Peter Lovesey - Rough Cider

I said icily, “No, but I didn’t take you for a snooper, either.”

She ignored that. She said. “I found something else.”

She lined the newspapers. Under them was a gun. An automatic.

I froze.

She picked it up and pointed it at me, holding it firmly in both hands.

I said, “What’s this, for Christ’s sake?”

She answered with slow sarcasm, “You tell me, Theo. It looks to me like a wartime automatic, U.S.-made. I have the strangest feeling it’s my daddy’s handgun, the murder weapon.”

I took a long, deep breath. She must have been through the house like a sniffer dog. I kept that gun in a metal cash box in the bottom of a filing cabinet.

I said, trying to sound as if we were still discussing pancakes and maple syrup, “You’re right about the gun. Now would you put it down?”

She continued to aim it steadily and wordlessly at me.

“Alice,” I said with more edge, “this isn’t just stupid. It’s bloody dangerous.”

Her eyes didn’t register anything.

I suppose I could have called her bluff and invited her to shoot. There was a chance that the gun wasn’t loaded. The magazine and bullets had been stored with it, but they had to be inserted into the hollow handgrip. There was also the point that if she killed me, she’d be deep in trouble and none the wiser.

Would you have taken the chance?

That’s two of us.

I made her an offer instead. “Put the gun down and I’ll tell you about it.”

She pulled the trigger.

From which the logically minded reader will draw two deductions: The gun wasn’t loaded and Alice didn’t care if I wet my pajamas.

It wasn’t, and I didn’t. But no thanks to her. I’m not proud of the language I used.

She lowered the gun slowly and rested it on the table. She found her voice again. The words, on a low, menacing note, owed something to old gangster movies. “Get this straight in your head, Theo, this is showdown time. This had better be the whole story.”

It was a significant moment in our association. The threat of the gun had been removed, replaced now by force of personality. I had every right to take offense at the way she’d abused my hospitality. I should have booted her out. Yet I didn’t. I can’t say I was intimidated. Her tight-lipped aggressiveness was faintly risible. The reason why I played along was, now that she’d found the gun, I wanted her to know the truth about it. It mattered to me that she believed the whole of my story.

I warned her, “You’ll need to think like a nine-year-old to understand this. Last night I told you about Cliff Morton raping Barbara, how I saw it happening and ran out of the bam and blurted it out to Duke. You remember Duke dashed in there. I rushed back to the farmhouse and sobbed out the news to Mrs. Lockwood and Sally Shoesmith. That was the end of my active part in what happened.”

“You remained in the farmhouse?”

“Yes, with Sally. I was shocked and frightened.”

“Did you hear a shot?”

“We wouldn’t have. The cider mill was still making its racket. After a while the door burst open, and Mrs. Lock-wood came through the kitchen with Barbara, crying out in distress, as I mentioned. After a bit Sally went out to the yard, and I went up to my room and remained there for the rest of the day. Through the wall I could hear Barbara crying. It was very disturbing. I remember wishing Duke would come up and comfort her, but when I looked out of my window into the yard, the jeep was gone.”

“He left? What time was this?” asked Alice.

“I couldn’t say. Before it got dark, anyway. I felt desolate. Later Mrs. Lockwood brought me some supper on a tray. It was difficult getting to sleep with that violent scene in my mind, and Barbara’s crying. I’m not sure how long I stayed awake. I got some sleep eventually, because towards morning I woke up in a panic. I’d remembered something very important: the present Duke had given me.”

“The carving?”

“I knew where I’d left it. I’d had it in my hands when I went into the barn. I’d put it down on a bale to climb up to the hayloft. I was in such a state when I came out that I’d left it there. The sense of loss was overwhelming. Duke had made it for me personally.”

“You don’t have to explain,” said Alice in a whisper. “I understand exactly how you felt.”

I’d touched a chord.

I went on, “I just had to get it back, and soon. A child’s imagination foresees all sorts of catastrophes. I was scared of the dark, but I knew the Lockwoods were always up by five-thirty, so I had to whip up some courage. I crept out of bed and downstairs. There was a flashlight by the back door, and I was grateful for that. Even so, it was creepy approaching the barn, especially after the shock I’d had the day before. Inside, I could hear creaks and scufflings. Mice, I suppose. There was no going back without my carving, so I scrambled around, searching. I found it too. But first I put my hand on something else.”

Alice’s eyes focused on the gun.

I nodded. “It was lying between two sheaves where it had slipped out of sight. Obviously, I decided, someone had taken it in there and lost it. You’ve got to realize that I knew nothing about Morton being shot. Now this is where you have to put yourself into the mind of a nine-year-old boy. That gun belonged to Duke. I’d found it for him. I wanted to return it personally, get some credit, you see, from the man I idolized. So I slipped it inside my shirt, and a few minutes later I located my precious carving. Luck was with me. I got back unseen to my room.”

“And you kept the gun?”

“I didn’t intend to. For the time being, I had it in the space below the bottom drawer of the tallboy in my room. At breakfast I asked whether Duke would be coming in that day. Mrs. Lockwood’s answer came as a shock. She said it was unlikely if we’d see him again. She was so emphatic that I believed her.”

Alice asked, “Did she give you a reason?”

“I don’t remember any. People then didn’t bother to explain things to children. So I had the gun in my room, and I’d never see Duke again. At the back of my mind I formed a wild idea of’ making my way to the U.S. base at Shepton Mallet and returning it to him in person.”

She softened her mouth into the beginning of a smile. “I doubt whether he’d have appreciated the gesture.”

I shrugged. “It hadn’t occurred to me that he must have smuggled it out of the armory.”

“You could have replaced it in the hallstand drawer in the farmhouse,” suggested Alice, then added, thinking aloud, “But I guess it wouldn’t have earned you the credit you were looking for.”

“True. And I didn’t want the Lockwoods acquiring it by default. But events overtook me. The tragedy of Barbara’s suicide had swift implications for me. Mr. Lillicrap came in a taxi from Frome to collect me. I had to pack my things in such a rush that I almost forgot the gun. At the last minute I retrieved it from the tallboy, wrapped it up in a shirt, and stuffed it inside my suitcase.” I spread my hands, inviting her to fill in the rest. I believe I’d dispelled some of her worst suspicions.

However, she was still frowning. “So what happened when the police came to London to interview you a year later? Didn’t you tell them about the gun?”

“They didn’t ask.”

“At some stage you must have figured how important it was.”

“Yes.”

“You were scared of speaking up?”

“Certainly,” I admitted. “But that wasn’t the reason. I wanted Duke to be acquitted, even though he was guilty. I wasn’t handing the murder weapon to the prosecution.”

“So you kept it all this time.”

“I had a loose floorboard in my bedroom. It went under there with No Orchids for Miss Blandish and some other secrets of my preadolescence.”