Borrowed Time

by Robert Goddard

  Wednesday the twenty-second of December. The clouds had rolled in from the west and it had been raining all morning, in London as well as Steep. There was the sheen of it on the pavement behind the trench-coated correspondent as he gave his report in front of the Law Courts in the Strand for the one o’clock television news. And there was the steely tap of it at the window behind me as I sat and listened to his words.

  “Shaun Naylor will be released from prison later today following an hour-long hearing before Lord Justice Sir John Smedley at the Court of Appeal this morning. He was granted bail pending a full appeal next March against his convictions for the murders of Oscar Bantock and the rape and murder of Lady Louise Paxton in July nineteen ninety: the so-called Kington killings. The judge at his trial ten months later described him as “a depraved and dangerous individual” and recommended that he serve at least twenty years in prison. But Naylor has consistently protested his innocence since then and it was confirmed here in court this morning that a person identified only as Mr. A has confessed to the murders and that the police now believe he, not Naylor, carried out the killings. Naylor has always admitted having sexual intercourse with Lady Paxton on the night in question, but has denied rape. The implication of his release on bail is that the prosecution accepts all three convictions will be quashed at the full appeal. Until then, the person referred to as Mr. A cannot be charged with any offence. Lord Justice Smedley said the prospect of a fair trial would be prejudiced if the suspect was identified at this stage and urged the media to exercise restraint in the matter. Shaun Naylor’s wife, Carol, was not in court to hear the ruling. It is believed she is planning to rendezvous with her husband at an undisclosed address later today.”

  So he was free. Or soon would be. What his wife would say to him about Vince Cassidy if and when they met “at an undisclosed address” I couldn’t imagine. And what Shaun planned to do when she’d said it I didn’t want to imagine. It wasn’t over for them. And it wasn’t over for Paul Bryant. Or Sarah. But, for me, it very nearly was. In two days’ time, I’d be flying away from all of it.

  Jennifer entertained me to dinner that evening as her way of saying goodbye. Thursday, my last night in England, was earmarked for a drinking session with Simon, who I knew would be full of questions about Naylor’s release. But Jennifer was as yet unaware of the event, for which I was grateful. The less I had to talk about it, the easier it was to avoid thinking about it. Deflecting Jennifer’s suggestions of ways to patch things up between Adrian and me was child’s play by comparison. In the end, she agreed my absence in itself would probably do the trick. “Time’s a great healer,” she observed. And I refrained from pointing out that the example of Louise Paxton proved the exact reverse.

  It was nearly midnight when I got back to Greenhayes. To say the sight of Bella’s BMW parked in front of the garage was a surprise would be a considerable understatement. As I pulled up behind it and climbed out of my car, the unlikely idea occurred to me that she’d decided I shouldn’t be allowed to leave without some parting words of advice. But the expression on her face when she opened the window of the BMW and gazed up at me suggested an altogether more serious purpose.

  “God, I thought you were never coming back,” she said. And somehow the lack of reproachfulness in her voice heightened my concern.

  “I’ve been at Jenny’s.”

  “Yes. I guessed you were probably with her.”

  “Then why didn’t you call round—or phone?”

  “Because the fewer people who know what’s happened the better.”

  “What has happened?”

  She peered past me, as if fearing I mightn’t be alone, before answering. And when she did, it was no answer at all. “Can we go inside?”

  I led the way indoors, busying myself with keys, light switches and heating controls while Bella went into the sitting-room. She’d already lit a cigarette by the time I joined her and was standing by the fireplace, flicking ash into the empty grate. I’d stripped the walls of pictures and plates and shrouded the furniture in dust-sheets in preparation for the redecoration Jennifer had insisted would be necessary to attract a buyer. What with that and the half dozen tea-chests standing ready in one corner, the room had already lost most of its homely atmosphere. Which only seemed to accentuate Bella’s uncharacteristic restlessness. She paced the stretch of carpet where the outline of the hearthrug was still visible, her raincoat collar turned up and her shoulders hunched as if to ward off the cold. As I entered the room and glanced across at her, I thought I saw a shiver run through her.

  She was wearing no make-up beyond a smear of lipstick and looked pale and haggard as a result. Her eyes were red with fatigue, her hair in need of brushing and there was that faint tremor in her hands I’d noticed in Bordeaux. It was hard to imagine what could have had such an effect on her. I’d seen her ride out the loss of a husband and a stepdaughter without batting a tinted eyelid. But now—

  “What’s wrong, Bella?”

  “Keith’s dead,” she said abruptly.

  “What?”

  “My husband is dead.”

  “But . . . how?”

  “His body was found yesterday at the foot of some cliffs in southern Portugal. They seem to think it must have been there since the weekend.”

  “Portugal? I don’t understand. What was—”

  “They have no idea why he should have gone there.”

  “But . . . was this . . . an accident?”

  “That’s what the Portuguese police seem to think. His car was parked near the top of the cliff. It’s something of a tourist attraction apparently, not far from Cape Saint Vincent.”

  “It couldn’t have been . . .”

  “Suicide?” She stopped pacing up and down and looked straight at me. “Well, it could have been, of course. There’s no way to tell. Nobody’s going to believe Keith went there to admire the view, are they? So I suppose suicide is what most people will assume, whatever the official verdict.”

  “Good God. Did you have any inkling he might do such a thing?”

  “They’ve asked me to fly out to Portugal as soon as possible to identify the body and make the necessary arrangements,” she said, so matter-of-factly it seemed she simply hadn’t heard my question. “I leave first thing in the morning.”

  “Can I help in any way?”

  “Yes. That’s why I’m here. I’ve been trying to contact Sarah all day without success. She’s not answering her phone at home and she’s not been at work today. Off sick with flu, apparently.”

  “Really? She seemed all right last night.”

  “Last night?”

  “She called in. On her way back to Bristol from some course or other in Guildford.”

  Bella shook her head in weary puzzlement. “I don’t know anything about that. The point is she has to be told. I’d ask that gormless boyfriend of hers, but I don’t have his number. I can’t even remember his surname, for God’s sake! Could you go up there tomorrow morning and break the news to her? At least I can rely on you to make a sensitive job of it. First her mother. Then her sister. Now her father. It’s going to hit her hard, isn’t it?”

  The mounting tally of Sarah’s bereavements suddenly came home to me. They were all gone now but her. All that serene normality she’d described growing up in had been pared down by different kinds of self-destruction till only she remained. Explaining it to her would be bad enough. But to live with it, as she’d have to, on into middle age and beyond . . .

  “You will go, won’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “It doesn’t interfere with your travel plans, does it?”

  “No.” Sarah’s words of twenty-four hours before bubbled into my mind. “Promise me you’ll leave on Friday. Whatever happens.” It was almost as if she’d foreseen the catastrophe. As if she’d known what her father meant to do. “But my plans don’t matter anyway. Not now.”

  “I’m only asking you to see Sarah, not to cancel your trip.�
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  “In the circumstances—”

  “Catch your plane on Friday, Robin.” Bella had moved closer and lowered her voice. Her eyes seemed to urge me to accept her advice. “Get out while you can.”

  “Get out of what?”

  “All of this.”

  There was something beyond her words and looks, some message she wanted to convey without declaring what it was. “Sarah’s bound to ask whether her father’s death was an accident or suicide. What do I tell her?”

  “What I’ve told you. Nobody knows.”

  “She may want to follow you to Portugal.”

  “Try to discourage her. There’d be no point.”

  “How can you be so sure?” Bella’s strength was failing. Her will to keep whatever it was to herself was ebbing. Even her self-reliance had its limits. And now we’d reached them. “What the hell is all this about, Bella?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I think you do. It wasn’t an accident, was it?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “Then he must have killed himself?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “You’re not suggesting he was murdered?” She didn’t reply, merely swallowed hard and took a drag on her cigarette. But her eyes remained fixed on me. And in them there was no longer much attempt at concealment. “Why would anybody kill Keith?”

  “There’s a reason. A very good reason.”

  “What is it?”

  “It would explain why he went to Portugal. And why he never left.”

  “Tell me what it is.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you want me to go and see Sarah, you must.” It was a bluff. I think we both knew that. We were beyond such bargaining now. But still Bella hesitated, weighing some other issue in her mind. The need to guard her secret against the desire to share it.

  “All right.” She moved back to the fireplace and tossed the remnant of her cigarette into the grate, then leant against the mantelpiece, slowly arched her neck as if it were aching and turned her head to look at me. “Keith knew Paul was lying, Robin. Paul couldn’t have murdered Louise or Oscar Bantock.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Keith knew Paul’s confession to be a pack of lies from start to finish.”

  “You mean he hoped it was.”

  “No. He knew. For a fact.”

  “How could he?”

  “By being responsible for the murders himself.” She studied the shocked expression on my face for a moment, then said: “Keith paid Shaun Naylor to kill Oscar Bantock. He commissioned the crime. And unintentionally brought about his wife’s murder as a result.”

  “That can’t be true.”

  “Yes it can. He told me so himself when he realized there was no other way to convince me Paul was lying.”

  “But . . . why should Paul have lied?”

  “That hardly matters now, does it? Don’t you see? Keith wasn’t prepared to let Louise’s murderer get away with it. He was going to intervene to prevent Naylor’s release. He was going to admit his part in the crime. That’s why he’s been killed. To stop him confessing.”

  “I . . . I don’t understand. If Keith hired Naylor . . . who killed Keith?”

  “There were intermediaries. Keith never met Naylor. The whole thing was arranged for him by somebody else. And I’m pretty sure it’s that somebody who murdered Keith—or had him murdered.”

  “If this is true—”

  “It’s true.”

  “Then we must go to the police. Without delay. Naylor isn’t innocent after all. A guilty man’s just been set free.”

  “Perhaps you’d like to explain what we’d go to them with.” There was more pity than scorn in her expression as she stared at me. “Keith’s dead. And I can’t prove a single thing he told me.” She sighed and looked away, motioning dismissively at me with her palm. Only to abandon the gesture halfway through and slowly lower her hand to her side. “Get me some gin, Robin,” she said wearily. “I think it’s time you heard the whole story.”

  C H A P T E R

  TWENTY-ONE

  Bella took a deep swallow from the very large gin and tonic she’d just poured herself, lit another cigarette and crouched forward across the coffee-table between us. The central heating had already taken the edge off the chill, but Bella, whose preferred temperature was five degrees above most people’s, hadn’t even turned down the collar of her raincoat, let alone taken it off.

  “You’ll say I mishandled it from the start,” she began. “You’ll say I shouldn’t have kept you in the dark or tried to solve the problem without forcing Keith to own up to what he’d done. Well, you can say what you damn well please. I was actually trying to spare everyone a lot of unnecessary suffering. I might even have succeeded if you’d been just a bit more—” She broke off and gave me a little head-shaking smile. “Sorry. Recriminations won’t get us anywhere, will they? And nor will being wise after the event. You remember coming to The Hurdles a few days after Paul had confessed to you? You remember Keith insisting Paul had made it all up? Well, I didn’t believe him any more than you did. But the following day, after Sarah had gone back to Bristol, Keith told me how he could be so sure. And then I did believe him.

  “It seems Keith became convinced during the spring of nineteen ninety that Louise meant to leave him for Oscar Bantock. He accused her of having an affair with Bantock and she neither admitted it nor denied it. She said he had to make up his own mind about her fidelity. As for leaving him, she wouldn’t promise not to do that either. He’d always been a possessive husband. Sometimes an irrationally jealous one as well. I’ve seen that side of him myself. And ours was never exactly a love match. Whereas he really did love Louise. Too much for her peace of mind, I suppose. She wanted the freedom to do as she pleased. And if leaving Keith was what it took to find it, that’s what she was willing to do.

  “I don’t blame her. In fact, I’m sorry never to have known her. She sounds like a woman after my own heart, though you probably think I’m flattering myself. But, reasonable or not, it was a dangerous line to take with Keith. He’d always suspected there was something going on between Louise and Howard Marsden, despite Louise telling him how unwelcome Howard’s attentions were. Perhaps he suspected it just because she told him. In his mind there were lots of other men she didn’t tell him about.”

  “He can’t have believed that,” I put in. “The idea’s absurd.”

  “How would you know?” Bella eyed me curiously for a moment, then said: “Anyway, jealousy is absurd. It’s also destructive when left to fester. The point is that Keith couldn’t prevent himself believing his own fantasies, couldn’t help interpreting every gesture of independence by Louise as an act of infidelity. To him, her interest in art had always seemed like perfect cover for an affair. Her friendship with Oscar Bantock was the last straw. Keith simply couldn’t bear the thought of Louise letting a man like Bantock touch her. As for the possibility of them running away together, well, that was too much for him to take.

  “He’d probably have done nothing about it even so, except that he happened to know somebody who could have Bantock taken out of Louise’s life on a permanent basis. Keith never told me his name. Said it’d be safer for me not to know. Let’s call him Smith. About fifteen years ago, Keith treated Smith’s wife for infertility. Carried out some tricky operation that enabled the poor cow to have children. Smith’s one of those men who thinks life isn’t complete without a son and heir. He was very grateful to Keith. I mean, extremely grateful. Said if there was ever anything he could do for him, any favour, however small or large, Keith had only to ask. And Smith, behind the respectable lifestyle—big house in the suburbs, golf club membership and so on—was actually a full-time professional criminal. A crook. A gangster. One of those Mr. Big types you read about who never go to prison even when their capers go wrong. He never said that’s what he was, of course. But Keith had got the message clearly enough. So now he decided
to contact Smith and call in the debt. By asking him to have Bantock killed.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t think you’d need to dress things up for a man like Smith, would you? You just put it to him and he says, ‘Sure, no problem. Leave it to me.’ It’s the kind of thing he does, after all. Kill people. For money, usually. But in this case as a favour.”

  “Good God.”

  “The plan was to wait until Keith and Louise left for Biarritz after Sarah’s graduation, then take out poor old Oscar. That’s all Keith knew and all he wanted to know. Smith was to handle the details. Keith didn’t have to worry about a thing. But he should have worried. Because Smith was semi-retired by then. Spent most of his time at his villa in the Algarve.”

  “The Algarve?”

  She nodded. “That’s right. Southern Portugal. Well, it seems Smith’s contacts weren’t as numerous—or as reliable—as they had been. But he hadn’t wanted to disappoint Keith, so he contracted the job out to somebody more active—let’s call him Brown—who sub-contracted it to a man called Vince Cassidy. Remember him? He was a prosecution witness at Naylor’s trial.”

  “I remember.” Bella could have no idea just how memorable Cassidy was to me. Instantly, I wished I hadn’t refused to listen to him when I’d had the chance.

  “Cassidy took the job, but at the last moment got Naylor to do it for him. Brown would never willingly have used Naylor, apparently. He had a reputation for carelessness. And for mixing business with pleasure if women were involved. But women weren’t involved. Or weren’t supposed to be. The trouble was Louise chose the same weekend to walk out on Keith as Naylor chose to raid a few houses in Herefordshire, adding Bantock’s murder onto the list. The prosecution got it right. Louise must have walked in on Naylor just after he throttled Oscar. And Naylor must have decided he couldn’t afford to let her live.”