Mask of Innocence

by Roger Ormerod

  ‘Yes, yes. I see it.’

  ‘It isn’t much of a place,’ she said dubiously, so that we should not be disappointed. ‘Joe’s renting it now, and the bit of land.’

  It was set back where high banks, topped with thorn hedges, lined the lane. Into this had been hacked a gap, and behind it there was a climbing driveway up to the cottage. Beyond this was the dog-run. High chain-link fencing — Dobermanns are very agile — behind it a glimpse of a row of hutments, then we had to draw to a halt. There was no further we could proceed. The cottage was beside us. One bedroom, one living-room, a tiny kitchen. But it was much less than half the age of Jennie’s cottage, and in much better repair.

  They could have married and lived there. But Joe had said nothing about Jennie’s assumption that they would move over and live in the gamekeeper’s lodge, which, although it had more land to go with it, was hardly a jewel. He had observed her delight, that she could present him with that treasure. Although he would be faced with a vast amount of work and worry, he’d not hesitated, but had reacted with pleasure.

  Jennie was tumbling out of the car. ‘We’ve got to go round the back,’ she shouted, and she’d reached there before I’d slammed my door.

  The dogs, seeing strangers, were going wild. At this time they were in their little huts, which might have been miniature Swiss cottages if it had not been for the frontage of vertical bars. Maybe it was delight in welcoming a friend, maybe their stomachs told them it could mean food. I didn’t know anything, except that I wasn’t the friend, and hopefully not the food.

  The compound itself had an inset gate. This had a hasp, but with a padlock hanging in it. To keep the dogs in, not burglars out. Who’d nick a couple of Dobermanns? Jennie opened the gate, waited for us to follow, then fastened it again. Routine, I supposed, for when they were running free. I started praying she’d not be opening the kennel doors with such abandon.

  We had to shout. The clamour was deafening.

  ‘They’re starving!’ cried Jennie, in almost a scream.

  ‘They look very thin to me,’ shouted Amelia, reaching up towards my ear.

  ‘They’re naturally slim dogs. All muscle.’

  ‘And teeth!’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘And teeth,’ she shouted.

  Muzzles were thrust between the bars, which had a three-inch spacing. Tongues flicked out.

  ‘They’re thirsty!’ shouted Jennie.

  ‘Nonsense. There’s water in that one’s bowl. And that one...’

  ‘They drink from that trough over there.’ Jennie waved an arm. I looked round. The trough in question was at the side of the compound.

  ‘You’re not going to let them out?’ I shouted. The clamour was dying down now.

  Jennie shook her head violently. ‘I’m scared.’

  One of them put out a muzzle, and reached a tongue through. I bent down and offered the back of my hand. It no doubt smelt of dogs. It was licked avidly. I put a hand on its nose, and retained all my fingers. ‘I think we could risk it,’ I called out, as they’d moved further along. But the dogs had relaxed into anxious whines.

  ‘Oh no!’ Amelia rushed back and caught at my arm. ‘No, Richard.’

  ‘I’m sure they’re hungry,’ said Jennie. She was almost in tears again. ‘Look how thin they are.’

  ‘Healthy.’

  ‘I’m sure he feeds them about now.’ She drew in her lower lip. ‘Oh...what are we going to do?’

  Her distress seemed excessive, considering that they would eventually be no more than an hour or two late with their food. But Joe had trusted her to do something. But what? That was the point.

  ‘We could risk it,’ I suggested. ‘One at a time.’

  ‘No, Richard...’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ wailed Jennie. The dogs howled back. ‘Poor things.’

  For Jennie, to put an end to her wails, and for the dogs, to put an end to their whines, I was willing to take a few risks. ‘Where can we buy dog food?’ I asked Jennie, moving close to her, close enough to detect she was shaking.

  ‘He doesn’t let them have tinned food.’

  ‘Then what?’

  ‘He gets meat at the butcher’s. I told you that. Lights and things.’ She grimaced. Her head was hunting from side to side.

  ‘Then where do we get—’

  ‘It’ll be in the cottage. In his deep-freeze. He boils it.’

  ‘Yes, yes. But how do we get in? Do you have a key, Jennie?’

  ‘No.’

  I groaned. She was moving from foot to foot with agitation, swinging her arms. Very soon, she’d not be able to say an intelligible word.

  ‘Isn’t there a spare?’ I demanded, loudly and firmly, so that she’d not mistake me.

  ‘Oh yes! Yes...of course.’ She flashed a quick glance at me, sudden release in it, sudden joy. ‘Of course. Silly...’ She meant herself.

  ‘And where’s it kept?’

  ‘Under the flowerpot,’ she said.

  And, standing in the frame of the open gate, there was Detective Sergeant Tate. He was smiling...grinning. ‘Well, fancy that.’ He winked.

  Then he was gone. He would be using his car radio inside a few seconds, and there would be a long wait for the Dobermanns before Joe fed them again, because they would charge him at once. For a spare key, Joe would look under a flowerpot.

  Jennie didn’t realise the significance and stared after him blankly. I asked her...had to shake her arm, ‘Do you know the name of Joe’s breeder friend?’

  She turned up a vacant face to me. ‘I don’t know. Geoff something. I think.’

  ‘Let’s get inside.’

  Yes, there was a spare key underneath the upside-down flowerpot. Yes, it opened the side door. I found Joe’s phone, with a pad beside it, and Geoff’s number written down. Amelia and Jennie were investigating the contents of the deep-freeze, which nearly filled the kitchen, as I dialled the number.

  ‘Are you Joe Torrance’s friend, who breeds Dobermanns?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. If he hasn’t got one that suits you, I can—’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I cut in. ‘We’re in difficulties, here. I’m a friend of Joe’s and of Jennie. At the moment he’s at the police station, being questioned. Very soon, he’s going to be charged.’

  ‘Gerrout! What with?’

  ‘Murder.’

  There was a pause, then, ‘Not Joe, matey. Not Joe. A broken jaw, a rib or two, a leg — and I’d believe it. But he couldn’t kill a rabbit if his dogs were starving.’

  ‘That’s what we’re all worrying about, here. We don’t know what to do about his dogs. Jennie’s in a panic, and heaven knows when Joe’ll be able to get home.’

  ‘Leave it to me. Tell Jennie to leave the key under the flowerpot. I’ll be right over.’

  ‘The flowerpot...’ But he’d rung off.

  17

  I drove carefully. This was not because the concern for Joe’s dogs had now been lifted, not because I wasn’t hungry, but so that I could concentrate. It availed me nothing. I was tracking through the same old facts, visualising the same scenes. There was nothing new. I saw it all with clarity, the images flickering from one frame to the next, like a slide projector gone insane. The body on the floor. And the key. The murderer leaving, locking the door, and taking away the murder weapon. And the key...

  The key, the key!

  Why had it been thrown away, or taken away?

  I saw Tessa, leaning back against her pillow, her feet bare beside me. Dainty feet, pink feet, not hardened from unnecessary walking, for the walking to the lodge to meet her lover had been years ago. Add a year to Jeremy’s age. Then she faded to become a vague shadow of a passionate woman — to the present.

  I saw Jeremy’s agony at the reading of the will — his delight as it became certain that the weight was lifted when he was introduced to the Impressionists’ sketches. Then a flash of image — Lady Chatterley sliding along the table, to be caught by Mary.

&n
bsp; But the key! The key!

  And I saw Joe, denying he knew where the key had been kept, the spare key — when he need not have known. He would simply have reached for it by instinct.

  But the key! The key! Why had it been taken away?

  It made no sense. It would have been a deliberate act, for a purpose, when an easier deliberate act would have been to replace it beneath the flowerpot.

  Then I was getting out of the car and Paul was standing at the door.

  ‘They’ve charged Joe,’ he said. ‘He’s under arrest.’

  Jennie was whimpering, Mary clinging to her, whispering to her, and Paul was saying something about Gladys waiting to serve lunch.

  Lunch? Lunch? Jennie wanted to be taken to see Joe, but I knew she would be refused access to him. I didn’t say so, just shook my head. ‘Later, Jen, later,’ I said. But any time later than now was too late to stem the tears.

  ‘Lunch,’ said Amelia, tugging at my arm, but my mind was in another section of another day. Darkness. Night, with a torch glow streaming across the floor. The key still in the door lock. Surely it would have been left there, in order to draw the door shut on leaving? It had been drawn shut.

  But the key! Why throw it away, or take it away?

  ‘Lunch?’ I said. ‘I’m not hungry.’ Only for understanding.

  ‘Nonsense, Richard.’ Amelia took my arm, and led me to the dining-room, like a blind man. Because, indeed, I saw nothing but the tantalising images.

  If Gladys served the lunch, I was aware of her only as a presence. Joe was her nephew; she moved in a stiff agony of concern. I think I ate, but what I saw on my plate was images. Not food for the inner man. Food for the brain, which was the maker of the images. I watched them as they came and went...

  Jeremy with his hot face streaming with sweat, near collapse on the suitcases he’d strained himself to bring there. ‘It’s locked.’ The sun streaming through the trees, winking at me on the bare, frost-clothed branches. Or from a key that had been thrown there? For why, necessarily, throw it from the cottage door? Why not on the way home?

  The key, the key!

  And...home? Was I assuming something there? On whose way home? For who — if this house was ‘home’ — would walk that night-time path between the trees, a rusted key in his hand?

  But of course...a rusted key would not glint in the sun.

  I think I smiled ruefully to myself. It had shattered my images. An incorrect image, because it was not in the frame of logic. Home? With the key?

  But why — oh heavens why?

  ‘Richard?’ Amelia was saying. ‘Make up your mind.’

  We were standing outside on the front drive, I realised. The sun was weak now, hiding behind immature, fleecy clouds.

  I was aware that Jennie was standing and watching me, haunting me. Wherever I looked, there was Jennie, staring at me with pitiful hope. I was in some way letting her down, failing to measure to her expectations of me. I must wave a magic wand, and produce the key to Joe’s freedom. That stare! Why me?

  ‘Richard!’ Amelia jerked my arm. ‘Do make up your mind.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘We can’t just stand here.’

  ‘I’ve got to think. Shall we take the dogs?’

  ‘Oh yes. We’ve been neglecting them,’ she said.

  She made me feel guilty. ‘I think better when I’m walking,’ I said.

  But she had already hurried away, and in any event it had been a lie. I see too much, sharp, clear, unquestionably real things, a much more solid image than the ones I was trying to capture in my mind.

  The key! I saw someone standing there, at the cottage door, the key in his hand. Deciding. Working it out...to leave or not to leave? Then the image raised an arm, hesitated, made up its mind...and took it away to discard elsewhere. Never to be found.

  But why? Why?

  Then the dogs were upon me, leads trailing. I crouched to them and they thrust at each other for the pleasure of licking the care from my face. I laughed...foolish creatures! They’d thought they had lost...lost what?

  The key? No, he had not lost that blasted, stupid, stubborn key. Amelia said, ‘We’ve only seen the smallest part of the Park. There are acres of it behind the house.’

  We walked round the house, but I remember none of the acres. Down to the river. I called the dogs to heel. At home...the same water, perhaps. There they swam and disported themselves. Otters lived there, had lived there, but fewer now, their food depleted by humanity’s pollution. I called them to heel for the sake of Gladys Torrance’s kitchen. We stared at the water. It was much the same as any other water.

  Pinson walking into the cottage. He wondered what the light was. And a voice whispered: Kill. Kill now. And imprison him for ever in a cell of death, from which he could not be released. Especially if you throw away the key.

  I said, ‘It’s cold here, down by the water.’

  ‘Yes,’ Amelia agreed.

  We turned, and made our way back to the front.

  Jennie stood on the front terrace, watching my activities worriedly. She could see no action, no progress.

  ‘Shall we walk up to the cottage?’ I asked Amelia.

  ‘What is there at the cottage?’ she asked, but she shrugged, and we headed that way. Suddenly Jennie was at my elbow. She said nothing.

  Her anxious reliance on me was like a knife left in its wound. I could not shake it free. I felt her presence, and could do nothing to ease her desperate worry. Joe had been arrested. Only proof by production of the real killer would free him.

  Proof? And I had nothing.

  Pinson — Jennie’s uncle? — walking into the cottage. Silence as they faced each other. ‘Wondered what the light was.’ That from Pinson. Then: ‘Oh — it’s you.’

  But to whom had he been speaking? Speaking his last words? Possibly. Unlikely. There would’ve had to be provocation. It could not have been a sudden, unexpected attack.

  The dogs were now running free. Amelia led the way. She walked down the four stone steps, making a new set of footprints in the mud at top and bottom.

  My foot had almost covered her footprint at the top, when I stopped. It was as though I had walked into a wall. Even, I was slightly giddy for a moment. The dogs made whining sounds. Why had I stopped? I hissed, and they were silent, seated one each side of me.

  ‘Richard,’ said Amelia, ‘what is it?’ She was standing below me, looking up.

  I could manage no more than a whisper. I pointed. ‘Look.’

  Jeremy’s original footprints, pointing away from the house, were still there, frozen in the mud. A right foot at the top, the level surface. Beside it was Amelia’s right footprint, impressed in the mud. At the foot of the steps was Jeremy’s left — beside it Amelia’s right.

  ‘Hold the dogs,’ I managed to get out. I tossed her the leads. She called them in, and fastened their leads. ‘Don’t move from there,’ I said. ‘Please, stay exactly where you are. I’ll be a minute.’

  Then I turned and ran past Jennie to the house. ‘Stay here,’ I shouted. There were barks from both the dogs, who hated to see someone running when they were not. I took the terrace steps in two strides and burst into the hall.

  The DC said, ‘You can’t go in there, sir.’ But I was already in, and had the door shut behind me.

  Phillips eyed me approaching, and was suddenly alert. Jeremy and Paul were still there. They stirred, but said nothing.

  I spoke reasonably calmly, proud of my restraint. ‘I know where the weapon is. I know what happened. Come on...I’ll show you.’

  He was not impressed. ‘Sit down and relax,’ he said placidly. ‘I wanted a word with you, anyway.’

  ‘There’s something—’

  But he wouldn’t allow me to get on with it. He was aglow with an awareness of his own acumen, and in a boastful mood. ‘Sit down. Draw up a chair.’ He gestured.

  I wasn’t going to do that. Couldn’t have done. ‘There’s something you’ve got to see.
’

  He flicked a finger at cigarette ash on the chair arm. ‘I went and let you lead me astray. Images. Visualisations. Tcha! And there we were, trying to build a picture to explain why the key was taken away.’

  ‘So?’ I could barely contain my impatience.

  ‘The obvious, man, the obvious. Never ignore the obvious. What’s the simplest reason you can imagine for removing a key from its usual place?’

  I sighed. ‘I don’t know. Listen—’

  He laughed. ‘Why...to prevent somebody else from using it. Nobody can use a key that isn’t there. Get it?’ He cocked his head. ‘Get yourself a chair.’

  ‘No. Finish what you’re saying, then come outside.’

  He shook his head. He was still thinking about the damned key. ‘But who’d do that? Just look at it from the other direction. Who was it that the removal of the key would stop from getting in? It’d have to be somebody who hadn’t got a key of his own, but would know there was one under the flowerpot. Or ought to be. There’s only one person who fits that, our friend here, Jeremy.’ He inclined his head to Jeremy, who scowled at him, clearly having heard this before. ‘And one person who didn’t want him to get in, because Jeremy had said he intended to, and that was Paul, there.’

  Paul grimaced, and I said, ‘So?’

  ‘So that gives Paul a reason for being there at the cottage last night. And maybe he took a torch, to check his paintings were all right — or some such reason. But he could have been there, and Pinson could have spotted his torch. Now do you see? It puts Paul at the scene of the crime.’

  I couldn’t see what Phillips was playing at. He surely couldn’t have become so desperate that he was blindly casting his hook in all directions, clumsily hoping for a catch.

  ‘No motive!’ I dismissed it with a flick of my hand. ‘I can show you...’

  ‘Oh — what a pity. I thought for one moment you’d jump in and claim it — let Joe Torrance off the hook.’ One of his hooks in one of his directions. ‘But as you say — no motive. If we pursue that—’

  ‘If,’ I cut in heavily, ‘you will come outside, I can probably cure your headache a bit. Phillips, you’re overworking your brain.’