Borrowed Time

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

My 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.

“We had some tea back at The Old Parsonage. Then I left, not sure what to do next. But, driving back to Cambridge, I suddenly saw the answer. Louise hadn’t told anyone about me. Why? Because she felt sorry for me? Or because she was afraid her husband mightn’t think she was a wholly innocent party? Maybe he already had grounds for suspicion. About Oscar Bantock, perhaps. Or somebody else. Maybe they weren’t the devoted couple she’d claimed.

“It’s strange, but I think I could have eventually accepted her rejection of me if I’d gone on believing she was a faithful wife. It was the idea she might not be that got to me. If she was going to betray her husband, the warped logic of my mind said it ought to be with me. Not with some derelict old painter or God knows who else. She wasn’t being fair. She wasn’t giving me a chance.

“I didn’t go back to Sapperton. With Sarah there, it was just too risky. Besides, I didn’t need to. She’d told me where I could find her mother. All summer long. I met up with Peter in London on Wednesday. We set off for Europe the following day. We spent a long weekend in Paris, then headed for Italy. I said I wanted to stop off in the French Alps, knowing Peter was champing at the bit to see Florence and Rome. After an argument in Lyon, we agreed to split up. He went on to Italy. I made for Chamonix. Well, that’s where I told him I was going. Actually, I returned to Paris and caught a train to Biarritz.

“I arrived there late on Thursday the twelfth of July. Booked into a cheap pension near the station. Next day, I tracked down L’Hivernance and hung around, hoping to see Louise leaving on foot. Or Sir Keith leaving, so I’d know she was alone. Nothing. Except they drove out together in the early evening. Heading for some posh restaurant, I assumed. I gave up. But I was back the next day, determined to be more resourceful. After I was sure everything seemed quiet, I scaled a wall round the side and crept through the garden towards the house. There was nobody about. But, as I got closer, I heard voices coming from one of the open ground-floor windows. Closer still, I recognized one of them as Louise’s. The other was Sir Keith’s. They were arguing. I can’t tell you what pleasure-what hope-that gave me. If they were going to split up, I might catch her on the rebound.

“I never did get close enough to hear exactly what was said. But it was obvious Sir Keith was angry. He mentioned Bantock. ‘That bloody dauber,’ he called him. And he said he was leaving next day. ‘So what you do is your affair, isn’t it?’ I couldn’t catch Louise’s answer. She spoke more softly than him. Kept her anger in check. Anyway, some gardener showed up then, so I had to run for it. By the time he spotted me, I was disappearing over the wall.

“But I’d found out what I wanted to know. They were at each other’s throats. And Sir Keith was going away. Clearing the path for me. I was back early on Sunday, waiting to see him go. He was in no hurry. It was midday before he left. By taxi. With a couple of cases on board. I couldn’t believe my luck. Louise would be vulnerable and upset, I reasoned. In need of sympathy. In need of love.

“I decided to wait until evening. Turning up straight after Sir Keith’s departure might look suspicious. It was a sunny afternoon. The beaches were crowded. I shuffled around, kicking my heels and eating ice-creams. At one point, a girl tried to pick me up. All pout and swaying hips. I should have fancied her, I suppose. But she just seemed so pathetically immature compared with Louise. They all did then.

“By dusk, the beaches were empty. I started back for L’Hivernance. But, before I got there, I saw Louise. She was out by the waterline on the Plage Miramar, walking slowly, lost in thought it seemed. I went down to the sea wall and watched her from the covered alleyway beneath the terrace of the Hôtel du Palais. She just walked up and down the same length of sand as the breakers rolled in and night fell. I intended to intercept her on her way back to the villa. But when it was nearly dark and she still showed no sign of coming in, I decided to go out to her.

“She didn’t notice me as I approached. She was looking out to sea, gazing at the last few streaks of sunset beyond the horizon. When I was only a few yards from her, she slipped her wedding ring from her finger, drew back her arm and threw it as far as she could out into the waves. I pulled up in amazement, unable to believe she’d done such a thing. Then she turned round. And saw me.

“‘Paul!’ she said. ‘What are you doing here?’ It’s funny. She didn’t seem particularly surprised to see me. I made my prepared speech about being unable to stay away. About being deeply in love with her. And about being sure she needed a friend-perhaps more than a friend-now her marriage was failing. She must have realized then I’d been spying on her. But she wasn’t angry. ‘I can’t talk to you now, Paul,’ she said. ‘I have too much on my mind. But come to L’Hivernance tomorrow morning about eleven o’clock and we will talk. Properly.’ Then she kissed me. Just a formal fleeting kiss on the cheek. But it was enough to make me think I was at long last breaking down her defences. I watched her walk away, my mind racing to imagine what would happen when we met again. This time at her instigation.

“I called at L’Hivernance on the dot of eleven the following morning, wearing a jacket and tie I’d bought less than an hour before and clutching a bunch of flowers. I was nervous and uncertain. But I was also excited and expectant. Not for long, though. The housekeeper who answered the door told me Louise had left for England early that morning, saying nothing about an appointment with me. I was dumbstruck. Too horrified to speak. I stumbled off in the direction of the lighthouse and took one of those narrow winding paths down towards the shore. At first, I didn’t know what to think. Then it came to me. She’d tricked me. Fobbed me off for the short time it took to pack up and go. I hurled her flowers into the sea and wept. Then rage replaced despair. She’d trampled on my pride. She’d deceived me along with her husband. Well, I’d make her pay for that.

“I knew where she’d gone. Kington. To be with Bantock. By car and plane, she’d get there long before I could. But that didn’t seem to matter. Just so long as I caught up with her in the end. I rushed back to my pension, packed, booked out and made for the station. Where I found I had more than two hours to wait for the next train to Paris.

“All the time I waited, my determination to confront Louise with the evidence of her treachery grew. Of course, the only thing she’d really betrayed was the fantasy I’d woven around her. Nothing else. She didn’t owe me anything, least of all an explanation. Making an appointment with me she had no intention of keeping was just a sensible way of getting me off her back. And the state of her marriage was absolutely none of my business. I see that now very clearly. But back then I saw nothing clearly. Least of all what I’d do when I finally found her.

“It took me twenty-two hours to travel from Biarritz to Kington by train, ferry and bus. Paris. Dieppe. Newhaven. London. Newport. Hereford. I killed time in them all on the way. Eventually, at one o’clock the following afternoon-Tuesday the seventeenth of July-I clambered off a bus in the middle of Kington.

“I got Bantock’s address from the telephone directory and a handy little free map showing where Butterbur Lane was from the tourist office. Half an hour later, I was at Whistler’s Cot hammering on the door. I felt sure Louise was there, even though her car wasn’t. But I was wrong. Bantock came round from the back, demanding to know what all the racket was for. He recognized me from the exhibition. I had the wit to claim I was on holiday in the area and was keen to see his work. He asked me in and showed me his studio. Work in progress. That sort of thing. Well, it was obvious Louise wasn’t there. But I was still convinced she would be before long. Maybe she’d stopped in London. Whatever the reason, I’d somehow overtaken her en route.

“Bantock said he had to go out and I was glad of the excuse to cut my visit short. My imitation of an art buff was wearing pathetically thin by then. He offered me a lift, but I said I preferred to walk. I set off at a slow pace and he passed me halfway down the lane in his car. As soon as he was out of sight, I doubled back and followed the lane past Whistler’s Cot out onto the common. Then I prowled around the fields above the lane until I found myself on the other side of the hedge opposite the cottage. I could see over the hedge well enough and the height of the bank below meant I was on a level with the bedroom windows. I settled down in the shade of a beech tree that overhung the hedge and waited for them to return. I was certain it would be them. Bantock had gone to meet her and would come back with her sooner or later. I had no doubt of it. When he did, I’d be ready.

“At about five o’clock, Louise arrived in her car. I was positively elated to be proved correct. But I’d got one thing wrong. Bantock wasn’t with her. She knocked at the door, then went round the back. I thought she was going to wait for Bantock inside, but she came out a few minutes later and drove off again. I couldn’t understand it. But I was still determined to stick it out. It could only be a matter of time.

“I had a couple of lagers in my rucksack. Drinking them was a mistake, because what with the heat and the stress and strain of the journey, I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was nearly dark and I was cold. There was no sign of life at Whistler’s Cot. I began to feel a bit of a fool. My confidence began to drain away. Much longer and I’d have given up and gone. But just then, at about nine o’clock, Louise’s Merc came back up the lane, followed closely by a yellow van. Both vehicles pulled in by the cottage. She had somebody with her this time. But it wasn’t Bantock. Oh no. It was somebody I’d never seen before. I’ve seen photographs of him since, of course. It was Shaun Naylor. He looked what he is. A handsome young thug. The sort you’d expect to see selling bootleg perfume on a street-corner or prowling round a car park trying the locks. Rough and ready. Ready, in fact, for anything. With a narcissistic streak thrown in for good measure. What he was doing with Louise I just couldn’t work out. He wasn’t her type at all. So I’d have thought, anyway.

“But I didn’t know what her type was, did I? All I knew was that she’d picked this piece of garbage up from somewhere. And not long ago, to judge by the few words they exchanged before going indoors. ‘You nearly lost me back there,’ he said to her in a cockney accent. ‘I wouldn’t have let that happen,’ she replied. ‘Not when I’ve only just found you.’ Then he pulled her towards him and kissed her roughly. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing-or hearing. She leant up and whispered something in his ear. ‘You’re a real tease, aren’t you?’ he said in response. ‘Who’s teasing?’ she answered. ‘Shall we go in?’

“She led him round to the back. A few seconds later, some lights came on. Just downstairs at first, where I couldn’t see much. Then, after about ten minutes, on the landing and in one of the bedrooms. I had a clear view straight in through the window. I saw Louise and Naylor walk into the room. Neither of them made a move for the curtains. Perhaps they didn’t think there’d be anybody outside, watching them. Perhaps they just didn’t care. At the time, I had the crazy idea Louise knew I was there and wanted me to see what she was capable of-with the right sort of man.

“I’m not going to describe what she let him do to her. Well, there wasn’t much she didn’t let him do. She was a willing partner all right. Like Naylor said at his trial, it wasn’t rape. If only it had been. I could have rushed in and tried to rescue her then. I could have been her white knight in shining armour. Instead, I just sat there and watched what would have been a Peeping Tom’s dream come true. It was horrible. Not because of the sex itself. That was just two bodies moving together in a rectangle of light. Like a pornographic movie on a TV screen. No, it was the pleasure on her face, the leisurely expertise of her actions that so appalled me. It couldn’t have been the first time she’d done such things. It was a practised performance. She did it well. As well as the most accomplished of whores. I could almost have believed that’s what she was. A high-class tart for this… creature she’d found… to use and abuse. Anyone’s. If the money was right. Or she took a fancy to you. Anyone’s at all. But not mine. Never mine.

“He didn’t stay long afterwards. Got dressed and walked out, leaving her in bed. Well, on the bed. She didn’t even bother to cover herself. He came out and drove away. She didn’t get up. She must have fallen asleep. I went on watching her for a few minutes. Disbelief turned to jealousy. And jealousy became rage. I wanted to punish her for denying me everything she’d so casually given to a stranger. For shattering the image of her I’d built up in my mind. For not being the woman I’d dreamt she was.

“I scrambled through a gap in the hedge, dropped down the bank into the lane and crept round to the back of the cottage. The door wasn’t locked, of course. I went in, moving as quietly as I could. I still didn’t really know what I was going to do. The lights were on in the kitchen and the lounge. The studio door was open. I glanced in and noticed a coil of picture-hanging wire on a bench. I stood staring at the wire, until I’d convinced myself she deserved it. Until I’d committed myself to the act so completely it seemed inevitable. I picked up some pliers that were lying next to the wire and cut off a length. Then I put on an old pair of leather gloves I’d seen on a shelf near the back door. I wasn’t thinking about fingerprints. It was just I didn’t want the wire to cut into my hands. As I knew it would, when I drew it tight around her neck.

“I can’t remember exactly what happened next. The surge of conflicting emotions blots out part of the memory, I suppose. I went up to the bedroom. But whether I tiptoed or ran I can’t say. I was suddenly in the room, looking down at her, naked on the bed. She was lying on her side, her face averted. She heard something and stirred. ‘Shaun?’ she said. ‘Is that-’ Then I was on her, forcing her down against the mattress with the weight of my own body as I looped the wire over her head and pulled it taut around her throat. She gagged and tried to throw me off. But I was too strong for her. ‘It’s me, you bitch,’ I shouted in her ear as I strained at the wire. ‘It’s Paul.’ She choked and writhed and struggled. But there was no way out now. For either of us. It went on longer than I’d expected. So much longer. But, in the end, all the life was squeezed out. And she lay limp and still beneath me. No breath. No movement. No flicker of the eyes. She was dead.

“I stood up and looked down at her beautiful body, which I’d once longed to touch and caress. But now there was nothing there. Just her pale flesh, growing colder by the second. I turned round and saw a reflection of the scene in a large mirror that filled most of the wall facing me. Seeing myself, hollow-eyed and panting, with her body on the bed behind me, made it somehow even worse. I lashed out at the mirror with my boot, splintering one of the corners. Then I rushed out of the room.

“I’d got as far as the kitchen when I heard a car draw up outside. It sounded like Bantock’s. The creaking of the garage door confirmed my guess. I was about to run for it before he came in when I suddenly realized how disastrous that would be. If he saw me, he’d recognize me. Even if he didn’t see me, he’d tell the police I’d called there on an unconvincing pretext earlier in the day. And my rucksack was on the other side of the hedge. If I left it there, there’d be no doubt of my guilt. What little I knew of forensics suggested that if they had cause to suspect me, they’d be able to prove I’d been there that night. A fingerprint. A fibre. A hair. God knows what. But they’d find it. And I’d be done for. Whereas if they had no cause to suspect me… if they had no reason even to think of me…

“I dodged into the studio and cut off another length of wire. I was planning to pounce on Bantock as he went through the kitchen. But when he opened the back door, shouted ‘Louise?’ and got no answer, he stopped, then turned towards the studio, almost as if he sensed my presence there. I shrank back behind the door and, as he came in, leapt at his back, looping the wire over his head and tightening it around his neck in one movement. He yielded as I pulled, then fought back, hurling himself forward in an attempt to throw me off. We crashed to the floor and rolled over several times. I could hear and feel objects tumbling around us. He was a big strong man, but overweight and out of condition. I had the advantage of youth and determination. I couldn’t afford to let him get the better of me. I forced him onto his stomach, managed to pin his arms with my knees and twisted at the wire in a frenzy. And that was how he died, a choking clawing heap on the floor of his studio, his face smeared with a fine multi-coloured dust formed of tiny flakes of paint shed over the years from his brushes and palettes.

“I struggled to my feet and tried to think clearly. With Bantock dead, there was nobody to connect me with what had happened. I was supposed to be abroad and, if I could get back to France without being seen by anybody who knew me, I was almost certainly safe from detection. The instinct for self-preservation erased the horror of what I’d done, at least for a while. I pocketed the coil of wire and the pliers, kept the gloves on and rushed out into the lane. There was nobody about. I was safe if I kept my nerve. I ran up the lane to the common and worked my way round to the beech tree where I’d left the rucksack. I took out my torch and checked the ground for things I might have dropped, gathered up the empty lager tins and stuffed them into the rucksack, then stumbled down across the field towards the road into Kington, navigating by the lights in the houses along Butterbur Lane.

“Once I was on the road, I reckoned I looked like any other hiker. I walked straight through the town, restraining my pace all the way, resisting the urge to break into a run, and out to the bypass. Then I started trying to hitch a lift. My luck was in. A lorry driver stopped for me after only a few minutes. He was heading for Coventry. Well, anywhere as long as it was far from Kington suited me. He dropped me at a motorway service area between Birmingham and Coventry in the small hours of the following morning. I managed to pick up another lift from there down to London. By the time the bodies were found at Whistler’s Cot, I was on a ferry halfway across the Channel.

“I spent most of the next week drifting down through Germany, Austria and the Balkans, buying day-old English newspapers at every stop in search of information about what line the police were following, what clues they’d found at the scene. The panic attacks lessened. The fear of imminent arrest ebbed away. Then came creeping revulsion at what I’d done. An inability to believe I’d done it so strong I started quite genuinely to doubt I had. My geographical remoteness from the crime became a psychological remoteness as well. My memory told me what had happened, but my conscience refused to accept it. It was partly a survival mechanism, I suppose. A way of coping with the guilt. A method of evading responsibility for my actions. It was Louise’s fault for provoking me beyond endurance. Bantock’s for barging in when he did. Naylor’s for grabbing and soiling what I’d not been allowed to touch. Anybody’s fault. Except mine.

“I still didn’t know who Naylor was then, of course. When I read of his arrest, I was briefly tempted to go to the nearest British Consulate and turn myself in. Then I thought I’d wait to see if he was charged. When he was-with rape as well as murder-I realized exactly who he must be and why the police were bound to think they’d found the culprit. I was in the clear. And suddenly it seemed not merely a matter of luck but of fate. Destiny had decreed I shouldn’t be punished and Naylor should. Who was I to argue? It was only fair, after all. It was only as it should be. I hadn’t known what I was doing. I’d lost control. In France, they’d have dismissed it as a crime of passion, an understandable and pardonable surrender to anger and jealousy. As for Naylor, well, there was an ironic form of justice in the likelihood that he’d suffer for what I’d done. Because he’d goaded me into doing it in the first place.

“So I told myself, anyway. It sounds contemptible, I know. It is contemptible. But you don’t know what excuses and justifications the mind is capable of until you find yourself in such an extreme situation. Louise was dead. So was Bantock. I couldn’t bring them back to life by confessing to their murders. And Naylor was nothing to me. He was nothing compared with me. I had a successful and worthwhile life ahead of me. I had the chance to redeem myself by hard work and respectability. Whereas he was just some sordid nonentity who’d be as happy in a prison cell as he would be on the streets. Sacrificing myself to save him would be a pointless waste. It would only make matters worse than they already were. I had endless conversations with myself on the subject, turning it round and round like a debating point. I even convinced myself Louise would have forgiven me and urged me not to confess. I saw her occasionally in my dreams. Even more beautiful than the reality had been. So serene. So understanding. And I kept hearing her voice. Speaking the words she’d used that afternoon in Holland Park. ‘Let’s forget this ever happened. Let’s write it off as an unfortunate misunderstanding.’ In the end, it seemed to be her will I was yielding to, her last wish I was respecting. I’d murdered her, yes. But by letting Naylor take the blame, I was protecting her reputation. She could be remembered as a faithful wife and a devoted mother. So long as I held my tongue.

“I got home in late August, sure by then that nothing could implicate me in the murders and that my conscience, though it could never be clear, was at least secure. I wrote a letter of condolence to Sarah and got a polite but guarded reply. I decided to leave it at that. Our paths had divided and I was confident they’d never cross again. I went back to Cambridge in October determined to start my life over again. To re-create myself and in the process cast aside forever the memory of the things I’d done that night at Whistler’s Cot.

“I succeeded. I made new friends and threw myself into new activities. By the time the trial started, I was beyond its reach, so safe in my busy self-regarding world that I didn’t even read the newspaper reports of its progress. It was only thanks to another student who’d known Sarah that I learnt of Naylor’s conviction. And do you know what I felt when I heard the sentence? Relieved. That’s what. Just relieved it was over. Just glad he was going to be locked away for twenty years. Just happy to know I could forget all about him.

“But I couldn’t, could I? Not as it turned out. Because after graduation I toyed with several job offers, thinking one wasn’t much different from another, and accepted a post with Metropolitan Mutual Insurance. A fatal mistake, I suppose you could say. Because it meant moving to Bristol. Where Sarah had gone to take her articles. And Rowena had also gone, to study mathematics. I didn’t know they were living there, of course. I had absolutely no idea. Until the day I bumped into Sarah in Park Street.

“It seemed no big deal at the time. A coincidence I could simply brush off. But Sarah invited me to dinner and I could hardly refuse. So I went out to Clifton one night and met Rowena for the first time. Early January of last year. Not long ago really. Not long at all. Yet in other ways it seems… Sarah admitted later that she was keen for Rowena to meet as many new people as possible. It was only six weeks or so since she’d tried to commit suicide. Sarah thought varied company might take her out of herself. That’s really why she invited me.

“It started slowly. As an attraction to the things in Rowena that reminded me of Louise. A rapport developed between us, based on a subconscious awareness that we were both suppressing something. In Rowena’s case, doubts about her mother’s death. In my case, the knowledge of what really lay behind those doubts. She was lovely as well, of course. Lovely and vulnerable. Right from the beginning, I wanted to protect her. To shield her from a truth I thought she’d be unable to bear. And to shield myself at the same time. Chance had given me the opportunity to repair some of the damage I’d done and to silence the voice that still whispered reproaches to me in the long watches of the night. It seemed as if fate had taken a hand in my life once more.

“And so it had. But not in the way I thought. I married Rowena and for a while everything seemed perfect. Loving her made me see my obsession with Louise for what it had truly been: a shallow delusion. But its consequences endured. Whether the secret I always had to keep ate away at Rowena’s trust in me or whether she just wasn’t quite capable of abandoning her doubts I’m not sure, but something was wrong even before the book appeared, let alone the TV programme. And then there was the pregnancy, of course. How that affected her I don’t know. But she didn’t tell me about it, did she? So maybe it wasn’t good news as far as she was concerned. Maybe it just added to her problems. Made her future seem as doubt-ridden as her past. And just as intolerable.

“I shouldn’t have tried to keep her in the dark. That’s obvious now. But I was afraid that facing up to the rumours and speculation would eventually oblige me to tell her the whole truth. Secrecy becomes a habit, you see. More than a necessity. A way of life, almost. It can’t just be shrugged off. It doesn’t work like that. So my response to the growing interest in the case was to block it off and pretend it didn’t exist. It was all grotesquely misplaced anyway. Oscar Bantock may or may not have been a forger. But I knew better than anyone why he’d died. And forgery didn’t come into it.

“Except in the sense that my whole life had become a forgery. A convincing but counterfeit piece of work. A sham based on a lie. The only genuine thing in it was my love for Rowena. When she threw herself from the bridge, she took the purpose of my deception with her. She exposed my forgery. For the world to see.

“But it didn’t see, did it? It never does. It never wants to. It has to be forced to open its eyes. The righting of wrongs is a deeply uncomfortable experience. Admitting to a mistake is much more difficult than concealing it. And usually there are so many ways to dodge the issue. To avoid the admission. But not this time. Not now. Because I intend to be seen and heard. I intend to set the record straight. And to face the consequences. Along with everyone else.”