Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

But she wasn’t in. Well, why should she have been? It was an ordinary Saturday morning as far as she was concerned. I should have phoned ahead. I should have planned my tactics. But Paul’s confession had made tactics seem futile and ridiculous. What was there to cling to in its wake but instinct?

I waited for twenty minutes that seemed like an hour. Then she pulled up in her car, unloaded some shopping and carried it to her door. I went to meet her, felt the normal greetings die on my lips and finished up making her start with surprise when she fished her keys from her handbag and looked up to find me waiting.

“Robin! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve some news for you, Sarah. Let’s go inside.”

Her reaction was similar to mine. I could read in the alterations of her expression the same stages I’d gone through myself. Confusion. Disbelief. Slowly growing conviction. Then horror. At what Paul had done. And at what it meant. About Naylor. About Louise. About all of us. Finally came anger. Directed firstly at Paul. Then at the swathe his confession was bound to cut through all our comfortable assumptions and convenient interpretations. Nothing was going to be comfortable or convenient again. And Sarah knew that now. As well as I did.

“I never thought,” she said, “never imagined… When he turned up that day at Sapperton… When I found he was still hanging around Cambridge during my graduation… I never had any idea what was really going on.”

“How could you?”

“Mummy should have told me. Then I could have put a stop to it before she left for Biarritz.”

“You can’t be sure. He was completely obsessed with her. I don’t think anything would have stopped him.”

“Don’t you? Well, maybe you’re right.” She crossed to the window and stared out at the damp grey roofs of Clifton, turning her back as if she was afraid to look at me while she said what I’d already thought. “But it wouldn’t have ended in murder, would it? Not if Mummy had been the faithful wife she wanted us to think she was. Not if she hadn’t picked up Naylor, just like he always said she did, on a whim, on an off-chance, for no reason except…” She bowed her head and I thought she was about to cry. But there were no tears in her eyes when she turned round. “It’s stupid, isn’t it? But somehow what this tells us about Mummy seems even worse than what it tells us about Paul.”

“You mustn’t say that. He murdered her. And Bantock. There can be no excuses. Whatever problems there may have been in your parents’ marriage-”

“They didn’t have a marriage, did they?” Her anger was finding a new target now. Her mother was dead. And the man responsible was willing at last to face the consequences. Only her father’s lies remained to be nailed. “It was all a sham, wasn’t it? A put-up job. She was leaving him. Just as I always thought. But not for Howard Marsden or some other well-groomed middle-aged lover. She was leaving him for anyone she could get. And Daddy must have known that all along. He must have known she was capable of what Naylor claimed she did.”

“You can’t blame your father. He probably wanted to shield you and Rowena from-”

“Where’s shielding got us? Your sister-in-law foisted on us as a stepmother. Rowena forced into saying things in court she didn’t really believe. Then married to her own mother’s murderer.” She stared at me, horrified into silence by the extra dimension of reality her words had somehow conferred on the facts. Then she added in an undertone: “And finally driven to suicide.”

“Sarah, I-”

“Aren’t you pleased, Robin? You always said we shouldn’t keep so many secrets in our family. Well, this certainly proves you right, doesn’t it?”

“You can’t think I take any-”

“No!” She held up her hands as she spoke in a gesture of conciliation, then frowned, as if puzzled by the violence of her reaction. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean… Besides, it does prove you right. I should have listened to you sooner.”

“It wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“Maybe not.” She lowered herself slowly onto the sofa and shook her head in weary dismay. “It’s all a bloody shambles, isn’t it?” I sat down next to her. She let me hold her hand for a moment, no more, then gently shook me off. The way she braced her shoulders and took a deep determined breath declared her intention clearly. Consolation would only hinder her. She’d find the strength to face this alone. Self-reliance would be her guarantee against the betrayals that had dragged her sister down. “Where’s Paul now?”

“In Worcester. With Naylor’s solicitor.”

“So it’s begun already. He’ll prepare a formal affidavit and submit it to the Crown Prosecution Service as grounds for an appeal. They’ll ask the police to verify Paul’s statement. And assuming they do…”

“Paul seemed to think they might try to ignore him.”

“I doubt they’ll be able to. I can confirm part of his story myself. So can Peter Rossington, I imagine. Then there’ll be a lot of details that didn’t come out at the trial. Stuff only the real murderer could know. They always keep a few things back as a safeguard against nutcase confessions. If some of them tie up with Paul’s statement, the statement of a man who’s never even supposed to have visited Whistler’s Cot…”

“I think we both know they will tie up.”

“Yes. In which case…”

“How long before it becomes public?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. Strictly speaking, there’s no necessity for it to become public until Naylor’s been granted leave to appeal. And that won’t be until the police have finished their investigation. Even then, the grounds for the appeal needn’t be disclosed-or Paul named-until the appeal’s actually heard. But most police forces leak like a sieve. This is sensational stuff. Sooner or later, the press will get wind of it. And my bet would be sooner.”

“But we have a few weeks at least?”

“Oh yes. A few weeks. The police will probably drag their feet. They’re going to look pretty stupid when this comes out. But then who won’t? Nobody can crow about it, can they? Not even Nick Seymour. He turned out to be right for the wrong reason. The only one who’ll end up smelling of roses is…”

“Naylor.”

“Yes. Some randy little housebreaker who happened to…” Another deep breath. Another summoning of inner reserves. “But he is innocent, isn’t he? He’s spent three years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. We owe him an apology, don’t we? We who went to such lengths to ensure he’d be convicted.”

“We thought he was guilty.”

“Yes. We thought. But now we have to think again.”

“Witnesses said they heard him confess.”

“Police stooges. I knew that’s what they were even if you didn’t.”

“What?”

She smiled at me, as if pitying my naïvety. “A part-time barman at a Bermondsey pub who probably had a record as long as your arm and a remand prisoner hoping for a light sentence. They weren’t exactly disinterested. I’m afraid the police have a tendency to improve on reality in cases like this. It catches up with them, of course, when it turns out they fitted up the wrong man. But I doubt either witness will ever be charged with perjury. That could get very messy.”

“You’re saying some of the evidence against Naylor was fabricated?”

“It must have been. For the best possible reason, of course. To ensure he didn’t get away with murder. The only snag is… he wasn’t the murderer.”

“Good God. And I…” My mind was a jumble of all the things I could have said in court that might have altered the outcome of the trial. The guilt spread thin and far. And now it lapped at my feet.