A Shot at Nothing

by Roger Ormerod

  Then abruptly she was gone, and Oliver was at my shoulder. ‘Lovely view,’ he said.

  ‘You were very quick and clever, you know. Very.’ And he had verged on claiming me as his wife.

  ‘Not really. In any event—we could be back at Penley inside an hour. If we want to be. If you think…’ He glanced cautiously at the bed.

  ‘Then we’ve got plenty of time to decide about it, haven’t we!’ I turned, and for the first time really looked at the bed. It seemed narrow and uncomfortable.

  ‘I wouldn’t want to sleep in that, anyway,’ I told him. ‘Let’s go and sample the fun, Oliver.’

  We simply went through the gunroom next door, and out by way of the French windows. It was necessary to skirt the lawn, so as not to disrupt the croquet. An elderly man was playing against a delicate old lady with a wicked swing, and balls were getting lost amongst the rhododendrons. These, having been left to their own devices, had been glorying in their freedom, and were a severe barrier when it came to pushing through. The old gentleman called out, ‘There’s a gap in the corner.’

  ‘Thank you. Come on, Oliver.’

  ‘I’ll never get through that lot.’

  But he followed me, though if I’m ever faced by the possibility of making a wrong choice you can bet I’ll make it. The gap I chose was narrow. It wasn’t the one that anybody would reasonably be expected to take, the real entrance being further along, and on emerging once more into the sunlight I trod on a hand. Or rather, I trod on two intertwined hands.

  It was a glorious location for stretching out in the sun, sheltered from behind by massed shrubbery and with the slope running gently away to the meadow below, the grass close to the hedge being lush and inviting. Given the choice, and with that bed in mind, I would have gone for the grass for the night.

  ‘Oh…I do beg…I’m so sorry,’ I apologised, all flustered, as the hands were snatched apart and two faces stared up at me—inverted.

  His face I didn’t need to recognise, because I was at once aware of the smelly hacking jacket with the leather inserts, the waterproof cap now lying in the grass, and that aggressively thrusting jaw. He was one of Clare’s champions. I didn’t recognise the woman. Stepping through between them, I turned. She was obviously amused by my embarrassment, though shaking her head to dismiss it as she sat up. Her hair flowed like water, a very light cascade of blonde. Her face was long, with a sharp chin, sharp straight nose, and a wide mouth with a full lower lip. She might have been a little younger than myself; I shall all too soon see forty. I couldn’t help admiring her blouse, which I felt to be hand-made, and which was in a delicate flowered cotton. She was wearing tailored slacks rather than jeans, and had kicked off her white trainers.

  There was no suggestion of embarrassment on their part. After all, they were in full view, there, of the whole landscape, so that nothing serious could have been proceeding. They seemed amused, rather.

  ‘We’ve met,’ the man declared. ‘Wasn’t it you who rescued Clare from the crush?’

  ‘With the aid of my friend.’ I gestured towards the end of the hedge.

  ‘It wasn’t’, he observed, ‘a welcome to her liking. Not what she would have planned herself.’

  At that point Oliver walked round from the gap he’d at last located. The man I’d been talking to sat up with more attention. ‘And I know you too,’ he declared, scrambling to his feet.

  Oliver paused, his head cocked. ‘I believe we’ve met.’

  ‘You’re a copper, aren’t you?’

  ‘Was. I’m retired now.’

  A hand was thrust out. ‘Glenn Thomas,’ he introduced himself briskly. ‘You could’ve made a charge out of it, but you didn’t. I’ve not forgotten.’

  Oliver grinned, stared at the hand, and offered his own. He still wasn’t too free with the arm that had been damaged. ‘It was very close to criminal assault, the way I recall it.’

  They shook hands. The woman, now sitting up attentively, was introduced as Josie Knight. We nodded to each other, and Oliver beamed. He introduced me to them. ‘Philipa Lowe,’ he said. ‘We came here to look at the house. Philipa’s idea, that was. But it’s no longer on the market, we gather. And now…’ He shrugged. ‘Now we’re stuck here, because there’s no way of getting the car out.’

  ‘Then you might as well sit down for a minute,’ said Glenn. ‘You can get a good view from here.’

  I sat beside him, Oliver lowering himself beside Josie. Glenn leaned over towards me, and spoke quietly.

  ‘No longer on the market, you said. Huh? I don’t reckon it ever was, between you and me. We all knew she’d never let it go. Typical of Clare, that was, putting it on the market. One of her damned stupid gestures. You never know where you are with her, I can tell you that. Maybe it amused her, advertising it then refusing all the offers she might get. You’ll have met her, of course.’

  ‘Oh yes. We’ve met her.’ I tried to be non-committal.

  ‘Then you’ll have got the general idea,’ he assured me. ‘It was only a gesture or a joke, or…well, anything. I think she’s crazy, but everybody loves her. Am I right, Josie?’

  She craned her head forward and peered past him. ‘Not crazy,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘You just need to get to know her.’

  ‘Umm!’ said Glenn. Then he seemed to think he’d said enough about Clare, as he changed the subject abruptly. ‘You get a grand view from up here. That’s my property, over there, beyond that far hedge.’ He leaned forward, the better to consider it.

  There was, indeed, a fine open view of the scene before us. It was in the form of a lush and green saucer below us, with the lake way over in the base of it. Down the slopes the fête was constructing itself, with the assistance of men running about and working like beavers. On the lower slope, where it was probably more level, a marquee was nearly fully raised. Stalls had been erected, lightly protected by awnings from the piercing sun, and a steam tractor, apparently there just to be stared at with nostalgia, was getting up steam. Children were dashing about wildly as preparations were going ahead for the races later, by which time they would have exhausted their excess of energy. Some had found that they could toboggan down the steeper slopes on metal trays.

  ‘You certainly get all the action up here,’ Oliver approved.

  ‘Not’, said Glenn, ‘when people step on your hands.’

  He said this gloomily, but there was a light glowing in his wide brown eyes as he glanced at me. I’d noticed that his chestnut hair was showing a bald patch. The migrants seemed to have re-sprouted as eyebrows, which were very bushy.

  ‘What was I saying?’ he asked amicably.

  ‘About Clare,’ I told him. ‘Everybody knows her…’ I was determined to get him back on to my central interest.

  ‘Oh yes. Yes.’ He levered himself on to one elbow, so that he could gesture with a free hand. The gesture embraced the pasture, now seething with Clare’s friends, who must have come from the far corners of the county. ‘They all know she’s strange,’ he said. ‘She makes fun of everybody and everything, mainly herself, but she’s never hurt a soul. Herself, perhaps. Nobody else.’

  ‘Her husband,’ I suggested, probing gently, merely encouraging him.

  ‘Not Harris. Not even that bastard Harris. Not on purpose, anyway.’

  ‘So she said. Didn’t she say that, Oliver?’

  ‘Eh? What? Oh yes…she pleaded not guilty in court. I was there.’

  ‘All right,’ Glenn agreed. ‘But she didn’t hurt him. Just killed him. Put him out of his misery. But that jury had to decide it was murder.’

  ‘Now, Glenn…’ Josie warned him gently.

  ‘Well—he deserved it, didn’t he?’ He looked at us, as though challenging us to dispute it. ‘So she pleaded not guilty! All right. Good for her. She’s a fighter. But all the same, I bet she filled that courtroom with lies, ankle-deep. She’s always been grand at that, throwing her distortions all over the place. For a bit of fun, perhaps, or to protect somebody so
mehow, maybe just to keep her eye in, sort of. She lies—oh yes. But offends…never.’

  Clare, it seemed, most certainly had a champion. I glanced at Josie, who had every excuse for being jealous of Glenn’s enthusiasm, but she seemed undisturbed. Glenn could praise Clare, but she wouldn’t be able to prise him from Josie. And Josie knew that. But now she tugged at his wrist. ‘You’re giving people the wrong impression,’ she told him. ‘Behave, Glenn, you big idiot. Clare can stand on her own two feet.’

  ‘That she can,’ he agreed.

  It occurred to me that these two people were being very generous with their information, and to strangers. Perhaps they had the wrong impression of us, seeing us as bitterly disappointed victims of Clare’s whims and eccentricities. They could even be under the impression that they were excusing her for having misled us over the house. Did everybody so treasure their Clare in this district, that they should surround her with a veil of excuses?

  Josie was leaning forward, obviously intending to speak to me once she had my attention. I smiled at her encouragingly. ‘And generous after Harris died,’ she said, adding to Glenn’s glowing testimony. ‘She came to my help…the company’s…but so very discreetly. It was sort of one of those quirky things she was always doing. The money came from Glenn, here, so I knew she’d asked him to arrange it. Clare’s like that. Isn’t she, Glenn?’

  He caught my eye. An eyelid briefly drooped. His chin moved, but he said nothing.

  ‘But of course,’ I said. ‘Clare mentioned you. Josie Knight, who makes lampshades. Aren’t you a cousin or something?’ I wasn’t sure whether or not this information had come from Clare, but it didn’t matter.

  ‘Not a cousin,’ said Josie. ‘Certainly not. Just an old school friend. I had no claim on her at all—if that’s what you’re talking about. Not one. It was Harris who was my partner. Or rather, he originally put a bit of money into the company, and owned five shares. You can’t form a limited company on your own, you know. Shades Of Knight Ltd, I call it. But Harris…oh hell, who wants to talk about that lout—’

  ‘Bastard,’ Glenn stated.

  ‘Correct,’ Josie agreed. ‘Why am I telling you all this?’ she asked me, pleasantly enough.

  Because she wanted to make it quite clear that Harris had got all that was coming to him. I didn’t say that. What I did say was, ‘Because I’m a good listener, perhaps. And because you’re wondering whether we might be two detectives, hired to prove Clare’s innocence. Well, we’re not. But all the same, I’m sure she didn’t kill Harris, and I’d like to discover who did.’

  Josie made a choking sound, as though suppressing a laugh. ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘What she failed to say when she had the chance—what she did say when she didn’t need to.’

  ‘Oh…it’s riddles now,’ said Glenn, laughing lightly. ‘But why…what’s it to you—who did what and who didn’t?’

  ‘I’m intrigued.’

  ‘Oh, that’s great!’ he said, ‘Intrigued! What’s the point in disturbing sleeping dogs?’ Abruptly, he was angry and aggressive. He wouldn’t want an outsider casting a cloud on this fine and celebratory day.

  I realised that I would have to justify our interference in their lives, if I was going to get anywhere.

  ‘Because they are only sleeping,’ I said. ‘And dogs who wake from nightmares might bite.’

  Oliver laughed. I could have killed him. He was being no help at all.

  ‘And?’ asked Josie, smiling still in an encouraging way.

  I shrugged. ‘And it so happens that Clare and I are both in love with the same man.’ She, at least, would understand that.

  ‘Now Phil…’ put in Oliver. He clearly didn’t.

  ‘And Clare believes it was he who shot Harris,’ I added quietly. They’d been free with their information, so I thought they deserved a hand-out of their own.

  There was a silence. I knew that this information, this justification, would spread through the throng below like a forest fire, insidiously and in whispers, not a single one of which would be drowned by the shrieks and shots and the amplified music, and the bursts of applause when somebody won. Or lost.

  For a moment I thought that it was I who’d lost. It had been a gamble, revealing this, but if everybody thought my investigations were on Clare’s behalf, or justifiably on my own, then I might get some co-operation. Especially from the women. They would understand.

  After a long silence, Josie whispered, ‘You can’t mean that.’

  ‘I’m afraid I do. She as good as told me, in her peculiar way.’

  ‘Then she was lying.’ Glenn’s voice was flat and dismissive.

  ‘I warned you what she’s like. It doesn’t have to mean—’

  I cut in sharply. ‘Then she was lying about a previous lie. How many inversions have I got to consider? And I don’t intend to try. I’d rather have the plain, flat truth.’

  Glenn said gruffly, ‘I’d better get down there and supervise the wellie whanging.’ The interplay had been lost on him.

  Josie did not protest, nor did she make any move to go along with him. He hesitated, hands on hips, looking around as though assessing his own domain—and yet it wasn’t his.

  ‘Look down there,’ he said abruptly. ‘All joy and happiness. But I could take you to twenty people, men and women, who’d have killed Harris Steadman, and enjoyed it. They’d have drawn a lottery for the honour. Winner gets him. And you talk about finding the truth! Don’t take the trouble. You’re wasting your time. They’d all confess to it, and then where’d you be?’

  ‘Relieved, perhaps,’ I answered quietly.

  He glanced down at me. His jaw looked like a thrusting rock, but he couldn’t prevent a tiny smile softening the line of his lips.

  ‘But don’t ask me,’ he went on. It was an instruction. ‘I’m not going to confess. Coming, Josie?’

  ‘I’ll watch from here, Glenn. I’m sure you’ll win.’

  He nodded, and strode away down the slope. It was a farmer’s stride.

  Josie sat with her hands clasped round her knees, resting her chin on them and smiling placidly in the direction of Glenn’s striding figure.

  ‘He always wins,’ she said fondly. ‘You can depend on it. Depend on him. God, how I love that man,’ she said softly.

  Oliver seemed to have distanced himself from us, and was standing with his eyes on the scenery. We could talk quietly and intimately to each other, Josie and I.

  ‘Then why aren’t you two married?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s never put it into words. Just takes it for granted, waiting for me to say yes.’

  ‘So the obvious thing to do, in such circumstances, is to tell him the date that suits you best.’

  ‘Any date would suit me best.’ Then she lifted her head and turned to face me. ‘But we’d gain nothing. We practically live in each other’s laps as it is. And we’ve got our own businesses to run. What would we gain?’

  But Oliver had been listening. ‘My attitude completely,’ he put in, quite unnecessarily, I thought.

  ‘I’ve got my lampshade company,’ Josie went on, throwing Oliver a tiny smile. ‘And he’s got his farm. Both solvent—and if they weren’t we’d help each other out. Glenn gave me money when Harris cheated me out of it. He’d worked out a complicated…’ Then she shrugged herself to silence.

  ‘But,’ I said, ‘you just said it came from Clare. Glenn just handed it on.’

  ‘Perhaps some of it did,’ she said dismissively. ‘But I know Glenn added some from his own pocket, perhaps all of it. He’s never said…but you can understand why I love him. He does these things, quietly and in the background. And that sod, Harris…oh, what’s the point in talking about it now?’

  ‘None at all,’ I assured her. ‘What about the children though?’ I asked.

  ‘What children?’

  This I was slipping in for Oliver’s benefit, seeing that he was eavesdropping. He hadn’t mentally explored our relationship in
detail, and I wasn’t too old. But I would be, if he went on stalling.

  ‘The children you might have…wouldn’t they be better brought up in a safe and solid home—by two parents?’

  She put her head down, resting her forehead now on her knees, and spoke quietly.

  ‘Pardon?’ I asked.

  ‘There couldn’t be any children,’ she said softly.

  ‘Oh…’

  It was one of those conversation stoppers. There’s nothing you can say to follow it that will not be embarrassing.

  Then she lifted her head and stared at the distant, flowing landscape not seeing a square inch of it. ‘And someday,’ she said, ‘Glenn is going to realise he wants a family—and then he’s going to have to look elsewhere—and I might as well be dead.’

  Beyond her, Oliver caught my eye. He made a small gesture with his head, indicating he would rather be elsewhere. I shook my head. We couldn’t walk away from her now. Silently, we waited until she tossed back her head, her hand to her hair. Now she properly focused on the distance.

  ‘There they go,’ she said, pointing.

  Very tiny, way below us, a rubber wellington boot flew through the air.

  ‘I understand’, I said, ‘that you run the business—but do you design your lampshades yourself?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘How on earth do you work out the panel shapes? I’ve always wondered.’

  ‘Oh, it’s quite easy.’ Josie was relaxing now. ‘You start with the frame…’ And she went on to explain with enthusiasm.

  ‘Do you do Tiffany?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh yes. All sorts of variations. We’re into fluorescent patterns and LEDs and fibre-optics. It’s a booming market.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear it.’

  ‘I’ll have to ask you to excuse me,’ she said. ‘He likes me to be there when he wins. Men are such children, really.’

  She got to her feet with lithe grace, straightening to a slim five foot ten. Her hair floated in the slight breeze, her blouse flapped.

  No doubt the same material appeared on some of her lampshades.