The Cruel Peak

by Gil Hogg

  He had never shared with her his anxiety about whether he might himself be charged, and, submerged in grief herself, she had no appreciation of the possibility. Stelios had been deliberately threatening, and Tom was aware that he himself was too immersed in the nuances of his interrogation to form any balanced idea of the extent to which he was in danger. He had been more candid with Alison, about what was happening, but even with her he had been restrained about his worries, although she sensed them. The telephone conveyed emotional tones quite subtly. He had lacerated himself for his decision, if it could be called that, to try to persuade the police it was an accident - a few words uttered out of loyalty when his mind was in a fog.

  “The play was great. You’ve built on your skills,” he said, trying to claim her exclusive attention in the noisy café.

  “I’m very pleased with it. You don’t look well, Tom. What’s the matter?”

  “It’s this police enquiry. I’m tied down here. It’s rather depressed my days of leisure at Tamaki Downs.”

  “Why is it dragging on so? Every so often this Greek inspector pops up. He’s not exactly sinister, but he seems confident that he knows what I’m thinking. What does he expect to find?”

  “He wants to hang the death on somebody. Ernest or - or me.”

  She had a rueful grin. “You’re not a very convincing murderer, Tom. Stuart’s dead and Dad’s nearly dead. What does it all matter?”

  “Sure, but Ernest has gone a bit further. He’s said I killed Stuart and tried to kill him.”

  “He doesn’t love you, but that’s a pretty way out thing to say. Why would he go that far?”

  “Partly venom, partly self-protection, I expect. He’s saying I dropped his pill on the floor when he had a seizure.”

  “Does what he says make any difference, Tom? After all, he’s…”

  “It could. We have a violent death and the police want a perpetrator. There are only two people in the game now, Ernest and me.”

  “Are you worried?”

  “Not seriously,” he said, managing the gross untruth calmly, “but I don’t want to get further involved in this. Robyn, could I put it to you another way? The only story which will close the enquiry decently for Stuart and the family is that the fatality was the result of an accident between two drunks with a gun.”

  “It’s not very palatable, but I guess that’s true. So…”

  “So you might point this out to Ernest.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “His rancour against me may be less than his concern for the family reputation. He’s not in danger himself; he’s too ill. I don’t think from what I know of the criminal law that charges of murder, attempted murder or obstruction could be sustained against me, but the problem is that a mere trial could besmirch me. It’s about my reputation as a professional man. It’s mud. It sticks.”

  “Your reputation. Yes, I see it,” Robyn said. “It’s ironic, isn’t it, that Stuart was so concerned with his reputation, and now you.”

  15

  He had a further peremptory call from the police three days after his meeting with Robyn. It came at ten o’clock in the evening of a day he had spent walking the Downs. He was tired and slightly drunk, trying to anaesthetise his pain and avoid calls from reporters. He was told again to be at Timaru police station at 9am. It was no use trying to ask the officer who called what it was about. He was awake the entire night, striding around the house, trying to read, drinking, drifting into violent and surreal imaginings. When he delivered himself to the police in the morning, he was a ruin.

  At first, the duty officer was ignorant. “Thomas Stavely… What’s it about?”

  “I don’t know. I was told to be here.” He wasn’t going to say, ‘It’s something about me being charged with murder.’

  The officer frowned at him and disappeared from the desk. When he came back, he began to thumb through a pile of papers in a tray beside him. He produced a brown envelope, opened it and withdrew the familiar dark blue passport.

  Tom Stavely was flooded with warmth and weakness.

  The officer scrutinised his face, compared it with the document, and said, “Sign this.”

  “Is this all?”

  “Was there something else, Mr Stavely?”

  “No…” He turned away, swaying clumsily.

  He stood in the foyer for a moment, steadying himself. It was over! As he walked toward the swing doors to go out, Stelios and three of his assistants were sweeping up the steps, dark-suited and brisk, like important politicians. Stelios saw him.

  “Ah, Mr Stavely!” He grabbed Tom’s arm and pulled him aside to an ante room. “I hadn’t planned to see you again, but we might as well take this opportunity.”

  Stelios’s fingers on his arm made ice in his stomach. “I can go, can’t I Inspector…?”

  Stelios’s black eyes bulged up at him. “Uncertain, aren’t you? You bloody well ought to be, mate. I believe you were in the room and tried to murder Ernest Ashton, if not the son. There’s something going on in the Ashton family that we don’t know anything about, and you’ve all clammed up.”

  “Why can’t you rest easy with the evidence you have? It is what it is. But you want more. You don’t have to get me, do you?”

  But Stelios did have to get him. He was Stelios’s target. Stelios wanted a conviction. The Crown Prosecutor had apparently reviewed the evidence and decided that it fell short of a prima facie case against him. In Stelios’s mythology, he, Stelios, had fallen short. A violent homicide case was going to be closed without a prosecution. There would be an unpleasant inquest; an open verdict or a verdict of death by misadventure. Mysteries led to speculation, and one speculation was defective police work. He thought Stelios disliked him, not in a very personal way, but rather as the quarry who escaped, and perhaps a little because Stelios saw him, wrongly, as part of the privileged Ashton clan.

  “Rest easy with the lack of evidence, you mean?” Stelios said, poking a soft brown forefinger into his chest. “No way. We’ll be watching you. We don’t close these files, you know. If we find anything, we’ll come after you. You’ve heard of extradition, haven’t you?”

  Although he thought Stelios’s threat unreal, it made him shiver. Cruelty was all Stelios had left.

  He left the station and paused for a moment in Evans Street, feeling his whole body re-energise itself and begin to glow. If the pubs had been open, he would have treated himself to several beers before driving back to Tamaki Downs.

  He was sitting with Robyn in a café in Riccarton. He had a little time before he boarded the flight back to London, and she had asked to see him before he departed. They had taken the time together to visit Len and, as always, Tom came away with a feeling of impotence. However much he wanted to help Len, there was nothing he could do except endure the spectacle.

  For a while they were silent. Stuart’s funeral had taken place the previous day at the Canterbury Cathedral and it had been crowded. There was no shadow of Mt Vogel over the gathering that Tom could discern, only many people confused by the sudden departure of a local personality. Petra and Darren interrupted their cruise on the Great Barrier Reef and flew back from Cairns. He saw them at the church and afterwards at The George hotel where Robyn hosted a gathering for the family and closest friends. He had one of those awkward and inarticulate conversations with them. ‘All it amounted to,’ he would tell Alison, ‘was Darren stepping restively from foot to foot and looking round the room like a giraffe, and Petra assuring me that she had no time because they were going back to Sydney that evening. I will say that she looked upset.’

  Robyn said, “It was a terrible day yesterday, Tom, and I want to forget it. I want to thank you for dealing with the police and the media over the past few weeks. Tia and I were overwhelmed. I just couldn’t handle it. You were the one person who could talk with an authentic voice, because of your father’s involvement. You’re right about having a private burial for Dad. He hasn’t got long. He doesn’t know it, b
ut he’s really under a cloud. The rest of the family are hardly touched, and it’s not so bad for Tia and me. It’s just embarrassing… what people must be thinking. This must have been disruptive for you - your job and everything.”

  He had tried to deal with the newspaper and television journalists in the furore which accompanied the police investigation, repeating the mantra that it was two drunks with a gun, and that what happened on Mt Vogel was a mystery. He went on with this as a kind of personal memorial to Stuart, despite his realisation that Alison had been right and he should have told the truth. He had suffered in proportion.

  “You’ve got through so far, Robyn. I don’t know that I’ve done much. I was nearly burned myself! Anyway, the media interest will continue for a while. It’s a hell of a story with a lot of room for doubt and speculation. What the Swiss found or saw will be examined very closely. As I’ve told you, I’ve had a lot of approaches from reporters, which I’ve rejected. After the newspaper and TV hacks, there will be the adventure writers and biographers, I’m afraid, and you’ll have to deal with them.”

  “Tia and I have just taken your advice and accepted what you said about the deaths, but I never could see Dad and Stuart chatting about guns in broad daylight, let alone at three or four in the morning. But I kept quiet, and poor Tia is absolutely crushed.”

  He decided to tell Robyn the truth. In so many ways, she was like her father; tough, arrogant, wilful. She could take it, and there was no reason why she shouldn’t share the burden of the truth with him.

  “No, it wasn’t an accident with a gun, Robyn. Your father killed Stuart when he thought Stuart was coming for him. He expected Stuart to accost him, and he was prepared for it with a loaded shotgun.”

  “Oh, Tom, no.” The lines around Robyn’s mouth pulled taut, her eyes closed and she trembled.

  “That’s murder.”

  “Oh no.”

  “I tried to stop Stuart going to your father’s room, but he was drunk and wouldn’t be stopped.”

  “Couldn’t you…?”

  “I put my hands on him. He resented it. To stop him, I’d have had to knock him unconscious. My concern was that Stuart might hurt the old man. I hadn’t reckoned on -”

  “How can you possibly know this?” Her voice was faint.

  “I was a few yards behind Stuart as he headed for your father’s room. I saw everything.”

  “You never said that to the police.”

  “Of course not. Stuart, murdered by his own father. That would have been a story on top of the Mt Vogel vileness. I thought that there should be a better end for Stuart. When Ernest blamed me, I was alarmed, but I thought his lies would fall down.”

  “I don’t think he was in his right mind… although he is my father, I can believe he was capable of what you say, so many years of… hatred.”

  “What Ernest said to the police - conceding it was two drunks with a gun - was enough to get me off the hook. Thanks to you. Just enough in lieu of other evidence.”

  She lowered her head. “You saved us even further ignominy, then.” She reached out her hand and placed it on top of his on the table. She toyed with the spoon in her coffee, looking down. “Let’s put this behind us, Tom, try to forget it as far as possible, and look forward. Len needs you.”

  “I don’t see that my presence or absence matters that much to Len. I mean, Len can virtually only sit there. He can’t talk much. I can’t teach him, or show him anything. He doesn’t really need a parent, and the arrangements for his care are very good.” He sounded more defensive than he would have wished.

  “You think that nurses and care assistants are a substitute for his father? He wants, and to some extent needs, the contact with you. A nurse may mean a lot, but not as much as his father. Just your company. Being there. He needs you to look into his eyes, hold his hand, put your arm round his shoulders. You and I are more meaningful than anybody. It’s not a matter of bringing presents or teaching him things. He’s a kid of eighteen; all alone in a chair. He’s conscious. He can see things. He can’t understand much. He can’t do anything. He can’t speak. He’s just a human consciousness that we’ve created. He’s nothing except a consciousness. But he has a quality of life. He’s handled lovingly by nurses and doctors, but what you bring him with your company, because he does know you, is inestimable, and to him, beautiful and irreplaceable.”

  He was surprised at her tender understanding. For once, she wasn’t simply goading him; and she was to a large extent right. He was so used to her prepared lines, her speeches; so used to looking behind the actor’s script and trying to find the actor. He could remind her about Peter, and her abject failure to understand what they had consigned Peter to, but she would have her defences ready.

  “I’ll keep in touch with Len by letter and phone, and try to get out here more often.”

  “That’s not communicating, Tom. Len can’t read. And he can’t talk on the telephone. Other people have to interpret these things to him.”

  “It’s a sign that I’m…”

  “Signs aren’t enough. You should be here. You should have been here in the past for Petra, but that doesn’t matter so much now. But you should be here now, for Len.”

  “I certainly think about it a lot.”

  When he told Alison about this exchange, it would raise an old issue. She would say something like, ‘You have to think why you’re here in England, Tom. Not just why you should be in New Zealand. I know you love me, and if I want to be here in London, that’s a weighty argument with you for being here, but we both know it’s not the whole story. There’s another reason for being in London. You’ve exiled yourself.’‘Never,’ he would reply.

  He did honestly see himself as venturing out from his birthplace positively, not as escaping or trying to cut himself off from it. But Alison would roll her eyes sceptically. ‘It’s true. You’re escaping from the image of the farm boy. It dogs you. You thought that by marrying into the Ashton clan you’d escape, but it didn’t work that way. If you’d married anybody but an Ashton, you’d have been free, especially if they came from outside Springvale. By marrying Robyn you became part of the Ashton breeding stock and still, in their eyes, and your own, a farm boy. You had to get out.’

  Getting out was the very advice that he had given to Stuart, many times. He would deny that it applied to him in his discussion with Alison as he had in the past, but he knew there was a tincture of truth in it. Breeding stock.

  Robyn went on urgently, “But typically, you never do anything, Tom. You could have not only a good life here, but you could have a career. You could join one of the big firms in Christchurch. They’d fall over themselves to have you. You still have years of working life in you.”

  “They would like to have me, not because I’m me, but because I’d bring in the Ashton empire.”

  “You’re underestimating yourself, but alright. If that offends you, you could start your own firm. Do it your way.”

  “I could.”

  “Please think about it, because I want to say something else. It’s a bit crass talking about it here, but…” She glanced around at the diners chatting excitedly over their wine. They leaned toward each other to hear more clearly. “Dad’s will leaves everything to me - now Stuart has gone, and there’s a trust for Petra and Len. Tia has Stuart’s estate, and she wants to manage Tamaki Downs. She’s going to do it. And she’s going to have a baby. You should stay and take charge of everything - all the family stuff, including the companies.”

  “That’s more or less the offer I had from Ernest years ago and turned down.”

  “I know. But he’ll soon be out of the picture, and you’d be close to Petra, and Len, and your other two kids would have a good life. They’re young enough not to have their schooling disrupted too much. And Alison, surely, has some feeling for this place. After all, her parents have settled here.”

  “She likes it here, but…”

  “Or you could take the chair at the Ashton Group, an
d some of our other companies, and get involved more actively as a CEO if you wanted. What do you want? You have a world of choices. Legal practice. The motor industry, or oil and gas? A big shareholding would go with the job. It’s a hell of an offer, Tom, and your terms are virtually for the asking. Mark knows everything and you could talk to him. He knows I want you to take over.”

  He thought that perversely she still wanted to keep him close, or perhaps it was the mother of two children wanting their father close.

  “One of Ernest’s brothers or the cousins might want to do it.”

  “They’d defer to you. I’ve spoken with them. They think a lot of you - you know that. None of them is as well qualified as you.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I was going to get Mark to write to you with a formal offer, but you’re here…”

  “It’s a very generous offer, Robyn, and I appreciate it.”

  Well, that was true, even if his stuffy response made him sound like a politician, but he would say to Alison, ‘I don’t dislike Robyn, I just hate her on occasions, and we’ve always been at odds, even before we were married. I wouldn’t feel easy with her as a major voice in my life, although I could handle it. And it would be a sound position for us and the kids. Better than I’ll ever do in London.’

  Alison would echo the peculiarity that Robyn couldn’t seem to quit him, but she would be noncommittal about the proposal, because she would want him to take the decision about his future work. If he were to decide on legal practice or the Ashton job, he was sure she would support him in returning to New Zealand. But at the same time, he knew that she wanted to stay in London. She loved their home in Fulham.

  Lurking uneasily behind such a conversation would be Alison’s perception that he was in flight from the farm boy image, and that he ought never to be foolish enough to return to its roots. Although he would, if he accepted Robyn’s offer, be in charge of all the family resources, Alison would contend that in the Ashtons’ eyes he would still be no more than the Admirable Crighton. She would probably say, if he pressed her for a view, ‘Any other job in New Zealand, yes, if you really want it.’