‘I’ve got to assume’, I went on at last, during a lull in the display, ‘that Harris staggered back against the wall, stunned and bleeding…but alive. From that moment onwards, there would have been no way out of that room except the door.’ I lifted my shoulders and allowed them to fall wearily.
‘So that was how the door came to be unlocked. But first…first there was something else that had to be done. Something that now seemed of the greatest importance. I don’t know the circumstances that made it necessary, but the provocation must have been very strong.’ I waited for a comment there, but there was no sound. Not even an indrawn breath. This was something that affected, even involved, the whole community. The truth. And now I had a vision of it. They waited.
‘Harris had to be removed,’ I said, trying to force strength into my voice. ‘Or put down might be a better way of describing it. Like a savage dog. And there he was, no longer able to sneer and bully, and the thought of this creature possibly remaining alive would have been insupportable. And there were guns lying around, all over the floor, and cartridges available. It would take only seconds to load a barrel, load and fire, and put him out of his misery. Put the whole district out of misery.’ I took a breath. ‘And that was the second shot, heard by Clare as she was sitting in the room opposite, phoning the police.’
Glenn spoke up in a small, cold voice. ‘Is there much more of this? You’re upsetting Josie.’
‘I don’t want to upset anybody,’ I assured him. ‘I’m trying to get a firm grip on the truth, and I don’t like what I see of it. There’s something else…’
‘Must we?’ Oliver cleared his throat. ‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘Oh…don’t I wish it was. But you see, Oliver, it seems so clear to me that the visitor couldn’t have been a man, as Clare assumed. It had to be a woman.’
There was a rustling, a muttering, in the background, immediately drowned by a series of violent explosions and flares of colour over the lake. I waited. Paused. There was silence. ‘May I go on?’
Oliver cleared his throat. Nobody tried to shout me down. Although the night was again exploding in colour and whines and howls, strangely the silence surrounding us seemed to form a vacuum, the fireworks only a background that lent the real-life picture more colour and reality.
‘Imagine how it would’ve been,’ I therefore went on. ‘Harris took his visitor into the gunroom, to wait there while he tackled Clare about money. But why the gunroom? And why—and this is what Clare told me a few minutes ago—why had he already switched the key to the inside of the door, if he hadn’t planned to lock Clare out? So…why the gunroom? There were countless other rooms—there’s a bedroom Clare showed us. The first thought is that he’d intended—promised—to hand over one, two…however many guns I wouldn’t know…to cover the debt. But if that had been the intention, well, he’d been refused money, so why didn’t he do just that? No. Instead, he had to start, at once, on his gun-throwing act. Why? To vent his anger? Yet his anger had been aroused, by Clare, after he’d chosen the gunroom to shelter his visitor. No. I believe he’d already planned the gun-throwing episode. During the trip home, he’d planned it, knowing the probable outcome of any interview with Clare, and intending to make a grand display of terrifying brutality. It was just luck that he had a thunderstorm to add a violent background. Doesn’t that sound as though he had a woman he intended to terrify? Would a man be equally impressed?’
I paused. Nothing was said. I felt I wasn’t putting it over very well. I took another breath. ‘And in any event, it must surely have been a woman, because a man wouldn’t have let it go on—would have intervened. If only verbally. But nothing was heard or seen of this visitor by Clare.’
Rockets burst high in the night, a silver-white and blue eruption.
‘And I believe Clare knew that,’ I said quietly, ‘because the taunts and the fury that she threw at Harris were phrased around a pregnancy he had told her was the basis of his money troubles. He’d wanted the money, he told her, to terminate a pregnancy. It was another hint that he had a woman in there with him, that specific pregnant one.’
Glenn cut in flatly. ‘I think we’ve heard enough of this.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘If I leave it now, there’ll be no end to the speculation. I’m sorry about it—but you’re entitled to hear it, then you can say or do what you like about it. All right?’ I watched as he lowered his head, as his hand closed fiercely on Josie’s. I went on.
‘I expect everybody in the district knew about Harris’s debts, but these were mainly loans from his mates. Men. There’s only one woman to whom he could’ve been indebted, the one he might have been able to cheat—his business partner. And wasn’t that you, Josie?’
She didn’t reply, but she knew now what I intended. I felt her hand on my knee, gently squeezing. ‘Finish it,’ she said quietly.
‘Very well,’ I said. I’d finish it, though I hated the thought. ‘But I’ll have to do a bit of guessing, so stop me if I go wrong. All right? Well…after that shot, which was the one that killed Harris, it became necessary to get out of the house, and that required that the door to Clare’s sitting-room had to be passed. But Clare was inside there, by that time. She could be heard on the phone, shouting that she’d killed her husband. Well, perhaps she really believed that, and perhaps she deserved the credit for it. There was no time to think about that, though. So it was out through the corridors and to the front door. Missing Oliver by seconds, I wouldn’t be surprised. And still carrying the shotgun…’
‘Yes,’ Josie whispered. ‘I saw Oliver arriving. His car. I hid in the maze.’
They were the first words in confirmation of my theory that I’d heard. Glenn said something incoherent, though he must have known it was too late to intervene.
‘And you ran round to the back?’ I asked Josie.
‘Yes.’ She hesitated. ‘After Oliver had been round there, and come hurrying back. Yes, I went round, but not exactly ran.’
‘Why round the back?’ I asked. ‘Why not along the drive?’ I thought about that for a moment, then I got it. ‘Of course…Harris wasn’t the only hated object around here. There was Clare. Clare with her horrid self-promoted superiority. Clare with her calm assumption of devotion and approbation. But Clare, too, with her secret, snide viciousness. Am I right? It’s there, behind the facade.’
‘All too right,’ said Glenn heavily.
‘And you would need to go round the back,’ I suggested gently to Josie, ‘because Glenn was the one you had to go to now. And straight across the fields was the shortest way.’
She smiled. I caught that in the back-glow, as the fireworks headed towards their climax, a frenzied arc of multi-coloured streamers.
‘So,’ I suggested, ‘if Clare thought she’d shot Harris, that could be arranged. It would have to look as though she really had, in that room, the way it was done. It needed just that one small touch of detail. Only one cartridge had been fired from Clare’s gun. It had to appear that she’d fired two—at separate times. That was the third shot, a shot at nothing, at the sky, from Clare’s gun, which was then left where she’d dropped it, as though she’d let it fall from the inside through the hole in the window. Then the other weapon, the one that had really killed him, was taken away. And that was the missing Darne that she’s been making such a fuss about.’
There was silence. Now the sky was abruptly dark, a sudden darkness which was in some way more effective than the display. The final soft whisper of the last hot detritus hissing into the water was like a great sigh.
And following it was a resounding roar of applause and appreciation. Then, in the silence, Oliver said quietly, ‘Can I have the torch for a second?’
I pushed it towards him. I didn’t know what he meant.
‘I’ve been sitting on something,’ he explained. ‘For ages. It’s been agony, but I didn’t dare move a muscle. It would’ve distracted you, Phil.’
I felt that this was an attempt to lighten
the mood, which was like a heavy pall around us. In the immediate vicinity, nobody was moving, nobody was getting to their feet, about to leave.
Oliver levered himself round and aimed the torch. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘It’s what I guessed. It’s the stump that plaque was nailed to. It felt like the stump. Agony, it’s been. It’s a funny sort of stump, though. Wide but not deep, and the top edge seems to be curved inwards. You know what it looks like to me—it’s the butt of a gun.’
He said this with no air of surprise at the discovery. He had noted it previously, and he’d had time for thought.
‘The Darne,’ I whispered.
I was aware that there was still no sign of departure from the group immediately around us. Glenn, too, became aware of this. He turned his head. The light from the torch caught a profile that was extremely stern and angry.
But his voice was quiet. ‘It’s all right,’ he said reassuringly.
Then they at last moved—but not very far. A few yards only, possibly still not out of hearing. It seemed a very quiet night, now. To the left, far down the slope, there was still activity around the floodlit tent where Alice Purslowe had died.
‘Country folk,’ said Glenn, ‘as you’d call us, have to have good eyesight and good hearing. You need to be able to hear the lambs caught in a snowdrift, or locate your cattle in the dark. They heard, you know. They heard every word. They heard, and they’ll remember.’
‘I did realise that,’ I told him.
‘And d’you think you can take your story from here? Don’t you imagine they’d stop you? Somehow.’ It was a gentle, implied threat.
‘It’s not a story,’ I told him. ‘It’s the truth. The only truth.’
‘The police are still working down there,’ he went on. ‘You’d need to do no more than walk down the slope, and tell your story all over again.’
‘That wasn’t my intention. In any event—we haven’t heard it all, have we, Glenn?’
‘And when the rest’s been said?’
‘Then you can get my car out of the crush, if it’s still necessary, and we’ll go home.’
Beside me, Josie muttered in protest. Oliver, I saw, the torch still switched on and beneath his hand, was crouched in a tense posture, like a protective wild animal about to fly to intercept any approaching danger.
‘And we’ll go home, Oliver,’ I repeated, addressing this to him now, trying to relax him.
‘And tell the police there,’ said Glenn flatly.
‘No. Oh no. Let the guilt lie where it is now, with the real guilty party.’
‘I’m not so sure—’
‘Hush now,’ said Josie. ‘Don’t be foolish, Glenn. Trust Philipa. I’m sure we can.’
There was a mutter around us in the shadows. It didn’t sound like a dangerous one to me.
I hesitated a moment, then I suggested, ‘The plaque? Can you tell us about that?’
Josie nodded, bit her lip, glanced at Glenn, then stared down at the grass, down at the plaque, which was lying there. Her voice was low, but now the air was crystal clear, only the acrid smell of explosives gently drifting towards us. It was becoming cold. Josie shivered.
‘We could go somewhere else,’ I suggested.
‘No,’ she said, but giving it no emphasis. ‘Here. It’s more real, here.’
We waited, while she collected her thoughts, while she worked out the best way to purge it from her memory.
Then she began.
13
‘It was a Friday,’ she reminded me. ‘Wages day for us. I’d got a little girl—she’s still with me, but not so little now…anyway, she was good with the books, the day-to-day work and the wages. Margery, her name is. But I had a qualified accountant to prepare the company statements for the Inland Revenue. Everything was in order. Or I thought it was, fool that I am. But that morning, when I went to the bank to cash a cheque for the wages, that morning, they told me we were out of funds. Out of funds! Well…I mean. You feel such a fool. I was never so ashamed in my life. Anyway…we got round it. I went in to see the manager, and we arranged an overdraft. It’s different, you know, with a company. A different thing to being a person. He said I ought to have a word with my accountant, and I said I’d do that. Back to Margery, who was wondering where I’d been. Cautious—you know—not wanting to ask but she could see I was upset. But I did get an appointment with my accountant. For that afternoon. So I had to wait till then, and me worried half out of my mind. I suppose it’s the way you’re brought up, but I’ve always hated being in debt. You know. I’ve never known time go so slow. Slowly. And I couldn’t concentrate on what I was doing. I’ll swear that everybody must have thought I was going crazy.’
She stopped. Nobody said anything. I noticed that a small amount of light filtered through the hedge behind me. Clare still had the gunroom lights on. Presumably she was still admiring her guns. Then Josie went on.
‘I went to see the accountant. Nice man called…oh lord, I’ve forgotten his name…it doesn’t matter. He listened, and told me he’d been worried, the last two years, about our accounts. Two years. Me, I could never understand the figures he turned out. But, I mean, you trust people like that…don’t you…otherwise there’s no point. So long as the books balanced. Oh, they balanced all right…but only with a thumb on one pan. You get what I mean. And that thumb was something to do with certain entries. So he’d been worried…oh, I’ve said that. I’m so confused.’
‘It’s all right,’ I said. ‘No hurry.’
‘Yes…well…it came down to the fact that Harris had been cheating me. Cheating the company, I suppose. For nigh on five years. Not slipping in cheques for himself. Oh…nothing like that. He couldn’t have. It was me that drew the cheques. But it wasn’t just the odd few pounds. He was our traveller, on the sales side. You expect a bit of kind of rigging. A bit. But we were short of nigh on…well, something in the thousands. And there I’d been, dead sure we were doing all right. I mean to say—our stuff was selling, and our designs were being copied. That’s supposed to be a good sign. Fancy that. Makes you think. Anyway…there’d never been much in the way of profits, not what I’d expected, anyway. Did I say that? Stop me if…’
‘You’re doing fine,’ I murmured.
‘Yes. Well, you can guess. I’d got to see him. Harris. See him and put it to him. So I had to hang around the office after everybody had left, waiting for him. Waiting to hear an explanation. Praying there’d be an explanation, because Harris wasn’t the sort of man you could reason with. Oh no. His temper was always quick and violent. And then he came. A bit drunk. I would’ve expected that, ‘cause he was late. He was supposed to report in on Fridays. But d’you know…you’d hardly believe it…but he’d been out shooting, keeping me waiting. Shooting, and me there, waiting! And by that time I was feeling really terrible.’
Glenn said, ‘No need to go into that, Josie.’
‘Oh, but it is. It’s part of it. And Philipa knows that, I can tell. Do let me tell it as I want to, Glenn, please.’ She returned her attention to me. ‘Feeling terrible, as I said. I suppose it was all the tension that day, and it’d upset things. And I couldn’t relax, you know, couldn’t sit a minute. By the time he did come, I was in quite a bit of pain.’
‘Yes,’ I said. Oliver was silent. I guessed what was coming, and wished I hadn’t got to hear it.
‘I gave it to him,’ said Josie. ‘Face to face. As well as I could, anyway. But he was a big man. You’ve met ‘em. Overpowering. It’s difficult to throw accusations in such a person’s face. And I think he’d been drinking. On his breath. You could smell it. He just waved his hand, just dismissing everything, you know how they are. And he sneered. Hadn’t I ever heard of the perks of the job, he asked me. Oh yes. Perks. Of course I had, but that was the cheaper hotels the travellers went to, and they gave out fake bills. It’s all right. I knew about that. We weren’t losing. I’d have expected to pay for good hotel rates. Well…he was angry, blustering, as though I’d got no right to
question anything he did. The louse. You’d have thought it was my fault…and I got a full list of the women he’d got lined up in the different areas, and his free nights with them. You’d never believe! No expenses there—but he claimed all the same. He as good as boasted they paid him. Can you imagine it! But quite simply—and he shouted this in my face—he’d imagined a large part of his claims. And me—oh, I’d never thought of querying anything. You don’t do you? Then there were the other things. You can be sure he told me the lot, once he got going. Sweeteners, he’d claimed, for sales pushed in our direction, and all fakes, fakes.’
She was becoming more and more upset, as she locked herself into the memory. Glenn put a hand round her shoulders. ‘You don’t need to go on.’ But she eased herself free. ‘Yes, I do. I want to say it. I’ve been holding it back…Leave me alone, Glenn, please. Let me say it.’
Glenn grimaced at me, and frowned: You see what you’ve started?
‘It got to the point’, she said, ‘of him shouting at me and demanding how much it was. How much I thought it was. Even then, a sneer, as though most of it could never be proved, and I told him a figure…more a guess than anything…and he got all aggressive, walking round waving his arms, and shouting that I’d be lucky. I’d be lucky. But I was terribly frightened, and all the time the pain was getting worse. I just had to cut it short, so I told him, in the morning I was going to take it to the police. Because it was theft, after all. I suppose. Not just theft from me…theft from the company.’
Oliver grunted. I had to suppose he was agreeing.
‘And then?’ I asked.
‘He wanted to know how much. I’ve told you that. Yes. And I had to say…oh, I didn’t know, more a guess than anything…oh, I’m getting all flustered. I’m sorry. Anyway—the way I put it—I said I’d ask my accountant to go all through it. I could see his face getting redder. But I said it, and he shouted at me. Name a figure. Name a figure! So I said ten thousand. For now, I told myself. It’d do for now. He laughed his head off. You’ll be lucky, he said, sort of challenging, so I replied with the first thing that came into my head. I told him I’d see Clare in the morning…oh, and that did it!
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