A Final Reckoning

by Susan Moody

  Clio shook her head. ‘This was never my home. Not after my mother died. It was my hell.’ Even overweight and white-haired, she was still very beautiful. She carried herself with dignity, and I wondered how she had endured the years in Broadmoor without breaking. Her Catholic faith, perhaps. Her inbuilt sense that sin must be atoned for, and that her sins of omission had led to the deaths of her sons and of my sister.

  How had Maggie Fields described her? Like a dragonfly on speed. I doubted she would ever return to that frenetic sense of activity, but now that we knew the whole story, maybe she could at least return to some of the lively happiness she’d known up at Oxford.

  While Omar pulled a first-aid kit from a drawer and started to deal efficiently with Stonor’s wound, David Charteris had moved over to a desk standing in the middle of the room. He dialled a number and, turning away from us, said something we couldn’t hear.

  Minutes later, there was a tap on the door, and Maggie came in. ‘You said there was someone here I should meet,’ she said looking from one to another of us. ‘I don’t …’ She stopped. Widened her eyes. Held out her arms, screaming, ‘Clio! Clio Palliser! Ohmigod, this is incredible. Where – how – what are you doing here?’ Then she was crushing her friend in her arms.

  ‘More to the point, what are you doing here?’ Clio had removed her hat and jacket. In the light, she seemed paler than ever, her hair white, her face almost bloodless.

  Maggie explained, clutching at Clio’s sleeve as though afraid to let her go in case she disappeared again, as she had so many years ago. ‘This is fantastic!’ she kept saying. ‘Unbelievable!’

  Omar was holding a bewildered hand up to his head. ‘I’m lost,’ he said. ‘Will someone please tell me what the hell is going on?’

  Nobody took much notice. ‘But how did you …?’

  ‘How were they …?’

  ‘I don’t understand who exactly …’

  ‘Yes, but why did you …?’

  There was a jumble of explanations, until Clio held up hand. ‘Please be quiet,’ she said. It was easy to see the person she might have been if circumstance hadn’t got in the way. ‘First of all, don’t mourn for my wasted years. I deserved them. Due to the situation surrounding the birth of my sons – of which I’m sure most of you are by now aware or have guessed at – I never loved them sufficiently. They were such beautiful boys, and I neglected them in almost every way possible.’ Tears came into her eyes and slowly fell down her pale cheeks. ‘Oh dear. Those poor defenceless children. How much better they deserved than me.’

  Barnard tried to put his arm round her shoulders, but she edged away. ‘No, let me speak.’ Again she held up her hand. ‘I’m not worthy of pity … and I’ve paid for my indifference. You wouldn’t believe how many tears I’ve shed over the two of them. I accepted my punishment, and I let the real killer get away with it, which was almost as irresponsible of me as the way I treated my sons.’

  It was more or less exactly the scenario I had envisaged when I wondered why Clio had gone to Broadmoor without protest.

  ‘Talking of killers,’ Stonor said. His leg had been bandaged and was now resting on a footstool. He had a glass of champagne in his hand and looked extremely comfortable. He looked at Trevor Barnard and raised enquiring eyebrows.

  ‘The hell with him,’ Barnard said. He smiled across the room at Clio. Her dimples deepened as she looked back at him. ‘It’s nice and wet down the well, not to mention cold and dark. Let the bastard stew.’

  David Charteris had been busying himself opening another bottle of champagne and refilling glasses. Now he said, ‘I’m like Omar, slightly lost. Do I gather that someone is languishing at the bottom of our well?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And who is this unfortunate person?’

  ‘The real killer from twenty-three years ago,’ I said.

  ‘And he is?’

  ‘Gavin Metcalfe-Vaughn. The third boy.’

  ‘What? But he was just a kid.’

  ‘A large kid,’ I said. ‘A bullying kid. A murderous kid.’

  ‘The one that got away?’ said Maggie.

  ‘Not any longer,’ I said.

  David raised his glass. ‘A toast,’ he said. ‘To all of us, though I don’t pretend to have the slightest inkling of what’s going on here. I always knew it wasn’t you, Clio. I even guessed where you might be when you … when you came out of prison, but I wasn’t going to interrupt your privacy. But how could this third boy have been the one to— He was only thirteen, wasn’t he?’

  ‘He was. But big with it.’

  ‘The two other boys weren’t big for their age,’ I said. ‘And my sister Sabine was tiny, like me. He didn’t have any problem disposing of all three of them.’

  ‘But why?’ David looked from one to another of us.

  ‘Because of his camera,’ I said.

  David raised his eyebrows. ‘Oh well. I suppose one day someone will tell me what exactly happened. Meanwhile, cheers!’

  I thought of Gavin, the handsome charming monster, down there in the well. Someone had said the water was four feet deep, so he would be in no danger of drowning. But he would be freezing cold, soaking wet and, with any luck, totally terrified that we were planning to leave him down there until he starved or froze to death. I wish I could say I felt even the tiniest qualm.

  I asked the question that had been bothering me for some days. ‘Mrs Palliser, Clio, did you know who the killer was right from the start?’

  ‘I didn’t know. But it was fairly obvious that it had to be Gavin. Who else could have done it? He’d lived with us off and on for years, ever since he was eight. Back then I was pretty unstable myself, but the tantrums he used to throw were absolutely extraordinary, and his violent tendencies were getting more and more marked. Edward and Georgie whinged about it several times and so did the staff, but I took no notice. I was a close friend of his mother’s, you see. Paula and I were at school together. I didn’t want to rock the boat. Add to that the fact that he was the most convincing liar imaginable.’

  ‘And strong for his age, too.’

  ‘The boys used to complain that he hurt them, but if I picked him up on it, he always apologized profusely, said he was terribly sorry, didn’t mean to. And again –’ her mouth twisted – ‘I did nothing. Always too interested in my own affairs to be concerned about theirs. Even when your sister came to me, I … I’m so sorry, so ashamed, but once again I did nothing.’

  ‘In other words, he was a catastrophe waiting to happen,’ Maggie Fields said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Barnard said, ‘I suppose we’d better get the police over here, to get that bastard out of the well.’

  ‘When you get him out,’ I said, ‘make sure someone checks to see what else is down there.’

  Later, the story was pieced together, as it should have been from at the beginning. Twenty-three years ago, big Gavin Metcalfe-Vaughn had been brought home after having supper with the Archers. He’d sat down at the piano – he was a talented player – and hearing him downstairs, the other boys had joined him, Edward with his recorder. They’d played carols for a while, then Gavin had gone into jazz, then Beatles songs. Sabine had come down too, and they had danced the Twist and the Charleston, some funky dance-steps from the US. Although Clio wasn’t far away, she had heard nothing in her soundproofed study. Finally, Sabine had called a halt, said she was going upstairs, and they must too; George would be first in the bath, followed by the other two who were to come when she called them.

  Gavin and Edward had gone to their bedroom, where Gavin had discovered that during the afternoon Georgie had somehow managed to jam the new and expensive camera which Gavin’s mother had recently sent him. In an uncontrollable rage, he’d taken his Swiss army knife and run down the passage to the bathroom where he had stabbed George over and over again, ending up by slitting his throat. Edward had screamed at him to stop, at which point my sister had come out of her room, demanding t
o know what was going on. By now manic with fury, Gavin had turned on her and then on Edward, who was yelling for his mother, to no avail since she couldn’t hear him. Having left Sabine on the floor of the passage, either dead or dying, Gavin had chased Edward down the back stairs to the kitchen and killed him too.

  Like all psychopaths, he was cold-hearted and efficient. He knew he would have to dream up a scenario where he was the victim, not the perpetrator. He went back to his bedroom, found a small torch and a bar of chocolate, then went downstairs and squeezed through the hole at the back of the cold-pantry to the outside. He would have liked to linger in the warm house, but dared not. He found his way to the chapel and waited there in the relative warmth until he heard the police sirens, then he ran to the well, pushed back the lid, stripped off his blood-soaked day clothes and shoes, dropped them down the well, along with the knife, tugged the lid back into place, and made barefooted for the tumbledown hut from which he’d emerged, wincing with every step. Just as I had expected, what was left of his clothes was found at the bottom of the well. By smearing himself with dirt and leaf-mould from the woods, he had successfully concealed whatever blood had soaked through his shirt to his underwear, and at the time, no one had thought to submit them to forensic examination.

  In the hut, buried beneath the soil under the rusting piece of machinery, they found his black Maglite torch and even a scrap of foil wrapping from the chocolate bar he’d taken with him to help him get through the long cold night which lay ahead. He had spent an hour or two with a stick, scraping away at the hard earth floor so he could bury the torch. No one would buy his story if they found he’d taken a torch with him.

  Staring at the photographs of his bedroom, I had realized two things. Firstly, if Gavin had taken off his clothes, they would have been neatly folded at the end of his bed. But like Edward he was still fully dressed, so his bloodied cords and sweater somehow had to be disposed of, and the well was the perfect place to hide them.

  Secondly, and perhaps less convincing as an indication of his guilt, there was no sign of the Lego construction that Gavin swore he and Edward had been working on when Clio Palliser was supposed to have come up the stairs. It could be argued – indeed later, Gavin’s defence counsel maintained unsuccessfully that this was the case – that the boy had been too traumatized to remember exactly what had happened. But he’d had years to get it right, and arrogantly he still insisted on the Lego, even though there was nothing to support his claim. In the photographs of the boys’ bedroom, the table had been littered with balsa wood and small plastic parts: Stonor’s files confirmed that this had indeed been the case. A laundry basket full of Lego pieces was stashed under Edward’s bed and did not appear to have been brought out for some time, judging by the dust on it – something I surmised, and then checked with Stonor.

  You might wonder at what point I had changed from lover and friend to avenging angel; I think it was the moment when I opened the letter from Sabine which she had sent to Malcolm, and which he had passed on to me.

  I seriously think he’s going to rape me one night, she’d written. I’ve twice complained to the Hon Clio, but she just nods vaguely and does nothing. He’s so big, Malc: I wouldn’t stand a chance against him.

  Another time she’d written: I’ve taken to shoving the desk up against the door before I get into bed. I don’t think it would stop him, but it would at least give me some warning. Last night I actually brought up a pepper-shaker which I keep open by the bed, just in case!

  Can you imagine? And no, I can’t tell my family: they’d worry themselves sick …

  If only I had known. But like everyone else, I was completely taken in by his plausibility, his charm.

  There was one last repercussion. I was sitting in my South Kensington flat one Saturday morning, several weeks after Gavin had been consigned to Broadmoor – and no one involved in the case had missed the irony of that – when the intercom buzzed. It was Gavin’s mother, wondering if she could have a few words, as she put it. And while I hesitated, she went on, ‘I would quite understand if you would rather I didn’t.’

  I was free of Gavin, but she was not. It would be kind to allow the poor woman a chance to talk. ‘Come on up,’ I said.

  She was nervous and sweating. She’d lost a lot of weight; her skin had an unhealthy colour. I brought her a cup of tea while she fanned herself with a magazine from my coffee-table.

  ‘How are you?’ It was hard for me to sound warm and concerned, since I felt neither.

  Her eyes were slightly unfocused, and her hands shook as she lifted her cup to sip at the tea. ‘I’m fine. Yes, just fine. Doing well. Getting on with life, you know?’

  ‘Indeed I do.’ I sat down opposite her. ‘Now what can I do for you?’

  ‘I just wanted to explain,’ she said.

  ‘Explain what?’

  ‘About … about Gavin.’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Why he was like he was – is.’ She fumbled with the bag beside her on the sofa and took out a small bottle of pills. She poured out two and swallowed them with a gulp of tea. ‘He was our only child, you see. He never wanted for anything. Because he was so precious, we gave him everything he asked for. That’s not a good way for a child. If nobody ever says no to them, they get to thinking they’re entitled. They get angry, they can’t see why they can’t have something when they always have before. And then he grew so fast, he got so big.’

  The gap between the last two sentences was full of implications which I didn’t want to explore. Had Gavin lifted a hand to his mother? She wasn’t very tall. Like me. Like, I guessed, his first wife … What was her name? Sammy? No. Miki. Did he deliberately target small women, ones he could easily bully? The letters from Sabine which Malcolm had shown me still made me furious on my sister’s behalf. He’d only been thirteen then. I trembled for that poor little Asian girl, in her bright kimonos. Had he beaten her? Was that why she went over the cliff? Would he have beaten me if we’d ended up as husband and wife?

  ‘He was a rugby player,’ his mother went on, as though that somehow excused his behaviour.

  It didn’t seem worth pointing out that, on the whole, other rugby players, far more well-known than Gavin ever was, did not appear to be physically abusing their girlfriends.

  ‘I’m buying a little cottage near Gavin,’ she said. ‘I’ll be able to see him quite often.’ She nodded at me. ‘He’s getting together a rugby team, you see,’ she said brightly.

  There was something disconnected about her sentences; I began to wonder whether she too had mental problems. She leaned forward for her cup of tea and somehow managed to knock the contents to the floor. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, so very sorry …’ She looked at me. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll clear it up if you just show me where …’

  ‘Stay where you are,’ I said firmly. ‘I’ll get a cloth.’

  I went out to the kitchen and came back with something to wipe up the mess while she dithered, murmuring, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, I’m so sorry.’

  Kneeling down, I began to mop up the spilled tea. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw her reach into her bag again. More pills? No wonder she seemed slightly out of it. I was about to finish cleaning up when I saw her raise her arm. Something flashed.

  ‘You little bitch,’ she snarled, her face twisted with hate. ‘You sent my son to prison, you accused him of things he would never have dreamed of doing, he’s not like that, you’ve ruined my life, he’s lovely, he’s kind, he’s …’

  He was all those things. He was also a cold-blooded killer, a clever manipulator who for twenty-three years had persuaded people to believe a version of events which had nothing to do with the truth. Why had it not occurred to someone to doubt his description of what had gone down that bloody evening? He was the only witness … and everyone involved with the case had played straight into his hands.

  Now, I fell backwards, screaming Malcolm’s name, while I scrambled awkwardly away from her, st
ill on my back, using my elbows to get out of her range. She slashed at me again, cutting straight through the sleeve of my shirt and sweater.

  ‘Malcolm!’

  She raised her arm again, saying, ‘I’ve already lost my husband, now you’ve made sure I’ve lost my son as well, I’ll kill you for that, someone like you doesn’t deserve to live, doesn’t deserve to have a life when my boy has been put away for the rest of his.’

  As her arm descended again, Malcolm burst out of the kitchen and grabbed her as she tried to plunge the knife into my body. ‘That’s enough,’ he said authoritatively. ‘That’s quite enough now. No more.’

  ‘But you don’t understand,’ she said rapidly, the words tumbling from her mouth. ‘If it wasn’t for her, my son wouldn’t be locked up.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s fair that he should be?’ I said. I was still on the floor, my knees trembling too much for me to get to my feet. Blood was running down my arm, staining my clothes. ‘After what he did to my sister, to those boys. To Miki …’

  ‘He had nothing to do with Miki falling like that,’ she said furiously. ‘He told me. He said it wasn’t his fault at all, nothing to do with him.’

  ‘I don’t suppose any of it’s ever been his fault,’ I said.

  ‘If you mean his father, that was nothing to do with him either, Gavin was away at school when that happened, not his fault at all. Any more than George Palliser was. He was a nice little lad, George, I was always very fond of the two boys. If he hadn’t broken Gavin’s brand-new camera …’

  ‘What did Miki do?’

  ‘Only got herself pregnant, didn’t she? He told her and told her he didn’t want children, but would she listen?’ She appealed to Malcolm and me. ‘Well, what would you have done?’

  I had called the police while she was talking. Now I heard the sirens as they came down the road and stopped outside my building. When the police buzzed my bell, I let them in, while Paula went on convulsively talking. ‘Same thing with that guy in Singapore, it was an accident but they said it was Gavin’s fault, which of course it wasn’t, but people always seem to blame him for everything, every little thing as though he was some kind of a …’