False Witness (28 page)

So when I left her after breakfast, she was quite weak, but was too vain to let me see her discomfort. I had obviously wanted
to ask her about Diane Morrow, but it would all have to wait until she recovered. So with some reluctance, I agreed to go
out on my own. But I also realized that I could use the trip to make some illicit calls home.

Justine’s Land-Rover was easy to drive and could cope with the terrain better than my car. It towered over the other vehicles
on the road, and I felt as if I was seated on an eighteen-hand horse. Why is it, I thought, that the upper class insist on
traveling with their rears six feet in the air?

The phone box was on the London Road, a half-mile outside the village. I called home. There was no reply. Next I tried chambers.
After being put on hold once, and being cut off twice, Steve told me that my retrial had definitely been fixed in front of
Hilary Hardcastle, that Kingsley wanted another conference, that Jamie Armstrong rang (garbled message and gratuitous abuse),
and that yesterday there was a call on behalf of someone called Molly.

The message was simply, “Ibid.” The insane logic was beginning to bite. Obviously, I had to buy
The Times
.

I had spotted the local store when we entered the village from the pub side. It was as far away from the church as any building
could be in a smallish hamlet. It had reassuringly vulgar tabloids in the window and was doing a special offer on instant
coffee.

On entering the shop, there was a stack of unwanted
Guardians
and a few
Daily Sports
.

“Can I help you?” the man asked.

“I must have
The Times
,” I said. “Nothing else will do.”

“We don’t have it, sir.” The shopkeeper’s tone was as gentle as his face. He was a little man slightly balding and had what
you might call a pot-belly.

“Do you know where I can buy one?”

“No, sir.” He smiled apologetically. “But you can have mine.”

“Yours?”

“Well, I am doing the crossword. Twelve down was very naughty. But if you don’t mind the scribblings of a shopkeeper, you
can have mine.” He had one hand on his stomach and rubbed it as he talked as if he were coaxing the words out.

“You are a godsend,” I told him.

“No, sir. Just a poor man trying to make an honest living.” He handed me the paper and I found the place almost immediately.
The message was equally obtuse.

Roses down the mere
.

When he noticed that the paper was open at the Births and Deaths, he said, “If I am not being too presumptuous, do you have
good news or—”

“Can’t say really. What do you make of this?” I asked, showing him the message from Molly in the newspaper.

“Any more clues?”

“Clues? There was another message, if that’s what you mean.”

He nodded slowly. When I opened my wallet and took out the torn scrap of paper from the previous edition of
The Times
, and placed it next to the more recent message, the man put his finger in his mouth, then scratched his chin, frowned, moved
the scraps of paper around, looked at me and smiled. He wrote out the two messages next to each other on the back of a “Historic
views of Stonebury” postcard.

Who’s met or seen red
?

Roses down the mere
.

“Easy,” he said, rubbing his stomach. “Very very easy. Oh, yes. Very easy indeed.”

She was called Vera Cavely. She was the witness the prosecution tried to bury. For all the obvious reasons, I had thought
that she might have lived in some deep mysterious cavern, full of stalagmites and cave paintings. But she did not. She lived
in a car.

The old Singer Gazelle had probably not moved in twenty years. The metallic black had degenerated into an all-pervasive rust.
Hanging from the front and rear windscreens were neat little curtains with red checks that even managed to match the vehicle’s
rusting chassis. All the side windows had bin-liners sellotaped to the inside. There were three wheels and a tidy pile of
bricks where the fourth should have been. Two of the tires were flat, the third had been slashed. Painted on the hood in a
childish scrawl were the words: Silence. Someone lives here.

The car was in the middle of Nethersmere Woods, and as the shopkeeper had reliably told me, Nethersmere Woods was an anagram
of both the messages I had been sent.

When I arrived, there seemed to be no one inside the car, or rather, no one I could hear. So I waited, sitting on a little
rocky outcrop a few feet from the exhaust, the seat of my jeans becoming damp due to the abundance of moss. Here was a restful
corner of the woods, where you might believe that the totality of man’s endeavors amounted to nothing more than a rusting
car.

I must have momentarily fallen asleep, for I did not fully hear the question the first time it was asked and did not really
understand it when it was repeated.

“Have you come about the carburetor?”

I rubbed my eyes and tried to focus on the questioner and could not believe what I saw.

“About time too,” she said. “Still, I suppose you’ll tell me it’s not your fault. No time for excuses. Just pop it in, will
you? It’s a long drive to Dakar.”

“I’m sorry?” I said. However, I was not at all clear what I should have been sorry about.

“You’re sorry?” The woman turned toward one of the rocks. “He’s sorry? Hear that? He’s sorry, thank you very much, and I’ve
got a race to win. Huh.”

If someone had told me that such a creature existed, I should not have believed it. She was about four foot nine, wore toeless
leather sandals, had a dark overcoat that was covered with grass and foliage that I swore was alive, and sitting on her head
was a Second World War motorcycle helmet with pilot’s goggles. In each of her clawlike hands she carried a plastic bag tied
with string and bursting with—something. Vera Cavely walked toward me as though her legs were wooden below the knees, which
they very probably were.

“Where
is
my carburetor?” she asked with increasing annoyance.

“I’m afraid I haven’t got it.”

“Well, you’ll have to jolly well go and jolly well fetch it.”

“Actually, I just wanted a word with you.”

She looked at the piece of rock I had been sitting upon. “Did you hear that? He wants to have a word with me. Charming. Well,
I jolly well want to have a word with you—and that word is
carburetor
.”

With this she kicked the rear bumper of the car and the boot sprang open. Smoke came from the area of the exhaust which confused
me as the engine was not running. On closer inspection, I noticed a pile of smoldering bones that had once belonged to a small,
indescribable animal. There was also a bucket full of a thick liquid.

“Miss Cavely,” I began.

“Don’t you ‘Miss Cavely’ me. Just fetch my…” Suddenly there was a vacant expression and she dropped the plastic bags. “Just
fetch my…”

“Your carburetor?”

“Oh, you’ve got it? Splendid. Pop it in. Do you know the way to Paris?”

“Paris?”

“That’s where the rally begins.”

“Rally?”

“Paris–Dakar, of course.” Then she said to the rocky outcrop, “Can’t let them get a head start, can we, Sonny? Oh, no. Paris
here we come.”

Now I knew why the prosecution chose not to use Vera Cavely as a witness against Kingsley. She was two sandwiches short of
a picnic. But she did make a statement which they had not disclosed. So what did she know? And why did the messages point
to her?

“Miss Cavely, I’m the lawyer representing Richard Kingsley. You do know Mr.—”

“He’s ‘Miss Cavely-ing’ me again, Sonny.”

“I understand you made a statement.”

“Want another?”

“I just want—”

“Cost you a carburetor. Only last time they promised to fix my car and look at it. So what do you want me to say?”

Then I realized that Vera Cavely must be a red herring. Some overzealous local policeman had obviously filled out a deposition
and got her to sign it—probably so they could object to Kingsley’s bail or ask for a further remand into police custody.

I was about to leave and asked, “So you know nothing about the death of Molly—”

“You know what the three little thingees said?”

“Remind me.”

“See no evil, hear no evil, speak no—”

“Yes, I understand,” I said. “I shan’t need to trouble you further.” I had a twenty-minute walk to where I parked Justine’s
car on the edge of the woods. “Good luck with the rally,” I said.

“Luck? Who needs luck when you can drive like a demon, eh, Summers? Do you want some Red-eye?”

That brought me to a halt. “What did you say—”

“Red-eye. I’ve got a bucket here.”

“Miss Cavely… Vera, why did you say Summers?

She opened the front door of the car and something, a wood pigeon, perhaps, flew out. She did not flinch.

I said, “Why did you mention—”

“Oh, Sonny?” She looked at me with complete exasperation. “Well, who on earth did you think I was talking to?”

I shrugged foolishly.

She began to pull handfuls of damp moss away from the cracks in the rocky outcrop. “Oh, you
do
get so dirty. Really.”

Very soon I could see that the stone I had sat upon was roughly hewn, something like a primitive gravestone. There was a simple
inscription:
He was Summers
.

T
HE REST OF MY CONVERSATION WITH
V
ERA
C
AVELY
, although interspersed with talk of pit-stops, double declutching and desert tracks, provided an inkling as to where the
truth may have been found about Molly Summers. I would have to visit the church of St. Stephen and the Martyrs. How easy was
it, I wondered, to inspect a parish register?

As I walked back to the car, the woods seemed different to me. Around every other tree trunk I could see that quirky little
rally-driver, with her pilot’s goggles and open-toe sandals, itching to scream away from the green light, but not having moved
so much as an inch in twenty years.

By the time I reached the clearing where I thought I had left the car, it was obvious that I had forgotten the way out of
the woods. Although I could see the car, I felt that I could more easily find my way to Dakar than to the Wright Estate.

Then I spotted a man marching through the woods, stick in hand, retriever at his heels. I was debating whether to ask him
for directions when I saw someone else walking quickly away from the car. His head was down and the collar of his green cotton
jacket was up. He had a purposeful gait.

“Excuse me,” I said. “I wonder whether you could—” He just kept walking. “Could you just slow down a minute?” His pace did
not change. “I’m looking for the main road.”

He glanced in my direction with a curiously sheepish expression.

I tried to touch his arm gently but he quickened his step. “Sorry, have I offended you in some way?” I got no answer. “What’s
the matter?” A suspicious stare. “Do you know the Wrights’ place?”

He broke into a run. Something was wrong. He seemed vaguely familiar.

I said, “Just wait, will you?” But he did not listen to me, and went off with little startled strides. I followed him instinctively
as he darted in and out of the trees, unconcerned about the sharp branches.

“Please stop,” I said. Why wouldn’t he reply?

As I drew alongside him and tried to hold his arm, he pulled up and struck out at me. His swing was pathetic, much as mine
would have been, but I ducked and grasped his midriff. We lost our balance and fell to the ground with me on top. I twisted
my ankle but continued to lie on him.

“Who are you?” I asked. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

Again, no answer. And I couldn’t remember exactly where I’d seen him.

“Why did you run?”

He turned his head sharply to the left, into the mud, and kept his mouth tightly shut.

“What were you up to at the car?” It was hardly my most inspired cross-examination.

He tried to shrug me off, but the sheer weight of my body kept him pinned firmly in the mud. I could feel my ankle swelling
but tried to ignore the pain.

“Listen,” I said, “I’ll let you up if you don’t try anything. Agreed?”

He nodded.

But as soon as I released his arms he hurled a flurry of punches toward me. Most of them missed. Those that did connect were
little more than slaps. I grabbed his throat—and squeezed. It felt good. What a sight we must have been: two frightened men
struggling in the undergrowth with hideously contorted faces and bulging eyes.

With my free hand I reached into his jacket and pulled out his wallet, still holding his throat. His face did not go blue,
as I expected, but purplish. I tipped the wallet’s contents into the mud and leaves. The muscles on his snowy neck stood out
but I did not let go.

In the heap of notes and coins were two credit card receipts. One of them was soaked and illegible. I could just make out
the name on the other.