Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

“Maybe. What sort of car was he driving?”

“A Volvo estate.”

“Colour?”

“Maroon.”

“It has to be, then.”

“You do know him?”

“Yes. I think I do. But it can’t be. Not really. Not him and Mummy.”

“Who is he?”

“I’m surprised neither you nor Bella’s met him. But I suppose there’s no reason why you should have. He didn’t come to Rowena’s wedding. Or to Mummy’s funeral. That seemed odd at the time. Disrespectful almost. Even though you could say he was represented by Sophie. But perhaps he was afraid of-”

“What do you mean by represented ?”

“She’s married to him, Robin. The man you’ve described is Howard Marsden. Sophie’s husband. To the life.”

It became clear to me in an instant. As if I’d crept into a darkened room and stumbled around in the gloom, navigating by touch and guesswork. Only for the light to be suddenly switched on. And for me to find myself not where I thought at all. Howard Marsden. Sophie’s husband. And Louise’s lover. Yes, of course. It made sense. Sophie must have known all along. So now she was taking her revenge. On Louise by tarnishing her reputation to the best of her ability. And on Howard by cuckolding him at the first opportunity. If I was the first. Her story about the “perfect stranger”; her claim to believe I was the man in question; her expression of doubt about Naylor’s guilt: all were artful pretences designed with a particular purpose in mind. And I didn’t flatter myself that my seduction was it. No, no. Sophie was playing a deeper game, in which her husband’s total humiliation was the goal. He couldn’t object to her infidelity without being told that what was sauce for the gander…

“So that’s why Sophie wants to hurt us,” murmured Sarah.

“Looks like it.”

“Oh God. What a mess.”

“I don’t suppose she meant to harm Rowena. Your mother’s good name was what she wanted to-”

“But you can’t pick and choose when you start this sort of thing. You can’t be sure of all the consequences.”

“No. As Rowena once told me, there are too many variables in life to predict any outcome with precision.”

Sarah shook her head and rubbed the sides of her nose where the dark glasses had been resting. She looked suddenly tired. “Can I sit down, Robin? I think I would like a drink after all.”

I fetched another chair as well as a drink and we sat there in the garden together for an hour or more as the heat of afternoon turned towards the cool of evening. Our mutual dismay had lowered our defences. Allowing, if not a reconciliation between us, at least a rapprochement . As Sarah admitted, she’d made her own misjudgements. By trying to keep Rowena insulated from reality. By failing to foresee what she’d do if she found out she’d been deceived. The irony was that, even if I’d not given Sarah the video, she’d probably have recorded the programme herself while she was out with Paul and Rowena. Rowena had simply read her sister’s mind more acutely than she’d been given credit for.

As for the act of suicide itself, maybe that didn’t have the clear and simple motive it had comforted Sarah to believe. Why had Rowena not told Paul she was pregnant? Why had she seemed so depressed? Because motherhood wasn’t necessarily the future she had in her sights? Yet it had been going to arrive whether she liked it or not. Until the shock of her mother’s rewritten past had given her a way out. And she’d yielded to temptation.

“I wonder if that’s why Paul lashed out at you. Because he’s afraid that might be the truth of it. He won’t admit it, of course. I wouldn’t ask him to. But I think it may be there, even so.”

“How is he now?”

“Subdued. Self-controlled. A little remorseful, I think. A little ashamed of what he did. But don’t expect an apology. Or any kind of thanks for not preferring charges. It isn’t in his nature.”

“Will you tell him about Howard Marsden?”

“Oh yes. If Rowena’s death has taught me anything, it’s the danger of secrecy.”

“And your father?”

“He may already know. He may always have known. Maybe it’s what was in the note he destroyed.”

“But if not?”

“I’ll leave Bella to solve the problem. Isn’t that what stepmothers are for?”

“Will you let Sophie know we’ve found out?”

“Only if she asks. Which is unlikely, since I don’t intend to seek her company. Or her husband’s.”

“What sort of a man is he?”

“Well, there’s another irony. Cautious and conventional sums him up. Rather dull, I’d always thought. Not at all Mummy’s type. So I’d have said, anyway. But what would I know? More and more, my mother seems like a stranger to me. Or an impostor. Somebody who was never what she came across as. But what she really was… I’ve no idea.”

“You’re not saying you believe Naylor may be innocent?”

“Oh no. That’s the worst of this. The very worst. Seymour and his kind will go on pressing for that bastard’s release. And Rowena’s suicide will only help them. They’ll say she had a guilty conscience, won’t they? They’ll say it was her way of avoiding the truth.”

“Surely not.”

“I’m afraid so. The bandwagon’s only just started rolling. There’ll be more books. More programmes. More articles. There’ll be a committee formed before long to coordinate the campaign for his release. Questions will be asked in the House. Pressure will mount for a re-trial. Or a reference to the Appeal Court at the very least. And they’ll never stop. They’ll never be satisfied. Until the day Naylor walks out of the Royal Courts of Justice a free man and is carried away down the Strand in the arms of his adoring supporters.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“You’d better. Because it’ll happen. Eventually. Inevitably. Whether we like it or not. There’s nothing we can do to stop it. We can only…”

“Yes?”

“Lead our lives, Robin. What else?”

There was nothing else. No corner to turn. No redoubt to defend. No stand to take. Sarah would go on with her life. And so would I. When she drove away from Greenhayes that evening, I sensed it was a final parting, whatever the technicalities of time and chance might subsequently dictate. She was heading into her future. And into my past.

I went down to the Cricketers after she’d gone and drank so much I had to be driven the short distance home by the landlord. And though I woke next morning with a thick head, my prospects were clearer in my mind than they’d been for weeks. If Bushranger Sports took over Timariot & Small, I’d quit before they could sack me and return to Brussels at the expiry of my congé . I’d turn my back on a disastrous diversion in my career. I’d give up chasing shadows and revert to the pursuit of wealth and leisure. I’d bid Louise Paxton an overdue farewell. I’d walk away. And forget. Even though

Those two words shut a door

Between me and the blessed rain

That was never shut before

And will not open again.

Rowena was buried in Sapperton on Monday the twenty-eighth of June. I stayed in Petersfield, putting in a gingerly half-day at the factory to keep myself occupied. But the media weren’t about to let me off the hook. That night, on the television news, there was a filmed report from outside St. Kenelm’s Church, hymn-singing audible above the commentary. “As speculation mounts that Rowena Bryant killed herself rather than face the thought that her testimony helped convict an innocent man, a spokesman for West Mercia Police insisted they had no intention of reopening their inquiries into the Kington killings.” Before the scene switched to the cemetery I could picture so easily, I switched off.