Borrowed Time

by Robert Goddard

  “Satisfied?” Paul asked bitterly. He leant forward and ripped off the strip of tape sealing Naylor’s mouth in a single sweep of the arm. Naylor gave a cry of pain and squeezed his eyes tightly shut, rolling over as if to hide from his torturer. “I hope you are. I hope you all are.” Paul’s voice cracked as he spoke. He stood up, holding the gun oddly in front of him, as if he’d never seen it before, glancing quizzically at it and Naylor and us in turn.

  “We should call the police,” said Sarah, fear writhing beneath the superficial logic of her words. “Without delay.” She must have sensed by now what I too had sensed. That madness was streaming in around us like wolves into an undefended camp. None of us was going to get out of this unscathed.

  “You disconnected the phone,” said Paul with a strange mirthless chuckle.

  “We can use a neighbour’s. It won’t take long.”

  “No hurry, then, is there?” He took a deep breath. “Plenty of time, in fact.” Another breath, deeper still. “You left and I should have followed. But I didn’t have the courage.” Tears began to stream down his face. He wasn’t talking to us any more. He wasn’t talking to anyone we could see. But he could see her. Clearly and distinctly. “I’ve found it now, though. This is the only way, isn’t it?” He opened his mouth wide, pushed the barrel of the gun between his jaws, hesitated for a fraction of a second, then pulled the trigger.

  The force of the shot blew Paul back against the loo door, which flew wide open. He fell onto his back in the doorway and the gun clattered to the floor at his feet. Blood trickled down the panelling of the door as it creaked back from its stop and came to rest against his shoulder. And more blood—much more—pumped out behind him in a spreading pool. Silence and immobility closed around us—a long frozen moment of jarred senses and delayed reactions.

  Followed by the sound of Sarah sobbing. Then movement, rustling and gathering like reality breaking into a dream. I saw Naylor levering himself up and over the rim of the bath, head bowed, eyes trained on Paul’s body. Time stretched elastically in my mind. And Naylor’s intention burst into a realization. We’d told him his release from prison was an illusion we had the means to shatter. But Paul had been alive then. Now he was dead. If his conspirator were to die as well, along with the only other first-hand witness to what they’d done and why, then Naylor might—just might—walk free.

  And even if he didn’t, what did two more murders matter to him? They were a risk well worth taking. We’d made him more dangerous than he’d ever been before. We’d turned him into a man with nothing to lose.

  I launched myself across the room as he stepped out of the bath and shoulder-barged him with all my weight. Taken off balance with his limbs still rubbery, he fell towards the wall. I raised an arm to help him on his way, but he had the wit to grab my wrist and take me with him. Then his foot slipped on the enamel and I was free of him for as long as it took to drop to my knees and grab the gun from the floor.

  I swung round, the gun in my right hand, my forefinger tracing the trigger-guard and sliding towards the trigger itself. Naylor was above me, one leg out of the bath and one in. He stopped when he saw what I was holding, freezing in mid-movement. His face, distorted by the gashes and bruises Paul had inflicted, knotted into a frown. To lunge at me. Or not. To go for broke. Or play for time. The calculations traced their pictograms across his features as I stared up into them.

  “Don’t move,” I said hoarsely, rising slowly and carefully to my feet, with the gun pointing straight at him all the time. And he didn’t move. Not so much as a muscle. “Sarah!” I called without taking my eyes from his. I could just make her out at the edge of my sight, a crouched figure in the doorway, arms clasped defensively around her shoulders. But I knew better than to look directly at her. Naylor would seize any chance I gave him, however slight. “Sarah!”

  “Y-Yes?”

  “Go and call the police.”

  “But—”

  “Go!”

  “All . . . All right. I’ll be . . . as quick as I can.”

  “Don’t come back here. Wait for them outside. They’ll need directions.”

  “Outside? Surely—”

  “Get out, Sarah. Get out now.”

  She went without another word, perhaps guessing more of my meaning than I’d intended her to. I listened—and watched Naylor listening—to her footfalls as she ran down the passage. We heard the front door of the flat open and shut behind her. Then silence flooded through the empty rooms around us. It was just the two of us now. Just the confrontation—the decisive moment—we’d spent three and a half years feinting and circling and inching towards.

  Naylor slowly lifted his other foot out of the bath and lowered it to the floor, his eyes daring me to tell him to stop. But if I told him and he didn’t stop, I had only one sanction. He was testing my resolve, judging what I did—or didn’t—have the nerve for. He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure. And neither was I.

  “What happens now?” he asked, the challenge mounting as he spoke.

  “We wait for the police.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t think so.”

  “I say we do. And I have the gun.”

  “But you won’t use it. You haven’t got the bottle.”

  “Can you be sure of that?”

  His gaze narrowed. For a second or two, he weighed the question in his mind, seeking the certainty he needed. Then he said: “Tell you what. I’ll make a deal with you.”

  “A deal?”

  “Yeh. You let me climb through the window, with the tape in my pocket, before the Old Bill turn up . . . and we’ll call it quits.”

  “Why should I?”

  “’Cos if you don’t, when they do turn up, I’ll say you were in on it. I’ll say three people took me prisoner and tortured me and threatened to kill me—and you were one of ’em. Abduction. Assault. Conspiracy. Christ knows what. You could be looking at quite a few years inside.”

  “They wouldn’t believe you.”

  “Can you be sure of that?” He smirked. “Look at it this way. Why risk it? What’s it to you? The girl’s mother. This bloke’s wife. Some poxy old painter. What did they ever mean to you? Nothing, right?”

  I almost wanted to smile. Naylor had just repeated my mistake. He’d fallen into the same fatal error. And taken my decision for me. “You’re right, of course,” I said. “They were nothing to me but strangers. Perfect strangers.”

  “There you are, then.”

  “Do you know why I told Sarah to wait outside? I didn’t. Until now.” I raised the gun and pressed the barrel against his forehead. His eyes widened. His mouth dropped open. He tried to step back, but, with the rim of the bath behind his knees, there was nowhere for him to go. “Can we really change anything, do you think?” Maybe we can, Louise. Maybe we can’t. I don’t know. I’m still not sure. But finishing things? That’s different. When the moment comes and you recognize it for what it is, that’s completely different. “There’s been a change of plan, Naylor. We aren’t going to wait for the police after all. Or, rather, you aren’t.”

  “What?”

  “You should be grateful. I’m actually doing you a favour. This way you don’t have to go back to prison. And you find out how Louise Paxton felt when she realized you weren’t going to spare her life.”

  “Hold on, mate. You can’t be—”

  “Serious? Oh yes. I’m serious.” The trees thinned before me as I ran. There was a clearing ahead, a sun-filled glade where Louise was waiting. And this time I knew she wouldn’t walk away. “Never more so.”

  “Yeh, but—”

  He didn’t finish his sentence. Although, in another sense, I suppose you could say he did. He paid the overdue penalty for what he’d done. There and then.

  EPILOGUE

  It began more than three years ago, on a golden evening of high summer. And it ended yesterday, as a winter’s night closed its shutters around me. Was it only yesterday? Sitting here, it seems so much longer ag
o and farther away. Time has stretched in the telling. But I’ve nearly finished now. Soon, you’ll have your statement. Then you’ll be free to type up your reports and draw your official conclusions. Then you really will know it all.

  It’s hard to believe, but it’s true. Just twenty-four hours ago, I stood with the gun in my hand and stared down at Naylor’s body in the bath, listening to his blood slowly trickle away. I wasn’t sorry I’d killed him. I’m not sorry now. I don’t think I ever will be. But there were more powerful emotions than sorrow to contend with in the aftermath of what I’d done. Shock made me drop the gun and recoil as it clanged against the enamel of the bath. Horror made me smear the bloodstains across my shirt and coat in a vain effort to wipe them away. Fear made me lean helplessly against the hand-basin, trembling and panting as a wave of nausea swept over me. Disbelief made me gape at the reflection of my face in the mirror above the basin.

  And only then did I see Sarah, standing in the doorway behind me. She came forward and put her arms around me, resting her head against my shoulder. We stood like that for several minutes, neither of us speaking. Then we made our way to another room, faintly lit by the glow from a lamp in the communal garden beyond the window. We sat on the floor near the door, our backs to the wall. Still we said nothing. I supposed—when I became capable of supposing anything—that we were waiting to hear a police siren wail towards us through the distant hum of the traffic. But when Sarah broke the silence between us, I realized we weren’t.

  “I haven’t called the police, Robin. I never left the flat. When it came to the point, I couldn’t bring myself to. There was something strange in your voice when you told me to get out. Something . . . ominous. I stood in the hallway, trying to work out what it was, waiting and listening, quite what for I didn’t know. Then I heard the gunshot.”

  “Well, you’d better call the police now, hadn’t you?”

  “Are you sure you want me to? There’ll be no going back if I do.”

  “There’s no going back anyway.”

  “But there is. For you. If you left before I called the police, there’d be no need for them ever to know you’d been here. I could tell them Paul had shot Naylor, then himself. And I could tell them why.”

  “It wouldn’t work. My fingerprints are on the gun.”

  “We could wipe them off. And off anything else you’ve touched. Besides, they wouldn’t be looking for your fingerprints.”

  “It still wouldn’t work.”

  “As a matter of fact, I think it would. I think you could leave here now and fly out to Rio tomorrow with no questions asked.” She slipped her hand into mine. “Why not go, Robin? This was my idea, not yours. Why should you have to answer for it?”

  I stared into the darkness around us, tempted by the thought of being able to walk away, untouched and unsuspected. The chance was there for the taking, a chance very close to a certainty.

  But, if I’d gone, who would have told you she didn’t want it to end as it did? You’d hardly have taken her word for it, would you? She knew that, of course. She knew it very well. So did I. That’s why I had to refuse. Because two people can only cease to be strangers to each other once. From then on, there really is no going back. The only mistake is to believe there may be. But we’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, aren’t we? I walked away once and lived to regret it. This time, I’ll stand my ground.

  ALSO BY ROBERT GODDARD

  In Pale Battalions*

  Into the Blue

  Hand in Glove*

  Sight Unseen*

  Play to the End*

  *COMING SOON FROM BANTAM DELL

  PRAISE FOR ROBERT GODDARD

  “A superb storyteller.”

  —Sunday Independent

  AND HIS SPELLBINDING NOVELS

  “A masterly piece of storytelling . . . combines the expert suspense manipulation of a Daphne du Maurier romance with those of a John le Carré thriller.”

  —Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

  “Cliff-hanging entertainment.”

  —Guardian

  “Reminiscent of Dickens in its scope, huge cast of characters and evocative descriptions, and of Conan Doyle in its richly layered plot . . . Goddard’s elegant prose and intelligence propel this novel beyond mere entertainment and place him in the company of such masters of historical suspense as John Fowles and Daphne du Maurier.”

  —San Francisco Chronicle

  “An engaging mystery novel with a literary angle that will make comparisons to A. S. Byatt and P. D. James inevitable . . . The twistings and turnings of the plot are cleverly executed and entirely satisfying, right up to the last line.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Takes the reader on a journey from which he knows he will not deviate until the final destination is reached.”

  —Evening Standard

  “In the best tradition of British storytelling, here murder, deceit, family honor, and intrigue are intricately woven into a compelling drama.”

  —Library Journal

  “When it comes to duplicity and intrigue, Goddard is second to none. He is a master of manipulation . . . a hypnotic, unputdownable thriller.”

  —Daily Mail

  “The suspense mounts to a fine crescendo. A superior example of Goddard’s velvet-cloaked menace.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Impossible to put down . . . totally compels you from the first page to the last . . . Goddard is a wonderful storyteller.”

  —Yorkshire Post

  “Cracking good literate entertainment . . . had me utterly spellbound.”

  —Washington Post Book World

  “Superbly plotted . . . The novel’s movement through time, using additional narrators, adds layers of depth to its mysteries, which fit together as intricately as the pieces of a Chinese puzzle. . . . The author’s manipulation of suspense and surprise rarely fails to dazzle.”

  —New York Times Book Review

  “Combines the steely edge of a thriller with the suspense of a whodunit, all interlaced with subtle romantic overtones.”

  —Time Out

  “His narrative power, strength of characterization and superb plots, plus the ability to convey the atmosphere of the period quite brilliantly, make him compelling reading.”

  —Books

  “Father and son, cloak and dagger, relativity and quantum mechanics—Goddard is surely the suavest guide to this unlikely mélange of formulas.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “There’s an elegant arc to Goddard’s fluid style, which gracefully orchestrates its story over a broad time span and through the ambiguous testimony of its complex characters.”

  —Marilyn Stasio, New York Times Book Review

  “As he does so smoothly and so well, Goddard again creates a narrator who uncovers secrets buried in the past that cast grim shadows on later generations. . . . As usual, Goddard is meticulous with background details and local color, and his characters, with their good manners and dark secrets, seem to have stepped out of a Daphne du Maurier novel. There are enough surprises in this tale of switched identities and lingering resentments to keep readers steadily engrossed.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Fuses history with crime, guilty consciences and human fallibility in a way that makes his books an intelligent escapist delight.”

  —Times (London)

  If you enjoyed Robert Goddard’s BORROWED TIME, you won’t want to miss any of his superb novels of suspense. Look for INTO THE BLUE, now available in trade paperback.

  And read on for a tantalizing

  early look at both

  HAND IN GLOVE

  and

  PLAY TO THE END

  coming in trade paperback

  in Summer 2006

  HAND IN GLOVE

  Tristram Abberley was an English poet whose reputation was sealed when he died fighting in the Spanish Civil War. Nearly fifty years later, his sister, Beatrix, is murdered during wh
at appears to be a robbery, but robbery is only part of the motive that underlies her death. . . .

  C H A P T E R

  ONE

  There it was: the same sound again. And this time she knew she was not mistaken. Sharp metal on soft wood: the furtive, splintering sound of the intrusion she had long foreseen. This, then, was the end she had prepared for. And also the beginning.

  She turned her head on the pillow, squinting to decipher the luminous dial of the clock. Eight minutes to two. Darker—and deader—than midnight.

  A muffled thump from below. He was in. He was here. She could no longer delay. She must meet him head-on. And at the thought—at the blurred and beaming clock-face before her—she smiled. If she had chosen—as in a sense she had—this would, after all, have been the way. No mewling, flickering fade from life. Instead, whatever was about to follow.

  She threw back the covers, lowered her feet to the floor and sat upright. The drawing-room door had been opened—cautiously, but not cautiously enough to escape her. He would be in the hall now. Yes, there was the creak of the board near the cupboard under the stairs, abruptly cut short as he stepped back in alarm. “No need to worry,” she felt like calling. “I am ready for you. I will never be readier.”

  She slid her feet into their waiting slippers and stood up, letting the night-dress recover its folds about her, letting the frantic pace of her heart slacken. There was probably still time to pick up the telephone and call the police. They would arrive too late, of course, but perhaps . . . No. It was better to let them believe she had been taken completely by surprise.