That, I suppose, is what I set out apprehensively expecting to meet the following Friday night. She’d come for the weekend and was staying at the Hilton on boulevard Waterloo. We’d arranged to meet in the foyer at six o’clock. This turned out to be a bad choice. The place was filled with clacking quartets of jewel-draped women. I cast around amongst them, looking for one young face in the middle-aged crowd, still subconsciously expecting to recognize her. But there was nobody there who even remotely looked the part.
I was on the point of giving up and seeking help from the concièrge when somebody said from close behind me: “Robin Timariot?” I knew at once who it must be.
Sarah Paxton had her mother’s slightness of build and much else about her that was immediately reminiscent of the woman I’d met on Hergest Ridge. Yet the differences seemed to amount to more than the similarities. Her hair was darker and cut much shorter. Her eyes too were darker, their gaze less open. She was clearly young-twenty-one or twenty-two I’d have guessed-but the freshness of youth was overlaid by something else. A hardness not of feature but of mind. An earnestness amounting almost to a warning. She wore little make-up and no jewellery bar a silver locket on a chain around her neck. Her dress was simple and practicaclass="underline" a plain blouse, loose calf-length skirt, flat-soled shoes; and unpretentious satchel-style handbag. She had enough of her mother’s looks and bearing to turn heads if she wanted to. But her expression implied a wish to do no such thing. It could have been the visible effect of bereavement, of course, but somehow it seemed too entrenched-too permanent-for that. Her smile had a stiffness about it, her handshake a coolness, that mere shyness couldn’t explain. Suspicion. Yes, that was it. A barely veiled scepticism about the world and the people she met in it. Me included.
“Shall we… er… find somewhere else?” I asked, gesturing around at the tableloads of Chanel and Silk Cut. “There’s a… bar I know nearby. It’ll be quieter there.”
She agreed and we made for the exit. It was a sultry evening, sunlight lancing between the tower blocks to turn the traffic fumes into golden clouds. I felt tongue-tied and uncertain. Already, the meeting had enough signs of travesty about it to depress me. I was unable to find anything to say. And Sarah seemed disinclined to help me out.
Mercifully, the walk to the Copenhagen Tavern was a short one. The place wasn’t too busy and the waitresses were as welcoming as ever. They knew me from many solitary evenings spent in its restful corners. But there was nothing restful about my latest visit.
Sarah ordered coffee and mineral water. I asked for my favourite beer, forgetting it was served in a novelty glass shaped like the bottom half of a kangaroo. I could see Sarah’s gaze lingering incredulously on it as the beer was poured and considered making some sort of joke out of it. Then I reconsidered. Humour-even introductory small talk-seemed impossible. We were there to discuss one thing and one thing only. Its shadow stretched between us, drying my throat as I drank, threading doubt between my carefully laid plans. What was I to say?
“I… I’m sorry,” I ventured. “I should have spared you the trouble of tracking me down. I should have written to you. To offer my condolences.”
“There was no reason for you to do that.” Her tone implied the idea might almost have been presumptuous. “It’s not as if you knew Mummy, is it? Or any of us.”
“No, but… the condolences would have been genuine, strangers or not. What happened was… awful. You have my sincere sympathy.”
“Thank you.” She looked away. “It was. Like you say. Awful. The worst it could be, I suppose. What every mother’s afraid might happen to her daughter. It’s not supposed to be the other way round, is it?” Tears had been shed over such thoughts, I sensed. Many of them. And now there were none left. “I can’t stop wondering. Nor can my sister. We don’t talk about it, but… what it must have been like weevils into your mind. You can’t dislodge it. It just stays there, waiting for you to wake up or stop concentrating on something else. The wondering.” She shook her head. “It’s always there.”
“At least they’ve got the man who did it.”
“Oh yes. They’ve got him. And there’s no real room for doubt. Not these days. I’ve become quite an expert on DNA analysis in recent weeks. I’ve read everything there is on the subject. As if my knowing all about it will somehow help. Silly, don’t you think?”
“No. I don’t.”
Her eyes moved slowly to meet mine. “Tell me about… that evening on Hergest Ridge. I went up there. Same time. Same weather. I imagined her being there. I almost…” She sipped some coffee. “Please tell me.”
So I did. I gave her the anodyne version of events I’d treated the police to, supplemented for her benefit with some remarks on how pleasant, how charming, her mother had been. She’d been beautiful too. But I didn’t mention that. It smacked too much of the physical reality of what had happened to her. To describe the sunlight falling on her hair, the warm breeze moving the shadows of its strands across her face, the gleam of something forbidden but imminent in her eyes, would have led inexorably on. To the bedroom at Whistler’s Cot. Sarah had been there and seen the broken mirror. She’d stared at its reflection of the room and imagined the writhing wrenching choking end. Just as I had. But we couldn’t speak of it. Neither of us dared.
“She seemed happy?”
“Very.”
“Contented?”
“Yes.”
“At ease with herself?”
“That too.”
“Not… worried about anything?”
“No. But it was only a fleeting encounter. A few words. No more. I didn’t think it was important… at the time.”
“Of course not.”
“I wish there was more I could tell you. More I could say. But there were no presentiments, Sarah. Nothing to show her-or me-what was about to happen. We met. And we parted. As strangers. I didn’t even know her name. But for the photograph in the paper…”
“You’d never have known.”
“No. I wouldn’t.”
“And now you know so much about her. Where she lived. Who she was married to. The sort of art she collected. The make of car she drove. Even her date of birth.” Her tone had become suddenly bitter, almost sarcastic. But at whose expense I couldn’t tell. “And one thing none of the papers has revealed. She wasn’t wearing her wedding ring, was she, Robin? Don’t pretend you didn’t notice. Men do, don’t they? They notice that sort of thing.”
I shrugged. “All right. She wasn’t. I didn’t think anything of it.”
“You’re the only one, then. The police didn’t know what to make of it. But it certainly worried them. Not at first. At first, they thought he’d taken it. Because it was gold, I suppose. But then Rowena mentioned Mummy didn’t have it on when she got home that morning. She’d lost it, apparently, the day before. On the beach. In Biarritz. We have a villa there. Mummy and Daddy spend…” Her face fell. “They used to spend a lot of time there. Daddy’s father bought it just after the war. My grandmother was French, you see. They retired there. Daddy thought he and Mummy would do the same one day.”
“So,” I said awkwardly, “she simply lost it.”
“Apparently.”
“It doesn’t mean anything, then, does it?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether you believe she lost it.” Seeing me frown, she went on. “Naylor denies the charges. All of them. He plans to plead not guilty. The police think he’ll change his mind before the trial, but if he doesn’t…”