Robert Goddard - Borrowed Time

“What did he do?”

“He was horrified, gripped by guilt as well as grief. And frightened into the bargain. He had to think quickly. He had to decide what he was going to do before he went back to England. Tell the police everything, with no guarantee they’d ever catch Louise’s murderer but an absolute guarantee he’d be charged with conspiracy to bring her murder about. Or suppress his part in the whole ghastly business and strike a deal with Smith to have the culprit brought to book. Not a difficult choice, really, was it? Keith excused himself on the grounds that his confession would only increase Sarah and Rowena’s suffering and deny them his help and support in coming to terms with their mother’s violent death. A handy piece of reasoning from his point of view, but I suppose we should give him the benefit of the doubt.”

I said nothing, some vestigial reluctance to speak ill of the dead reining in my tongue.

“Keith contacted Smith straightaway. Smith had met Louise a few times and was almost as horrified as Keith by what had happened. He flew up from Faro to meet Keith at Bordeaux. Then they flew on to England together, agreeing a strategy on the way. The man who’d raped and murdered Louise would be made to answer for it, but their connection with the crime would be kept out of it. Not difficult, since Naylor didn’t know who’d hired Cassidy and Cassidy didn’t know who’d hired Brown. While Keith went to comfort his daughters and pose as the baffled and bereaved husband, Smith went to sort things out with Brown. Brown hauled in Cassidy and told him he had to inform on Naylor to make up for using him in the first place and take his chances if Naylor told the police he’d put him up to it. Once Naylor was charged and put away, Brown would pull a few strings to supply another witness in case Cassidy botched it up.”

“You mean Bledlow?”

“Presumably. Though, as it turned out, Naylor never named Cassidy as an accomplice because he decided to plead not guilty. A risky thing to do, since it committed him to portraying Louise as a scarlet woman. Distasteful stuff, which probably added a few years onto his sentence. But at least Keith could console himself he’d been properly punished. As for his indirect responsibility for Louise’s death, he tried to put that out of his mind completely. And he didn’t do a bad job, because I never had the slightest suspicion. His grief seemed genuine to me, which it was of course, and uncomplicated-which it wasn’t.

“I know you think I set out to marry him for his money. But there was more to it than that. I couldn’t just hang around here after Hugh’s death. I needed a complete change of scene. Well, Keith gave me that. And he gave me a lot of fun too. As I did him. At least at first. But Louise just wouldn’t go away. His memory of her, sharpened by guilt. And the mystery of how she’d died, sustained by Naylor’s refusal to admit killing her. Then there was Henley Bantock and his bloody book. That started them all sniffing around, didn’t it? The scandalmongers and mischief-makers. Nick Seymour and his ego-trip of a TV programme. Which you helped him out with. Along with the Marsden bitch.”

Again, I held my tongue. There seemed no point reminding Bella that I’d been taken for a ride by Seymour. She knew, anyway. Pretending she didn’t was merely an attempt to forestall some of the condemnation she’d earned.

“Rowena committed suicide because of the doubts about her mother Seymour planted in her mind with all his prying and probing. But Paul must have blamed himself for her death and decided he deserved to be punished for it. Why else would he confess to a crime he hadn’t committed? He’s obviously unhinged. I suppose his attack on you was the first sign of that. And his confession was the second. How he convinced the police it was true-how he put together his story without making some vital slip-is quite simply beyond me. He must be extremely clever as well as seriously insane.

“Keith didn’t think he would convince the police. He was sure they’d find some flaw in his account. But what if they didn’t? What if somehow, by some uncanny fluke, Paul was believed? Keith said he’d have no choice. Weak and frightened as he was, he’d own up rather than let Naylor walk free. I could see he meant it. And that meant I might find myself married to a known murderer, with everybody suspecting I’d gone along with his attempt to cheat justice. Can you blame me for doing everything in my power to prevent that happening?”

“No. But I can blame you for setting about it the way you did.”

“Yes, well…” She gave a faintly contrite toss of the head. “It stood to reason there had to be a weak spot in Paul’s story. It was a lie, after all. And lies are never perfect. But I didn’t trust the police to search it out. And I wasn’t prepared to wait while they tried. I reckoned the sooner we put a stop to Paul’s madness the better. Since Keith forbade me to take a hand myself, I had to persuade somebody to do it for me, somebody intelligent and reliable who might be willing to help me out for old times’ sake.”

“Old times’ sake? Come off it, Bella. Thanks to the Bushranger row, you had me over a barrel. And you never let me forget it.”

“Does it make you feel better if I say I’m sorry?”

“Not much.”

“Well I am, anyway. Especially since it was all for nothing. He’d covered his tracks well, hadn’t he? So well you became even more convinced than when you started that there were none to follow. What’s worse, you began to chase clues I’d have preferred you to leave alone. Naturally, I didn’t want you to go after Cassidy. There was a faint chance you might learn the truth that way. By the end, when you finally threw in the towel, I was almost grateful. At least it made up my mind for me. If Paul’s story was watertight, the chances were Keith would be forced to confess. Well, I had to be out of it before then, so I capitalized my assets as best I could-Adrian was a real help there with his money-no-object determination to get the better of you-and told Keith I couldn’t live with a man who was capable of commissioning a murder. He took it more calmly than I’d have expected. I suppose he thought divorce would be the least of his problems if it came to the crunch.

“There was still a chance it wouldn’t come to the crunch, of course. But once the police had said they were satisfied Paul was telling the truth, that chance dwindled to virtually nothing. When I last spoke to Keith, about a fortnight ago, he was clinging to the hope that Paul might lose his nerve and withdraw his confession. I never thought he would, though. He’d already gone too far by then to turn back.”

“Couldn’t you have tried to talk him out of it? If you could have convinced him you were absolutely certain he was lying-”

“How could I have done, without telling him why I was certain?” Bella frowned thoughtfully. “Besides, it had crossed my mind by then that Paul might have suspected the truth for some time. It would make sense, wouldn’t it? He might have confessed in order to smoke Keith out.” She sighed. “If so, it’s rebounded on both of them, hasn’t it?”

“When did Keith hear Naylor was going to be released?”

“I don’t know exactly. My guess would be a couple of days before the papers broke the news. His solicitor was keeping him in touch. The rest is guesswork on my part too. I think Keith went to Portugal in order to warn Smith he was about to blow the whistle on all of them. And I think Smith decided to stop him. I suppose he felt he didn’t have much choice. It was either that or face the prospect of extradition on a conspiracy to murder charge. So he took Keith for a one-way trip along the coast.”