Borrowed Time by Robert Goddard

as best they can. It’s the only thing they can argue. And this business about the Harp makes it one degree less incredible. Plus the timing, of course. The police were disappointed when you said Mummy left Hergest Ridge at seven forty-five. It means Naylor’s claim to have met her at the Harp between eight and eight thirty can’t be ruled out.”
    “But surely . . . if nobody saw them there . . .”
    “It’s still theoretically possible though, isn’t it? Mummy offered you a lift. You said so yourself. The defence will try to make that sound like a pick-up line. They’ll say it failed with you but worked with Naylor.”
    “I won’t let them get away with that.”
    “It won’t be easy to stop them. Once you’re in court, you’re on their territory.”
    Court. There was the word. And there was the realization I’d somehow dodged. Making a guarded statement to the police wasn’t the end of this. I was going to have to give evidence at Naylor’s trial. To answer questions on oath. If Naylor persisted in his plea of innocence, it was virtually certain I’d be called as a witness by one side or the other.
    “Naylor’s guilty. But proving it could be messy. Mummy loses her wedding ring, flies to England and goes to see a man who lives alone on the Welsh borders. On the way, she offers a stranger a lift that would take her on a long detour if he accepted. Don’t you see how it could all be made to sound?”
    She’d come to find out what I meant to say. That was it, of course. I could tell by the hint of impatience in her tone. She didn’t want my help in coping with her grief. What she wanted was my confirmation that there was nothing else still to emerge. A bundle of slender connections and stray coincidences was bad enough. But something concrete—something attributed to her mother by a disinterested witness—would be infinitely worse. She needed me to tell her it wasn’t going to happen.
    “Mummy was careless with possessions and tended to lose all sorts of things. She was keen enough on Expressionist art to break off a holiday simply to buy a coveted example. And she had a generous nature. She acted on impulse. Whim, you could call it. Like offering you a lift. There’s no hidden meaning in any of it.”
    “Of course there isn’t.”
    “But you have to have known her to understand that. The jury will be strangers. So will the judge and the barristers and the people in the public gallery and anybody who reads about the trial while it’s going on. They won’t understand her at all. But they’ll think they do.”
    “If I’m called, Sarah . . .” I leant forward to give emphasis to my words. “I’ll do my best to ensure there’s no possibility of any misunderstanding. Your mother’s reputation won’t suffer at my hands.”
    She looked at me intently for a moment, then said: “I’m so glad to hear you say that.”
    “I mean it.”
    “Thank you.”
    “There’s no need to thank me. All I’ll be doing is telling the truth.”
    But that wasn’t all, was it? And if my evidence was compromised, how could I be sure the explanations Sarah had given me for the loss of the ring and the impetuous flight from Biarritz weren’t as well? In doing the decent thing, I was tacitly agreeing to play my part in a subtle editing of the facts: a damage limitation exercise on behalf of Louise Paxton’s good name. And why not? It couldn’t do any harm. Nobody lost by it. Not even Naylor. Since he was undoubtedly guilty. Wasn’t he?
     
    I wasn’t sure whether Sarah expected to meet me again while she was in Brussels. When I showed her back to the Hilton, I asked—more out of politeness than anything else—if she wanted to see the sights. The city didn’t boast many, to be honest, but it seemed the least I could do. To my surprise, her reaction was enthusiastic. I suppose a solitary weekend in a foreign country was the last thing she needed. I agreed to pick her up at ten o’clock the following