A Final Reckoning

by Susan Moody

  I stood with puckered brow in the middle of the huge attic, thinking that there was a piece of this complicated jigsaw that it would be more than useful to locate, and that was Clio’s first husband, father of her two sons. The man who had not only produced – or designed – the stained glass window in the little Palliser chapel, but had also sculpted that formidable image above the lintel. Cronus, the Green Man, Sir Gerald Palliser … whichever, it was a powerful piece of work.

  And somewhere in the depths of my befuddled brain, I had a faint memory of seeing work very like it, and not all that long ago. I must try and dredge the information up, I thought. But meanwhile, I wanted to tackle the under-eave storage. I shifted some of the canvases leaning against the low wall and tugged at the nearest brass handle. The door opened easily, and I gazed in dismay at the jumble of objects which had been thrust inside. There was very little floor space; by the time I’d gradually removed everything from the triangular space and piled it up on the floorboards, I’d need to learn to levitate in order get about the room. Carefully, terrified of knocking some priceless objet to the floor or irreparably damaging a bibelot, I started on the job.

  I was looking for something, but until I found it, I had no idea what it might be, even if it existed. Or, if it did, whether it was in this attic. I carefully examined each object I hoicked out of the storage space and found I was mostly looking at more of the same stuff that already stood packed around the room, though on a smaller scale.

  No furniture, no dresses, no more canvases, no rocking horses. But plenty more boxes of glasses. Venetian ones, for instance, with elaborate stems and delicate gold tracery on the bowls. More gorgeous antique porcelain. A carton of leather boots. A box of skates. Fur stoles and what I believe were called tippets. More boxes of papers. And more. A treasure trove for Maggie, maybe, but not for me. Folded linen, thick and heavy and going yellow along the creases. All the detritus of generations of family life.

  Stop, I told myself. Stop dithering around and be logical. What is it you really hope to find? The answer, when I’d sat down on one of the brocade-covered armchairs and closed my eyes, was some hint as to the whereabouts or identity of the art student. In my heart of hearts, I knew that my searching was a waste of time, that the whole matter was done and dusted, had been for years. Clio had killed her sons and my sister, and that’s all there was to it.

  And yet, and yet …

  I flicked through the photo albums again, hoping to find pictures of a younger Clio. A wedding album. Family fun with the two baby boys, before the husband ran off. I didn’t find that; instead I was looking at Oxford days, spires against the sky, undergraduates in overloaded punts, bridges across willowed rivers, more students capped and gowned, an unmistakable Clio cuddled up to a man I easily recognized as a young Fingal Adair, more snapshots showing Maggie and Clio and Fin, the three of them dressed for a ball in long gowns and white tie, groups of students waving wine bottles at the camera, groups of them making silly faces.

  This was a family which kept records, and surely the logical progression from university life would be the sober stuff of marriage and children. But there was nothing. I thought there might have been christening photographs, children’s birthday parties, first day at school: all the fond and silly events that parents like to record. I was willing to bet that the significant milestones in Gavin’s life had been recorded, as had mine. But there was nothing here.

  Perhaps there were other albums elsewhere. Or – if they even existed – perhaps Redmayne had got rid of them, horrible reminders of what had once been. Carefully, I stowed them back in the trunk. The single wallet with pictures of Sabine I would keep. I was owed those snaps.

  Back in my room, I brought out my precious cache of Sabine’s final letters. I hadn’t looked at them on my return to London. They were too poignant, almost too uncomfortable to read; it was like having second sight, knowing as I did that three lives were about to be snuffed out. The one I picked at random was dated about ten days before she was murdered.

  Hi, Babes:

  I’ve got half an hour, so I thought I’d write to you. Once those boys are home, I doubt if I’ll have much time for setting pen to paper …

  Today Clio summoned me to her study. I knocked at the door, and when she let me in, I could hardly believe my eyes! You can’t imagine more of a contrast with the rest of the house. Her room is at the back, very large, with big arched windows, all painted pure white, except for one wall which is shocking pink and has a pink velvet sofa pushed up against it. There’s a stunning abstract painting hanging above it, all patches of gorgeous colour, by Howard Hodgkin, if you’ve heard of him. And even if you haven’t, I have to say I could hardly believe my eyes. The floor was polished wood, absolutely bare except for a gorgeous rug which she said had been specially woven for her in Skye, beautiful swirls of rose and violet and blue and magenta, with just a touch here and there of a kind of acid green, which reflected the painting. There’s another sofa, big enough to sleep on, and lots of white-painted bookshelves with two or three pieces of ceramic art-ware. And a couple more paintings, one of them a Hockney, no less! David Hockney!!!! Unbelievable! The other was also rather gorgeous, by someone called Laura Knight, a woman standing at a window, looking down at the sea. Dame Laura Knight, to you.

  Outside are these fabulous views of the open countryside spreading for miles into the distance: hills and lines of willows along streams and rivers, and the odd church spire peeping out of the greenery, some roofs, furrowed fields – you know the sort of thing.

  It’s an absolutely stunning room, especially given the traditional look of the rest of the place. I suppose it reflects the real Clio, since she must have chosen it all herself, rather than the inherited persona she’s been carrying around all her life, along with the burden of being in charge of part of England’s heritage, when all she really wanted was to be an academic and lead an uninterrupted life in the ivory towers of some prestigious university or other. At least, that’s how I read her.

  She’s a strange woman, slightly hysterical, very nervous when interacting with other people, finds it hard to meet your eye. Anyway, she says she’s absolutely up to her ears in work, and she can’t believe Christmas is only a week away and it’s going to drastically upset her schedule, and she’s getting absolutely frantic but it’s not fair to the children, let alone her husband, not to make it wonderful for them, mistletoe and holly, all that jazz, and the upshot is, if I would take over all responsibilities for it – pretend it’s my home and my children, sort of thing – she would give me free rein to decorate etc etc (she showed me an album with photographs of the way the Lodge has been decorated in the past, and notes made by housekeepers in the glory days, and gave me lists of local suppliers of turkeys and vegetables and handmade Christmas puds etc etc) and – get this! – she’d double my salary into the bargain! Well, you can’t say fairer than that, can you? It was an offer I had no intention of refusing.

  The boys come home tomorrow for the Christmas hols. I’m really looking forward to meeting them.

  What fun it will be.

  Your Big Excited Sister … no, make that Your Excited Big Sister.

  I was snuggled under the covers when the telephone rang beside my bed. It was Gavin.

  ‘How’s it going, sweets?’ he said.

  ‘Not well.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I can’t seem to find a focus.’

  ‘Just focus on me.’

  I smiled. ‘Always.’

  ‘You know I love you, don’t you? And that I think you’re mad.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘What do you think you’re going to find down there, especially after all this time? Evidence that Clio Palliser didn’t commit those murders?’

  ‘I guess.’

  ‘There’s absolutely no indication that anyone else at all could have done it, Chantal.’

  ‘Yes, but just suppose someone did?’

  ‘I still don’t underst
and why you think that the verdict of the court was wrong.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ I said. ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘So what is the point?’

  ‘I don’t exactly know.’

  ‘Darling Chantal, when are you going to drop it and let the two of us get on with our lives? Because until we can put it behind us, we’re not going to be able to do that.’

  ‘I know, I know. It’s just …’

  ‘It’s just what?’

  Again I said, ‘I don’t know.’

  There was sigh from the other end of the line. ‘Ever since I met you, and we talked about it all and I finally got it off my chest, I’ve honestly felt like someone who’s been let out of prison. Or released from a cage. I so much don’t want to go back to those dark places again.’ There was a pleading note in his voice. ‘Please, Chantal. Can’t you drop it?’

  He was right, of course. Or was he? ‘Gavin,’ I said, ‘I’m convinced that there’s more to all this than we realize.’

  He sighed again. Louder this time. Irritably.

  ‘Thing is, I was like you,’ I said. ‘I thought I knew exactly what had happened.’

  ‘But I was there,’ he said. ‘I know what happened.’

  ‘You didn’t actually see Clio committing the murders, did you?’

  He drew in a hissing exasperated breath.

  I rushed on before he could say anything. ‘And it’s quite possible that if I did find the missing piece of the jigsaw—’

  ‘If there is one.’

  ‘—it won’t alter anything. Everything will still point straight at the Honourable Clio as the culprit. But until I can be sure – and I know, I know … until that weekend back in the spring, I was absolutely sure – I feel this stupid urge to investigate further. Especially since Brian Stonor feels much the same way. Do you understand?’

  ‘No,’ he said sulkily. ‘And anyway, what’s it got to do with Stonor?’

  ‘Well, you know he always said he had what he called a niggle.’

  ‘A niggle? Not another stupid word like that Mingle thing we had to attend before, I hope.’

  We both laughed. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It was sort of a feeling he had at the time that there was something wrong. That he and his colleagues might have overlooked something, or hadn’t probed deeply enough.’

  ‘I never heard about that.’

  ‘It’s what he told me. And the more I look into it all, the sadder poor Clio’s life turns out to be.’

  ‘Oh come on, Chantal. Lots of people have had sad lives. It doesn’t give them the licence to go round knifing people.’

  I felt an urge to justify myself. ‘Remember Jennifer Forshawe?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Lady Forshawe. From Byfield Hall. More or less next door.’

  ‘Good heavens, yes. A terrifying old biddy, she was. Not that she could have been old enough back then when I was spending the hols with the Pallisers. You’d have to be a certain age to be classed as an “old biddy”, I should think.’

  ‘Like what? Anything over twenty would have seemed ancient to boys of your age.’

  ‘Whatever age she was, she’d have been fearsome. Very imposing, very commanding. Attila the Hun would have run screaming in the opposite direction if she’d come anywhere near him.’

  ‘That’s more or less what her husband told me.’

  ‘He’d know, wouldn’t he? She used to march into the Lodge and start bossing everyone about, telling them what they should be doing – which was never what they were doing – and ordering everyone around. She’d get horribly angry, too, if we didn’t do what she said. Edward told her once that it wasn’t her house, it was his, and she clouted him round the head so hard that he fell down and almost knocked himself out. Told him not to be so impudent.’

  ‘Well, the point is that there’s a faint possibility that she was responsible for it all.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Sounds bizarre, doesn’t it? Especially after all this time. But I went over to see Lord Forshawe and he came up with this scenario. Off his own bat, I may say, though he implied he was just doing it for the intellectual exercise. Jenny takes the dogs for a walk, as she so often did, decides she’ll drop in at Weston to get back some picture she’d lent to Clio—’

  ‘It was a rather rude picture, as I remember. A little girl showing her underwear and some horrible old voyeur spying on her in the corner.’

  ‘Anyway, she comes in, intending to take the picture back with her to Byfield Hall, sees that someone’s scrawled a swear word all over it, knows it must be the boys, loses her cool, grabs a weapon – a paperknife or something – and races upstairs to start laying about her.’

  Gavin was silent for a moment. ‘I suppose that’s a perfectly possible version of events. Only thing is, I’m certain the boys wouldn’t have done anything like that. I mean, I know they could be a bit wicked, but they’d been taught a healthy respect for art. I remember Georgie once getting hold of a Magic Marker and drawing pubic hair on one of the marble statues that stood about everywhere. Edward made him clean it off pretty smartish, I can tell you.’

  ‘Well, all I’m saying is that it was Forshawe himself who suggested this theoretical possibility. And someone scrawled rude words on the Balthus.’

  ‘Strange. Almost as if he thought maybe she did do it.’

  ‘That’s exactly why I came down here. To see if there actually is an alternative to it being Clio. After all, she never admitted it.’

  ‘Nor did she deny it. Anyway, I think that’s more than enough about Clio and everything. I want to hear how you are, my darling Chantal. Whether you’re having fun – though how you could without me around, I don’t know – and all stuff like that.’ And our conversation moved into a more romantic mode.

  When we’d finished talking, I lay back on my pillows with my hands behind my head, listening to the noise of an autumn evening. Poplar trees shivered and an owl hooted, so close to my open windows that I could hear the whirr of its wings.

  Funny that Desmond Forshawe hadn’t mentioned that it was the Balthus the boys were supposed to have defaced. Or was it? I knew that his mind wasn’t anything like as woolly as he’d have me believe, but it was more than possible that after such a long time he genuinely didn’t remember. And of course he might say that it was none of my business or, alternatively, whichever picture it was had no bearing on the case.

  Did I really think anyone other than the Honourable Clio Palliser had killed my sister? If I was perfectly honest, no, I did not.

  Thirteen

  The next morning I woke early. Waiting for the kettle to boil, I looked out at frost sparkling in the hollows of the lawns below me, and the fields beyond them. Leaves whirled madly in what I knew would be a bitter wind. Winter coming on apace, then. After a childhood in California and Italy, I was not very keen on the cold. It had been the worst thing about Edinburgh, and London wasn’t much better.

  There were only three more of Sabine’s letters left. One of them I’d never even looked at. I wasn’t sure I ever would. The one I took out now seemed to follow the one I’d read last night, although it was missing the first page:

  LATER:

  It seems like there’s a serpent in this Eden. And I think it might be called Harry. Or possibly Clio. He’s never been anything but charming and kind to me, but I was up in my room, writing to you, and heard him screaming at the boys for some misdemeanour or other. I wasn’t sure whether I should get involved or not but in the end went down and found them in the morning room, the boys looking defiant but tear-streaked, shouting that they didn’t, they didn’t, while Harry was the colour of an aubergine, fists bunched, eyes mad with rage. He turned on me like a rabid dog, demanded to know what the hell I thought I was doing, bursting into his private room like that, meddling in family matters which were no concern of mine, called me an interfering bitch, if you please. He picked a bronze statuette off the table and actually lunged towards me as though he was goi
ng to hit me! I couldn’t believe it! He seemed completely out of it.

  And then Clio appeared and asked what on earth was going on and shooed the boys out of the room. I followed them as fast as I could, but not before I heard her shrieking at him, using horrible language, sounding as though she too was having hysterics.

  Upstairs I asked George what had been going on, and he said that Harry had been having a fit because he’d found them drooling over some nude painting or other. All strategically placed vine leaves and arms hiding nipples: you know the kind of thing. I’d have thought better a bit of appreciative drooling than complete indifference, wouldn’t you?

  ‘Apparently it’s ever so valuable,’ Edward said, ‘but we didn’t touch it or anything.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said his brother. ‘Like we care about his beastly pictures.’

  ‘But we’d never touch them,’ Edward said. ‘Not any more.’

  ‘We know better than to do that, in case he flies into a tantrum.’

  ‘Which he does all the time,’ Gavin added.

  ‘Scareee!’ they said together, as though it was funny. But I’m not sure it was.