Rough Cider

SIXTEEN

You won’t be surprised to learn that I got up and walked out of the Annual Cure Hotel. Settled the bill, removed Alice Ashenfelter’s rucksack from the car, dumped it in the hall, and drove off.

I think if any other driver on the A4 that evening had cut across me or just tried to hold the center, there’d have been blood on the road. I wasn’t merely angry. It’s a crimson blur in my memory.

I was through Chippenham before the rage turned inwards. I’d seen trouble coming and ignored it because it was blonde, nineteen, and willing to climb into my bed.

I’d taken the bait.

Too late now to race off down the A4. Escape was a delusion. She’d got it firmly into her mind that I’d killed her daddy, and she was out for blood. Never mind that I was nine at the time. I had to be made to suffer.

I had a fair idea how she’d arrange it. She’d run to Digby Watmore, her pet reporter. News on Sunday didn’t need hard facts. They’d stitch me up with innuendo. Photos of the skull, a Colt.45, and me. And, somewhere down the page, Alice, sexy but soulful, captioned, “I found the murder weapon in Dr. Sinclair’s house.”

In the way of British justice seeking to right itself and keep its dignity, there would follow a protracted period of investigation, off the record for a while, then, in unhurried stages, handed over from police to lawyers to politicians. Grinding to the same tempo, the university would systematically strip me of my responsibilities, a tutor group here, a place on a committee there, loading me with extramural work at the expense of degree-level lecturing, until my position became untenable. Gently but inexorably easing me out.

Something had to be done about Alice.

I had to be positive.

I was home by nine. My first positive action was to pour myself a restoring Scotch and sink it fast. Then I went to the shelf in the hall where I kept the bills and junk mail and picked up something I’d placed there earlier: Digby Watmore’s visiting card. I confirmed what I’d half remembered, that the fat reporter was a local man, a stringer. I took the card to the phone and called him.

Digby was at home. Yes, he remembered me. No, he wouldn’t mind meeting me for a drink. Yes, he could get to Pangbourne in half an hour. He looked forward to seeing me in the lounge of the Copper Inn.

Considering that the last words I’d spoken to him were “Sod off,” he was either very forgiving or a true professional.

You’ll find the Copper Inn in Egon Ronay, a trendy, well-appointed place, too classy for the likes of Digby, but I didn’t want to be seen with him in my local. He was waiting for me just inside the door in his blue raincoat and green trilby. The small eyes shone with anticipation. There was a faint aroma of sweat. For a heavyweight he’d moved fast to get there before me.

No prizes for guessing that Digby was a beer drinker. I carried two pints to the table farthest from the bar.

Naturally, he wanted to know how Alice and I had spent the day.

I admitted we’d been to Somerset. Why deny it? One of my reasons for being here was to get my version in first.

Digby said nostalgically, “Recapturing those war years… Remember the Land Girls? I once went out with one. You You wouldn’t believe the muscles on her.” Almost as an after thought he asked, “Meet anyone you knew?”

“Bernard, the son. He didn’t invite us in.”

“So the Lockwoods are still there?”

“Apparently. We didn’t meet the old farmer and his wife.”

“Pity, they’d have made you welcome, I’m sure. How did the place look?”

“Smaller… and very muddy.”

“You don’t sound too enchanted, if you don’t mind me mentioning it,” commented Digby.

“It wasn’t my idea of a day out,” I said, adding quickly, “Alice thought of it.”

Digby wobbled with amusement. “The eager Miss Ashenfelter. Extremely pretty girl, though. Worth doing a favor for, I daresay.”

“I had no ulterior motive, if that’s what you mean,” I said tersely.

“Wouldn’t dream of suggesting it, old boy,” Digby assured me. “Not so much a favor as a reward, eh?”

I stared back and passed no comment.

“She had spent the night at your house when we called this morning, had she not?”

“True,” I answered. “She arrived very late.”

As a News on Sunday man, Digby’s mind was on one track. “And after your day in the country together, is she taking a long, relaxing bath or warming up the bed?”

It seemed she hadn’t phoned him yet. “I left her drinking coffee,” I answered, declining to say where. “I’d like to ask you about Alice.”

He grinned lewdly. “I wouldn’t have thought there’s much more to find out.”

“On the contrary. She arrives from America and asks to see the News on Sunday files, and in no time at all she has a reporter and a photographer in tow, What’s going on? Has she done a deal with you?”

“Not with me, old man. I take my instructions from London.”

“Come on, what does the paper stand to get out of it?”

“A human-interest story. She’s blonde, twenty years old, and the daughter of a convicted killer. She comes to England to find out about him. All good copy.”

“There’s more to it than that. You went to all the trouble of tracing me. Why? I was only a child in 1943.”

“A key witness,” said Digby.

“What do you want from me, then?”

“She asked to meet you.”

“She’s convinced that her father was wrongly convicted.”

“Apparently.”

“You don’t seem at all surprised. I suppose the paper put her up to this.”

Digby tried to look inscrutable.

I said with my anger held in check, “Doesn’t your rag have any sense of responsibility? The girl is fanatical. She’s loosing off some extraordinary accusations. At one stage today she even suggested I fired the fatal shot. A kid of nine.”

‘That is a bit over the top,” Digby had the graciousness to say.

I hoped he would still feel the same when she put it to him herself. I added, “It’s slanderous nonsense, and if I took it seriously, I’d want to know precisely how your paper is involved.”

Digby dipped his mouth to the beer.

Having got that across, I said in a public-spirited vein, “What bothers me is that if there were grounds for doubting the Donovan verdict, this is not the right way to examine them.”

“Possibly not,” Digby conceded.

“As a crime reporter, you know the form,” I went on. “Let’s suppose some evidence turned up suggesting that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, and a man had been falsely convicted of murder. Hanged, in fact. Is there anything one could do within the law to clear his name?”

The fleshy mounds around Digby’s eyes slid aside to reveal an interested gleam. “This is hypothetical?”

“Naturally.”

“It would depend.”

“On what?”

“In the first place, the quality of the evidence.”

“Irrefutable.”

Digby sniffed. “You’d be unwise to claim that it was. Are we speaking of forensic evidence, a new witness, or what?”

“Never mind. Let’s say that the case for a new hearing was overwhelming.”

He grinned. “It might overwhelm you or me, old sport, but try overwhelming the Home Office and see what happens.”

“Is that the procedure? One applies to the Home Office?”

“You can try.”

“You don’t sound optimistic.”

“I have personal knowledge of three families who’ve been sending in petitions for years.”

“So what would you suggest?”

He drained his glass, peered at me artfully, and said, “I haven’t enough to go on yet.”

Waiting to be served, I took stock. Talking to the press goes against the grain, but I was damn sure Alice would be on to him in the morning.

Over that second pint I gave him a rapid rundown on the day’s discoveries, stopping with our departure from the Royal Crescent. I didn’t explain why Alice was spending the night in a seedy hotel in Bath. He listened and made no comment except a belch that I like to believe was inadvertent.

He must have felt he’d profited in some way, because he heaved himself off the chair to buy the next round. When he returned with the glasses, he asked what I proposed to do next.

“That’s why I’m here,” I explained. “Is there any point in pursuing this, opening old wounds, if it achieves nothing in the end?”

Digby pondered the question. “Candidly, the chances of getting a royal pardon for Donovan, if that’s what you have in mind, are smaller than infinitesimal.” He beamed. “Said that well after two pints, didn’t I? It’s a textbook case, as you know. Every lad who’s passed through police college has heard of the skull in the cider.”

“No one’s questioning the work that was done on the skull,” I pointed out.

“Ah, but it takes the gilt off the gingerbread if some bright chappy from Pangbourne proves that they got the wrong man in the end.”

“True, but…”

“There’s another thing. This is a jaundiced old pressman speaking, but let’s not forget the international angle. Young American soldier helps us win the war and how do we show our gratitude. Wouldn’t do much for the Atlantic alliance, would it? It’s a hot potato, this one.”

“You’re saying we’d get nowhere through official channels?” Actually, it was what I’d expected him to say.

“Nothing short of a confession signed by the murderer would do any good.” He emptied his glass again. “Mind you, that’s only a personal opinion.”

“So what do you suggest?”

Digby leaned back and displayed the triple-tiered flesh below his chin. “A direct appeal to Joe Public. It’s the only sure way to win this one.”

Playing dumb, I asked, “How would you go about it?”

“Through the paper-if we got that evidence.”

I said in a low voice. “It’s just possible I could obtain it. The real thing, not wild accusations.”

His mouth jutted open, and a glassy look appeared in his eyes. The scoop of a lifetime was beckoning to Digby Watmore. “And you need some help from me?”

“No.”

He reddened. “You and I could handle this together. No need to bring in the Fleet Street boys at this stage. We could come to terms, I’m certain. Generous terms.”

“That’s not important to me.”

“What do you need, then?”

“Time. Two or three days without Miss Ashenfelter breathing down my neck.”

“Then you’ll give me an exclusive?”

I put out my right hand.

Digby smiled hugely and gripped it.