Borrowed Time (39 page)

“Friday.”

“Friday,” she repeated musingly, gazing past me to the dusk-shuttered window. “A lot will have happened by then.”

“You mean the hearing?”

She didn’t answer. And the distant look in her eyes deterred me from pressing her to. Besides, there seemed no need. What else could she mean?

We went down to the Cricketers for a drink as soon as it opened. Sarah’s periodic distraction became as pronounced as her occasional outbursts of gaiety. She talked about Rowena and her mother with rambling fondness, recalling childhood scenes and adolescent incidents. They’d been an ordinary affectionate family then, untouched by tragedy, unmarked by notoriety. “I didn’t see it coming, Robin. I never had a clue. I never felt the future coiling its tentacles around us. I just thought we’d go on in the same serenely happy way.” How I wished then I could have seized the chance Louise had given me of making sure they would. Even though I hadn’t known that’s what it was.

At half past seven, she said she ought to start back for Bristol. When I assured her she was welcome to stay at Greenhayes, her refusal took a long time to come. But I suppose we both knew she had to refuse. This was an end, not a beginning. This was a stepping apart, a turning away. Only the last lingering looks back remained.

“I’ll miss you,” she said, her breath clouding in the frosty air as we stood beside her car in the pool of yellow light cast from the windows of the pub. “There doesn’t seem to be anyone else who understands.”

“You must have better friends than me, Sarah.”

“As a matter of fact, I don’t think I have.”

“What about Rodney? Aren’t you going to make him a happy man one day soon?”

“No. Since you ask, I’m not.”

“Really? You almost make me wish—”

“Don’t say it.” She put her gloved hand to my mouth to stop me speaking, then smiled at the extravagance of the precaution. “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“Saying goodbye?”

“Yes. I suppose that’s it.” She frowned. “Don’t let anything make you postpone your flight, will you?”

“Why should it?”

“No reason. It’s just . . . I think it’ll do you good to go. And I wouldn’t want newspaper talk about Mummy . . . or Daddy, come to that . . . to make you think you had to stay.”

“There’ll be some hard things said.”

“I know. But none of them will be your fault. So promise me you’ll leave on Friday. Whatever happens.”

“All right. It’s a promise.”

“Good.” She brightened. “And now you’d better kiss me. And let me wish you
bon voyage
.”

A few minutes later, I was standing at the side of the road, watching the lights of her car vanish from sight. She’d offered me a ride back to Greenhayes, of course, but I’d declined, preferring a solitary walk up the hill through the cold night air. The stars were scattered brightly across the sky, a sickle moon riding high and clear among them. “‘When first I came here I had hope,’” I recited under my breath as I went. “‘Hope for I knew not what.’” And now, just when I thought I might know . . . “‘I’m bound away for ever. Away somewhere, away for ever.’”

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.”

“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?”