Borrowed Time (24 page)

“Because we’d never met before. Because we were strangers.”

“Come on. She confessed to me. She talked to me about the man in her life. The one she’d met on Hergest Ridge that spring. Mid-March, wasn’t it? Just after Oscar’s exhibition in Cambridge. So she said, anyway. And perhaps you know what else she said. Is that why you said you were strangers? Did she call you that to your face?”

“Call me what?” The grotesque fallacy at the heart of Sophie’s reasoning no longer mattered as much as the need to hear it through to the end.

“‘My perfect stranger.’ Her exact words. Her description. Of you.”

A long moment of silence followed in which time and my own thoughts seemed to stand still. It wasn’t possible. It made no sense. It was pure madness to leave the idea unrefuted even for a second. Yet I did. And, for as long as that, I almost believed it myself.

“Don’t worry. Nobody else knows. Only me.”

“Sophie—”

“Don’t deny it. Don’t underestimate me to the extent of thinking you
can
deny it.”

“But I have to. It isn’t true.”

“She couldn’t have made it up. The coincidence would have been too great. The man she met on Hergest Ridge and fell in love with was you. She never named you, of course. I wouldn’t have expected her to. But what she did tell me was enough for me to suspect you the very first time we met. And after your interview with Seymour . . . I was certain.”

“You’re wrong.”

“No. Why else should you still be trying to avenge her? Why—unless you loved her?”

“I didn’t love her. I never had the chance.”

“That’s not what Louise said.”

“What did she say, then? Tell me. Precisely.”

“All right. If that’s what it’ll take to convince you. I’ve nothing to hide. Louise and I went to a health farm near Malvern for a few days in the middle of June that year. It was a place we’d often used before. Somewhere we could relax and get into shape. Sarah’s graduation ceremony was coming up and Louise wanted to look her best for it. Well, that was her story. But there was a glint in her eye I knew had nothing to do with her daughter’s academic achievements. The last night we were there, she admitted she had a lover. A man she’d met by chance on Hergest Ridge. She’d gone to Kington to return some of Oscar’s pictures after the exhibition in Cambridge. Oscar wasn’t in. So she left the pictures in his studio and drove up to Hergest Ridge for a walk. The weather was unusually warm for March. She wanted a breath of fresh air. You were there for the same reason. I suppose.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“Whoever. She met him on the ridge. They fell into conversation. They left together. He took her to a hotel near Hereford. They stayed overnight. She told Keith she was staying with me. The same story she used in July. But a lie on both occasions. Instead . . . Well, you know what happened instead far better than I do. A one-night stand that turned into a passionate love affair. So passionate she was already determined to leave Keith when she told me about it. I’d never seen her that way before. So . . . overwhelmed. So . . . carried away. She was losing control. And control was what she’d always had in abundance. But not in those last weeks. Thanks to you.”

“Not me. Somebody else. If what you’re saying is true.”

“You know it’s true. And you know it’s not somebody else. You can’t forget her, can you? That’s why you’ve stayed in touch with her family. Why you helped Seymour stir up interest in the case. Why you came here this afternoon. Why what we did was so . . .” We stared at each other, her belief and mine meeting but never joining. She wasn’t lying. Louise had told her what she’d just told me. In every particular. “I’ve worked it out, Robin. I’ve lain in wait and now I’ve found you. It has to be you. There’s nobody else it can be. She was the love of your life. Wasn’t she?”

I hardly remember now how I left the flat. Everything is clear in my mind. What we did. What we said. Except at the end. I was too confused by then to concentrate, too taken aback by Sophie’s misapprehension to construct a response to it, let alone a rebuttal. She must have expected me to tell her everything. She must have hoped I’d share my secrets with her as I’d shared my desires. But her reasoning was as sound as her conclusion was false. There was nothing I could tell her. Beyond what she’d already refused to believe. And there was nothing I could tell myself. To stop the indefinable fears she’d planted in my mind growing and taking shape. Sophie was wrong. But in so many ways—too many to shake off or disregard—she was right. They’d met—as we’d met—on Hergest Ridge. By pure chance. As perfect strangers. Louise—and somebody else. Who was he? Who could he be? If not me?

“You can stay . . . if you like.”

“No. I must go.”

“When will we meet again?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure. I’m not . . . sure of anything.”

I fell asleep on the train and relived the afternoon in my dreams. Closing my eyes to forget, I only saw more clearly. Sophie and me. Every action. Every detail. Seen again, as if by an invisible observer.

It was dark when I reached Petersfield. A cool still night after the breathless day. I walked round to the factory, where I’d left my car. I was tired now, too weary to think it through any more. The answer would have to wait. At least until tomorrow.

My car was the only one left in the yard. It was on the far side, near the drying shed, an open-sided structure where the newly delivered clefts of willow were stacked and left to sweat out the last of their sap before they were moulded into blades. A security light came on as I approached, dazzling me for a moment. I shielded my eyes and went on to the car, fumbling in my pocket for the keys. As I rounded the boot and my vision adjusted to the glare, I looked up. To see a man standing a few yards ahead of me, silhouetted against the light. He stood quite still, his arms folded in front of him. He seemed to be waiting for something. Or for someone. Only when he spoke did I realize who he was.

“You’ve been a long time.”

“Paul?”

“But it doesn’t matter. I’d have stayed as long as I had to.”

“What . . . what are you doing here?”

“I’ve come to speak to you.”

“But . . . we could have . . .”

“Worked something out? I don’t think so. Maybe before. But not now. I had some news today, you see. About Rowena.”

“Rowena?”

“She was pregnant.”

“What?”

“Two months pregnant. She’d known for some time. Her doctor seemed surprised she hadn’t told me. Well, maybe she was planning to make a special announcement. It’s the anniversary of our engagement later this week. Maybe she was leaving it until then. We’ll never know now, will we?”

“Paul, I—”

“We’ll never know because of what you and that bitch Sophie Marsden did for her between you with your poisoned words and your evil little insinuations. Didn’t you?”

“Look, I’m sorry for what happened. Sorrier than I can say. But I never—”

“I don’t want your sorrow!” He was shouting now, his voice rising in a cracked crescendo, his arms swinging free. I suddenly saw he was holding a bat cleft in his hands, raising it like a club as he advanced towards me. “I don’t want anything from you!”

Before I could even turn to run he was on me, the cleft slamming into my midriff. I doubled up and fell back against the car door. He aimed a blow at my head which I managed to parry with my forearm, then another I barely beat off. I tried to rise, knowing I had to get past him if I was to stand a chance. But he saw me coming and shoulder-barged me to the ground. I sprawled across the tarmac and scrambled onto all fours. I remember trying to push myself upright as the first of the pain lanced through the shock. I remember seeing him out of the corner of my eyes, behind and above me. I even remember the whistle of the cleft through the air as it sliced down towards me. Then nothing. The night swallowed me whole. As if I’d never been.

C  H  A  P  T  E  R
TWELVE

A
pparently I was conscious when the ambulance reached the scene. I don’t remember it myself. Nor much else that night beyond a succession of blurred faces staring down at me and the unique disinfected smell of a hospital ward. I pieced together what had happened the following morning from the jumble of my own recollections and the puzzled questions of a staff nurse. The shock of seeing me lying stunned on the ground with blood oozing from my mouth and cheek must have stopped Paul in his tracks. Frightened by what he’d done, he rushed round to his car in Frenchman’s Road and called an ambulance. He waited with me until it arrived, saw me aboard and promised to follow me to the hospital. But he didn’t turn up. He hadn’t been seen since. And nobody knew who he was.

I decided from the outset to play dumb. The tragedy I’d helped create would only be worsened and prolonged by Paul being charged with assault and battery. I didn’t feel as if I was being a hero or a martyr. I didn’t even feel I was doing Paul a favour. It just seemed the least painful way out for all of us. Shielded from the police on medical orders until the middle of the following day, I rehearsed a suitable story, then trotted it out to a gullible detective constable. I’d returned late from London, surprised somebody I took to be a burglar skulking around the factory and been beaten up for my pains. Since it had been pitch dark, I couldn’t begin to describe my assailant. Nor, come to that, the Good Samaritan who’d found me and dialled 999. I was a victim of the rising crime rate who warranted nothing more than an obscure place in constabulary statistics.

Physically, I wasn’t in bad shape. A broken rib, a fractured cheek-bone, two loose teeth, sundry cuts and bruises; and what the doctor called a “straightforward” case of concussion. But that alone necessitated twenty-four hours of rest and observation. Which, in the end, turned out to be nearer forty-eight. Rushed in on Tuesday night, I wasn’t released until Friday morning.

Jennifer, Simon, Adrian and Uncle Larry all trooped in to see me, plying me with fruit, magazines and sympathy. Adrian was full of plans to improve security at the factory and left me with the brochures of a couple of guard-dog patrol companies to leaf through. He even suggested I might like to convalesce at his house. Thankfully, he interpreted my refusal as a reflection of my independent spirit. This spared me the need to explain why a few days spent under the same roof as Wendy and the children—not to mention the dogs—would probably see me re-admitted to hospital suffering from nervous exhaustion.

I heard nothing from Bella and assumed she didn’t know of the incident. There was really no reason why she should, unless Paul had decided to come clean. And even if he had, who was going to blame him for what he’d done? He had a child now as well as a wife to mourn. Just as Sir Keith had lost a grandchild along with a daughter. The grief had spread like a stain across three generations. And I couldn’t redeem or reduce it with a few broken bones.

I knew I’d hear from Bella eventually, of course. She’d be expecting me to report the outcome of my meeting with Sophie. But the longer that could be postponed the better. I felt as if I genuinely needed a spell of rest and recuperation before confronting her with whatever lies I decided to substitute for a truth even she would have found shocking. As for Sophie herself, each hour that passed made what we’d done seem not merely more remote but more unimaginable.

My dilemma hadn’t diminished by Friday morning, when Jennifer came to collect me and drive me home. Indeed, it was because of it that I jumped to a false conclusion when, halfway up the A3 towards Petersfield, she suddenly said: “Guess who was asking after you yesterday.”

“Bella?”

“No. Her stepdaughter. Sarah Paxton. She’d heard you were in hospital and—”

“How did she hear?”

“She didn’t say. Does it matter?”

It mattered a good deal. But for reasons I was in no position to explain. “Er . . . I suppose not.”

“Well, she seemed genuinely concerned about you. Quite touching really, in view of her recent bereavement and . . . well . . . how easy it would be for her to hold you at least partly to blame for her sister’s suicide.”

“As I’m sure she does.”

“You could be wrong. She’s going to look in on you at Greenhayes over the weekend, apparently. Check you’re all right. She said she was going to be in Hindhead anyway and it’d be no trouble, but, you know, it sounded to me as if she might be making a special trip. Just to see you.
Very
solicitous, I’d say. There isn’t something you want to tell me about the two of you, is there?”

“Nothing you want to hear, Jenny. Believe me.”

She arrived on Saturday afternoon. It was another in a succession of hot airless days. I was in the garden, dozing in a deckchair after too many cold beers, when I heard a car turn in from the lane. She must have guessed where I’d be, because, without pausing to try the doorbell, she walked straight round from the front of the house. I’d struggled to my feet by then and composed something close to a smile to greet her. But she wasn’t smiling. She stopped as soon as she saw me and gazed at me expressionlessly. Only then, after a few seconds of deliberation, did she come closer.

“Hello, Robin.” Still there was no smile. And even the formal kiss she’d normally have bestowed was banished. She was wearing a straw hat, dark glasses she showed no sign of removing, an outsize white shirt over pale blue trousers and sandals. And she was carrying a video cassette in her hand. I didn’t have to see the label on the cardboard case to know what it was.

“Hello, Sarah. I . . .”

“You look as if you’ve been through the mill.”

“A spot of bother at the factory. Did Jenny tell you how it happened?”

“She didn’t need to. Paul told me.”

“Ah. I see.”

“He’s been expecting to hear from the police. But I gather you’ve covered his tracks for him.”

“Well . . .” I shrugged. “I don’t think any useful purpose would have been served by bringing a complaint against him. Do you?”

“No. But it was good of you, even so.”

“Not really. Not after everything else.”

“Daddy doesn’t know. Nor Bella. There seemed no point telling them.”

“About me, you mean? Or about . . .”

“About you.” She stretched out her hand, offering the video to me. I had the strange impression that if I didn’t take it from her straightaway she’d drop it on the grass between us. I took it. “They know about the baby, of course. Daddy’s reacted badly. Paul too, I suppose. But he keeps his feelings bottled up. What happened with you . . . the loss of control . . . was unusual. Unprecedented in my experience.”

“I don’t blame him.”

“Neither do I. But . . . on his behalf . . . and for Rowena’s sake . . . thank you for not taking it further.”

Silence and distance crystallized in the still air. Her mouth didn’t so much as quiver. And what there might be in her eyes to reveal her real opinion of me I couldn’t see. “Would you . . . like a drink?”

“No. I can’t stay.”

“Not even for a few minutes?”

“What would be the point?”

“I don’t know. I just . . .”

“Why did you say those things to Seymour, Robin? I’d like to know that much at least. I really would.” Even if her face remained a mask, her voice had now, at last, betrayed a hint of emotion. “I mean, after making us think of you as a friend, after assuring us of your best intentions . . . After all that. Why?”

“What I said was true.”

“And that excuses everything, does it? That makes Rowena’s death worthwhile?”

“No. Of course it doesn’t.”

“What about Sophie? I gathered from Bella you’d undertaken to find out what she thought her few minutes of character assassination were likely to achieve. I can’t believe
she
pretends to have been speaking the truth.”

“She does, as a matter of fact.”

“I see.” Sarah sighed and gazed past me up at the hills behind the house, their wooded slopes shimmering in the heat. “Good old Sophie.”

“Sarah—” She looked round at me, daring me, I sensed, to make some attempt at mitigation or apology, almost craving the opportunity to reject whichever I offered. But I knew better than to try. Whatever blame attached to me for Rowena’s death I meant to accept. It was my secret act of mourning. But blame for something even worse than a despairing dive from Clifton Suspension Bridge hovered at the margins of my thoughts. Which Sarah might just be able to help me corner at last. “Sophie claims your mother told her a few weeks before her death that she was planning to leave your father.” No reaction. No response. Just the same blank grief-sapped stare. “You once told me something similar yourself. As a theory. As a suspicion you’d formed. Sophie seemed rather more definite.”

“Did she?”

“But she didn’t know who your mother was planning to leave your father
for
. Who the man in her life was. Nor did you, as I recall.”

“Why does there have to have been a man?”

“No reason, I suppose. Except . . . Lying in hospital most of this week’s given me time to think. And to remember. Ten days after the murders, I drove up to Kington with Bella. We had lunch with Henley Bantock. He told you about it. You said so when you wrote to me in Brussels. You’d been there the same day.”

“What of it?”

“So had somebody else. He nearly drove into Bella and me in Butterbur Lane. Did Henley mention him to you? He did to us.”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

“Because the driver of the car was obviously extremely upset. He might have been . . . well, he could have been . . .”

“The man in Mummy’s life?”

“Well, he could, couldn’t he?”

“Yes. I suppose he could. So, who was he?”

“I don’t know. But it occurred to me you might. If I described him. As a friend or acquaintance of your mother. Of your father too, perhaps. A neighbour. A colleague. An art collector. Something like that. He was—let’s see—a chap in his fifties, with thick silver-grey hair. Round face. Chubby. Well, more flabby really. As if he’d lost weight recently. Of course, it was only—” I stopped. Sarah’s lips had parted in surprise. She plucked off her dark glasses and stared at me intently. “You know him?”

“Maybe. What sort of car was he driving?”

“A Volvo estate.”

“Colour?”

“Maroon.”

“It has to be, then.”

“You
do
know him?”

“Yes. I think I do. But it can’t be. Not really. Not him and Mummy.”

“Who is he?”

“I’m surprised neither you nor Bella’s met him. But I suppose there’s no reason why you should have. He didn’t come to Rowena’s wedding. Or to Mummy’s funeral. That seemed odd at the time. Disrespectful almost. Even though you could say he was represented by Sophie. But perhaps he was afraid of—”

“What do you mean by
represented
?”

“She’s married to him, Robin. The man you’ve described is Howard Marsden. Sophie’s husband. To the life.”

It became clear to me in an instant. As if I’d crept into a darkened room and stumbled around in the gloom, navigating by touch and guesswork. Only for the light to be suddenly switched on. And for me to find myself not where I thought at all. Howard Marsden. Sophie’s husband. And Louise’s lover. Yes, of course. It made sense. Sophie must have known all along. So now she was taking her revenge. On Louise by tarnishing her reputation to the best of her ability. And on Howard by cuckolding him at the first opportunity. If I
was
the first. Her story about the “perfect stranger”; her claim to believe I was the man in question; her expression of doubt about Naylor’s guilt: all were artful pretences designed with a particular purpose in mind. And I didn’t flatter myself that my seduction was it. No, no. Sophie was playing a deeper game, in which her husband’s total humiliation was the goal. He couldn’t object to her infidelity without being told that what was sauce for the gander . . .

“So that’s why Sophie wants to hurt us,” murmured Sarah.

“Looks like it.”

“Oh God. What a mess.”

“I don’t suppose she meant to harm Rowena. Your mother’s good name was what she wanted to—”

“But you can’t pick and choose when you start this sort of thing. You can’t be sure of all the consequences.”

“No. As Rowena once told me, there are too many variables in life to predict any outcome with precision.”

Sarah shook her head and rubbed the sides of her nose where the dark glasses had been resting. She looked suddenly tired. “Can I sit down, Robin? I think I would like a drink after all.”

I fetched another chair as well as a drink and we sat there in the garden together for an hour or more as the heat of afternoon turned towards the cool of evening. Our mutual dismay had lowered our defences. Allowing, if not a reconciliation between us, at least a
rapprochement
. As Sarah admitted, she’d made her own misjudgements. By trying to keep Rowena insulated from reality. By failing to foresee what she’d do if she found out she’d been deceived. The irony was that, even if I’d not given Sarah the video, she’d probably have recorded the programme herself while she was out with Paul and Rowena. Rowena had simply read her sister’s mind more acutely than she’d been given credit for.

As for the act of suicide itself, maybe that didn’t have the clear and simple motive it had comforted Sarah to believe. Why had Rowena not told Paul she was pregnant? Why had she seemed so depressed? Because motherhood wasn’t necessarily the future she had in her sights? Yet it had been going to arrive whether she liked it or not. Until the shock of her mother’s rewritten past had given her a way out. And she’d yielded to temptation.

“I wonder if that’s why Paul lashed out at you. Because he’s afraid that might be the truth of it. He won’t admit it, of course. I wouldn’t ask him to. But I think it may be there, even so.”

“How is he now?”

“Subdued. Self-controlled. A little remorseful, I think. A little ashamed of what he did. But don’t expect an apology. Or any kind of thanks for not preferring charges. It isn’t in his nature.”