Borrowed Time

by Robert Goddard

  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.

  C H A P T E R

  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.

  Louise Paxton’s memory may not have withered, but my association with her family showed every sign of doing so. Sarah invited me to a party at The Hurdles on the last Saturday in June. A crowd of her fellow students from the College of Law were there to celebrate the end of the course, with Bella presiding good-humouredly over their exuberances. I felt old and out of place and wished I hadn’t gone. Sarah was busy playing the part of hostess and couldn’t spare me much attention. It was Bella, in fact, who brought me up to date with her plans.

  “Rowena’s going to take up a deferred place at Bristol University in the autumn. Keith thinks she’ll be able to cope with student life by then. And he hopes Sarah will be able to help her. She’s trying to arrange to do her articles in Bristol. Then they could live together. That would give Rowena some of the security she needs. I shall be sorry to be left alone here again, but . . . well . . . maybe I won’t be for long.”

  “Another lodger?”

  “Not exactly. Not yet, anyway. I’m planning to go abroad next month.”

  “Where to?”

  “Biarritz, as a matter of fact. Keith’s asked me.”

  “Really? Well, I . . . I hope . . .”

  “We enjoy ourselves? Thank you, Robin. I’ll try to make sure we do.”

  So Sir Keith was in Biarritz with Bella, and his daughters—I later learned—were on a Greek island together when the anniversary of the Kington killings came round. I hardly remember where I was. But I know where my thoughts were dwelling.

  The summer of 1991 was a good one for Timariot & Small. The cricket bat business was relatively unaffected by the general economic recession. I suppose that’s why we had so few qualms about the takeover of Viburna Sportswear following Jennifer’s favourable report on its finances. She and Adrian went out there again in August to finalize the terms and Simon was looking forward to spending much of the Antipodean spring in Melbourne, setting up various cross-promotional schemes. As works director I had no need to go myself, since Viburna’s former chairman and chief executive, Greg Dyson, was staying on to manage production at the Australian end. Viburna Sportswear formally became a subsidiary of Timariot & Small on 1 October 1991. The way was clear for Adrian’s international ambitions to take flight.

  My own ambitions were less easy to define. I was on top of my job and deriving satisfaction from seeing some of my innovations work well there. In less than a year, I’d settled into the company as if it were an old and comfortable jacket. I liked the staff and relished accommodating my ideas to their idiosyncracies. I enjoyed the blend of tradition and efficiency, of ancient craft and modern commerce. But outside the hours I spent at the factory there was an emptiness in my life I should have wanted to fill, a solitude I should have regarded as loneliness. Instead my efforts to meet people and make friends were half-hearted, almost insincere. There were a few contemporaries from Churcher’s I’d see from time to time, most of them married with children. There were the regulars at the Cricketers to while away an idle evening with. Or Simon to get roaring drunk with if I felt in the mood, as occasionally I did. But that was all.

  At least until Jennifer tried to pair me off with a friend of hers who ran an interior design business in Petersfield and was recovering from an acrimonious divorce. Ann Taylor was an attractive and sensitive woman of my own age. I liked her from the first. Her vivacity. Her humour. Her subtlety. And she liked me. There was no mistaking that. It could have worked between us. It could have led to something. Instead, I let it slip through my fingers. A horribly misjudged weekend in Devon forced us both onto the defensive. After that, there was no dramatic breach, no final parting of the ways. Just a drift into brittle indifference.

  “What’s wrong with you?” demanded Jennifer in her exasperation. “You were made for each other.” And maybe she was right. Or would have been. But for a memory I couldn’t discard.

  “Who’s Louise?” Ann had asked me in our hotel room in Devon the morning after the fumbled night before. “You seemed to be speaking to her in your sleep. Something about a mirror.”

  “You’re mistaken.”

  “I don’t think so. The name was quite clear. I don’t mind . . . if it’s somebody you once . . . knew well.”

  “No. It’s nobody I ever knew.”

  The simple lack

  Of her is more to me

  Than others’ presence,

  Whether life splendid be

  Or utter black.

  I have not seen,

  I have no news of her;

  I can tell only

  She is not here, but there

  She might have been.

  One Sunday morning in the middle of October, I was surprised by a telephone call from Bella, inviting me to join Sir Keith and her for lunch at Tylney Hall, a country house hotel near Basingstoke. I accepted at once, even though I knew I wasn’t being asked for the pleasure of my company. The drive up was idyllic, autumnal sunshine bathing the trees and hedges in golden light. Some of the same fleeting lustre seemed to cling to my hosts, who were waiting for me on the terrace when I arrived. Sir Keith wasn’t just smiling. He was clearly extremely happy. A healthy glow warmed his features, a button-hole and jazzy tie signalling relaxation and indulgence. While Bella looked more than usually glamorous in a tight-waisted pink suit and shot-silk blouse. The glitter of diamonds drew my eyes to her wedding finger. And there, beneath an engagement ring I’d never seen before, was a plain band of gold.

  “I wanted you to be one of the first to know, Robin,” said Bella as she kissed me. “We were married on Thursday.”

  “I hope you’ll excuse the secrecy,” put in Sir Keith. “But we thought a low-key ceremony was best. You know how some people can be.”

  “But not you, Robin,” said Bella, smiling sweetly. “We trust.”

  “No,” I hurriedly replied. “Of course not. My . . . heartiest congratulations.”

  So it was done. Bella had become the second Lady Paxton. No doubt she’d have preferred a grandiose celebration of this apogee of her social achievement, but Sir Keith had insisted on discretion and it was easy to understand why. Fifteen months wasn’t long, some would have said, to mourn a wife of twenty-thr
ee years. I’d have said so myself, come to that. Fifteen years wouldn’t have seemed sufficient to me. Not when Louise was the wife he’d lost. And the sort of wife he’d never find again.

  Naturally, however, I gave them no hint of my true opinion. I supplied instead a fair impersonation of just what Bella wanted me to be: the token relative, expressing his well-bred pleasure at their news. We lunched lavishly and lengthily in the oak-panelled restaurant and I listened politely while they poured out their hopes and expectations of a new life together.

  “I’m winding up the London practice and giving up my consultancies,” Sir Keith announced. “I’m sixty-one, so perhaps it’s about time. I suppose I’d have carried on for another five or six years if it hadn’t been for . . . Well, retirement is a fresh start. For both of us. We’ll be able to spend more time in Biarritz. And anywhere else Bella wants to go.”

  “The girls have been quite splendid about it,” said Bella. “No resentment. No resistance. They just want their father to be happy. And I mean to see he is.”

  “I suppose it’s easier because they’ve both flown the nest,” Sir Keith continued. “Sarah’s with an excellent firm of solicitors in Bristol. And Rowena’s started her course at the university there. She’s settled in well. Put last year’s . . . difficulties . . . firmly behind her. They’re sharing a flat in Clifton. Cosy little place. You ought to go up and see them. They’d like that.”

  “Meanwhile,” said Bella, “Keith’s going to take me round the world in style on a luxury cruise ship. She sails from Southampton the day after tomorrow. Quite a honeymoon, don’t you think?”

  But what I really thought I wasn’t about to let slip. As Bella must have realized. For when Sir Keith left us for a few minutes, her effervescent tone went suddenly flat.

  “You reckon I’ve married him for his money and nothing else, don’t you, Robin?”

  “No. There’s the title as well.”

  “Very clever. But not true. I happen to like him a lot.”

  “Like—but not love?”

  “It might come to that. To start with, we can just have fun together.”

  “I’m sure you’ll have fun, Bella. You always do.”

  “Try it yourself. It’s not a bad way to live. Instead of vegetating in Petersfield.”

  “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “Isn’t it?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “Then what are you doing? When I first met you, I thought you were the one member of your stick-in-the mud family who might actually do something with his life. Instead of which, here you are, working at that bloody factory like the rest of them. You’ve disappointed me, Robin. You really have.”

  “Sorry about that,” I responded, smiling sarcastically. Then I saw her glance past me. Her husband was about to rejoin us. But before he did, there was time for me to add: “Let’s hope you don’t disappoint Sir Keith, Bella. And vice versa, of course.”

  A month passed, halfway through which I received a triumphantly self-satisfied postcard from Bella, despatched during a stop-over in Egypt. “Pyramids are so much more interesting than cricket bats.” Then, one uneventful Friday afternoon at work, Sarah telephoned me from Bristol. “I’m in the office, so I can’t talk long.” She sounded more stilted than the length of time we’d been out of touch could account for. “Do you think . . . Look, would it be possible . . . for you to come up here . . . at short notice? Like . . . tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow? That . . . er . . . could be tricky.” This was a lie prompted by some play-hard-to-get instinct. “I mean, I’d love to see you. And Rowena. But . . . why the rush?”

  “Rowena’s why. I can’t explain over the phone. But it is urgent. She’s . . . not well. And I thought . . . But if you can’t make it . . .”

  “No, no. It’s all right. I can rearrange things. What’s wrong with her?”

  “I can’t go into it. Not now. But tomorrow . . .”

  “OK. I suppose I could get up there around midday. I’ll need your address.”

  “It’s a long way. Wouldn’t it be quicker if you drove to Reading and caught a train from there? Then I could pick you up at the station.”

  “Oh there’s really no—”

  “I’ve got a timetable for that line. We could fix it up now. It’d be easier this way, Robin. Believe me.” And something almost pleading in her tone stopped me offering any further resistance.

  She was waiting for me at Temple Meads as promised, anxiety lending a briskness to her self-controlled manner. There was some other more lasting change at work as well. Her style of dress had altered—black sweater and leggings under a short snappy overcoat—but no more so than the transition from student to professional lawyer could have explained. Her appearance was designed, if anything, to conceal her personality. And perhaps that’s what I noticed. An invisible barrier between us. A layer of caution her mother’s death had temporarily peeled away. Now, it was back in place.

  An exchange of platitudes about our careers carried us as far as her car. I didn’t ask—though I wondered—if collecting me from the station was a ploy to give her time to prepare me for what was awaiting us in Clifton. Rowena, presumably. Who wasn’t well. Whatever that meant.

  What it meant Sarah swiftly explained as we headed west along the riverside. The day was cold and grey, overnight fog still lingering. Autumn’s consolations were nowhere to be seen—or sensed. “Rowena tried to commit suicide last Monday, Robin. She’s all right now. But it was a serious attempt, according to the doctors. Aspirin, tranquillizers and gin in sufficient quantity to have killed her if I hadn’t popped back to the flat at lunchtime—which I don’t normally do.”

  “Good God.”

  “Yes. Quite a shock.”

  “But surely . . . I thought your father said . . . how well she was doing.”

  “That’s what he chose to believe. With Bella’s encouragement. Actually, Rowena did put up a pretty convincing show for them. Fooled me too. But that’s all it can have been. A show.”

  “Is your father . . . Well, are they . . .”

  “Coming back? No. Because they don’t know. I honestly don’t think Daddy—far less Bella—would be any help to Rowena at the moment. He’s besotted with Bella, you know. Well, of course you know. She’s your sister-in-law. Sorry. That sounded like an accusation. Bella is what Bella is. Far more than Daddy can resist. I’d think it was laughable if he weren’t my father. As it is, it’s positively embarrassing.”

  “But . . . I understood . . . They told me you’d given them your support. Quite willingly.”

  “There was no point doing anything else, was there? No point letting that scheming bitch—sorry, letting my stepmother—see what I really thought.”

  “Is this why Rowena took an overdose?”

  “I’m tempted to say yes. It’d suit me quite well to blame Bella for what’s happened to Rowena. But let’s not kid ourselves. She’s not the reason.”

  “Then what is?”

  She glanced round at me, but didn’t reply directly. I suppose I already knew the answer. Sir Keith hadn’t been told. But I had. Because I might understand. We were crossing the river now. Ahead, I could just make out the blurred lines of the suspension bridge spanning the murk-filled Avon Gorge. We were nearly there. In more ways than one. “That afternoon at Frensham Pond,” said Sarah. “Remember? Nearly a year ago. I thought it was only a question then of putting the trial behind us. I thought Rowena was just in mourning. Like I was. But she wasn’t, was she? It was always more than that. I realized you knew what it was. I told myself it was nothing. I went on pretending it was nothing. But pretending hasn’t got us very far, has it?”

  “You’re wrong, Sarah. I didn’t know and I still don’t.”

  “But you’ve a faint idea. Haven’t you?”

  “Maybe. An inkling, perhaps.”

  “About Mummy?”

  “Something about her, yes. About how she was . . . that last day.”

&nbs
p; “Which you and Rowena share?”

  “In a sense. But . . . Well, I think so. Yes.”

  “Then help her put it to rest, Robin. Please. For all our sakes.”

  They lived in a second-floor flat in a graceful Regency terrace on the edge of Clifton Village, decorated in a strange blend of exoticism and formality. Rowena behaved more normally during our awkward lunch party than I’d expected, referring obliquely to her “illness” and talking about resuming her mathematics course as soon as possible. Afterwards, Sarah said she had to go out but would be back for tea. I was left in the lounge while the sisters conducted a strained and whispered conversation at the door. “Just talk to him, Ro,” I heard Sarah say. “It’s all I ask.” Then the door closed. Rowena went from there to the kitchen and showed no sign of joining me. Eventually, I felt forced to join her.

  “Is that coffee you’re making?” I asked, seeing the kettle in her hand. She started violently, sending a spout of boiling water sizzling across the hob. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

  “It’s all right,” she said, leaning against a worktop and closing her eyes for a second. “My nerves. They’re a bit . . . frayed.”

  “Of course. I quite understand.”

  “That’s what Sarah thinks, doesn’t she? That you understand, I mean.” Her eyes were open now and trained squarely on me. I’d forgotten how disconcertingly huge they were, as wise it seemed as they were innocent. Then she looked away. “I’m not allowed coffee. But if you—”