Borrowed Time

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I flew out to Chamonix the following Friday, telling Adrian, Simon and Jennifer that a friend in Brussels needed helping out of an emotional crisis and I was going to see what I could do for him in the course of a long weekend. God knows what Adrian made of it, since he was due to have left for Sydney by the time I got back. Simon suggested I was hoping to discover an EC regulation that the Bushranger bid could be said to contravene. But I don’t think he was serious.

In the event, I might have been better employed on just such an errand. Several days of trekking round the hotels, restaurants, cafés and boarding-houses of an out-of-season Alpine skiing resort from which the vast shadow of the Mont Blanc massif seemed never to lift proved as futile as I’d anticipated-and even more frustrating. Nobody remembered the name Paul Bryant. Nobody recognized the bridegroom’s face in the photograph I’d brought with me of his and Rowena’s wedding. And nobody thought it remotely likely that anybody else would. “Un étudiant, monsieur? Il y a plus de trois ans? Vous plaisantez, non?”

I wasn’t joking, of course. But I might as well have been. I’d had enough by the end of the first day, but felt obliged to plug on. Come the third day, however, I called a halt at lunchtime and rode the cable-car-as Paul had told his mother he’d done-up the mountainside to the Aiguille du Midi. I stared out from the observation platform at the dazzling snowfields that stretched as far as Italy, breathed the clear cold air and reflected on the pointlessness of my journey. Paul had never been there. His footprints were nowhere to be found. But somehow I didn’t think that conclusion was going to satisfy Bella.

Answering to Bella, however, wasn’t the first problem to confront me when I flew home on Tuesday. Liz had left a recorded message saying that Detective Inspector David Joyce of West Mercia C.I.D. would be coming down to see me the following afternoon. And she’d added a disturbing rider. “I tried to tell him I couldn’t confirm the appointment until I’d spoken to you, but he told me he wasn’t asking for an appointment; he was making one.”

He looked as irksomely youthful as he had three years before. I congratulated him on his promotion, which his desultory thanks implied was old news. He enquired after my mother and seemed genuinely sorry to hear of her death. And then, when Liz had delivered the tea and gone again, he weighed in.

“As you may know, sir, we’ve been asked to investigate Paul Bryant’s confession to the murders of Louise Paxton and Oscar Bantock.”

“I knew it was likely to come to that, Inspector, of course. But I didn’t know your investigation was actually under way.”

“Well under way. And already we’ve learnt from Mr. Bryant’s family and from a Mr. Peter Rossington that somebody else seems to be engaged on what you might call a parallel inquiry.”

“Ah. I see.”

“But I don’t, sir. What exactly are you trying to accomplish?”

“The same as you, I imagine. I simply wanted to check Paul’s story before it became public. To spare the family any unnecessary-”

“The Paxton family, you mean?”

“Well, yes, of course.”

“Of which you’re not a member.”

“Not directly, no. More a friend. Although my sister-in-law-”

“Ah yes, the present Lady Paxton. With you. More complicated than the Borgias, isn’t it?” His smile would have been no more than irritating had I thought sarcasm his sole object. But I detected an implication that my connection with Sir Keith’s second wife had aroused his suspicion. Which I doubted could be dispelled by a simple explanation of how such a state of affairs had come about. “Do I take it you’re unconvinced of Mr. Bryant’s guilt?”

“No. But there must be a remote possibility he’s lying.”

“Why would he be lying?”

“I don’t know. But his wife killed herself only four months ago. A thing like that could… well… lead to irrational behaviour.”

“We’ve had a psychiatrist give him the once over. He’s pronounced Mr. Bryant as sane as you or me.”

“Really?”

Joyce’s smile took on a weary edge. “The point is, Mr. Timariot, we’re paid and equipped to enquire into all these matters. And we’re doing so. Thoroughly and expeditiously. Interference from amateurs, however well-meaning, is only likely to obstruct our efforts.” So we’d arrived where I’d assumed we would from the start. The warning off.

“I didn’t realize asking a few questions constituted interference.”

“Well, it does. Raking over the ashes of a dead case is disagreeable enough at the best of times.”

“Especially when you may have to admit you got the wrong man.”

It was a dig I’d been unable to resist. But the flush of anger in Joyce’s face and the steely hint of a threat in his voice made me regret it at once. “Exactly, sir. It could prove very embarrassing. For us-and the witnesses at Naylor’s trial who helped send him down.” He cleared his throat. “I have with me a copy of a statement you signed on the twenty-fifth of July, nineteen ninety.” He pulled the document out of his pocket and held it out. “Do you want to refresh your memory of what you said?”

“I can remember perfectly well, thank you.”

“And is there anything you want to add to it?”

“No.”

“Despite what you said on TV earlier this year?”

“I was the victim of selective editing.”

He treated me to a long sceptical frown, then took another piece of paper from his pocket and read my own recorded words back at me. “‘When she offered me a lift, I thought it was just a kindly gesture. Now I’m not so sure. I think she must have wanted me-wanted somebody-to stay with her.’ ” He looked up at me. “Not quite the same as your statement, is it?”

“What I said to Seymour was an impression, nothing more. But I certainly mentioned the offer of a lift in my statement. And in court.”

“Indeed you did, sir. I remember it well. I also remember your answer when I asked why you hadn’t accepted the lift. You said it was because you were planning to walk the whole of Offa’s Dyke eventually and didn’t want a gap left in the southern half of the route.”

I smiled. “You have a good memory, Inspector.”

“Finish it the following year, did you? Dabble your toes in the sea at Prestatyn, like me?”

“No. I didn’t. And I haven’t.”

“I see. So you might just as well have taken the ride.”

“Yes. And then everything might have turned out differently. You think I haven’t thought of that?”

“Difficult not to, I imagine.”

“Very. Just as it’s difficult not to wonder about other things.”

“Such as?”

He’d had his fun at my expense. It seemed only fair to respond in kind. “A solicitor I know tells me you keep back a certain amount of information in cases like this as a sort of litmus test for compulsive confessors.”

“What if we do?”

“Well, I assume Paul Bryant’s already passed the test. Otherwise you wouldn’t be going on with your inquiries, would you?”

He shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “I can’t comment on that.”

“Which means you must already realize Shaun Naylor’s innocent.”

“Is that what you think, sir?”

“What I think is that, if he is, those two witnesses who testified they’d heard him admit to the murders have a great deal of explaining to do. Unless, of course, you already know what their explanation’s going to be.”

He looked at me levelly. “You have one in mind, sir?”

“No. But it’s an anomaly, isn’t it?”

“Perhaps you think we put them up to it. Is that what you’re getting at?” His gaze was direct and challenging. He knew as well as I did it was what people would say. And already he felt compelled to present his rebuttal. “They both came forward of their own volition. Their statements were completely unsolicited.”

“And completely false.”

“That remains to be seen.”

“Have you spoken to them yet?”

A recital of the “no comment” formula seemed to be on the edge of his lips. Then he evidently thought better of it. “Jason Bledlow, the witness who said Naylor confessed to him while they were sharing a cell on remand, is out of our reach, Mr. Timariot. He was shot dead while taking part in an armed raid on a bullion warehouse in September of last year.”

“Good God.”

“And Vincent Cassidy, the barman at Naylor’s local pub who said Naylor had boasted to him about committing the murders, has disappeared. Vanished without trace. Very recently, at that. As if he knew we’d be wanting to talk to him.”

“But he can’t have done.”

“No. Unless somebody forewarned him. Inadvertently, I mean. By asking him the sort of questions we want to ask him.” His stare grew cold and contemptuous. “I’m thinking of some well-meaning but interfering amateur. Know one, do you?”

“I haven’t spoken to Cassidy.”

“I really do hope that’s true, sir. For your sake.”

“Inspector, I can assure you-”

“Don’t say anything you might come to regret.” He smiled knowingly at me, softening and relaxing as he did so, a pose I somehow found more disturbing than open hostility. “We’ll find Cassidy sooner or later. He hasn’t the wit to stay hidden for long. When we do, we’ll also find out who tipped him off. Intentionally or unintentionally.”

“It wasn’t me.”

“In that case, you’ve nothing to worry about.” He finished his tea and craned towards me across my desk. “Either way, Mr. Timariot, please stay out of this from now on. It’s much the wisest thing for you to do.”

Joyce’s attempt to intimidate me would probably have been successful but for a single wholly understandable flaw in his logic. I knew what he couldn’t know: I wasn’t Cassidy’s informant. So the question I was left asking myself was unlikely even to have occurred to Joyce. If I hadn’t tipped Cassidy off, who had?

There seemed only one credible answer. And only one way to confirm it. I telephoned Cordwainer, Murray & Co. in Worcester straightaway and demanded to speak to Shaun Naylor’s solicitor. I was angry at the injustice of Joyce’s accusation and impatient to pin the blame where I thought it belonged: on Vijay Sarwate.

But Sarwate proved to be both quick-witted and emollient. “Your reaction is quite understandable, Mr. Timariot. Let me assure you, however, that I have had no contact, direct or indirect, with Vincent Cassidy. I entirely accept you did not alert him to the police inquiry but I must point out I did not do so either.”

“Who did, then?”

“I cannot say. But look here, would it not be helpful for us to meet in order to discuss this unfortunate misunderstanding? There are, as a matter of fact, several related issues I would value exploring with you.”

“I really don’t-”

“As it happens, I am travelling down to the Isle of Wight tomorrow to visit my client. It would be a simple matter to call on you afterwards. Would four o’clock suit you?”

It wasn’t just my inability to justify a refusal that made me agree to meet Sarwate. I also saw it as a sop to Bella; a demonstration that I was leaving no stone unturned on her behalf. In view of the blank I’d drawn in Chamonix, I reckoned it would be as well to have something else to report when she called. As it turned out, though, she hadn’t been in touch by the time I drove down to the Southampton Hilton for our appointment.

The venue was my suggestion, for which Sarwate had been effusively grateful, since it spared him a diversion from his route back to Worcester. Naturally, his convenience hadn’t been in my mind. But the advantages of an anonymous hotel in which one pair of dark-suited businessmen blended forgettably with the rest certainly had.

We recognized each other from the Benefit of the Doubt broadcast. Sarwate didn’t know, of course, how Seymour had stitched me up. Nor was he aware of the real reason for my double-checking Paul’s confession. As a result, a degree of bewilderment about my motives was at once detectable behind the Indian courtesy and professional reticence. I was a puzzle he could probably have done without. And a puzzle he was poorly placed to solve.

“Mr. Bryant told me he had unburdened himself to you before coming to me. He gave me no indication that you harboured any doubts about his confession, however. Am I to take it they have only recently developed?”

“I’m just trying to be healthily sceptical.”

“The police will be that, Mr. Timariot. Perhaps even unhealthily sceptical. They need neither your assistance nor your encouragement.”

“So they said.”

“Then why not leave them to it?”

“Because I like to see and hear things for myself, I suppose. To be sure in my own mind.”

“And you are not?”

“Not completely. Not absolutely.”

“But Mr. Bryant has vindicated the misgivings you expressed in your television interview. He has revealed what you, I think, suspected all along. That my client is the victim of a miscarriage of justice.”

“Maybe.”

“How can you doubt it?”

“I’m not saying I do.”

“Dear me, this is most perplexing.” Sarwate sipped his tea and studied me over the rim of the cup, then said: “Shaun-Mr. Naylor-was disappointed to hear of your… equivocation. I had held out the hope to him that you would be prepared to expand on the testimony you gave at his trial. To revise your original statement in the light of your televised comments. Am I to understand-”

“I’ve told the police I don’t wish to alter my statement.”

“Oh dear.” He looked genuinely crestfallen. “I am sorry to hear that.”

“Quite possibly. But-”

“Shaun is innocent, Mr. Timariot. I have known so from the beginning. He has consistently proclaimed his innocence, even when he might have made life easier for himself by admitting his guilt. He has spent more than three years in prison for a crime he did not commit. A category of crime, moreover, for which prisoners with wives and daughters of their own exact penalties undreamt of by the law. He has suffered much.”

“I’m sure he has.”

“But he has not deserved to. That is my point.”

“A point you haven’t yet proved, Mr. Sarwate.”

“If you could only meet him, I believe you would agree with me.”

“Perhaps. But since I can’t-”

“But you can. I could arrange a visit very easily.”

Sarwate’s smile gave me the queasy feeling I’d walked into a trap. From which the only way out was backwards. “I’ve nothing to say to your client.”

“But he may have something to say to you.” Sarwate’s eyes twinkled. “Are you not seeking to identify Vincent Cassidy’s informant?”

“You know I am,” I said, crushing all curiosity out of my voice.

“I raised the question with Shaun. It seems he is able to take an educated guess.”

“He named the person?”

“He named the person he thinks it almost certainly must have been.”

“Then who was it?”

“Ask him yourself, Mr. Timariot.” Sarwate beamed at me with the proud delight of a conjurer who’s just pulled off a particularly demanding sleight of hand. “When you visit him.”

Bella phoned that night, while I was still smarting at the thought of how adroitly Sarwate had outwitted me. A face-to-face encounter with Shaun Naylor was the last thing I needed. But it was something I’d evidently have to endure if I wanted to get Joyce off my back. Which only made Bella’s sneering displeasure at my lack of success in Chamonix the more unbearable.

“I might as well have gone tiger-hunting in Africa, Bella. Paul’s never been to Chamonix.”

“You didn’t look hard enough, Robin. That’s the truth.”

“No. The truth is you’ve sent me on one wild goose chase after another. With the same result every time. Surbiton or Chamonix, it makes no bloody difference.”

“Don’t take that tone with me.”

“I’ll take any tone I like. Thanks to you, I’ve got to visit Shaun Naylor in prison. You remember him, I assume?”

“What are you talking about?”

With irritable brevity, I explained why I was soon likely to find myself queueing up with the wives and girlfriends outside Albany Prison. I hadn’t expected any sympathy, of course. It was more likely Bella would welcome the opportunity this gave us to quiz the man she still preferred to believe had murdered Louise Paxton. Strangely however, that wasn’t her reaction.

“There’s nothing to be gained by seeing Naylor,” she said, much of the sharpness gone from her voice, along with all the pleasure she’d derived from my discomfiture. “Call the visit off.”

“Why?” I was suspicious now, my mind casting back to our lunch in Midhurst and the niggling dissatisfaction I’d felt since then about her motives.

“Because it’s a waste of time and effort. Concentrate on Paul.”

“I have done. To no effect.”

“He must have had friends at Cambridge besides Peter Rossington. We need to-”

“I need to convince the police I’m not obstructing their inquiries. And Naylor may be able to help me do so.”

“That’s your problem, not mine. I don’t care who tipped off Cassidy. I only care about-”

“Why don’t you want to know?” I wasn’t ready to let her off the hook yet. There was something almost desperate about her eagerness to ignore Cassidy. “In fact, why aren’t you encouraging me to go looking for him in case he was telling the truth about Naylor’s confession? With Bledlow dead, he’s the only one who can-”

“Forget Cassidy!”

“Why?”

“Because he’s irrelevant.”

“All right, all right.” It wasn’t all right, of course. My contrary nature was urging me to do what Bella had forbidden me to do precisely for that reason. But I knew it would be as pointless to confront her with my suspicions as it would be disastrous to inform her of my intentions. She was always at her least dangerous when she believed she was getting her own way. So I decided to say what she wanted to hear-while meaning none of it. “Let’s cross Cassidy off the list. And Naylor too. Let’s go back to Paul. What exactly would you like me to try next?”

Bella’s tactics sounded like barrel-scraping to me. I was to contact the best man at Paul and Rowena’s wedding-Martin Hill, a colleague of Paul’s from Metropolitan Mutual-and see what he knew. I was to question Sarah-without telling her why-about Paul’s friendships at Cambridge. Then I was to go to Cambridge and speak to his old tutor, along with any students who might remember him. I assured Bella I’d make a start that weekend.

Which I duly did, travelling up to Bristol on Saturday for lunch with Martin Hill and tea with Sarah. Hill was an amiable and talkative fellow, but he could only tell me what he’d already told the police. He’d shared an office with Paul, but no secrets. The invitation to act as his best man had come as a surprise. “To be perfectly frank, I don’t think he had any real friends he could ask. I was a last resort.” This picture of a friendless and withdrawn individual tallied with Cheryl Bryant’s account of her brother’s childhood. And so did Sarah’s description of his years at Cambridge. “You know what Paul’s like, Robin. Easy to get on with. Hard to fathom. He was no different at Cambridge. I suppose that’s why he and I drifted apart. Nobody ever got close to Paul… except Rowena. I can tell you who his tutor was. She was mine as well. Doctor Olive Meyer. See her by all means. I’ll even phone her and arrange an appointment if you like. But I don’t think you’ll get anything out of her. Not what Bella’s hoping for, anyway. I’m afraid she has you looking for something that simply doesn’t exist.”

Sarah was right, of course. With the board meeting less than three weeks away, it was a fact Bella and I would soon have to face. But there was still time to jump through a few more hoops in the hope of persuading her to honour our bargain. And there was definitely time to start down the one path she’d tried to stop me following, working on the basis that what she didn’t know couldn’t harm her-even if what I might find out could.

On Sunday morning, I drove up to London. It was a pluperfect autumn day, the sky a flawless blue, the fallen leaves gleaming in golden patches along the pavements and across the parks. But the beauties of nature couldn’t do much for Jamaica Road, Bermondsey. Or for the vomit-stained frontage of the Greyhound Inn, most of whose customers looked as if they’d have difficulty remembering how much they’d drunk the previous night, let alone when Vincent Cassidy last pulled a pint for them.

Not so the stern tattooed landlord, however. His memories of Cassidy were clear. But he had no intention of sharing them with me. “Vince Cassidy hasn’t worked here in over a year. But I make a point of respecting the privacy of my employees-past and present.”

“He has nothing to fear from me.”

“Maybe not. But how do I know that?”

“I’m only asking if you might know his present where-abouts.”

“Last I heard, he was working for Dave Gormley. He runs a tyre-and-exhaust place down Raymouth Road.”

With that, he moved off to serve another customer. Freeing a paunchy greasy-haired man on the bar-stool next to me to snigger at my expense. “Syd’s short-changing you,” he muttered. “Don’t take it personal. He does it to his regulars as well.”

“You mean Vince doesn’t work for Dave Gormley?”

“Not any more. Done a runner about a fortnight ago. Dropped out of sight like a rabbit down his burrow. Only in Vince’s case even his burrow’s empty. The Old Bill have been after him. Don’t know what for. Wouldn’t be the same reason you’re looking for him, would it?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“Makes no difference either way. Vince has turned into the Invisible Man.”

“Doesn’t anybody know where he is?”

“I didn’t say that, did I?” He winked, swallowed the last of his beer and frowned at the empty glass. Subtlety wasn’t his stock-in-trade. But a fresh pint and a double whisky chaser revealed that information was. Vince Cassidy had a sister. And my thirsty acquaintance knew her address.

Sharon Peters, née Cassidy, lived in one of the crumbling yellow-brick tenement blocks wedged between Jamaica Road and the main railway line out of Charing Cross. To the east, the Canary Wharf tower shimmered in the sunshine, a perpetual reminder to the residents of how worthwhile the economies were that deprived them of adequately lit stairways and an occasional dab of fresh paint. They were the slums of a future that was very nearly the present, as unnerving a place for somebody like me to visit as it was no doubt depressing for somebody like Sharon Peters to inhabit.

She was a busty bottle-blonde in her late twenties, dressed in grubby grey leggings and an orange T-shirt, cleaning away the remnants of a junk-food lunch left behind by her children. They might have been among the jeering group that had jostled past me on the stairs and I couldn’t help wondering if they were even now opening my car door with a bent coat-hanger prior to a Sunday afternoon joy-ride round the estate. Either way, there was no sign of them. Nor of their father, assuming he still lived with them. Sharon Peters was alone. And she looked as if she preferred it that way. The omnibus edition of East-Enders was playing on the television, though not loudly enough to blot out the beat of the reggae music from a neighbouring flat. The door had been ajar and she’d shouted for me to enter when I’d rung the bell, assuming I was somebody else, I suppose. Now she stared at me across her toy-strewn lounge as if I were an alien from another planet. Which in a sense I was.

“Christ! Who are you?”

“Robin Timariot, Mrs. Peters. I believe you’re Vince Cassidy’s sister.”

“So what?”

“I’m looking for him.”

“Oh yeh?”

“And I was hoping you might be able to-”

“Like I told the fuzz, I haven’t a clue where he is.”

“Naturally you’d say that to the police, Mrs. Peters. But I’m not the police.”

“No? Well, maybe there’s worse than them looking for our Vince. Even if I knew where he was-which I don’t-I wouldn’t tell the likes of you. What are you? Debt collector? Private detective? Bit of both?”

“Nothing of the kind. I was a witness at Shaun Naylor’s trial and this latest turn of events has put me in a difficult position. Just like Vince.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Come on, Mrs. Peters. Why has Vince gone to ground? If he was telling the truth at the trial, he has nothing to fear. And if the police put words into his mouth, he wouldn’t be running away from them, would he? So, somebody else must have put him up to it. I’d like to find out who that was.”

“I still don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. But never mind. Just tell Vince-”

“I can’t tell him anything. I don’t know where he is.”

“I might be able to help him.”

“Pull the other one.”

“All right. I might be able to reward him. If he turns out to have some valuable information. I gather he’s out of a job at the moment. Maybe he needs some spare cash.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Quite.” The hostility in her gaze had fractionally diminished, allowing the hint of a proposition to emerge. “Well, if a little… money… would help you remember where Vince said he was going…”

“You have a bloody nerve, you do.” Her face flushed red with rage. “If I was ready to sell my own brother down the river for a few quid, I’d be up Soho, wouldn’t I, waggling my tits at men like you, not stuck here, working my fingers to the bone just so-” She broke off and turned away, leaning against the kitchen doorway for support as she chewed at her thumbnail. She was angry at Vince as well as me, I sensed. Maybe she was even angry at her own loyalty. “Why don’t you just piss off?” she murmured.

“All right. I’ll go. But here’s my card.” I took one from my pocket, wrote my home telephone number on the back and slid it towards her across the table that stood between us. “Tell Vince what I said… if you see him.” She glanced down at the card, but made no move to pick it up. My impression was that when she did, it would only be to throw it in the bin. But at least I’d given her the option. In the circumstances, it was the most I could hope to achieve.

Sharon Peters’ flat was at the far end of a second-floor walkway. As I retraced my steps along it, I glanced down into the courtyard below, noting with some relief that my car was still where I’d left it, complete with four wheels.

A young woman emerged from the stairwell ahead of me as I looked up and strode swiftly towards me, high heels clacking. She was thin and slightly stooped, with dark curly hair framing a pale gaunt-featured face. Her clothes were market-stall haute couture: a black imitation leather coat several sizes too big for her over a striped sweater and red mini-skirt. Her eyes met mine for a fraction of a second as we passed. Something close to recognition flickered in her gaze and stirred in my mind. Then both of us seemed to dismiss the thought and hurry on.

But by the time I’d reached the head of the stairs, the faint impression of familiarity had revived. I stopped and looked back along the walkway. She was standing outside Sharon Peters’ door, staring at me over her shoulder as she rang the bell. She frowned. I could sense her thinking what I was thinking: who is that? Then the door opened and she stepped inside, smiling briskly. The door closed. And I was alone. With the answer slipping from my grasp.