“I stood up and looked down at her beautiful body, which I’d once longed to touch and caress. But now there was nothing there. Just her pale flesh, growing colder by the second. I turned round and saw a reflection of the scene in a large mirror that filled most of the wall facing me. Seeing myself, hollow-eyed and panting, with her body on the bed behind me, made it somehow even worse. I lashed out at the mirror with my boot, splintering one of the corners. Then I rushed out of the room.
“I’d got as far as the kitchen when I heard a car draw up outside. It sounded like Bantock’s. The creaking of the garage door confirmed my guess. I was about to run for it before he came in when I suddenly realized how disastrous that would be. If he saw me, he’d recognize me. Even if he didn’t see me, he’d tell the police I’d called there on an unconvincing pretext earlier in the day. And my rucksack was on the other side of the hedge. If I left it there, there’d be no doubt of my guilt. What little I knew of forensics suggested that if they had cause to suspect me, they’d be able to prove I’d been there that night. A fingerprint. A fibre. A hair. God knows what. But they’d find it. And I’d be done for. Whereas if they had no cause to suspect me . . . if they had no reason even to think of me . . .
“I dodged into the studio and cut off another length of wire. I was planning to pounce on Bantock as he went through the kitchen. But when he opened the back door, shouted ‘Louise?’ and got no answer, he stopped, then turned towards the studio, almost as if he sensed my presence there. I shrank back behind the door and, as he came in, leapt at his back, looping the wire over his head and tightening it around his neck in one movement. He yielded as I pulled, then fought back, hurling himself forward in an attempt to throw me off. We crashed to the floor and rolled over several times. I could hear and feel objects tumbling around us. He was a big strong man, but overweight and out of condition. I had the advantage of youth and determination. I couldn’t afford to let him get the better of me. I forced him onto his stomach, managed to pin his arms with my knees and twisted at the wire in a frenzy. And that was how he died, a choking clawing heap on the floor of his studio, his face smeared with a fine multi-coloured dust formed of tiny flakes of paint shed over the years from his brushes and palettes.
“I struggled to my feet and tried to think clearly. With Bantock dead, there was nobody to connect me with what had happened. I was supposed to be abroad and, if I could get back to France without being seen by anybody who knew me, I was almost certainly safe from detection. The instinct for self-preservation erased the horror of what I’d done, at least for a while. I pocketed the coil of wire and the pliers, kept the gloves on and rushed out into the lane. There was nobody about. I was safe if I kept my nerve. I ran up the lane to the common and worked my way round to the beech tree where I’d left the rucksack. I took out my torch and checked the ground for things I might have dropped, gathered up the empty lager tins and stuffed them into the rucksack, then stumbled down across the field towards the road into Kington, navigating by the lights in the houses along Butterbur Lane.
“Once I was on the road, I reckoned I looked like any other hiker. I walked straight through the town, restraining my pace all the way, resisting the urge to break into a run, and out to the bypass. Then I started trying to hitch a lift. My luck was in. A lorry driver stopped for me after only a few minutes. He was heading for Coventry. Well, anywhere as long as it was far from Kington suited me. He dropped me at a motorway service area between Birmingham and Coventry in the small hours of the following morning. I managed to pick up another lift from there down to London. By the time the bodies were found at Whistler’s Cot, I was on a ferry halfway across the Channel.
“I spent most of the next week drifting down through Germany, Austria and the Balkans, buying day-old English newspapers at every stop in search of information about what line the police were following, what clues they’d found at the scene. The panic attacks lessened. The fear of imminent arrest ebbed away. Then came creeping revulsion at what I’d done. An inability to believe I’d done it so strong I started quite genuinely to doubt I had. My geographical remoteness from the crime became a psychological remoteness as well. My memory told me what had happened, but my conscience refused to accept it. It was partly a survival mechanism, I suppose. A way of coping with the guilt. A method of evading responsibility for my actions. It was Louise’s fault for provoking me beyond endurance. Bantock’s for barging in when he did. Naylor’s for grabbing and soiling what I’d not been allowed to touch. Anybody’s fault. Except mine.
“I still didn’t know who Naylor was then, of course. When I read of his arrest, I was briefly tempted to go to the nearest British Consulate and turn myself in. Then I thought I’d wait to see if he was charged. When he was—with rape as well as murder—I realized exactly who he must be and why the police were bound to think they’d found the culprit. I was in the clear. And suddenly it seemed not merely a matter of luck but of fate. Destiny had decreed I shouldn’t be punished and Naylor should. Who was I to argue? It was only fair, after all. It was only as it should be. I hadn’t known what I was doing. I’d lost control. In France, they’d have dismissed it as a crime of passion, an understandable and pardonable surrender to anger and jealousy. As for Naylor, well, there was an ironic form of justice in the likelihood that he’d suffer for what I’d done. Because he’d goaded me into doing it in the first place.
“So I told myself, anyway. It sounds contemptible, I know. It is contemptible. But you don’t know what excuses and justifications the mind is capable of until you find yourself in such an extreme situation. Louise was dead. So was Bantock. I couldn’t bring them back to life by confessing to their murders. And Naylor was nothing to me. He was nothing compared with me. I had a successful and worthwhile life ahead of me. I had the chance to redeem myself by hard work and respectability. Whereas he was just some sordid nonentity who’d be as happy in a prison cell as he would be on the streets. Sacrificing myself to save him would be a pointless waste. It would only make matters worse than they already were. I had endless conversations with myself on the subject, turning it round and round like a debating point. I even convinced myself Louise would have forgiven me and urged me not to confess. I saw her occasionally in my dreams. Even more beautiful than the reality had been. So serene. So understanding. And I kept hearing her voice. Speaking the words she’d used that afternoon in Holland Park. ‘Let’s forget this ever happened. Let’s write it off as an unfortunate misunderstanding.’ In the end, it seemed to be her will I was yielding to, her last wish I was respecting. I’d murdered her, yes. But by letting Naylor take the blame, I was protecting her reputation. She could be remembered as a faithful wife and a devoted mother. So long as I held my tongue.
“I got home in late August, sure by then that nothing could implicate me in the murders and that my conscience, though it could never be clear, was at least secure. I wrote a letter of condolence to Sarah and got a polite but guarded reply. I decided to leave it at that. Our paths had divided and I was confident they’d never cross again. I went back to Cambridge in October determined to start my life over again. To re-create myself and in the process cast aside forever the memory of the things I’d done that night at Whistler’s Cot.
“I succeeded. I made new friends and threw myself into new activities. By the time the trial started, I was beyond its reach, so safe in my busy self-regarding world that I didn’t even read the newspaper reports of its progress. It was only thanks to another student who’d known Sarah that I learnt of Naylor’s conviction. And do you know what I felt when I heard the sentence? Relieved. That’s what. Just relieved it was over. Just glad he was going to be locked away for twenty years. Just happy to know I could forget all about him.
“But I couldn’t, could I? Not as it turned out. Because after graduation I toyed with several job offers, thinking one wasn’t much different from another, and accepted a post with Metropolitan Mutual Insurance. A fatal mistake, I suppose you could say. Because it meant
moving to Bristol. Where Sarah had gone to take her articles. And Rowena had also gone, to study mathematics. I didn’t know they were living there, of course. I had absolutely no idea. Until the day I bumped into Sarah in Park Street.
“It seemed no big deal at the time. A coincidence I could simply brush off. But Sarah invited me to dinner and I could hardly refuse. So I went out to Clifton one night and met Rowena for the first time. Early January of last year. Not long ago really. Not long at all. Yet in other ways it seems . . . Sarah admitted later that she was keen for Rowena to meet as many new people as possible. It was only six weeks or so since she’d tried to commit suicide. Sarah thought varied company might take her out of herself. That’s really why she invited me.
“It started slowly. As an attraction to the things in Rowena that reminded me of Louise. A rapport developed between us, based on a subconscious awareness that we were both suppressing something. In Rowena’s case, doubts about her mother’s death. In my case, the knowledge of what really lay behind those doubts. She was lovely as well, of course. Lovely and vulnerable. Right from the beginning, I wanted to protect her. To shield her from a truth I thought she’d be unable to bear. And to shield myself at the same time. Chance had given me the opportunity to repair some of the damage I’d done and to silence the voice that still whispered reproaches to me in the long watches of the night. It seemed as if fate had taken a hand in my life once more.
“And so it had. But not in the way I thought. I married Rowena and for a while everything seemed perfect. Loving her made me see my obsession with Louise for what it had truly been: a shallow delusion. But its consequences endured. Whether the secret I always had to keep ate away at Rowena’s trust in me or whether she just wasn’t quite capable of abandoning her doubts I’m not sure, but something was wrong even before the book appeared, let alone the TV programme. And then there was the pregnancy, of course. How that affected her I don’t know. But she didn’t tell me about it, did she? So maybe it wasn’t good news as far as she was concerned. Maybe it just added to her problems. Made her future seem as doubt-ridden as her past. And just as intolerable.
“I shouldn’t have tried to keep her in the dark. That’s obvious now. But I was afraid that facing up to the rumours and speculation would eventually oblige me to tell her the whole truth. Secrecy becomes a habit, you see. More than a necessity. A way of life, almost. It can’t just be shrugged off. It doesn’t work like that. So my response to the growing interest in the case was to block it off and pretend it didn’t exist. It was all grotesquely misplaced anyway. Oscar Bantock may or may not have been a forger. But I knew better than anyone why he’d died. And forgery didn’t come into it.
“Except in the sense that my whole life had become a forgery. A convincing but counterfeit piece of work. A sham based on a lie. The only genuine thing in it was my love for Rowena. When she threw herself from the bridge, she took the purpose of my deception with her. She exposed my forgery. For the world to see.
“But it didn’t see, did it? It never does. It never wants to. It has to be forced to open its eyes. The righting of wrongs is a deeply uncomfortable experience. Admitting to a mistake is much more difficult than concealing it. And usually there are so many ways to dodge the issue. To avoid the admission. But not this time. Not now. Because I intend to be seen and heard. I intend to set the record straight. And to face the consequences. Along with everyone else.”
C H A P T E R
FOURTEEN
Listening to Paul Bryant’s confession made me realize how little I’d really known about the Paxton family and the events of July 1990. I’d mistaken glimpses of the truth for insight and understanding. I’d constructed a whole version of reality from the constituents of my limited knowledge. And now, suddenly, I saw it for the travesty it had always been. The past was as fluid and uncertain as the future.
I was too shocked at first to react to what Paul had said. So much was altered by it, so much thrown into disarray. Louise hadn’t been what I or others had thought she was. She hadn’t been prepared to be what we wanted her to be, even in death. Everything we’d believed about her had been a lie. And the one thing said about her that we were sure was a lie turned out to be true. Naylor wasn’t guilty. But almost everyone else was. Of deceiving others. Or of deceiving themselves. It hardly mattered which.
Except in Paul’s case, of course. He’d lived the grossest lie of all. He’d murdered two people and let an innocent man go to prison in his place. I should have felt angry. And so, eventually, I did. But not because of the hideous crime he was at long last owning up to. Oh no. What really angered me was the revelation of so much falsehood, so much shared credulity. It had just been too pat and convenient to resist, I suppose. Naylor locked away. And our doubts with him. But now he—and they—were going to be released. The villain of the piece was going to be revealed as the ultimate victim. History was about to be rewritten. And everyone who’d subscribed to the version I knew now to be false would be exposed as at best a fool, at worst several different kinds of scoundrel.
I suppose the unavoidable acknowledgement of my own gullibility explains the muted dismay with which I finally responded. I was horrified, of course. But horror loses its edge at three years’ remove from the deed. The satisfaction with which I’d greeted Naylor’s twenty-year sentence could never be renewed. Paul’s guilt was somehow diminished by the injustice I’d participated in. And by the shame I felt at its realization. There was a moment when I was tempted to urge silence on him, to whisper some weaselly platitude about letting sleeping dogs lie. Then I faced down the thought. There had to be an end of evasion and collusion. And this was it.
“What you did, Paul—what you freely admit you did—was terrible. Awful. Unpardonable. I believe murderers should be executed. Hanged by the neck until dead. You understand me? Done away with.”
“I understand you, Robin. I hear what you’re saying. I actually agree with you. A life should be repaid with a life. But the law says otherwise. So . . .”
“What will you do now? Go to the police?”
“Not directly. I’ve an appointment with Naylor’s solicitor in Worcester tomorrow morning. I’ll tell him exactly what I’ve told you. Then it’ll be up to him to decide what to do. I’ll be glad when it is, to be honest. Grateful to let him set the wheels in motion. Besides, going to him avoids any possibility of the police turning a deaf ear.”
“You think they’d try to?”
“Who knows? This way, they won’t have the option, will they?”
“And Sarah? When will you tell her?”
He sighed. “I’m not sure I can face her with it. Confessing to you or Naylor’s solicitor or the police or whoever is one thing. But standing in front of Sarah and explaining what I did—when and why—to her own mother . . . her own flesh and blood . . .” He shook his head. “That’s too much.”
“She has to be told.”
“Of course. Otherwise the first she’ll know of it will be when the police come to her for corroboration of my statement. That’s partly why . . .” I sensed him staring at me in the darkness. “I came to you.”
“You want me to tell her?”
“If you will. If you can. As a favour, perhaps.”
I hesitated, torn between the wish to refuse and the knowledge that it would be better for her to hear it from me first. In the end, it wasn’t a difficult choice to make, however hard it was likely to be to act on. “Very well. I’ll tell Sarah. But I’ll do it as a favour to her, Paul. Not to you.”
A few minutes passed in silence, during which he may have reflected on the many rejections and condemnations he’d soon be laying himself open to. Then he said simply: “Thank you.”
“Why did you do it?” I asked, the wish that he would suddenly say no, it was all a joke really, buried beneath the question. “I mean, in God’s name, why?”
“I don’t know, Robin. I remember the actions, not the reasons. She cast a spell on me that was only broken by her de
ath. And now it seems as inexplicable to me as it does to you.”
“All those lies you told. How could you sustain them?”
“Necessity. Fear. Practice. And a morsel of pride, I suppose, at not being found out. They were enough. Until Rowena took their place. But now she’s gone, there’s nothing. No reason. No purpose. No point to the deception. I’ve been going to church these past few weeks, you know. Praying for guidance. Preparing to confess, I suppose you could say. In one of the readings, there was a verse from St. John’s Gospel that stuck in my mind. Six words that gave me more courage than all the rest put together. And just enough for me to be able to do this. ‘The truth will make you free.’ I’ve thought of it a lot. The hope, I mean. It’s easy to say. Not so easy to believe. But I’ve started to believe it. I really have. Just in the time I’ve been talking to you. I haven’t felt free since the night I killed her. But now there’s a chance. That the truth will make me free. At last. All over again. Truly free.”
If anyone had told me I’d one day entertain Louise Paxton’s murderer as an overnight guest in my home, I’d have thought them mad. But Paul Bryant did spend that night at Greenhayes. When it came to the point, there was really nowhere else for him to go. He admitted he’d be grateful for company on the road to Worcester next morning and I suppose part of me wanted to be certain he meant to go through with his confession before I started throwing pebbles into the same pond.
We set out at dawn, Paul looking as if he’d slept considerably better than me. Perhaps the longed for freedom was already making itself felt. He said little as we drove north, leaning back in the seat with his eyes closed, an expression close to contentment on his face. He smiled occasionally and muttered to himself. But whenever I asked him what he’d said, he only replied, “It’s not important.” Nothing was, I suppose, compared with the story he had to tell. Nothing counted at all—except his fierce determination to set the record straight.
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