An Alibi Too Soon Read online

  An Alibi Too Soon

  Roger Ormerod

  Copyright © Roger Ormerod 1987.

  The right of Roger Ormerod to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  First published in the UK by Constable & Company Ltd 1987.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

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  Extract from Face Value by Roger Ormerod

  1

  It seemed a good idea to take a break at Welshpool, as it was quite obvious we would be very late home if I drove straight through. Amelia was excited about the place we’d found—a converted water-mill—and was chattering away like mad as I hunted out a hotel, but I didn’t need persuading. I loved it too. As we were unpacking we decided to stay on a couple of days, and take another look at that mill.

  ‘When it’s raining,’ I said.

  ‘Sometimes I can’t understand a word…’

  ‘We’d see it at its worst.’

  ‘It’s a water-mill, Richard. They’re at their best with the millrace full.’

  ‘And their noisiest.’

  ‘You’re not turning against it!’ she cried.

  I laughed. ‘I love it. Besides,’ I told her, ‘I’ve got an old friend living not so far away. It would be grand to see him again.’

  Detective Chief Superintendent Llewellyn Hughes, that was. He’d been an inspector to my sergeant, and had climbed on from there rapidly. It was on his final promotion that he’d managed to transfer to his beloved Wales, and to there he’d retired.

  ‘It’s something like our mill,’ I said. ‘A converted barn, or something like that. I’ll have to look him up in the book and give him a ring.’

  ‘After dinner, Richard, please. I’m starving.’

  It was a fine August evening, and from our corner table in the dining room we could watch the sun going down over the mountains, and somewhere out there over our mill, which was on a tributary of the River Vyrnwy. I was probably a little unresponsive over the meal. My mind had turned to Llew Hughes.

  It’s a mistake, you know, to go back and see old friends. They’re always recalled as they were, and at their best of what they were. Never their ill humours and bitternesses, but their laughter and fellowship, their strength. We hadn’t really kept in touch, Llew and I, just the odd letter detailing any high spots. Llew was retired, as I was. But he was writing his memoirs, and I wasn’t. I wondered whether I’d be in them, and smiled at the memory of what he might write of those times, what he might dare to.

  ‘What’s funny?’ Amelia asked, raising her eyebrows in appreciation of the tropical fruit sorbet.

  ‘He’ll have changed,’ I said, not really a reply, but she nodded, seeing beyond the words. ‘It must be eighteen years since I saw him last.’

  ‘Your friend Llewellyn?’

  I nodded. ‘I bet he’s almost forgotten me. Won’t even recognise me now.’

  But would I recognise him? I could see him in my memory clearly enough, a tall, gangling man with a gloomy face, behind which there had lurked a quiet, sardonic humour and a keen wit. Even then he hadn’t owned much hair, and was probably bald now. I gave him a bald head, and looked at him afresh, but what came through most clearly was his voice, an actor’s voice, deep and resonant. He could do wonderful things with that voice during interrogation, his tone winkling out admissions, however firmly desperation had hidden them.

  ‘I’ll phone him now,’ I said, and left her to her coffee. Amelia didn’t mind. She loves sitting quietly, wrapped in her own personal contentment.

  I looked him up. Llewellyn Hughes. There were eight of them, but only one with the address: Ewr Felen. Welsh for yellow acres, he’d written, though he hadn’t got an acre, and it was yellow only when the broom was in flower.

  He answered only with his number, an old habit. I said: ‘Llew, it’s me. Richard.’

  The delight in his voice was so intense that it bordered on relief. ‘Richard! You old reprobate! You must be psychic.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I was just thinking about you. Wondering why you haven’t been in touch. I’ve been writing…Richard, I must see you.’

  ‘Hold it.’ I laughed, hoping it sounded real. But in truth I was disturbed. His voice did not contain the old confidence. There was a waver to it, an uncertainty. He couldn’t be that old! ‘I’m here, Llew. Welshpool. A few miles from you…’

  ‘Coming to see me?’ he asked, all eager hope.

  ‘I had that intention. I’m at a hotel, with my wife.’

  ‘Your wife? You’ll bring her along. There’s a bed…’

  ‘You didn’t hear what I said, Llew. We’re booked in. Welshpool. I thought…perhaps tomorrow…’

  ‘No.’ There was a click. His teeth? He was fighting for self-possession. I felt cold, dreading what he might have become, mystified by his attitude. There was a slight pause, and when he went on he was in control, his voice firm. ‘Come this evening, Richard. Please. Bring your wife, but come as soon as possible. I have to see you. There’s something…something in my memoirs…’

  He stopped. I waited a second, but he didn’t go on.

  ‘I heard you were working on them.’

  ‘It’s driving me crazy. Tonight, Richard. If you can possibly manage it.’

  Amelia was at my elbow in the lobby, frowning, plucking at my sleeve. I bent, holding the phone away from my ear.

  ‘But if you’ve spotted it…no vast hurry, surely.’

  His voice was very quiet and distant. ‘I saw this…oh, three months ago. I’ve been trying to make sense of it. I tell you, Richard, a most important case, and I think…I feel…I believe we were wrong.’

  I was sure of one thing: Llew Hughes had never submitted a case for prosecution unless he’d been a hundred per cent certain. He sounded stricken, bemused. I glanced at Amelia. She pouted, reading my concern, and she nodded.

  ‘I’ll be right there, Llew,’ I said. ‘Give me half an hour.’

  I hung up. Amelia simply looked at me. I said, ‘He sounds ill.’

  She smiled. ‘I’ll pop up for something warmer. You know how cold it gets, up in them thar hills.’

  That was Amelia, trying to draw a smile from me. I went out to my Triumph Stag, and put up the hood. It would have taken too long to explain to her the true extent of my concern. Llew had sounded senile, his brain no longer coping with intricacies. But he would not have embarked on his memoirs without preparation. He’d always been meticulous on detail, and would have taken with him into retirement photocopies of relevant documents of all his most interesting cases. He would have collected together spare photographs of scene-of-crime details, all his own personal notebooks, everything necessary to prompt even a failing memory. Yet he’d spotted something wrong. Some detail missed? Such a thing would certainly have worried him, the Llew Hughes I’d known, with such a finely tuned sense of rightness. But he’d agonised over it for three months…and he still could not see the truth! No wonder he was shaken.

  I felt a sudden urgency to get going, and was irritated at the delay. But then Amelia came running across the hotel car-park, having found time to slip on low heels and slacks, with a little jacket over her jumper.

  North out of Welshpool, the road soon becomes more narrow and begins to wind. I was he
ading for Pentrebeirdd, through which I’d driven only that afternoon. Our mill was a mile from there, farther up the river. My mind was hunting around for his full address, as Ewr Felen wasn’t much to go on amongst the tangled lanes I knew I was heading for. Stupid of me, I should have asked for directions before ringing off. But I knew it was somewhere the other side of the A495. I hadn’t reckoned on the apparent lack of hamlets and villages, on the rare signposts bearing Welsh names, none of which I recognised. There was probably no urgency, but I couldn’t persuade myself of that.

  The light had gone from the sky, the shadows dipping into the valley and lying like heavy fog. My headlights flickered over sparse hedges and stone walls, and occasional sheep blinked into the lights and scrambled into the banks. I was getting nowhere, and becoming annoyed with myself.

  The telephone kiosk was actually lit, and not vandalised. It stood at a crossing of lanes in a vast expanse of rolling hills, their peaks dark against the sky.

  ‘I’ll have to phone him,’ I said, and pulled in beside it.

  I was standing at its door, searching out change, when Amelia nudged me for attention.

  ‘Richard!’

  There was something urgent in her voice. I turned to her. She simply pointed beyond my shoulder.

  The two peaks framed the steeper rise ahead. Unless my sense of direction had gone completely haywire, we were looking north. The red glow could not have been the sun setting. I ran back to the car, knowing we’d found him, my heart racing.

  As I reached over and watched Amelia into her seat, gear already in and my foot playing on the clutch, a car came fast down the road we were facing. I had only my parking lights on, and before I could snap on the heads he was past. So I couldn’t be sure of a thing. Its undipped lights blinded me, then it was past, and all I could have said was that it was a hatchback. I let in the clutch, spun the wheels, and slammed the box into second as I took the rise.

  The lane narrowed. Grey walls flung themselves back into the lights, and the wheels scrabbled on loose slate chips. I had no time to glance towards the red glow, but Amelia’s grip on my knee told me the story. Gradually, as the glow increased, so did the pressure of her fingers, until the fire was at my right shoulder and she screamed: ‘Right here, Richard. Right!’

  The entrance through which we turned was a gap in the wall, and led directly into the open, the track now being part of a naked, rocky field. Ahead of us the building blazed. I took the car as far as I could, but the heat was already reaching out. It hit my face as soon as I got out of the car.

  It had been a long barn, wooden, and defenceless against fire. Somebody had split it into two floors. In the windows of the upper floor the panes had already gone. Flames were beginning to play through the roof, and the black smoke was shot through with red.

  I had on my anorak and a cap, which I pulled down over my eyes. My driving gloves would supply a small protection against the heat. Amelia saw my intention.

  ‘Richard, you can’t…’

  ‘I’ve got to try.’

  We were having to shout, the roar of the fire was so loud. Beside the building I could see, from the flicks of reflected red catching its surface, that there was a mountain stream. Amelia followed my eyes and thoughts, and ran to it, whipping off her jacket. She plunged it into the water and came running back with it dripping. She didn’t have to say anything. She knew there’d be no unnecessary heroics from me.

  We were standing as close to the main door as the heat would allow. She had her arm over her eyes. I was considering the door, hoping it was as flimsy as it looked, as I wasn’t going to be able to make more than one attack on it.

  Through the roar and the crackle there was coming an intermittent sound I’d been unable to identify. Now I realised it was a dog barking. On and on, close to hysteria.

  I clamped the soaking jacket over my face, gasping at the unexpected chill of it, and charged at the door. The best way is with your foot, but that gives you no impetus. What I needed was a good run at it, because I knew I would not be able to force myself very far against the heat.

  The door collapsed to my shoulder and I ran in over it as it threw up sparks and ashes. The hall was a tumbling chaos of smoke, through which the flames were reaching. I saw nothing of walls or floor, could feel nothing but the heat that clamped on to me, seeming to throw me back. I could not have gone on, no more than the three stumbling steps my entrance had initiated. Then I was aware of dragging at the cuff of my slacks, and looked down. It was a small terrier, still doing his guarding act, so I knew Llew couldn’t be far away.

  The fire drew in a gasp of fresh air from the gap behind me, seized on it, and the roar became close to an explosion. Woodwork was collapsing beside me, but as the fire gulped at the air it withdrew for a second the roiling smoke, and I saw Llew lying at my feet.

  He was face down, his arms spread forward, and, like the dog, he’d been existing on the thin layer of air there would be down there. I could spare only one hand, the other still clutching Amelia’s jacket to my face. I grabbed hold of the neck of his jacket and began to drag him towards the open doorway.

  The dog hung on to my cuff. For this I was glad. I knew I could not have returned for him, and would have hated that.

  We got out into the open air, and my anorak was smoking. It smelt like hell. The dog still hung on, but he was limp, lying on his side as I dragged him, teeth locked in the trousers.

  Amelia came rushing up, much too soon. The heat gusted out behind me. I gasped for her to get back, and she snatched at my arm, withdrawing her hand quickly.

  ‘Get it off!’ she gasped.

  My anorak had a foam plastic interlining. I pulled Llew a few more yards and tossed Amelia’s jacket into her arms. Then I could release him and tear off the anorak. The dog lay at my feet.

  ‘There was a phone box…’ I began, the smoke rasping in my chest.

  ‘I know.’ She turned away towards the car.

  ‘Ambulance. Fire service.’

  ‘I know.’

  I bent down. The dog was stirring. His first thought was for my fingers, but for that he had to release my trouser cuff, so I was free to kneel beside Llew.

  He was breathing. I could hear it rather than detect it. The back of his jacket was gone and I tore off the smouldering remains. The dog gave up trying to bite me and just lay there, whimpering. For a moment I turned aside, picked him up, and took him over to the stream. What had been white was now a shrunken brown. I dumped him in the stream and lifted him out, laying him on the bank, and returned my attention to Llew.

  Amelia came running back from the car, shouting, ‘Somebody’s coming, Richard.’

  I spared a glance behind me. Sirens in those empty lanes and the blue winking of lights.

  ‘How is he?’ she asked.

  ‘He’s alive,’ I meant Llew.

  ‘There’s something in his hand.’

  I’d noticed. It was an A4 manila envelope, scorched across one corner. He had it gripped in his right hand. His precious memoirs? No, too thin for that. I detached it gently and turned it over. In the red, turbulent light I could just detect the printed words across its face:

  EDWIN CARTER.

  ‘Have a look at the dog,’ I suggested.

  She said nothing, crouching beside him. I turned Llew on his side. One cheek was burned raw, one eye was closed. The other, naked of eyebrows and lashes, glared at me redly.

  ‘Richard…’

  Then it closed.

  At that point the professionals arrived, and I got to my feet. The fire must have been visible for miles, and someone had put in a call.

  The chief fire officer was brisk and urgent. ‘Anybody else?’

  ‘He was living alone.’

  He was relieved, and turned away to direct his men. There was plenty of water available in the stream. The two men from the ambulance thrust me aside and bent over Llew.

  ‘It was you got him out?’ asked one of them.

  ‘He’
d almost reached the door. How is he?’

  ‘Alive.’

  But they were so gentle with him that I felt they weren’t sure how long that would continue. In the back of my mind was a memory of Llew’s words on the phone. He’d been writing to me, and all the while, this past two weeks, I hadn’t been home at the cottage on the south coast, I’d been within a few miles of him, admiring a water-mill.

  I stood and watched them easing him into the ambulance. Amelia stood beside me. When I turned to her she had the dog in her arms, tears running down her smoke-brushed cheeks. She wept for the dog, not Llew, yet the dog lived and seemed to be recovering. I suppose it was because the dog was there, a tangible symbol.

  ‘There’s some stuff in the car,’ she whispered, and she wandered away. I walked over to the ambulance.

  ‘How bad is it?’

  They’re always reluctant to commit themselves. ‘We’ll see.’ He stared at me silently for a moment, then conceded. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t see much hope.’ He told me the number to phone later.

  I watched them drive away until the tail-lights disappeared. No siren now, just the winking lights. The hurry is always towards the incident. On the trip to the hospital, care and concern put a light foot on the pedal.

  When I turned back the flames were dying. The building was simply gutted, with very little left to burn. I strolled over to the fire officer. He glanced at me.

  ‘Hang around,’ he suggested.

  I nodded. ‘Any idea how it started?’

  ‘You got here—I suppose…’

  ‘Coming to visit.’

  ‘And it was well alight?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have gone in. I suppose you realise that.’

  I grimaced at him, but he didn’t notice. ‘Oh, I do.’

  ‘But having done that…then you should be able to tell me how it started.’

  ‘Should I? I’m afraid I don’t know. I was asking.’

  ‘You didn’t smell petrol?’

  ‘All I could smell was my smouldering anorak. You mean you smelt it?’

  He scratched his chin. The dying red glow carved his features into angles. ‘Funny how the smell lingers, but it always does. Round at the side I got a whiff. Somebody lobbed in a petrol bomb.’ He grunted.