The Family Remains(79)

‘I left after two years or so,’ Justin says. I hear pain in his voice as he utters these words. ‘I shouldn’t have. I should have stayed, for the children. But I couldn’t bear it. Not for another moment. It was insane. Birdie turned into a psycho. She got off on all the twisted stuff that was going on.’

‘What sort of twisted things?’

‘Oh, the kids mainly. Keeping them contained in the house. Hours of physical exercise every day. Hours of learning the violin. They weren’t allowed to wear normal clothes or do normal things. No television. No friends. Strange punishments. It was just … everything just felt wrong. And Birdie was clearly obsessed with him.’

‘With who?’

‘David. The healer.’

‘David – what was his surname?’

‘Thomsen. David Thomsen.’

I feel a bloom of sweat break out on my fingertips where they grip the pencil and I wipe them against my trouser leg then return them to my pencil and write the word ‘Thomson’.

‘With an “e”,’ Justin says, peering at my notepad.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘It was Thomsen with an “e”.’

‘Oh. Thank you. And what were the names of his family members?’

‘His wife was called Sally. His daughter was called Clemency. His son was called Phineas.’

There, yes. I feel it as pieces of metal locking into place; I can almost hear the sounds they make as they do so. These names are biblical; they are spiritual. They share a sensibility with Serenity, the birth name of Libby Jones. There is something there that ties everything together.

‘And do you know what became of this family?’

‘I don’t know what happened to any of them. I just knew I’d had enough, that I needed to get out. I met a woman at the market where I sold my oils and remedies and she was buying a smallholding in Wales, asked me to come and join her team. I fled. Couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Felt horrible about leaving the little ones, you know. But I just really needed a clean break. From Birdie. From David. From London. From all of it. I should have come back, y’know. I should have come back. Checked that they were OK. The kids. But I was just …’ He sighs and I see a sheen of tears across his eyes. ‘Do you know?’ he asks softly. ‘Do you know what happened to the children?’

I shake my head. ‘No. Not yet. We’re still trying to trace them.’

‘But they’re alive?’

I smile sadly. ‘I’m afraid, Mr Ugley, that we don’t know that yet.’

He nods and I see a tear run down his cheek, which he wipes away with the back of his tattooed hand.

‘And you and Birdie,’ I continue. ‘Did you stay in touch after you left?’

‘No. I never spoke to her again. Never heard from her. Never saw her. Have thought about her a lot though. But I had no idea she’d gone missing, had no idea about … any of it.’

‘So you didn’t see any of the stories in the press at the time about the house, the suicides?’

‘The suicides? God. No. At the smallholding it was kind of, I suppose, a commune, in a way. We didn’t have a TV. We didn’t look at newspapers. We lived completely self-sufficiently.’

‘And for how long was this?’

‘Oh. I lived there for …’

I see Justin dry swallow and blink twice. He is experiencing some harsh emotion.

‘For about ten years? I was, erm …’ Another dry swallow. Then he clears his throat and shifts in his armchair. I watch his fists clench and unclench, his lower lip wriggle. ‘It wasn’t the answer to my problems. I kind of lost the plot there, I think. Too many drugs. Too much scrumpy. Trying to black it all out. Ended up in prison a few times. Then two years ago, the last time I got out of prison, I bought this van and I’ve been trying to lie low, y’know? Trying to keep away from triggers. Live a quiet life. And yeah, I have no idea about the Thomsens or about Birdie or about anything really. All I know is the weather, the soil, the seasons, what I’m going to have for lunch. And now …’ He gestures at me.

‘Now,’ I say, ‘a detective from London.’

‘Yes. A detective from London. Who I’d really love to help. But I really don’t think I can. Because whatever happened back then, I wasn’t there. I’d already fucked off.’

I pick up my pencil as I feel the dark scudding clouds of his grief and guilt move on for a while, see the horizon become clear again.

‘When you lived there, in Chelsea, you grew the plants, yes, in the garden?’

‘Yes. I did.’

‘And there was deadly nightshade, amongst the things you grew?’

‘No. No, I would never have grown such a thing, there would be no reason to. Especially not in a house with children in it.’

I rearrange myself on the folding stool as I frame my next question.

‘Deadly nightshade was found in the remains of the garden. And that was what was used to poison the adults. Do you have any theories about how it might have found its way into your herb garden? Who might have grown it?’

This question lands on his face like a punch.

‘No. No I don’t.’

‘So nobody else in the house was capable of planting or growing these things?’