Running Wild

The Pangbourne Massacre: The Evidence

The next three days I spent almost entirely in Sergeant Payne's company, assembling our detailed case against the Pangbourne children, a case that challenged everything held most dear by conventional good sense, but which needed to carry total conviction if it was to overcome the reflex objections of the Yard and the Home Office.

Each morning I drove from London to the Reading police headquarters, and Payne would take me down to the archivist's office in the basement where the classified evidence was stored. Although I was certain of our case, once away from Pangbourne Village I found it difficult to accept the strange logic at work-that the more the children were loved and cherished, the more they were driven into a desperate search for escape.

"Take Marion Miller," I pointed out, playing devil's advocate against myself. "I'm convinced that she dropped the live hair dryer into her father's bath. All the same, the inference that she set out to kill him deliberately is so bizarre that one has to look at the possibility of other bizarre theories."

"Such as, sir?" Payne waited patiently by the projector screen with the collection of slides and videos he had assembled.

"Well, perhaps she wanted to dry his hair for him, and dropped the hair dryer into the water by accident. She panicked, and the brother tried to make it look like a suicide attempt. Perhaps it was a suicide attempt which the children blundered into…"

"So Miller first electrocuted himself, to shut out the pain, and then stabbed his own chest?"

"Or perhaps the mother stabbed him, and then in remorse killed herself-?" I gave up. "It's implausible, but our theory is even more unbelievable."

"At least it explains the other murders. Let me show you this tape, Doctor." Payne switched on the projector. "This comes from the TV monitor in the gatehouse. It contains the final sequences before the system was sabotaged at 8:23 a.m.-the main cable and all the telephone lines were severed with a set of cutters stolen two weeks earlier from a British Telecom van in Reading."

The video revealed a general view of The Avenue on the fateful morning, the lawns and pathways deserted, the residents in bed, at breakfast, or taking their fateful baths. "It's now about 8:22, according to the time coding on the tape. David Turner, the security guard in the gatehouse, was probably strangled within thirty seconds of the tape ending. The audiocassette in his breast-pocket radio records the unanswered query of Burnett, the other guard on duty, who was calling from the perimeter security post about the camera failure. Something like thirty seconds later _he_ was killed by a crossbow bolt."

"And these two deaths started off the whole Pangbourne Massacre?"

"That's what everyone upstairs assumes, all the senior CID people and the Yard. According to them, this was the signal to the other members of the gang waiting to attack."

"It seems likely-someone had to fire the starting pistol."

"Sure. But let's run the tape back a little, Doctor…"

The pictures moved in reverse, showing the familiar perspectives of the estate, except for a solitary pigeon that flew tail-first down The Avenue, as if withdrawing tactfully from the tragic scene. At Pangbourne Village, I reflected, time could run backward or forward. The residents had eliminated both past and future, and for all their activity they existed in a civilized and eventless world. In a sense, the children had rewound the clocks of real life.

"This is the Miller house." Payne pointed to the graceful modern façade. "It's now about 8:19, and the Millers are ready for another rich and successful day to wrap itself around them."

I ignored this and watched the screen. The surveillance camera, as if bored with nothing to do, began to scan the house in close-up. The superb lenses, representing the most advanced optical technology, showed every detail with unnerving clarity. The camera panned along the plate-glass windows of the lounge and dining room. The undisturbed furniture could be clearly seen, even a clock registering 8:20 on a mantelpiece.

"Nothing untoward there," I commented. "No assassins waiting for a signal…"

"Hold on, Doctor-you'll see the assassins in a moment."

The camera passed the study windows. The darker background of bookshelves concealed the interior, but somewhere in the confused play of light and shadow I saw the image of a child.

"Wait, Sergeant! Hold it there."

"You saw it, Doctor? Good…" Payne froze the frame and enlarged the image. Marion Miller was standing on a chair by the window, her knees against the sill. Her untidy blond fringe partly covered her eyes, but on her lips was a small tight smile, unmistakable in its fierce knowingness. Her gaze was fixed on one of the houses across The Avenue.

Behind the girl was her brother Robin, his face dappled by the reflected foliage. His eyes also watched the house opposite. Between the two children was the desktop screen of the security monitor.

"It's the same picture that you and I are watching," I pointed out to Payne. "Perhaps they've seen something, Sergeant, and they're trying to warn everyone…?"

"No, they're just waiting for the screen to go blank. It's this little pair who fire your starting pistol." Payne ran the film in slow motion. Marion 's brother had come to the window beside her. Boy and girl clasped hands and raised them over their heads in a gesture reminiscent of a black power salute.

"Look closely at this, Doctor…" As the smiling girl lifted her arm she pressed against the window, and her dress flared across the glass. Imprinted on the waist were two floral patterns like stylized tulips.

"Handprints, Doctor. They were still there when she was found at Waterloo Station, in the same blood group as her father's."

I stared at the five-fingered patterns. "Fair enough, Sergeant. So at this point Miller and his wife were already dead. Robin and Marion were first off the mark, and then came downstairs to signal to the others. Everything depended on whether these two were up to it."

"It's easy to follow their line of sight. They were looking across The Avenue at the upstairs window of Annabel Reade's bedroom. She must have passed on the message to whoever cut the TV and telephone cables."

"Then all the screens went blank, and the killing machine rolled into action." I walked over to the projector, fascinated by the flower-shaped prints of the child's hands. "So that's where she wiped her fingers-I can see her doing it as her brother finishes off the father in the bath. But what about the people at the Yard? How do they explain this?"

"They don't try. They say the boy and girl had been locked into the study and were signaling for help."

"For heaven's sake, she was smiling-an icy smile, I admit, but a smile."

"Enough to freeze the lips off the Mona Lisa," Payne commented. "A tough little lady. If she was strong enough to start everything off, why did she want to escape?"

"Because she was so young. Everyone else had reached puberty, they were choking on the nonstop diet of love and understanding being forced down their throats at Pangbourne Village. This was an idea of childhood invented by adults. The children were desperate for the roughage of real emotions, for parents who now and then disapproved of them, became annoyed and impatient, or even failed to understand them. They needed parents who weren't interested in everything they did, who weren't afraid to be irritated or bored by them, and didn't try to rule every minute of their lives with the wisdom of Solomon."

"And Marion Miller?"

"She was only eight-at that age you enjoy being cocooned in total affection, with someone telling you what to do every moment of the day." I tapped the softly glowing image of the smiling girl. "She fired the starting pistol, but she wasn't the ringleader, and perhaps she began to remember the happy paradise she had left behind at Pangbourne. Let's go through the other material, Sergeant-older and far more dangerous heads planned the Pangbourne Massacre."