Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

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?”