Seeing Red Read online

  Seeing Red

  Roger Ormerod

  Copyright © Roger Ormerod 1984

  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 United Kingdom in 1984 by Chivers Press.

  This edition published in 2015 by Endeavour Press Ltd.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Extract from Parting Shot by Roger Ormerod

  Chapter One

  It turned out to be a small market town on the border of Wales, only fifteen miles from the motorway, but still operating in the traditional meaning of the word market. There was a cattle and sheep auction every Wednesday during which it was almost impossible to move along its main street unless you had four legs. And I had to choose a Wednesday to drive there, with a gusty drizzle sweeping in from the dark mountains of Wales. The cobbled streets would be a slimy trap for cars, and utter misery for towed caravans, which happened to be what I had.

  I came down towards the town from the hills to the south, passing my objective, the house called Viewlands, though I was not aware of this, and hit the first trouble a mile from the town. The County Council was driving a new road as a link to the motorway, and a mile of it was intended to ease off the swings and plunges of the old road. It meant I was suddenly trapped at a section of single-lane highway controlled by traffic lights, at red. I stopped. I was nose-down on a fair slope, to the right the part-formed new roadway, which just there was five feet below my level. The work had thrown clay onto the road surface and the rain had slicked it. I felt the back of my Rover 2300 move sideways as the caravan tried to jack-knife.

  It was an uncomfortable situation to be in. When the lights changed I’d have difficulty easing the caravan away from the drop.

  I cursed, and got out to have a look at it. The one-lane section was a two hundred yard steady curve, and I couldn’t see its end. The annoying point was that there was nobody coming the other way, so I’d stopped for nothing. The lights were only two-colour, red and green, and while I stood there they changed to green. At once, a horn blasted from behind me.

  If there was anything I wasn’t going to do, it was hurry over it. Five hours of towing experience hadn’t taught me much, but I knew that a downhill slippy slope meant I had to keep the car ahead of the over-run brake, or the caravan could lock a wheel and slew over the drop. Backing out, with the over-run brake disengaged, would perhaps be better. If I could do it.

  But it needed thought. I walked back.

  In this district, the police would no doubt need different transport from the usual sleek town cars. This was a police Land Rover, behind its wheel a very large, dark and angry sergeant. I couldn’t see why he was angry, unless he was rushing to an accident.

  ‘You’ll have to bear with me,’ I said mildly, trying to smile. ‘I think I’ll need to try backing out.’

  He climbed down. I realised from the smell of his uniform that he was very wet. The Land Rover was muddied to the top of its wings, and he to his knees. His impatience was reasonable. He’d been rushing towards a dry pair of trousers.

  ‘I do apologise,’ I said.

  He looked me up and down. Perhaps he saw something that calmed him. He rubbed his hand down his red face and sighed.

  ‘Anybody who brings a caravan down here, and on market day…Oh Lor’, mate, we do get ’em.’

  ‘I wasn’t to know, was I?’

  ‘Another mile and you’d have been in real trouble. Just try to get that lot through!’ He took off his peaked cap and scratched his bald patch. ‘And where did you think you were heading? There’s nothing but mountains the other side.’

  ‘I was looking for a place called Viewlands.’

  He looked beyond me and breathed heavily. ‘You don’t want to go there.’

  ‘Don’t I?’

  He glanced at me, then away. ‘Tell you what — I’ll tow you out. There’s a lay-by back there. Room to turn round.’

  ‘You think I should?’

  ‘You passed Viewlands a mile back.’

  ‘Ah.’ I took my pipe out of my pocket and stared at it. ‘But you’d advise me not to go there?’

  ‘Depends why you want to.’

  ‘Just visiting.’

  ‘Hmm! I’ve got a rope. We’ll hitch it to the caravan. I can tow the lot in four-wheel drive.’

  ‘You’re very obliging.’

  ‘It’s just that I don’t want to see another.’

  I waited. He spoke in a series of leading questions, luring me on, like a game. I didn’t want to play it. He went to get his rope, and when he came back I got the continuation.

  ‘Since they started this section we’ve had three go over that drop. All at night, mind you, but in spite of all the winkers and cones. Madmen.’

  He left the crawling bit to me, the part where you try to find somewhere to hitch the tow-rope. From under the caravan I asked: ‘Not fatal, I hope.’

  ‘One of ’em was. Turned over and went up in flames. Nasty.’

  As I’d come to the district because of just such an incident, it occurred to me that it would be strange if he was not referring to the death of Angela Rollason’s father. But if that was so, it had happened three months before, so the roadworks weren’t progressing very rapidly.

  ‘When was this?’ I asked, sticking my head out into the rain. He said it had been three months before.

  I scrambled to my feet. ‘You mean it’s been like this for three months?’

  ‘They ran out of money,’ he said in disgust. ‘And just left it.’

  He told me to release the handbrake when he took up the slack. He’d blast his horn. I was beginning to look as bedraggled as him, so I got back into the Rover and waited for the signal. I felt a complete faith in his ability.

  He drew me out sweetly, though it was strange travelling a hundred yards backwards with very little view of where I was going. We made it to the lay-by. We unhitched his rope. I thanked him.

  ‘And to whom am I indebted, Sergeant?’ I asked.

  ‘The name’s Timmis, sir.’

  I’d got the ‘sir’ because of my careful grammar, no doubt. ‘And if you’d just direct me to Viewlands...’

  ‘If you still want to go there.’

  I did. It was a mile back, turn right up the lane by the three dead elms, and I couldn’t miss it. Follow his muddy tyre tracks, he said.

  ‘You’ve come from there?’

  ‘That dratted woman! And I warned her. The lower dale’s treacherous in the wet. I did say.’

  ‘I’m sure you did,’ I comforted him. ‘But they never listen.’

  ‘Got her gelding bogged down. I had to pull him out...Gawd, what a mess. She’d run two miles to a phone...I’ll give her that.’

  ‘Headstrong?’

  ‘You’re not a relative, are you?’

  ‘I’ve never met her.’

  ‘Ah. Pity. Somebody ought to tell her.’

  ‘Tell her what, Sergeant?’

  He puffed out his cheeks and suddenly smiled, like the sun breaking through.

  ‘I knew her father, Gledwyn Griffiths. Went to school with him, till we were eleven, anyway. I remember Angela Griffiths as a kid. A right tomboy, she was. But tomboys are out of fashion, and she’s too old for it. You
tell her from me, though, that she’s not too old to be spanked, and I reckon I could still do it. Her dad not being around, you might say.’

  He turned to climb into his Land Rover. ‘He was the one in the car that went up in flames?’ I asked.

  He looked over his shoulder at me, no humour in his eyes now. ‘Yes, sir. You tell her it’d be an honour to stand in for him.’

  Then he tipped his hat with one finger, his Welsh version of a salute, and drove away.

  I worked the car and caravan round and drove back towards Viewlands, not with any enthusiasm, because I wasn’t sure what lay ahead.

  I was doing Phil Rollason a favour. Now...that’s fine for a friend, but I had reason to hate Rollason’s guts. So what the hell was I doing there? Partly because I had to be somewhere that wasn’t where I’d been, and the Welsh border had seemed far enough away, and partly because I’d had the vague idea that a favour for Rollason might help to extract a little truth from him.

  But basically, I’d been disturbed by the way he spoke about his wife, Angela. I’d not have expected such an extroverted lout as Rollason to be so moved.

  Angela’s father had died in a car crash, three months before...or so. He’d left her his house and its contents, so she’d gone along there to settle it all up. Probate, and that sort of thing, and put up the furniture for auction. Nothing to it. Rollason had driven her there himself, to Viewlands, and left her to it.

  ‘I reckoned she’d need a week or so,’ he’d told me. ‘But it went on and on. Drifted along, and damn it, the last time I went to see her she’d done nothing, absolutely nothing. Two months now...’

  ‘Not so long, two months.’

  ‘But she’s said she’s not going to budge till she gets the truth of it,’ he protested, waving his podgy hands. ‘Says it wasn’t a normal accident, but the local CID won’t do a thing.’

  ‘CID?’

  ‘She’s got this idea.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘That her father was murdered.’

  As I said, I was disturbed, more so when he went on to talk about Angela. I listened, not interrupting, and he couldn’t have been aware of the impression he was making. She had left for her father’s home, not a happy woman because she was heading for his funeral, but at least a woman with an apparent background of happiness to return to. He called her Angie. ‘I drove Angie there, and when you see it...so damn lonely!’ But time had progressed. He’d dashed there on weekends — eighty miles each way — and she’d gradually changed. He didn’t tell me he was visiting a stranger, but now he was visiting Angela, not Angie. She became vague about her intentions. ‘Angela’s never been vague, you see, always definite, and sometimes blasted forceful.’ She had seemed as quiet and remote as the house. Viewlands, her father had called it. Great vistas of valley and the lowering, black hills of Wales in the distance, I’d gathered.

  Well, I’d now had a glimpse of those gloomy vistas, and they hadn’t encouraged me. I headed back into the rain, which had become a tangible thing, enclosing me and limiting visibility, until it was the only living thing outside the car. I put on the headlights but they drove into it and became lost, and I had to lean forward, close to the windscreen, searching for the dead elms. When I found them, they were like grey, beckoning fingers. The lane beside them closed in on me, with dry-stone walls each side, and I was committed. I certainly wouldn’t have been able to back down. The rainwater streamed down the rutted old tarmac so that it was like driving in a river. So much for Timmis’ muddy tyre tracks!

  ‘There, you fool,’ I said to myself, just as I drove past a break in the left-hand wall.

  I braked hard, feeling the caravan’s over-ride brake thump on. There was an open gate. Dimly, I could just detect that the name on it was Viewlands.

  Fortunately I was nose-up on the slope and could back down. Ten feet did it. I took as large an arc as I could and scraped through. There was no sign of a house, just ghostly trees, dripping dismally, and not much more than a hint of driveway.

  My first impression of the house was of a low, wide shadow. There were no lights visible at the windows, but after all, it was still only afternoon. A grey, shifting gloom played with the façade. I thought the drive turned left across its front. I stopped the car, and sat watching the wipers arc across the screen, trying to decide whether that was a light I could see to the right.

  On that side of the house there seemed to be a wall with an archway, beyond it a shadowy line of low buildings. If the house had at one time been a farm, I could’ve been looking into a farmyard, with stables or barns facing the side of the main building. And there was certainly a light, but yellowish and uncertain.

  I reached back for my anorak and climbed out into the rain, shrugging into it. I was standing on uneven gravel littered with puddles. Treading round them, I made my way beneath the arch.

  The house was a heavy weight to my left, with a side door open into the cobbled yard, and with a light now visible behind a window. The line of buildings that faced it had clearly been stables at one time, but now only one was still maintained for that purpose, the far one. There was an enclosing fence linking it to the house. The rest of the line seemed to have been converted to garages, with at least one up-and-over door. There was a whole row of windows linking the stable to the end garage.

  The light I’d first seen came from the stable in the far corner. The top of its split door was open, inside it a naked electric bulb which seemed to be swinging. As I approached, I could hear someone singing, or crooning, a comforting mother-to-baby sound. I reached the door and leaned against it, peering over. She was currying the brown gelding, taking long, sweeping strokes along his flanks, telling him what a beauty he was and assuring him it was all over and he was safe. He was dry now and gleaming, but shudders were still tracing their way down his leg muscles, his eyes were wild, and his nostrils flared. He was clean and dry, but frightened; she was wet and muddied, bedraggled, completely and contentedly absorbed.

  The gelding snorted at my scent and tossed his head. She turned. Her eyes, big and dark and heavily shadowed by the overhead light, were instantly suspicious. She too tossed her head, mainly to clear the dark and tangled hair from her eyes. She couldn’t have been more than five-four, slim, her legs long and straight in the jodhpurs, her face drawn and tired, for all the contentment that flowed from her task. Then her chin came up and she was in control. A square chin, I saw, with determination moulding it.

  ‘Yes?’ she demanded. ‘What is it?’

  The jodhpurs were muddied to her waist and clung to her. The anorak might have been waterproof at one time but looked as though it had had enough.

  ‘You’ll catch your death of cold,’ I said severely.

  ‘Do you know about horses?’ she demanded.

  I shook my head.

  ‘Then mind your own business. If you’ve come about the house, it’s not for sale.’

  ‘Phil asked me to look you up,’ I told her. ‘If I was passing.’

  Then she laughed, put the back of one hand to her face and laughed, and at first there was amusement in it, before it cracked on a note close to hysteria. She was bordering on exhaustion.

  ‘You were passing?’ she gasped.

  ‘With the help of a friendly police sergeant.’

  She ran a hand down the gelding’s nose, and allowed his velvet lips to play with her palm. Her eyes were huge. ‘Phil sent you?’

  ‘He thought I might help. But of course, he didn’t know about this.’ I waved my hand, embracing horse and rider, and her obvious physical distress. ‘Perhaps I can help, though. The door opposite — I assume that’s your kitchen. If you’re reluctant to leave your horse, I could at least get you a cup of tea. I’d bring it across. Then you could run a hot bath. Really, you know, you ought to look after yourself.’

  Then she buried her face in the chestnut, shining neck, and for a moment she was close to tears. I waited, patting my pockets, but it wasn’t there. At last she whispered:
‘Thank you.’

  ‘I’ll be back.’

  I returned to the car for my pipe, then ran through the puddles to the side door and into her kitchen.

  I’d guess the house to have been built around the turn of the century, and the kitchen had probably changed very little since then. It was wide, though the single window was small, with down its middle a solid pine table, scrubbed until the grain stood up, with six pine chairs scattered around it. The sink was the original glazed earthenware, though it now boasted a stainless steel draining board. The gas cooker was ancient, but there was a fridge, and the freezer against one wall was a recent acquisition. The other end wall was entirely cupboard. It had come with the house. The doors still hung precisely and were not in the least warped. The red tiled floor had a rush mat nearly covering it.

  The general impression was that the kitchen had seen a lot of living and a vast number of happy meals at that table, and was stubbornly, placidly waiting for more. The smell was of cured bacon and cheese, as though smoked sides still hung from the hooks I saw in the ceiling, and somewhere curds might be separating from whey.

  I flung open a few cupboard doors, exploring, and lit my pipe and the burner beneath the kettle with one of her matches, wondering whether a can of soup wouldn’t be more suitable.

  ‘Tea first,’ I told myself selfishly, putting out two mugs.

  Angela, I decided, was well stocked up for an extended stay.

  I poured two mugs of tea, took a mouthful from mine, then hurried across with hers with a saucer on top to keep out the rain. This time she allowed me inside. She had a rug over the gelding, who’d stopped shuddering.

  ‘Oh...’ she said into the mug. ‘That’s good.’

  ‘I sugared it.’

  ‘Just how I like it.’

  ‘Then I guessed right.’

  She lifted her nose. ‘And Phil sent you?’ She still didn’t seem certain about me.

  ‘He asked me to look you up. He said you were in some sort of difficulty.’

  She gave a short laugh of scorn, I supposed at my way of putting it. ‘He just refuses to do anything himself. Does he think you can?’