  ‘They thought! I was told it wouldn’t help me, if it was brought out in court.’

  The prosecution, I decided, must have been confident in their case, that they didn’t need to emphasise motive.

  ‘Greenslade was at your uncle’s other party,’ I reminded him, ‘on the night he died.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said, his voice smeared with contempt. ‘But by that time he’d gone all legitimate. The big screen, on general release. Perhaps, if she hadn’t died, poor Glenda would’ve made it, too.’

  ‘So…if you still cherished any animosity towards anybody over her death, it would surely have been Greenslade. If she fell—or even if she threw herself from the balcony—he was the one most directly to blame.’

  ‘But she didn’t,’ he said simply. ‘She was pushed.’

  I didn’t pursue it. He hadn’t been there. He hadn’t, perhaps thankfully, seen what she’d become. It occurred to me that maybe this Glenda Grace (surely an assumed name) hadn’t been so innocent as Duncan chose to believe. No young woman, of any sort of moral values, could have been persuaded to work for Clyde Greenslade. I decided, as I say, not to pursue it. Let him cherish his memories.

  I followed him back into the house. This involved a grope along the passage, up two steps round a corner, down a step, and into the rear room, which was combined with the kitchen. It was equally cluttered, but with a happy inconsequence and a view to comfort. He sat me in an easy chair, and went to brew tea.

  ‘And yet,’ I said, as he placed down the tray, ‘there was the money your uncle owed you. The money they produced as a motive.’

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘If you’re convinced I didn’t do it, why worry about my motives for doing it?’

  ‘Tell me what money he owed you.’

  ‘Oh…for the scripts.’

  I recalled he’d mentioned a script conference. ‘Explain.’

  He sat on a low stool opposite the little table, knees spread and probing like twin spires. ‘It was years and years ago…when I was trying to write plays. Uncle Edwin was in television then, selling his plays, and he took a couple of mine to show around. Hopeless, of course, but later, when he got going on the stage, he said he might be able to adapt my plays. They were too long for television, you see. Too long for an unknown, anyway. So that’s what he did. Adapted my plays. He was the one who knew all about the technique. Me, I could do dialogue. He polished them, and got them produced.’

  ‘Under his own name?’

  ‘Well, he’d done the work, and it was his name that was known.’

  ‘And he paid you?’

  ‘From time to time. When the money came in.’

  ‘This handout—how much would it be?’

  ‘I can’t see that’s any of your business.’

  ‘Of course not. Just nosy.’

  He suddenly grinned, his chin jutting. ‘Hard-faced with it, too. Usually a couple of hundred, say. Sometimes more.’

  ‘Every month?’

  ‘You’re joking. Two or three times a year. But it was something. I could tell myself I was a professional writer.’

  ‘Which you were.’ I suppose, I added to myself. ‘And he owed you some?’

  ‘He’d promised me a couple of hundred—but of course he’d had two big flops.’

  ‘Of course.’

  We sipped tea and tried to avoid each other’s eyes. I found myself less happy with all his information than I’d been when I arrived. Now he’d produced a motive that could be much stronger than money, and he’d admitted he knew the booze was handily in the boot of the Dolomite. I had thought the alibi he had for the time his uncle was supposed to have left was sound, but now I was even doubtful of that. The alibi, if you came to tying it down, would have to be for the exact moment the button on the radio in his uncle’s car was pushed. And that time was still not satisfactorily confirmed. I could only hope he wouldn’t ask…

  ‘Mr Patton,’ he said, and I knew he was about to. ‘I’ve read about this sort of thing. They were always talking about it in the prison. A pardon.’

  He was very tentative.

  ‘Yes?’ I asked.

  ‘If you can prove I didn’t do it—isn’t that what I’ll get?’

  I tried not to sigh. ‘What I’ve got so far is nothing more than evidence that your uncle didn’t drive away. It isn’t absolute. Some other explanation could well be produced.’

  ‘But all the same…’

  ‘It’s not strong enough, yet. To tie it down, I’d have to show that the drinks have a positive meaning, not simply pointing away from you, but pointing towards somebody else. And I can assure you, once somebody’s been tried, sentenced, and served a term, the authorities are going to be very chary of charging somebody else.’

  I was rather proud of that. It might not have been legally solid, but it said it, and simply enough for him to understand. He licked his lips. I wasn’t happy with the expression in his eyes.

  ‘But assuming I get it, this pardon, wouldn’t I be able to claim damages?’

  ‘It’s usual.’

  ‘I mean…how much?’

  ‘I couldn’t say. Somebody has to assess the value of ten years’ loss of freedom. Based on your loss of earnings, I’d say, but there’s more to it than that.’

  He grimaced. ‘And I bet the miserable devils would knock off the value of my board and lodging inside.’

  I said solemnly: ‘And the wages of the screws.’

  ‘They wouldn’t!’ Then he laughed, but it was a miserable affair. ‘It’s not a time for joking.’

  ‘It’s not a time for counting your damages, either.’

  ‘But…there was my inheritance, too. I lost all that.’

  ‘My information is that it wasn’t worth much. But that would be taken into account—its probable worth to you.’

  He gave that some consideration, biting his lip, darting small, questing glances at me. ‘I suppose…they wouldn’t give it back to me?’

  He’d never had much, never really enjoyed financial freedom. Ten years before, that might not have worried him, but his term inside had hardened him, and brought him more squarely face to face with reality. So I couldn’t blame him for hoping, for the avaricious gleam in his eye. I spoke as casually as I could.

  ‘How could they? You wouldn’t want them to take it back from Rosemary?’

  He thought again. I poured us both another cup of tea. There was pain in his eyes when he looked up.

  ‘But you said…Mr Patton, didn’t you say: whoever killed my uncle must have known the booze was there in the car. Didn’t you? And Rosemary must’ve known.’ Then, reading my expression, he put his head down and plunged on. ‘So that, if it was proved that she killed him, then they’d take the inheritance off her too, and it’d come back to me.’

  His face was glistening. I looked down at my cup, not wishing to assess what that statement had cost him.

  ‘You mean, that’s how you’d like me to prove it?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  All hell raged behind his eyes. The resentment—the fury—of his unearned sentence demanded retribution. That Rosemary stood there, in the way of it, was his agony. I tried to salve it with gentle words.

  ‘Well…you’d have to consult a solicitor about it. It’d be a very interesting legal point. But…what she’s got now is not her inheritance, it’s what she’s made from it. Perhaps we’d better leave it for now…’

  He saw his hopes fading. I hadn’t even been optimistic on his expectations from a pardon. ‘Then why did you come here?’ he burst out, his cup rattling dangerously in its saucer. ‘You raise my hopes…’

  ‘Of a possible pardon.’

  ‘…and now you chop them down.’

  I spoke blandly.
His anger was not at me, it was at himself, for having revealed something unpleasant he’d not previously accepted. ‘To put right a miscarriage of justice.’

  I’d said the wrong thing. ‘You coppers, you’re all disgusting. Oh, I heard all about you lot. Fascist, all of you. You pick up people’s lives and toss them around. They’re nothing to you. It all has to look good on paper.’

  I put down my cup and got to my feet.

  ‘Oh, don’t leave,’ he said angrily. ‘Let me get one bit of pleasure out of it, and exercise my nice new freedom.’ He stood up and looked pathetically dignified. ‘I’m asking you to leave this house.’

  ‘Very well. If you say so.’

  ‘I do.’

  He dogged my heels to the front door. I turned back, just before the door slammed.

  ‘You’ll probably make quite a lot out of the Sunday papers,’ I assured him.

  Then I walked back to my car.

  Me and my brave, brash words! Right is right and wrong is wrong. What a platitudinous load of codswallop! Who was I to decide what was right and what wrong? The conceit of it! I’d plunged into this, my chest beating with proud morality, and all I’d managed to do was raise trouble that was clearly going to spread far and wide.

  All I had to show for it on the gain side, so far, was a scorched terrier, who was waiting to be let out. My thoughts were tart, and I was glad she was there to neutralise them.

  I took her for a short walk, which became a long one. With my basic motivations undermined, I was in a mood to throw in my hand, but I’d prodded a tiger into life, and it was for me to tame him. We walked back to the car and I produced the water I’d brought in a flask, opened the small tin of dogmeat, and watched as she wolfed it down.

  We drove back to Welshpool.

  It had taken longer than I’d expected. It took Amelia less time than I’d calculated. The result was that I entered our room unsuspectingly, and there she was, all big eyes and her hair not really under control. Nor her lower lip.

  ‘Richard!’

  Then she was in my arms, Cindy having to make a wild leap for safety. You’d have thought we’d just met at the North Pole, our deprivation locking us together, her hands at the back of my neck. She’d lost weight, I swear, the ease with which I could swing her off her feet. But in extenuation, I have to mention that this was the first time we’d been apart.