Peter Lovesey - Rough Cider

“They must have left the farm by now.”

“I’ll find them.”

I noted the change of pronoun. Up to now she’d been only too pleased to have me at her side. Was this an assertion of independence? Was my usefulness played out? Oddly, considering my earlier reluctance, I felt a stab of rejection. If Alice was going on with her absurd quest, I was beginning to want to be part of it.

I reached for my stick. “Let’s try the farmhouse.”

The wind whipped up the rain as we crossed the yard. I thought a curtain twitched at one of the windows, but it may have been a gust getting through the casements. There was no response to our knocking.

I repeated, “It must have changed hands by now, anyway.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” called Alice, already moving around the side of the house. “Look what I found-if the memory isn’t too painful.”

I followed her. She was by the back door, and she had her hand on the rusty mangle Mrs. Lockwood had bent me over when she slippered me.

I gave a mock groan. We needed some light relief.

“Any new people would have gotten rid of this piece of junk,” said Alice. “Can you see inside the kitchen? Does it look the same?”

I got up close to check.

There was an instantaneous gunshot.

“Christ!” I said.

Chips of stone had been dislodged from somewhere above us and peppered the cobbles.

I asked Alice, “Are you all right?”

She was brushing moss off her sleeve. “I think so.”

“Bloody lunatic!” I could see him across the yard holding the gun, a figure in a black oilskin and boots, standing beside the tractor, grinning inanely. I shouted, “What the hell was that for?”

I limped towards him, so angry that I gave no thought to the gun. “Did you hear me?” I yelled.

By way of reply, he spat copiously on the bonnet of my car.

“Peasant!” I said.

Alice had caught up with me. “Theo, be careful,”

“Leave this to me.”

I was close enough to recognize him. The face had thickened, and the black hair was flecked with gray. There were a couple of gaps in the grin, but it was still a strong, good-looking face that wouldn’t look out of place on a Fair Isle pattern.

Bernard Lockwood.

I said, “You could have killed us.”

“Rats.”

I glared at him. There was no glimmer of recognition on his part.

He leered at Alice and said slowly, “I were firing at rats.”

I felt like throwing a punch at him. I’m not incapable of using my fists. Without taking my eyes off him I said, “Alice, I think you’d better get in the car.”

Bernard said, “Don’t ‘ee understand English? I were aiming at two old rats by the guttering there. Vermin.” He made a creeping motion with his fingers. “Them as has four legs and tails.”

I said, “God-awful shot if you were.”

Alice hadn’t moved.

Bernard folded the gun under his arm. “What you be doing here?”

“Visiting”

“Trespassing, more like.”

I said, “It’s bloody pouring and I haven’t the time or the inclination to discuss it with you. We’re going.”

“No, Theo,” butted in Alice. “Please.”

“Save your breath,” I told her. “The man’s a thug.” Perhaps I should have said moron. He seemed impervious to insults.

Alice told Bernard civilly, “Maybe you could help us. We want to get in touch with the Lockwood family.”

Let’s give him credit for some artifice. He didn’t admit to his identity immediately, though it may have been due to sheer obtuseness. “Lockwood? What’s your business with they?”

I said to Alice, “You see? We’ll get nowhere.” I really hoped we could beat a retreat without introductions, but she was digging in.

She explained to him, “They were the people who owned this place in World War Two, right? Are you the present owner by any chance?”

“Could be,” conceded Bernard.

I’d had enough. I switched to the attack. “Come off it. You’re Bernard Lockwood. Where are your parents, in the house?”

His hand tightened around the butt of the shotgun.

Alice turned to me in amazement. “This is Bernard?” She said it the American way, stressing the second syllable.

I was watching Bernard’s spare hand. He’d taken two orange-colored cartridges from his pocket. I didn’t have long to get my message across. I took a steadying breath and told him, “I was the boy evacuated here. The young lady is a friend. I promised to show her the place and, if possible, look up your parents.”

Before Bernard could respond, Alice rashly chimed in, “My name is Alice Ashenfelter and my daddy was the man convicted of the murder here.”

I could have belted her.

Muscles were bunching on Bernard’s jawline. He frowned, grappling with what he had heard, trying to make the connection. His brown eyes darted between me and Alice. Finally, he abandoned the attempt and said through his teeth, “What’s past is over. You’d best get on your way.”

Curiously the words didn’t carry the force represented by the gun. I risked an appeal to his better nature. “Come on, man. We’ve driven out specially from Reading. Your parents were good to me in the war. The least I can do is present my compliments.”

“I’ll pass ‘em on for ‘ee.”

“Are they inside?”

I’d pushed too far. He snapped the cartridges into the gun, locked it in the firing position, and leveled it at my chest.

“Get in the car and go.”

Keeping my eyes on him, I said to Alice, “It’s hopeless.”

She evidently disagreed. “Mr. Lockwood, we came here in good faith-”

“Good faith be buggered!” Bernard cut in savagely.

“Bloody liars, the pair of you.”

Alice protested in a high, accusing note. “That’s unfair. I’ve gone out of my way to be honest with you·”

Bernard sneered. “Honest? And you tell me you’re the killer’s daughter? And your name is Ashenfelter? You’re no more Ashenfelter than I am, young lady. Name of the killer was Donovan.”

I started to say, “That’s easy to explain-” but Bernard talked over me.

“Ashenfelter was his friend, the littl’un. The other GI. What did he call himself? Harry.”

Alice gave a gasp and grabbed my arm. “That can’t be true. Theo, it can’t be true!” She’d gone deathly white.

Myriad possibilities raged in my brain. For Alice’s sake I said, “Sheer coincidence. Don’t let it get to you.”

She blurted out a rush of words: “Duke Donovan was my real daddy. Henry Ashenfelter was the man my mother married in 1947, when I was a kid. I was given his name. If he was Duke’s friend Harry, I figure he came back from the war and married my mom.”

Bernard looked unimpressed. “Good try, miss. Not good enough. Ashenfelter married Sally Shoesmith.”

I said, “Barbara’s friend?”

“You’d remember if you were here. They were courting like cats in heat.”

“And they actually married?”

“Live in Bath like a lord and lady, don’t they? Publican’s daughter, that’s all she were, and now you need a bloody visiting card to speak to her.” He grinned slyly. “Not that you’d get much sense out of her, from what I’ve heard.”

“Is something the matter with Sally, then?”

He spat again, aiming it at my shoes. “Clear off. Bloody liars.”

Alice said in a choking voice, “Theo, let’s go.”

I took a step backwards, nodding to Bernard.

He lowered the gun.

We drove away without another word.

A lice sighed and said, “I just don’t understand.” She said it again, twice, before we reached the end of the lane.

I pulled off the road outside the Jolly Gardener, switched off, and turned to look at her. Until that moment I hadn’t appreciated what a soaking we’d both taken. Her hair was so saturated that you’d never have known she was normally a blonde.