by Susan Moody
Using the photographs, I followed the same route as Stonor had taken that night. I went upstairs, zoomed along the passage, avoiding the bloodstains. I closely re-examined the crime-scene photos of Sabine’s room. Nothing new presented itself. There was Sabine’s handbag, the glasses she sometimes wore on the night-table beside the bed, a book lying open on its face (I couldn’t see the cover but it was undoubtedly one of the thrillers she enjoyed), her checked cotton bathrobe across the foot of the bed. I checked out the bathroom photographs, trying not to envisage the actions which had resulted in those blood-spattered tiles. I moved down the passage and stood at the door of the boys’ room. It still looked just as it had earlier, when Stonor showed me the photographs. I hadn’t really expected anything to have changed, but confess that I kind of hoped something would jump out at me, some revelation would make itself known. I flipped through the pages in Stonor’s files and found Gavin’s testimony. He’d stated that they were building something out of Lego when they heard George’s screams, then Sabine’s. As before, the two sides of the room differed, one neat, one boy-messy. The two of them were both, according to Gavin, just waiting for the call to get undressed and go to the bathroom when Clio Palliser had begun her murderous attack. He and Edward had come to the door of their room, taken in what was happening and raced away down the passage, with her in pursuit.
I looked again at the photographs of the bedroom. And then again. I knew instinctively that the clue was to be found somewhere in there. I reread Gavin’s testimony. I reread the police statements. I spread the photographs of the room out in a comprehensive display and once again examined them closely. The answer I wanted was staring me in the face, if only I could decipher it. I flipped to the photo of poor frozen half-naked Gavin emerging from the tumbledown stone hut. I went back to the boys’ room. Finally, I looked up. There was a smile on my face.
I pulled out my cellphone and dialled Brian Stonor. ‘Worked it out yet?’ I said.
‘Worked what out?’
‘The niggle.’
‘It hasn’t popped fully formed into my head, if that’s what you mean.’
‘I know what was bothering you,’ I said. And proceeded to tell him.
He was silent while he thought it through. Then he erupted. ‘Oh my God! You know, I think you may be right!’ He sounded almost orgasmic. ‘Oh my heavens … That’s it, that’s the answer, has to be!’
When I offered corroborating evidence, he said, ‘We weren’t in full possession of the facts at the time. Even so, why on earth didn’t we spot it sooner?’
When Gavin rang me later, I was lying on the sofa, snoring my lunch off. Not a pretty sight, I’d be the first to agree, mouth half-open, drool on the cushions. I was glad that he wasn’t there in person.
‘Hello, my little munchkin,’ he said. ‘How’s things?’
‘Things is good.’
‘Did you feed my cat?’
‘Absolutely. And delivered her eight kittens. Also changed the sheets, did some laundry, washed-up, cleaned out the fridge, watered the plants, threw away the old newspapers, vacuumed the carpets …’
‘You’re an angel.’
‘I know,’ I said. Should I say it? Yes, I decided. Nothing to be lost and with any luck a puzzle sorted. ‘I got a bit of a surprise, actually.’
‘Oh?’ His tone was guarded.
‘Yes.’ I mustered up some nonchalance. ‘You’ve got a book I recognized on your shelves.’
‘You know we have many books in common, darling. What was special about that one?’
‘It happens to have belonged to my sister.’
‘I told you, she often lent me books,’ he said easily. ‘It must have been packed up with my other things by mistake.’
‘Except that this one was the present I had sent her from California for Christmas. It was under the tree, waiting for Christmas Day. It hadn’t been opened when she died.’
There was a pause before he said, ‘Are you accusing me of something, Chantal?’
‘No, but—’
‘But what, exactly?’
‘I don’t understand how you got hold of it.’
‘I already said, it must have got mixed up with my stuff when they were packing everything up.’ He sounded impatient.
‘I suppose so.’
‘You sound as if you don’t believe me.’
‘Of course I believe you, Gavin.’
‘I’m not clear why you were rooting round among my possessions in the first place.’
‘Don’t be so anal,’ I said. ‘For a start, I wasn’t rooting. I made a cup of coffee and sat down for a few seconds, after all my hard work. That’s when I noticed the book. That was before I cleaned all the windows and just after I’d painted the entire flat from top to bottom. I do hope you don’t mind me taking a break.’
‘Sorry if I sounded annoyed, darling.’ The friendliness was back in his voice. ‘I’m a bit stressed over here. Work’s not going as smoothly as we’d all hoped.’
‘I suppose it means you’ll be away longer than you planned.’
‘’Fraid so.’
Eighteen
The light was already beginning to fade when Stonor and I arrived the next day, although it was barely quarter-past three. Stonor pulled the car into a lay-by and parked. We stuffed gloves in our pockets and hats on our heads, laced up our boots, then struck off the road and down into the woods between Weston Lodge and Byfield Hall. The sky was grim with snow-heavy clouds: every now and then a handful of flakes came drifting down. ‘You’ve got a torch, haven’t you?’ I asked.
‘Of course.’ He patted a pocket. ‘Plus some spare bulbs, just in case.’
‘Do you think we’ll find anything?’
‘After what you’ve told me, I’m a hundred per cent certain that we will.’
I took his hand in mine, held it tightly. ‘I feel like a Judas,’ I said.
‘Don’t, Chantal. Do not think that. The man is no more than vermin, a dangerous wild animal who will kill and kill again. You don’t think that your sister and those boys were his last victims, do you?’
‘Well, unless we find some evidence to prove that he was responsible for the deaths here at Weston Lodge – and make sure that he’s put away for life – he’s going to run around free to do whatever he wants to whomsoever he wants.’
‘Maybe we should have told David Charteris we’d be here. Someone. Anyone.’ Even with Stonor at my side, I was uneasy, remembering my first walk through these woods, the sense I’d had of some sinister element stalking me. It had been daylight then, bright sunshine reaching through the leaf-cover. Now it was darkening, the black-trunked trees crowding in on us, branches clacking in the sullen wind. ‘Why didn’t we?’
‘Because we’re not going to be very long,’ Stonor soothed. ‘It’s an in-and-out job: we know exactly what we’re looking for, we find it, we go up to the house or drive home again.’ He put an arm round my shoulders and pulled me closer. ‘Cheer up, Chantal. We even know more or less where it is. There’s no need to get anyone else involved, or alarmed.’
‘But suppose something happens?’ I was beginning to feel a chill between my shoulder-blades, a whisper of fear.
‘What could happen? He’s miles away. He can’t hurt you. Trust me.’
We reached the little hut, still as tumbledown as it had been in the spring, but surrounded now by dead yellow grass and the withered stems of nettle and willowherb. Dull leaves of ivy sprawled over what remained of the stone walls and up over the few slates which still clung to the brittle timbers of the roof. Elder and bramble crowded the doorway.
Stonor pulled a rubberized torch from the pocket of his padded jacket and went inside, treading across broken pieces of tile, kicking a dead pigeon to one side as he advanced on the rusting piece of machinery which stood to one side of the earthen floor. I stood at the entrance space, watching him as he aimed his torch, examining the ground around it. Behind me, tree branches creaked in the cold wind, and evergr
eens rustled. Something was moving about amongst the foliage: a bird foraging in the dry leaves, some animal searching for prey.
‘Here we are,’ Stonor said. He knelt on the ground to look closer at the floor of the hut.
‘See anything?’
‘Not really.’ He shone the torch round the space. ‘He testified that he crawled into the piece of machinery to keep warm and pulled up some old sacking to cover himself, didn’t he?’
‘That’s right.’
‘I can’t see anything. At least, nothing which might – hey! Just a moment. What’s this? I think I might have found … Where’s my trowel?’
He started rooting round in the pockets of his padded jacket. At the same time, an arm clamped round my neck and a big hand covered my mouth. I was yanked backwards and off-balance. My lips were crushed hard against my teeth, so hard that I was afraid some of them would come loose and lodge themselves in my throat. All I could do was make faint whimpery noises but they weren’t loud enough for Stonor to hear. I was held in an iron-solid grip and silently pulled away from the hut further into the woods, my heels dragging through the leaves. Then I was flung hard down on my face; someone knelt heavily on my back, crushing me into the ground, and my arms were wrenched viciously backwards and fastened with the sort of plastic tie that people use to secure their suitcases. My ankles too. I lay there terrified, immobilized. I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could do so, my face was jammed down even further into the mud of the forest floor. A brutal hand grabbed my hair and turned my face sideways, at the same time shovelling handfuls of leaves and wet earth into my mouth until I could hardly breathe. Then I was turned over on to my side.
The whole operation couldn’t have taken more than half a minute. Lying immobilized and gagged, I could only watch helplessly as my captor moved silently back to the shed. He must have jumped on to Stonor’s back and knocked him flat before he even realized someone was behind him, someone who was not me. I heard the ‘ouf’ of expelled air as he collapsed on to the floor of the hut under the weight of his attacker. It was only a few seconds later that he appeared in the doorway of the hut, hands caught behind him, a knife at his throat. He was forced over to where I lay, pushed to his knees and then to the ground, where he was ordered to lie prone, then he too had his ankles trussed with a plastic tie.
The situation was so absurdly over the top that at first I didn’t really feel panicky. It felt more like a play or a film than real life. This sort of thing didn’t happen outside a thriller, or off-screen. Not to average citizens such as Stonor and me.
I had managed by now to spit out most of the mud and leaves but my mouth was rough with dirt and leaf-mould. I already knew who was responsible for this. I knew his smell, his feel, the touch and taste of his body. I had lain in his arms and thought that this was all the ecstasy I would ever need.
I had forgotten how strong he was. Without much effort he dragged us both further into the woods, towards a smooth-trunked beech which stood beside the track. First me, then Stonor. In turn, he lashed us against it, sitting up, shoulder to shoulder; he must have come prepared with rope and tape, the plastic ties, the brand-new, shiny-bladed axe he was now hefting from one hand to the other as he stood observing us.
‘This is going to be such fun,’ he said.
‘What is?’ said Stonor. I could feel the tips of his fingers against mine.
‘Why, punishing you both, of course.’
‘Punishing us? What for?’ I asked.
‘Oh, Chantal, Chantal,’ he chided. ‘Surely you know by now that I can’t stand people using my things. Damaging them. That’s what happened with Georgie, all those years ago. I came home from having supper with the Archers, and when I went up to our bedroom, bloody Edward had let bloody Georgie muck about with my brand-new Nikon, which he’d then dropped on the floor and broken.’
‘Bad luck,’ I said. ‘They certainly got what they deserved. Unlike my sister.’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Be reasonable. She knew I’d killed Georgie. What else could I do? Besides, she kept treating me like the other two, as though I was just a little boy.’
‘Resisting your advances, you mean.’
He blinked. ‘If you want to put it like that.’
‘You can’t seriously think you can kill us both and get away with it, do you?’ Stonor said. Between us, his fingers were working against the plastic tie round his wrists.
‘I got away with the others,’ Gavin said. ‘All this time. I suppose I was lucky that poor old Clio chose to keep her mouth shut.’
‘What would you have done if she hadn’t?’ asked Stonor.
Gavin shrugged. ‘Her word against mine. I think they’d have believed me over her. After all, the woman was known to be as nutty as a fruitcake. And I had spent most of the night in the shed, freezing to death.’
‘Most of it? Not all?’
‘God, no. She didn’t even come out of her study for about two hours – I knew she wouldn’t because she never did. I had plenty of time to sort a few things out.’
‘Like steal the Christmas present I’d sent my sister?’
He looked shamefaced. ‘I shouldn’t have done that. Thing is, I knew it was a book on art, and she’d lent me books before, so I didn’t really think anyone would mind – if they ever knew.’
‘I mind,’ I said. ‘I mind very much.’
He shrugged again. ‘There you go.’
‘I’d also like to say that I think you are vicious, evil and completely insane.’ I had nothing to lose by angering him: we were at his mercy and he could do what he liked to us. ‘It turns my stomach that I could ever have loved you. Slept with you. Fancied that we might make a life together.’
The expression in his eyes made me shiver. ‘Funny,’ he said. ‘That’s pretty much how I feel myself.’
‘Do you honestly think you’ll get away with this?’ said Stonor. He pressed his fingertips against mine; they were looser this time.
Daylight had almost disappeared, but the snow, now falling more thickly than before, gave a moonlight-glow to the woods. In the distance, near the entrance to the woods, I thought I could see two black-clad shapes. Were they trees, or people?
‘I always have before,’ Gavin said. ‘Besides, they’ll never find you. Not until it’s far too late. If at all.’
‘If we disappear,’ I said, ‘why wouldn’t they search for us?’
‘I thought I’d use the well,’ he said.
‘Wouldn’t they look down there?’
‘Not after I tell them that I saw you both drive away. I shall play the wronged lover. I shall cry a bit. I’ll say I came back early from Port Moresby, because I already suspected you of deceiving me with that Scotsman. That I discovered you were also having it off with the policeman. That I followed you both here, we argued, you two left. They’ll believe me. People always do. That’s why I’m so good at my job.’
I couldn’t tell if the two distant shapes had moved or not. Or even if they had been there in the first place. The light was deceptive, bright and yet imprecise.
‘Don’t!’ I screamed suddenly, for the benefit of the possible watchers. ‘Please don’t kill us, please don’t, Gavin. We’ve done nothing wrong.’
Gavin turned his mad eyes on me. ‘Shut the fuck up, you sodding faithless bitch. You’re worse than your fucking sister. And when I say fucking …’ He grinned. Nodded. Said, ‘Oh, yes, she was a hot little number indeed, especially for a randy thirteen-year-old like I was back then.’
I knew he was deliberately winding us up. I’d read the letters from my sister which Malcolm had given me, saying that the third boy, Gavin Metcalfe-Vaughn, was constantly coming on to her, that he’d appeared in her bedroom several times and tried to get into bed with her, that he was so much bigger than she was, that she was afraid he might rape her. The phrase my blood began to boil seemed literally true at that moment; I could feel the heat running along my veins, seeping through my skin. It would not have surprise
d me if there were scorch-marks up and down my limbs. If I had had a gun in my hand at that moment, I would have had no compunction whatsoever in shooting him there and then. Straight through the testicles, if I could manage it.
‘What about my car?’ Stonor was saying.
‘Yes,’ I added. ‘We both have jobs, family … If we go missing, they’ll search for us.’
‘Don’t you worry your little red head about the car,’ Gavin said. ‘I’ll be able to dispose of it and no one the wiser.’
Looking at him, this brilliant, unstable psychopath, with his nice face and good hands (how wrong my mother had been, maintaining that good hands meant a good man, and how foolish such generalizations were, and how so much more foolish I had been to believe her), I thought of poor Miki Masshi, carrying this monster’s child. I thought of Paula Metcalfe-Vaughn, that harried expression on her face, the tortured way her eyes rested on her son. Did she know what he was? What he had done? The trouble with being a mother was that even if she knew her son was a murderer, it wouldn’t necessarily stop her loving him, or worrying about him. Hoping against hope that he wouldn’t do it again.
I thought of the dilemmas posed: knowing how dangerous he was, do you turn him in? Could you do that when you had given birth to him, seen him through babyhood, childhood, adolescence? Or would you try to watch his every move, try to forestall him, warn people off him? I thought of the damage he had caused, the lives he had taken, the lives he had ruined. I determined that if Stonor and I got safely out of this, I would finally lay to rest what was left of my sister’s ghost and move out of the shadows into the sunshine. I had been happy with Hamilton; I could be happy again with Malcolm, I thought.
But it looked as though I was not destined to survive. I looked beyond Gavin, but the cold was making my eyes water, and I now had no idea whether what I thought I’d seen had been anything more than winter-bare trunks. After all, who would be out in this kind of weather, at this time of day? Jennifer Forshawe had been one, but I did not imagine that Desmond was likely to be tottering through the trees towards us, and even if he were, he was far too frail to take on a maniac like Gavin. One tiny corner of my mind hoped he never discovered that I had briefly fingered him for the Weston Lodge killings.