Rough Cider

TWENTY-THREE

“I hope to God I had the exposure right,” said Digby for I the third time at least. “If you’d given me more warning, I’d have brought a photographer with me.”

“Quit complaining, will you?” Alice told him in an up-rush of anger, letting the tension out. “You got your scoop.”

Digby bunched his shoulders and tried to look uninvolved, like a perching vulture.

“What’s one picture?” demanded Alice.

In a pained voice Digby said, “You two jumping off the blazing roof? I’ll tell you what it is. It’s?scape From Death Barn’-the shot of a lifetime. Millions will see it on the front page of their paper tomorrow.”

Tomorrow. I didn’t want to know about tomorrow. Coping with the past was more than I could manage. The three of us were sitting around the kitchen table in the farmhouse. One young constable was in attendance. In another room, Inspector Voss was questioning the Lockwoods. Across the yard, a fire crew was hosing the gutted barn.

“Let me get this right,” I said to Digby, letting my resentment show. “You were actually waiting outside with a camera while Alice and I were in that inferno in danger of our lives?”

“It’s not a pressman’s job to get involved, old man.”

“Oh, for Christ’s sake, Digby.”

“I couldn’t have got near, anyway, once the fire started.”

“Before it started, you stood and watched Alice go in there to tackle a man of Bernard Lockwood’s size?”

Digby said blandly, “She acted independently, didn’t you, my dear?”

Alice ignored him and said to me, “What happened is this, Theo. I read in the paper about Sally being killed in the fire, and I knew I was wrong about you-shooting Morton, I mean. Whoever killed Sally did it to silence her. They were scared of you and me getting to speak to her. Whatever mean and hostile things I said about you, you’re no coldblooded killer. I thought of Harry first, but I couldn’t see him burning his own house, and I was certain he wouldn’t actively harm Sally, for all his insensitivity. I mean, he was willing to let her speak to us on Sunday. He was really upset when she got drunk. So who else could have done it? The answer had to be at Gifford Farm. After Digby called you on the phone and you hung up on him, I told him that’s where we have to go. He snatched up a camera and drove us here fast. We left the car up the lane and came in quietly to avoid Bernard and his shotgun, if we could.”

“We saw the kitchen door open,” put in Digby, “so I advised a discreet withdrawal to the farm-machinery shed.”

“Then we saw you come out of the back door with Bernard holding his gun to your back.”

“And what did you make of that?” I asked Alice with faint amusement. “Me-your number-one suspect.”

I believe Alice reddened under the smears of soot. “I already told you, I changed my mind about that. Anyway, Bernard took you into the barn. After a while he came out and put down the shotgun and collected the gasoline, so I went closer and took a peek inside. When I saw him pouring gas over the floor, I thought, Somebody’s got to stop this.”

She sighed and gave a weary smile. “I could use a few lessons in how to disable a man.”

I reached out my hand and clasped it over hers. “You did all right. I’d never have got out alive without you.”

At this she laughed suddenly and openly. “I figure you’d never have been in there if you hadn’t met me.”

I think it was the first time I’d seen her laugh without a trace of unease or suspicion in her features. Her glasses were twisted askew and her elegant nose was heavily smudged, but I warmed to her. I laughed too. Then I said impulsively, “Now that we’ve straightened out a few things, let’s meet again.”

Digby felt into his pocket and said, ‘I’ll quote that, if you don’t mind.”

I said, “Shut up.”

But as you, my loyal reader, will appreciate, life isn’t what you want, it’s what you get. Alice had her return flight booked for the following day. We didn’t even manage a night out together, or a night in, because that puddinghead Voss kept me waiting for the rest of the afternoon and evening sorting out what had happened in the barn. I admitted to shooting Bernard in self-defense, which seem straightforward enough, but Voss tied himself in knots trying to decide whether it was manslaughter or justifiable homicide. As they didn’t propose to charge me, anyway, I lost all patience with them. By the time I was free to leave, Digby had long since driven Alice back to Reading.

Digby’s photograph didn’t turn out, by the way, but he still had his exclusive story, and I’m sure he was well paid for it.

If you’re looking for an upbeat ending, there’s not much I can offer. George Lockwood admitted to his part in disposing of Morton’s body in 1943. He took the police to a lake near Frome where he’d weighted and sunk the headless corpse. They sent some frogmen down, but after so long, it wasn’t surprising that nothing was found.

Mrs. Molly Lockwood was convicted of the murder of Sally Ashenfelter and was given a life sentence. She also confessed to shooting Clifford Morton in 1943 and to perjury at the trial of Duke Donovan. In view of her advanced age, the Director of Public Prosecutions deferred bringing her to court on these charges.

The Home Secretary recommended a posthumous Royal Pardon for Duke, which I know pleased Alice. It pleased me.

People have been telling me for years not to blame myself for my part in Duke’s conviction. They say I couldn’t have done any different, that I spoke what I understood to be the truth. Right. But I can’t forget. I never will.

I promised you an extraordinary story, and I’ve done my best to deliver it. One more development may be of interest. In 1965, I applied for a visiting lectureship to Yale University, and to my delight and good fortune I was taken on. Yale is only twenty-five miles south of Waterbury, Connecticut.

At the time I told myself I must be out of my mind. On occasions I still say that I was, and then Alice laughs and pours me another drink.

Of lager, from a can.