Borrowed Time (26 page)

“I don’t mean Rowena.” I sensed rather than saw him looking at me across the gloom of the car. “I mean Louise.”

“Sorry?” I was instantly sure I’d misheard him. Or failed to comprehend some metaphor. Whatever he meant, it couldn’t be literally
that
.

“I murdered Louise Paxton. And Oscar Bantock too. At Whistler’s Cot. On the seventeenth of July, nineteen ninety.” An approaching pair of headlamps lit up his face in pale relief. He was staring straight at me. With a solemnity that somehow forced me to believe him. Even though I didn’t want to. Even though I hardly dared to. “I’m the man who should be serving the life sentence passed on Shaun Naylor. I’m the real murderer.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“Oh yes. I’m serious. The lies are over now. I’m done with them. With Rowena dead, there’s nothing worth lying
for
. So I may as well tell the truth. And face the consequences.”

“You really mean this?”

“Yes. I mean it. Shaun Naylor didn’t murder Louise. Or old Oscar. I did.”

“But . . . you can’t have.”

“How I wish you were right. But I did. Worse still, I let an innocent man go to prison in my place. I told myself he didn’t matter. Some low-life petty criminal society was well rid of. My conscience was up to that. But Rowena was different. I married her because I thought, if I could take care of her, if I could make sure nothing bad ever happened to her again, that would somehow compensate for depriving her of her mother. But I didn’t take care of her, did I? I just made it worse. So much worse she couldn’t face the future shackled to me. And was prepared to go to any lengths to escape it. You said I didn’t kill her and, technically, I didn’t. But in every other sense I did. I should be grateful, really. It proves there
is
something my conscience can’t bear. I’ve wrestled with it these past few months. I’ve lain awake night after night trying to find some other way out. But there isn’t one. I’m certain I’ll have no peace until I’ve confessed to the crimes I’ve committed. And paid the penalty. It’s as simple as that.”

I couldn’t find any words to express my reaction to what he’d said. Everything I’d assumed—everything I’d deduced—about Louise Paxton’s death had been overturned in a matter of minutes. A man claiming to have killed her was sitting next to me on an isolated hillside as a wet September night closed about us. If I believed him, I should have been afraid for my own safety. And I did believe him. Not because of the note of sincerity in his voice. Rather because of the unmistakable impression of relief conveyed in his manner and bearing. And that’s also why I wasn’t afraid of him. He sat beside me, hunched and defeated, a man whose store of lies and evasions was long since exhausted. All he seemed to want to do now was speak freely about himself. He was no longer a threat to anyone.

“The police won’t believe me at first, of course. They won’t want to. I’ll be an embarrassment to them. But they’ll come round in the end. When I’ve told them the whole story, they’ll realize it’s true. But before I go to them, I’d like you to hear it. All of it. So you can tell Sarah and her father before they read about it in the newspapers or see it on television. I haven’t the courage to face them myself. I thought I might have, but I’ve woken up every morning this week meaning to go to Sarah and then failing to. It can’t go on. That’s why I’ve turned to you. Not quite a friend. Not quite a stranger. Perhaps that makes you the perfect confessor. If you’re willing to listen, that is.” He paused. I saw his head droop in the shadows. Then he pulled himself upright and sighed. “Are you?” he asked huskily.

“Yes,” I replied. “I’ll listen.”

And so, as the rain spat at the windscreen and the dark damp smell of the night crept in around us, Paul Bryant began his story. I listened to him in silence. And long before he’d finished, I realized nothing would ever be the same. Now his confession had been heard.

C  H  A  P  T  E  R
THIRTEEN

M
y parents met in the bank where they both worked. Dull decent ordinary people. Never been abroad. Never committed adultery. Never sworn in public. Never dreamt of being more than they were. My sisters and I were all conceived in the same bed in the same room in the same semi-detached house in Surbiton. Made in our parents’ unaspiring image. So they must have thought, anyway. If they ever did think about such things. And I suppose they were right about my sisters. A few holidays in Majorca and one divorce between them doesn’t change an awful lot, does it?

“I always wanted more, though. More travel. More culture. More company. More variety. And it turned out I had the brains to get what I wanted. Winning a place at Cambridge didn’t just round off a good education and enhance my employment prospects. It got me out of the stifling tedium of my suburban adolescence. Cambridge had more than its fair share of poseurs and idiots, of course. But it gave me something I’d never had before. The conviction that life contained limitless possibilities. The belief not only that I could have whatever I desired if I put my mind to it, but that I deserved to have it. Elitism. Egotism. Supreme self-confidence. They came in the water. And I drank of them deeply.

“Too deeply, I suppose. I mean, it was all a charade. Of course it was. I know that now. A game of froth and gaud in which the key to winning was to take yourself deadly seriously while pretending to treat everything as a joke. I played the game. But I mistook it for the real thing. So the shallowness of the other players baffled and enraged me. They didn’t seem to understand that arguing an academic point and appreciating a fine painting in the Fitzwilliam were the same thing: a celebration of individual superiority. I soon came to believe that I felt more, sensed more, understood more, grasped the essence of being and doing and thinking more, than the whole trivial pack of them put together.

“It started from that. My dissatisfaction with the people I got drunk with or went to bed with. It turned into contempt for their lack of maturity. I longed to escape their puking and prattling. I longed for older wiser friends to debate the virtues and vices of the world with. But they weren’t to be found in Cambridge. I felt like a hungry man offered a shopful of candyfloss. Like a philosopher put to work as a baby-minder.

“Then, during the Lent term of my second year, I met Sarah. We went out a few times. It didn’t come to much. Not even sex. But I happened to be the man she had in tow when she went along to the private view her mother had arranged to launch Oscar Bantock’s exhibition. I nearly didn’t go. She actually had to come and get me when I didn’t show up at her room. Things were cooling off between us pretty rapidly by then. Besides, I hated Expressionism. I also had a fixed mental picture of the artist and his patroness. A raddled old bohemian running to fat and some horse-faced socialite offering cheap wine in exchange for cheap compliments. That’s what I expected. And in Oscar Bantock it’s more or less what I got. But Louise? She was a different story altogether.

“The gallery was a small but exclusive place. Crowded that night, of course. A grinning mob of so-called aesthetes expelling enough hot air to steam up the windows completely. We pushed our way in. Sarah made straight for her mother. To ensure her presence was noted, I suppose. That’s when I first saw Louise. It was like an electric shock. I mean, it was instantaneous. She was so beautiful. She was so . . . mind-blowingly lovely. I just gaped at her. I remember thinking. ‘Why aren’t these people looking at her? Can’t they see? Don’t they realize?’ You met her once yourself, so maybe you understand. She was incredible. She was the woman I’d been longing to meet. And in that instant, before Sarah had even introduced us, I knew I’d have to have her. To possess her, body and soul. It was as simple as that. Over the top, of course. Absurdly unrealistic. Totally mad. But I never questioned the instinct for a moment. It was so strong I felt certain it had to be right.

“I only spoke to her for a few minutes. We didn’t discuss anything profound or meaningful. But that didn’t matter. The tone of her voice. The movement of her hair when she laughed. The haunting coolness in her eyes. It was as if they were branded on me. I’d have done anything for her. Gone anywhere to be with her. I was in her power. Except she didn’t know it. Which left my infatuation to feed on itself. Outright rejection at the start might have nipped it in the bud. But she was too polite—too sensitive—for that. I managed to muscle in on a lunch she had with Sarah the next day. I contrived to be hanging around Sarah’s staircase when Louise called on her to say goodbye the day after. I was the archetypal bad penny. Louise probably thought I was trailing after her daughter. That must be why she suggested I visit them in Sapperton during the Easter vacation. But Sarah was having none of it. After her mother had gone, she made it obvious she didn’t want to see me there.

“I went home at the end of term assuming I’d soon forget about Louise. But the sterility of life in Surbiton only reinforced the yearning to be near her. I knew they had a town house in Holland Park. So I went up there one day and called round. To my surprise, Louise answered the door. She was alone. Sarah was out with friends. Rowena was at school. Sir Keith was at his surgery. I claimed to be in the area by chance. She invited me in. Offered me coffee. Said she didn’t know how long Sarah would be. I said it didn’t matter. And that was true. The longer the better, as far as I was concerned. Just to be with Louise, just to look at her across the room and listen to her speaking, just to feel her attention resting on me when I was speaking . . . It seemed like a glimpse of paradise. And having her to myself, however briefly, seemed like an opportunity I couldn’t afford to let slip. When she went into the kitchen to fix me another coffee, I followed her. And that’s where I told her. In the time it took the kettle to boil.

“I’d already imagined how she was going to react to my declaration of undying love. A hesitant admission that she felt the same way. Then a passionate surrender. She’d let me kiss her. Maybe even let me take her upstairs and make love to her. Or arrange to meet me next day at some classy hotel, where we’d spend the whole of the afternoon and evening in bed. Later, we’d start planning our future together. Discuss where we were going to run away to. All self-deluding nonsense, of course. All so much folly and arrogance. But I was so taken in by the fantasy I’d created that it’s actually what I expected to happen.

“Needless to say, it didn’t. The first thing she said when I’d finished was, ‘Oh dear.’ She seemed more embarrassed than angry. Almost sorry for me. She tried to let me down lightly. She took me back into the lounge and gently explained the impossibility of what I’d suggested. She was a happily married middle-aged woman with a daughter my own age. There could be no question of her betraying her husband. With me or anyone else. Strangely enough, she didn’t seem particularly shocked. Perhaps other men had poured out their hearts to her in similar circumstances. Perhaps she was used to being the object of hopeless adoration. ‘This is just a phase you’re going through,’ she said. ‘A phase you’ll soon grow out of.’ She spoke of it so lightly, so dismissively. As if I was some silly little boy with a crush on her. I could have hated her if I hadn’t loved her. And in a sense I suppose that’s when I started to. Hate as well as love, I mean.

“But love’s the wrong word anyway, isn’t it? It was an obsession amounting to mania. I loaded everything of meaning and significance in my life onto her. I made winning her a test of the very purpose of my existence. A test I was bound to fail. Because she wasn’t interested. Not a bit. She wasn’t even worried by me. Not then, anyway, though later . . . She didn’t take me seriously, you see. That was the worst of it. I could have her pity. Even her scorn, if I persisted. But never what I wanted. Never, come to that, her respect, now I’d shown my hand.

“She very politely threw me out. Reckoned it would be best if I didn’t wait for Sarah. But she promised not to tell her anything. ‘Let’s forget this ever happened,’ she said. ‘Let’s write it off as an unfortunate misunderstanding.’ I suppose that’s what it was in a way. A misunderstanding. She just didn’t understand that I really meant it. And I didn’t understand how preposterous what I meant really was.

“But as for writing it off, that didn’t seem possible. I called her several times over the next few days. Put the phone down if somebody else answered. Spoke if it was her. I begged her to reconsider. Pleaded with her to give me a chance. Just one meeting. Just a few minutes of her time. Eventually, she agreed. We met in a café in Covent Garden. Her mood had changed by then. If I persisted, she said, she’d inform the college authorities. So far, nobody else knew. But if I didn’t stop now, everybody would know. Sarah. My parents. My fellow students. My director of studies. My tutor. In my own interest, I had to give up. Immediately. As she very much hoped I would.

“I hadn’t promised anything when she left. But I did try. The disgrace and the mockery a formal complaint by her could bring down on me was a sobering thought. It made me see reason. For a while, anyway. I wrote her an apologetic letter, saying she wouldn’t hear from me again. And I meant it. I really did. I went back to Cambridge after Easter determined to knuckle down to my studies and forget this ludicrous pursuit of an older woman.

“For a while, I almost thought it would work. But once my exams were over, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands. A bloke I shared a landing with, Peter Rossington, said he was looking for a partner for an inter-rail trip round Europe that summer. You know, the cheap rail pass tour most students do at least once. Well, it was either that or Surbiton. Not much of a contest. I said I’d go with him and we agreed to set off early in July. Until then, I had nothing to do but laze around Cambridge and think. About Louise. About how I might still make her change her mind. About how I might yet persuade her to give herself to me, even against her better judgement. I stayed on till the bitter end of full term and was still there when the third year students came back to graduate. Including Sarah. Which meant Louise was bound to come to Cambridge as well. I wheedled out of Sarah which hotel her parents would be staying in. The Garden House. A big modern place on the Cam, behind Peterhouse. The graduation ceremony was on the last Friday in June. They were to arrive on the Thursday and leave with Sarah on the Saturday.

“I should have left on the Wednesday, of course. Or sooner. But I didn’t. I hung around, hoping for a glimpse of her. Maybe even the chance of a talk with her. Early on Friday morning, I started walking along the riverside path on the opposite side from the Garden House. Down past the hotel and back. Again and again. Hoping she might see me from her room, even though I didn’t know if they had one facing the river. Well, she must have noticed me and walked round from the hotel to confront me, because suddenly she appeared on the path ahead, approaching from the Mill Lane end. And she was angry. ‘Are you mad?’ she demanded. ‘You agreed to leave me alone. What do you mean by patrolling up and down like this?’ I pretended it was all a big mistake. I just happened to be taking a stroll there, with no idea she was staying at the hotel. It was obvious she didn’t believe me, but she couldn’t prove me a liar either. In the end, she just walked away. I ran after her, begging her to stop and talk. But she wouldn’t. I followed her all the way down Granta Place towards the hotel. Eventually, just inside the entrance, she stopped and rounded on me. ‘My husband’s waiting to have breakfast with me in the restaurant,’ she said. ‘Do you want to join us, Paul? Do you want me to tell him what’s going on? There’ll be no going back if I do.’ Well, I wasn’t ready to confront Sir Keith. Not then. Not just like that. Her bluntness shocked me. I mumbled some kind of apology and beat a retreat.

“But it could never be a permanent retreat. I hung about the streets, watching the procession to the Senate House. Then I slunk round to the Backs and spied on the lunch party at King’s for graduates and parents. I caught a glimpse of Louise, looking radiantly lovely. Sir Keith was with her, of course. It was the first time I’d seen him. Naturally, he looked completely unworthy of her to me. I crept away and left them to it. I was utterly miserable by then. Depressed and disgusted with myself. Yet I was still so much in love with her I simply couldn’t put her out of my mind.

“They left next morning. I spent the weekend drinking. And formulating a plan. I was due to meet Peter in London on Wednesday. That gave me two days when I might be able to get Louise on her own. I didn’t know whether she’d be in Sapperton or London, so I decided to hedge my bets by going to Sapperton first, on Monday. I drove over there that morning. Arrived about eleven o’clock. Parked near the church. Spied out the land. Tried to think exactly how to approach her.

“I was sitting in my car at the end of the lane leading to The Old Parsonage when Sarah came past, returning from a stroll, I suppose. I didn’t see her coming and she spotted me straightaway. I trotted out some story about visiting an aunt in Cirencester and diverting to Sapperton to see if Sarah was free for lunch. Well, she seemed to be taken in by it. Nobody else was at home, apparently. She suggested we drive to a nearby pub. And I had to go along with it now I’d started, so off we went. To the Daneway Inn, down in the valley below Sapperton. It wasn’t exactly a relaxing occasion. I think Sarah was puzzled. Worried, perhaps, that I might want to start things up again between us. Maybe that made her nervous. And talkative as a result. Whatever the reason, she told me more about her family than she probably realized.

“Sir Keith was in London. But Louise had gone over to Kington to visit Oscar Bantock. ‘She sees quite a lot of him,’ Sarah said. ‘I suppose there’s nobody else she can discuss Expressionism with.’ I didn’t make anything of it at first. Sarah was going to Scotland at the end of the week for a holiday with some other lawyers from King’s. Her parents were off to their villa in Biarritz at the same time. Rowena would join them there when her school broke up for the summer. All very cosy and convenient.