‘I don’t know, Clare.’
‘You’re not very bright, are you?’ she asked severely, annoyed that I was pressing her. ‘Walking down that slope, that was what I’d planned. Walking down all casual-like, pretending I was just another ordinary visitor, walking down to be lost amongst them. Then somebody seeing me, and the word going round. Like a fire in a gale. And swarming up towards me, welcoming, wanting to shake my hand, kiss my cheek. Welcoming.’ She paused to take a deep breath, for the flush to fade from her cheeks.
‘Clare?’
‘Oh…I didn’t want that ridiculous crush. So degrading! You don’t know—you can’t imagine—what it’s like. Shut away. Nobody who’s really your friend. And in the background, waiting…this’. She waved a hand majestically, embracing the whole scene. ‘With this here, and me there, and all my local friends from far and wide…waiting for me to arrive. I wanted it all, in one big slice. My home, my fields, my lake, my fête, my friends, all welcoming. Oh dear God…and now you’ve got me all…’
She put both hands to her face, and I knew she was weeping. Clare was a woman with too much emotion compressed into that compact and vibrant body. She was a woman who could in no way control it. But the joys, the compassions and the distresses were her own. They did not extend beyond her compact aura.
‘I’ll leave you for a minute, Oliver,’ I said, not looking at him.
‘No, you won’t. I’ll be right outside the door.’
Clare looked at him fondly. ‘You’ve got a good man there, Philipa,’ she told me, as one who knew. ‘Make sure you keep hold of him. Never let him go.’
Oliver said nothing. I felt his hand urgently on my elbow. We walked past her, through the gunroom—not pausing to admire the guns, also back home—and into the corridor.
‘I don’t know what you saw in her,’ I said quietly.
He hadn’t released my elbow. ‘You know…in the country of the blind.’
‘One eye on your career, and the blind one for Clare?’
I left him to work that one out.
It was a guests’ cloakroom, this one for the ladies. Oliver would have to find his own, or a hedge. No, not find the gents’; he was intending not to leave my side, which worked the other way round, too. A hedge it would have to be. The set-up in there was delicately correct, pale blue porcelain wash-basins, and those small individual cakes of soap, lavender perfumed, in their wrappings. One long mirror filled the facing wall, its glass tinted blue.
I had to suppose, this having been Mad Harry’s creation, that the boys got the pink suite.
Josie Knight was washing her hands at one of the basins. ‘Hello again,’ I said. ‘It’s been quite a day.’
‘That it has.’ But she seemed repressed. ‘Shocking, isn’t it!’
‘What?’ Though I knew what she meant.
‘That revolting stabbing. How dare they ruin the day!’
That seemed an original point of view.
‘I don’t imagine that would’ve been the intention,’ I said mildly. The hand-towels were beautifully soft, these in a darker blue, with an embroidered motif in the corners: CS.
‘They could’ve done it somewhere else, couldn’t they? Some other time. If somebody hated the woman…oh, damn and blast it!’
‘She had two children, Josie.’
‘Oh dear lord!’
‘And I don’t think she was the intended target, anyway.’
‘What d’you mean by that?’ She gazed down at her soapy hands.
‘I took the wrong chair. She had what should have been mine.’
Josie clamped her hands to her face. I hadn’t had the impression that she’d intended to wash it. Her response was violent, but distorted.
‘That’s sheer bloody nonsense,’ she burst out. ‘Who’d want to kill you?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And why? Why, in heaven’s name?’
Now her eyes were visible above her fingers. Perhaps she’d got soap in them; they were flooded with tears.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Of course you know.’
I shrugged, and proceeded to wash my own face. I managed to say, ‘I haven’t the faintest idea.’
‘You must have,’ she persisted. She was drying her face, not paying attention to details. ‘You’d know if somebody had got it in for you.’
‘I know they have. I don’t know why. Somebody I’ve offended deeply, something I’ve heard or seen, and it might suddenly mean something. Something relative to Harris’s death. But I don’t know what.’
I smoothed the towel gently over my cheeks. To myself, in the mirror, I looked pale and exhausted.
She was tidying herself in a desultory fashion, patting her hair into position, flexing her lips and running a finger along her eyebrows. She picked up her bag. Previously, I recalled, she had been wearing minimal make-up. She made no attempt to replace it.
‘Well…’ she said. ‘I’ll see you again, perhaps.’ Then, at the door and as though as an afterthought, she added, ‘Look after yourself.’
I heard her make a small tense sound, no doubt at Oliver’s presence at the door.
It didn’t take me long to complete what I had to do. Like Josie, I’d never used much make-up. I did a quick job of it, suddenly longing to be at Oliver’s side again. I’d paid special attention to my hands and arms. Somebody had cleaned off the blood, but I had to be certain. There were traces behind my nails. But I felt restored when I went out to Oliver.
‘Josie was upset,’ he said.
‘Yes. I think she hadn’t realised—about the murder. It was just a person who’d been killed, an incident. She hadn’t realised that Alice Carter had two children. That brought it close to her.’
‘Being a woman…’
‘Not simply that. She’d said something earlier, about her relationship with Glenn. How long, she said, before he decided he didn’t just want a wife, but a wife and children. Or words to that effect.’
He paused as we reached the gunroom door. ‘Meaning—she can’t have any?’
‘That was how I took it.’
‘Yes. Poor Josie, then.’
He reached for the door handle. I put my hand on his wrist. ‘Just a second, Oliver, please.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘It’s just—this was the door that was locked, wasn’t it?’
‘On the night of the storm, yes.’
‘There’s still the question of how she got in, Oliver. If it was locked.’
‘There’s the evidence of the smashed table—bits all over the floor, where you’re standing. That seems to indicate it was locked. If you look closely, you’ll even be able to see the dents she put in the surface.’
‘I’m sure I would. But was it locked? I mean—we’re getting to know Clare and her truths and untruths.’
‘She said it was locked.’
‘So how could she have got in?’
‘She claimed she hadn’t got in.’
‘If she was lying, and it was unlocked…’
‘She said it was locked,’ he repeated stubbornly. ‘She was so confident it was still locked when she got back in the house that she didn’t even trouble to try it. So she said.’
‘Yet it was unlocked when you tried it.’
‘That’s true.’ He looked at me with a slight smile. It might have been me hammering at an oak door.
‘Put it another way, then, Oliver. How did your lot maintain she got in?’
‘I thought I’d told you this. The super reckoned that Harris must have unlocked it himself, when he realised he was seriously hurt.’
‘I just can’t accept that. He’d be in shock. Wouldn’t know what he was doing. I can visualise him staggering back and slumping against the wall. But managing to unlock a door, no. Unlocking it during the gun-throwing session? But he didn’t have time—and Clare would’ve seen him do it, surely.’
‘But Phillie, sweetheart, it was unlocked when we got here.’
; ‘Then perhaps it never was locked. Don’t forget, that’s Clare’s story, and you know how much credence you’ve got to put on that. In any event, somebody must have got in, because he was shot. So…’
I shrugged in dismissal, and left it at that.
‘So why not ask her?’ he suggested, grinning.
I had no objection to that. The only difficulty involved would be to tie her down to the truth. Small chance of that, I thought, unless we had the time to pull out a few nails. Toes first, or fingers?
I was still making a decision when Oliver opened the door, and we walked in.
Clare was closing the French windows. She turned on hearing us.
‘Ah—there you are. I thought we ought to have a talk.’
11
‘I thought so, too,’ I said.
I left it there, indicating that I was waiting for her to take the lead. There was something about her, an aura, that led me to hesitate. In some way I couldn’t tie down she was different. In this room—her special room—surrounded by her lovely, lovely guns, she had acquired more confidence, as though their potential for violence offered something to her, a resilience. She was now, and at last, her own person, restored to her rightful place.
‘I think I must ask you to leave,’ she said flatly.
‘I can’t do that. My car’s blocked in. And anyway, you suggested we should stay for the fireworks.’
‘I can change my mind, can’t I!’
‘The car’s still blocked in.’
‘A snap of the fingers…’ She illustrated, throwing it at the air. ‘And I could produce a gang of men who could lift it out.’
‘And if I refuse?’
It wasn’t that I was feeling stubborn, just that I wanted to understand this sudden change in attitude.
‘Another snap. You’re forgetting that there are gangs of police all over the place.’
‘But not to do your bidding, Clare. Try it, and I think you’ll discover that’s so.’
Oliver made a supporting noise.
‘You’re trespassing,’ she declared.
‘You’ve asked me to leave—so I suppose I am. I think that’s the law.’ But nevertheless, I managed to sound confident. ‘All right, sue me for trespass. It’d be difficult, seeing you’ve thrown the whole place open to the public. But you could try it—though you’d have to produce some damage I’ve done, to back it up.’
‘Damage!’ she cried, allowing herself a theatrical fling of her arms. ‘Hasn’t it been nothing but damage, ever since you’ve arrived here?’
‘I wouldn’t say that.’
‘Another murder! Isn’t that damage?’
A killing on the day she left the house, under arrest, another on the day she returned! I thought she had a viable reason for being upset. The only trouble with that argument was that she was not upset. Angry, imperious, distraught, yes. But not upset.
Oliver spoke at last. He’d been leaving it to me, nervous of taking sides. ‘It was aimed at Phil, Clare, that murder. There was a mistake.’
I watched as her eyes became blank. It was a new proposition, and she had to think it through. At last…‘I can’t believe that.’ She said it with a toss of her head.
Oliver produced his soothing, no-nonsense voice. ‘The police seem satisfied that the knife was intended for Philipa, Clare. Not for the sergeant.’
‘All the same…that’s as good a reason as any for her to leave, then.’ She nodded to herself at this rationalisation.
‘So that if I’m to be murdered, you’d prefer it to be elsewhere?’ I asked.
‘Naturally.’
‘But if I was killed anywhere else,’ I said patiently, ‘it would still come back here, Clare. Because the necessity for it is here. So wouldn’t it be better for me to stay here until I’ve got at the truth?’
‘You?’ She dismissed that possibility.
I pressed on, ignoring her interruption of scorn. ‘Then I’ll be safe, and you’d be able to sigh with relief.’
‘You’re playing with words, Philipa Lowe,’ she claimed. ‘Using them for your own ends.’
I tried to smile at her, but it came out more like a grin. ‘Then I’d expect your understanding, Clare. Isn’t that what you’re always doing?’
‘That’s a lie!’
‘No, it’s not. You’ve been doing it from the moment we first met. Right up to and including now. Making an impression.’
‘That is not so.’
‘You as good as told me, yourself. Isn’t that what lies are for, Clare—for yourself and your damned childish ego that demands that everybody should think you’re marvellous? The bee’s knees, as my father used to say. The whole facade’s empty and false. You lie and you lie, in order to hide any truth you might find distasteful or unflattering. Or frightening. You don’t need much of an excuse: you lie, if only to keep in practice. From the moment we first met—’
‘Will you be silent!’ she shouted. The walls rang with it; the cabinets quivered; the guns stiffened at the shock.
I was silent, smiling at her now, waiting. Oliver cleared his throat. I prayed he was not about to intrude. There was just a chance—a slim chance—that I might have trapped her into the truth, for once. I’d been reaching for the correct mood.
She moistened her lips. ‘All right!’ Her head jerked up in challenge. ‘Tell me one lie I’ve told. Prove it was a lie…but you can’t. I bet you can’t.’
For a second she’d slipped back to her childhood, and taken me with her.
‘Bet what?’ I challenged. ‘A glarnie and five oncers?’
‘What?’
‘Didn’t you play marbles, Clare?’
‘There was nobody I could play marbles with,’ she said in a flat voice, and a small tragedy peeped out at me. Had her craving for attention been born then?
‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said…’ I jerked my hand, angry with myself. ‘Your lies, Clare…wasn’t it all a lie, what you told the police about Harris’s death?’
She perched herself on the edge of the table. Another of her multiple personae was taking charge: the casual Clare, the relaxed Clare, too bored to trouble with lies.
‘Not much of it,’ she said, her mind searching back. ‘It’s as I told it. We had the row, he locked me out of this room, and he threw my guns out on to the lawn. All truth—or as close as they deserved.’
‘But not the truth, that you actually threw the guns back?’
‘I told you the truth about that—it cancels it out.’ She was almost laughing at me.
‘But only because I’d tried it with that damned wellie.’
‘Yes—that’s so,’ she conceded. ‘But it was the truth.’
All right, so accept that I’d got her round to some element of truth. But she was still allowing herself the luxury of an evasion or two. I let that go.
‘And the row with Harris?’ I asked. ‘Was that the truth, as you told it earlier?’
‘Oh yes.’
‘That you virtually shouted it in his face—that he was sterile?’
She grimaced. ‘If you want to get down to brass tacks—words to that effect.’
‘And true that he told you he wanted the money to procure an abortion?’
‘He knew that would hurt me.’
‘And true that you followed him into the hall and shouted at him…’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Didn’t you? I seem to remember that you did. But you were so furious and distraught that you would have done that. It was, I could claim, a lie by omission.’
She gave me a tiny smile—one that got away before she could trap it, when she really wanted to sound angry. ‘It’s not good enough to earn you a glarnie and two oncers, whatever those are.’
‘Conceded,’ I said. ‘But how…and you realise I’m trying to get a true picture here, Clare…how, if you followed him all the way to the door of this room, did you give him the chance of getting in here and shutting you out?’
I was ta
king it step by step. Only in that way, indicating that I intended to pick her up on every detail, could I expect to extract anything acceptable.
‘D’you think I hadn’t got that in mind?’ she demanded. ‘Hadn’t he said something about my guns might as well be like him, shut out in the cold? Oh no, I wasn’t going to let him get in here, with me locked out.’
This was new to me, and the way she was nodding to herself in self-congratulation indicated it was a truth she could claim with some pride.
‘But he did get in here,’ I said.
‘Yes. But you see—I knew the key was on the outside of the door, and the door locked, because I’d left it like that. So I intended to reach past him and grab the key. Intended. But it wasn’t there. Not any more, it wasn’t. And before I knew what he was up to he’d opened the door, slid in, slammed the door in my face, and I heard the lock being turned over.’
I was watching her with fascination, this new Clare, this truthful Clare. An expression almost of shame was distorting her face. Shame at telling the truth, or shame at allowing herself to admit it? I couldn’t be sure. All I knew was that it was the truth—or very close to it.
‘So you then proceeded to smash a small table against the door?’ Minimally, she shrugged. ‘I had to smash something.’
I knew the feeling. She was standing there now, having slid off the table, her eyes fixed on me, her chin raised in an attitude of challenge, and I found I couldn’t take it on further. Abruptly, my mind had gone chasing away, trying to capture a thought, an idea, that I knew was important. For several moments, it eluded me—then I had it. It was necessary to examine it…
‘Phil?’ said Oliver.
‘Oh…yes…sorry.’
But I had never given concentrated thought to this so-called locked door. I had simply not accepted it. Clearly, the jury had been of the same mind, as the door hadn’t been locked when the police arrived, and it was really too much to have expected Harris himself to have unlocked it. Not before he started throwing the guns, not during the throwing, not after the shot through the glass. So the jury had accepted that it had not been locked at all, and I’d followed suit.
But now…This was a new, circumstantial and graphic description that Clare had produced. It had the clear ring of truth. The door had been locked on the inside. The proposition called for an entirely fresh appraisal.
A Shot at Nothing Page 18
