Suddenly I saw it. ‘Heads or tails,’ I said.
‘They’d nicked a coin from Maïssa’s handbag in the hall. It’s got a tree on one side and a map of Europe on the other, so it’s not exactly heads or tails, but it makes sense to use a foreign coin, one that can’t be connected to them, and they also wipe it clean to make sure it didn’t have their fingerprints.’ For the first time in a while, he looked at Anne. ‘Am I right?’
‘I wanted him to know what it felt like … to gamble for his life,’ Anne said. ‘I left his hand free so that he could toss the coin. I told him to call and that if he got it right, I would let him go.’
‘And would you have?’
‘Of course not. But it didn’t matter anyway. He couldn’t do it.’
Right then, I saw the whole dreadful scene. Charles le Mesurier, tied to the chair, sitting in his Snuggery, still half stunned from the blow he had received. Kathryn with the knife at his throat. Anne balancing the two-euro coin on his thumb, forcing him to toss it and call. Screaming at him: ‘Heads or tails? Heads or tails?’ Terrified. But Charles finally doing what he was told, trying to get the coin to spin, hoping to save his own life.
‘He dropped it,’ Anne said. ‘He tried to toss the coin but it fell onto the carpet and we couldn’t find it.’
‘And then you killed him.’
‘Yes, Mr Hawthorne. I killed him. Not Kathryn. She had left by then.’
‘We’ll get back to that later, shall we?’ Hawthorne continued his explanation. ‘It was Helen’s turn next. Luck was still with you because Helen had seen Derek Abbott out of the bedroom window and arranged to meet him. You’d never have been able to get back into the house with all the police around, but you decided to watch the house in the hope that she’d step out for a breath of fresh air. When she set off for Quesnard Cottage, you followed her.’
‘How did they get her into the cave?’ I asked.
‘That’s a good question,’ Hawthorne said.
‘You’ve got this part of it wrong, Mr Hawthorne,’ Anne replied, quite calmly. ‘Kathryn wasn’t with me on the Sunday. You’re right that I followed Mrs le Mesurier. I caught up with her before she reached the quarry and the railway line and we walked together, chatting quite normally. She mentioned the cave and I asked her to show it to me. It was a little out of her way, but I said I was nervous to go in on my own, so she took me to the entrance. That was where I hit her. I then carried her inside and finished the job inside.’
Was she telling the truth? I’m not sure that Anne Cleary would have been strong enough to carry Helen le Mesurier all the way down the dark passage that led into the rock face. But Hawthorne didn’t challenge her. ‘Did she deserve to die too?’ he asked.
‘She was just as guilty as him,’ Anne said. But I thought she sounded less sure.
‘She was an actress, playing a part.’
‘My son died. It destroyed my marriage. I have never had a moment’s peace ever since.’
‘They were horrible people,’ Kathryn agreed.
‘I don’t want you to say anything, Kitty! It’s very important that you understand that, now and moving forward.’ Her mother had drawn herself up in her seat. She knew exactly what she was going to say. Even as Hawthorne had been speaking, she had rehearsed it. ‘Could you please get the letter off the sideboard?’ she asked.
‘Mum …’
‘Please, dear.’
Kathryn wasn’t happy, but she got up and did as she was told. She handed her mother an envelope.
‘This may not make a great deal of difference to what you decide to do, Mr Hawthorne,’ Anne said. ‘For what it’s worth, I accept your conclusion. What I did was wrong and I expect to pay. Except that it seems I am paying already.’
She held out the letter. Hawthorne took it, a single typed page. I saw the NHS logo at the top.
‘You have heart disease,’ he said.
‘Left ventricular systolic dysfunction, to be precise,’ Anne told him. ‘I’m taking various medications … enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers. But my prognosis is not good. I have weeks, maybe months. It could just be days.’
I knew she was telling the truth. I remembered her breathlessness and the so-called antibiotics she had mentioned. On the morning after the murder, she’d said she had to leave the island for a doctor’s appointment and that was probably true.
‘This isn’t a payment,’ Hawthorne said.
‘I’m sorry?’
‘If you’re suggesting to me that you were sent this heart condition as a punishment for what you intended to do, that makes as much sense as Elizabeth Lovell and her stupid ghosts.’
‘Does it matter what I call it? The point I am making, and the only point that should be of interest to you, is that I am going to die very soon.’ She half smiled. ‘Funnily enough, what I told you about my deal with Disney was true. It just arrived a little too late to be of any use to me.’
‘Go on.’
‘I won’t stand trial. I certainly won’t go to prison. I knew that long before I went to Alderney.’
‘It was part of the reason why you went.’
‘Yes. When the doctor told me that my time was limited, I thought a lot about William and how I might make amends. And then, when I was asked to come to Alderney and I saw Spin-the-wheel on the invitation, it felt like it was meant. I had been given an opportunity, in the last days of my life, to take some sort of action … Punishment, retribution. Call it what you like.’
Hawthorne briefly considered what he had just been told. ‘So what are you suggesting, Anne?’
‘I killed Charles le Mesurier. I also killed Helen le Mesurier. Kathryn wasn’t even there when the second crime took place.’
‘You say …’
‘I will confess to both murders. That was always my intention.’
‘Until Derek Abbott threw himself off a cliff.’
‘Well, can you really blame me for allowing that to change my mind?’
‘I don’t blame you for that, Anne. I blame you for the vicious, premeditated murders of two people.’
‘You’re right. I planned them. I arranged them. I took the knife and the coin. It was all exactly as you described. But Kathryn—’
‘—was an accessory to murder. That still carries a life sentence.’
‘You don’t need to tell anyone about her. Kathryn lost a brother she loved. She hardly sees her father and she’s about to lose her mother. Hasn’t she suffered enough? She’s married to a good man, a GP. She wants to start a family. What good will it do, putting her behind bars? Please. I’m begging you. Show a little mercy. As far as I can tell, the police have closed the file following the death of Derek Abbott.’ She reached out and took her daughter’s hand. ‘Why can’t you just leave us alone?’
Hawthorne didn’t need to think about what she had just said, not even for a minute. He stood up.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I can’t do that. You’re asking me to judge you, but that’s not my job. My job was to find the truth and that’s what I’ve done. What happens next isn’t up to me.’ He looked around him one last time. ‘You have to go to the police and tell them what you did. Maybe you’ll be able to persuade them that Kathryn had nothing – or very little – to do with it. I’ll be honest and tell you I don’t really care what happens. But it’s like I’ve said. It’s not my decision.’
Anne nodded slowly. ‘I understand. How long can you give me?’
‘The sooner you do it, the easier it will be.’
‘Yes. That’s probably true.’
‘There is one last thing …’
‘What’s that, Mr Hawthorne?’