A Final Reckoning

by Susan Moody

  Gavin was coming closer towards the tree to which we were tied, the axe-blade catching what little light was left as he swung it back and forth.

  ‘I promise this will hurt,’ he said. ‘Like it hurt poor little Georgie and the lovely Sabine. I wish I’d had longer to deal with bloody Edward – if he hadn’t virtually given my camera to his brother to play with, nothing would have happened – but I needed to get away before Madame finally came out of her study. Not that she would have heard any of the screams and shouting, in her soundproofed space.’ He looked from one to the other of us. ‘Is that bizarre, or what? A mother who shuts herself away from her children like that? Barely comes up to say goodnight? We didn’t see her at breakfast, or dinner. Sometimes at lunch, but for the most part she had a tray in her room.’

  It was bizarre. The Hon Clio’s indifference to her sons had caused the death of two boys and my sister. If she’d come out of her room earlier, instead of leaving her maternal responsibilities to Sabine, they might all have been saved. And in that sense, she was culpable; perhaps, after all, she fully deserved her incarceration in Broadmoor.

  Gavin began dancing round the tree, taking playful jabs towards us with the axe. He didn’t make contact with our flesh: I could tell this was by way of being a preliminary warm-up for him, the foreplay to the act, a means of heightening the tension for us all. I suspected that he was getting a sexual thrill out of the thought of sliced flesh and gushing blood. Each time the axe-blade came near me, I cringed, knowing that eventually he would begin to carve us to pieces. Slowly. Taking his time. Enjoying our agonies. I could feel screams of terror building up in my chest; I’m not brave, I’m not heroic: I would scream and scream, even though I would know that nobody could possibly hear me.

  But in all the thrillers I’d ever read – which was a great many – the mantra seemed to be that when faced with a homicidal maniac, you should keep them talking.

  ‘How did you know we were here?’ Stonor said.

  ‘I followed you, of course. I’ve been keeping an eye on you for days. I told this fucking faithless cunt here that I was going to Papua New Guinea, and went to stay in a hotel, keeping a close eye on developments in South Kensington. And sure enough, a car containing both of you left this morning, with me close behind.’

  ‘What did you think you were going to find?’

  ‘Proof that the two of you were cheating on me. Well, let me tell you, that never happens, not without immediate retribution. The last person who – tell you what, sweetheart,’ he said, smiling at me while he rested the axe lightly against his thigh, ‘I think I’ll do him first.’ He jerked his head at Stonor. ‘Take it nice and slow, nice and painful. You can watch … You should enjoy that.’

  ‘Why are you doing this?’ I said.

  ‘I told you: I don’t like people messing with my stuff.’

  ‘Your stuff?’ I couldn’t hear even the faintest tremor in Stonor’s voice.

  ‘Yeah. Her.’ He approached Stonor and, using the flat of his boot, kicked him as hard as he could in the face. ‘She’s mine. Not yours. Not anyone else’s. Mine.’ He kicked Stonor again, drawing blood. I heard the squash and crack as the ex-policeman’s nose was broken.

  ‘I’m not yours,’ I said, trying to keep my voice steady. ‘I’m not anyone’s. So you can stop kicking him.’

  ‘Would you rather I kicked you?’ He moved towards me, punched me in the face, stamped hard on my knee and then kicked me in the stomach. Jesus! The pain was so huge that I screamed at the top of my voice before slumping forwards, only the bonds around my chest keeping me upright against the trunk of tree. My head whirled like a fairground attraction, coloured lights shooting off and on, each spark a thrust of pain. Oh God, I prayed. Let it be quick. Let me pass out as soon as possible.

  ‘Don’t take him on, darling,’ Stonor said. I realized he was trying to make Gavin think we really were lovers.

  ‘Darling?’ said Gavin, his voice rising. ‘Darling, is it? I’ll show you whose fucking darling she is.’ He ran towards us, spinning the axe as though it were a straw in his big hands. He lifted it high in the air, and I closed my eyes, thinking of Kathy Bates sledge-hammering James Caan’s ankles in Misery. This would be much worse. We were in the hands of a sadistic psychopath. I heard the thump of the axe-blade against flesh and Stonor’s involuntary shriek of pain. I could see the gleam of white flesh against his slashed trouser-leg and even the welling of blood, black in the faint darkness.

  ‘You’re a maniac,’ I said rapidly. ‘You are stark raving mad. You should be in an institution. Or better still, hanging from the gallows. Or being electrocuted by—’

  It was Gavin’s turn to scream. ‘Shut the fuck up!’ he shrieked. ‘Fucking shut up, you sleazy cunt.’

  I’d read somewhere that while psychopaths generally have no empathy with their fellow human beings, are cold-hearted, ego-centric and manipulative, they take particular exception to being called mad. Was it worth antagonizing him further by repeating it, would it buy us any more time? Or would it simply make him even more cruel in his dispatch of us?

  He stood in front of Stonor and lifted the axe once again. ‘I want her to watch this, Mr Stonor. Now, where shall I start? An arm? A hand? A foot?’

  Was this craziness what Sabine had faced?

  ‘You know,’ Stonor said conversationally, ‘you’re rather overacting the part of the crazy psychopathic killer. All we need now is a fiendish laugh.’ His voice was fainter than usual, husky with pain.

  ‘Thank you,’ Gavin said. ‘I’ve often been complimented on my acting talents.’

  Behind him, I could still see along the track which led to the end of the woods and this time, despite the uncertain light, I was almost certain that two of the trees had moved closer. Someone was in the woods with us. I had about three seconds to convey to them that we were facing mortal danger. The man who had committed at least three murders was about to commit two more.

  ‘Help!’ I shouted. ‘Help us!’ I nudged Stonor. ‘Quickly! He’s going to kill us! He’s got an axe.’

  ‘Help!’ shouted Stonor. ‘Help!’

  But the two shapes did not stir, and no one came running to our aid. They were just trees, after all. I slumped against the bonds which held me against the trunk of the beech.

  ‘Scream as much as you like!’ Gavin laughed. ‘No one can hear you. We’re surprisingly far away from any of the nearby houses. And in any case, old Dessie Forshawe is as deaf as a post. Take him out of the equation, and there’s no one else within miles. Except for the shirt-lifters at the Lodge, and they’re too busy poncing around being nice to their so-called guests to hear anything going on outside.’

  Tears filled my eyes. My bravado and disbelief at the surreal situation we were in melted away, leaving me paralysed and despairing. My mouth was dry with terror, and one of my legs shook uncontrollably. This was it: I was about to die. I knew there was no point in pleading with Gavin, or begging him to spare our lives. We were only alive and still undamaged because of his over-inflated ego, his arrogance and conceit, his desire to let us know how clever he was. Nor did the irony of my situation escape me: I had always followed so closely in my sister’s footsteps, instead of making my own history, and now I was to die a similar death to hers, at the hands of the same deranged maniac.

  I reached again for Stonor’s hand and was surprised at how much of it I was able to grasp. The plastic ties were softening and stretching from the heat of our bodies. We’d be able to get free of them any moment. And much good it would do us, hobbled as we were.

  Now Gavin was standing over us. ‘You know, for once in my life I really don’t where to start.’ He flicked the axe first towards me, then towards Stonor. I hunched into myself as much as I could, making myself small. It was now so dark that I couldn’t actually see more than the shape of his face, the two dark circles of his eyes.

  He lifted the axe. He faced Stonor. ‘Pity it’s so dark,’ he said. ‘She won’t be able to see yo
u suffering.’ A thought struck him. ‘Tell you what, though. We could throw some light on the proceedings. You had a torch, didn’t you? Must still be in the hut.’ He started to move fast towards the tumbledown structure. ‘Don’t go ’way, now!’ he called over his shoulder.

  But that’s exactly what we did. Suddenly, out of the dark, a knife slit the bonds round my chest and ankles, while at the same time someone did the same for Stonor.

  ‘Come on, you two,’ a voice whispered. ‘It’ll take him a while to locate that torch.’

  ‘Get moving,’ said a second voice. ‘Quick!’

  We were dragged to our feet, and all four of us ran or stumbled down the track to where the woods opened out. Now I could see the lights of Weston Lodge through the trees and, between them and us, the round shape of the well. I shuddered with horror. Gavin would have tossed our bodies down there without a thought, replaced the lid, and gone away, back to his everyday life.

  ‘What the fuck …?’ There was a furious yell behind us as Gavin found that we had got away.

  I glanced over my shoulder and could see the thin beam of a torch. Life was returning to my legs now. Beside me, Stonor was gasping. ‘I don’t know how much further I can manage,’ he said weakly.

  ‘Not far now. Put your arm round my shoulders.’ I recognized Trevor Barnard’s reassuring voice. ‘I’ve got you.’

  And then suddenly, almost, it seemed, at my shoulder, I heard a mad voice, whispering, whispering. ‘You can’t get away, you can run but you can’t hide … I’ll find you in the end, and when I do …’

  They were almost the very words which my sister’s killer was supposed to have whispered as she struck down her boys and my sister.

  ‘Come on,’ Barnard said, his voice urgent. ‘Quickly.’

  We were at the well now. To the right of us, someone said, ‘Over here. This way. Quickly, now.’

  Stonor and I veered to the right, while Barnard raced to the far side of the well-mouth. I could faintly see him standing there and hear Gavin labouring and cursing along the path we’d just travelled, only feet behind, flashing his torch on the ground and then upwards, trying to find us.

  ‘You won’t get away,’ he was screaming.

  Someone spoke into my ear. ‘I rather think you will, you know.’ It was a voice I’d never heard, but I had a strong suspicion whose it was.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. Tears filled my eyes. ‘Thank you very much.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.’ It was the same voice. Arms went around me and held me tight.

  ‘All right, son.’ I recognized Trevor Barnard’s voice. ‘Put the axe down and come over here. The game’s finally up.’ Faintly against the night-glow of snow and lights from the Lodge, I could see his tall figure.

  ‘Not yet!’ Gavin snarled. It was as though an animal was speaking: a wolf, perhaps, or a rabid dog.

  Hidden among the cold trees, snow falling on my head, my face, into my eyes, I saw him leap forward, screaming incomprehensibly, the sounds of pure uncontrollable rage and hatred. He ran fast towards Barnard, the axe lifted high above his head.

  Then, all of a sudden, he was gone. A long-drawn-out shriek, this time of terror, a couple of thumps, a hollow splash. Someone had removed the cover of the well; Gavin had tripped over the edge and disappeared into its depths.

  There was complete silence for a moment, apart from the hiss of snow landing on wet branches and the faint clicking of holly leaves rubbing together.

  ‘You can come out now,’ Barnard called. One by one, we emerged from hiding: Stonor, me and a plump white-haired woman. Even before Barnard flashed his torch at her, I knew there was only one person it could be.

  Barnard put his arm round her. ‘It worked!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Well done, love.’ He turned to us. ‘It was all her idea. She said she was sure we could lure him towards me and in the darkness he wouldn’t see the well and would trip head first into it.’

  ‘Clever.’

  ‘This is Clio,’ he said proudly.

  ‘I rather guessed it must be,’ said Stonor.

  ‘I’m very glad to meet you at last,’ I said.

  ‘What are we going to do about Sonny Jim down there?’ asked Barnard.

  ‘What are the choices?’ I said.

  ‘Only two, as I see it. Either we put the lid back over the well and forget about him forever, which is the option I personally favour. Or we organize a party to get him out of there and see that he faces justice after all these years.’

  ‘I’m with you on the first option,’ I said. ‘But …’ It would have been so easy, and a fitting end, but I could not add my endorsement. I had loved this man. Slept with him. Imagined a future with him. I knew he had killed my sister as well as Clio’s sons, in cold blood, and not felt a shred of remorse. There was his wife, too, another probable victim, and who knew who else? And I had no doubt that given time he would have hacked both me and Stonor to death, and enjoyed doing it. Nonetheless, he was a fellow human being and deserved something, though it was difficult to say what.

  ‘Me too. That … that … spiteful evil manipulative devil.’ Stonor could hardly get the words out.

  ‘The only reason I don’t want to leave him down there,’ said Barnard, ‘is because I want to clear Clio’s name. She spent nearly twenty years locked away for something she didn’t do, and she deserves to be able to hold up her head at last, instead of skulking her life away.’

  ‘I don’t skulk,’ protested Clio, and there was the hint of a dimple beside her mouth. She wore a white knitted hat which covered most of her hair, a thick white padded ski-jacket. Melted snow gleamed on her shoulders, and snowflakes sparkled in her hair. She was the palest person I had ever seen. A snow-woman. An Ice Queen.

  ‘We’ll get him out,’ Barnard said. ‘But not just yet. I’m going to put the lid on. Let him think that we’re going to leave him there.’ He and I dragged the wooden lid over the opening with considerable difficulty. Furious yells and threats could be heard from the bottom of the well, followed by desperate pleas not to be left there. No one took any notice.

  ‘Mr Stonor needs medical attention,’ I said.

  ‘Why don’t we go down to the Lodge and, as a matter of extreme non-urgency, organize a rescue party for this bastard,’ said Barnard. ‘Have some dinner or something.’

  ‘How many people know who you are?’ I asked Clio as we set off towards the Lodge. ‘Or where you are?’

  ‘Very few. We felt it safer to keep it quiet.’

  ‘Safer?’

  ‘Trevor was convinced that if Gavin knew I was alive and free, he would come after me. I’m the only one who really knew that he was responsible for the deaths of my poor children. If I’d been a better mother, more engaged …’

  ‘There are several people who suspected that it wasn’t you,’ I said. ‘Does David Charteris know you’re here?’

  ‘No. My solicitor arranged all the details to do with the sale of the Lodge. All I had to do was sign the papers. But Lord Forshawe knows.’

  ‘He tried to convince me that his wife had been responsible for … for what happened.’

  ‘Typical of Desmond.’ Clio laughed, a bright sound among the dark masses of holly bushes and laurels which lined the path down to the house. ‘Jenny was more than capable of it, I can assure you. A genuinely fearsome woman, she was.’

  Through the still uncurtained windows of the Lodge, we could see people sitting in the bar with drinks in their hands, the dining room already lit with thick church candles, lights in the smaller salon and people laughing in front of a blazing fire. It all seemed so normal, compared to what had taken place only minutes earlier. I thought of Gavin down there in the darkness of the well, glowing in the wet shadows like a giant pus-filled insect.

  He’d be pulled out, arrested, put in prison until his trial, and then, with any luck, would spend the rest of his life behind bars.

  ‘Why are you out in the woods at this time anyway?’ I asked as we slid do
wn the slope to the side door of the Lodge.

  ‘That’s when we usually go for a walk,’ Clio Palliser said. She had an unusually clear voice, uninflected and even. ‘We don’t want people to know I’m here.’ She raised a hand and brushed a strand of snow-wet hair from her face. ‘Not that I look anything like I used to do.’

  ‘There’s always someone who’ll recognize you,’ I said.

  ‘Of course. I just didn’t want to cause any more trouble for Trevor than I had to. He’s been so amazingly good to me.’ Clio led us towards one of the side doors and pushed at it. It squeaked open, scraping an entrance way of red and black tiles. The four of us walked along a passage lined with shelves full of catering packs of flour and sugar, lentils and paper towels, jars of expensive jams and boxes of detergent. Clio opened a door at the end, and we were in the body of the hotel. To the right was a door at which she knocked. A voice called to us to come in, and the four of us entered.

  David Charteris was sitting in an armchair on one side of a log fire, while opposite him sat Omar, his partner. He rose to his feet and stared at us all, a look of puzzlement on his face.

  ‘Trevor,’ he said. ‘And – um – Mrs Frazer? Mr Stonor.’ He looked at the blood pouring down Stonor’s leg. ‘Oh my God … Can I help?’ His gaze fell on Clio. He stiffened. For a moment he was silent. Then he said uncertainly, ‘Clio?’

  ‘She didn’t do it,’ Barnard said quickly. ‘It wasn’t—’

  ‘Shh,’ Clio said.

  ‘Is it really you?’ David came forward and wrapped his arms round her. ‘Clio,’ he said softly. ‘Oh my dear.’ His voice broke and tears filled his eyes. ‘We have so wondered where you were, what you were doing.’

  The room broke into a babble of sound as introductions were made and explanations were given. David opened a small fridge concealed by wooden panelling and brought out a bottle of expensive champagne. Omar found glasses. David offered a toast. ‘Welcome home,’ he said.