Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

“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.

Apparently 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.