It was upon a July evening.

At a stile I stood looking along a path

Over the country by a second Spring

Drenched perfect green again. “The lattermath

Will be a fine one.” So the stranger said.

But there he’d erred. Or the stranger had. Our lattermath wasn’t to be a fine one.

A week or so later, I had a telephone call from Bella. She wanted to thank me for finding her a lodger. “One of your better ideas, Robin,” she said. “Sarah and I hit it off straightaway.” This I found hard to believe. But if Bella wanted to believe it, who was I to argue? “I think we could turn out to be rather good for each other. Don’t you?”

CHAPTER FIVE

The powers that be couldn’t in the end be persuaded to release me early. In fact, somewhat to my surprise, they didn’t want me to go at all. Phrases like “sadly missed” and “hard to replace” were bandied about. It was rather like reading your obituary without actually being dead. Gratifying in one sense, but also frustrating. Not least because it meant I had to see out my notice to the bitter-sweet end: 31 October 1990. For me it turned out to be an anti-climactic date, since my farewell bash got tacked unsatisfactorily onto an office Hallowe’en party. I left uncertain whether my colleagues’ gift to me-a Timariot & Small grade A cricket bat signed by them in the style of an England touring team-constituted trick or treat.

Either way, a chapter of my life had belatedly closed. I flew home to England and took up my post as works director of Timariot & Small the following Monday. Reminding my mother at regular intervals that it was only a temporary arrangement until I had time to find suitable accommodation of my own, I moved into Greenhayes. I meant what I said, even though the U.K. property market had risen way beyond my reach during the twelve years I’d been complacently renting bachelor apartments in Brussels. But, for the moment, there was so much to be mastered and assimilated at work that I was grateful to have Mother cooking and washing for me. Even at the expense of her remorseless chatter and Simon’s satirical remarks. I promised myself I’d sort something out in the New Year.

By then, for all I knew, Shaun Naylor’s trial would be upon us. While I was still in Brussels, I’d received a conditional witness order from the Crown Court stipulating that I might be required to appear at the trial, a date for which hadn’t yet been fixed. The Kington killings had dropped out of the papers altogether, vanishing into the limbo of judicial delay. The thousands who’d read and speculated about them at the time had probably forgotten them altogether. But for those who couldn’t forget-for the Paxton family-it must have been like waiting for Louise’s funeral over again, on and on, as the months passed. A cathartic moment indefinitely postponed. As far as they or any of us knew, Naylor was still planning to plead not guilty. Eventually, he was bound to be given his moment in court.

I tried to contact Sarah on several occasions during my first few weeks back in England, but without success. If I was busy getting to know the workforce at Timariot & Small and imposing my authority as firmly but gently as I could, no doubt she was equally busy absorbing contract, tort and criminal law while trying not to brood on the experience she’d soon have of the real thing. I only ever seemed to get Bella on the telephone, which I couldn’t risk doing too often without her putting two and two together and making five. And Sarah simply didn’t return my calls. I began to suspect she might want to discourage my attention. I began to think how understandable it would be if she did. There’d be boyfriends on the scene. Half a dozen men closer to her own age and interests than me. Who exactly was I kidding? And why? The attraction I’d felt in Brussels wasn’t really to her, was it?

My mother was certainly curious about the arrangement. Why had Bella taken a lodger? And why that lodger? But her attempts to engineer a meeting came to nothing. Even her curiosity faltered with so little to sustain it. And our contacts with Bella had become fewer as Hugh’s death receded into the past. Events and emotions drifted. As they’re bound to, I suppose. As they’d have gone on doing-but for the trial.

I got home earlier than usual one evening in the first week of December to find Brillo and my mother sharing the fireside at Greenhayes with Bella. Tea and cake were being consumed, the family photograph albums-all four of them-keenly examined. And Bella was giving a good impression of the indulgent daughter-in-law happy to take a stroll down memory lane. Which might have fooled Mother. But not me. Not for an instant. Bella wanted something. The question was: what?

I wasn’t to be kept waiting long for the answer. As soon as Mother left the room to make fresh tea, Bella said to me: “We’ve seen nothing of you since you came back, Robin. It’s really not good enough.”

“We?”

“Sarah and me.”

“I have phoned. Several times.”

“Well, it is difficult, I admit. They keep Sarah so busy at that college. And she goes home every weekend. My life’s been pretty hectic as well, of course.”

“I’ve had one or two things to do myself.”

“Do you know you sound just like Hugh when you adopt that sulky tone?”

“Really? Well, I-”

“Anyway, never mind. Sarah isn’t going home this weekend. In fact, Keith’s coming to see her with Rowena and-”

“Keith? You mean her father?”

“Yes. I’ve met him”-she tossed her hair enigmatically-“oh, quite a few times now. He’s really a very nice man. Genuine, you know? He hasn’t grown hard and resentful, as so many men do.” Usually after exposure to women like Bella, I couldn’t help thinking. Still, she was always infectiously optimistic. Fun-even when she was at her most infuriating. If Sir Keith Paxton had found her company a pleasant relief from his troubles, I couldn’t entirely blame him. Nevertheless, I didn’t like the sound of it. Bella might be exaggerating for effect with her casual dropping of his name minus the title. But, all the same, I felt resentment stir in me. “He’s suffered a great deal, of course. And he’s far from over the worst. Rowena’s a terrible worry to him. And to Sarah.”

“Why?”

“Hasn’t Sarah told you?” She smiled. “No, I suppose not. In that case, perhaps I oughtn’t to…” She waited for me to rise to the bait, but I merely smiled back. “Still, I suppose I ought to prepare you in some way.”

“Prepare me for what, Bella?”

“I was hoping-we were hoping-you’d come to lunch next Sunday. Meet Keith. And Rowena. He’ll be bringing her along. You see- Oh, here’s Hilda with your tea.” And that, a flashing glance told me, was all she could say for the moment. Like the actress I sometimes thought she ought to have been, she’d timed her curtain line to perfection.

The next act was delivered to me in the lounge bar of the Cricketers, Steep’s village inn, where Bella proposed a drink to see her on her way, knowing my mother wouldn’t dream of accompanying us. Mother regarded pubs as places ladies should avoid, except for the occasional lunchtime snack, and then only under heavy escort. Bella, needless to say, didn’t see them that way at all. But then Bella, as Mother sometimes pointed out, was no lady.

“I have to be careful what I say about Sarah’s family, Robin. I’m sure you appreciate that.”

“Of course.” I also appreciated that nothing pleased Bella more than teasing other people with tit-bits of information she possessed but they didn’t.

“I’ve only met Rowena once, but it was obvious to me she wasn’t recovering from the loss of her mother as well as Sarah. She was supposed to be starting university this autumn, you know. But that’s had to be postponed. She isn’t really capable of taking on any kind of commitment-work or study-at the moment. The whole thing has quite shattered her.” Sarah had spoken in Brussels of “picking up the pieces.” I wondered now if she’d been referring to her sister rather than herself all along. “She’s seeing a psychiatrist, though what help he is…”