Borrowed Time (22 page)

“That’s
the
Nick Seymour,” she said, apparently impressed.

“What does he want?” I barked ill-temperedly.

“He wouldn’t say. It couldn’t be anything to do with what’s in the paper, could it?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen a paper.”

“Oh. You don’t know, then.”

“Didn’t I just say that?”

“Sorry,” she said, bridling. “It’s just—”

“Put
the
Nick Seymour through, Liz. Without wasting any more time, eh?” I waved to her dismissively and she took the hint. A few seconds later, the telephone rang.

“Mr. Timariot?” It was Seymour all right, a grain of apprehensiveness scarcely denting his self-assurance.

“Rung to apologize, have you?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know very well.”

“Listen, I haven’t got time to play games. I’m simply trying to make sure we take a consistent line on this. In both our interests.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on. The Paxton girl. Or Bryant. Whatever the right name is. The tabloids are trying to blame me for what’s happened.”

“What
has
happened?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I wouldn’t ask if I did, would I?”

“I thought you must do.”

“Just tell me.”

The tone of my voice silenced him for a moment. Then he said: “Lady Paxton’s younger daughter committed suicide yesterday afternoon.”

“What?”

“Threw herself off Clifton Suspension Bridge, apparently.”

“Rowena’s dead?”

“Yes. And the newspapers are trying to say she only did it because she’d seen my programme on Wednesday.”

“Oh my God.”

“So you see it’s vital we stick together. The papers may not contact you. But, if they do, you’d be well advised to—”

I cut him off before he could say any more and slowly replaced the handset. Beneath me, amidst the confetti of Liz’s neatly typed messages from the day before, was one that was shorter than most.
Mrs. Bryant rang on a matter of urgency. She will call back
. And there, in my mind’s eye, was the sunlight flashing on her hair as she turned from the quayside.

I jumped from my chair and ran into the outer office, clutching the scrap of paper in my hand. Liz looked up in surprise. “What’s wrong?”

“This message.” I slapped it down in front of her. “When did you take it?”

“Mrs. Bryant,” she mused. “Oh, I remember. Said she was in a call-box. Sounded anxious.”

“When?”

“Er . . . during the lunch hour. Yes. Just before two. Or just after.”

“Let me see your paper.” Her
Daily Mail
was poking out of the desk drawer beside her.

“You don’t mean . . . Rowena was the Mrs. Bryant who phoned you yesterday?” Horror began to dawn on her. “I never—”

“Give me the paper!” She handed it over and there was the headline, staring at me from the front page.
DAUGHTER TAKES LIFE THREE YEARS AFTER MOTHER
’
S MURDER
.
The daughter of one of the victims of a double murder three years ago yesterday took her own life in a fatal dive from Clifton Suspension Bridge, the notorious Bristol suicide spot
. My eyes scanned the paragraphs in search of the information I both wanted and dreaded.
Rowena Bryant, a twenty-two-year-old married student at Bristol University, is said to have become depressed over recent weeks. It is thought her suicide was prompted by seeing a video recording of Wednesday night’s
Benefit of the Doubt
programme, in which controversial presenter Nick Seymour aired doubts about the guilt of the man convicted of the rape and murder of her mother, Lady Paxton, in July 1990. Shaun Naylor, 31, is serving a
— But where was the time—the precise time? When did it happen?
Onlookers were amazed to see Mrs. Bryant walk calmly to the middle of the bridge shortly after two o’clock yesterday afternoon, climb onto the railings and
— Shortly after two o’clock. So it was even worse than I’d feared.

“Are you OK, Robin?” asked Liz.

She got no answer. I closed the newspaper, dropped it onto her desk and picked up the message she’d taken just before two o’clock the previous afternoon. Or maybe just after.
Mrs. Bryant rang on a matter of urgency. She will call back
. “Is this really all she said?” I demanded.

“Yes. She was only on for a minute or two. Said it was urgent and personal. When I explained you were out, she sounded disappointed. I suggested she call back. She said she would. Then . . .”

“Then what?”

“She rang off.”

She rang off. And walked the short distance from the call-box to the bridge. She must have used the kiosk on the Clifton side. I could remember passing it with her that day in November 1991 when I’d gone up to Bristol at Sarah’s urging to help Rowena forget the mystery of their mother’s death. We’d talked of her suicide attempt a few days before; of how good it was to be alive; and of the strange appeal death could still seem to hold. For a moment, for an hour at most, she’d said, death had seemed more attractive than life. And now it had again. But an overdose was neither certain nor instant. Whereas a leap from the bridge—

“It doesn’t make any sense,” murmured Liz. “She said she’d call back. I’m sure of it.”

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t your fault. You weren’t to know.”

She looked up at me gratefully. “I don’t suppose anybody was, were they?”

I wanted to agree, to affirm wholeheartedly that this was a bolt from the blue nobody could have predicted or prevented. But something stopped me. Rowena’s own words—her irrational sense of guilt for the fate that had overtaken her mother—stood between me and the denial of responsibility I’d otherwise have been glad to utter.
“It would be possible to rerun the events of the seventeenth of July a hundred times and produce a hundred different results. A lot of times—maybe a majority of times—Mummy wouldn’t die. Wouldn’t even be in danger. Just because of some tiny scarcely noticeable variation. Like what she said to me. Or to you. And what we said in reply.”
I’d persuaded her then to agree that, even if this was so, nobody could foresee or be blamed for the fatal variation. But perhaps I hadn’t really believed that any more than her. Perhaps we’d both known better, but hadn’t dared to say so. For fear of what it meant.

“Can we really change anything, do you think?”
Yes, Louise. I could have saved you. And I could have saved your daughter. If I’d refused Seymour his interview. If I’d been more careful about what I said. If I’d given him no scope to finesse the result. If I’d gone to Rowena straightaway. If I’d called to her across the harbour. If I’d been in the office to take her call. If I’d told her the truth all along. If I’d simply trusted her as she wanted me to. If I’d only made one right choice instead of a dozen wrong ones. Then—and only then—it might have been so very different. But it wasn’t going to be. Any more than Rowena was going to call back. Not now. Not ever.

C  H  A  P  T  E  R
ELEVEN

I
’m not sure now how I got through the rest of that day. For most of it, I was shut away in my office, struggling to articulate a response to Rowena’s death. I knew contact with Sarah at this stage would be counter-productive. She’d be bound to blame me for what had happened. Although I longed to ask her how Rowena had come to see the video, to do so was to all intents and purposes impossible. Paul was a virtual stranger to me. To approach him in the midst of his grief was inconceivable. Bella was a possible go-between and I did risk a call to her in Biarritz, only to be told she and Sir Keith had already left for England. So I was left in limbo, unable to act because every action I considered led me nowhere.

One decision I did take was to play along with Seymour, though for my own reasons. I instructed Liz to tell any journalists who rang that I was out. She heard from several. But they weren’t going to hear from me. An interview had started all this and I knew public recriminations would only prolong it. If Sarah wasn’t prepared to believe the explanation I’d given her face to face, seeing a garbled version of it in the tabloid press wouldn’t make any difference. I let Seymour imagine what he liked, though. I was out to him as well. And meant to go on being.

I went home as early as was consistent with a pretence of putting in a day’s work, but didn’t stay there longer than it took to change my clothes. I dreaded the telephone ringing with Sir Keith or some muck-raking newspaperman on the line, yet knew I’d have to answer in case it was Sarah offering me an olive-branch. To walk myself into a state of exhaustion round the lanes and hangers was preferable to an agony of suspense at Greenhayes, so out I went. I finished up at the White Horse, an old haunt of Thomas’s on the Froxfield plateau, where I was mercifully unknown and could drink steadily away until the demons were dulled, though scarcely banished.

It was nearly midnight when I got back to Greenhayes. But the telephone rang before I’d so much as locked the door behind me. And I was too drunk to hesitate before picking it up.

“Robin?”

“Oh, Bella . . . It’s you.”

“I’ve been trying to contact you all evening.”

“Sorry. I was . . . out.”

“I assume you’ve heard about Rowena.”

“Oh yes. I’ve heard.”

“Is that all you can say?”

“What else do you want me to say?”

“I should have thought we were owed an explanation from you at the very least.”

“I’d be happy to give one. If you thought it would be listened to.”

“I’ll listen, Robin.”

“But will Keith? Will Paul? Will Sarah?”

“Probably not, no. Can you blame them? They think you and this Marsden bitch are partly responsible—if not chiefly responsible—for what Rowena did.”

“And no doubt you agree with them.”

“What I think isn’t very important at the moment. Now listen to me. Keith’s spending the weekend with Sarah and Paul. But I’m coming down to Hindhead tomorrow. I’d like to see you. Come to The Hurdles at . . . say . . . four o’clock?”

“All right. If you think it’ll serve any—”

“Just be there, Robin.” And she hung up before I had a chance to prevaricate any further. Not that I would have done. I had as many questions for her as she had for me.

I reached The Hurdles halfway through a blazing hot summer’s afternoon. The lawn was loud with grass-hoppers. The plop-plop of a tennis game could be heard from beyond the neighbour’s fence. And a distant growl from the deep blue sky as a light plane towed a glider up into the thermals. Death seemed as remote as winter. But death was what had brought me there.

Bella greeted me with a complaint about the heat. “I’d forgotten how humid it can be in England,” she said. “God, what a time for this to happen.”

“Could there be a good time?”

“You know what I mean. Do you want a drink?”

“Why not?”

“There’s a beer in the fridge. About all there
is
in the fridge. Bring it onto the terrace.”

I fetched a can and a glass and followed her out to the rear of the house, where she’d arranged a couple of directors’ chairs beneath the pergola. She already had a drink, something cool and lemon-coloured, with a straw in it. A sheaf of ripped-open letters beside her chair testified to the length of her absence. And she didn’t look happy to be back. She was smoking, which wasn’t a good sign. Nor were the sunglasses she hid her eyes behind. I might have betrayed her husband and stepdaughter. But I’d inconvenienced her. A heinous offence indeed.

“Sarah told me you’d claimed to be a victim of selective editing.”

“It’s true. I was.”

“Bullshit. I’ve seen the tape, Robin. What
did
you think you were doing?”

“Trying to tell it how it really was.”

“And was that worth driving Rowena to suicide for?”

“No. Of course not. I had no idea—”

“You knew about the first attempt. How can you claim to have had no idea?”

“Ah. Sarah’s mentioned that, has she?”

“Yes. And I wish she’d done so at the time. Then Keith and I might have been able to— Oh, never mind.” She rose and walked up and down, puffing at her cigarette. “It’s not
all
your fault. I’ll say that much. Sarah was a fool to keep us in the dark. And she should have realized what might happen if Rowena found out about the programme.”

“How
did
she find out?”

“A stroke of bad luck. With her exams finished and term all but over, she wasn’t going into the university last week, so Paul thought she probably wouldn’t meet anybody who’d seen the programme. But another maths student she knew quite well
had
seen it. She called round for coffee on Thursday morning and asked Rowena about it. But Rowena didn’t know it had even been made, let alone broadcast. She was shocked. Outraged, I suppose, that it had been kept from her. I knew that was a mistake all along. I should never have let Keith . . . Anyway, about half an hour after her visitor left, Rowena was spotted by another resident going into Sarah’s flat in Caledonia Place. She still had a key from when they shared it. She must have guessed her sister had recorded the programme while she was out with her and Paul the night before. But Sarah hadn’t needed to record it, had she? Because you’d given her a tape of it, neatly labelled, which Rowena found and watched on Sarah’s TV. It was still in the video recorder when Sarah got back. Can you imagine the effect it must have had? Sophie Marsden implying her mother was some sort of nymphomaniac.”

“She didn’t exactly—”

“And you backing her up. Reviving Rowena’s delusions about second sight and missed opportunities. Making her feel guilty for aiding Naylor’s conviction. Making her suspicious of her own family for keeping so much back. Making her afraid of what it all might mean. God knows how many times she watched that video over the next couple of hours. But it was too many times for her to bear. She drank about half a bottle of gin, you know. Then walked up to the bridge and threw herself off. They think she may have tried to phone somebody just before she did it. They found her diary in the call-box on the Clifton side.”

“It was me.”

Bella stared at me in astonishment. “You?”

“Yes. But I was at Lord’s all day. With Simon. She told my secretary she’d call back.”

“Oh, perfect! Our last chance of saving her blown. Because you go to bloody Lord’s and get pissed with Simon. That really is wonderful.”

“For God’s sake, I wasn’t to know.” If blame was to be distributed, I didn’t mean to take more than my share. “Sarah swore me to silence about Rowena’s overdose. And
your husband
pleaded with me to say nothing to her about
Benefit of the Doubt
. Maybe if you’d tried to understand her misgivings before the trial; maybe if you’d trusted her just a—”

“Keith didn’t plead with you to give Seymour an interview. Or to pour out some psycho-babble to the wretched man about Louise’s state of mind the day she died.”

“No, but—”

“And since you seem to be trying to shuffle off responsibility for what’s happened, I may as well mention something I was intending to spare you. But it makes more sense now you’ve admitted it was you she rang, so you may as well know. When Sarah got back to her flat, the TV was still on. With the
Benefit of the Doubt
video freeze-framed on the interview with you. So now you know why she wanted to speak to you, don’t you?”

“To ask which version was the truth,” I murmured in reply, as much to myself as to Bella. “The one I told at the trial. Or the one I hinted at in the interview. The one she forced herself to believe. Or the one she could never quite forget.”

“And what would you have told her?”

“I don’t know. I’m not sure of the answer any more. I suppose I never was.”

Bella sat down again, stabbed out her cigarette and glared across at me. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone, Robin, eh? She was getting over it. They all were. Keith’s been so happy recently. Really enjoying his retirement. And now . . .”

“I’m sorry, Bella. Sorry for everything. But even if I’d done and said nothing, Bantock would still have written his book. Seymour would still have made his programme. The questions—and the doubts—would still have been raised.”

“And maybe Rowena could have borne them. But for your intervention. Have you considered that?”

“Yes. I’ve considered it. Kind of you to point it out, though.”

Bella plucked off her sunglasses and stared at me. I think she may have felt she’d gone too far. But a softening of her tone was the only concession she offered. “Keith, Sarah and Paul are going to need all my help to recover from this. It’s like a blow to an unhealed wound. I have to think of them before anyone else.”

“I understand that.”

“I’m not sure exactly when the funeral’s going to be, but I think it would be best if you left them alone until it’s out of the way, don’t you? Until it’s
well
out of the way.”

I’d expected it, of course. This exile from their company as well as their affections. I’d brought it on myself. Yet it still hurt. “You’ll let me know when and where? I’d like to . . . send some flowers.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“If there’s anything—”

“There is, as a matter of fact.”

“What?”

“Speak to Sophie Marsden. Find out what the hell she meant by saying those things to Seymour. It’s eating Keith up. The fear that there was some truth in it. I doubt there was, personally. Louise was no good-time girl. Not according to everybody I’ve spoken to about her. In which case, I’d like to know why Sophie Marsden chose to depict her as one. Keith looked on Sophie as a friend. Her behaviour’s shocked him even more than yours.”

“What makes you think she’ll open her heart to me?”

“You’re on her side, aren’t you?”

“Of course not. There are no—”

“Besides, I wouldn’t trust myself in her presence. I need an intermediary. If you want to repair some of the damage you’ve done . . .”

“All right. I’ll be your messenger boy.” My reluctance was mostly show. I wanted to prise Sophie’s motives out of her as much as Bella did, if not more so. Our one brief meeting at Rowena’s wedding had left me with the strange and disturbing impression that she knew something about me that I didn’t even know myself. It was high time I found out what it was.

Bella had given me Sophie’s phone number. I tried it as soon as I got home. But Sophie was out, according to her husband.

“You’re not another of these bloody journalists, are you?”

“No. More like another victim of them.”

“I’ll tell her you called, in that case.”

There was something faintly familiar in his mournful voice. I could almost have believed I’d spoken to him before. But when would I have crossed paths with somebody in the agricultural machinery business? Never seemed the likeliest answer.

No less than five hours later, rousing me from drink-deepened slumber, Sophie called back. She didn’t sound in the least drowsy, even though the hall clock had struck one as I stumbled to the phone. Nor, to my fuddled surprise, did she seem at all reluctant to meet.

“I think we probably should, don’t you? In the circumstances.”

“Well, obviously I do. But—”

“Would London suit you? We have a small flat in Bayswater. I’m thinking of going down there for a few days next week. The summer sales may cheer me up. I’ve felt quite awful since the news about Rowena.” The idea that a spendthrift spin round Harrods could reconcile her to the needless extinction of a young girl’s life disgusted me more keenly than for the moment my tired brain could grasp. “Why not come to tea on Tuesday?”

“All right. Where do you—”

“Six, Godolphin Terrace. I’ll expect you about three thirty.”

“OK. I—”

“See you then. ’Bye.”

By the time I got back to bed, I was alert and fully awake. Had she delayed her call until her husband was asleep? I wondered. If so, why should she want to keep our appointment secret? Anyone would think it was an illicit
liaison
. And why—yes why—was she not just willing but eager for us to meet?

Such thoughts pushed sleep effortlessly aside and left me to toss and turn through the brief summer’s night, tracing and retracing in my mind the sequence of events leading from Louise Paxton’s murder to her daughter’s suicide. Rowena’s self-destruction was in some senses the more awful death. She was so fragile, so vulnerable, so patently in need of protection. There should have been some way to save her. There should have been and probably there had been. But it had been neglected, overridden in the pursuit of other claims, other fleeting impulses. By me among others. And what did the others really matter when I closed my eyes and saw, in images I couldn’t suppress, that slender figure falling from the bridge, arms outstretched, with a diary left behind her on a call-box shelf and my face blurred and flickering on a television screen?

Dawn was only a few hours away. When it came, I was already washed and dressed. The idea of spending a solitary Sunday lying low at Greenhayes wasn’t just intolerable. It was quite simply inconceivable. Bella had told me to leave them alone and so I would. The living, that is. But nobody could stop me going in search of the dead. I’d stood in the room where Louise had been murdered. Now I had to stand on the bridge from which Rowena had leapt. It wasn’t a matter of choice. It was something I had to do.