“She wanted her parents to get the idea she’d transferred her interest to my daddy, so she fed you this slush.”
I shook my head. “You’re wrong. She used to go out every evening to meet him.”
“Do you know that for certain? Did you see them together? Ever? She was meeting Cliff.” She grasped her plait and flicked it behind her shoulder. “And before you tell me about Mrs. Lock wood spanking you, has it crossed your mind that she wanted to be told that Barbara was seeing a GI and not the local good-for-nothing? Think about that, Theo.”
I did. Like so much else she’d said, it outraged me by challenging a version of events I’d grown up with and drawn comfort from, yet it had a sickening plausibility. I found myself remembering the eruption of strong language the morning in the cider house when Bernard Lockwood told his parents he’d noticed Morton’s bicycle on the farm. I’d been shocked by the force of their reaction.
Two chipped cups were put in front of us, each containing clear, tepid water with a teaspoon anchored in something brown and glutinous. Stirring made no appreciable difference. We were too preoccupied to complain.
We had different ideas of what lay ahead. Up to now Alice had made all the running. This theory that had seemed a rank outsider at the start had cleared each fence and was still looking strong. I was sure there was one barrier it couldn’t surmount.
After a period of silence I said, broaching it with caution, “You know, if someone wanted to choose between your interpretation and mine, they might be in two minds, except for one thing: There’s no getting around the fact that Morton raped Barbara.”
Her eyes behind the glasses were like chips of flint. She didn’t speak a syllable.
I added less guardedly, “It makes nonsense of everything you’ve said up to now.”
She found her voice and pitched it low, with an undertone of scorn. “Whose word have we got that this rape ever took place? Yours alone.”
So that’s your response, I thought. A straight challenge. I said, “It was accepted by a judge and jury. Are you putting yourself above them?”
She answered stiffly, “The judge and jury were appointed to hear a case of murder, not rape. The story of the rape was never seriously questioned. No medical evidence was given. They took the word of a nine-year-old boy.”
I said, “I may have been nine then, but I’m twenty-nine now, and that was rape.”
Alice smiled faintly, not a friendly smile. “This afternoon I got you to describe minutely what you saw that afternoon in the hayloft. The way they were lying, the sounds they made, the movements. I’m not the world’s expert on sex, but I figure I know more about what a woman feels than you, because nothing in what you described to me was untypical of passionate lovemaking. You said she had her clothes rucked up. She was gasping and crying out, turning her head, squirming. Do you know what it’s like for a woman to experience a powerful orgasm, or haven’t you noticed?”
I said, “Oh, come on. She was beating her fists on the floor.”
Alice took a quick, impatient breath. “Theo, she’d have been trying to push him away if he was raping her.”
She was looking at me through the glasses, entreating me to make some concession to her theory. I was intractable.
She persisted. “As a child, it’s understandable that a sight of adults in the act of love would alarm you, but surely with maturity you can analyze what you witnessed?”
I was in no frame of mind to analyze anything. I didn’t need to listen to her interpretation. I’d been there when it happened.
Angered by my lack of reaction, she pushed her face closer, taunting me. “Tell me this, then. Why was Cliff on the farm at all if it wasn’t at Barbara’s invitation?”
I didn’t respond.
She loosed off a salvo of questions. “Why did Barbara go up to the hayloft? And when my daddy ran into the barn, why didn’t he pull them apart?”
“The attack was over,” I couldn’t resist pointing out. “He went for the gun.”
Her face tightened into an expression that I hadn’t seen before, a hard, accusing stare. “That isn’t true, is it? He had no motive. We heard from Harry that he was innocent. Sally told us you got it all wrong.”
“What are you saying?”
“Theo, I’m saying that you saw those two young people making love. Your precious Barbara was having a terrific climax in Cliff Morton’s arms. You were shocked as only a preadolescent child can be. You hated what you saw. You ran to the house and collected the gun. You knew how to use it. You went up into the hayloft and shot Cliff Morton yourself.”
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?”