Peter Lovesey: Rough Cider

“Is that all?”

He wound himself up again. “Hell, no. There’s more. They had to get new identities. Morton knew a guy in the Town Hall who said he would fix it in a matter of days if the money was right. Then they’d find a boatman along the Bristol Channel willing to ship them to Ireland. Meantime, Morton needed a place to lay up. So Barbara came up with a suggestion. She said he could hide in one of the barns on the farm. She’d keep him supplied with food. And that’s what happened.”

I screwed up my face in disbelief. “He was there on the farm?”

“Right up to the day you shot him.”

I was so stunned by the information that I allowed the remark to stand. Harry had got the dumb, undivided attention he wanted.

“Barbara was smart. She encouraged her parents to think she was seeing Duke, and they didn’t mind too much. In their eyes anyone was better than Morton, even a GI.” A nervous grin streaked across his lips. “People generally locked up their daughters when the Yanks hit town. Not the Lockwoods. Barbara put it around that she had something going with Duke. As you know, she went out with him a couple of times. And she used you to stoke up the story.”

And I’d repeated it at Duke’s trial. My skin prickled. “Did Sally tell you that or are you embroidering?”

“She had it from Barbara. Gospel truth. You got to believe it.”

I did. I knew, sickeningly, resoundingly, that it was true.?d been pitchforked into a living hell. My discredited evidence had helped to hang an innocent man.

At last Harry had dried up. The next move was up to me, and I was in no shape for action. He sensed the softening in my resolve, or just the wish to be rid of him and work things out for myself, because his eyes traveled upwards from the gun. He was assessing his chances of getting oµt alive.

Stalemate.

I wouldn’t shoot him in Cold blood, but it wasn’t safe to lower the gun. He couldn’t move and neither could I, without my stick. I couldn’t even escort him to his car and send him on his way.

Rashly, through my tormented emotions, I grasped at reason. Harry believed?d shot Morton and killed Sally.

I said, “Do me the favor of answering one straightforward question. If Morton was Barbara’s lover, why would I have shot him?”

“Jealousy.”

“For Christ’s sake. I was in short trousers.”

“I was there. Remember?” said Harry, picking up confidence by the second. “You had a crush on the girl, right? Puppy love. I saw it. Sally saw it. Barbara used it. Her fatal mistake. Never mess with a kid’s emotions.”

I said heatedly, bitterly, “What am I supposed to have done? Shot Morton in a jealous passion and cut up the body? At nine years old? Who are you kidding?”

Harry was sounding more in control than I. “No,” he said evenly. “Duke disposed of the body. He took pity on you.”

“What?”

“He was like a father to you. He’d do anything to get you off the hook. He drove back to the farm that night, hacked off the head and put it in the cider barrel, and then transported the rest someplace else, miles away.”

I was practically speechless. “He didn’t tell you that.”

“No. But it has to be true. It was typical of the guy. He adored kids.”

“It doesn’t have to be true at all.”

Harry was determined to complete the explanation. “When they finally caught up with him, he refused to put the finger on you. Stupid and brave. That was Duke Donovan.”

“And you think I kept silent at the trial?” I shouted at him as my anger erupted. “Allowed them to hang the man who’s supposed to have saved me? What kind of vicious bastard do you take me for? If I could have thought of anything to stop them hanging Duke, I’d have spoken up.”

“The guy was innocent,” said Harry. “I told you he was innocent.”

“I know. It breaks my heart. It’s monstrous. Hideous. But I didn’t know at the time. For twenty years I swallowed the story that he was guilty. I’m bloody certain now that he wasn’t, and I’m going to find the killer. I don’t know for sure who it was, but I know where to go.”

A pause.

“The farm?”

I nodded and made a superhuman effort to sound rational.

“Do you know why I’m so certain?”

“Sally?”

“Yes. She was killed because of what she would have told me.

“You think whoever murdered Morton also…”

“Right.”

We faced each other in a tense, thoughtful silence, each wiser yet with our impasse, unresolved. I could have said more. I elected not to. What I’d expressed was spontaneous, impassioned, and enough.

Finally, Harry took the initiative. He said, “Okay, my friend, call me crazy, but I believe you. If I’m right that you didn’t kill Morton or Sally, I don’t have to worry. You won’t shoot me. So All tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to walk right out of here, get in my car, and drive away. Understand?”

I gave a nod.

He wanted extra assurance. “You’re not planning to stop me? In that case, would you lower the gun?”

This, in essence, was what the superpowers had debated ever since Hiroshima. There had to be some trust between us. Disarmament was the only sane way forward. I glanced down and put my good foot on the lead piping he’d threatened me with. I stared at Harry. Then I slowly planted the gun on my lap and placed my hands on the arms of the chair.

Harry dipped his head in recognition, took a couple of tentative sideways steps, and started across the room towards the door. I followed him with my eyes, making no move.

A sitting duck.

It happened at speed, though I see it now in slow motion.

He was practically behind me and through the door when his right hand grabbed something off the top of the filing cabinet there.

A multicolored glass paperweight about the size of a cricket ball but twice as heavy.

An arc of light at the edge of my vision. The thing in his hand streaking towards my head.

The crunch.

Nothing.

A ringing sound. Shrill, insistent, and painful. I opened my eyes and saw daylight seeping into the space above the curtains. Fingered the swelling at the back of my skull. Groaned.

The ringing wasn’t all in my head.

At some stage of the night I’d emerged from unconsciousness sufficiently to drag myself as far as the sofa and collapse there. Now I was cold, my clothes were clammy, and I needed about a dozen aspirins.

I groped for my stick. It wasn’t there, of course. I made the effort to roll off the sofa and crawl to the phone.

Picked it up and listened.

“Ah, so all life is not extinct in Pangbourne. Is this the ear of Dr. Theodore Sinclair?” A man’s voice, resonant, bombastic, pleased with itself. The voice that could spell diarrhea without the aid of a dictionary.

“Who else?”

“This is Watmore, Digby Watmore. I suppose I got you out of bed.”

“No. What time is it?”

“Eight-twenty or thereabouts. Wednesday. Two or three days without, you said.”

“Two or three days without what?”

“Miss Ashenfelter on your back, to quote you verbatim.

Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten. We made an agreement.”

I recalled it faintly, as if from another incarnation. “When was this, Digby?”

“Sunday evening. The last two days have been no picnic for me, I can assure you. I say, are you sure I haven’t disturbed your sleep?”

“What happened to Miss Ashenfelter?”

He gave what sounded like an exasperated snort. “She’s been my constant companion for the past forty-eight hours.”

“Day and night, Digby?”

“I put my studio couch at her disposal, but she prefers to pass the night having interminable conversations about the Donovan case.”