“No. I never did.”
Not his Louise, anyway. Another one maybe. A version of her as far removed from the person he’d lived with for twenty-three years as Naylor’s version of events was from the truth as I thought I knew it. The light faded as the train rushed south towards London. And the darkness grew. Who could be sure, absolutely sure, of anything? Where she’d gone that night after leaving Hergest Ridge. What she’d done and why. What she would have done if I’d gone with her. And where we’d all be now if I had.
The defence called four more witnesses after Naylor himself. The friend he’d stayed with in Cardiff, Gary Newsom, who spoke up for him as a bit of a rogue but no murderer, who’d returned to Newsom’s home in Cardiff on 18 July 1990 “relaxed and a bit pleased with himself, but looking forward to going back to London.” A customer at the Harp Inn the night before who recognized Naylor as “a man I saw sitting outside with a good-looking woman; it was definitely him and the woman could have been Lady Paxton, but I can’t be certain.” A barmaid at the Black Horse, Leominster, who remembered serving Naylor just before closing time that night. “He bought me a drink and chatted me up a bit. He seemed nice enough. I quite took to him, as a matter of fact.” And lastly Naylor’s wife, Carol. “It’s true about the row. A real up-and-downer. And about the holiday. He was full of it when he came back. I knew how he’d got the cash. The stuff he stole was in his van. Like he says, thieving’s in his blood. Always has been. But murder ain’t. Nor’s rape. My Shaun would never go in for that sort of thing.”
It didn’t sound to me as if any of this amounted to very much. As the prosecuting counsel pointed out in his closing speech, Naylor might well have been at the Harp that evening. But the witness hadn’t been able to put a definite time on the sighting or identify Lady Paxton as Naylor’s companion. She could have been anyone, given Naylor’s roving eye. As for his late visit to the pub in Leominster, that could have been a futile attempt to set up an alibi. Futile because there was still plenty of time for him to have gone to Whistler’s Cot, murdered Bantock, raped and murdered Lady Paxton, then driven the fifteen miles to Leominster before eleven o’clock. By Naylor’s own admission, he’d had sexual intercourse with Lady Paxton. Did anybody seriously believe this was with Lady Paxton’s consent? If it was, why should she choose Whistler’s Cot as a venue? And why take Naylor into Bantock’s studio first? Because, of course, Naylor had to say she did so in order to account for the forensic evidence of his presence in the studio: the paint and the fibres. Whereas the real explanation was that he’d torn his clothing and stained his jeans during the fatal struggle with Oscar Bantock. When Lady Paxton had surprised him at the scene of the crime, he’d forced her to go upstairs and undress, probably threatening her with the knife or the gun. He’d raped her, as was shown by the amount of vaginal bruising, which he’d attempted, with breath-taking impudence, to attribute to masochistic tendencies on Lady Paxton’s part. Finally, he’d strangled her as he had Oscar Bantock, using a ligature of picture-hanging wire taken from the studio. Then he’d fled, the original purpose of his visit to the house forgotten. These were crimes of horrifying brutality, motivated by material and sexual greed and made possible by a complete indifference to the pain and suffering of others which Naylor had continued to exhibit in his outrageous mockery of a defence. Guilty verdicts on all three charges were the only appropriate way to respond.
Strong stuff. But Naylor’s barrister responded by pointing out that his client’s explanation of the events of 17 July 1990 was consistent with the evidence. He’d met Lady Paxton at the Harp, where they’d been seen together. They’d gone to Whistler’s Cot and had vigorous sexual intercourse, Lady Paxton having some good reason to believe the owner of the house wouldn’t return until later. Naylor had then left. Subsequently, a person or persons unknown had entered the house and murdered Lady Paxton and Bantock, who was either on the premises by then or arrived while the murderer was escaping. The estimated time of death, 9 to 10 p.m., was only that: an estimate. It certainly didn’t rule out such a sequence of events. As for the identity or motive of the murderer, who knew? The police had stopped looking once they’d found Naylor. He specifically denied making the confessions attributed to him by two witnesses, one of whom had a criminal record. Those witnesses were either mistaken or were lying for reasons of their own. Finally, it should be remembered that Naylor had been completely honest about his criminal lifestyle. He’d admitted four burglaries in the Kington area, all confirmed by the police. One of them had taken place only a few hours after he was supposed to have committed rape and double murder at Whistler’s Cot. Was this really what he’d have done after carrying out such horrendous acts? Surely not, his barrister urged the jury to agree. They should give his client the benefit of the doubt.
Yet very little doubt seemed to exist in the judge’s mind when he summed up. To accept Naylor’s version of events, he stressed, it was necessary to suppose that Lady Paxton had gone to Kington not simply to buy a painting but to satisfy a craving for casual sex with a stranger. If the jury found that improbable, they might well conclude that the defendant was guilty as charged. Naturally, they should give due weight to the possibility that he was telling the truth, but they should also remember that he had, by his own admission, lied in his initial statement to the police. The coincidence of an unknown murderer arriving at Whistler’s Cot shortly after his departure was, moreover, bound to strain credulity. The judge’s implication was clear.
And it wasn’t lost on the jury. Sent out rather later than Sir Keith had predicted, they returned within four hours and found Naylor guilty on all three counts. The judge condemned him for adding to the grief of the Paxton family with his mischievous and implausible defence and described him as a depraved and dangerous individual whom the public had every right to expect would be kept behind bars for a very long time. He sentenced Naylor to life imprisonment for each of the murders and ten years for the rape, all to run concurrently. As a final touch-much applauded by the press-he recommended a minimum term in custody of twenty years. Still protesting his innocence but no longer being listened to by anyone, Shaun Naylor was taken away to begin his sentence.
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was over. Louise Paxton was dead and buried. And now, with her murderer’s conviction and imprisonment, she could rest in peace. While I began the reluctant but inevitable process of forgetting her. Which is what I thought I would do. But, as the gap stretched between me and the one brief intersection of our lives, the recollection of our meeting grew somehow clearer, not fainter. I assumed this would eventually cease. The rational part of my mind dismissed it as a caprice of the imagination and waited patiently for it to fade. But it didn’t fade. It seemed to draw a curious energy from the passage of time, to become slowly more elusive yet more potent by the day. Whenever I was tired or alone or thinking of nothing in particular, the components of that evening on Hergest Ridge would reassemble themselves in my mind. The quality of the light. The pitch of the slope. The colour of the grass. The shade of her hair. The look in her eye. And her words. Every phrase. Every nuance. Yet always the question was the same. “Can we really change anything?” And whatever answer I chose made no difference. Because she was out of earshot now. For ever.