Borrowed Time

by Robert Goddard

  I listened distractedly to his autobiographical insights into the character of Oscar Bantock, which grew less and less complimentary as the shandy flowed. “He might have looked like a cross between Santa Claus and Captain Bird’s Eye but there was a streak of cruelty in him. Call it an artistic temperament if you like, but I saw it differently. He lived with us most of the time I was growing up and coping with him as well as a sick husband was what took my mother to an early grave in my opinion.” While he waxed resentful, my eyes drifted north to the hills I’d crossed ten days before on the path from Knighton. If I’d accepted Louise Paxton’s offer of a lift that evening, we might have stopped here for a drink. Then, at the very least, she might have arrived at Whistler’s Cot a crucial hour later. Life, in Henley Bantock’s self-pitying account, wasn’t fair. But death, it seemed, had an artistic temperament.

  “What little he made from painting he spent twice over. Not on us, of course. Not even on anything as useful as brushes and canvases. Most of it went on whisky. Only the finest malts would do for Uncle Oscar. And then there were his women. He had a better eye for the ladies than for art, I can’t deny. You’d certainly not have left Whistler’s Cot in his day without a pinched bottom to remember him by at the very least, Miss Timariot, believe you me. But then, as I say, he did have good taste in that regard if in no other.”

  This contrived compliment, risqué as Henley no doubt thought it, was followed by an outburst of chortling and the appearance in Bella’s eyes of the steely boredom I’d often seen before. It seemed like the cue I’d been waiting for. “You don’t make your uncle sound like a natural candidate for burglary, Mr. Bantock.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He was probably splashing money around in some pub. Spending the price agreed for Black Widow before he’d actually been paid it. That would be his style. Some ne’er-do-well from London on a housebreaking tour of the provinces takes note and follows him home. Then things turn nasty. Uncle Oscar wouldn’t have backed down from a fight, especially not with drink on board.”

  “That’s how you see it, is it?”

  “That’s how the police see it. So I understand, anyway. He must have been out when Lady Paxton first called. Probably forgot the time they’d fixed to meet. It would have been unlike him not to. That would explain why she left home at lunchtime. Set on buying the picture, she went back later, I suppose. And walked straight into . . . well, something quite frightful.”

  “You think it’s open and shut?”

  “Presumably. The police must have had good reason to arrest this man Naylor. They seem certain he did it. I assume there’s clinching forensic evidence. What more is there to say? Apart from the acute distress Lady Paxton’s family must have suffered, of course. Identifying my uncle’s body was upsetting enough for me. What it can have been like for Lady Paxton’s daughter—a girl not yet out of her teens, I believe—to see her mother, well, in the state she must have been in, in a mortuary, in the middle of the night . . .” He shook his head, briefly sobered by the contemplation of such an experience.

  “Is she the daughter you’re seeing this afternoon?”

  “No, no. The elder daughter’s coming. Sarah, I think she said her name was. I’m not quite sure what she hopes to accomplish, but . . .” A point suddenly occurred to him. His nose quivered as it registered. “Are you acquainted with the girls, Mr. Timariot?”

  “No. I only ever met their mother.”

  “You knew her well?”

  I could sense Bella watching me as I replied. “I felt I did, yes. We . . . understood each other. So I thought.”

  “You shared her interest in Expressionism?”

  “We never discussed it.”

  “Never?”

  “We only met once, you see. Just once. Before the end.”

  “But . . . I thought you said . . .” He frowned at me, his mouth forming a suspicious pout. “When exactly did you meet her, Mr. Timariot?”

  “The early evening of July seventeenth.”

  “When?”

  “The day she died. Just a few hours before, as a matter of fact.”

  “But . . . I understood you to say . . . you were a friend of hers.”

  “No. I didn’t say that. You assumed it.”

  “You’re splitting hairs. You let me think . . .” He glared round at Bella. “You both let me think . . .”

  Bella glanced irritably at me, then laid a calming hand on Henley’s elbow and smiled sweetly at him. “When’s your appointment with Miss Paxton, Mr. Bantock?”

  “What? Oh, three o’clock. But—”

  “We’d better get you back, then, hadn’t we? We wouldn’t want her to be stood up.”

  It was half past two when we drove away from Whistler’s Cot. I’d assured Henley that the police knew all about my meeting with Louise Paxton, but I still reckoned he’d be on the phone to them before we reached the bottom of the lane. His wasn’t a trusting nature. Nor a grieving one, for that matter.

  It would be different for the Paxton family, of course. Louise had left a husband and two daughters, rather than one ingrate nephew. They’d be mourning her now, in full and genuine measure. And one of those mourning her—Sarah Paxton—would be there, on the doorstep, within half an hour of our departure. I could easily have waited for her. Henley couldn’t have prevented me, even if he’d wanted to. But I didn’t. When it came to it, I was impatient to be gone, eager to avoid the encounter.

  What it amounted to, I suppose, was fear. The fear that Sarah Paxton might resemble her mother too closely for me to fob her off with the account I’d given the police. But she wouldn’t necessarily welcome the truth. Nor would anyone else who’d loved Louise Paxton. Because the truth made what had happened to her seem just a little too complicated for comfort. To enlighten might also be to antagonize. So I preferred to do neither.

  There was another fear as well, running even deeper. The fear of what I might learn in the process. Who was Louise Paxton? What sort of woman was she? What sort of mother? What sort of wife? And what had she been trying to change, that evening on Hergest Ridge? I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answers. We’d met and parted as total strangers to each other. Perhaps that’s what we ought to remain. If we could.

  I flew back to Brussels on Sunday as planned. The following morning, I returned to my office at the Berlaymont and informed my head of unit that he would soon be losing my services. Around the same time, I read later, at a village churchyard in Gloucestershire, Louise Paxton was buried.

  C H A P T E R

  FOUR

  Resignation isn’t easy if you’re a fonctionnaire titulaire de la Commission Européenne. In fact, it’s next to impossible, because any attempt to resign is officially interpreted as a request for long-term leave of absence. When I handed in my notice to my gratifyingly dismayed head of unit that morning in July 1990, he treated it as an application for what we Eurocrats called a congé de convenance personelle. Unpaid leave, to put it less grandly. A sabbatical, if you like. A career on ice. For a year in the first instance, but automatically renewable for a second year and a third after that; conceivably, even longer. Opinion was divided over whether, theoretically, it could ever come to a conclusive end short of retirement.

  But technicalities didn’t interest me. I was leaving with no intention of coming back. My colleagues might be saying au revoir, but I’d be bidding them adieu. That evening, I took a few of them to Kitty O’Shea’s, an Irish bar-cum-English pub near the Berlaymont that supplied an escapist haven for displaced Celts and Anglo-Saxons, to toast my departure. Taken aback by my generosity, they were clearly reluctant to say what they really thought. Poor old Timariot. Giving up an A6 post in the Directorate-General of Economic and Financial Affairs for—what was it?—cricket bats. Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear.

  “Are you sure this is a good idea, Robin?” asked Ronnie Linklater in a soulful moment brought on by a third scotch and soda. “I mean, absolutely sure?” I told him I was. But he obviously didn’t
believe me. It was true, though. I was certain I was doing the right thing.

  My only frustration was that I couldn’t do it immediately. Three months’ notice loomed oppressively ahead. I tried persuading my head of unit that Timariot & Small were in extremis without me and he agreed to recommend an early release. But those whose approval was needed were away for the rest of the summer in their Tuscan villas and Provençal retreats. I would simply have to wait.

  I was still waiting two weeks later when I returned to my flat in the rue Pascale one evening to find a letter waiting for me forwarded by my mother from Steep. It had originally been posted in Worcester, with my name and Petersfield address written in two different hands. I recognized neither. But one of them, it transpired, belonged to Sarah Paxton.

  The Old Parsonage,

  Sapperton,

  Gloucestershire

  5th August 1990

  Dear Mr. Timariot,

  I have hesitated a long time before writing this. I learned of your existence from Henley Bantock. He did not know your address and the police, though very kind, said they could not release such information. But they did offer to forward this letter to you.

  If it reaches you, I do hope you will agree to meet me. It is more important to me than I can properly explain to learn as much as possible of my mother’s state of mind during the last day of her life. My sister saw her that afternoon, but I had not seen her in over a week. I am having particular difficulty coming to terms with that fact. I am not sure why.

  Something about not saying goodbye, I suppose. But you did say goodbye to her, in a sense. It really would help to talk to you about how she seemed and what she said. Could we meet, do you think? It need not be for long. And I will happily travel to wherever causes you least inconvenience.

  If you are willing to meet, please ring me on Cirencester 855785, or write, if you prefer. Either way, I would be very glad to hear from you.

  Yours sincerely,

  Sarah Paxton.

  The appeal was simple and direct. I could try to help her cope with her mother’s death. Or I could ignore the request. She didn’t know where I was. She had no way of tracing me if I didn’t want to be found. I was safely out of reach. All I had to do was pretend I hadn’t received the letter. Screw it up and throw it away. Burn it. Forget it. She’d cope without me. There was nothing we had to say to each other. That’s what I kept telling myself, anyway. Until I picked up the telephone and dialled her number.

  To my surprise, she insisted on coming to Brussels. I suggested she wait until my next visit to England. But, even if I’d been able to say when that would be, I doubt she’d have thought it soon enough. There was an urgency—a hint of desperation—in her voice that made me regret contacting her almost as soon as I’d done so. And there was a resemblance to her mother’s voice that worried me even more. It wouldn’t have taken much to imagine I was actually talking to Louise Paxton. As a result, in the days that passed between our conversation and her arrival in Brussels, I could only picture her in my mind’s eye as a younger version of her mother: an idealized re-creation of a dead woman.

  That, I suppose, is what I set out apprehensively expecting to meet the following Friday night. She’d come for the weekend and was staying at the Hilton on boulevard Waterloo. We’d arranged to meet in the foyer at six o’clock. This turned out to be a bad choice. The place was filled with clacking quartets of jewel-draped women. I cast around amongst them, looking for one young face in the middle-aged crowd, still subconsciously expecting to recognize her. But there was nobody there who even remotely looked the part.

  I was on the point of giving up and seeking help from the concièrge when somebody said from close behind me: “Robin Timariot?” I knew at once who it must be.

  Sarah Paxton had her mother’s slightness of build and much else about her that was immediately reminiscent of the woman I’d met on Hergest Ridge. Yet the differences seemed to amount to more than the similarities. Her hair was darker and cut much shorter. Her eyes too were darker, their gaze less open. She was clearly young—twenty-one or twenty-two I’d have guessed—but the freshness of youth was overlaid by something else. A hardness not of feature but of mind. An earnestness amounting almost to a warning. She wore little make-up and no jewellery bar a silver locket on a chain around her neck. Her dress was simple and practical: a plain blouse, loose calf-length skirt, flat-soled shoes; and unpretentious satchel-style handbag. She had enough of her mother’s looks and bearing to turn heads if she wanted to. But her expression implied a wish to do no such thing. It could have been the visible effect of bereavement, of course, but somehow it seemed too entrenched—too permanent—for that. Her smile had a stiffness about it, her handshake a coolness, that mere shyness couldn’t explain. Suspicion. Yes, that was it. A barely veiled scepticism about the world and the people she met in it. Me included.

  “Shall we . . . er . . . find somewhere else?” I asked, gesturing around at the tableloads of Chanel and Silk Cut. “There’s a . . . bar I know nearby. It’ll be quieter there.”

  She agreed and we made for the exit. It was a sultry evening, sunlight lancing between the tower blocks to turn the traffic fumes into golden clouds. I felt tongue-tied and uncertain. Already, the meeting had enough signs of travesty about it to depress me. I was unable to find anything to say. And Sarah seemed disinclined to help me out.

  Mercifully, the walk to the Copenhagen Tavern was a short one. The place wasn’t too busy and the waitresses were as welcoming as ever. They knew me from many solitary evenings spent in its restful corners. But there was nothing restful about my latest visit.

  Sarah ordered coffee and mineral water. I asked for my favourite beer, forgetting it was served in a novelty glass shaped like the bottom half of a kangaroo. I could see Sarah’s gaze lingering incredulously on it as the beer was poured and considered making some sort of joke out of it. Then I reconsidered. Humour—even introductory small talk—seemed impossible. We were there to discuss one thing and one thing only. Its shadow stretched between us, drying my throat as I drank, threading doubt between my carefully laid plans. What was I to say?

  “I . . . I’m sorry,” I ventured. “I should have spared you the trouble of tracking me down. I should have written to you. To offer my condolences.”

  “There was no reason for you to do that.” Her tone implied the idea might almost have been presumptuous. “It’s not as if you knew Mummy, is it? Or any of us.”

  “No, but . . . the condolences would have been genuine, strangers or not. What happened was . . . awful. You have my sincere sympathy.”

  “Thank you.” She looked away. “It was. Like you say. Awful. The worst it could be, I suppose. What every mother’s afraid might happen to her daughter. It’s not supposed to be the other way round, is it?” Tears had been shed over such thoughts, I sensed. Many of them. And now there were none left. “I can’t stop wondering. Nor can my sister. We don’t talk about it, but . . . what it must have been like weevils into your mind. You can’t dislodge it. It just stays there, waiting for you to wake up or stop concentrating on something else. The wondering.” She shook her head. “It’s always there.”

  “At least they’ve got the man who did it.”

  “Oh yes. They’ve got him. And there’s no real room for doubt. Not these days. I’ve become quite an expert on DNA analysis in recent weeks. I’ve read everything there is on the subject. As if my knowing all about it will somehow help. Silly, don’t you think?”

  “No. I don’t.”

  Her eyes moved slowly to meet mine. “Tell me about . . . that evening on Hergest Ridge. I went up there. Same time. Same weather. I imagined her being there. I almost . . .” She sipped some coffee. “Please tell me.”

  So I did. I gave her the anodyne version of events I’d treated the police to, supplemented for her benefit with some remarks on how pleasant, how charming, her mother had been. She’d been beautiful too. But I didn’t mention that. It smacked too much of the physic
al reality of what had happened to her. To describe the sunlight falling on her hair, the warm breeze moving the shadows of its strands across her face, the gleam of something forbidden but imminent in her eyes, would have led inexorably on. To the bedroom at Whistler’s Cot. Sarah had been there and seen the broken mirror. She’d stared at its reflection of the room and imagined the writhing wrenching choking end. Just as I had. But we couldn’t speak of it. Neither of us dared.

  “She seemed happy?”

  “Very.”

  “Contented?”

  “Yes.”

  “At ease with herself?”

  “That too.”

  “Not . . . worried about anything?”

  “No. But it was only a fleeting encounter. A few words. No more. I didn’t think it was important . . . at the time.”

  “Of course not.”

  “I wish there was more I could tell you. More I could say. But there were no presentiments, Sarah. Nothing to show her—or me—what was about to happen. We met. And we parted. As strangers. I didn’t even know her name. But for the photograph in the paper . . .”

  “You’d never have known.”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  “And now you know so much about her. Where she lived. Who she was married to. The sort of art she collected. The make of car she drove. Even her date of birth.” Her tone had become suddenly bitter, almost sarcastic. But at whose expense I couldn’t tell. “And one thing none of the papers has revealed. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, was she, Robin? Don’t pretend you didn’t notice. Men do, don’t they? They notice that sort of thing.”

  I shrugged. “All right. She wasn’t. I didn’t think anything of it.”

  “You’re the only one, then. The police didn’t know what to make of it. But it certainly worried them. Not at first. At first, they thought he’d taken it. Because it was gold, I suppose. But then Rowena mentioned Mummy didn’t have it on when she got home that morning. She’d lost it, apparently, the day before. On the beach. In Biarritz. We have a villa there. Mummy and Daddy spend . . .” Her face fell. “They used to spend a lot of time there. Daddy’s father bought it just after the war. My grandmother was French, you see. They retired there. Daddy thought he and Mummy would do the same one day.”