The Valley (29 page)

Four weeks after I was first admitted to the hospital, I was transferred out of the Intensive Care Unit to a small private room on the fifth floor with its own shower and lavatory but no windows, apart from a small glass panel in the door that opened onto a corridor. One of the doctors told me there were two other similar rooms but neither was currently occupied.

‘It’s an isolation unit,’ he explained, ‘We only use it for patients with highly infectious diseases. Or patients whom those gentlemen have a particular interest in.’

He gestured to the glass panel, through which I could see a uniformed policeman sitting outside. He was one of four who guarded me twenty-four hours a day. They never came into the room, but they would sometimes peer in through the glass, and I came to recognise their faces.

Apart from Jonathan Harrison, my only non-medical visitors were Karen and the children. All press enquiries were directed to Jonathan who turned them all down. He also refused all police requests to interview me.

I was a willing conspirator in this effort to keep me isolated. Even brief conversations made me very tired. My knee needed two further operations, and a setback with my lung led to me developing pneumonia. I had no wish to use up what little mental energy I had on thinking about my case. I knew what I had done and what the punishment was likely to be. The only unanswered questions I had were about Angela, but these went unasked as well as unanswered. If I was going to prison for ten years, I had no wish to destroy her life as well.

The limits to my freedom were revealed one day when a nurse told me it was a beautiful spring day outside. I could already potter to the bathroom, so I asked if Karen could take me out in a wheelchair when she came to visit. The nurse promptly went bright red and mumbled something about it being a bit early for that, before scurrying out of the room. It was left to Jonathan to disclose the true conditions of my stay in the hospital.

‘You’re not allowed outside this room,’ he explained.

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s what I’ve agreed with the police. Otherwise they’ll arrest you.’

My bed had a TV screen that doubled as a primitive PC with internet access. Jonathan told me not to look at what the press were saying about me, but one day the temptation grew too much and I googled myself to see if I was still famous. I was, but only in a minor role. Max, as ever, was the star, even in death. His financial empire had collapsed in an avalanche of law suits. His private life was being picked over amid speculation that he may have killed not only Lucy, Gerry, Charlie and George but several other people connected to his hedge fund (two according to one newspaper; at least ten according to another). I was mentioned only in passing and always described as his ‘close associate’.

I did not have to search the internet to find out what had happened to PropFace. The vendors of the company I had purchased got in touch through a solicitor’s letter informing me that I had not fulfilled my contract to pay them my final instalment and therefore they were suing me for the outstanding payment, plus interest, that I owed them. Shortly afterwards I received another letter from a City law firm saying that it was acting on behalf of the administrators of Max’s hedge fund, and enforcing their right to be repaid all the money I had borrowed from the fund through Max, which took my total debts to nearly a million pounds. I was just getting round to replying to this when another letter arrived from yet another law firm, representing the Board of PropFace. This informed me that the Board had unanimously voted to remove me from my role as Chief Executive with immediate effect and without compensation for having brought the company into disrepute, and the directors were considering legal action against me for all the damage I had caused.

I tried to fight back. I pestered Jonathan Harrison until he referred me to a colleague of his who specialised in corporate law. He wrote some letters on my behalf. Then everything ground to a halt because Karen made it clear that whilst she and Nick would give me unlimited support to defend myself against criminal charges, they would not fund any legal action over PropFace, which was fast collapsing anyway, as estate agents rushed to leave the sinking ship.

‘It’s gone John,’ was all she said, when I raised the subject, as the children played by the side of my bed. And there did not seem much point in challenging her if I was going to spend the next decade in jail.

I also had something more important to face up to. I heard from my sister Susie that my mother had suffered a heart attack. ‘She’s very weak,’ Susie said, when we talked on the telephone. ‘She’s been under a lot of pressure recently.’

No one had to spell out what the source of this pressure had been.

On Jonathan’s next visit, I told him I would like to fly out to see my mother. ‘The doctors have said I can, provided there’s a wheelchair at the other end. And Karen has said she will lend me the money for my ticket.’

‘Medically and financially it may be possible,’ Jonathan said. ‘But legally, it’s not. You’d be arrested on your way to the airport.’

‘Can you do a deal with the police?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘The prosecution already have their signed confession. So it’s difficult to see what else I can offer them – unless you can think of something?’

He left the question hanging in the air. I avoided his eyes and mumbled that he was the expert, not me.

‘I can’t defend you properly if you don’t tell me everything,’ he said. ‘And that includes your relationship with Angela Fawcett.’

Our eyes locked.

‘You were very close, weren’t you?’ he said.

I nodded.

‘And did she at all times behave in a professional manner?’

I stayed silent.

‘If there was any sexual element to your relationship, she’ll be an embarrassment to the police. They won’t want her to appear on a witness stand.’

I thought of Angela being torn apart in the court room. ‘I wouldn’t want that either,’ I said.

‘It could be our only weapon.’

‘I don’t care. We’re not using it.’

He stared back at me. ‘All right,’ he said eventually, ‘I won’t pursue it. But in the meantime you’d better prepare for the worst. If the police think you’re well enough to get on a plane, they’ll arrest you in the next few days.’

I rang Karen after Jonathan left. I asked her to come in as soon as she could and bring the children with her. I did not need to say why.

‘I’ll bring them straight after school,’ she said.

When the children came in they gave me a hug and then rushed across to inspect all the medical instruments and charts, which fascinated them. Karen handed me some letters.

‘I went round to your flat,’ she said by way of explanation.

‘What did it look like?’

‘A crime scene.’

I laughed and glanced at the letters. The first one I opened was a notice to quit from my landlord. I had been expecting it ever since my bank account had been frozen.

‘There wasn’t any electricity or heating,’ she added. ‘And I think your phone’s been cut off as well.’

I nodded.

‘Nick’s given me some information about bankruptcy,’ she said. ‘Would you like to read it?’

‘Not right now.’

Later on, we were just finishing a family game of snakes and ladders, when there was a knock on the door and Jonathan walked in. I looked at my watch: it was half past six in the evening. I dreaded to think what he charged for his services out of office hours.

‘Something’s come up,’ he said, ‘and I need to speak to John alone about it.’

Karen offered to take the children down to the hospital café for half an hour.

The moment they left, Jonathan cut to the chase. ‘I was right about Detective Sergeant Angela Fawcett,’ he said.

‘I specifically told you not to —’

‘I didn’t make any threats. I just asked whether they would be putting her forward as a witness and watched them squirm.’

‘You had no right to do that.’

He ignored me, fumbling inside his briefcase for a notebook which he eventually opened. ‘John, there’s something far more important we need to discuss: your fifty page handwritten confession.’

‘What about it?’

‘The police don’t have it.’

‘What!’

‘If you wrote down anything that evening on Thomas the Tank Engine writing paper, it’s disappeared. In fact, when it comes to the murder of Edward FitzGerald, the police have absolutely no evidence that he was murdered by you or Max or anyone. They’re not even certain he’s dead. And they would be very interested in receiving information to help them clear up the case.’

I noticed he was grinning from ear to ear. I tried to remember what had happened in my flat after I had shot Max. All I could recall was Angela calling the police, then lying beside me in the pool of blood, giving me a kiss, saying everything would be all right, and then disappearing.

Jonathan interrupted my thoughts. ‘Look, I don’t want to exaggerate our position. The prosecution have still got you stone cold for possessing an illegally adapted firearm, and that can be seven years in jail just by itself. They can probably make the criminal blackmail charge stick as well. And they still want their pound of flesh to satisfy the baying mob.’

I nodded.

Jonathan continued: ‘As well as the crown prosecution lawyer, I talked to a Detective Sergeant Joy Clarke. She seems to have brokered a deal. You’d still have to go to jail, but if you co-operate fully, give the police a full confession and plead guilty, it will only be a token term, a couple of years at most. She said to tell you the offer came from her and it’s the best she could get you.’

Jonathan looked me in the eyes. ‘My advice is to accept her offer. It will wipe the slate clean forever. But it’s not me who will have to spend the time behind bars.’

I looked down at my bedside table, on top of which were the letter from my landlord and the various unpaid bills, and reams of correspondence from the directors and creditors of PropFace, and various liquidators and trustees of hedge funds, all demanding money that I did not have.

‘Will I be able to fly to Australia and see my mother?’ I said.

‘I think it could be negotiated. Particularly if we agree that Ms Fawcett can quietly disappear forever without giving any evidence.’

I kept to my end of the bargain that Jonathan Harrison struck, telling the police everything I knew about what Max had done. I was taken out on boat trips from Southampton to see if I could locate Gerry’s body, although without much success. All we found were the remains of the barbecue that we had pushed off the side of the
Glen Avon
.

The police never found any trace of Lucy either. To this day, she is still officially listed as missing rather than murdered. But the investigation is closed. The shotgun I killed Max with, and the shotgun he shot me with, were confirmed to be the same pair that was stolen from the Graingers’ house when she was abducted. One of the staff at the marina also came forward to say he remembered Max arriving at the marina a week after Lucy disappeared. He was with a man who looked like Charlie Wall and the two of them were carrying a faded blue trunk with some painted initials on the side, which they loaded onto the
Glen Avon
, before setting sail with no other crew on board. The trunk was never seen again. When Joy asked me whether I knew anything about it, I replied that it sounded like the same trunk that I had helped Max carry up the stairs on my first day at Bristol University.

On the strength of my testimony, Joy managed to close the police files on the murders of Lord Ferreston and Charlie Wall as well. She was promoted to Detective Superintendant, and in return she made sure I was allowed to fly out to Australia and have a final chat to my mother whilst she lay in her hospital bed. She died just before my case came to court, which gave my sister and Pete the perfect excuse not to fly over to support me, which I think was a relief to everyone.

Before the trial began, I had one other task to perform. I sold my car, television, DVD player and the few other possessions I owned, for cash, and then used the money to give Max a proper burial. His body was still in the police morgue. No one had laid claim to it, so I did. I was the only mourner when his coffin was lowered to the ground in a plot beside the grave of his father, in the churchyard at the top of Glen Avon. I bought a simple granite tombstone, engraved with just his name, date of birth and date of death, and made sure it pointed towards the hills of the estate he used to wander as a boy. As I threw the first sods of earth onto the coffin, the priest recited an old Gaelic blessing.

And I wept as we trudged back to the small chapel.

In contrast, the trial itself proved an anticlimax. Everything had been decided in advance. I pleaded guilty and all sides kept to the agreed script. The only painful part was the evening before I was due to be sentenced, when I said goodbye to my children, and handed over to Karen their birthday and Christmas presents for the next twelve months.

The next day in the court room, when the judge addressed me, I looked around to see if Angela had sneaked into the public gallery, but she was not there.

My sentence was two years, with six months suspended. Jonathan says I could be out within nine months. Quite what I will come out to remains to be seen. Two weeks into my sentence, I was formally declared bankrupt.

Karen is now my only regular visitor. She, Nick and the boys live in a village near Dorking and she comes to see me once a month. We talk mostly about our children. She waited until her second visit to tell me that she and Nick wanted to get married. I promised her I would not contest the divorce and she said her lawyer would post all the forms through to me. As she left the visiting room, I noticed that her cheeks were glowing and she seemed to have put on a bit of weight.

A few days later, I was told I had a letter to pick up from the prisoners’ mail room. I walked there as slowly as I could. I knew that granting Karen a quick divorce was the least I owed her, but signing forms in a prison cell was still seemed a dismal way to end a marriage that had promised so much.

In the mail room I was shown a bulky envelope, with a printed label on the front addressed to me. The officer opened it in front of me and extracted several sheets of writing paper. It was only when he turned them over that I saw they were emblazoned with a Thomas the Tank Engine logo.