Robert Goddard — Borrowed Time Read online

  I suppose the truth is that I chose to forget. My earlier dislike of the house had diminished as my enthusiasm for Edward Thomas’s poetry had grown. I’d come to relish its proximity to his favourite walks and to follow them myself. After the blandness of the Belgian countryside, I’d returned to the sights and scents of rural England like a reluctant teetotaller to strong drink. All in all, it suited me far better to stay at Greenhayes than I cared to admit.

  On the Sunday after the funeral, I was surprised by a visit from Sarah. She’d heard about my mother’s death from Bella and wished to offer her condolences. There was no comparison between the circumstances of our bereavements, of course, but still they drew us briefly together. It was a cool dry cloudy day, with the snow long since washed away. We took a circular stroll up onto Wheatham Hill, passing one of Thomas’s former houses in Cockshott Lane and another in Ashford Chace on the way back. We talked about the poems I’d come to know nearly as well as her. We discussed the bewildering consequences of death—the clothes parcels for Oxfam, the redundant possessions, the remorseless memories. And then, inevitably, we spoke of Rowena and the coming trial.

  “Informally, we’ve been told it’ll take place straight after Easter.”

  “That’s only another six weeks or so.”

  “I know. But it can’t come soon enough for me. Or Daddy. Once it’s over, maybe we’ll be able to start living again. I don’t mean I want to forget Mummy. Or what happened to her. But we’re all worn down by waiting. Especially Rowena.”

  “How is she?”

  “Better than when you met her. More controlled. More certain about what she has to do. I think she’s going to be all right. In court, I mean.”

  “And after?”

  “She’ll put it behind her. She has to. And she’s stronger than you might think. Really.”

  “Do you want me to see her again—before the trial?”

  “Better not, I reckon. She hasn’t said any of those . . . weird things about Mummy since . . .” She shook her head. “Well, for a long time.” How long? I wondered. Had Sarah just stopped short of suggesting I was the cause rather than the cure?

  “I’m sorry,” I began, “if I mishandled things . . . when Rowena and I . . .”

  “Forget it,” she said, significantly failing to contradict me. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t, anyway. Not once the trial’s out of the way.” Assuming, she didn’t add, that the trial went as smoothly as she hoped. And ended with the verdict she wanted to hear.

  Sarah’s information proved to be accurate. The trial of Shaun Andrew Naylor for rape and double murder opened at Birmingham Crown Court on Monday the eighth of April 1991. I was notified that I’d be required as a witness, probably during the second week. Until then, I was left to follow events through newspaper and television reports like any other curious member of the public. I learned, just as they did, that Sir Keith Paxton was in court each day to hear the often harrowing medical evidence of how his wife had died. And I could only wonder, like them, how Naylor hoped to be acquitted when DNA analysis appeared to identify him as the rapist. Pleading not guilty was either a gesture of defiance on his part or there was something we were all missing.

  I cut a pretty distracted figure at work during this period, my thoughts dwelling on events in Birmingham when I was supposed to be concentrating on matching cricket bat production to early season demand. As a result, I was a virtual spectator at the board meeting on 11 April, when Adrian unveiled his plans for penetration of the Australian market. An agency wasn’t enough, according to him. Corporate presence was necessary. And Viburna, an ailing Melbourne sportswear manufacturer, was the key. He proposed a takeover, which would give Timariot & Small direct access to Viburna’s customers, creating a perfect springboard for promoting combined cricket bat and accessories sales throughout the continent. Viburna could be ours for little more than a million. So, what were we waiting for? Nothing, apparently. Simon was keen. Jennifer said she’d look at the figures, but agreed we had to expand if we weren’t to contract. And I made the mistake of thinking we could consider it in more detail later. Adrian and Jennifer were to report back after a fact-finding visit to Melbourne in May. Until then, no decision was to be taken. But already the idea had acquired a crucial momentum. It was Adrian’s first big independent project as managing director. With the shares he’d inherited from Mother, he now held the largest single stake in the company. What he wanted, sooner or later, he would have. And so would the rest of us.

  I travelled up to Birmingham the following Sunday and booked into the Midland Hotel. Sarah had told me she and her father would be staying there that night with Rowena, who was due to testify immediately before me on Monday morning. We’d agreed to dine together. It was the first time we’d all met since the lunch in Hindhead and I wasn’t sure what to expect. But Sir Keith soon put me at my ease. He looked tired but determined, shielding his daughters as best he could behind a show of imperturbability.

  As for Rowena, she’d changed, as Sarah had said. The intensity was still there, but the threat of imminent disintegration had vanished. She was in command of herself, though how certainly I couldn’t tell. Her manner had become distant. I don’t mean she was hostile towards me, or even cool. But she’d retreated behind a mask. And though the performance she gave was convincing, it was also expressionless. As if she’d willed herself to forget whatever was inconvenient or ambiguous in her recollections of 17 July 1990. At the cost of the most appealing part of her personality. She was still fragile. But somehow no longer vulnerable.

  “I can’t tell you,” said Sir Keith when the girls had gone off to bed, “what a help your sister-in-law’s been to us these past few months.”

  “Bella?” I responded, unable to disguise my surprise.

  “She’s a wonderful woman, as I’m sure you’d agree. She’s put Rowena back on her feet in a way I don’t think I’d have been able to.”

  “Really?” This was news to me. And news I didn’t much care for.

  “I’ve found her company a genuine tonic. We have bereavement in common, I suppose. Her husband. My wife. Only those who’ve suffered in the same way can really understand, you know.”

  “I’m sure that’s true.” But I wasn’t at all sure it applied to Bella. She must have given Sir Keith a vastly different impression of her reaction to Hugh’s death from the one I’d received.

  “I only wish she could have been in court last week. I’d have been glad of a friendly face. But the prosecuting counsel . . . Well, my solicitor actually . . . Some nonsense about how it would look if . . .” He puffed his cheeks irritably and sipped some brandy. “Still, when this ghastly business is all over . . .” Then he grinned. “Just wanted to put you in the picture, Robin. So it doesn’t come as a shock. Some people can be damned prudish about this sort of thing. But not you, I dare say.”

  “No. Of course not.” I smiled cautiously, trying not to show my incredulity. And something worse than incredulity. Disgust? Disapproval? Not quite. What I really felt was a form of jealousy. How dare Bella try to replace Louise Paxton? How dare Sir Keith even think of allowing her to? He should have loved Louise too much for such a thing to be possible. He should have loved her as I would have done in his place. Instead of which—

  “I’ve you to thank for meeting Bella, of course. If you hadn’t recommended Sarah to her as a lodger . . . Well, I’m grateful, believe me.”

  Oh, I believed him. I’d be earning his gratitude twice over—though he wouldn’t realize it—by what I said in court about his no longer irreplaceable wife. That’s what made it so hard to bear. Sometimes, it’s better to be cursed than to be thanked. And sometimes it’s the same thing.

  We went to the courts together next morning. They were housed in a modern city centre building externally similar to the offices of a prosperous insurance company. Inside, three galleried floors were crowded with lawyers, clients, policemen, journalists, witnesses and assorted hangers-on. Anxious consultations were u
nder way in stairwells and corridors. And many of the faces were deadly serious. Some of its chain-smoking victims might think the law a joke. But none of them regarded it as a laughing matter.

  Sir Keith and his daughters knew what to expect. They’d been there before. A few press cameras snapped as we entered, capturing Sir Keith impassive in three piece pin-stripe and old school tie, Sarah sombre and black-suited, Rowena pale but composed in a lilac dress. We climbed to the top floor and Sir Keith went into Court Twelve while Rowena and I waited outside with Sarah. Within ten minutes of the start, Rowena was called. I wished her luck, which she barely acknowledged. Then she was shown in by an usher and Sarah followed, leaving me to kick my heels as the morning slowly elapsed.

  I’d anticipated a lonely vigil and had brought Adrian’s preliminary report on Viburna Sportswear to study while I waited. I couldn’t concentrate on it, of course, but it gave me something to look at instead of the other hang-dog occupants of the landing. Which explains why the first I knew of Bella’s arrival on the scene was when she sat down beside me.

  “Hello, Robin,” she whispered. “What’s happening inside?”

  “Bella! I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Neither did I. Until I decided I wanted to. I shan’t go in. Keith’s forbidden me to. But I thought at least I could have lunch with you all. Perhaps dinner afterwards.”

  “I’m sure Keith will be delighted to see you.”

  “But you’re not?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “No. And you don’t say half the things you mean. But I was married to your brother for nearly twenty years. I know the signs.”

  “I’m sure you do. And I’m glad you haven’t forgotten Hugh altogether.”

  “So hard.” She looked at me more in disappointment than anger. “The living are more important than the dead, Robin. Remember that.”

  “I’ll try to.”

  “I’ll put your tetchiness down to nerves. This waiting can’t be easy for you.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Good. That’ll make your evidence all the more convincing.” She lit a cigarette and offered me one, knowing I’d given up years ago but enjoying the momentary hesitation before I refused. “But then,” she added, blowing out a lungful of smoke, “what can be more convincing than the truth?”

  What I’d have said in reply I’ll never know, because at that moment the door leading from the court opened and Rowena came out to join us. She was blinking rapidly and fingering her hair, much but not all of her composure gone. In its place I’d have expected to see relief, some visible sign of the liberation she should have felt. But instead there was more anxiety than when she’d gone in. As if testifying had added to her problems, not resolved them. As if she hadn’t said—or been allowed to say—what she really wanted to. And there was a furtiveness as well. She looked as if she wanted to run away and hide. From all of us.

  She saw Bella first and shaped an uncertain smile. Then Sarah appeared at her elbow and led her towards us. I tried to think of something both meaningless and comforting to say. But, before I could, the usher beckoned to me. My turn had come. And there was time to exchange no more than a glance with Rowena as I went in. But a glance was enough. The mask had fallen now. Beneath it, there was despair.

  The court had none of the Dickensian appurtenances I’d somehow imagined. Glass-topped partitions, pale wood panelling and discreet grey carpeting drained away the archaism of gown and wig. It was a place where divorce settlements and tax evasion could be discussed in a seemly atmosphere. Rape and murder surely weren’t topics that belonged in its antiseptic environment. Yet there was the judge, gorgeously robed. There was the coat of arms above his head. There, beneath him, were the lawyers and clerks in their orderly chaos of books and papers. And there, in the large glazed dock at the rear of the room, flanked by two prison officers, was the accused: Shaun Andrew Naylor.

  I’d not seen him before, of course. And I hardly had the chance to study him now. A lean sallow-faced man with thick black hair leaning forward in his chair, as if straining to catch every word that was said. He looked up as I stepped into the witness-box and caught my eye for less than a second. I had the fleeting impression of someone bent on memorizing my features in every detail. Then I put the thought aside and took the oath.

  The prosecuting counsel gave me an easy ride, as he was bound to. He let me present my well-rehearsed portrait of the relaxed and attractive woman I’d spoken to, briefly and inconsequentially, on Hergest Ridge. He encouraged me to specify the time at which we’d parted and to say how I could be so sure. And wisely he left it there.

  The defence counsel didn’t, of course. He wanted to know about the offer of a lift. Could it have been construed as the offer of something else? All this I parried easily enough, as he must have anticipated. But I couldn’t deny the fact that she’d offered me a lift. Nor the theoretical possibility that she had more than a car journey in mind. These were purely negative points, of course. But he must have hoped they’d stick in the jurors’ minds. I hoped he was wrong. Glancing across at them, I reckoned he probably was. They’d heard the evidence to date. They were already convinced—like the rest of us—that the defendant was guilty as charged. It was going to take more than logic-chopping to shift them.

  As if to ensure this was so, the judge asked me to clarify my statement that there was nothing in Lady Paxton’s manner or in anything she’d said to me that implied an ulterior motive. I was happy to do so. And while I was about it, he glared at the defending counsel as if to suggest he didn’t like the line his cross-examination had taken. With that I was discharged. Sir Keith nodded appreciatively to me as I passed him on the way out. And I risked a single parting glance in Naylor’s direction. But he was stooping close to the gap between glass barrier and wooden partition for a whispered word with his solicitor. He wasn’t interested in me any more. My encounter with the man I believed to have raped and murdered Louise Paxton had been more fleeting than my encounter with Louise herself. I didn’t expect ever to see him again. I didn’t expect I’d ever need to.

  Lunch was a rushed and frugal affair in the bar of the Grand Hotel, a short walk from the courts. Rowena said little. None of us, in fact, seemed to have much of an appetite and the satisfaction we expressed at the events of the morning had a faintly hollow ring. I hadn’t heard Rowena’s testimony, of course, and she hadn’t heard mine. But, according to Sir Keith, who’d heard both, they’d been equally effective. As far as he was concerned, a convincing and coherent account of his wife’s behaviour during the last day of her life had been placed on the record and was now unchallengeable. As to that, I assumed the defence counsel might still have something to say. But he couldn’t know just how indefinable the doubts were that afflicted those who’d met Louise Paxton on 17 July 1990. We didn’t put them into words, Rowena and I. But I was coming more and more to realize that we were both aware of them. And they were the same. The impression Louise had left on her daughter was the impression she’d left on me. She’d been changing before our eyes. Altering in mood and intention. Slipping out of sight and understanding. Retreating into camouflage we could never hope to penetrate. Or else discarding some long-worn disguise. Her past. Her life. Her death. Her future. They were all one now. But that day had seen them trembling on a razor’s edge. And we’d watched, unwittingly, as they’d fallen.

  Perhaps I should have tried to express some of this to Rowena. Not for the purpose of striking up a sympathetic rapport. Just so she’d know she wasn’t alone. But my thoughts were too confused. And nobody would have wanted me to, anyway, except perhaps Rowena herself. Her father and sister desired nothing more than a clean and simple end to the trial. Naylor convicted and locked up. The key thrown away. And the wife and mother they’d lost preserved for ever in the amber of their idealized memories.

  Who could begrudge them? Not me. Nor Rowena, as I could tell by her strained but determined expression. She meant to see this
through for their sakes. Perhaps Bella had reminded her, as she’d reminded me, that the living matter more than the dead. So we like to believe, anyway. So Rowena and I certainly believed. Then.

  I didn’t go back to court with them after lunch. I’d said my piece and suddenly wanted to be away, right away, from that room full of strangers where Louise Paxton’s death was being slowly anatomized and her life progressively forgotten. But fleeing the scene achieved nothing. I couldn’t escape the process. It stayed with me, keeping perfect pace, as the train sped south towards home. Naylor’s face, half recalled, half imagined, in the flickering reflections of the carriage window. His eyes, resting on me as they’d rested on Louise. His mouth, curving towards a smile. Only he knew for certain why the mirror had been smashed that day. Only he knew the whole truth. Which he might never tell.

  But what would he say? What version of the truth would he offer when he came to testify? He certainly couldn’t avoid doing so. That became obvious as the prosecution case wound towards its close. DNA analysis suggested he’d had sex with Louise Paxton shortly before her death. There were sufficient signs of violence to suggest rape even if the circumstances hadn’t been as conclusive as they were. His fingerprints had been found in several places around the house, including the bedroom and the studio. So had fibres which had been shown to match samples taken from a sweatshirt and a pair of jeans belonging to him. The jeans were also stained with three different types of oil paint shown to match paint types found on palettes, canvases and worktops in Bantock’s studio. An unlicensed gun and a switch-blade knife had been discovered concealed beneath floor boards in Naylor’s flat. Naylor himself had initially denied ever being at Whistler’s Cot, only volunteering—or inventing—his story of being picked up by Lady Paxton when confronted with the forensic evidence against him. Finally, there were the witnesses who’d heard him boast of “screwing the bitch and wringing her neck for her trouble.” A barman at a pub he used in Bermondsey called Vincent Cassidy, who’d phoned the police because what Naylor had done was “out of order,” “too much for me to stomach,” “just not on.” And a prisoner he’d shared a cell with on remand called Jason Bledlow. “He was proud of it. He wanted me to know. He just couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Said he hadn’t realized she was nobility, like. But he reckoned that made it better. I reported what he’d said straightaway because I was disgusted, really sickened, you know?” And it was impossible to believe the jury didn’t know. It was inconceivable he could say anything to dislodge his guilt from their minds. He was going down.