‘People shoot in the rain,’ Charlie pointed out.
‘But—the throwing about…’
‘In foot-pounds, the impact in a shotgun breech is a hundred times greater than what the odd toss around a lawn would generate.’
He beamed at her. She knew her guns. He would concede that. But she was, nevertheless, a woman.
‘And there’s one short,’ she said, in a voice that chopped the complacent smile right off his face.
‘One—’
‘Short,’ she snapped. ‘I’ve counted forty-two. One’s missing.’
‘There were only forty-two,’ he protested.
Oliver was staring at Clare with horror all over his face, like a murky veil, because she was arguing with the great Charlie Green.
And I felt a thrill run all up my spine and finish somewhere in the back of my head. My cheeks were suddenly flaming, then were chill, the skin tight. I held my breath.
‘Forty-two in the collection,’ said Clare firmly, ‘plus my husband’s own Browning over-and-under.’
‘That’s here.’ He waved a hand to embrace the whole display. It was an angry, dismissive gesture.
‘He left it on the hallstand,’ she declared. ‘When he got home, that night. That’s here. Yes, I noticed it. So it’s one of my collection that’s missing.’
Charlie didn’t look well. It was not, I guessed, that anybody was going to dare to blame him for having mislaid one of the guns. Who would face him with such a suggestion? But rather that it meant that the forensic lab, who would surely have noticed the odd gun lying around, must have examined only forty-one guns out of the collection of forty-two. The court evidence, based as it had been on the available guns at that time, was now in danger of attracting that unwelcome word: unsafe.
‘But my dear lady —’
‘There’s no dear ladies about it. I’m a furious lady. I’m going to have another look.’
Which she did, walking slowly along the display and muttering to herself, and I’ll say this for her, she must have had a very good mind, both to be able to recognise them and to be able to catalogue them from memory.
‘Yes,’ she declared, at the end. ‘There’s a rare Dame with a sliding breech missing.’
‘Are you certain?’ Charlie asked cautiously. ‘Your memory…after such a lapse of time…’
‘Damn it!’ she said, holding back an anger that had spurred her to the pitch, that terrible rainy evening, of hurling shotguns through the air. ‘Don’t you think I know a Darne when I see it! Or when I don’t see it. There was a Darne in the collection, and it’s not here now.’
‘I didn’t know…’ Poor Charlie was bereft.
‘Then you ought to have known. There’s an inventory at the house.’
She looked him up and down with painstaking contempt. ‘You can’t know your job very well, you great oaf. Admit it.’ And she turned away before he had a chance to.
Charlie seemed unable to speak.
4
All the same, he managed eventually to make a solemn promise that all the forty-two guns (which included the murder weapon) would be returned to her as soon as it could be organised. We left, and stood by the cars for a few minutes, as Clare walked round in circles, recovering her composure. Oliver watched her with concern. I just watched her. Clare was an exhibitionist, and she was enjoying every moment of it.
It now seemed that we would not be welcome to lunch at the police canteen. No doubt the word would get around that somehow they had mislaid a gun, either in a physical sense, or from a list. The buck would already be moving in all directions—mostly away from Charlie, no doubt—and we didn’t want to get in its way.
Eventually, Clare seemed to come to a decision. ‘I want to go home,’ she declared, like an exhausted child seeking her bed.
It didn’t seem a good idea to me. She couldn’t simply move in. There would be no food, bed linen would probably be lying a little musty in drawers, and her clothes very much dated in moth-haunted wardrobes. A hotel, I’d have thought, then a shopping spree, and hired helpers to restore the place to welcoming normality. But Clare wanted to go home; Clare had to have her way.
She said nothing about our accompanying her, as we no longer figured on her agenda. Oliver seemed hurt as she drove away.
‘She’ll need help,’ he murmured, but I urged him into my BMW, and we set off after her, allowing her a comfortable lead.
There was now no expectation that Collington House could ever be mine, so that theoretically our involvement was at an end. But quite apart from the fact that my mind and my curiosity, even my emotions, were now captured, there was also the question of Oliver to be resolved. He didn’t seem to realise this. Strangely, he was annoyingly silent. Clare was now well ahead, and there was no point in trying to overtake her. Besides, I needed time with Oliver. I drove sedately, and still he was silent.
After a few miles he looked around him, at last opened his mouth, and commented on the fact that we didn’t seem to be heading back to our homes in Penley. I said no, we were going to Collington House, if for no other reason than that he had a set of Clare’s keys in his pocket. He mumbled something ridiculous about sending them by post, but without enthusiasm. So I reminded him that it was he who had suggested that I might try to find an answer to the meaty problem surrounding the killing. It was no good his claiming that it was now irrelevant. I wouldn’t get any sleep, I told him, until I knew the truth, and he wondered how I could ever sleep soundly at all in my isolated little cottage, though perhaps, with him beside me…The same old thing. I agreed that I would indeed be able to sleep soundly with him beside me, but he wasn’t to worry about me because I wasn’t going there, anyway, not in the immediate future.
‘Then where?’
‘You know the district, Oliver. Haven’t they got a pub or an inn or the like in the village of Lesser Collington?’
‘There’s the Wounded Cavalier, but they’d have a job finding even one bedroom.’
‘What about Greater Collington?’
‘There isn’t one. Only Lesser.’
‘Less than what?’
‘What it was, I suppose, before Cromwell moved on, heading for Bridgnorth.’
I think we both realised we were avoiding the issue. And the issue was himself.
‘You are in a rotten humour,’ I remarked. There hadn’t even been an optimistic tone in his mention of a sole bedroom. ‘If necessary, we’ll try Asherton. That’s not too far away, and big enough for a real hotel. I think I noticed one.’
‘It’s as you wish, Phil. But what you expect to do…’ He left it hanging, himself uncommitted.
I drove on. We ran slowly through a small township whose name I didn’t notice, as I was alert for a genuine hotel. We were now only six miles away from Collington House.
‘There,’ he said suddenly.
‘What?’
‘A café. I’m starving.’
It was, indeed, well after two o’clock, but my mind hadn’t been involved with food. I parked. There were no signs of yellow lines, even single ones. Not much sign of inhabitants, either. We walked back to the café.
It was after any normal person’s lunch-time, and there seemed to be only one young woman in charge. But she came up with fried eggs on fried bread—how many years had it been since I’d enjoyed that gourmet’s delight?—followed by freshly picked strawberries covered with clotted cream. Usually, I have a light meal around that time, but to hell with it. We ate. We barely said a civil word to each other.
‘You knew about this place, Ollie,’ I challenged, as we got back in the car. I drove away slowly.
‘Oliver, please,’ he said. ‘I hate that name. It makes me feel fat. And of course I knew. You know it was my district. In fact, it was only a mile from here that I had that fence dispute with the two farmers.’
‘Ah yes. That bad night of the shooting.’
‘Yes.’
I’d been wondering how I could get round to this without being
too obvious. He’d done it for me.
‘Different weather, though,’ I commented casually.
‘It was a bit later in the year. It’d been a grand summer—like now. Several weeks of almost unbroken sunshine, and hose-pipe bans everywhere. It had to break sometime, and that was when it chose to do it.’
‘And you got that burglar alarm call to go to Collington House? I bet you weren’t pleased.’
He was relaxing now. His laugh was easy and unforced. ‘Not really pleased, but I wasn’t taking it too seriously. Clare had always been a little vague about that alarm system. She’d forget she’d put it on, then go out with a torch to cut a few flowers or something.’
He didn’t have to mention her peculiarities in such an affectionate tone, I thought. ‘Silly woman.’
‘Even…you’d never believe this, Phil…she more than once set it off on purpose, times when Harris was away on business, just because she was lonely and wanted company.’
‘She must’ve been desperate if the best she could hope for was a policeman,’ I observed.
‘Once, she got a policewoman, who told her off very firmly, I heard.’
‘But more often she got you?’
‘Well…yes.’
‘Such as on that particular evening.’
‘But that was different. I knew Harris wasn’t away. I’d seen his car earlier in the day, in the village. So I had a feeling that this time the alarm was genuine. And I knew it was, as soon as I got there.’
‘How did you know that, Oliver?’ I was being pedantic, picking my words with care, and thus using them awkwardly. And I was trying to sound as though I didn’t consider his answers to be of any importance.
‘Oh…because the front door wasn’t open. It was a habit she had, with that door. If she was expecting me, it would be left just a little open, for me to walk right in. That night it was closed. So I had to allow for the fact that this time it could be a genuine break-in alert.’
I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear any more of this—but I knew I had to. ‘You’d find that disappointing, I’m sure.’
‘It jolted me, I must admit.’
‘So what did you do then?’
‘Went and had a quick scout round.’
‘Outside?’
‘Yes.’
‘In all that rain?’
‘I’d got a job to do. Can you imagine me reporting to my inspector: “No sir, I didn’t look around, I might’ve got wet.” Oh, lovely!’
‘So you scouted?’
‘Why all these questions, Phil?’
‘It’ll soon become clear. Did you scout?’
‘Yes. Yes, if you must know. What the hell—’
‘Round the back?’
‘Of course round the back. Drop it, Phil, please.’
‘No, Oliver.’ I stopped the car abruptly. We had entered a small village and the sign had indicated that this was Lesser Collington.
It all seemed very quiet, with not a soul in sight. ‘We’re nearly there. I’ve got to get this clear.’
He opened the door and put a leg out. ‘I refuse to—’
‘Get out of this car, and I’ll drive on and leave you here.’
‘I refuse to be cross-examined—’
‘Shut that door, sit still, and listen. This matters. To you.’
He was angry. It was our first serious dispute. He slammed the door and stared morosely at the deserted village. ‘Say it then.’
So I said it, putting together what I’d discovered and laying it out in front of him. I asked whether, when he’d got round to the back, he’d seen the gunshot hole in the glass. He replied that of course he had, as the light had still been on in there. As far as he had been concerned, this had to be linked with a break-in, as he’d known nothing at that time of the gun-throwing episode. I assumed he’d peered through the shattered hole in the glass, and he said he had. Harris Steadman had been dimly visible against the facing wall, slumped down and covered with blood, and giving every appearance of being dead. I asked whether he’d then run back to the front door, which he confirmed, rather like a talking dummy. He claimed he’d been in a tricky position, being alone until the back-up arrived, and obviously there’d been violence on a grand scale. So he had eventually entered the house with caution and quietly, as he’d discovered that Clare had left the door unlatched, almost as though this might have been a social visit, as he put it. He had then made his way through the house to the rear, to what he knew she called her sitting-room.
And there she’d been, Clare, looking at her most dramatic best, a terrified woman who’d just put down the phone (apparently) after phoning the station to report that she’d shot her husband.
‘She’d heard a second shot, not long before you got to her, Oliver.’
‘She said that.’ He was more compliant now, realising that what I had to say was very relevant to himself. But he was still cautious.
‘Did you hear one? You’d have been somewhere outside at the time, or perhaps just be going in to her.’
‘I didn’t hear it.’
‘Maybe it was just before you got there—when you were coming up the drive, say.’
‘Whenever it was, I didn’t hear it.’ His voice was toneless, and there were deep frown lines on his forehead. Not only didn’t he understand what I was getting at, he also didn’t approve of the way I was searching it out.
‘But her gun was definitely fired twice, and she’s always said she fired it only once.’
He sighed. ‘D’you think I don’t know this, Phil?’
‘But I’m sure you don’t know what she made of it.’
‘She didn’t have the chance to tell me.’
‘All right, then. We’ll assume it was as she claims, that there were three shots in all—her own at the French window, and two more. Of course, those two…no, don’t interrupt, Oliver, please…of those last two, the first one came when you could have been somewhere inside the house—or just going round to the front—or even before you’d actually arrived, as I’ve said. And the last of the three shots, she claims, was when you were actually with her in the room. Didn’t you hear either of these two shots?’
‘No.’ His fist was clenched on his knee. ‘No, no, no! How many times…’ He controlled himself and took a deep breath. ‘There was a lot of storm noise around. Have you taken account of that?’
‘But she swears she did. Heard both the last two. Storm or not.’
‘Ah well…’ He shrugged. ‘What you’re forgetting…my mind was tuned to the storm, so I’d naturally assume any sudden noises were the storm. Her mind was tuned to gunshots, so whatever bangs she heard she’d hear as gunshots.’
I turned and stared at him. ‘How very clever of you, Oliver. You could well be correct. But she says she heard a shot just before you got to her, and later a third. That’s the big problem. There couldn’t have been a third. It just doesn’t fit in. And nobody’s produced anything that was shot at.’
‘So?’ He was naïvely unaware of what I was leading to—or manoeuvring round.
‘Oliver,’ I said flatly, staring ahead through the windscreen, ‘she believes you went round to the back and saw what’d been going on, and you put two and two together. Heavens—I’ve only just realised—she could have thought you got there early enough to see what was going on…when it was actually happening.’
‘If you think I’d stand there and watch—‘
‘I’m talking about what she could have thought. In any event, she believes that you picked up the gun she’d dropped and took it round to the front and into the house, directly into the gunroom, and finished what she’d started…by shooting Harris where he lay against that wall.’
‘But…but…’ A look of wild disbelief was freezing his expression, as he tried to force his mind into accepting it. ‘That’s…that’s just stupid -’
‘Do shut up, and listen, Oliver. She claims she later heard a third shot, while you were actually with her. I believe she was lying about th
at. Did you hear it?’
‘No. Didn’t notice it, anyway. But Phil…you can’t say…’
Not waiting for him to rationalise it, I went on quickly.
‘I think she invented that third shot. You were with her, but there’s nothing at all to support a third shot. Why would a third shot have been fired? What could have been achieved? And if she invented it…why? I’ve tackled her on this, Oliver.’
‘You’ve what?’
‘We’ve discussed it. And while she—’
‘You’ve been discussing me! You two women, taking me to pieces—’
‘Will you stop being stupid, Oliver! Of course we discussed you. And although she stuck to the fact that she did hear a third shot, she really knew it would do her no good to say it at that time, because it would have seemed to be a lie. But she did say it, you great fool, because she thought it gave you some sort of an alibi—at least for the third shot. So she thought it might cover you for the second, too. I must admit I can’t always follow her peculiar reasoning. But that’s what she did.’
‘Oh my God!’
‘And as a third shot went against all the evidence, it must surely have influenced the jury. It would seem to be a blatant lie—as it probably was—and if she could lie about one thing, she could lie about others. So they brought in a guilty verdict.’
‘Is this true? I can’t believe…What the hell do you women get up to, when you’re together? I’ve never heard anything—’
‘Do stop moaning…and listen.’ I was impatient with his childish objections. ‘Can’t you see how important this is to you…to us?’
‘I’m damned if I can. Why? Why is it? I just don’t see—’
‘The point, you idiot, is that anybody who used her gun in order to kill Harris would have been planting the crime on her, because it was left where she’d dropped it. Not purposely, perhaps—maybe only in self-defence…thoughtlessly. But in any event, it was catastrophic for her. And she thought that person was you. Oh Oliver, don’t you understand her at all? There’s something special about that woman. Or something quite terrible. And I’ve got to know what and why.’
A Shot at Nothing Page 7
