A Line to Kill

‘Anyway, Derek wants his £20,000, which is actually going to be his pay-off. Le Mesurier fires him, and Anne hears the entire conversation, hiding behind one of those velvet curtains. Why would Charles le Mesurier have told her anything about Abbott at the party? That never made any sense. But it’s a gift as far as she’s concerned. When she tells us that le Mesurier complained about Abbott earlier in the evening, it’s as if she’s looking into the future, using her knowledge of what happened at ten o’clock to point the finger at a known criminal and a man who’s hated across the whole island.

‘In fact, le Mesurier is very much alive when Derek leaves the Snuggery. At that moment, Helen le Mesurier looks out of her bedroom window and later on she’ll assume that since he was there just before her husband died, he must be the one who killed him. That’s why she sends Derek a text. And that’s what will eventually get her killed.

‘So now everything is set up. Charles le Mesurier is on his own in the Snuggery, high on cocaine, waiting for his new girlfriend to arrive. But the moment Kathryn appears, Anne steps out from her hiding place and stuns him with a rock or a brick or whatever she’s picked up from the garden. Together, the two women drag him into the chair and tie him down with the parcel tape. But they leave one hand free.’

‘Why?’ I couldn’t help myself. ‘Why did they do that?’

‘I’ve told you, mate. This is all about gambling. So what they did at the very end was give Charles le Mesurier a taste of his own medicine. Think about it! He’s tied to a chair. His head’s been cracked open. He’s frightened and in pain and worse than that, he’s got two loony women facing him and one of them has got the paperknife that she’s nicked from his study. Kathryn could have done that any time during the day. But they want the punishment to fit the crime, so they give him one chance. Just like William Cleary, they’re going to let him gamble for his life.’

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.