A Shot at Nothing

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘That’s over,’ I said, lifting my chin.

  ‘Good. I’m pleased to hear it. As long as Clare thinks so.’

  ‘It is not a matter —’

  ‘It is a matter of what Clare thinks about it,’ he interrupted me firmly. ‘If she doesn’t want it to be over, it might not be over. She need only raise one eyebrow….’

  ‘You’re being damned insulting.’

  ‘Not intentionally. Sorry. I meant—Oliver—knowing him. Oh hell…why did we get on to this?’

  ‘You. You brought it up.’

  ‘So I did. Sorry.’

  ‘Shall we move on? Or shall you move on, and me in another direction?’

  He took my arm, possibly to prevent this. ‘Oh no. I’m not going to lose you now.’

  ‘You’re already assuming’, I accused him angrily, ‘that he’ll drop me and return to her—and then I’ll be in the open market for you to practise your charm on, and maybe—’

  He cut me off with a laugh of pure joy and, I felt, even some admiration.

  ‘By heavens, Miss Philipa Lowe, I can see you’ll give Clare a good fight for it. I’m a married man with two children. My wife wouldn’t like me to…’ He shrugged.

  ‘Then don’t you see, you stupid man…’ I cried, perhaps too loud because several people stopped and stared. ‘Don’t you see…’ I shook my arm, but he held on. ‘I’ve got the best reason in the world for wanting to find Harris’s murderer.’

  ‘No. I don’t see that.’

  ‘You wouldn’t. Then let me tell you. Clare, I’m convinced, didn’t do it. Whoever did do it, therefore, did it with Clare’s gun, and left it where she’d dropped it. Deliberately did that. Do you believe she would think highly of such a man—or woman? No…she’ll do her best to destroy that creature, when she gets a chance. And the one she thinks did that—the only one who could have done it, unless I can find another explanation—is Oliver Simpson, over there and making a fool of himself by throwing wellies in the air. And you say she’s only got to raise an eyebrow! D’you think I’m going to stand around and watch it happen? Am I going to let her take him from me—then sit back and wait for the press notices of his death? Oh no. Not on your life, Inspector Ralph Purslowe. I can’t relax until I can at least prove he didn’t do it. Prove it. By producing who did, if I have to.’

  And the inspector gazed up at the sky and whistled softly to himself.

  Oliver was, indeed, over there and throwing wellies with his left arm. There had to be a technique to it, I decided. Theory indicated an angle of forty-five degrees to the longest throw, though air resistance had to be taken into account…and why the devil was I thinking of such things when the subject under discussion was his life?

  And Clare was also over there and watching, and clapping, calling out encouragement whenever Oliver matched a throw from Glenn Thomas. That left arm was developing muscle, having to ease the load from his right.

  ‘Come on, Oliver!’ she cried, and she ran to him and kissed him on the cheek when he beat Glenn’s previous throw by a foot. A foot, I thought hysterically, in a wellie!

  ‘You see,’ said Purslowe quietly.

  I could’ve slapped him across the face, if it hadn’t been for his smile.

  He turned me and walked me away from there before I could add my own congratulatory kiss to Oliver’s other cheek, I thought in order to spare me the embarrassment of not being first with the kisses.

  ‘And you think she could kiss a man she might intend to kill?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes. Any woman could. That woman, certainly.’

  ‘You’ve got your teeth into this, haven’t you?’ he asked, though not expecting a reply. ‘Now it’s a crusade, to save his life, to rescue him from the wicked—’

  ‘Don’t make fun of it, please.’

  ‘Sorry. I was being facetious. Would you like me to save you a lot of trouble? I can take you around and introduce you to the various people who would’ve loved the chance to kill Harris Steadman. That would save you having to dig it all out yourself. I’d tell you their individual motivations: the ones whose wives he’d seduced, or daughters he’d got into trouble, or the ones he’d cheated over money, the ones he’d shopped to us over paltry misdemeanours—oh yes, he was an informer. We reckoned he was trying to build up goodie-points, so that we’d slide over his own questionable activities. Or maybe you’d like to meet the ones he’d ruined with snide rumours—and simply because they’d offended him. Or…women. The ones he cast off—oh yes, I know it’s equality time. They’d claim they’d done the casting. But if so, he’d given them ample cause. The man whose son he crippled with his dangerous driving, and we could never prove it. The man he blinded in one eye with half a bottle in a pub fight. The one—’

  ‘All right. All right,’ I cut in. ‘That’ll do. But can you show me one person amongst that lot who didn’t like Clare—enough to plant the shooting on her?’

  ‘Now that would be difficult, to find anybody who doesn’t like her.’

  He looked at me for a long while, waiting for a reply, and I had to say something.

  ‘Perhaps somebody who’s seen through her.’

  He shook his head, perhaps in mild approval. ‘And you’ve known her for how long? An hour—two hours? You’re very quick, Miss Lowe. Clare lives an act—all her own scripting. I bet she’d have difficulty, herself, sorting out the real Clare from amongst it all. But nobody takes her too seriously.’

  ‘Not enough to—’

  ‘To harm her, no.’ He smiled. ‘So you’d have difficulty in finding one person with sufficient motive for both—a strong enough motive.’

  ‘A fallacy!’ I said sharply. ‘What seems paltry to one person can be vastly important to another. And surely you could find me one person who doesn’t like Clare.’

  He nodded. Now his expression indicated that he was at least taking me seriously. ‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘There’re people who don’t like her—jealousy, perhaps. She has her own special way with men—and why not, with her own husband gadding about…’

  ‘All right. You’ve made your point.’

  ‘But if you’d care to have lists of both suspects—those who hated Harris and those who didn’t like Clare—and match them together…you might get a few names that way. Or we could feed the names into a computer, and see what that throws up…’

  ‘You’ve made your point. A surfeit of suspects.’

  ‘You’ll have to face the problem some time.’

  I was, by that time, unable to decide what we had seen of the fête and what we had not. It had become a confusing kaleidoscope of movement, in which I no longer had an interest. I wanted only to get away from this persistent creature, time to collect my thoughts.

  ‘But of course,’ said the persuasive voice in my ear, ‘you could approach it from the opposite direction. Look carefully at your intentions, and it doesn’t have to include the production of another murderer.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘Clare’s not your basic concern. It’s Oliver’s positive innocence you’re really after, and you’d do best to concentrate on that. Proving Clare’s innocence wouldn’t help Oliver, and might do just the opposite. So…I’d advise you to try to find some fact or detail that makes it absolutely impossible for Oliver to have done it. Then nobody’s going to worry that you might come up with a fresh and possibly embarrassing murderer.’

  I was so involved with my thoughts that I hadn’t noticed we had entered the refreshments marquee. He left me standing while he fetched me a terribly strong cup of tea and six lumps of sugar—playing safe. He sat me down at a trestle table. He leaned forward, a can of beer in one fist.

  ‘But the trouble with that,’ he said, as though there’d been no break, ‘is the fact that Oliver’s innocence in this matter would be difficult to prove.’

  ‘You think so?’ I was distant with him.

  ‘Yes. The motive’s there, you see. He would wish to free her from that monster she was married to. The
weapon was there, her gun left on the terrace, and he was the first on the scene. And the opportunity: she’d left the front door open for him. She heard a shot when he could have been in the house, and he said he hadn’t heard it. And only Oliver could have fitted all these points.’

  I’d used all six lumps of sugar, feeling I was in need of energy.

  ‘So you’d suggest?’ I asked softly. ‘My next move?’

  ‘To take him away from here. And soon.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No? Then let me tell you…why d’you think he was taken off the case?’

  ‘His involvement with Clare.’

  ‘Amorous involvement? No. Not because of a question of possible bias. It was because the chief super suspected him. From the very beginning.’

  ‘The beginning…’ I wasn’t seeing him clearly.

  ‘He didn’t think that Clare would’ve been capable of shooting her husband, him sitting against that wall and incapable of movement, shooting him callously…’

  ‘He couldn’t have known her. She is,’ I assured him. ‘But he thought that Oliver would’ve been quite capable of it?’

  ‘Apparently.’

  ‘But you didn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you tell him, that stupid chief super?’

  ‘He didn’t ask.’

  ‘And you didn’t offer…’

  ‘It wasn’t my place.’

  ‘Damn your place!’

  ‘Shall we go and look at the stalls?’ Abruptly, he dismissed the subject.

  I got to my feet. ‘You can—but not with me.’

  ‘Madame Acarti, the gypsy fortune teller, is with us. You could ask her about your future prospects. It’ll cost you fifty pence.’

  ‘Madame Acarti! I bet she’s a pretty little WPC you’ve planted…’

  ‘Sergeant, actually.’

  He was not to be shaken. I couldn’t shame him into anything. He was hard, a professional. He did it by the book. I walked away as he got to his feet, but he was at my shoulder before I emerged into the blinding sunlight. He steered me free of the crowd, slowly up towards the house.

  ‘It’s logical,’ he said. ‘She knows most of the sins committed in this area—and everybody knows her. So she can safely predict their fortunes—unless they behave. Call it a gentle, private warning.’

  ‘Like a witch doctor,’ I said in disgust.

  ‘Or a priest,’ he suggested gently.

  ‘The gypsy’s warning!’ I paused and stared at him. ‘And they pay for it?’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s a bit like paying a tiny fine in order to avoid a larger one. And it all goes to charity.’ He grinned disarmingly as I stopped and stared him in the face. ‘And unofficially she can reveal that we know rather more of what’s going on than they thought.’

  So he didn’t work exactly to the book.

  ‘Perhaps I ought to consult her after all.’

  ‘It might be a good idea.’

  ‘I know what she’d say. I’m a star-crossed lover who ought to take my man away. Before it’s too late.’

  He shrugged. ‘I haven’t her vision. She communes with the spirits, and they speak to her.’

  I laughed. ‘The spirits she communes with—I bet she couldn’t talk back afterwards.’

  For several moments he stared at me blankly. I had the idea he was suppressing a smile, because he intended to say something I should take seriously. Then he nodded, and said, ‘All the same, I’d advise you to visit her.’

  ‘Perhaps I’ll do that.’

  He strolled away without another word. I watched until he’d disappeared in the crowd around the hand-wrestling table. His choice of the word ‘visit’ instead of ‘consult’ had been, I was sure, intentional.

  Then I saw Oliver approaching, bouncing up the slope buoyantly, his red face shining with sweat and a magnificent grin, and walking with one hand behind him. He stood in front of me, legs spread, and produced what he’d been hiding. It was a battered old rubber wellington boot.

  ‘Look what I’ve won!’

  ‘You came first?’

  ‘Third.’

  ‘Oh! What was the second prize?’

  ‘The other one. It’s in better condition.’

  ‘And the first?’

  ‘A whole pair.’

  ‘And who won that?’

  ‘Glenn Thomas. You might have guessed. He does it every year, they tell me.’

  ‘Then I’ll have to see our Mr Thomas later,’ I told him. ‘We’ll weigh it first, then we’ll ask him, and if he’s willing to give it a try…’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about, Phil? You’ve been out in the sun too long.’

  ‘We still haven’t discovered what happened to that missing shotgun. I want to try a little test. We haven’t got a shotgun, so we’ll put gravel or stones in your wellie, hold them in place with a bundle of newspaper or something, and get it to eight or nine pounds…then we’ll have something to experiment with. How clever of you to win it. You must have known how useful it would be.’

  He clutched his trophy to his chest. ‘You’re not having this.’

  Sometimes he can be irritating, either on purpose or because he doesn’t realise. He was staring at me now with a fierce possessiveness.

  ‘What d’you want to do with it?’ I demanded. ‘Spray it with gold paint and stand it on your mantelpiece?’

  ‘You’re not going to throw my wellie around.’

  At that point I realised he was ribbing me. ‘Idiot!’ I said. ‘But you do see what I’m getting at?’

  He held out his left hand, palm upwards, his wellie standing on it. No doubt he was considering its effectiveness on his mantel. ‘I’ve been to consult Madame Acarti,’ he told me, squinting at the boot.

  ‘A fake.’

  ‘Oh yes. It’s Sergeant Alice Carter. She warned me to beware of a woman with ginger hair.’

  ‘It’s not ginger. It’s copper.’

  ‘Spun gold, and I’d still have to beware. Now I’m beginning to see what she meant.’

  I was feeling impatient with him. ‘But you do see what I’m trying to prove, or demonstrate, or whatever it is?’

  ‘Not really, Phil. Perhaps you’d explain.’ But he wasn’t taking me very seriously.

  I had to admit it was tit-for-tat. Men do make such a fuss about their physical triumphs, and they expect them to be applauded. I had very nearly brushed his aside when it really had been an achievement, as he’d had to use his left arm when he’s basically right-handed. And he’d probably never before whanged a wellie.

  ‘But of course,’ I said, ‘we don’t need to call on Glenn Thomas. If you can’t do it, nobody could.’

  He looked blank.

  ‘Don’t you see what I’m getting at?’ I asked, and he plainly didn’t. ‘There’s a gun missing. You maintain that the lawn was searched meticulously. So one got away. I simply want to find out if it would have been possible to throw a shotgun from the French windows, and over the hedge. If so, it could have slid on down the slope and been picked up later—the next day or the day after that—by literally anybody, and kept on the principle of finders-keepers. In which case, we could forget the missing gun. It wouldn’t enter into things. But if it couldn’t have been thrown that far, and it wasn’t on the lawn when your lot searched…then it was deliberately taken away from there. And the point would then be—why? You do see that, Oliver?

  He had long ago lowered the wellie, and in fact had dropped it at his feet. Now he was eyeing me with pursed lips, gently shaking his head.

  ‘And if you reached that point, Phil?’ he asked. ‘If it came to the question: why? Then what? Frankly, I don’t care why. Nobody cares. Only you, Phil. Only you.’

  ‘Oh, but they do.’ The interruption came from just behind my left shoulder. I turned. Glenn Thomas was nodding in agreement with me, Josie clinging to his arm.

  But somehow he managed to project a hint of aggression, possibly a leftover from the ef
fort of winning a physical challenge. He still bore the air of bouncy complacency that one associated with a winner. His jaw was thrust at me, his smile robbing it of any suggestion of displeasure.

  I raised my eyebrows at him, not sure what he meant. He moved round to face me, now standing at Oliver’s left shoulder.

  Josie was left standing beside me, apparently in my support. Glenn was no longer wearing the jacket he’d had on when we first met him. Now it was jeans and a shirt open to the waist, displaying quantities of sweat-glistening hair.

  ‘Everybody cares,’ he assured me. ‘Look around you. How many people can you count? One hundred, two hundred? Three? It doesn’t matter. But ask any one of them, over the age of fourteen, ask ‘em if they want you here, sticking your nose in their affairs. Oh, you’d get your answer, Miss Philipa Lowe. It’s over. Done with. Clare’s served her term, for doing the whole district a favour. It’s over and done with.’

  I could have argued with this. She’d earned remission. It wasn’t quite the same. But I nodded. Let him say it, I thought. What he said could matter. I nodded for him to go on.

  ‘He’s right, you know,’ said Josie at my elbow.

  And Glenn went on, ‘You and your proving this and proving that…I’ve heard. The rumour’s around—there’s a gun missing from the collection. So somebody liberated a top-class shotgun. Bully for him. You want to find out who? Is that it? Hah! Fat chance of that.’

  ‘I’d like to know how,’ I said quietly. ‘Not necessarily who.’

  He jerked a hand angrily. ‘What’s it matter how?’

  ‘The obvious way would be if Harris managed to throw it over the hedge. The simplest. But I don’t reckon that would be possible.’

  ‘Of course it’s possible. Don’t you say, Oliver, old sport? Course it’s possible.’ He gripped Oliver’s left arm, shaking it.

  Oliver looked down at the hand. ‘I couldn’t do it, I’m certain of that.’

  ‘Sure you could.’

  ‘Not now you’ve mangled my biceps, I couldn’t.’

  It could not have been paining him. One eyelid flicked at me. ‘Then I will!’ Glenn shouted. ‘Damned if I won’t.’