Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

I got back to Greenhayes late that night, overslept and reached the office nearer ten o’clock than nine the following morning, my hangover made no more bearable by the knowledge that Simon’s was probably worse. A pile of messages had accumulated in my absence and I was sifting aimlessly through them with one hand while trying to prise a Disprin out of its foil wrapper with the other when my secretary put her head round the door to announce she had Nick Seymour on the telephone.

“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.

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.