Borrowed Time Read online

  Upstairs, in one of the two bedrooms, Allen found the second victim: a middle-aged woman, naked, face-down on a bed and strangled in identical fashion to Bantock. Subsequent examination showed she’d been sexually assaulted. This was Louise Paxton. And the time of her death was later put at between nine and ten o’clock the previous night, no more than two hours, in other words, after our meeting on Hergest Ridge.

  A full-scale murder inquiry now swung into operation under Detective Chief Superintendent Walter Gough of West Mercia C.I.D. Whistler’s Cot was sealed off. Scene-of-crime officers set to work combing the house and garden for evidence. A Home Office pathologist, Dr. Brian Robinson of Birmingham University, arrived by helicopter to inspect the bodies. The other residents of Butterbur Lane were questioned. A press conference was fixed for the afternoon. And frantic efforts to contact friends or relatives of the dead woman commenced.

  The contents of a handbag in the house and computer records of the registration of the white Mercedes suggested she was Louise Jane Paxton of Holland Park, London. But her next of kin proved elusive and it was Friday morning before she was named in the press. It transpired that her husband, Sir Keith Paxton, was abroad and, of their two children, one, Sarah, was on a touring holiday in Scotland, while the other, Rowena, was at the family’s country residence in Gloucestershire. Rowena had identified her mother’s body on Wednesday night, but problems in contacting Sir Keith and the other daughter delayed an announcement.

  Louise Paxton’s identification heightened media interest in the case, elevating it to the front page. Sir Keith was a consultant gynaecologist who’d officiated in his time at several royal births, been given a knighthood as his reward and now dispensed advice to the infertile rich from brass-plaqued premises in Harley Street. It was explained on his behalf that his wife was a connoisseuse of Expressionist art. She owned several Bantock originals, had been trying to persuade Bantock to sell her another and had travelled to Kington on July 17 in response to a message from the artist indicating he was now prepared to accept her offer for the ominously named work Black Widow. There’d been hurtful gossip in Kington since the murders based on the time of death and Bantock’s goatish reputation, but the police were as anxious as the Paxton family to quash it. There was a margin of error in Dr. Robinson’s estimate of the time of death, they pointed out. The pathologist also thought Bantock could have died up to an hour before Lady Paxton. Chief Superintendent Gough’s theory was that she’d called at the house for the reason supplied by her husband, had surprised Bantock’s killer, been forced by him to strip, then been raped and eventually strangled. The circumstances were horrific enough, even to a seasoned officer such as himself, without adding malicious tittle-tattle to the family’s burden of grief.

  Quite so. But I’d seen her ringless finger. I’d heard the tone of her voice. Whatever she’d been thinking about on Hergest Ridge, it wasn’t the purchase of an oil painting. Not that her motives were relevant, of course. Only the motives of her killer mattered now.

  And the police seemed at a loss. There were no signs of forcible entry at the house. But Jones—and several neighbours—confirmed that Bantock often left doors unlocked and windows open when he went out. And more than one of those neighbours thought they’d heard his Triumph driving down the lane in the early afternoon of July 17, then back up the lane some time between seven and eight o’clock that evening. He could easily have come upon an opportunist burglar and been strangled for his pains. Only for Lady Paxton to arrive before the murderer could beat a retreat. The timing—as I knew better than most—certainly made sense.

  But something else didn’t. What burglar turned so easily to rape and murder? Why not just leg it across the fields when he heard Bantock’s car? And had he actually stolen anything? The police seemed coy on the point, suggesting that, since Bantock lived alone and in some disorder, it was hard to tell. They admitted, however, that Lady Paxton’s credit cards and cheque book had been found in her handbag, along with more than a hundred pounds in cash. It seemed a strange oversight for a burglar.

  Then there was the question of how he’d arrived and left. On foot, presumably, since nobody had heard a car leaving at the appropriate time. The police reckoned a car in such a narrow lane would have been too risky anyway. What they didn’t rule out was that he’d driven up to spy out the land earlier in the day; perhaps spotted Whistler’s Cot as a soft touch then. Several residents of Butterbur Lane mentioned strange cars coming and going, but they were different colours and makes at different times. Besides, dog-walkers and the like heading for the common always did come and go. Such sightings meant nothing.

  And nothing was what the police seemed to have to go on. Until the bald announcement of an arrest in London. Till then, they’d been saying the culprit was probably local. Well, perhaps he’d fled to London after the event. Perhaps his flight was what aroused suspicion. There was no way for me to know.

  But, arrest or no arrest, I couldn’t ignore their appeals for information. They’d been trying to trace the last movements of the deceased with remarkably little success. Somebody thought they’d seen Bantock in Ludlow, twenty miles north-east of Kington, at about four o’clock on the afternoon of July 17. Somebody else thought he’d staged a reckless piece of overtaking on the Hereford to Abergavenny road, twenty miles south of Kington, around the same time. They might both be wrong, but they couldn’t both be right. As for Lady Paxton, she’d had lunch with her daughter Rowena at their Cotswold home and set off for Kington at about three o’clock that afternoon. She’d declared her intention of taking Black Widow, if she bought it, to show off to an old schoolfriend in Shropshire who shared her taste. In that event, she wasn’t to be expected back until sometime the next day. The daughter had assumed that’s exactly what she’d done.

  So, from at least mid-afternoon onwards, both the deceased had vanished from sight. At least as far as the police were concerned. But I knew better. I knew precisely where one of them had been within two hours of their estimated time of death. As that fact emerged more and more clearly, so what I knew became not just important but disturbing. At first, I felt excited, intoxicated by the uniqueness of the information I possessed. Then it began to worry me. Would I be believed? Would I, perish the thought, be suspected? Somewhere, at the back of my mind, dwelt an old adage that the last person known to have seen a murder victim alive is the first person the police suspect of being the murderer. Then I dismissed the idea as paranoid nonsense. They already had their murderer. And I had an alibi. The landlord of the Royal Oak, Gladestry, wouldn’t have forgotten me. Would he? Well, he might be vague enough about my time of arrival to be inconclusive, it was true. And for all I knew the man they’d arrested in London might by now have been eliminated from their inquiries. But, then again, there’d be fingerprints, wouldn’t there? More than fingerprints if rape was involved. DNA analysis of sperm and blood meant they couldn’t really get the wrong man these days. Could they?

  I walked out into the garden and gazed up at the thickly wooded hills above Greenhayes, sun and shadow revealing the switchback succession of crest and combe beneath the trees, the bone of white chalk beneath the flesh of green leaves. I remembered Hergest Ridge and the world spread out in golden promise at our feet. Two strangers. One fleeting moment. It didn’t mean anything. They had their man. Why confuse the issue? Why involve myself? Because there was nobody else, of course. Nobody else who knew where she’d been and what she’d said that evening.

  Ah yes. What she’d said. Was I really going to reveal that? Every word? Every hint of a double meaning? Was I going to break her confidence? She’d trusted me as a stranger. Perhaps that’s what I ought to remain. No, no. That was special pleading. That was the false logic part of me wanted to cling to. The other part dwelt on the horror of her death. Stripped. Raped. Strangled. What, as a matter of simple fact, could actually be worse? I shook my head, sickened by my inability—my unwillingness—to imagine. And sickened also by a memory. A single
recollected pang of lust. Mine. With her as its object. It wasn’t to be compared with what he had done to her. Of course it wasn’t. But it was how it began. For him as well as me. A long way, a world, apart. Yes. But linked, like two distant dots on a graph. Connected, however faintly, by some tiny strand of sympathy.

  I walked slowly back into the house and looked down at the pile of newspapers spread out on the kitchen table. The television was on in the sitting-room, the signature tune of an Australian soap fading vapidly away. My mother would be wondering what I was up to. And her curiosity, once aroused, was indefatigable. Only a vigorous display of normality was likely to hold it at bay. So, summoning a grin, I went in to join her.

  “Where have you been, Robin?” she asked, glaring round at Brillo’s warning yelp.

  “Sorry. I was . . .” A phrase came unbidden to my mind. “Lost in thought.”

  “Didn’t you do all the thinking you needed to on your walk? I was hoping you’d have made up your mind by now.”

  “Don’t worry. I have.”

  “So you will be joining the company?”

  “The company?” My frown must have puzzled her. For the moment, Timariot & Small, with or without me, seemed too trivial a subject to discuss. “Well . . .” I hesitated, struggling to remember just what I had decided. “Yes.”

  “Oh, how wonderful.” She jumped up and kissed me. “Your father would have been so pleased.”

  “Would he?”

  “I must phone Larry. He’ll be delighted.” She bustled out into the hall, leaving me staring vacantly into space. By rights, I should be the one using the telephone. But to call the police, not Uncle Larry. I smiled ruefully. It would be quicker to drive to the police station in Petersfield than wait for my mother to come off the line. Still, at least she’d given me—

  The newsreader’s voice cut across my thoughts. “West Mercia police have now charged the man they’ve been holding since yesterday with the murders of Louise Paxton and Oscar Bantock at Kington in Herefordshire last week. Shaun Andrew Naylor, a twenty-eight-year-old electrician from Bermondsey, south London, has also been charged with the rape of Lady Paxton. He will appear before Worcester magistrates tomorrow morning. Here’s our Midlands crime correspondent, David Murray.”

  And there was David Murray, a sloppily dressed figure in front of Worcester police station, mouthing the customary platitudes at the fag end of what looked to have been a bad day. I hardly heard what he said. A name, an age, an occupation and an approximate address. That was all we were getting. And all we would get, until the trial. Unless we were looking for an excuse, of course. Like I was. They’d charged him. With rape as well as murder. They must have all the evidence they wanted. They didn’t need my obscure little piece of the jigsaw. I’d just be wasting their time by telling them. Wouldn’t I?

  It seemed sensible, in the end, to sleep on the problem. Easier, anyway, than explaining it to my mother. But sleep wouldn’t play along. My first idle day after six on the hoof left me alert and thoughtful long past midnight. I lay in my bed, listening to the owl-hoots and fox-barks that drifted in through the window, to the muffled fluttering of bats and the distant scurrying of other things I couldn’t name.

  Eventually, I realized there was only one thing for it. It was a solution that neatly spared me a cross-examination by my mother, while just as neatly salving my conscience. Getting out of bed as quietly as I could, I tiptoed down to the hall, carried the telephone into the sitting-room, closed the door over the trailing lead and dialled the number given in the paper for West Mercia C.I.D.’s incident room. But the only answer was a recorded message, to which I responded with one of my own.

  “My name is Robin Timariot. I’ve just returned home after walking Offa’s Dyke and only now heard about the Kington killings. I believe I may have met Lady Paxton near Kington during the early evening of July seventeenth. If I can be of any assistance, please ring me on Petersfield 733984.”

  I put the telephone down with a sensation of relief. The ball was in their court now. Perhaps they wouldn’t call back. Perhaps they wouldn’t even listen to the message. Then I’d be able to say I’d done my duty. If they chose to neglect theirs, I wouldn’t be to blame. So I told myself, anyway, as I crept back up to bed.

  Uncle Larry’s reaction to my decision to accept the post of works director of Timariot & Small was to call an informal board meeting the following morning. Only executive directors were invited, which eliminated Bella as well as my mother. Having inherited Hugh’s 20 per cent shareholding, Bella was potentially a power in the land, but so far she’d shown no sign of wishing to exert any influence. She’d given my appointment the sort of disdainful blessing those more credulous than me took for the numbed consent of a grieving widow. But I knew there was a hint of scorn behind the veil.

  The meeting was fixed for eleven o’clock. Determined to start as I meant to go on, I was at the factory by nine thirty, ingratiating myself with the clerks and secretaries. Then I toured the workshops with Reg Chignell, sniffing the glue-flavoured air, shaking hands with the bat makers, listening to their words of cautious welcome. Ethel Langton, who’d been binding bat handles since Grace was a lad, reminded me of some scrapes I’d got into as a student labourer. And Barry Noakes, the misanthropic storekeeper, explained why the cricket bat industry was bound to go down the drain before he reached retirement. I tried to take it all in good part and found it surprisingly easy to do so. After twelve years at the so-called centre of Europe, I was eager to immerse myself in a world where people, profits and products had some obvious and tangible connection. Peripheral or not, Timariot & Small was suddenly where I wanted to be. I’d often talked at dinner parties in Brussels when the nostalgia flowed with the wine of how I missed the culture, language and countryside of my homeland. It was a simple and obvious sentiment, shared by many in the expatriate community. But, standing in the yard between the ramshackle sheds and patched-up Nissen huts that comprised my new and far from gleaming empire, I realized what I’d really missed all along. Just a place to belong. And this, for better or worse, was it.

  The office block was a modern featureless structure of brick and glass. But the boardroom, thanks to subdued lighting, wood-panelled walls, gilt-framed photographs of the staff at twenty-year intervals and a presiding portrait of Joseph Timariot in mutton-chop whiskers and top hat, preserved a soothing air of tradition.

  I arrived there a few minutes late, having been detained in the sanding shed by one of Dick Turner’s rambling monologues. Uncle Larry was already in the chairman’s place. He’d agreed to stay on until I—or whoever they’d have chosen if I’d turned the job down—was in post. Catching his keen-eyed glance and dimpled grin, I wished for a moment that he could remain as chairman. He was getting a little shaky, it was true, but there are many things worse than decrepitude. His mind was still razor-sharp. And, with him in the chair, we might at least have pretended to be loyal siblings.

  My brother Adrian, managing director and chairman elect, sat at Uncle Larry’s right hand. He seemed to look sleeker and slimmer every time I saw him, a smooth-talking tribute to the merits of fatherhood, fitness and low-alcohol lager. He’d turned himself, from unpromising beginnings, into a perfect simulacrum of the snappily dressed businessman. I couldn’t help admiring his transformation from the sullen child I’d grown up with. In the process, he’d become just what he wanted to be. Head of the family business. And, by this latest manoeuvre, my boss. Which, if I cared to dwell on it, cast a disturbing light on his eagerness to recruit me.

  Jennifer, who sat opposite him, seemed by contrast less and less ambitious as the years passed. With Hugh gone, she was, at forty-five, the oldest of us. She didn’t look it, thanks to a stylish dress sense and a boyish haircut, but her impish humour was less in evidence than it used to be. An earnestness—a conservatism that would once have horrified her—was extending its stealthy grip. I hadn’t forgotten her colourful youth. Her exotic taste in clothes and boyfriends, glamorized
by never specified dabblings in the drugs scene, was a source of wonderment to me in my early teens. But if I’d mentioned any of that to her now, she’d probably have accused me of making it all up. And looking at the cautious smile playing across her face, I might even have believed I had.

  Simon, however, who was sitting next to her, had remained loyal to his own reputation if to nothing else. He was in the lower sixth at Churcher’s, the local grammar school, when I arrived as a callow first-former. During the next two years, he got himself expelled, reinstated and expelled again while proving he was the hell-raiser everybody thought, before earning short-lived celebrity in October 1967 as the first driver in Hampshire to be breathalysed. All this rebellious irresponsibility was supposed to have been laid to rest by marriage to the redoubtable Joan Henderson, but it didn’t stay dormant for long and divorce soon followed, though not before the birth of a daughter, Laura. She was destined for an expensive upbringing and Joan dedicated many of her waking hours to ensuring Simon made a fair contribution to the cost. Unfair, to listen to him, of course. And certainly a drain on his natural ebullience these past seventeen years. The drink had also begun to catch up with him lately, his once handsome features acquiring a tell-tale flush. But he was, for all that, the first to shake my hand.

  “Welcome back to the asylum, Rob,” he said with a conspiratorial wink.

  And welcome, strangely enough, I felt. There was, I sensed, a general agreement that, come what may, it was good to have me aboard. Hugh’s death had touched each of us in different ways, but for the moment those ways had drawn us together. The effect was temporary, of course. It was bound to be. The death of a close friend or relative reminds us of the brevity of life and the absurdity of every form of conflict and rancour. But, being human, we soon forget all over again. Those of us gathered at that table hadn’t forgotten just yet. But in due course we would.